As I read through the section on postcolonial theory, I kept thinking about a discussion we had in my class last month while studying the events leading up to the American Revolutionary War. We were discussing the reasons for colonialism and empire building and the idea of mercantilism. Mercantilism is the idea that colonies exist to serve the Mother Country; more specifically that they provide raw materials that the Mother Country can turn into manufactured goods. These goods are then sold back to the colonies at a high price. I couldn't help thinking that Orientalism and Othering are examples of a sort of cultural mercantilism in which the invading empire selects certain raw materials from a native culture to exploit and use them in manufacturing their own products. Using "Chosen" as an example, we have Ang Lee-- a Chinese native and China is very much the "Colonizer" in Tibet-- taking Tibetan customs and religion and using them to manufacture a commercial for a German car company.

"Chosen" relies on a variety of Asian stereotypes in its execution. The strong but silent monks, the child prophet, the sense of the exotic and inexplicable, even the stereotypical double agent who's been corrupted by Western culture--he's wearing shoes inside and not just any shoes, cowboy boots! To be fair, the film also deals in Western stereotypes of the strong but silent action hero variety who steps in to save the day. Lee may well be attempting to demonstrate his cultural polyvalency by highlighting elements from two disparate cultures but is relying on cultural stereotyping really a celebration or recognition of the ways in which the colonizer and the colonized impact one another?

Looking at the three stages of postcolonial literature--adopt, adapt, and adept-- I would argue that Chosen fits within the adopt phase of postcolonial theory. The film follows the codes of Western advertising while also employing a very traditional Western narrative structure, the Tibetan representations seem to be there to add a sort of exoticism to embellish the whole thing. Even the music is mostly Western sounding with the exception of a few parts where it sounds like they are using a traditional Asian instrument to add a sense of the mysterious other.

Of course to take this all in a completely different direction, it could be that Ang Lee is just an adept postmodern artist who is employing a subtle form of parody to poke at Western stereotypes of Asian culture. Perhaps he sees humor in the combination of high brow artistic film directors being asked to use their craft for that most low brow of purposes--commercial advertising.

TIPRR 10

What interests me in our reading (and the Key Points therein) is the completely profound perplexity that gave me a headache as I read both criticisms going, “Um, okay.” I have to admit, the one quote that most caught me was Barry’s definite feelings about postmodernism when he says, “If this second aspect of the postmodern condition, this loss of the real, is accepted as a fact, then it is hard to see a ground for literary theory to occupy, since all methods of literary interpretation – Marxist, feminist, structuralist, and so on – depend upon the making of a distinction between surface and depth, between what is seen in the text and some underlying meaning.” Can we say Eeyore? As Sharon put it in class last week, the idea of what we are doing is a “theory game” and postmodernism feels almost like the killjoy to that game. Nobody likes a party-pooper but I have to admit (as Timbre describes) Baudrillard’s propositions are fascinating to me, maybe in part because I do not totally get them. On another personal note, postcolonial literature, particularly, is some of my favorite literature for the fluidity of identity, but V.S. Naipaul’s Half a Life was infuriating for its downward spiraling pessimism.

In Chosen, my attempt at postmodern criticism might include looking at the pastiche use of motifs between action film and transcendentalist film. For instance, the definite action film car chase is concerning a boy who apparently has some great meaning to the Tibetan culture as it is manifest here with a kind of mystification as the boy can “predict” the future when giving the band-aid box at the beginning and its opening at the end. Ultimately, the film creates association between something greater than the car because of the car, due in part to the connection of the prescient boy. Also, there is the allusion to ballet and dance in the chase, first because of the music and then because of the obviousness to the movements portrayed – there is no movement that does not look particularly purposeful – the whole of the exercise becoming almost comical as cars (who are trying to block and stop the movement of the BMW) try not to actually run into one another in jerky stops and starts, including the BMW.

Furthermore, we are dealing with a combination of symbolic codes from action films that have no apparent grounding in reality but, instead, are merely symbols for symbol-sake. Who is the Hire? Where does he come from and how does one gain a contract with him? Where would a Tibetan monk come into contact with something of an “underworld” character? They are merely symbols. These are followed closely by the clear, almost totally ambiguous characters of the “chasers” who are mostly kept in silhouette or only flashes of faces (i.e. – two cars with men standing outside them, the doors propped open, the headlights’ synchronized turning on at a particular moment when the Hire would notice them). These characters only pose as would-be antagonists and have no particular connection either to the Hire nor his passenger; it is never explicit who they are there for because it could easily be to kill the Hire for his past work as it is to kill his passenger for the unknown purpose he contains. This leads to the idea that the boy-monk has no particular purpose except to be transported and the Hire has no other purpose than to do the transporting.

The film itself, by its very nature, is postmodern in the intertextuality of its creation: a car commercial, in the midst of an action film, produced for the internet, with a reference to the director’s upcoming Hulk film.

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Since Erika wrote on postcolonialism and Timbre wrote on postmodernism and I agree in principle with what they both wrote, I am going to write about kittens.

This kitten is cute.

Chosen and postmodernism

So, I can see some reflexivity with the *wink* *wink* to the audience with the Hulk band aid and perhaps a bit of blurring the lines of genre with the classic western film, but I don’t see the text of Chosen as either a postmodern text or having significant postmodern elements.

I agree with Timbre and Baudrillard’s assessment of Chosen (very nice post by the way) in terms of hyperreality and the “how blurry is your reality” quiz. But is this an assessment of how postmodern your text is? Has anyone thought of a text that isn’t one of the 4 signs? Is a 1, not very postmodern?

I don’t see this theory as being similar to the other theories. Structuralism and Marxism (for example) are clear ways of looking at anything. I can look at any text with a structuralist or poststructuralist view because I can always study the context of the text or the text itself (theoretically).

To be postmodern, the text must include postmodern elements. I can look and may find postmodern elements in most texts, but it might not be there. There may be no postmodern elements. It must (according to Barry) do the stuff listed on page 79, right? Therefore the text, not my theoretic viewpoint determines, whether or not it is postmodern.

In literary terms Chosen isn’t fragmented with a discontinuous narrative, but on the contrary is a very straightforward narrative. The architectural idea of the text believing in “excess, in gaudiness, and in ‘bad taste’ mixtures of qualities” just doesn’t seem to fit our piece in tone or concept.

Even if I thought the piece was gaudy or in bad taste, what would make it postmodern is if those things were done with the intent of them being so. Right? All of the examples in the Barry text are of the creator being postmodern, and the theorist discovering this, not deciding it.

I am very aware that my post is annoying and am prepared for the next post-person to angrily prove me wrong, but you have to admit, that is a cute kitty.

TIPRR 10

I remember when I was first introduced to literary theory at the ripe old age of 18, postcolonialism was emphasized so little that I honestly don't remember even studying it at all. However, when I took a class from Gloria Cronin 7 years later, postcolionalism had come so much to the forefront that it was the lens through which we examined all of the literature we studied. I've often wondered WHY this was the case, and it wasn't until reading Barry this week that I came to appreciate that this lens is a relatively new one in the repertoire of literary theory. I certainly think it's a good addition to the toolbox, and the philosophy of the theory interests me greatly. However, after reading Erika's post, I can simply say "Yeah," and leave it at that. So, I'm going to focus on postmodernism-something that's much less comfortable for me.

In the reading on postmodernism, I really appreciated the background on modernism and the attempt to clarify the differences between the two theories. As I read, one of the concepts that intrigued me was this postmodernist idea of the "loss of the real." Maybe it's because of my own personal experiences with losing tough of reality, but this really seemed like a plausible concept. The existence "hyperreality" where the lines between the real and imagined have been obscured? Just ask any 18-year-old-boy abut his relationship with his girlfriend, and I bet he'll be able to tell you a thing or two about not being able to live up to a "hyperreality"-- said girlfriend's "chick flick fantasies."

In relationship to this, Barry also discusses Baudrillard's "Simulacra and Simulations" and how signs have lost their "fullness," the state at which they are a "surface indication of an underlying depth or reality" (84). There are a series of steps in the "emptying" process, according to Baudrillard, as discussed by Barry, and it is within these steps that that I have examined Chosen this week.


According to Baudrillard, the steps in the creation of hyperreality through the loss of the real are as follows:
Step 1-The sign represents a basic reality.
Step 2-The sign misrepresents or distorts the reality behind it.
Step 3-The sign disguises the fact that there is no corresponding reality underneath.
Step 4-The sign bears no relation to any reality at all.

In thinking about how Barry distinguishes between the steps and about the paintings used to illustrate each category, I find that Chosen, as a text, falls most into the second step, with spill-over into the first and third at times. Here's why...

In the beginning, we see an artistic shot image of the dock, the boat, and the ice being broken up by the boat as the boat pulls in to the dock and the Tibetan man and child meet Clive Owen. The beauty of the image itself is a distortion of the reality behind it, because this is an romanticized representation of a dock at night. In addition, there would be more than two passengers simply standing on the deck-others are needed to "park" a boat safely, especially if there were ice on the water.

Then there's the car chase. This is where I feel that the sign does represent a basic reality, thereby falling into step 1, because there is in fact a BMW out there that looks and handles like this car. However, slipping back into step 2, the way in which the car chase is presented. One versus three, light versus dark, and then add the abilities of stunt drivers, the talents of cameramen, and the music...Bam you've now got a very inaccurate representation of what you, as a driver of the BMW, would ever be able to do. Plus, this car chase is highly romanticized in the favor of BMW in general (and why wouldn't it be-it's their commercial). After all, the car is shown in beautiful lighting, it doesn't get dirty, and the bullets seem to just bounce off leaving no holes. The one exception to this, the one bullet that does break through, is due solely to the fact that they are trapped, which is quickly remedied by ramming the other car out of the way, and even after ramming the other car, as Clive Owen drives away, the tail end doesn't seem to have been damaged. THAT is a romanticized version of the car. Does the car exist? Yes, but is it this incredible? Probably not. And that is why this text falls into Baudrillard's second step on the way to the loss of the real.

There is so much more to this "romanticization/misrepresentation" of reality within this text--neon pink poison and the ability to take out another man with one poorly-placed punch? However, I think I'll leave the rest of this discussion for class because I'm interested to hear what you guys think. Sorry about the length, yet again.

TIPRR 10 - My bandaids have Charlie Brown on them. Seriously.

This post is laden with parentheticals. Sorry.

So here's the interesting thing about Postcolonialism and Postmodernism: they function both as ways of looking at a text and also as qualities that the texts themselves can possess. This sounds easy in a sentence, but I'm finding it a little difficult to negotiate in practice because I can't decide which angle to take. So...that's that.

Looking at Chosen through a Postcolonialist lens is interesting because it keeps challenging me on my own assumptions. A goal of postcolonialist criticism is to show Western literature's "general inability to empathize across boundaries of cultural and ethnic difference." This film seems to portray racial relations much like films we've seen in the past (if they even enter a film at all...): the good white man comes in to save the small Asian boy. Much like The Cheat that we saw at the beginning of the year in film history, the bad guy is the greedy, somewhat culturally assimilated Asian. Ultimately, the good Tibetan monks have to rely on the strong white man, who desecrates their spiritual artifacts in the process (Wikipedia tells me that you spin the wheel in part to receive good karma. Can you get good karma when you set the wheel spinning with someone else's unconscious head? Maybe it purifies the bad karma brought by violence and general Clive Owen-ery?) Furthermore, it's a German car that these films are glorifying. The German car and the white man save the day. This seems problematic.

But then I remember that the filmmaker is, himself, Asian. Not Tibetan, but probably more sensitive to Tibetan culture than, say, Michael Bay (I tried to come up with a director I hated more but...nope.). What do I do with that? What do I do with the fact that Ang Lee has strongly situated himself as both an Asian AND American filmmaker (Eat Drink Man Woman and The Hulk? Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Sense and Sensibility?), as both an action director and a drama director? Is Ang Lee merely adopting Western traditions, is he adapting them to suit his needs, or is he so adept at them that he can do anything, and trying to do a Postcolonialist criticism isn't really even necessary?

Perhaps Ang Lee's film (and filmic work as a whole) is just one large celebration of what Barry calls "cultural polyvalency"--the ability to belong to multiple cultures at the same time (as I remember from science, valence electrons are electrons that can flit about and help to complete the outer electron ring when elements are trying to bond (not to be confused with valance electrons, which are window coverings for a child interested in science)). The story in Chosen can be see to represent a partnership between Eastern and Western cultures, because although Clive Owen is the savior, he's not the chosen--that title belongs to the boy, Ang Lee's son whose actual name is Mason (further evidence of Ang's willingness to simultaneously include both cultures even in his personal life). The whole goal of the film is to help the boy, and rather than colonizing the story, Clive Owen merely comes in, stays a while, and then leaves. Ang Lee is a multicultural, multigenre-al filmmaker, easily tackling both Asian and American cinema, action and Jane Austen (he should just direct a Kung-Fu adaptation of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and get it over with), and is probably loved by Postcolonialist critics because of this.