The Pastiche of "Mona Lisa"

After looking at Matt Groening’s rendition of Leonardo DaVinci’s work, the “Mona Lisa”, I believe Frederic Jameson would say that this “painting” falls directly into the cultural trend of a postmodernistic work. Stemming from his work entitled “Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”, Jameson probably would have claimed that this piece of art is characterized by its pastiche and “a crisis in historicity”. Not only is the painting of the original “Mona Lisa” turned into a female from the show “The Simpsons”, but it also is replaced by pastiche instead of parody. The difference between the parody of the “Mona Lisa” and a pastiche of it lies in the fact that a parody requires “a moral judgment or comparison with societal norms”, and a pastiche is “a collage and other forms of juxtaposition without a normative grounding”. The crisis in historicity lies in the fact that Groening’s work merges all discourse into a whole, which is a result of the colonization of the cultural sphere.

Jameson would have also said that Groening’s “Mona Lisa” has an explicit formal and/or thematic choice of the writer and the unconscious framework that the author uses as a guideline. An artistic choice such as Groening’s used to be viewed in purely aesthetic terms, but now they can be recast in terms of historical literacy practices and norms in an attempt to “develop a systematic inventory of the constraints they imposed on the artist as an individual creative subject”.

Questioning Bauer's Masculinity With Dr. Freud

Freud would begin to describe Jack Bauer’s masculinity by looking closely at his perversions and transformations coinciding with puberty. During said time of puberty one undergoes an omnipotence of sexuality that basically alters and then controls one’s needs, desires, and social practices. By taking a look at each of these aspects of Bauer’s life, Freud would be able to determine his masculinity (we’ll overlook the present-day perspective).

Freud explains that many people have phallocentric views, and I would argue the same for Jack Bauer. Even though I have not seen more than two episodes of the show, it seems to me that Bauer is empowered by his sense of masculinity, like most men. And because of this, they are afraid to lose their masculinity to that of another male. This may be apparent in Bauer’s line of work for the US government, where the jobs are often given out in ascending rank format. Any male or female can move up or down in the system, but the higher up an individual is, the more power one receives, and that is seen as phallocentric in itself; Bauer’s masculinity is definitely determined because of his placement in his line of work.

Freud could also say that Bauer’s masculinity is also determined by his relationship with his wife. I don’t really know where they stand with each other, but in the pilot episode it seemed to me that they were very unhappy with the relationship circumstance they found themselves in. Toward the end of the pilot episode, the Bauer’s wife befriends one of her daughter’s friend’s father, and this clues in to something they may or may not be occurring between the two of them. In this way, Bauer’s masculinity could be threatened if the other father somehow seduces his wife. In this way he probably overcompensates for the bad relationship he has with his wife to produce more masculine work, such as killing people and stopping explosions, etc.

As it stands, Bauer’s masculinity is determined by many different variables—all of which seemingly changing in time.

Habermas Visits Rwanda

Habermas would respond to “Ghosts of Rwanda” by first responding to the concept of the public sphere in reference to the transmission of information from the film and how it is received. This documentary-style video is exactly what Habermas would refer to as the media of the public sphere, and that public sphere is something in which people can form a public opinion around. I believe the truth of the matter of the “Ghosts of Rwanda” video lies in the Habermas article “The Public Sphere: A Encyclopedia Article” in which he states: “Though mere opinions (cultural assumptions, normative attitudes, collective prejudices and values) seem to persist unchanged in their natural form as a kind of sediment to history, public opinion can by definition only come into existence when a reasoning public is presupposed.” It is the worldly interest in the affairs of Rwanda that similar interests are formed, and through this a public opinion is made.

So in this scenario, the public sphere can be understood as the sphere of public individuals who have assembled in agreement because of the dire cries for help and support from other nations in the world because of the genocides in Rwanda. “Ghosts of Rwanda” is a perfect example of how political documentaries affect the public sphere, as well as other modes of communication. This allows for other people to join in the functioning public sphere and then join the struggle for Rwanda, since after the public sphere went international it then became a principle to follow.

But because of the world we live in today, Habermas had this to say: “The public, which must now mediate these demands, becomes a field for the competition of interests, competitions which assume the form of violent conflict. Laws which obviously have come about under the "pressure of the street"can scarcely still be understood as arising from the consensus of private individuals engaged in public discussion. They correspond in a more or less unconcealed manner to the compromise of conflicting private interests.” In this way, larger more bourgeoisie organizations have to come up with compromises with the state in order to accomplish their needs, and usually this is achieved by ignoring the public sphere altogether. But they must also maintain to have the continued support of the masses, in it is through this “open” support of the public sphere, specifically Rwanda in this case, in which anything can be done.

Hall and "Law and Order"

The way I see Stuart Hall answer how “Law and Order” affects the audience in terms of ideology comes down to how the show is encoded and decoded. For one, the encoding of “Law and Order” entails a specific message pertaining to the certain “institutional practices” and “organizational conditions” of the production. And with this message, the audience will decode it, constructing that message together to form some kind of meaning to them. And it is in this mode of communication where the most work is done, and sometimes a social identity is formed for a member of the audience.

Also, one must take in how the texts of “Law and Order” are broadcasted, whether or not they are intended to be “open” or “closed” texts. Hall would probably say that the show offers a more “closed” text because “Law and Order” tends to have a more heterogeneous audience since diverse decodings occur more.

But I believe Hall’s overall stance on this topic would be that the role of social positioning of mass media texts by different social groups would be mixed. Some people would tend to have a more dominant reading because the way in which the audience interprets the messages. These typical audience members would be absolute fans of the show, and people who believe that the code is either “natural” or “transparent” (the show doesn’t fall out of the realm of disbelief). The negotiated reading of the show is shared by the audience which allows the message to be interpreted in a very limited way. In this way, the viewers probably accept the show but add their own interpretation to modify their position. The viewers who understand the show but directly oppose the reading accept the last type of reading: oppositional. This may be because of a political affiliation associated with the show or some strong moral value.