Reflecting on the Anthropology of Media

This class in the Anthropology of Media has opened my critical mindset towards the media, and how pervasive its messages can be. The impact that radio can have on the community it serves – CBQM, Israeli and Australian radio stations – has been more far reaching than I had once thought. However, it is the reproduction of A. R. Rahman’s “Jai Ho” that was most interesting to me. This post looks at two other contributions to the topic written by Emily Hitz and Eli Chamberlain that discuss new remediations of “Jai Ho” and their wider implications.

            Emily Hitz’s blog post “The Homeland is Partly Invented” creatively juxtaposes two remediations of “Jai Ho,” one made into a music video and popularized by the Pussycat Dolls (insert hyperlink here) and the other by a Tampa, Florida Tamil Sneham group as a means of celebrating their disconnectedness together. She discusses if either video can truly be seen as “authentic,” seeing the Pussycat Dolls’ video as a “poor imitation” (Hitz 2011) devoid of any true genuine value, whereas despite fitting the mold of Walter Benjamin’s criteria of including the “existence in time and space,” the Tampa Tamil group’s video is still a reproduction that that is being reproduced yet another time on YouTube. Emily’s first comment suggests that it is almost too late to talk about what constitutes an “authentic” identity, as an individual’s identity is tied to one geographic region, cultural pathway, or religious belief. However, as globalization has flattened the world, the lines that have constructed our identity are blurred (Friedman 2005). Canada is seen as a cultural mosaic, where each distinct ethnicity or culture is seen as a small piece of the bigger picture, and therefore our image should reflect this. Authenticity may not be the focus of the analysis. Maybe, as Appadurai sees it, the spotlight should be on an ethnoscape where “genealogy and history confront each other, leaving the terrain open for interpretations of the ways in which local historical trajectories flow into complicated transnational structures” (Appadurai 1996:65). This relationship of genealogy and history could form the basis of the emerging global ethnoscapes on which these global cultural processes can be analyzed.

            Eli Chamberlain’s blog post Slumdog Million’where’? identifies the same two videos in a different vein. Eli sees the Tamil Sneham’s reproduction as a moment of, as Appadurai terms, “transnational irony” (1996:57), that “many threads of international culture that are interwoven to create such a globalized product are too complex to undo in this brief context” (Chamberlain 2011).  In turn, Eli agrees with Walter Benjamin’s argument, consenting that “repetition and reproduction of an art-piece results in a kind of cheapening is quite agreeable” (Chamberlain 2011). Reproduction for profit, as seen in the Pussycat Dolls’ video, is shameless and in a way disrespectful, as they play off their fame to make profits from large cell phone and headphone companies, a “distracted reception” (1936) as Benjamin deems it. Finally, Eli questions the evolution of film and technology, and how it has led to the progression of YouTube performances that cause a negative connection with the original. Since it has blurred the lines between author and audience, maybe, Eli suggests, society should not recreate this information even though we have the means to do so. However, I feel that YouTube recreations have not in fact caused a negative connection to the original, as Eli argues it does. Although Benjamin values the “aura” that is associated with each original work, I see it the aura as changing, not a quality that “withers in the age of mechanical reproduction” (Benjamin 1936). Although there are both great and terrible contributions to social media outlets like YouTube, these outlets ultimately serve to facilitate (re)creativity itself, which would not occur if the original copies did not exist. Rather than creating a negative connection, as Eli suggests, I see it as a positive and mutually reinforcing relationship that changes with the ebb and flow of society; these recreations reflect and are a part of the society in which they are created, constructing a new aura tempered to the present time.

            These blog posts have merited informed theoretical discussions on the reuse and reproduction of media in an ever-increasing transnational community, and have contributed to the discourse of anthropology and media. It has been an invigorating experience as I have interacted with new media with interesting theoretical concerns that peek my interest. Never again will I look at the Pussycat Dolls video with a critical eye without thinking of Walter Benjamin’s work on reproductive technologies, as this blog post drew my attention to the theoretical qualities of the video. Well, that may be a lie…

References

Appadurai, Arjun

1996  Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for a Transnational Anthropology. In Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Pp. 48-65. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.

Benjamin, Walter

1936  The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility. In Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Volume 3: 1935-1938. Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press.

Chamberlain, Eli

2011  Slumdog Million’where’? Medianth Blog: Case Studies in the Anthropology of Media. http://medianth.blogspot.com/2011/02/t-he-international-cinematic-success-of.html, accessed April 2^nd 2011.

Friedman, Thomas L.

2005  The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Hitz, Emily

2011  “The Homeland is Partly Invented” (Blog 3). Can’t Stop the Press Blog. http://cantstopthepress.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/“the-homeland-is-partly-invented”-blog-4/, accessed April 2^nd 2011.

Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky and Feminist Theory

            Many major films produced in Hollywood today place males at the forefront of films, dominating the majority of roles while leaving the passive, comforting and domestic roles to women, who discuss little other than the men that control the film. I argue that by looking from a feminist perspective at two characters in director Hayao Miyazaki’s anime film Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986), we can see that creating several oppositional traits present in the film challenge traditional gender roles that are evident in wider society.
 

            The Bechdel Test was developed and embraced by the gay/lesbian community and popularized in response to the lack of female protagonists present in present day films. Feminist theory is greatly concerned with these politics of representation, how different groups, primarily females, are being presented to the film’s audiences and are representative of the wider public (Gray 2010:70). In applying the Bechdel Test to Hayao Miyazaki’s film Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) we see that the movie passes with flying colours. The movie involves the military searching for the fabled city of Laputa, existing as a flying ship protected by large thunderstorms, while several smaller groups attempt to stop them. As a self-proclaimed feminist, Miyazaki often centers the plot on many female characters, projected as independent and competent individuals that attempt to repress patriarchal systems. Such is the case with Sheeta, as pictured, the protagonist in Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986), a confident and strong young girl. Though the film does depict Pazu – a miner whom Sheeta meets – as Sheeta’s savior, it is Sheeta who is in control of solving the problems that arise. Escaping away from several sky pirates with Pazu, Sheeta is the one leading the way, making the decision to run into the village, hide in railway tunnels, and use the mines as a tool to losing her trackers. Also, with the help of Pazu, it is Sheeta’s efforts that destroy Colonel Muska’s chances of harnessing Laputa for the military’s benefit as a super-weapon, using the Spell of Destruction found in her mystical pendant. Miyazaki gives Sheeta the characteristics that traditionally fall to the male, in both Hollywood and Japanese films.

            Miyazaki also challenges traditional representation in creating the character of Dola, a matriarch heading a pirate family of sons that loot the skies, a job that opposes the patriarch system of governance in place. As a heavier-set woman, her presence is felt much more than other pirates in the skies as well as the villain Colonel Muska. Her loud aggressive behaviour and courageousness significantly overshadow the actions of her three smaller sons. Her overbearing personality is creatively juxtaposed to her husband’s submissive and very passive quality, contributing little depth to the movie. After initially pitting Dola against Sheeta, Miyazaki allies the two in a front against Colonel Muska and the traditional Japanese society he represents. Even the colours Dola and her family wear are reversed, with Dola wearing blue (a colour often seen as the exemplary colour associated with males) and her sons and husband wearing orange frocks and pink bottoms. Miyazaki utilizes Dola in a creative way to again challenge the representation of women in film in direct ways.

            We see here how director Hayao Miyazaki has reversed traditional images and roles of men and women in Japanese film to challenge past and contemporary gender roles and inequalities in wider Japanese society, one arguably the most tied to its roots in terms of values. It is no surprise that in 2002 he won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature with his work Spirited Away (2001) and been nominated for his 2004 flim Howl’s Moving Castle.

References

Gray, Gordon

2010  Film Theory. In Cinema: A Visual Anthropology, Pp.35-73. Oxford, New York: Berg.

Miyazaki, Hayao

1986 Laputa: Castle in the Sky. 126 min. Tokuma Shoten. Japan. 

Global Iconic Radios

            Radio has the ability to transcend space with ease, reaching those in remote towns, major cities, or altogether different continents. Stations also have the ability to attract various audiences, each one different from the next. This essay discusses two stations – radio CBQM in Fort McPherson, Canada, and a collection of aboriginal radio stations in northern Australia – that are iconic in both creating and reflecting the community it serves.

            Radio CBQM is a small citizen-run multilingual radio station that hosts a variety of forms of media, from country music to call-in shows, poetry readings to local shout-outs. It is broadcasted from Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories, a community of no more than 1000 residents, 80% of which are of Gwich'in aboriginal status. Dennis Allen’s documentary CBQM (2010) displays the community and their interaction with the radio in several interesting ways. The first is that almost everyone in the town is listening to the radio at all times; while driving, eating family dinners, knitting alone, or spending time with friends, the radio is on providing local entertainment and facilitating the translation of information to all people who are listening. As many listeners are elders who only speak the Gwich'in language Teet'lit Zheh, broadcasting in both English and Teet'lit Zheh evokes a sense of familiarity to all generations who listen. As a citizen-run radio that constantly fills the ears of the Gwich'in community with voices from their own community, CBQM serves as an important medium that brings the residents in Fort McPherson together, even in the long lightless months of the winter, while they are engaging in their daily lives. Secondly, the radio acts as an accessible means to disseminate information acting simultaneously as a radio show as well as a body to relay information to others: police officers warn residents of wolf sightings; friends wish others luck in bingo, an activity that also uses CBQM broadcaster as the caller; sometimes it is simply to tell another individual to hang up the phone so that another person can call them. All of this is encouraged by the constant ringing of the phone in the background of the radio broadcast, promoting more interaction between community members using the broadcaster as a mediator.

            Aboriginal radio stations in Northern Australia function in similar ways to CBQM, in that they connect dispersed kin, overcoming geographical distance and penetrating institutional barriers by “linking people up” (Fisher 2009:282) through radio request programs. These broadcasts involve ‘shout-outs’ in an attempt to connect aboriginal kin from across northern Australia, creating a “social imaginary” whereby groups produce their social world through radio and reflect on it (Fisher 2009:293). This is especially true of individuals in northern Australia jails, the majority of which are aboriginal men and women. Radio shows on Top End Aboriginal Bush Broadcasting Association (TEABBA) send music dedications from kin that cut across geographical space to inmates who receive warm ‘shout-outs’ from home when they are confined within the physical walls of Australian jails. A family is recreated in a makeshift community when individuals become isolated in prison. Similarly, Warwick Thorton’s film Green Bush shows that radio has as much responsibility to link kin up as it does to playing song (Fisher 2009:288). Social relatedness clearly plays an enormous part in aboriginal radio programming and should be examined for its complex and unique constitutions of community.

Northern Australia’s use of radio is similar to CBQM’s in that through radio programming, they bridge space to create a sense of community where at a particular moment there is little. The unfolding of these activities also reflects the communities in which the activities serve, as they unfold in the “mundane spaces of building sites, cars, [and in Fisher’s case] office buildings, and prison blocks” (Fisher 2009:283). However, CBQM differs in that it is highly localized, creating and reflecting a community that is primarily in Fort McPherson, rather than promoting continuity of kin relations across the vast northern part of continental Australia. Nevertheless, these two examples of the ways in which aboriginal radio creates and reflects a community have wider social implications than was once thought.

References

Allen, Dennis

2010  CBQM. National Film Board of Canada.

Fisher, Daniel

2009  Mediating Kinship: Country, Family, and Radio in Northern Australia. Cultural Anthropology 24(2): 280-312.