Author: Kevin Daniel

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I Can Has Material Bodies

The construction of bodies is based on an assumption of materiality which manifests itself in the image of Da Vinci’s sketches of man. With arms and legs, the body is type cast as a spectacle to be witnessed, constructed, and cultivated. The importance of this construction of the body in this manner is we have the privilege of assigning these traits to other objects and animate images. Personification of forms in this manner speaks to our ability to systematically idealize an “imagined other” to reinforce the  traits we value in ourselves.

This academic jargon is a round about way to ground a discussion of LOLcats. Icanhascheezburger.com is an online community in which various posters contribute and caption pictures of adorable cats. I believe that the ways in which we attribute human qualities to the cats is indicative of our nature to cultivate bodies that matter. There is a particular drive in trying to personify cats as human, giving them contextual markers of human-like reactions and even (although adorably misspelled) speech, that we make these bodies bodies that matter – bodies that gain meaning of contextual placement and situational histories. These are taken from generous readings of the visual texts that we apply our own experiential lenses to and draw meaning from.

This cat, for instance, is sitting and looking into a mirror. His position is very atypical of cats and is closer to the posture of a person sitting. But what is more important is the text overlay that points to humanness: vanity, attractiveness, body image, and even self-recognition. These traits work in a way to humanize the cat and make it a body that matters because we can essentially connect with what the cat is asking – validity of attractiveness. The incorporation of body image (the fat) is also a reflexive way in which we think about other bodies because to be honest, hell, how can we say a cat is fat? Are there really standards by which we can measure animals in the same way we measure humans and try to denounce an average as an idealize weight? Do cats even have the same desires to compare versus other cats? I doubt this.

This cat I am using to illustrate the contextual clues that we apply to the bodies as if they are relevant even across situations. This cat is sitting in the bathtub probably mid-meow, but based on the assumed look of shock (fear? surprise?) we attribute to the look and the almost defensive looking pose, we situate the body in the same context as the woman from Pyscho who had been stabbed by Norman Bates. I think it is interesting the way we transpose the meanings of the body to read emotion and intent in the bodies that aren’t even of human nature. By this proximity, we are animating real life to construct a mindset that everything operates in the same nature that the human body does which is problematic. We cannot control or assess the intent of other bodies in the same way, but based on these situational clues, we try to read into images the same meaning we would if they were human – materializing the bodies through history and experience.

 

Or maybe I just need some more cats and accept my fate.

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The Rebellyon

Amanda Palmer (probably my favorite musician, artists, what have you) has a disagreement with the managers of Roadrunner Records, her then point of contact for making music. The short version of  a long story is that for her solo album entitled Who Killed Amanda Palmer? the manager of Roadrunner Records (who also has bands such as Kiss, Korn, Theory of a Deadman, and Nickleback) told her that the video for “Leeds United” would need to be altered because her stomach looked fat. He said according to Palmer, “i’m a guy, amanda. i understand what people like.” The longer version of these events was posted on her blog which is linked here. Amazingly enough, I do believe this is the body he said people would not like:

She proclaimed a return to love the belly, although in her own vanity she was frequently self-conscious of it. After posting a photograph of her belly, many of her fans felt inclined to follow in her actions. At one point there was a website devoted to those pictures (which I can’t happen to find now), but they have been collectively amassed and put on various sites. There have been discussions about how the body should be loved as it is. An interesting take of the Rebellyon is discussed here.

I am actually really saddened by the fact that this occurred because by one man’s standards, the body was judged as if by societal judgement. The amazing thing is that her fan base provided the grounds for substantial protest against the record company (which she was finally able to drop after harsh criticisms). Her body has been put on display by the mediums she works in and it is evident there is a place for politics in this space, but was it fair for the manager to assert the ideal body that her audience would like?

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The Body in Poetry.

 

The video is Andrea Gibson preforming her poem, “I Sing the Body Electric, Especially When the Power’s Out”. I thought this was fantastic because it does self-consciously reflect the ways in which we take our bodies for granted until something is wrong. She points out that she wrote the poem when her body was hurting her – this is a reflexive way to recognize that the body exists. Her poem, however, extends pass that and praises the body as a machine in poetry. The imagery really counts towards her overall message. Body parts are representative of their function and ultimately, their worth.

The body does so much, but we also picture the internal features as something much more pristine. The use of heart beats keeping rhythm, of the mouth as a fire escape, and the smoke in her lungs points to the ability of the internal body to ampify our natural processes. What resonated with me the most were the lines about her injuring her body and the doctor assuming it was for attention. I feel like that’s one of the ground rules we’re expected to take about the body: we’re blessed to have it and should appreciate everything it does, so those who do modify the body are transcending the whole “body is a temple” concept

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The Embodiment of Death

The chapter for next week about the embodiment of death – in terms of finding ground between the ‘body’ and the ‘self’ – resonated with me for various reasons. One of the biggest things I noticed was the unwillingness to deny that a person’s identity has left the body after death, which is a theme that has become prominent in various science fiction stories. Iconic characters such as the vampire or zombie relate the idea that after death we do not have to give up our bodies. Reanimated bodies, such as Frankenstein’s monster, also seem to feed into a belief that the remains of a body can be recycled to create new life (or something similar). Furthermore, the father in Pet Sematary who buried his dead son’s body within the grounds that were known to reanimate bodies did so to cling to the fact that his son would return once again after identity and body united.

These representations in literature and media walk a line between trying to beat death and keeping claim over your body, but ultimately there is something in the characters that lacks humanness. Vampires, zombies, Frankenstein’s monster, and the little dead boy from Pet Sematary all lost their identities after death and were changed completely. Something about the mysterious nature of death – one that we cannot completely have knowledge about, yet we all will experience – feeds into these representations of bodies that face the unknown. The characters definitely find an imbalance between the ‘self’ and ‘body’ being continuously connected, but for the most part these characters illuminate a world where bodies are meat and fodder. Identity may change after the cross between life and death, but the body will withstand composition (albeit disfigured and sutured, I suppose).