Dear Fellow English 121 b students,

As you can see by my salutation this is clearly an informal letter (take that outcome 1!). I write to increase awareness and give voice to one of our peer who has been silenced. I checked with my peer to make sure that writing this letter on his behalf wuld not itself be a violation of “speaking for.” Since I have my peer’s permission and was an eyewitness of the Incident I would like to draw all of your attention to some recent troubling events.

While working at the Boys and Girls club with the teens with learing disabilities sexual harrasment was going on left and right. Our peer endured unwanted physical contact and sexual remarks which made this person visibly uncomfortable. The disabled student said, “I think Larry-Sue [I want to maintain complete confidentiality and to avoid divulging gender] is cute!” The student went on to spank herself with a kitchen utensil and said, “This would be good for spanking Larry-Sue.” These sorts of sexual advances are clearly inappropriate and make volunteers, including myself, uncomfortable.

I asked Larry-Sue how they were going to handle the situation. Ignoring the student and not encouraging this type of behavior seemed their best solution. The next time I went to the Boys and Girls club this tactic was being implemented, with perhaps a worse outcome. The student would simply not be ignored, resorting to physical assault: slapping and punching.

The only efforts I saw from staff against this behavior were intermittent reminders about keeping “our hands to ourselves.” I inquired why Larry-Sue didn’t tell the staff and they replied that “they have enough to handle as it is.”

 Well, I won’t tolerate this. As volunteers we are warned about only giving sidehugs and high fives, because as older people we are the sexual predators. The Boys and Girls club mission is to create a safe, healthy enriching environment for kids. What about for its volunteers? Is it not fair that we also demand a space free from sexual harrassment?

Please feel free to comment, ask questions, I want this dialogue to continue and make an impact. My dear 121 peers, don’t let yourselves become victims.

Vigilantly,

Summer

How might a media campaign for a particular local Boys and Girls Club draw awareness to that club’s specific needs, increase community-club interactions, and give B and G Club youth a (louder) voice?

 Media Campaign: PSA and Facebook group

For Wallingford Club-our specific experience, but applies to all service sites that participate with UW.

Need: Long(er)-term service

Increase community/club interaction: Encourage stronger commitment to already existing service programs

CLAIM!!!: Why are new campaign matters and how it intersects with the needs of your local B/G Club

Campaign: Awareness and call to action through PSA and FBook to change current service-learning program. We encourage extending the commitment to a full-year, rather than the current quarter-long requirement. (Sustained service-learning projects)

Why does it matter?:   For the kids- creates stronger, more meaningful bond between volunteers and kids. Increases feelings of importance in the kids.

Volunteers?–Can become more familiar with organization itself, with kids/community partners they are working with, more familiar with actual needs they can fulfill, how they can productively contribute, more autonomy, more trust, more positive influence.

Partner organizations: Less turnover, less paperwork, less orientation of new volunteers

Today Jentery exclaimed, “You’re all claim and no support!” Sounds like my last breakup.

1. New sound script (Purpose, audience, style):

            My new sound script for the Forrest Gump clip will maintain the majority of the original voice-over narration, but I will add profanity and change some of the phraseology to typical Vietnam War movie slang as seen in Full Metal Jacket, Platoon and Apocalypse Now. Changing it alters its target audience to male war movie fans.

 

2. Research question:

How does the voice-over narration in Forrest Gump, in conjunction with other classic Vietnam War movies, illuminate the development, over time, of the artistic portrayal of the Vietnam War? In other words, how does the American Vietnam War film genre from the late nineteen-eighties to present-day trace the history and conventions of Vietnam movies? In order to explore the question of genealogy, I will focus on three classic movies of the genre: Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now, and Platoon by Oliver Stone. I will compare and contrast these movies with Forrest Gump. To gain a better scope of all four films I must ask for each: What was the general political climate when the film was released? And more specifically, the climate surrounding the Vietnam War at the release date? What was the socio-political profile of the audience? What was the agenda of the film? What other Vietnam narratives already existed at the time of release? What were audiences expecting? Ready for? Tired of? What cinematic devices had already been exhausted? How was the film received? What success/ acclaim/critique did it receive? These questions, when seen against the overall evolution of the Vietnam genre, are of interest to filmmakers, audiences, anthropologists and comparative literature scholars. My work may stimulate conjecture as to whether Vietnam narratives will be produced in the future.

 

3. Claim:

I propose a new sound-script for Forrest Gump that follows classic Vietnam War movie conventions. Rewriting the voice-over narration to fit the Nam genre conventions will highlight the ways in which the filming does follow the Vietnam generic guidelines closely. I suggest that by changing the narration style and, thus fully transforming the clip to a classic Nam scene, it will illuminate the deliberate choice by the filmmakers to knowingly skirt a fine line, through the visuals, with the genre. A comparison of the original clip and the newly created quintessential Nam clip draw attention to where the filmmakers deliberately diverged from the genre. I argue that by following a new war narration trajectory the filmmakers are responding to their audience’s desire for a reinvention of the Vietnam War story.

  

4. Stakes, why is claim and new script important?

The claim is important because it gestures toward how and why film genre react and evolve in relation to the socio-political realities of the audience.

 

5. How does script augment/critique/complement film?

My proposed script complements the film by showing how hum-drum it would have been if the director had gone with a traditional war voice-over narration. It brings into sharp relief how effective the original narration is precisely because it does something different than all the preceding Nam movies.

 

6. Artifact:

Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Platoon and Kozloff’s Introduction.

7. Doubts:

Is my question too big? Am I setting myself up for a novel, rather than a 5 page paper?

I didn’t understand what Alcoff meant by saying that “a speaker’s location is epistemically salient.”

I feel like there are so many things to consider when deciding whether speaking for others is appropriate and a lot of it depends on specific circumstances and individual judgements. In the same way that everyone imposes their own characteristics on other groups, so too their own experience will color their decision about speaking for others. The whole thing is very subjective and Alcoff acknowledges this when she says, “we must begin to ask ourselves whether this is ever a legitimate authority, and if so , what are the criteria for legitimacy? In particular, is it ever valid to speak for others who are unlike me or who are less privileged than me?” but she goes on to say that there are some cases when speakers are accepted and other repudiated. So, we can conclude that in some cases speaking for others is appropriate.

Alcoff raises issues regarding service in the same way as speaking for others. She claims that speaking for and/or serving those less privileged “has actually resulted (in many cases) in increasing or reinforcing the oppression of the group spoken for.” So this brings up the concern that instead of helping by “serving” at the Boys and Girls Club, if we are actually perpetuating or even exacerbating the problem.

As a student this article is helpful in recognizing when my own perspective is speaking for others and imposing itself. I will be more sensitive to this natural tendency in my own work and in any other discourse. 

Notes “Introduction”:

‘”Narrated films […] call upon viewer to assume complex, if not contradictory, positions.” I don’t understand what she means when she says contradictory.

“Adding voice-over narration to a film creates a fascinating dance between pose and actuality, word and image, narration and drama, voice and “voice.” I think that all of the possible layering and contrasts that can arise through this device are what makes voice-over narration such a valuable tool in cinema.

 Documentaries possessing poetry?

I’d like to see examples of the French New Wave and Latin American film that comment on Hollywood.

 The distinction between voice-over narration and thinking out loud is interestingly analyzed. It implements a close look at everyday speech patterns in stroytelling.

Notes “A defense”:

History of voice-over narration is rich and many respected directors have used it effectively.

Some object to the use of it, in spite of the thematic possiblilities it offers because these cinema purists believe that what distinguishes film from literature and theatre is the ability to manipulate images for the end of showing the drama, rather than telling the theme or subtext.

 Kozloff states that in instructive literature about scriptwriting that there still exists an anti-voice-over majority, even though, as she demonstrates through the use of strong examples, that this tool has been used effectively by respectable artists.

The films Kozloff references in the Introduction are more antiquated and I have not seen the majority. In her second essay, she cites more contemporary works and I have seen most of those.

 For my own analysis I am considering Y tu mama tambien, Amelie, but I am open to looking at more options if I think that they offer themselves more freely to the assignment.

Notes on Acoustic cyberspace:

 

I disagree with the generalization made by McLuhan that visual space is linear and that, in contrast, that acoustic space is simultaneous and nonlinear. There are elements of the linear, superimposed, causal, sequential, and resonance in both spaces. He emphasizes the nonlinear qualities of sound and negates its causality. I disagree with the exclusivity Davis employs. Sounds can be organized linearly and perceived in a causal format. Music theory utilizes mathematics, repetition; it is logical and organized in a linear fashion. Sound can be interpreted as a logical reaction to the movement of something and the following vibration of air molecules, adopting causal characteristics.

He claims that print culture has caused our perception and subjectivity take on a linear organization and that “acoustic space is capable of simultaneity, superimposition, and nonlinearity, but above all, it resonates”. This statement may be true but I do not think visual space can be separated from these characteristics. In a tangible, real-time conception of the visual, images can be superimposed through photography by physically placing two negatives on top of each other in the enlarger, and there are many more sophisticated methods that can be achieved using vehicles like Photoshop. Even today as I looked out the bus window I saw the image of the road and all that was beyond the reflective barrier and my own face superimposed on passing cars. In a more abstract sense, daydreaming, imagination and memories can be “seen” while the visual receptors receive external stimuli. Within the realm of thought and memories, they can be recalled by associations that are nonlinear. Also, images can have resonance in a more figurative sense. Davis says that through resonance the sound gains energy or strength. Images can augment their strength through repeated viewing (as in advertising) or if they can achieve a personal, affective impact (pictures of dead puppies).

Davis does concede that this dichotomy is a “simplified [way] of talking about the conditions for experiencing information, consciousness, conception”.

 

I would like to know more about these concepts: polycentered and non-thought.

 

I have had a similar cinematic experience in which the sound was what transported me into the movie. Through use of surround sound during the overhead arrival of a helicopter, I hit the deck, thinking there was something coming at me.

 

Regarding the question as to why acoustic spaces are so affective, I think about the emotional difference between receiving a phone call saying, “I love you,” and a text message with the same content. The acoustic version extracts a stronger reaction personally.

 

“The acoustic spaces of electronic music aren’t limited to the organization of affect and narrative that define much popular music, with is highly personalized structures of love and loss./ Rather than merely extending the language of human affect along such typical lines, electronic music opened up much less personalized soundscapes and psychic spaces. It in not just a genre or technique of music, but a much deeper phenomenon that involves mapping the electronic media spaces that humans find themselves in”

 

The quote is written employing a scholastic code or jargon, as seen in, “mapping” and “narrative”. Davis discusses abstract ideas such as, “soundscape”, “phenomenon” and“psychic spaces”. Davis is very clear and specific with his words. He uses an argumentative tone, acknowledges and addresses concepts to the claim he is making.

The importance of the quote is that it is a concrete example of Davis’ claim. Through the example of electronic music he illustrates the opportunity that exists to develop new forms of perception via electronic media and audio experiences. The virginity of electronic music is what makes it worth noting. Seeing how popular culture perceives and conceives something that has not been subjugated to an existing popular schema will draft the map of subjectivity Davis references.

 

Megan profile:

 Notes:This all seems like a lot of work. These are complex concepts. My biggest problem will be narrowing it down and focusing on a few key concepts. “In order to make my claim in Response Paper 1.3, I used evidence from both my work and Okawa’s, along with quotes from the Lord of War trailer. This is seen when I said, “By setting this background mood with the help of narration and sound, Seabiscuit starts to be transformed into a symbol for success and overcoming hardships” (3). I used this quote from my work to show that even though the contexts of Seabiscuit and Lord of War are completely different, they both use the narration of a character whose voice helps portray his personality. I also used evidence found in narration by Nicholas Cage in the Lord of War trailer to support my claim.” 

The tone is persuasive. She is justifying how her work fulfills the expectations of the syllabus for the assignment by including evidence from her own work. Her word choice is academic but more vulgar than that of Davis. She uses the first person singular often. The fact that two distinct works could be intertextualized demonstrates that there are overarching principles in the realm of sound.