Monthly Archives: October 2015

Reflection

Gojira: the metaphorical monster

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What’s intriguing about Gojira is the lost symbolic importance once the film left Japan. Certain aspects were been removed when Americans remade it (ie the fact that the American’s atomic bomb created Godzilla in the first place). The movie originally expressed anger and resentment of the affects of the atomic bomb, but now it’s just another monster for the superheroes of Hollywood to fight. Gojira started out as “an earnest attempt to grapple with compelling and timely issues” (like getting the shit bombed out of them). It was “intended to frighten rather than amuse” and messed with the nuclear problems that came after WW2. Nowadays we see Godzilla as another character, but the Japanese at the time saw it as a metaphor for the aftermath of WW2. Japan already has unpredictable nature because of fault lines they often experience “earthquakes and volcanoes, typhoons and tidal waves, floods and landslides” Godzilla is just a combination of their bad luck with mother nature and nuclear residue from the atomic bomb dropping. The Japanese people did not take the movie lightly. They watched “in respectful silence” and some even left crying. As entertaining as the movie (and its rudimentary special effects) are to us, at the time the movie was a reminder of the carnage of WW2 and the bomb that it brought with it. Godzilla is a physical representation of the war and its effects. By destroying Godzilla in the end and regaining control over their city, the movie is encouraging to post-war Japan.

Many years post war, what does the world have to do with Godzilla? It’s just a plot line. Monster attacks city. Hero fights monster. (Hero might be a robot, a superhuman, biological warfare, or even another monster). Nowadays, Godzilla doesn’t have the same meaning. American Sniper is to modern day America as Gojira is to post WW2 Japan. I’m sure in a couple decades there will be even more war movies based in the middle east, but they won’t hit as close to home because hopefully the fighting there has since stopped. Middle eastern warfare will just be another plot for the next blockbuster.

I was asked the question, what is the monster? I have two answers. 1. Back then it was a reminder and a metaphor for the atrocities of war and the effects of a nuclear bomb. 2. It’s a cool plot that involves nature becoming supernatural for reasons probably related to radioactivity, but the tall and jacked super hero will save the day in the end. So appreciate Gojira for the Japanese as we appreciate the American Sniper and related movies.

Dani

Uncategorized

Pharmacology in the 20th C

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Medical advances were abundant during the 20th century, with major breakthroughs in technology, chemistry, biology, and pharmacology that overlapped to eradicate many diseases. Over the course of the 20th century, drugs to treat illness such as aspirin, the arsenic-based compound Salvarsin to treat syphilis, antibioitcs such as penicillin, steroid hormones such as cortisone were discovered and found to be effective in treating a multitude of fatal and nonfatal illnesses. In addition, the first antiviral vaccines were discovered, including smallpox and polio. These advances lead to drastic improvement in collective health and life expectancy, and fatal diseases like pneumonia and tuberculosis that lead to roughly one-third of all deaths in 1900 are rare in the US now. While some drugs had basis in natural techniques that had been around for centuries, the 20th century also saw the rise of synthesizing new, unnatural drugs often by the process of computer-aided design (CAD).

In response to the multitude of drugs being tested and put unto place came regulation of drugs by government agencies. Over time, drug laws and regulatory agencies have expanded, sometimes in response to health crises caused by the release of a drug. Drugs are now analyzed in their performance in clinical trials, in terms of their risk-to-benefit ratios, mutagenicity, teratogenicity (cancer-causing) and other factors. The climate of medical change accompanied by major advances in science and technology had large implications on culture and society.

– Lauren Hodgson

Sources:

http://www.planetseed.com/relatedarticle/20th-century-and-drugs-treat-sicknesses

http://www.pharmsci.uci.edu/history.php

http://www.britannica.com/topic/pharmaceutical-industry/Drug-discovery-and-development

Argument

An argument to add David Bowie to our syllabus

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Post-modernism is notorious for breaking the pre-established boundaries of art and literature. One could easily say that David Bowie also broke pre-established boundaries in art, fashion, and music. Like many famous canonical literary figures, Bowie was born in England. An English lady, Jane Austen, is known for her romantic fiction based in the country side. Another English woman, Virginia Woolfe, is often associated with feminist views appearing in her writing. Unlike these figures, Bowie was not known for just one thing. Bowie had ever changing genre, style, and persona.

Part of his music and works involve hyperreality. For him, part of the hyperreality was creating a whole new person, Ziggy Stardust. Some argue that Ziggy Stardust was part of performance art which is also very common in the visual art world of post-modernism. Another staple of post-modernism and maybe even an appendage to hyperreality is simulacra. Ziggy Stardust appeared to be a real person and artist but he was actually just a projection of one of the many personalities of David Bowie. There is definitely a “loss of connection to reality” because obviously, Ziggy isn’t a real person, but just David Bowie with a different wig on.

Yet another staple of postmodernism is intertextuality or the relationship and reference between texts or forms of media. For starters, David Bowie has a song called “Andy Warhol”. If that is not a reference to another art (or artist) then I don’t know what is! If anyone knows who Escher is and has seen the Labyrinth (featuring David Bowie as the main character), they will immediately associate the stair scene with Escher’s piece of the stairs. In the painting or in the scene, you don’t know where the stairs go and what’s real or not. Escher himself is also post modernist so it’s post- modern inception for a post-modernist artist to have intertextuality to another post-modernist artist. Woa.

If anyone needed a reason to study David Bowie… here’s some reasons.

I also apologize for the word vomit that is this blog post…. I just got really excited and had a lot of ideas. whoops

 

Dani

Argument

“The End of Something” as a Modernist Work

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Hemingway’s “The End of Something” can be read as a romanticization of the past and a tale of how the present will never live up to the past, but the story is Modernist in that Hemingway cements the story in the present and diverts the reader’s expectations of a normal story line. While a story normally has a beginning, middle, and end and insight into the thoughts of the main character, “The End of Something” starts when Nick has already decided to break up With Marjorie as shown when he speaks to his friend Bill after she leaves and there is no obvious depiction of Nick’s thoughts. While this is what appears to be happening on the surface, Hemingway has a deeper meaning in store for his readers. The odd structure of the narration actually presents Nick’s thoughts, and the odd presentation of beginning, middle, and end, serves to provide a deeper meaning for the story. “The End of Something” is a Modernist piece in its peculiar narrative style, diversion of readers’ expectations, and capturing of thought.

– Lauren H