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Is Gojira Really Anti-American?

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I know that we touched on this a little bit during our discussion after Gojira on Thursday but I wanted to elaborate on Gojira as an anti-American work. I wouldn’t say that Gojira is anti-American but rather anti-nuclear. It’s true that the US dropped the nuclear bomb and it caused Japan a great deal of turmoil given that the radiation effects persisted several years after the bomb was dropped. But Japan would have gone through that regardless of whether the US dropped it or any other world power.  It was only a coincidence that the US happened to be the one to drop the bomb. Gojira seems to be a major symbol for nuclear weapons in the film. It comes to destroy Tokyo much like a nuclear bomb would as Gojira emits an atomic breath that melts buildings, causes fires and destroys the city landscape. The oxygen destroyer becomes a new nuclear bomb considering the potential for mass destruction in the world’s oceans if other countries had access to it. Most of the film focuses on how the Japanese attempt to defeat Gojira. I think the film tries to portray the negative effects of the nuclear bomb in a way that allows its viewers to feel a little bit of what the Japanese felt after the bomb. It could be read as anti-American – because the Americans were the ones who dropped the bomb, released the radiation and thus allowed Gojira to become as strong as it did – but I think there’s a lot more to the film than that.

–Julia Ng

Reflection

About the animals…

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In class, we thoroughly discussed the title of “Come into Animal Presence” and took apart the words. “Come” can be seen as an invitation, command, or request. “Animal” is specifically talking about alive things in nature and not just nature itself (ie. rocks, trees, water, grass). And “presence” is something spiritual, religious, and not physical, but a way of being in the world.

What I want to focus on is the animals that Levertov chose to use in the poem. There are four animals: serpent, rabbit, llama, and armadillo. There is a lot to say about serpents and rabbits because they are seen a lot in cultures. Serpents are associated biblically, mythologically, and Disney-movie-ly with a bad/evil connotation. There are little to no fables or stories that have the snake being a “good guy” or anything short of evil. However, Levertov focuses on the cunning and beauty of the snake. The snake is “guileless” and has “no blemish”. Being smart and not having acne seems like a pretty good deal to me, but people still think of snakes as bad.

Secondly, we have the rabbit. We see the rabbit as lucky (it’s foot on a key chain), with spring time (Easter Bunny… but who knows why),  and in a lot of disney movies (Alice in Wonderland, Snow White, Bambi, Winnie the Pooh, and countless Disney Junior shows). The rabbit is popular in our culture. However, Levertov again focuses on a different aspect, its loneliness. Rabbits are actually well known for being social creatures.

But then we come to the llama and the armadillo and I am stumped. Why a llama and an armadillo? First thing that comes to mind with llama is wool and Peru. Llamas are notoriously beasts of burden in South America (kind of like horses are in other places, carrying humans stuff around). I doubt there are many wild llamas roaming the mountains of Peru, but there are many under human control.

First thing that comes to mind for armadillos is road kill. That again, is under human control. Armadillos are pretty cool. They have their own armor, they can roll up into balls, they apparently have leprosy (not cool but interesting). But all I can think of is road kill. Llamas and armadillos encounter humans way more than rabbits and snakes and yet they are included in part of this natural imagery of coming into an animal state of mind.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that the choice of animals seems very random to me and the animals aren’t exactly mysterious to us.  She’s telling us to “come into animal presence”, but we kind of already have by including them in our lives. However, I guess the poem could be telling us to think about it from their point of view and not the points of views that I have previously stated. To think about how there is more to animals than how they are associated with and by humans. They are their own thing and we cannot limit them to what we have predetermined they are/can be.

Exercise

Rockets n’ stuff

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I have a special affinity for space travel because my aunt is an astronaut. I have a rad jacket from the 80s that has been to space.

Actual post:

There were rockets in the past, but the 20th century marked the creation of rockets that had enough power to beat gravity and reach a speed that could lead to human space travel. Germany, Russia, and the USA all were designing engines at the same time. Nazi Germany wanted to use long-distance rockets for weapons. After the war was over, the USA and Soviet Union started their own missile/rocket programs. SPACE RACE! Sputnik 1 (Russian) was launched into space in early October of 1957. Four years later they put a human in space with Vostok 1. Not too far behind, Explorer 1 (USA) began orbit in late January 1958 with the first american to orbit earth being in February 1962 (yay US). JFK was hellbent on getting a man on the moon… Neil Armostrong accomplished this in 1969. Various aircrafts went to map out and image Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and various moons. Eventually America and Russia worked together in the 70’s in an international space mission. Satelites have been used for TV, imaging of the world, finding stars, and seeing parts of the galaxy (woa that’s dope). Sadly, the Challenger exploded in 1986 and killed 7 people. Fun fact: my aunt (Millie Hughes-Fulford) is an astronaut and was supposed to be on the Challenger, but the teacher bumped her. She has since been to space three times to study the effects of anti gravity on bone density…. I think?

Since the Challenger, new launch methods have been made to ensure safety. In recent years however, NASA’s influence has declined. There are a few private researchers trying to send people into space. One of which is Red Bull. Felix Baumgartner, an Austrian skydiver, was sponsored by Red Bull to jump from 24 miles into the stratosphere. To my knowledge they have yet to go back into space, but we shall see.

 

Dani

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

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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

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“The Battler” as a coming-of-age story

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When we discussed “The Battler” by Ernest Hemingway in class, we mentioned how it seemed to be a coming-of-age story. Many of us were reminded of stories such as Huckleberry Finn and Catcher in the Rye. This connection is pretty obvious –these stories all feature a young boy lost in a big world, who learns some sort of lesson about life or adulthood by the end of the story. However, we discovered in class that it’s a bit more difficult to classify “The Battler” as a true coming-of-age story. For one, it’s a short story, so it gives us less to work with and decipher than those classic novels do. However, the main issue is the ambiguity of the ending –we are not sure if Nick has learned anything at all from the encounter, especially not something important enough to be associated with his “coming of age”.  We discussed this ambiguity in class, but we didn’t ask the question that interests me now: why? If Hemingway intended for this story to be a coming-of-age story, why make it so difficult to understand the message? The previously mentioned coming-of-age books, Huckleberry Finn and Catcher in the Rye, have clear messages that they establish through the “journey” of their main characters. It is fairly obvious in both (particularly Huck Finn) in which ways the main characters come of age and what they learn, and it’s completely clear that they do come of age in some way. “The Battler”, again, is a different story –nothing is clear. Perhaps Hemingway does this as a reflection of his realistic views on growing up. These coming-of-age stories, though often inspiring, can be seen as unrealistic in the “real world”, as many things in life do not contribute to some sort of life lesson and are just arbitrary and meaningless.

-Audrey Doidge

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Reflection

The Meaning of Modernism

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Reflection on Modernism

As we approach the due date for our first major essay, I thought I’d take this opportunity to explain my notion of Modernism gained from our in-class discussions and analyses.

Modernism began as a reactionary movement against the changes in society brought on by the Industrial Revolution. As science and technology transformed the social and economic landscape of Western civilization, productivity and innovation came to be regarded as the keystone principles at the forefront of societal progress. Communities began to value science over the traditional humanities, and leaders in education experienced conflict over the role of non-scientific subjects in producing well-educated citizens, as seen in the heated debate between Huxley and Arnold. In a world of factories, mass production, and ever-accelerating technological progress, efficiency became paramount in all pursuits. As countries honed their industries and pushed for greater profits, that same discerning eye was turned onto literature. What was the role of literature, a traditionally lofty and abstract field, in a world increasingly concerned with the concrete, the measurable, and the profitable?

The uncertainty of the role of literature in a ‘modern’ society is the fundamental question Modernists sought to answer. Pervasive doubt over the definition and worth of literary merit forms a common thread linking the different off-shoot movements of Modernism we have discussed in class. Ezra Pound sought to incorporate literature into the realm of science by imposing empirical values onto the literary form, uniting the utility of science as a means for expanding human knowledge with literature as a means of expanding the human soul. Imagism, as defined by Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell, addressed the ambiguity of sensation and perception by capturing only the essential aspects of an idea, isolating the point of confluence between absolute reality and human reality. The function of literature as a means of addressing ambiguity was further expanded by Ernest Hemingway, in whose short stories “The Battler” and “The End of Something”, the character Nick Adams experiences significant conflicts whose ultimate implications are left unsaid, existing only under the surface of the narrative, inviting interpretation. Throughout these works, the central meaning often begets a greater complexity or unknowability, reflecting a broad appreciation of the mercurial ambiguity of modern reality. I believe that this tension in the relationship between the concept of modernity and the demands of reality is the defining characteristic of Modernism and the artists who worked to define and re-define it.

 

Carolyn Baxter

Reflection

Do Lowell and Pound agree?

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During week 2 of class, we read two articles that explained the concept of imagism. The first being, “A Retrospect” and “A Few Don’ts” by Ezra Pound. The second being, “Preface to Some Imagist Poets”  by Amy Lowell. Many people have found differences in the two’s definition of imagism, however, I have found that they agree on the important stuff. The important stuff being: rhythm and form, clarity, and the use of imagery (duh).

The last point of agreement, imagery, seems obvious to have when describing imagist poetry because it is in the name itself. However, agreeing on rhythm and form and clarity is quite the importance. By rhythm and form, I mean that both Pound and Lowell believed that it was not necessary to follow a certain meter while writing in poetry. Lowell says that free verse should be fought for as a “principle of liberty” and that the new rhythms found in free verse convey “new moods”. By being modernist, one would assume there would be modern rhythms and not “old rhythms, which merely echo old moods” like those in a set meter. Pound agrees that composition “in the sequence of a metronome” is not the best rhythm. Pound believes the poems should be “composed in the sequence of the musical phrase”.

Miraculously, the pair not only agree on the use of free-verse, but they also agree on being succinct in way they are trying to convey. In Lowell’s words, the job of the imagist is “to produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite”. In other words, don’t beat around the bush in what you are trying to say. It isn’t necessary to have an extended metaphor that extends through out the whole poem and is up for 87 different interpretations. Pound agrees that the imagist should have “direct treatment of the ‘thing'” in which they are writing about. As someone who greatly appreciates clarity, I’m incredibly glad that both Pound and Lowell think it is good to be straight forward.

Lastly, does the importance of imagery in imagist writing really need to be explained? It seems pretty straight forward to me. Kind of like, you need a basketball to play a basketball game. Or you need to know how to write, to write an essay. So, I’m not really surprised they agreed on that front. I’d be more surprised if they disagreed.

 

Dani Shewmake

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