Anne Waldman on Pennsound

If you, for some reason, can not make the reading tomorrow...  you can listen and watch Waldman on Pennsound:

http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Waldman.php

Anne Waldman

Hey all - We should be reading Anne Waldman for this class, but at least you get to HEAR her read. In the meantime, take a look on Google Books at Fast Speaking Woman, her feminist CLASSIC!

I'm loving your posts. Keep them coming!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/fashion/after-class-skimpy-equality-motherlode.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

This article takes a current look at feminism and how it's affecting the college campus today. It reminded me of the Simone de Beauvoir we read at many parts, in that many women felt the need to dress up(or down depending on how you look at it...) in order to assert themselves in society, whereas the males have no need to do such things. Men are men, yet women have to choose: to distinguish themselves from all things male, or to associate themselves with masculine characteristics. I am also currently enrolled in a lit class concerned with Fashion and modernity, and through readings of Woolf, Veblen and other theorists, i'm finding that fashion plays an enormous role in feminism, in that it has not changed over the years, or made advances in the respect that women still feel the need to utilize it as a way of making themselves unique, or as a way of projecting success for their male counterpart. The men can show up to the Academy Awards, and will always look 'suave' in a suit and tie, whereas women receive critique, and eventually their dates receive bonus points if the women did a good job dressing themselves that night. My ruminations are a bit scattered here, however I found this article to be thought provoking and relevant.

I found Progressive Dehumanization: to be incredibly and surprisingly persuasive, and enlightening, and I think that this is the case because of the way it was written. Rather than begin the chapter from a 'feminist' standpoint, Friedan addresses problems among children, adolescents, and then general youth of America. While I personally have not experienced this sense of passivity that is described in relation to education in particular, I feel that I have been subconsciously witnessing it every day. In retrospect I can now, unfortunately, place many of my peers into this category of the lifeless and lost. Friedan's logic surprised me in that it was so simple and true: we notice the passivity first in males. I found this to be especially true when I studied abroad in Spain, a country that is notable less developed in terms of feminism and the rights of women in general. A new word has sprung into the Spanish vocabulary to describe the lazy youth; literally translated it means, " To not work or study". Thousands of college aged youth in Spain have recently been categorized into an apathetic group who only feel the need to wake up in the morning, feed themselves, watch tv for entertainment, and then go back to sleep.

When I conducted a survey on campus to better acquaint myself with the consensus of the youth who chose to study, I was frightened to find that of the 5 individuals that I found to be concerned with the situation, only 1 was female. More often than not, the women attending University were not concerned with their course of study, nor were they incredibly passionate about what they were learning. Rather, they were subconsciously reaffirming the social trend of a patriarchal society by admitting to themselves and the general public that after college they would most likely marry, keep house, and work a menial job to create extra income for the family.

Though this example comes from another culture, I can't help but also think that many of my collegiate peers allow themselves to set the bar lower from the start of their college careers, because they never anticipated having a full fledged career. How could you when ultimately there will be children to take care of? As I think back I can even remember faint snippets of conversations i've overheard in which the going gets tough, so women change their majors. Could this be a direct result of the apathy explained by Friedan? My ruminations may seem incredibly simplistic, however I have never(until now perhaps) considered myself a feminist thinker or expert, and I found this second chapter to be incredibly enlightening even if only on a personally psychological level.

Feminism in my Childhood

As I have openly admitted in the past, my experience and knowledge with so-called "feminism" is at best limited but arguably, nonexistent. So I'm not gonna lie, when I saw we were assigned readings from "The Feminine Mystique" my first thought was....10 Things I Hate About You! For those who don't know, Cat (the main character from the movie) is easily argued as a stereotypical feminist, even though her extremist attitude eventually falters under the influence of the adorable Heath Ledger. With these preconceptions, it is understandable that I was anxiously excited to read a section from the infamous novel essential to this classically cheesy teen-romance movie. However, it was not necessarily what I expected.

I was intrigued by all the statistics surrounding the women's movement, specifically the changing percentages of women out in the workforce and women seeking higher education. Admittedly, the testimony and information surrounding women's general lack of satisfaction in regards to their meticulous lives around the house was not very surprising. Not that I don't believe this can be fulfilling to a woman. Personally, one of my important goals for the future is to be a good mother and wife, however, it is rarely surprising to hear that any group of people is dissatisfied when they are subject to a position by societal pressure rather than choice. On a separate issue, I was pleasantly surprised with how easy the text read as I assumed it would be fairly inaccessible and lofty. The diction and information was concise and informative though which I find to be one of the easiest means of conveying pertinent information. The biggest thing this text did for me though, was make me wonder about the role and influences women had on me as a child while I was growing up.

What came to mind first, and arguably one of the more obvious influences, was Barbie dolls. As a child, my mom refused to buy me a Barbie because she didn't think it was healthy for a young girl's self-image. This train of thought made me look up the statistics of a Barbie (which I'm sure we've all heard before but here they are again just for giggles):

11.5" = 5'9"

36 inch chest

18 inch waist

33 inch hips

Basically, Barbie is rocking practically impossible measurements for a normal human being. Additionally, "slumber party" Barbie from 1965 came with a scale that permanently read 110 pounds....35 pounds underweight for a woman of her height and therefore fitting her in the weight criteria for anorexia. None of this was new information to me and it's sad to say that the statistics don't surprise me.

The other childhood influence that immediately came to mind was Disney. I love the movies as much as the next person but the body figures of any of those princesses give even Barbie a run for money sometimes. However, the influence of these movies goes beyond, body-image insecurities. Each movie depicts the love story of a young girl, which speaks to Friedan's point of societal influence to marry and settle down as a young woman (before it's no longer an option). As it read in the article, in the late 1950's "the average marriage age of women in America dropped to 20...Fourteen million girls were engaged by 17." Now this is a statistic I found shocking. And it was horrifying to realize Disney discretely promotes these similar pressures even in today's society. It is no wonder all those women were becoming depressed as they progressed in their married years....they hadn't had a chance to do anything with their lives! It's upsetting to think that young girls are still indirectly experiencing similar influences without anyone ever really realizing it or do anything to rectify the situation.

Basically, Friedan's piece made me think. It's interesting to consider all the different role models that influence our lives, particularly as young girls, a time in our lives when we are incredibly impressionable. I hesitate to sound like a "rabid" feminist, particularly knowing I have such little knowledge thus far on what exactly that means (or if it has a concrete definition as argued in hooks' article). However, I think it's fair to say I was possibly a little disappointed with these negative influences on young kids, so maybe I have more in line with the "feminine mindset" than I initially anticipated.....

"There are the occasions that men—intellectual men, clever men, engaged men—insist on playing devil’s advocate, desirous of a debate on some aspect of feminist theory or reproductive rights or some other subject generally filed under the heading: Women’s Issues. These intellectual, clever, engaged men want to endlessly probe my argument for weaknesses, want to wrestle over details, want to argue just for fun—and they wonder, these intellectual, clever, engaged men, why my voice keeps raising and why my face is flushed and why, after an hour of fighting my corner, hot tears burn the corners of my eyes. Why do you have to take this stuff so personally? ask the intellectual, clever, and engaged men, who have never considered that the content of the abstract exercise that’s so much fun for them is the stuff of my life."

-Melissa McEwan (See the rest of the article here.)

In addition: Orpheus Plays The Bronx

I came across this poem by Reginald Shepherd and thought it would be interesting to share with the class.

Orpheus Plays The Bronx

When I was ten (no, younger

than that), my mother tried

to kill herself (without the facts

there can't be faith). One death

or another every day, Tanqueray bottles

halo the bed and she won't wake up

all weekend. In the myth book's color

illustration, the poet turns around

inside the mouth of hell to look at her

losing him (because it's not her fault

they had to meet there): so he can keep her

somewhere safe, save her place

till she comes back. Some say

she stepped on an asp, a handful of pills

littered the floor with their blues,

their red and yellow music. Al Green

was on the radio. (You were

at school, who's ever even seen

an asp?) It bruised her heel

purple and black. So death

could get some color to fill out

his skin, another bony white boy

jealous of all her laugh too loud, her

That's my song when Barry White

comes on. He's just got

to steal it, he can't resist

a bad pun, never never gonna give her

up, or back. The pictures don't prove

anything, but one thing I remember

about the myth's still true:

the man can't live if she does.

She survived to die for good.

I'm not a feminist, but...

I’m not a feminist…

Mostly because I have no idea what that means. Because of the strong connotations and ideas with the word, it's suggests something radical, passionate, and something that you should really know something about if you're going to take on this identity.

I’ve never really taken a class on the subject and I’ve never felt personally subjected to any serious oppression. To be honest, it hasn’t been very high on my list of woes. In the western world (or at least my western world), aside from an occasional catcall or vulgar hollers while walking down the street, the surface of daily life is pretty much unmarked. In general we can vote, we can work; we can wear really whatever we want and nothing is restricted to me as woman except for the sign on the Men's restroom. So yes, daily life is probably not awful for a white, middle-class woman. But then, there’s all the things hidden beneath the surface that is more difficult to notice-which the handout in class brought to light showing many facts that reveal that women are in fact still unequal.

I’ve Googled and Wikipidia-ed, finding many historical facts and theoretical definitions. However, I’m still uncertain of the why and what do we do? Why is this idea important, or more so than other?

After searching some general info about the topic of feminism, I still feel a little disconnected from the subject—Maybe because an objective point of view fails to give any solid definition. But isn’t this the exact problem bell hooks addresses? After reading hooks article, I found it very informative about the theoretical standpoint to feminism as well as the critique within it, but still it left a lot open to questions.

Why is it so difficult to define feminism? Why have women become the lesser sex but still vary so much in culture class and backgrounds? Yet they still need to ban together.

Ultimately, it comes down to the definition of equality—which can never really be concrete. What does this mean to a white, educated upper class woman compared to a working class minority woman to a woman in the Middle East?

…And then there are the women, who are perfectly content in their traditional roles.

As I was trying to google a little bit about feminism in general, this headline was particularly grabbing…if not amusing.

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/Feminism/feminism_is_evil.htm

The argument was hardly convincing, the evils of feminism supported mostly by Bible quotes. In this day and age, “because God says so”, is not held with the same authority as it once did. The site isn't very constructive or valid, but this just reveals another radical notion that is felt not even by men, but other women.

However, this made me wonder who is truly the enemy to the feminist movement—a movement aimed towards equality and positivity to the female gender. Is it these fiercely anti-feminists or is it the ones who fall by the wayside? Those who won’t associate with the idea of “feminism” because of the stigma attached. Those who are afraid to state any strong beliefs or feelings because of what the word “feminism” evokes. Thus, any hope in achieving a “feminist movement” may need to convince those in the middle, rather than those on the opposing side.

One thing thing that caught my eye in the "Combahee River Collective Statement," was the fact that the Collective of Black women claims solidarity with Black males, but not with white women.

The Combahee River Collective formed as a response to negative and racist actions against Black women from the white-dominated feminist movement. These Black women did not feel unity with the white women's movement because of the oppression they experienced within it. They felt they had their own battles to fight, specifically, as Black women.

While these women did not feel connected to the oppressive, mainly white, feminist movement, they did feel so connected to Black men. The Statement says, "Although we are feminists and Lesbians, we feel solidarity with progressive Black men and do not advocate the fractionalization that white women who are separatists demand" (2). However, the Collective also recognized that they were in a struggle against the oppression put on them by those very same Black men. "We struggle together with Black men against racism, while we also struggle with Black men about sexism," it says. They defended this by saying that racism can only be fought if all Blacks fight it together.

And what about the women's movement? How can female oppression be fought without all women coming together to shed light on the problem? This reminds me of Simone de Beauvoir's essay in which she points out that it is difficult for women to unify under a single stance because they feel more attached to their male counterparts than they do to other women.

These two essays show that feminism is more complicated than it looks. Within the group of "women," there are so many other factions that separate them--class, race, politics, etc. Is it possible for women to overcome these things that divide their cause and work together to begin to counter female oppression? Or will these divisions take precedence over feminism, such as in the Combahee River Collective?

I advocate feminism.

Towards the end of bell hooks essay she tells how she has changed the way she expresses her relationship to feminism. Instead of indentifying herself as a feminist, she says “I advocate feminism.” She explains that “I advocate vs. I am does not participate in the either/or dualistic thinking that is the centered ideological component of all systems of domination.” I think this addresses the discussion we had at the beginning of class about people’s aversion to the term feminist. While seemingly people simply wish to avoid the negative connotations that come with the word, hooks alludes to a deeper ideological component that has come to taint the word enough to drive people not only from its usage, but from the political dimension of the movement to end sexist oppression (as hooks defines the goal of feminism). I would be interested in looking more deeply into how the “either/or dualistic” thinking has come to color the language of the feminist movement, and concomitantly how that has affected how the movement has thus far transpired. Perhaps this might lead me to a better understanding of the importance of poetry as a medium for breaking free from a lexicon born of the: “white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal class structure,” that hooks points out as the forces that conspire to form the world the feminist movement currently engages.

“I am not Jasmine, I am Aladdin”—finding or losing the “we” of women

We touched on this briefly in class, but I’d like to discuss in more detail what I found to be one of the most interesting observations that Simone de Beauvoir makes in “The Second Sex,” and that is the “We”—or lack thereof”—of women. Beauvoir describes how men band together under the “we” of their sect—their race, their class, etc.—and by doing this they make their counterpart, “the bourgeois, the whites, into ‘others’.” She writes, “But women do not say ‘We,’ except at some congress of feminists or similar formal demonstration; men say ‘women’ and women use the same word in referring to themselves.” This observation, which I believe to be true, points to so many levels of the ingrained oppression of women. By not using “We”, women do not join together to make their oppressors the “other.” By not involving themselves in the “We” of women, women are, in fact, separating themselves from “woman”—they make “women”, of which they are one, into “other.”

One of the major problems that I notice within feminism is that it is hard for women to stop this “othering” of themselves, even when they are challenging the system of dominance of men over women. I think that it is common for women to desire and work to have the same rights and opportunities as men but sometimes, if we are not careful, this turns into a struggle to join the “We” of men. If the “we” is that of all humanity, then that is okay. But it does not help the feminist cause to say, “look, I am not like ‘them,’ I’m like you, so I deserve the same.”

This is all very theoretical, so here is an example that I find distressing.

Nowhere is the oppression and mistreatment of women more apparent than in rap music. In so many examples, women are objectified and disrespected to a shocking extreme.

But there are some women within hip hop who challenge this oppression. Here they run into a difficult problem. How does a woman step into a highly-masculinized role and subvert it without joining the other side?

Look at Nicki Minaj. Nicki is one of the few female MCs ever to not only release her own successful rap album. She also has appeared alongside some of the most prominent male artists in the industry. She does not sing some flighty chorus while these men rap around her about getting girls (many female artists do this). Nicki holds her own verses with equal (and perhaps greater) skill.

See her verse in Kanye’s Monster:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ona42jz8w0k

And yet, Nicki still falls into one of the greatest traps of taking on this role. She allows herself to join the men. In her song, “Roman’s Revenge,” Nicki takes on the identity of Roman—a man. She begins the song:

I am not Jasmine, I’m Aladdin
So far ahead, these bums is laggin’
See me in that new thing, bums is gaggin’
I’m startin’ to feel like a dungeon dragon

(to hear the song, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9h_I90M8-M)

I like Nicki Minaj. I think she challenges a hyper-masculine part of our culture. Yet I am disappointed that to do this she identifies as a man. She writes, “I am not Jasmine, I am Aladdin.” She is joining the male “we” instead of asserting both her femininity—and her fundamental humanness—as deserving of equal respect.

All of this goes to demonstrate that these observations that are made by the theorists that we study are real and true. It is amazing to me that what Beauvoir noticed in 1949 is still true of pop culture today. What I admire about poetry, about Sylvia Plath, Haryette Mullen, and others, is that they assert, often through exploration, what it means to be a woman. They do not try to escape. They build up the “We” of womanhood. I wish this were true of rap, reality T.V. and the rest of mainstream pop culture.

But I want to be loved because I am. That's all.

I am a big Eileen Myles fan, so I wanted to juxtapose her essay, Being Female, with her new novel, Inferno because both offer a perspective on feminism that I was not familiar with until now.

In Being Female, Myles gives her opinion on where she believes women fit in the writing and publishing world and why this is.

Here is the link to the full essay: http://www.theawl.com/2011/02/being-female

Some excerpts I found interesting:
"So I try to conjure that for myself particularly when I’m writing or saying something that seems both vulnerable and important so I don’t have to be defending myself so hard. I try and act like its mine. The culture. That I’m its beloved son. It’s not an impossible conceit. But it’s hard. Because a woman, reflexively, often feels unloved" 

Here, Myles describes how she builds up the courage to present her work/speak in front of audiences. She thinks of men she admires deeply (like Paolo Pasolini) and wonders how they were able to do such amazing things in the midst of so much hate being put upon them. Myles believes men like Pasolini were able to prevail because they were loved. Therefore, Myles achieves her public speaking courage from influential men because culturally they are always loved. She becomes an embodiment of a man in this way. 

"Speaking frankly as a lesbian I have to say that the salient fact about the danger zone I call home is the persistent experience of witnessing the quick revulsion of people who believe that because I love women I am a bottom feeder. I am desperately running towards what anyone in their right mind would be running away from. Which is femaleness, which is failure. And one does after all want to be read as a man. As a man who is a woman perhaps. Can’t we just all be men and some have these genitals and some have those"


This excerpt is more self-explanatory. Myles makes the point that to be a woman means to be less valuable, especially in terms of publishing. In Being Female, Myles displays the same pie chart we all received on the first day of class, which displayed authors reviewed in 2010 by the New York Times. Men exceeding women reviews by almost double. By removing women from the "public reflection" to Myles is to say, "she doesn't know or I don't care if she thinks she knows." This removal as a result of "femaleness" is failure to Myles, therefore she rejects it and chooses to be read like "a man who is a woman." She carries herself with this same mentality and it is made obvious in the excerpt below.


An excerpt from Inferno: (178)

A thing that was always so difficult about feminism was that it didn’t contain a boy. Nobody wanted to deal with that part, so I just always felt dirty and poor. A boy was my secret part, so where should I put that? Even if I was a feminist I would still have a evil secret baby. Myself. I wrote a poem called Misogyny. Not for the book, I mean I had it hanging around so I sent it to them. It expressed my confusion. It was punk. Misogyny got rejected. I was destroyed. How would I ever get to be female. What was I? (178)

Again Myles brings up the idea of "a man who is a woman" presented in her essay, Being Female. It is hard for Myles to be a feminist because it did not include the male parts of her that helped her survive as a female. Myles' way of dealing with femininity and being female is though her "secret part" of boy. She can never see herself as female if she is not allowed to embrace the boy contained within her.


Being Female and Inferno were interesting to me because what Myles is essentially doing is rejecting parts of feminism like embracing her womanhood in order to become more of a feminist, which is to be different and to fight against those who believe women are not as legitimate as men. This approach interests me because Myles often comments on how without her "evil secret baby" she is just dirty and poor. This makes sense because she grew up during the time of second wave feminism and we know from reading the The Second Sex in class that working class and uneducated individuals were sort of "othered" from this movement and Myles puts herself into this category (and is seen in much of her writing).

So, my question to the class is do you think Myles is promoting inequality between men and women or helping feminism progress in a positive direction?

'The Feminine Mystique' Review, from the nytimes, April 7, 1963

After reading the first chapter of 'The Feminine Mystique', how can one not have sympathy for the women afflicted by 'the problem'? Is it real? I am inclined to think that it was. I especially like her observation that the maladies associated with the housewife (sores, depression, feeling anxious and exhausted all day) have little to do with economic or social status: "part of the strange newness of the problem is that it cannot be understood in terms of the age-old material problems of man: poverty, sickness, hunger, cold", and that "it may not even be felt by women preoccupied with desperate problems of hunger, poverty or illness. And women who think it will be solved by more money, a bigger house, a second car, moving to a better suburb, often discover it gets worse". I think that several decades of observation and research have at least shown that 'the problem' was/is indeed real.

Not everyone agreed, however. Below is a New York Times review of 'The Feminine Mystique', also written by a woman, Lucy Freeman, that was published the same year as 'The Feminine Mystique':

Millions of American women stand victim of "the feminine mystique," a philosophy that has convinced them that their only commitment is the fulfillment of a femininity found in "sexual passivity, male domination and nurturing maternal love." They are dangerous in that, unable to find their real selves, they feed emotionally on their children -- thus crippling them -- and are unable to satisfy their husbands because they cannot enjoy sex for sex's sake. They try to relieve their feelings of depression and emptiness by seeking "strained glamor." They have won the battle for suffrage but little else. This is the damning indictment levelled by Betty Friedan in her highly readable, provocative book.

The core of her thesis is that woman's problem today is not sexual but a problem of identity. "Our culture does not permit women to accept or gratify their basic need to grow and fulfill their potentialities as human beings, a need which is not solely defined by their sexual role."

Sweeping generalities, in which this book necessarily abounds, may hold a certain amount of truth but often obscure the deeper issues. It is superficial to blame the "culture" and its handmaidens, the women's magazines, as she does. What is to stop a woman who is interested in national and international affairs from reading magazines that deal with those subjects? To paraphrase a famous line, "The fault, dear Mrs. Friedan, is not in our culture, but in ourselves."

Having read only a couple chapters out of the book, it would be impossible for me to agree with or to refute what the reviewer has to say. However, I will say that after reading chapter 12, I found myself in disagreement with quite a number of the assertions made by Mrs. Friedan, which I'll save for class.

Sounds of Sylvia

As many of you already know or finding out for the first time, Plath brings the sounds of her words to the forefront of her poetry. It is almost trite to say, but to truly appreciate her writing is to read it out loud. Plus, certain sounds residing inside her writing seems to make me smile. Try saying "Stasis in darkness. / Then the substanceless blue / Pour of tor and distances" fast and intelligibly. The coupling of enjambment and sound forces the pace to a near halt. The "pour of tor" conjures an image of a thick moving substance like syrup or black tar. I have no definitive reading of this poem, or the exact significance of these opening lines, but nonetheless, they are remarkable in of themselves.

Her focus on sound is no exception in another famous poem, "Daddy".

I hope that this recording will help us all come to a deeper understanding of this piece. Here is a clip:

The "ooo" sound has a multitude of functions within this poem. I would like to discuss specifically how it is associated with the subject of the poem, the speaker's father. Since the first word is "you", then that sound, which reoccurs throughout, has a direct association to the father. Plath is showing through sound, how the presence of the father looms over all aspects of the speaker's struggles. The "ooo" sound finds its way into an "Achoo" and "Ach, du" which has syntactic and aural similarity to "Dachau". When Plath writes, "they stuck me together with glue", the "ooo" sound inside "glue" subtly suggests that the speaker is created and held together by the masculine image of the father. Plath allows the presence of the daddy to transcendence its literal definition when he is compared to a "vampire". He becomes almost immortal and there needs to be "a stake in [his] fat black heart". The monster haunts the town. She conveys the feeling that he can't be killed, the presence of the father can never really go away; just as the "ooo" sound will never escape the poem.

I would love to talk more about this poem in class. I think there is a whole lot of potential for some interesting readings.

-Stephen

Any St. Vincent fans? This is a great new video. An interesting inditement of domesticity.

More Plath stuff

And then, there is this:

http://www.english.illinois.edu/MAPS/poets/m_r/plath/plath.htm

For those who are getting excited about Sylvia Plath, which I hope is all of you, here is something interesting to read: The essay (blog post) complicates easy readings of Plath's feminism.

http://www.sapphireblue.com/writing/plath.html

Anne Sexton at Home

A rare clip of Anne Sexton, who, along with Sylvia Plath, pushed the limits of poetry during the 195o's and 60's. It is interesting to compare the two women, whose lives follow so similar a trajectory. The interpersonal struggle against depression is apparent in each poet's work and each provides an incomparable insight into femininity and depression.

DREAMING THE BREASTS
Anne Sexton

Mother,

strange goddess face

above my milk home,

that delicate asylum,

I ate you up.

All my need took

you down like a meal.

What you gave

I remember in a dream:

the freckled arms binding me,

the laugh somewhere over my wholly hat,

the blood fingers tying my shoe,

the breasts hanging like two bats

and then darting at me,

bending me down.

The breasts I knew at midnight

beat like the sea in me now.

Mother, I put bees in my mouth

to keep from eating

yet it did no good.

In the end they cut off your breasts

and milk poured from them

into the surgeon's hand

and he embraced them.

I took them from him

and planted them.

I have put a padlock

on you, Mother, dear dead human,

so that your great bells,

those dear white ponies,

can go galloping, galloping,

wherever you are.

Two Controversial Films.

Dušan Makavejev's Sweet Movie

http://www.criterion.com/films/552-sweet-movie

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/487-sweet-movie-wake-up

I highly recommend this utterly gratuitous film by Makavejev. I've never seen another film so loaded with perversity and sexuality. A beauty pageant hymen inspection, a female pedophile, a commune singing Ode to Joy to their excrement, and a naked woman bathing in chocolate for tv cameras are among the highlights. There are endless topics for discussion here. They have a copy of this in the Norlin DVD collection as well as at Video Station if you're interested.

some scenes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbCO3HEylRk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQnTmEKQHQ4

Vilgot Sjöman's I Am Curious–Yellow

http://www.criterion.com/films/728-i-am-curiousyellow?q=autocomplete

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/502-sex-and-politics-an-interview-with-vilgot-sjoman

Less carnivalesque and more cinema verité than Sweet Movie, I Am Curious is concerned with the same themes of sex and socialism, but is a totally different movie and experience. 1/3 documentary, 1/3 intimate character study, and 1/3 rumination on film, this movie is even more hyperreal than it seems at first. It takes a lot of patience to watch all the way through, but I think its worth it. Norlin and Video Station have this one as well.

Dear class:

This is your blog. Use it! Respond to the reading. Ask each other questions. Post links to interesting things related to the class. Write mini essays. Post poems or poem analysis. Use it!