Rushdie and the Wizard of Oz

I do not really remember watching the entire film, The Wizard of Oz. However, I remember watching scenes of it, and I remember, as a child, I thought I would like to be in the world of Oz, where everything is so bright and fantastic.

My personal experience of watching the film is not so vivid. However, I would most likely take the film as a fantasy movie, which I would not be familiar with. However, Salman Rushdie said:


“In India, however, it[the Wizard of Oz] fitted into what was then, and remains today, one of the mainstreams of “Bollywood” film production.” (Rushdie 11)

He remembered his experience of the film. He said “In the West, the film was an oddball” but it was taken well in India where cinema of the fantastic is familiar. He would watch the video of ‘Kids in India singing a song from the Wizard of Oz’ and say the kids are likely to accept the film well than kids in other countries because the film “fitted into” the Bollywood film production.


"This absence of higher values greatly increases the film's charm, and is an important aspect of its success in creating a world in which nothing is deemed more important than the loves, cares and needs of human beings..." (Rushdie 10).

The kids are surely being supervised by a “higher value”, most likely their teacher. However, the presence of the “higher value” is not seen in the movie. It seems like the kids truly enjoy singing and acting the scene. Unlike the world of adults where actors are controlled and directed by a higher value, a director, the kids are simply having fun, showing their enjoyment while doing their parts, singing and dancing.


“We are all the stars’ doubles” (Rushdie 46)

Reinforcing this quote of his, Rushdie would point out that the kids are “doubles” of the stars in the film. They are simply mimicking the stars. As an audience, we become their doubles by putting ourselves into their positions and feeling what stars would feel. As actors and singers like the kids in the video, we are recreating the stars performance simply as their doubles.

Fredric Jameson and the Simpsons

In his essay of “Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”, Fredric Jameson describes postmodernism. He links the postmodernism to the capitalism. Central idea is that “esthetic production today has become integrated into commodity production” because of the role of capitalism.

Jameson would see the painting by Matt Groening above as a postmodern artwork. Before discussing the work as postmodern, it is essential to distinguish postmodernism from modernism. While artists, in the modernism era, questioned realism, they, in the era of postmodernism, started critiquing realism. The image is a pastiche of the masterpiece, the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. The masterpiece has been remade into many other pictures. This particular one replaced the feature with a female cast from the Simpsons and the whole image has been cartooned.

Jameson suggests that it is “essential to grasp postmodernism not as a style but rather as a cultural dominant” The popular culture, the Simpsons, has such cultural power that impacts on viewers. The painting appeals to viewers with its cultural power. It gives the viewers its own unique and new original meaning in this remake.

Jameson suggests that capitalism is related to postmodern movements. He claims that the capitalism torn down the barrier between high culture and mass or commercial culture.
He says, it motivated “more novel-seeming goods” and “aesthetic innovation and experimentation”. The desire for novelty motivated artists to remake masterpieces in their own ways and to create popular culture that is closely related to capitals.

The Simpsons is an internationally famous television show, which earned reputation and capital and created its own cultural power. The show is known for parodying other masterpieces in the past. However, its parodies and remakes have its own unique tastes with its cultural power. Jameson would see this painting as postmodern because it is a great example of popular culture, which is based on capitalism.

(Blogwriting-06) Freudian thinking on Jack Bauer

Freud’s infantile sexuality suggests that experience in childhood can affect the infant’s adulthood. He introduces the concept of the Oedipal complex and the castration anxiety.
The Oedipal complex suggests that a boy infant desires sexual union with his mother and his mother’s love and affection. Therefore, the boy sees his father as his rivalry. There comes the castration anxiety. The boy sees a girl infant without a penis, and thinks that the girl has been punished and castrated. He unconsciously feels anxiety and wants to protect his penis, which later becomes the symbol of power and control. This anxiety represses the desire for his mother into the unconscious level.

Jack Bauer in the 24 is the head of a family, a heterosexual man, and a government agent. He likes to have everything under his control. When his daughter runs away, he asks his co-worker to find out the password to hack into his daughter’s e-mail account. He is ruthless and confident when working for the nation. He give orders to co-workers and does what he thinks is right no matter what. His aggressive and confident behavior can be seen as the result of his castration complex in childhood. Freud would say, as a boy fears of losing his penis, a grown man fears of losing his power and control.
Jack’s masculinity is the result of his addiction towards his penis from his childhood.

[Extra]
Also, he obviously had an affair with his co-worker. Freud would link this adultery to the Oedipal complex’s characteristic of the forbidden relationship. A boy infant gradually gives up his desire for his mother because this desire is forbidden. The desire for forbidden relationship surfaces as an adultery in adulthood. This abnormal resolution of the complex resulted in, in the story, the unstable family.

(Blogwriting-05) The Public Sphere

Jürgen Habermas defines "The Public Sphere" as a realm of social life where 'private' individuals freely gather, discuss, and form a public opinion.

In the past, the media of the public sphere, in his essay of "The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article" are "newspapers and magazines, radio and television". However, today, we have a new medium, internet, which is the culmination of the other media. It has combined different aspects of media. We can now watch television news, television shows, read newspaper articles and magazines, and listen to radio online. Furthermore, internet users are given a virtual space to discuss and share personal opinions on matters.

Daily Kos is a political blog, where internet users explore not only informational videos, but also share political opinions. There is a poll about Obama on the first page. So, the blog displays certain politics-related information and events.

Chapter 5, Visual Technologies, Image reproduction, and the copy in the book of 'Practices of Looking' suggests:

"Technologies interact with people and the forces of politics, economics, and other aspects of culture in various social and historical contexts, resulting in changes not only in the technologies themselves but also in social practices and uses"

As suggested, technologies affect various aspects of people's lives. Not to mention how to communicate with each other. Internet has been one of the most important innovation in our era. It has made it possible to communicate with someone from the other side of the world, to receive massive information at once, and to create virtual spaces to express themselves and interact with other users.

Because internet users are given chance to freely comment and discuss about matters and videos and, through discussion it can form a kind of dominant public opinion, the daily kos blog can be considered as "the public sphere".

Segmentation: REPORT by Bruce Conner

1) Radio Voiceover
- radio broadcast about JFK assassination.
- leads the "development" - beginning, middle and end.
- motivates the story, and tells the story as narrative.
-usually not syncing with visual material of the film, the audio of voiceover separates itself from video, which creates irony, contrasts, and symbols.
-live: realistic aspect

2) Footage of JFK
-repeated footage of JFK and Jackie in a limo parading: gives the sense of realism. Cues the story to start. Lets the audience to engage with the story. The staccato style of repeated images create intensity and rhythm.
- Historical moments: inauguration, Airforce One, Jackie and JFK waving hands, JFK with Catholic pope. They give the sense of realism to the film.

3) Irrelevent Footages
-Blank white screen, flicker: gives certain intensity to the audio of reporting on the assassination. Motivates the audience to engage more with the audio. Flicker changes regularly, which avoids monotone and creates tension.
- Count down: creates intensity. Presented with the audio : The sentence, "The president of the United States is dead" and silence for a while.
- Commercial, technology development: symbolizes the promise of idealized future. Contradicts with the death of the president. This "promise" becomes irony when the film also shows the footage of Jackie, who can't open the car door, whereas in the advertisement a woman easily opens a door with a happy smile.
-Light bulb: a bullet shattering light bulb glass symbolizes bullets that killed the light, JFK.
-Bull killing: is presented with a narrative description of JFK, which symbolizes that JFK is a victim like the bull in the scene.
-IBM 'SELL' button: broadcast sells the story of the JFK assassination without knowing the exact truths. / JFK becomes a legend.

(Blogwriting-04) Barthes' Ideas

Roland Barthes, in his essay of “Rhetoric of the Image”, introduces terms in semiology- signifier, signified, denotative message, and connotative message. Before using his ideas to analyze the poster, I would like to clarify the terms.

Language is a collective system of arbitrary relationships between objects and words. In other words, people sharing the same language agreed to call a certain object with a certain word. Analyzing semotics in visual image requires the same principle, yet more complex.

Signifier is an object presented. Signified is what the object refers to in certain circumstance. Signifieds vary under different circumstances. Denotative message is a literal message, and connotative message is a deeper meaning below the surface.




“The text directs the reader through the signifieds of the image, causing him to avoid some and receive others”

As mentioned above, signifieds can vary with a single signifier. A viewer can come up with different interpretations by analyzing a pure visual image without text. Imagine the advertisement without the texts, just the picture. It can be a mere photograph, a work of art in a museum, or a public service advertisement. There comes variety of signifieds out of the same picture. However, the texts, “The Final Episodes – April 8, 9pm/ Made in America” cause a viewer to receive that the picture is an advertisement for a TV show and to avoid other options. Texts let viewers to narrow broad ideas down to more plausible ones to get better understanding of it.


“In the photograph- at least at the level of the literal message- the relationship of signifieds to signifiers is not one of ‘transformation’ but of ‘recording’, and the absence of a code clearly reinforces the myth of photographic ‘naturalness’: the scene is there, captured mechanically, not humanly (the mechanical is here a guarantee of objectivity).”

We have been introduced arbitrary relationships between signifier and signified. This quotation presents another kind of relationship between signifier and signified- the denotative message in the photograph. As introduced, denotative message means literal meaning. Compared to drawing, photograph has been regarded relatively ‘real’ and ‘true’ in depiction because the mechanism is more reliable in representing reality than artists’ hands.
The poster presents an image of New York City and a middle-age man looking somewhat gloomy and worried. Speaking of denotative message, this photograph clearly presents what is there. If this was to be painted by an artist, it may have looked differently. It may distort the atmosphere that the photograph gives.

“The variation in readings is not, however, anarchic; it depends on the different kinds of knowledge- practical, national, cultural, aesthetic- invested in the image and these can be classified, brought into a typology.”

Analyzing linguistic message requires the knowledge of a certain language. If I had no knowledge of English at all, I would not be able to understand the image thoroughly. As mentioned before, signifieds can vary under different circumstances, which are “the different kinds of knowledge”. Because every culture has different interpretation with the same image or gestures, each come up with different conclusions and would not fully understand each other’s interpretations. For example, if someone had no familiarity with the fact that the texts of “The Final Episodes” insinuate that this picture is to advertise a TV show, he would not grasp the fundamental purpose of the picture. The Statue of Liberty may not stand out to indicate the setting of New York City to someone who does not know where the statue exists. Because it does not tell what year this is for, if it were for the red color of the text, someone might interpret it as an advertisement for an old show. Current economic situation of the United States, the knowledge of the nation, may influence someone to think about recession by looking at it.

(Blog-3) The Blair Witch Project

"..for the first time- and this is the effect of the film- man has to operate
with his whole living person, yet forgoing its aura. For aura is tied to his presence; there can be no replica of it. The aura which, on the stage, emanates from Macbeth, cannot be separated for the spectators from that of the actor. However, the singularity of the shot in the studio is that the camera is substituted for the public. Consequently, the aura that envelops the actor vanishes, and with it the aura of the figure he portrays."

"Magician and surgeon compare to painter and cameraman. The painter maintains in his work a natural distance from reality, the cameraman penetrates deeply into its web. There is a tremendous difference between the pictures they obtain. That of the painter is a total one, that of the cameraman consists of multiple fragments which are assembled under a new law. Thus, for contemporary man the representation of reality by the film is incomparably more significant than that of the painter, since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment. And that is what one is entitled to ask from a work of art"

Man-made art works were possibly replicated by other men throughout the history of art. However, seeing an original work is different from seeing a replica because the original has its unique traces of physical conditions and changes in its ownership (Benjamin). In his essay of The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin declares that there is such thing called Aura. It is related to authenticity and originality of a work of art. Aura is an “unique existence of the work of art” (Benjamin). Replicas lack the unique existence. In other words, the one and only original works have values that replicas cannot exhibit in themselves.

Film is a medium of the age of Mechanical Reproduction. Unlike original drawings, films can be produced massively at the same time. Although we have easier access to art works through mass reproduction, we cannot experience the aura of the work of art with mass reproduced works of art.

Suppose there are actors presenting the same story on different stages. Although the elements they work with are the same, their different interpretation, manipulation and circumstances give each such different unique characteristics and existences. These works of art creates aura out of their own originality. In film, however, one actor plays one character in the same way, and it is reproduced for mass audience. Everyone sees the same work, which makes it lose uniqueness and originality.

However, in terms of displaying realism, film offers an aspect of reality that is free of equipment (Benjamin). In other words, reality presented in painting depends heavily on a painter’s skills, whereas filmmakers’ skills do not impact as much in representing reality. Representation of reality in painting is more likely distorted and manipulated in the process of painting with artists’ hands.

The Blair Witch Project, directed by Daniel Myrick and Eeuardo Sanchez, came out in 1999. The film, The Blair Witch Project, has such unique approach, documentary conventions, in presenting a story. The film starts with the black screen with the white text, “In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found”. This opening creates such tension and expectation that it may be a real documentary. Unrefined and shaky camera movements reinforce the belief that this can be a real documentary. Unlike other fiction films, the film had no extra technical manipulation such as sound track or refined cinematography- other than simple editing. What is really interesting is the amateurism and rawness of footages make the story seem real.



Without artificial scary sound track, the film could achieve to create strong tension because the fear the actors, or the characters, experience look so real. What we, the audience, visually see strongly insist the footage we see is real and not fictional. Personally, I was not fully convinced the film is fictional until I saw the credit of director on the screen.
Benjamin states, “For aura is tied to his presence; there can be no replica of it”.

As mechanical reproductive medium, The Blair Witch Project cannot presents aura of actors as actors on the stage, in front of audience, would have. However, it surely tries to make the audience, with its delicate manipulation, to believe it is reality that is presented in the film.