Chun Li was the first female in a fighting game that didn't need to be rescued.

Hello blog, long time no see.

Feminist theory has really made me stop and think about some of my actions recently. I'm a woman who lives with three men. It's still a little surprising to some when I sit down with the guys to play video games. I must be "one of the guys".

So why can't I play video games? What's the big deal if I played with Legos as a little girl?

The "one of the guys" label has boggled my mind for a little while. I think the real-world consequences that Tonya Krouse mentioned play into this. A woman that engages in tradition "guy" activities is rejecting the cultural expectation. Men might then question into what category that person falls into. Since I'm not fulfilling expectations of shoe shopping, I probably automatically get lumped into being that guy.

So where can I get my voice as a female? The idea of an essential woman identity is nonexistent.
In my mind, this leads to the question of who can be a feminist. Short answer: everyone. I would love to never get a confused look in response to me sharing my hobbies. I would love to have a female identity amongst my male household. My first thought was "what if the guys accepted me as a female?" I think this has serious implications. I'm still looking to men for acceptance of whatever identity I am. Being a feminist sure has a lot of political implications...

As far as my own identity, I still have a lot of thinking to do, and I should probably stop ranting about myself.
I have two more things I'd like to address: pornography and the question of approaching texts and culture from a feminist perspective.

Yes I think pornography degrades woman in an almost violent manner. Pornography has a voyeuristic effect that increases the objectification of women. Is there a way to reform pornography without abolishing it? What if a woman directed a pornographic movie? I don't think pornography can escape objectification in the current state of patriarchy. Anti-pornography feminists see this as a deep rooted form of oppression. Simply reforming pornography would do nothing.

Addressing the second question, there seems to be a lot to gain from approaching texts and culture from a feminist perspective. This opens the door so getting so many more voices heard, and so many more capable people advancing in society. Someone NOT looking at texts and culture like this is on the same level as a racist. What power is there to lose from this approach? The power just seems to be an illusion.

I'd like to end this post with an off-topic story.
My favorite band, The Smashing Pumpkins, has a woman bass player named D'arcy Wretzky. A woman in a rock band is a huge deal, oh wow. An interviewer once accused D'arcy of only caring about hair and make-up. D'arcy then attacked him with her lipstick.

I have the censored cover of Mantissa. Bummer.

"It's not my fault that I'm equally the programmed slave of whatever stupid mood you've created. Whatever clumsy set of supposed female emotions you've bodged up for me. To say nothing of your character. I notice there's not been a single word about his exceedingly dubious status. I wonder who's pulling his strings?"
"I am. I'm me. Don't be ridiculous."
She gives him a sarcastic little smile, and looks away.
"God, you're so naive."
"You're the one who's naive. I wouldn't tell my own character to suggest I'm not really me."
"Then why's he being referred to as "he" throughout? What are you trying to hide?" (88)

The most interesting aspect of this passage is that the characters are aware that they are in a novel. Around this point they begin to measure actions in lines of the text.

Erato is examining the role of Miles as an author (Wait, didn't we kill him?). In one of her moments of power, she once again attacks Miles for controlling her actions. As the author, he can determine what she wears, he can make cigarettes appear for here, and so on. She acknowledges that she's being jerked around within the text, yet Miles is a character just as much as she is.

There is no first person here, but Miles still assumes the position of creator of the text. "I'm me." Without his brain functioning, the text can't continue. But what IS pulling his strings? There seems to be a distinction between Miles continuing the novel, and Miles within the novel. There are a few points (one being when Erato erases the door) that Miles is not in control of where the text is going.

This passage raises the question of where this plot is coming from. The point of gaining back his memory is defeat writer's block. There are outside forces, however, playing into the plot. We watch Miles struggle throughout his own text.

Erato also points out that Miles writes himself as "he", and he can only refer to himself with an "I" in conversation. The "what are you trying to hide?" questions the reality within the hospital room. Why this separation? The story they are creating isn't real for Miles to have the close, first person authorship of.

Both characters seem to have a firm grasp on theory. I see Erato in this passage tag teaming the author with Foucoult. It later comes up that authors like having the name on the front for the attention. Is this why Miles is proud to assume the "I'm me" position of the text? He wants to have the control, and he wants to have the authorship. With the struggles within himself, and also with Erato, it isn't so easy to claim that position.

I will see you in another life, when we are both cats

I’m not ashamed to admit that I love Vanilla Sky. I don’t care how arrogant Tom Cruise is, or how sappy Cameron Crowe is. Jerry Maguire still gets me every single time.

After we touched upon postmodernism in class, my mind immediately went to the film. I don’t want to give away too much, but the idea of a lucid dream IS the hyperreal. The concept is very similar to The Matrix. The lucid dream is sort of a matrix, just not in some post-apocalyptic, robot-infested world. People exist in the hyperreal which is even further removed from reality.

The lucid dream takes past experiences and throws them into the conscious. The mind of David Aames is filled with pop culture reference after pop culture reference. So all these simulations are forming what he believes is his reality. In the film, there is a reason why his lucid dream has masked his reality (I’ll keep my mouth shut in case anyone is inspired to watch it).

I found an article called “Technology and the Time-Image: Deleuze and Postmodern Subjectivity” by Clayton Crockett. In it, he discusses time in the hyperreal. Vanilla Sky presents time in an unusual way. The simulations don’t exactly exist in a nice, chronological order. Crocket also touches upon whether Baudrillard has nostalgia for “finding something pure”. David Aames also gets to this point, where he wishes to find something pure. My lips are sealed.

I would even argue that Vanilla Sky involves psychoanalytic theory. David Aames has a whole bunch of problems with his unconscious that surface in the lucid dream. Not to mention he is being psychoanalyzed throughout the film (by the oh-so-suave Kurt Russel). I know psychoanalysis of a character leads to problems, but I think the film is trying to say something about repression.

I’d like to develop this essay around the idea of the lucid dream. It ties in with simulation, simulacra, hyperreal, and all that good stuff. The lucid dream, full of all its simulations, masks reality. It is a copy with no origin. The original may have been David’s life (yet, isn’t that full of simulations too?), but the lucid dream has developed to be more than that. My concern is that this idea could probably use a little tightening.

P.S. The theory is nice, but my main reason for choosing this film is that I can get all mushy when Tom Cruise kisses Penelope Cruz under the vanilla sky to Sigur Ros.

P.P.S. If you like Sigur Ros, watch the film. Spencer I’m talking to you.

There is no spoon?

I’d like to start out by saying I really enjoyed Ken Rufo’s post on Baudrillard.

The connection to structuralism is where I feel I’m a little weak, but here is my attempt to go through it. The connection has to be made through Marxist theory. I recently went on a little consumer binge and purchased a pair of $100 leather boots. I think the connection is that I paid so much to have the Frye brand. Sure, these boots are high quality. But I doubt they would have cost as much under another label.

But what do my boots have to do with all this? I think my boots are like any other commodity. The exchange-value is more important than the use-value. These boots better last awhile, but money!

Alright,that’s enough of me bragging about my sassy leather boots. The connection I see is that theory is a commodity as well. Theory has an important exchange-value just like the boots. “…Something we use to make our class papers or arguments look good…”. Since Marx developed these ideas, he created this commodity of theory.

I have a suspicion that after watching The Matrix, I might grasp the concept of simulation. As for now, it seems like Baudrillard is saying the simulation becomes reality. Through a process, a simulation first substitutes for reality. A simulation hides this substitution. Eventually, a simulation doesn’t even need this model. This is the copy with no origin (which really confused me at first). There is no copy behind it anymore since reality is absent. Bye bye real.

We have to understand our own experiences through these copies with no origin (simulacra). I believe it was Max who said we observe in comparison to something we observe in Die Hard. So when 9/11 occurred, we didn’t experience it in the real. We had to match it up with something we saw in an action movie.

“The world ultimately resists our attempts to theorize it” first struck me as “well then what are we doing?” Is it because of the simulations that it becomes impossible to try to theorize our world? All the theories we’ve studied create a way to view the world. Do these theories cause us to look at the world in a way that simply fulfills that particular theory?

And while I’m on a roll with asking questions, I’m hoping someone can help me out with this. I’m a little confused about ambivalence. Help?

Bang bang my baby shot the author down

"We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single "theological" meaning (the "message" of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture."

This is taken from "The Death of the Author" by Roland Barthes.
The first interesting point I noticed in this quote is "none of them original". That line, I guess, shot the author dead. It's difficult to comprehend no text being original. An author is not having a brilliant and unique idea and then writing it down for our understanding. Whatever a person decides to write about already exists.

The blending and clashing is also significant in regards to the "innumerable centres of culture". I take this to mean that ideas existing in our culture are what make it into a text. So many of these ideas are combined together to form a text. Different elements come together to form something. But everything pre-exists the text.

In the introduction of the Foucault reading, the term "author function" is discussed. It's a notion we seem to hold on to just so we can make sense of stuff in our minds. It seems like without the author, we would have difficulty classifying things. I don't know anything about Shakespeare, but I can list a whole bunch of stuff that he wrote.

After a bit of digging, I found a post by I cite on Making Readers
The initial question is what makes certain bloggers find her post? The post deals with her subject matter drawing in a certain audience. Can the author create a particular audience?
The author is posting subject matter that interests her. An audience with similar interests is drawn in through tagging and searching. There are some topics that she can't write about because the discussion through blogs has already begun.

"I can assume, in other words, that the readers are mirrors of a particular fantasy I have of myself."

But does this really have to do with the author of the blog? I think Foucault would said no. The blogging topics are the "innumerable centres of culture" happening all around us. Blogs are the way of blending and clashing whatever topics are popular right now.

Authorship is something Spencer and I have tried to discuss a few times. I think we attempted to post something earlier regarding the topic? I'm crossing my fingers that he will want to discuss this more.

Is my boyfriend a narcissist?

Derrida’s feelings toward the camera are connected with psychoanalysis. Derrida is uncomfortable being filmed because it is a false representation. He then goes back and views the scene in which his wife and he don’t discuss any details of how they met. He seems interested in viewing actions that he hardly remembers doing. According to psychoanalysis, he is viewing the self through the other. The other in this instance, is himself on film. It is something outside of the self that is showing him something about himself. Derrida seems uncomfortable with the other when he views the portrait of himself. He prefers the actually representation of himself versus a self realized through the other.

Derrida discusses the notion of love between two people. As mentioned previously, he questions whether or not you love a person for their singularity (the who), or qualities that that person has (the what). He further deconstructs love to a level of narcissism. People love themselves through another person. You look for qualities you like in a person. When that person ceases to embody those characteristics, you don’t love them. You really search for what pleases you. People end up loving themselves by finding someone with appropriate characteristics that engages back with them. In regards to post-structuralism, Derrida is examining how we establish the meaning of love. The narcissistic quality of love allows us to also examine the self from the other.

When Derrida discusses improvisation, he is deconstructing the idea that it is done on the spot. Improvisation is all rehearsed. When put on the spot, we refer back onto things we’ve learned or heard before. Things we bring up during improve are already familiar to us, we simply present them when called upon. Improvisation isn’t digging into the self for a creative answer. Responses from improve are from something other than the self. This could relate to the idea of the ego, or the social self. The superego contains everything needed for improvisation. We reach into what has already been internalized for an answer in improve. What is then presented is the ego.

I'm still thinking of the second half of Lacan's quote "I am where I do not think" I interpret this as our unconscious (where we do not think) is where we develop part of the self. The unconscious, according to Lacan, is also a system like language. This implies that we develop the self through language.

Derrida had an adorable cat

Derrida is reluctant to be interviewed throughout most of the documentary. His unwillingness to be on camera actually helped me understand deconstruction a little bit more than before. The interviewers try to get into Derrida’s personal life, but Derrida can’t help but point out that the camera is always present. He is deconstruction the idea of his image on camera. To him, the image is a false portrayal. Derrida is visibly uncomfortable when he is shown a portrait of himself. These are not real representations of him.

I find it interesting that Derrida enjoyed the documentary. I imagine it’s because he views the false image of himself, and he watches himself hide his personal feelings. At one point, the interviewer was digging into Derrida trying to examine his love life. First, Derrida is questioned about the first time he met his wife, in which he kept most of the details to himself. Then when Derrida is asked what he feels about love, he is unable to answer at first. Derrida talks about whether or not you love the single person (who), or do you love things about the person, for example intelligence (what).

Derrida seemed to deconstruct most questions he was asked, and probably answered them in a way that the interviewer did not expect. For example, when he was asked to chose a philosopher to be his mother, Derrida answered his granddaughter. Derrida deconstructed the notion that a person typically thinks of “fathers of philosophy” rather than a female figure.

It was almost uncomfortable to watch an interviewer ask Derrida about Seinfeld. Derrida responded that if she thought a sitcom was an example of deconstruction, then she should go back and reread. It seemed that interviewers sometimes tried to ask him unusual questions hoping for a witty response. Derrida ended up deconstructing their questions and giving them an unexpected, but at the same time, intriguing answer. The documentary becomes a lesson on deconstruction.