New Media Technologies and Hollow Documentary

NAVIGATING HOME

            In an age where technology has consumed our standard of living, it’s very easy to confuse necessities with luxuries. Our attachment to our cellular devices, along with other mediums, has dictated our sense of creativity. As we move forward, we trust that these mediums have become enhancements and necessary tools to navigate within the world we live. However, our attachment has left us distracted from when our lives used to be navigated by other mediums. The reliance upon technology as a crutch has distanced us from the things that mean the most. New media, though it lacks a focus on content, strives to put focus on the medium as a platform. This platform initiates a message that is not based on literary meaning as we have studied thus far this semester. In fact, the message is that of the mediums impact and influence on the reality in which we participate in. However, I would like to argue that in the interactive Hollow Documentary, we experience several mediums of our New Media era in which it navigates to provide a sense of home and feeling for a specific community that navigates their own world without these mediums. The interactive documentary as a medium provides a way to navigate the audience and this becomes the message. The medium as the message become clear when discussing the films structure and content with Bogost’s Proceduralist Theories: resonance and introspection

RESONANCE

Much like video and board games, Hollow Documentary provides a medium that allows for a ‘resonance’ in which the audience experiences the actual landscape. Bogost draws upon this further that rather than words or photos, we communicate meaning by navigating and experience the process ourselves. The documentary gave the audience the opportunity to swipe, click, play, listen, read, and watch a specific process at which the community relies upon their own sources to sustain their lifestyles. In their world, they navigate their lives minimally. They enrich their lives and dreams by building a community. Their own medium at which they experience their landscape is through community. Some thematic navigations as defined in their medium are through the people and their efforts and actions in the community; what resonates that their medium is the message is through their physical bodies. They identify that their community doesn’t have to be the best thought they experience financial strains; “it’s a beautiful place to live despite the ugly parts of it.” They also proclaim that the potential to navigate their landscape is “unlimited”. The medium at which we navigate this landscape is through advanced technology. This medium is limited unlike the community landscape. Additionally, there is new resonance in our ability to navigate our medium of technology because the further it progresses, the more complicated it becomes. Yet the community lives “simple, and that’s why they live happy… it gets in your soul.” Technology only has a way to capture this sense of home and community from other mediums.

INTROSPECTION

Introspection refers to the ability to look inward and reflect rather than for gratification. One young boy in this community has high hopes for change in the future, but his reflections are deeply rooted in the community. Much of the ghost town is old and falling apart. As members identify their needs for improvement, their concern is for the care of others and to give perspective. The young boy outlines that “logic dictates that most people won’t come back… to follow your dreams, you have to leave. But talking about the problems won’t solve them. Young people in the schools can help solve these problems – go off and be successful – that’s what they want us to do.” We look inside the reflections of this community on the world that surrounds them. There are things that they “remember from their childhood that they wish someone would’ve taken a picture… To go back in time to document life through something new… It’s easy to write about something you love.” Though this small community struggles, they make sure to reflect and appreciate what they have. This comparison of such a minimalist (yet happy) group of individuals are getting their word out through new media that intends to cause audience members to reflect on their own lives by interacting with it. From clicking pictures and videos to participating in surveys and reflect on similar situations, this documentary medium initiates a sense of home and community in both the audience and the text’s subject through introspection.

            Though our world is constructed with vast amounts of new media, technology is not the only medium in which we see and feel the world around us. Most documentaries attempt to provide a way to reflect on and navigate someone else’s landscape while simultaneously experiencing our own. The interactive documentary used technology in a way that we could understand from our perspective someone else home and community. And just by a click of a button, it brought two separate communities together. With our faces away from our cell phones and Facebook, we had the opportunity to use technology and media for good if we use it to navigate ourselves home. The medium led us to the message. 

Race, Ethnicity, and Culture in "Bamboozled"

PLEASE STOP SAYING THAT WORD!

DERACINIZED STEREOTYPES IN BAMBOOZLED

            As Minstrelsy became the foundation of the theater of the oppressed, it emerged to culturally represent Blacks by whites declaring and defining their identities. Regardless of Pierre’s attempt to satirize the separations in culture due to an on-going political struggle for blacks, his success only continues to “misrepresent black people”. Stam and Spence enforce this structure by outlining the references we call ‘racism’ and ‘representation’. This leads to the value that has been placed on the use of the N-word to define culture stereotypes, a negative persona, which was then represented onstage to enforce this identities as created and upheld for decades. What began as theater of the oppressed when Minstrelsy flourished, has transformed into personas that we have begun to stand by and uphold. More specifically, I will argue that as the Black identity is created and represented in the film, it also encourages entertainment over cultural ideals.

            Beginning with the term racism, they define it as “the generalized and final assigning of values to real or imaginary differences, to the accuser’s benefit and at his victim’s expense, in order to justify the former’s own privilege or aggression.” (879) In other words, there is an ‘otherness’. This designates how we see and portray certain groups of people. Stam and Spence heavily argue that racism is a result of the colonization process. Is it possible that theater of the oppressed exists because the victims of racism have identities forged for them? Now to construct all the evidence that overlaps this concept from the film, Bamboozled. Much of the distinctions of otherness were portrayed cinematically as dominant characters were given strong camera shots that put themselves into full, unobstructed, solid, and well-lit spaces. Their body language (along with camera angle) gave them strength. Whereas, weaker and oppressed characters were given poor quality shots in which the shot appears shaky or blurry, dark shadows, and images cut off at certain points. Some characters were dominant enough to be given the camera shot from their perspective; to see what they see. This attributes to one of the thematic devices of the film that the essentials have been forgotten and are now being focused on the aesthetics. Such remarks suggests that ideals have been structured for the sake of aesthetics. Pierre recounts, “The network does not want to see dignified blacks from the streets.” Pierre’s initial purpose of the show was to make the audience feel uncomfortable; a satire would provide a “racial healing”. By poking fun at minstrelsy, the show will poke fun at the dominating stereotypes and racial cultures that have been built for decades. In an effort to wake America up and for the audience to get offended, Pierre is determined that this will change the way things are. Dunwitty is the epitome of assigning generalized values to the Black culture. His relationship with Pierre defines the differences between dominant culture and oppressed culture. His assumes that his own use of so-called “black slang” and his preferences of famous black people have given him the right to define what being “black”. In his statement, “I am more black than you” begins to take away color of skin and pronounce that it is a character, identity, a persona that is adopted by cultural stereotypes. He takes away the essential part of being “black” and converted it to an aesthetic of “blackness”.

Representation of black people in the film is done on several racial stereotypes that have been constructed. The portrayal of characters within this film idolize the racial stereotypes that have been built for decades. A college roommate from North Carolina once announced that “I won’t call you a N***** unless you act like a N*****.” The use of the word is not only profane and offensive but has been the crux of an identity that has been placed upon Black people. Pierre attempts to satirize those representations. However, the response to his show was more positive than he expected. It’s aesthetic and entertaining value was more pleasing to the audience than its satirical message. As protestors began to line up and audience members donned their own black-face, it appeared that the satirical message never came through. The representation of black people fit into the world we have constructed and the audience was oblivious and ignorant to its racist elements. Protestors disagreed with this representation for it gave a re-birth to their oppression and they deemed it as highly racist material. These representations get escalated as the characters support either accusation against the “Millennial Minstrel Show”. One group, in particular, dislikes what the show represents and takes action. In the saddening murder of Manray in an attempt to send a message, they don their own black face and use violence to make a stand against racism. However, racism is and ally and a result of colonialism, and that the “logic of racism leads to violence and exploitation.” (879) Their own use of the N-word represents the racial stereotypes that have been thrust upon them. Only the values they have assigned are because they are fighting back against the accuser. What of their claims against the “Millennial Minstrel Show”? Nearing the climax of the film and Manray’s refusal to continue in this charade, audience members have appeared in black-face and have testified that “I am the biggest N***** here.” The use of the N-word in Bamboozled doesn’t fall short. Whether in casual conversation or used by whites in declaration, it has been given entertainment value and abused what it means to be black. Pierre’s father pokes fun at black people because that’s what sells Beyond being a sell-out he reports, “every N***** is an entertainer.” Actions become justified because that is what is representative of being black. In a contentious meeting, the dialogue suggests that the representation is built by the racist values placed upon black people. Dialogue as follows:

PIERRE: What is black? We’re not saying anything about African American culture. White people just don’t understand. It’s just nice, wholesome fun.

MARKETING CHAIR: The show can’t be racist because Pierre is black.

SLOAN: He’s not black, he’s a negro.

Sloan reports that the relics of the past “Reminds me of a time when we were inferior. We should never forget.” The show has lost its purpose and meaning because it’s an art-form. It’s entertaining value is stronger than the essential ideals of the culture trying to make a change. “It’s the same bullshit, just done over,” Sloan states. In a final act, Manray appears not in black-face. He recalls the first entertaining thing he did upon the stage of the “Millennial Minstrel Show” and it points out the divisions and stereotypes that have been created in the world and have been supported and represented in the cinema. Just because it's the millennium, doesn't mean racism is gone. He says, “Look out your window. I’m sick and tired of being a N***** and I’m not going to take it anymore.” Look beyond our screens to the world that surrounds us. That’s where the change will begin. The change to eliminate the judgment and stereotypical values placed on others. Once that ends, the representations of them will change as well. Racism (as it performs a function in the cinema) is not a permanent entity of film. Things can change in our dialects, our interactions, our “institutionalized expectations”, and our “mental machinery” that will provide an awareness of the cultural and ideological assumptions that are impress upon the cinema.

Post-Modernism/Post-Structuralism and Community

“IT CAN’T BE THE END OF DAYS… IT’S NOT 2012”

Warm Bodies, Zombieland, The Walking Dead, World War Z, Night of the Living Dead, Dead Snow, and Fido. This vast obsession with the living dead has triggered a movement towards an eventual world’s end and apocalypse. Strangely, our fears are only triggered by the extreme constructions of such a time. In a Halloween episode of Community, there is a comic interaction with such a construction of reality that the hyperreal and simulacrum take over. This Zombie mania “prepares us to meet the power of imagination”, and yet the “absence of this reality is reality.” We have not yet been overpowered by Zombies, but our creations have altered and constructed a newfound reality.

            The hyperreal is a world that is remade in the image of our desires. With the countless threats of our world coming to an end, we can only imagine how this might happen. Now we are encouraged (not only by the church) to prepare to defend and protect ourselves from the “end of days.” “The hyperreal overwhelms the reality of the people we actually live among through a parade of images that project a life that consumers are encouraged to try to live.” As a holiday that surrounds satanic traditions, Community uses this opportunity to represent and project images in our reality. The episode then transfigures a new reality that are images and projections of the Zombie apocalypse. This leads us to simulation.

            Where there is simulation, there are four phases of an image that Community and the roaring Zombie apocalypse theories emphasize. Simulation is a complete reproduction (not a representation of imitation). This allows a new real to replace the original. So as actors play characters, they then dress up for Halloween to only become Zombies. The first phase, the image is reflection of a basic reality. Community follows a study group in a community college which reflects common middle-class lifestyles and situations that follow that reality. The second phase, the image masks and perverts a basic reality. This is done when the characters have dressed up, created, and acted like other reflections in reality. Halloween acts as a mask to disrupt and displace our conceptions of a basic reality. The actors attempt to create complete lifelike reproductions. For one day, there is a new real that replaces the original. The third phase, the image masks the absence of a reality.  Through this phase, we are the most lost in a reality that we cannot recognize as a reality. Once the rabies related pathogen converts the people into Zombies, reality changes and proves that it isn’t static. The loss of reality control distorts our conceptions of a basic reality. In one 30-minutes episode, the audience is asked to look in from the outside (through our own reality) of a reality that exists for only 30 minutes. This repetition of signifiers are everywhere, so this representation of an imaginary Zombie-like reality wants to makes us separate what is real from what is not, but the “real is no longer real.” This murders the real in our normal lives as we try to imitate the real. However, the imitation is two steps removed from any reality. The fourth phase, is that the image bears no relation to any reality whatsoever; it is its own simulacrum. As the Zombies take over in Community, it bears no connection to any reality we understand. It now is its own reproduction to replace our original understanding of reality. This leads us to believe that the realities we have conceived of as true or false is now the new real. Once the outbreak has come to an end, the memories of the Zombies are canceled at an attempt to replace reality. Amidst the confusion, one voicemail from one character to another outlines the indisputable un-relatable resemblance to any reality. It is its own simulacrum; “the simulacrum is true.” The simulacrum is “a counterfeit, sham, fake, or pretend representation that marks the absence, not the existence, of the objects they claim to represent.”  

“Congrats! You did what Zombies do!” The persona of a Zombie-like reality is composed, constructed, and altered into its own simulacrum. The more we see it, the more it convinces us that not only isn’t it absent from our reality, but it has consumed our reality. “There was something in the air tonight” says Community character during this Zombie outbreak. What will it be like when the world ends? Everything that we have decided would happen in our relationship to each phase of the images of the Zombie apocalypse. What do Zombies do? Only what we have decided they do. Not only are these phases relevant to the media, but it has contributed to a hyperreality of the Zombie simulacrum.