HON 394: Looking for Love @jbcannatelli - Tumblr Blog

Challenge Post #17

Reflecting on our discussion regarding the difference between Lars’ love for Bianca and Margo’s love for her teddy bear, have you ever loved an inanimate object (a stuffed toy, a book, a certain blanket, a prized object from a loved one, etc.)? Discuss how that loved manifest(s/ed) itself and in what way(s) that object or your love for it impacting your relationship with yourself or others.

jbcannatelli

As a child I had a teddy bear that was purchased for me on the day I was born and given to me first thing when I got home from the hospital.

I was attached to it for a long while, but as I grew up and got less interested in stuffed animals, it was my parents who really wanted to maintain a strong connection between me and my bear. Eventually they successfully got me attached to it again, just before my dog got to it and ripped out its eye XD I never felt attached enough to it to be angry at my dog, though.

sonnetsareforlovers

Challenge Post #18

(This is the last challenge post!)

Find an online dating site or download a mobile dating app that you have not used before. You do not need to generate a profile (unless you want to), but I do want you spend some time looking around. What kinds of profile questions are asked? How is the site/app advertised or marketed? What does its interface tell you about how the app functions? Who is the app/site designed for? Are there testimonials or reviews that discuss the site/apps’ “success stories”? Do the creators share anywhere on the site or app why they decided to create the app/site?

jbcannatelli

I looked at Bumble for this challenge post.

The website for the app, and the app itself uses a really clean, minimal aesthetic. One interesting aspect of its marketing is its emphasis on the apps non-dating uses: making close friends and finding business opportunities. A really cool part of the website is how it doesn’t talk to a general audience. Taglines like “make the first move” and “kiss cat fishing goodbye” indicate that the website is speaking to women specifically, which feels like unique from understanding of online dating sites.

When making an account, the app repeatedly asks to link with Facebook, and its website promises a photo-verification system that ensures you are who you say you are. These functions seem to indicate that the app is less interested in anonymity than other app-based dating tech seem to be. Like the other functions of the app, the emphasis on identity verification probably stems from the goal of creating a safe dating environment.

Bumble does advertise success stories of the app, but these stories seem downplayed compared to apps like tinder or browser based dating sites. I would assume this is because Bumble is trying to emphasize its new, non-romantic functions.

You've never seen a pillow fight quite like this.

#the misandrists

sonnetsareforlovers

Challenge Post #16

Should cisgender actors be cast in trans* roles? Why or why not? What about straight actors in gay or lesbian roles? Are these even equivalent questions?

jbcannatelli

I think these aren’t equivalent questions only because I feel like, perhaps inaccurately, that there’s some inherent difference between sexuality and gender identity. At the very least both identities have different representational histories that deserve their own debates.

I’m not entirely satisfied with my answer here, but I think as long as trans actors are repeatedly not given roles for cis characters, trans characters should exclusively be given trans actors. The fantasy, utopian answer is to say everyone should be able to play anyone, but I think working in a gender/identity blind mindset would only lead to cis actors playing trans characters more than the alternative.

From witches to FBI agents to serial killers, TV has always been a welcoming place for romance.

#the x-files

“The Kids Are Alright”

I really appreciated the discussion in class today. I walked away from The Kids Are Alright with a handful of smaller issues, but overall I really liked the film. I don’t think my overall enjoyment of the film has changed, but I’m glad I heard so many complains of the film. It definitely made me re-evaluate a lot of my own opinions.

I think the main reason I liked the movie is because I actually liked the characters, though when their likability was questioned in class I couldn’t think of why. I think I felt a sort of history behind all of the main family members, that they were happier together and were nicer, but had been worn by long relationships. I could have been projecting my own backstories onto these people (the film never provides enough backstories to give us a clear indication of who these people used to be), but something about it clicked.

Secretary

I’m sure we’ll talk about Fifty Shades of Grey in class anyway, but I thought I’d mention just how different that series feels from Secretary. Fifty Shades of Grey takes itself too seriously for us to take it any seriously, but Secretary has a lot of fun with its premise (it is billed as a comedy, after all) which makes it feel so much more transgressive.

The difference in protagonists is also really fascinating. Where in Fifty Shades of Grey, Christian’s sexual preferences are the ‘dark underbelly’ of the series’ romance, the sadomasochism is the appeal in Secretary - everything else about James Spader’s character is kind of banal.

sonnetsareforlovers

Challenge Post #13

How does representing queer identity/love/relationships change in terms of any of the (primarily) American conventions of love/sex/relationships we’ve been discussing in class all semester when portrayed in an international context? Use either Happy Together or Unveiled to reflect on this question.

jbcannatelli

Both Happy Together and Unveiled both bucked the typical American conventions of both the happy romantic ending and sexuality as the main source of conflict in a romantic story.

As we’ve discussed a few times in class, Hollywood romance films tend to have a happy or positive ending that either sees its main characters end up together or finding happiness through some other means. The international films we watched in class didn’t follow this trend, though Happy Together‘s ending does edge toward the second type of happy ending. I’d argue that, while HT’s ending hints towards a positive future for two of its characters, it leaves one of its three leads in a questionable state and doesn’t have the solid, tangible promise that its characters are happy that a typical Hollywood film would give us. Unveiled’s ending has its two romantic leads separated by international boarders and leaves its main character in the awful predicament they had been trying to escape for the entire movie, giving us only the slightest hope that they could make it out.

Happy Together and Unveiled also avoid making sexuality the main source of conflict in their stories. Though their main character’s sexuality are part of the exposition that brought the characters to their predicaments, the main narratives in both films are about external pressures unrelated to sexuality. Characters’ sexualities also never questioned, at least not directly.

“Will and Grace”

I’m in an LGBTQ* and TV class at the moment, and we’ve talked a good bit about Will and Grace throughout. There are a lot of quotes of people talking about how important Will and Grace was for the acceptance of gay people in the United States.

Though the show is problematic in its humor (sometimes it feels like the show othering more than embracing Jack’s character specifically), I think it does a great job caring about representational issues.

“The Big Sick”

the big sick, besides being crazy adorable, works as a view of, what I think, will be the future of the romantic comedy. Sure, there have been romantic comedies about different culture before, but I can’t think of one that so carefully interrogates the intersection between two different cultures and love. If the last quarter of 2017 (and the box office success of Black Panther) are telling us anything, it’s that box office audiences are interested in films about cultures outside of white America and western Europe, and I’m sure we’ll see the romantic comedy genre take advantage of that in the coming years.

sonnetsareforlovers

Challenge Post #10

Time for the question I keep trying to ask in class! The idea behind the “burden of representation” is twofold (by the way, the idea comes, in part, from the cultural theorist Stuart Hall, to give credit where credit is due):

that if there’s only one token minority character (or very few) in a certain visual/media landscape or narrative, then that character bears the burden of representing all members of their community in terms of how the majority views that community (e.g. if most sitcoms feature white families and there’s only one that features an Asian family, it becomes easier to read that one, lone example as representative of an entire community)

that some people think media producers bear a certain responsibility for representing members of their own community or other minority communities in a “good light” in order to dispel stereotypes and negative connotations perhaps already associated (often irrationally) with that community

So, given that definition, reflect on whether or not the concept of the “burden of representation” applies to Tangerine. Should Baker have worried about issues of so-called good vs. bad representations of transgender sex workers or does that question (about representation) rest on a flawed assumption? In what ways do the characters (or the narrative) maintain or destabilize mainstream stereotypes around transgender sex workers?

jbcannatelli

For the most part, I agree with Stuart Hall’s thoughts as they’re represented here, with one major caveat. Often, when a film or series has only a single character representing an ethnicity, race, faith, gender, or sexuality, that character does end up representing the entirety of that demographic; however, to me this is mostly a problem with stereotyping rather than a general rule for every representation.

Stereotyping reduces a character to a simplistic depiction of an aspect of their identity. A show like The Simpsons reduces Apu to a collection of South Asian stereotypes. Because of this simplistic representation, Apu does become the series’ shorthand for every person of South Asian descent.

Tangerine avoids this issue by making its transgender characters fully fledged people who are not reduced to simplistic characterizations of transgender individuals. Alexandria and Sin-Dee have unique perspectives, opinions, personalities, goals, and flaws. This frees them from bearing the responsibility of representing an entire group: they’re individuals, not metaphors.

In terms of how Tangerine deals with trans sex worker stereotypes, the film does not paint its heroes as clear-cut victims or villains. They’re clearly not villains (who could they possibly have victimized in this films?), and they have a fair amount of control over their situation. That’s not to say that the film does not sympathize with where they find themselves.

Indie Media Response: “Junior” S1 E1-4

Junior, a web series by Zoe Cassavetes for media company Blackpills, is all about perspective, vocalizing opinions, and agency. Its narrative’s main focus is about a high school filmmaker, Logan, and her newest project: a pseudo-documentary (inspired by Logan’s love of French New Wave filmmaking) about her friend Jess becoming a “bad girl.”

Junior borrows the definition of bad girl from urban dictionary: a girl who does whatever they want without worrying what others think. The series, and Logan herself, are concerned with the meaning behind the adjective “bad” being used to describe this type of person. Throughout the series Logan encounters various moralizers (mostly men) who deem her behavior inappropriate and her main goal seems to be pushing back against those voices.

Social media, film, and the camera are major motifs throughout the series’ first four episodes. Where most of the high school sees social media as a way to appeal to others, Logan uses it as a tool to spread her own voice. Likewise, her constant filming with her iPhone camera reflects her agency in observation. The series addresses who controls what perspectives are shared in our media landscape through an early scene in the second episode. Logan shares some of her footage with an LA producer, Rick, who questions what Logan’s message is. Here he represents a media gate keeper, a straight, white, cis-gendered man who Logan must appeal to in order to have her voice heard.

Cassavetes’ series also discusses agency in love more directly. An episode four scene has Jess revealing that she has no idea what she wants out of sex. To her, sex has always been about pleasing a man. Logan argues against this idea, encouraging Jess to explore her own desires over that of her boyfriend. The series walks a fine line here. While I haven’t finished the series yet, it seems to avoid turning Jess into a nymphomaniac caricature or simply selfish. The possibility exists for a symbiotic sexual relationship between a man and a woman, but Logan and Jess have to deal with men whose personalities do not allow for female agency.

On how “Tangerine‘s” emphasis on navigation

We briefly talked Tangerine’s emphasis on characters walking around LA in class and that aspect of the film mentioned in a few reviews too, so I thought I’d share my thoughts on it.

Initially the walking around wasn’t something I really registered, if only because soundtrack is blaring over most of the film’s walking sequences. Now that I’m thinking about it, those sequences of navigation made the world feel more alive than it would have if they were missing. It helped me relate to the characters more, though I can’t really articulate why. Something about the way we get to see them alone.

The navigation also makes us more aware of LA as a setting that these characters actually have to live in. Baker’s 2017 film The Florida Project also uses walking around the world as a way to highlight its characters’ environment as small but dense with detail.

Spike Lee is a filmmaker I’ve revered for a while now partly because of his commitment to empathy and understanding throughout his films, especially in Do The Right Thing, my favorite film of his.

Lee spends a lot of time trying to get viewers to empathize with often deeply flawed people. Not to condone their every thought or action, but to see where they’re coming form.

The original She’s Gotta Have it falls short in this area for me. It’s not that I can’t see what Lee is trying to do, it’s just that we don’t spend enough time with Nola or any of the characters to really understand their perspectives.

She’s Gotta Have It

I like a lot of Spike Lee’s films, including this one, though I do think the TV show is a bit of an improvement if only because Lee had refined his craft at that point, not to mention the diverse writing staff he brought on for that project.

As a carry-over from the last class, this film, and the new series, have depictions of sex far more explicit than what we typically see in popular media. While both the film and the show are about sexual relationships, the sex scenes do not explicitly further the plot (the nature of any conflict rarely changes). They do have the effect of both humanizing the characters on screen and normalizing sex in general. Sex is a part of She’s Gotta Have It in the same way it’s a part of our world, only the fiction is much more open about it than we are.

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

HON 394: Looking for Love