I found Derrida’s reading of the Book of Genesis and the naming of the animals to be the most fascinating part of the essay— though the rest of the essay is just as dense and beautiful and utterly amazing. The moment that stood out to me the most after our class discussion, when I reread sections for group work, was something that I saw as an offhand comment during my first reading. Derrida mentions that the naming of the animals takes place before Original Sin. This is true in both biblical accounts of naming, as the naming takes place during Genesis I & II, and Original Sin in III. But why is that significant? It took a few minutes of recall back to four years of Christian high school to remember when one bible instructor stated that sin always brings death. Adam and Eve were covered in animal skin after hiding in the bushes, but no animal would have needed to die if they had not sinned. After all, they could eat from nearly every tree in the garden.

So the names came before sin, and after sin follows death. Derrida argues that nature is not sad because it is mute, but mute because it is sad. And why is nature sad? Nature is sad, aphasic, and mute because it did not get to name itself. Sadness, as wonderfully stated by Derrida, is “[a] foreshadowing of mourning because it seems to me that every case of naming involves announcing a death to come in the surviving of a ghost” (Derrida 389). In order for preservation and remembrance, the animal must be given a name. Names are built upon the basis of death, and in Genesis no one gets to choose how they must be remembered. Not even Adam and Eve, though Adam got to choose the names of the animals, got to pick their names. Is it a stretch to say that Derrida attributes sin and death to the naming of the animals? By giving names to others, we have killed ourselves. We have set ourselves up for death. 

Taking inspiration from Walter Benjamin, Derrida posits that being named is this passive act unable to be reappropriated. Nature and the little cat cannot speak, they cannot change their names, nor can they shed their current ones. Derrida mentions many words (ironically) to explain this mute sadness. One of which, Benommenheit, is a mute stupor or daze that the animal finds itself in. Likewise, the word Umring describes the feeling of being deprived of access to its opening. In other words, trapped. Assigning names to animals is violent, it is an assertion of power that may or may not have been given to us (depending on religious views). I do not know which truth I would prefer. But when Derrida feels shame standing naked in front of his cat, as silent as it is, could it be because of his guilt of giving a name to something that was innocent and free without it? I see it as such.

Mulvey’s essay was a difficult essay for me (not just me, I hope), but I wanted to try to break it down and contribute with a bit of my own experience. Apart from the very great detail Mulvey takes to break down the dichotomy between scopophilia and ego libido, what stood out to me was the discussion of camera work and the camera’s place in highlighting those two aspects of narrative film. The camera is human perception — at least it tries its best to replicate it — and its ultimate goal is to remove/blur the screen space so as to better integrate ourselves into the screen. This is essentially ego libido, as it gives the spectator a sense of power that the protagonist has. 

While reading this, it reminded me of Oppenheimer, and the “ideal” viewing experience instructed by the director, Christopher Nolan. Nolan said that the intended way to view the film was in 70mm IMAX, it was the most immersive formatting that would project you into the film in the closest way possible. However, I do not think that the tragedy of the atomic bomb is necessarily what Mulvey is arguing. For that, look at 2011’s Drive, where Ryan Gosling is a strong, silent stuntman-criminal who pushes Carey Mulligan into the corner of the elevator to kiss her before killing the hitman next to him. It feels as though the film epitomized Mulvey’s work to a tee, Mulligan is only seen as a mother in dresses and skirts, tending to her child and being submissive to her husband. Gosling, on the other hand, is domineering, literally driving the plot of the story (which revolves around him “helping” her without considering her desires). 

As a cisgendered, straight, white man, it took an embarrassingly long time to not only be made aware of this reading of narrative film, but it is truly only very recently where it has become apparent to me. Most teen comedies of the 80s (Fast Times, Sixteen Candles, etc.) revolve around the portrayal of women as strict, still images that are there solely for the attention of the male-centric audience and protagonists. Another unfortunately too-perfect moment is when Anthony Michael Hall’s character in Candles takes advantage of and rapes a drunk girl he was going to “take home.” That film supports Mulvey’s argument because of how awfully true it is, and why this analysis of narrative cinema needs to be more popular.

The last film I will relate to the text is Chantal Ackerman’s Je, Tu, Il, Elle, as it is a great example of alternate cinema that Mulvey states will break up this traditional pleasure-driven view of cinema. In the film, a depressed girl, recently broken up with her girlfriend, removes all the furniture from her apartment except her mattress, walks around the room naked, and eats sugar from a bag while trying to come up with a letter to send to her ex. character finally gets to see her ex again, in which the film cuts to a fifteen minute sex scene between the two characters, ending with Ackerman being kicked out once again. A perfect example of how cinema does not have to be pleasure-driven, as the full frontal nudity of the final scene is very raw but certainly not glamorous. It does not portray one dominating another, it does not even portray a man and a woman. It is just sex, the authentic experience of emotion, and does not attempt to sexualize it in any way. Bringing it back to camera work, which Mulvey finds so profound (as do I), it is fixed, only switching angles sparingly. Unlike most sex scenes, which highlight the bodies of women in gross ways and attempt to make the viewer feel that he is the one taking control over the woman, Je, Tu, Il, Elle pairs the often-isolating nature of sex with the emotional intimacy it provides. The fixed camera angles only keep the audience away from that moment because it is not our moment, it is theirs and theirs alone.

I hope I did not stray too far from the text, but I am minoring in film and combining it with my English major scratches the analytical part of my brain.

“Society Must Be Defended” was my personal introduction to Foucault. I had very little knowledge of him before this class, but I believe that I have emerged from our simple discussion with a basic understanding of his principles and arguments in his essay. What struck me most about “Society” is his theory of biopolitics and the “new” right of “make live and let die” (1441). This new guiding principle of society, since its initial development in the 18th century, is the result of innovation and modernization of medicine, government, and all other forms of technology. As society develops these innovations, the more people will be born and people will be less vulnerable to disease and illness. Biopower is enforced to man-as-species, meaning that this authority is imposed over individuals if they are a part of a collective. Through “massifying” man does biopower get its strength. Take, for example, the anti-LGBT rhetoric and regulation pushed by the United States government (e.g. men who have sex with men cannot donate blood, gender-affirming care, etc.) and examine it through Foucault’s theory. I would argue that a large portion of these acts stem from the fact that growing acceptance of gender and sexual exploration — alongside the cost of living — is leading to fewer people having children and producing the next generation of Americans. As I understand Foucault, his theory of biopower is applicable since the hegemony of the traditional nuclear family dynamic that promoted reproduction not just as an achievement in life, but also as one’s duty to their country and their values. When this hegemony is threatened through individualization, the masses are cut off from “life” and are essentially left to die. 

What I find to be so fascinating about this argument is how it takes place. Rather innocuous sounding at first, censuses, mortality rates, birth rates, abilities and disabilities, all contribute to the creation of biopower. When humans are turned into data that can be manipulated, biopower rises as a serious threat to individualism. When the one-child policy was still active in China, it was to stop overpopulation. However, when the data showed that they were on a path to extinction with the lower birth rates, that policy was reversed and tax breaks and other financial benefits were offered to the people. The danger of biopower is the separation of humanity. People become rats in a laboratory and are constantly monitored and exploited in the name of the future and the preservation of society. 

Antonio Gramsci’s essay, “The Formation of the Intellectuals,” redefines that very term. Right out of the gate, Gramsci finds there to be two different kinds of intellectuals already in society. The first kind, the “organic intellectual,” comes out of a social group which creates homogeneity and an “awareness of its own function not only in the economic but also in the social and political fields” (113). The organic intellectuals organize their social group and assert that group into society as a whole. A significant aspect of the organic intellectual is that he must be a jack of trades — not only proving himself to the group from which he rises, but also proving the group to society on its behalf. Like a founder, entrepreneur, or feudal lord, the organic intellectual has to possess technical ability, economic prowess, and the ability to essentially create culture. Gramsci goes on to describe a second kind of intellectual that is often at odds with the organic intellectual. The traditional intellectual is one who is a part of the existing social hierarchies, the one who essentially runs them. As the name suggests, the traditional intellectual has been a part of society throughout its many iterations. Religious scholars, writers, philosophers, and the aristocracy are typical traditional intellectuals. What makes the traditional intellectual stand out is the perceived self-autonomy and independence that he has from any other class or group. Gramsci remarks, “through an “esprit de corps” their [the traditional intellectual] uninterrupted historical continuity and their special qualification, they thus put themselves forward as autonomous and independent of the dominant social group” (114). The traditional intellectual might not run society, yet his place in society has long been secured and is not up for debate due to his independence. Both of these types of intellectuals exist in society, in some form or another, and often butt heads. Yet these two kinds of intellectuals have the same goals: to maintain hegemony in society. Rising from his social group to stand against all other social groups, the organic intellectual seeks to spread his culture and dominance through climbing the social ladder. However, the organic intellectual does not attempt to do this, and instead decides that its hegemony and prominence in society comes from creating a barrier between itself and society. In doing so, the traditional intellectual keeps itself hovering near the top of the pyramid, taking all the spoils won by the aristocracy and ruling classes, without having to bear much of the brunt of societal pressures.

Ian Bogost’s 2008 essay, “The Rhetoric of Video Games,” attempts to redefine and place the concept of “play” in the 21st century. While play has been long associated with innocent, child-like fun, Bogost finds that play in the context of video games is much more complex than it appears. Through procedurality, video games can interact with concepts, systems, and ideas in a simulation-type setting where the player is in control. Bogost presents Animal Crossing as a game that demonstrates consumer capitalism and the “corporate bourgeoisie” (119) in a simplified system that a child can understand. Returning to the concept of “play,” Bogost’s essay disagrees with the traditional association of “play” with idleness, leisure, and childlike behavior. Rather, “play,” especially in the world of video games, is to test the limits of the box you are placed in — and even break out of it. “Play” is understood as learning — almost scientific — by hypothesizing and becoming aware of one’s surroundings and the very limits that one is given. Take poetry, like Bogost does, and consider the haiku and all its limitations. Twelve syllables in a five-seven-five pattern appears awfully cramped to allow for much creative expression, yet “[t]o write haiku means exploring configurations of language that intersect with these rules of composition” (121). Just as writing a haiku is to seek the very limits of poetic possibility, so too video games attempt to coax the mind of the player via play. 

Animal Crossing, Bully, Spore, and all other video games that Bogost mentions while discussing procedurality are limited in what they can convey. While Animal Crossing must simplify capitalism, mortgages, and debt for the sake of entertainment as well as conveyance, it makes up for it by being a simulation. Just like hide-and-seek or tag or any childhood playground game, a video game stands for something bigger. Just as tag can be understood as a simulation of survival of the fittest (where the tagger is likely to deliberately chase the slowest runner) a video game like Animal Crossing simulates social Darwinism via a robber baronesque raccoon banker-businessman-mayor. Video games will always be primarily for entertainment, yet that is hardly ever their sole intent. The most explicit example of this is Bogost’s mention of the military-sponsored first-person shooter. As Bogost  compares the game to reality in the military, their similarities are striking. Points, medals, commendations, punishment, and progression are not unique to either the real-world military or the game version. This poignant example of the representative power of video games demonstrates how “play” is hardly different from our day-to-day lives. Unique presentations of oftentimes difficult-to-convey realities help one understand the abstract concepts that society is built upon. Through video games, representations of society and play are helping us to understand the modern day world through a “childlike” medium.

As the truly awful song by Falling In Reverse goes: “My life is like a video game…”

Nietzsche’s essay, “On Truth and Lying in a Nonmoral Sense,” breaks down human’s truths and how these truths only deceive. The language of humanity and its search for truth has essentially separated us from reality although language was meant to bring us closer to it. He finds many problems stem from the concept of “truth”. Truth can hardly be considered objective – a man goes about life believing everything to be based around him, yet Nietzsche believes that something as lowly as a midge would feel the same way. “The arrogance inherent in cognition and feeling casts a blinding fog over the eyes and the senses… it deceives them about the value of existence” (752-3) is how he describes the pervasive effect of truth on humanity. 

A poignant example of this devastating effect is Nietzsche’s discussion on leaves. No two leaves, no matter their similarities or differences, are alike, but humans have conceptualized the leaf to a form that removes all the differences, discards all the real, tangible leaves for the conceptual leaf, thus: “…the leaf is the cause of the leaves” (755) since we have alienated ourselves from the reality of leaves for the idea of the leaf. Not only are we alienated by nature because of this, we also become alienated from ourselves and reason. Just as we have turned the leaves into a ouroboros so we can perceive them relative to ourselves, we have done the same to qualities. “We call a man honest; we ask, ‘Why did he act so honestly today?’ Our answer is usually: ‘Because of his honesty’” (755). What is honesty but a quality that cannot be put in tangible terms? All we know of honesty consists of  individual examples, not a concrete quality. Human truth eats what it creates. 

Reality has been distilled by humanity for millions of years to usher in a significance that is “universal” to the point that it is a castle with absolutely no foundation. Nietzsche refers to an eternal dream as being interpreted as reality, yet it is nothing more than an illusion. A similar illusion is that of the illusion of natural law. Only known to us by what it is not, and whatever nature is not is equally only known by not being nature. Nietzsche’s logic fascinates me, and many further strides will be made by me to understand him completely, yet I will end with what I feel to be the basis for my observations:

“Thus, all these relations refer only to one another, and they are utterly incomprehensible to us in their essential nature” (759).