Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11

(***I'm warning all of you. Never write your blogs directly on the blog because something can always go wrong and somehow get deleted. Ignore the oh so reassuring “auto-save”. That's what happened to me and now I'm tired and don't want to repeat this blog again. I'll try my best to make it as good as the first time I wrote it. Moral of the story: write it on Word first!)

On September 11, 2001 I was sitting in my 5th grade computer class when my teacher was notified to turn on the TV. That day I saw most of the 9/11 coverage with not really understanding the big picture or even the concepts behind it. It’s sad to admit but it wasn't until I came to college that I truly understood what the war was about. With that being said, watching Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 for the first time was mind boggling. Everything I knew about the war was disregarded in this film. His documentary is indeed biased however he provides evidence and research to back up his argument. It made me think about other aspects I hadn’t thought about and gave information that made me want to research more. I think for the most part in the beginning of the film Moore uses more of the logos and ethos appeals and then towards the end he uses mostly the appeal of pathos.

Moore’s primary claims in his documentary are against George W. Bush and his competence as president and how he handled the 9/11 attacks due to his ties with the alleged ties to the Bin Laden family. He bases his argument with logos by providing plenty of documentation, polls, and impressive interviews. He belittles Bush many times by jump cutting to Bush at lose for words and people raising questions.

Throughout the film, Moore in his “voice of god” provides some satirical often funny comments to lighten the tone of the film however there are certainly some heartbreaking images that are to be taken serious. A scene that truly haunted me after I saw the documentary was of sun burnt soldiers in Iraq saying how they play a good song (like “Let the bodies hit the floor” and “Roof is on Fire”) to pump them up when in a tank ready for combat. Moore then juxtaposes the voice of a soldier singing the lyrics of “Roof is on Fire” against images of Iraqi civilians in distress, pain, or dead. It really appeals to the audience’s emotions when they continue to see hysterical Iraqi mothers, dead Iraqi children, a naked child with his arm blown off and women with their faces melted off. Moore’s claim in this case is that Iraqi’s are innocent and the ignorant American soldiers are just doing a job that Bush sent them to do, rather than fight a war (since they don’t know why they are fighting.)

Another scene that is meant to grab the audience’s heart is the part when the mother of the dead soldier is reading a letter her son wrote to her before he died. The scene proves to be an overwhelming one because it’s almost as if the dead is living. The deceased soldier’s words come alive when his mother read them aloud and with the mother’s tears it really pulls at the audience’s emotion. Overall Michael Moore posed many questions and his version of the answers however the conclusion was not sufficient enough to wrap up his claim.

Levi's Commercial: O Pioneers!

I'm going to take a different route with this blog entry. The other blogs I've posted were more formal and I feel it was very rigid and didn't have my voice in it. So with that, here is my new and improved blog. Well not really improved just presented in a different light. Alright then, this is a commercial from the Levi's "Go Forth" campaign. It's one of my roommate's and my favorite commercials. At first you don't understand what this clip is about because its not a conventional commercial or campaign with the product or cause being blatantly talked about or referred to. I know when I first saw it I didn't know if it was a new movie, commercial, TV show or music video.

The commercial starts off with sounds found in nature, birds chirping, the wind, and a clash of thunder. Then the most important component of the commercial's premise takes off when Walt Whitman's powerful words ring out "Pioneers! O pioneers!" The commercial uses excerpts from Whitman's "Pioneers! O Pioneers!" poem from Leaves of Grass. (Sontag quotes Whitman's Leaves of Grass in the last reading we had.) The use of Whitman's words in the commercial add to the impact of the images. The viewer is able to see a carefully constructed argument using a poem from a different era that transforms to coincide with a contemporary society. By using the word "pioneer", meaning an innovator or exploring new territory, over and over again the audience understands the commercial is promoting something more than just jeans. Their "Go Forth" commercial appeals to the young people of America to step up or "go forth" to change society. The commercial argues for youth to embrace each others differences and accept everyone for who they are.

The commercial shows a montage of various young people doing all sorts of things but the main reoccurring theme throughout the commercial is running. It shows lots of images running towards something or someone, running through fields, running on the beach, running with fire, running in mobs. Another reoccurring effect is at certain points in the commercial there is a sound resembling a gunshot but I know its a snare drum being tapped. Its a very short powerful sound but it adds urgency to what the commercial is trying to say. I think one of the most powerful images in the commercial is of a young brunette woman casting her hand high above her head, as well as her eyes, that points to the west much like the statue of woman with a child behind her. To some it looks like a signature Nazi gesture, however the voice over says, "We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger" when it jump cuts to that image. I think it just adds more emphasis to the message.

When the commercial is ending, the almost non-existent music from the beginning of the clip begins to crescendo as the voice over articulates Whitman's words faster. It leads up to the ending images of happy united faces along with the words, "We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world, Fresh and strong the world we seize...Pioneers! O Pioneers!" being said. The last words are said with a ritardando of sorts to leave the viewer thinking about the commercial. And of course right after the last words are said there is a pause and then the gunshot sound is played simultaneously when the Levi's brand shows up on the screen to remind the audience of what the whole commercial was for. I feel the ending leaves the viewer with an empowerment to go do something revolutionary.

Susan Sontag and Diane Arbus

"Two people form a couple; and every couple is an odd couple."
- Susan Sontag

In "America, Seen through Photographs, Darkly", Susan Sontag greatly evaluates Diane Arbus's photography, especially 112 photographs shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 1972. Sontag first contrasts Edward Steichen's1955 exhibit "Family of Man", which argues that "human beings, for all their flaws and villainies, are attractive creatures," to Arbus's work. Sontag believes that Arbus's photographs do not feature beautiful people but "freaks" that were seen as ugly, grotesque, unflattering and bizarre. Steichen's photographs seem to show the "human nature shared by everybody" but Arbus's photographs suggests that "everybody is an alien, hopelessly isolated, immobilized in mechanical, crippled identities and relationships."
Sontag believes that Arbus's subjects are "victims" and are photographed without capturing compassion for them. However Arbus established her credibility as a photographer because she got to know her subjects and is apparent in the way they have posed and are facing the camera straight on, which sometimes makes the portrait odder. She did not spy on "freaks" but they trusted her enough to give themselves away. Even though the audience may not feel compassion towards the subject, the photographer did. Arbus said photography was her license to go and do whatever she wanted. Sontag says that Arbus's "image of the photographer's naive quest" was to "seduce subjects into disclosing their secrets." The photographs speak for themselves and reveal the subject in their own light.
Sontag goes on to relate Arbus's work to her own life. Since Arbus photographed oddities and captured the "unknown" Sontag poses the question of what is the "unknown?" Arbus came from a well-to-do Jewish family completely immersed in what was moral, health-minded, prudent and unrisky. Arbus's camera was her sense of reality since she said she felt growing up she was "confined in a sense of unreality." Sontag believes that Arbus's interest in "freaks" was her own violation of "innocence" and meant to "undermine her sense of being privileged, to vent her frustration at being safe." Unlike a poet that writes about his own pain, Arbus collected images that were painful, emitting her own feelings. Ultimately Arbus was a "casualty" of a "psychic ambush" "of her own candor and curiosity" as Sontag argues, she committed suicide in 1971.

Sleeping with the Enemy?

I got this image off of TIME magazine's website. The picture was taken at Thailand's Sriracha Tiger Zoo and features Sai Mai as an adoptive mother to the piglets.

The image appeals to the viewer's emotions through the uncharacteristic interaction between the two species, a tiger and three piglets, in order to argue that atypical paired beings can have a functioning relationship.

The focus of the image is drawn to the tiger and its unusually friendly eyes. Its eyes are bright and its tongue is partially out like it is panting. Commonly tigers are expected to be ferocious and predatory, however this tiger's almond shaped eyes and overall demeanor is somewhat playful. These aspects of the tiger are important to the argument of the image because the other focal points in the picture are harmless sleeping piglets. Since the piglets are in such intimate positions near the tiger, especially the one laying on the tiger's back, it suggests that the piglets are in their comfort zone and rely on the tiger to rear them in this time of development. It seems the feelings are mutual between the two species because the Tiger is not in a predatory mode, showing canines or about to pounce on them.

Although this image of an unlikely relationship between the animals is probably induced by humans and not nature, it suggests that not all human relationships have to "make sense" to work. In society people judge you by the relationships you have with others. If you have intimate relationships with people who are opposite of or nothing like you then usually its controversial or frowned upon. When parents want to adopt a child, usually they will adopt a child from their own race because its just so unusual to see a baby of a different color than their parents. We like to think its no big deal but in reality people have been raised to think in certain ways and the norm is what they usually have seen their whole lives. So whatever doesn't define that is weird and shouldn't go together. It can also go for same-sex couples. They are the minority and when couples are seen in public, some people may be shocked and repulsed by the difference. In the end, unusual relationships between people and even animals can be related back to the strong bond they have between them for different reasons.