Category Archives: Argument

Argument

How Æon Flux is “cyber-punk”

1 Comment

According to the super dependable and accurate site, Wikipedia, cyber punk  “features advanced technology and science, such as information technology and cybernetics, coupled with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.” The plots tend to be staged in dystopian futures and revolve around protagonists that are rebelling against some form of system or government.

The movie I have chosen to watch and write about, Æon Flux, contains all of these elements and more. The story takes place in the walled-in city of Bregna in the year 2415 after 99% of the population has been killed by a virus. The city is run by the Goodchild family, however,  the rebels, The Monicans, are trying to bring down the regime. The leader of the Monicans communicates with the rebels through the subconscious and electric neural pathways. An ingested chemical allows the rebels to enter their own mind where they find the leader of the rebels who then gives them information on their next assignment.

Later in the plot we see that the Goodchild regime is actually not multiple generations at all, but the same man over and over again. Trevor Goodchild, has actually saved his genetic makeup in a gene bank and remakes himself every time. I’m unsure how the population doesn’t realize that he look sooo similar to previous generations. There’s even posters of himself next to other posters of himself and the people still don’t notice that it’s the same guy! However, the leader of the regime is not the only person whose genes are being replicated. Every person in the city suffers the same fate, but they are unaware of the replication. It further becomes clear that the people have been chosen to live this way because they are immune to the virus. This being said, the inhabitants are not allowed to have children of their own because natural genetic mutation could render them susceptible to the virus once again.

The genetic replication is indeed advanced technology and the secrecy of the government makes an easy target for the rebels to try to defeat. The breakdown or change in social order arises when the blimp flying around the city crashes into the wall and lets the people free. The blimp, or Rellicle (sp?), is actually an information bank for the government and they keep their secrets from the citizens right under (or I guess above) their noses.

 

Dani dms10

Argument

An argument to add David Bowie to our syllabus

3 Comments

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

Leave a comment

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