#affect aliens

[33spidey4eva33]

Affect Aliens in The Hunger Games Series

I think that there are many characters who can be assumed as Affect Aliens in The Hunger Games but I believe that out of all the characters that could be one, is Haymitch Abernathy.

Haymitch constantly goes against the expectations of others because he does not want what the Capital expects of him. His rebellious nature towards Panem was shown even during his Hunger Games, the 50th, when he went against the expectations of the Capital and used their own weapons against another tribute. The forcefield border of the arena itself. This is why Haymitch's family is murdered--he went against their expectations and used their own weapons for himself.

The death of his family among other things such as having to watch people you know be murdered or kill them yourself, caused Haymitch to hate and go against The Capital intensely. (Probably more so than before because a lot of the districts despise The Capital and The Games) He drinks excessively because he is depressed and angry at the situation he is in that he feels he can never escape. Haymitch is a drunk and therefore he goes against the expectations of others and even hinders the tributes he helps. The expectations of a Victor is to be seen as better than common district people and he is somewhat because of his money, he is still considered a slob and embarrasses District 12.

But Haymitch uses others to defy what The Capital expects of him. He uses the Star Crossed Lovers, Katniss and Peeta, to defy The Capital, because as long as they seem to be in love and Panem believes them, they could not be outright killed. (Eventually starting a revolution, blah blah blah) Haymitch is not someone who likes to be controlled and because he has nothing to really lose, has suffered plenty because of The Capital, is an Affect Alien because he does not want the life of a Victor, and he does not want to play into their games.

[dustedddreams]

Sara Ahmed wrote this wonderful article that spoke to me on many different levels. She writes in a way that is easy to understand, but that is also quite profound. It helped me write a difficult email to my mother about my sexuality and how my being wilful about it has caused us both pain. I think this article was quite timely in helping me organise my thoughts. One of the things I loved about this was that she addressed sexism and racism and homophobia and classicism. And she even talked about Bend it Like Beckham. What's not to love? So here are three paragraphs from the entire article that really spoke to me. Go and read the rest of it and I'm sure you'll find something too.

To be willing to go against a social order, which is protected as a moral order, a happiness order is to be willing to cause unhappiness, even if unhappiness is not your cause. To be willing to cause unhappiness might be about how we live an individual life (not to choose "the right path" is readable as giving up the happiness that is presumed to follow that path). Parental responses to coming out, for example, can take the explicit form not of being unhappy about the child being queer but of being unhappy about the child being unhappy. Even if you do not want to cause the unhappiness of those you love, a queer life can mean living with that unhappiness. To be willing to cause unhappiness can also be how we immerse ourselves in collective struggle, as we work with and through others who share our points of alienation. Those who are unseated by the tables of happiness can find each other.

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A feminist call might be a call to anger, to develop a sense of rage about collective wrongs. And yet, it is important that we do not make feminist emotion into a site of truth: as if it is always clear or self-evident that our anger is right. When anger becomes righteous it can be oppressive; to assume anger makes us right can be a wrong. We know how easily a politics of happiness can be displaced into a politics of anger: the assumption of a right to happiness can convert very swiftly into anger toward others (immigrants, aliens, strangers) who have taken the happiness assumed to be "by right" to be ours. It is precisely that we cannot defend ourselves against such defensive use of emotion that would be my point. Emotions are not always just, even those that seem to acquire their force in or from an experience of injustice. Feminist emotions are mediated and opaque; they are sites of struggle, and we must persist in struggling with them.

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Racism is very difficult to talk about as racism can operate to censor the very evidence of its existence. Those who talk about racism are thus heard as creating rather than describing a problem. The stakes are indeed very high: to talk about racism is to occupy a space that is saturated with tension. History is saturation. One of the findings of a research project I was involved with on diversity was that because racism saturates everyday and institutional spaces, people of color often make strategic decisions not to use the language of racism. If you already pose a problem, or appear "out of place" in the institutions of whiteness, there can be "good reasons" not to exercise what is heard as a threatening vocabulary. Not speaking about racism can be a way of inhabiting the spaces of racism. You minimize the threat you already are by softening your language and appearance, by keeping as much distance as you can from the figure of the angry person of color. Of course, as we know, just to walk into a room can be to lose that distance, because that figure gets there before you do.

[gitundermyskin]

Because Nocturnal Writing Occasionally Get's Lost in Translation.

Because Nocturnal Writing Occasionally Get’s Lost in Translation.

Happy Poetry Month!! Here’s a little sociopolitical activist poetry to add to the celebration of the month:

“Affective Pushback in the Land of the Free.

Affect Aliens don’t need the social pacifiers of happiness and success;

ideals construed within our disparate power relations then codified through

subjection.

*     *     *

No, Affect Aliens don’t want to drink the poison

of complacency and…

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[gitundermyskin]

My Weekly Frustration- Week 14 Affect Aliens & Directed Writing: It’s Okay, We’re All [Feminists] Here, Right? Affective Pushback in the Land of the Free. Affect Aliens don't need the social pacifiers of happiness and success;

[ladiesupfront]

All I want to do is meet Sara Ahmed and get shy and fluttery around my scholarly crush. But I'd probably just make really bad jokes about affect aliens and happy objects.