Subculture and Graffiti: Two Cases of Popular Graffiti in Vancouver's East Side

Several weeks ago, I wrote about graffiti in a transitional area of Vancouver, Gastown/ Chinatown, and what a symbol of subversion like graffiti is coming to mean in a space that is facing intense gentrification.  In this post, I will focus on where my blog left off – in the face of commercialization in the DTES, what has been the reaction of graffiti artists?  Two blogs by my fellow classmates explore two symbols of subculture that still exist in the East side of Vancouver – the “East Van” graffiti tag turned public art piece, and the “Free Marc Emery” stencils – that have become symbols of East Vancouver.

The "East Van" Sign
Photo Credit: Denise Lee
From Anth 378

Denise Lee, author of the blog Anth 378, discusses the iconic “East Van” tag that has been a symbol of East Van for years, appearing as far back as the 1960s.  Recently, the iconic symbol was turned into a public art piece, a light-up sign visible from the Skytrain when passing through the East side (Lee 2011).  The symbol is of a cross, with the word “East” running horizontally, and the word “Van” running vertically.  Inspired by the original graffiti tag, Lee sees a tension between the original meaning of the East Van community symbol and the now “artistic” and literally glowing art piece by Ken Lum: “There are other double meanings, like in the poor/rich divide in social class: the graffiti symbol had beginnings in defiance born from adversity, while the LED sign was erected for a program and Games instigated by the rich.  It may be illegal to vandalize a wall with the symbol, but it’s encouraged to appreciate, contemplate and interpret this sign if it’s public art.” (Lee 2011)

Free Marc Emery Graffiti Stencil
From: My-diation

Katrina Schulz also wrote on her blog My-diation about an instance of a commonly occurring piece of subversive graffiti in the DTES, the “Free Marc Emery” stencils that have been appearing on the sides of buildings in the Downtown and East Side Areas (Schulz 2011).  Having worked on a shop on Hastings St. before, I noticed these stencils mostly within a certain radius of the iconic Vancouver marijuana subculture hang-out, the New Amsterdam Café, who are at the centre of the Vancouver campaign.  However, despite the subversive nature of the stencils, Schulz recognizes some irony when she found the “Free Marc Emery” website, as the group had specific instructions on how and where to approach painting the graffiti stencils, and found it “…was not the creation of an inspired and angry individual, but the result of what might in fact be called a ‘marketing campaign’.” (Schulz 2011)  What Schulz finds to be the strangest thing about the “Free Marc” campaign is it’s seemingly unaware acceptance of consumer values when approaching a subversive activity, particularly it’s “75 Fun Things You Can Do To Help Free March” list.  Schulz believes that the list “… assesses these different ‘forms of protest’ on ‘risk’, ‘effectiveness’ and ‘cost’ – the group operates within the realm of today’s consumer culture and lets itself be guided by economic considerations.” (Schulz 2011)

The common issue presented by both Lee and Schulz is the tendency for subculture to become popular culture.  There is something about graffiti as a deviant action that is undeniably “cool.” Except as graffiti becomes more popular and begins to be seen as an art form, the less legitimacy it has as a form of protest.  Sarah Thornton writes that “the idea that authentic culture is somehow outside media and commerce is a resilient one.  In its full-blown romantic form, the belief suggests that grassroots cultures resist and struggle with a colonizing mass-mediated corporate world.” (Thornton 2006: 116)  However, Thornton also believes that, realistically, subculture is being sucked into popular media, not just by “the man” but to an extent, willingly  Subculture uses the frame of media just as much as much as pop culture does (Thornton 2006: 118).  The line between was is mass mediated and what is subversive becomes thin in a world where flashing signs and mass produced stencils represent Vancouver’s subculture, and world renowned graffiti artist Banksy has an online gift shop.

Citations

Lee, Denise

2011    The East Van Sign: Graffiti and Public Art in Creating an Imagined Community.  http://deniseleesblog.tumblr.com/post/3291014858/the-east-van-sign-graffiti-and-public-art-in-creating, Accessed March 28, 2011

Schulz, Katrina

2011    The Insurrection of Signs?  Graffiti, Marc Emery and The Culture of the (Non-)Deviant.  http://my-diation.blogspot.com/2011/02/insurrection-of-signs-graffiti-marc.html, Accessed March 28, 2011

Thornton, Sarah

2006    The Underground versus the Overexposed.  In Club cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital.  Middletown: Wesleyan University Press

Structuralism in Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (Spirited Away)

Spirited Away
              from wikipedia.org

Japanese anime is immensely popular in countries all over the world, but a particularly large fan base exists in the US and Canada.  I myself am a huge anime fan, so for this blog entry, I chose to look at the film Sen to Chihiro no kamikakusi, or in English, Spirited Away.  Hayao Miyazaki is an acclaimed director both in Asia and North America, and his films tend to blend symbols  and imagery from many cultures, but Spirited Away makes a point of using more traditional Japanese imagery and makes reference to Japanese folk-tales.  Spirited Away is the story of a young girl named Chihiro, whose interactions with “good” and “evil” form the plot of the film.  I think this imagery is used to connect to a “hero’s journey” plotline, which engages imagery and structuralism to explore the balance between good and evil.

            Since Spirited Away is an animated film, there is a great deal of room for creativity and astounding imagery, complete with a giant bath house and some of the most unique strangest looking spirits and monsters.  However, underneath the imaginative spirit world, Susan J. Napier says that “Spirited Away offers… a sharp critique of the materialism and toxicity of contemporary Japanese society through its complex vision of quasi-nostalgic fantastic realm threatened by pollution from within and without.” (Napier 2006: 288)  Moral dilemmas are explored throughout the film, particularly a tension between pollution and cleanliness, or good and bad. The protagonist, Chihiro, is thrown into the spirit world when her and her parents wander into the spirit village.  

Chihiro and Yubaba, the bath house
manager
From tumblr

Her parents eat the food of the spirits and are turned into pigs, and Chihiro’s adventure develops onto a quest to have her parents changed back (Miyazaki 2001).  In order to do this, Chihiro goes to the bath house, the central feature of the spirit village, to get work so she can stay in the spirit world to help her parents.  She enters into a state of liminality as the owner, Yubaba (see Figure 2), hires her and changes her name to Sen, effectively taking her identity.  During Sen’s employment at the bath house she has to prove her worth, facing many challenging situations, often involving an unclean spirit who needs to be helped by her to become “clean” again (invoking the purity/impurity divide I mentioned before).  In the end, Sen becomes Chihiro again, succeeds in having her parents changed back into humans and returns to the human world.  In this way, the film follows a pattern of structuralism, as Sen/Chihiro is completing a journey where she must challenge good and evil in a “transitional space” that is indicative of structuralism (Gray 2010: 54)

            However, the anomaly in this film is a particular character that at once violates the good/evil divide and presents a more complicated version of structuralism.  This character is No Face (see Figure 3), a black robed, mask wearing spirit who has a tendency to swallow people whole, yet could be “interpreted as a 

No Face and Chihiro
From evalu8.org

lonely young Japanese person who does not know how to make friends.” (Reider 2005: 19) He is a confused soul, but in the end the actions of the protagonist correct his behaviour and brings him to good. While this interpretation sees No Face as more of a social outcast, Napier sees No Face’s fascinating position within the story as an expression of contemporary Japanese society, because his “…excessive appetite brings chaos to the collectivity…” (Napier 2006: 303) and is only brought under control by the intervention of Chihiro.  For the last part of the movie, No Face actually becomes one of Chihiro’s companions while completing the final tasks she has to face, and he is redeemed only by friendship.

            In Spirited Away, Chihiro faces many challenges and tasks that overcome good and evil, represented through purity and impurity and complicated characters such as No Face.  Chihiro’s story is in line with structuralism because of the moral dilemmas she faces, and also the resolution that sees the world returned to normal, therefore being removed from a liminal state where good and evil conflict.

Citations

Gray, Gordon

2010    Film Theory. In Cinema: A Visual Anthropology.  Pp. 35-73.  Oxford: Berg.

Miyazaki, Hayao

2001    Spirited Away.  125 min.  Studio Ghibli.  Tokyo. 

·         English Trailer, Japanese Trailer

Napier, Susan J.

2006    Matter Out of Place: Carnival, Containment, and Cultural Recovery in Miyazaki’s Spirited Away.  In The Journal of Japanese Studies 32(2): 287-310

Reider, Noriko T.

2005    Spirited Away: Film of the Fantastic and Evolving Japanese Folk Symbols.  In Film Criticism 29(3): 4-27

Community and Radio in Indigenous communities

Fort McPherson, NWT
             from torontoscreenshots.com

The radio, in contrast to many other forms of media, is often seen as free, open air to express any views one wishes without censorship.  Technically, all you need to operate a radio show is a soundboard and a signal, and these low-tech methods of “getting the word out” make radio a crucial way for communities in rural areas or with few other resources to communicate, and in the process shape their communities through the messages they send out.  I will be looking at two examples to discuss how community manifests itself in a variety of ways: the Fort McPherson station CBQM, and the Australian station TEABBA.

A CBQM Broadcast
from nfb.org

            CBQM is a community radio station in the town of Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories, a small town with a mostly Gwich'in population.  A movie about CBQM by the National Film Board of Canada showed a unique radio station with colourful personnel, playing country music and light-heartedly taking calls and requests, as well as sending out messages that so-and-so was home if anyone wanted to come by for tea, as well as announcements for more official community events.  Even though it was a movie about a radio station, it also showed a lot about the community and its strong local culture, from the Anglican hour broadcasts to the elder’s feasts.  The community also uses the radio station as their base of communication for all sorts of local officials, most frequently the constable, who reports on local incidents like late-night vandals and wolf sightings.  But what was most striking about the radio show was how fun and approachable it seemed.  As the description on the website says: “CBQM’s far-flung listeners – solitary trappers in their cabins, Gwich’in ladies busy with their beadwork, truckers heading north on the Dempster Highway – take comfort in the presence of an old friend.   For them CBQM is more than a simple radio station. It’s their radio station ...” (National Film Board of Canada 2009)  Anyone could call in, and anyone could come on the show.  The radio hosts were always having a lot of fun, goofing around on the air, playing fiddle songs or telling stories.  The radio was for the use of the entire community in any way they needed it.

TEABBA Media Services
from cultanth.org

            Another example of a radio program that connects community members, although in a different way, is the TEABBA station in Australia that caters to the local Aboriginal population.  This station is different from CBQM because it serves a larger area, reaching 32 localities, but at the same time still serves some similar functions.  The main way that the radio station interacts with the community is taking song requests, which are often dedicated by the requester to a loved one in prison at Berrimah.  The dedication is a way for their family members to let them know they are thinking about them and keep community ties strong, and the radio station provides the service to keep these family members in touch across distances.  In order for the radio stations to have these songs heard by the inmates, they link up with another local radio station in Darwin, Radio Larrakia, so that their broadcast reaches Berrimah prison.  It allows family members to communicate with loved ones in prison, and in order to do this community radio stations have to work together in order to get the signal out.  The meaning of the messages on TEABBA are different because they are more solemn, and are messages between family members that have been separated rather than the light-hearted community based communication of CBQM, which is more aimed at providing entertainment and a voice for the community.

            Radio stations are used by communities in very particular ways that reflect their needs.  CBQM is light-hearted and fun, and is used for just about any information that needs to be said in the small town of Fort McPherson.  TEABBA serves a larger area, and while the information broadcasted are usually messages between close family members, both fulfill a similar function by providing an accessible way for indigenous groups to express themselves, and send messages throughout the community.

References

Allen, Dennis

2010    CBQM National Film Board of Canada

Fischer, Daniel

2009    Mediating Kinship: Country, Family, and Radio in Northern Australia.  Cultural Anthropology 24(2): 280-312

National Film Board of Canada

2009    CBQM Description. http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=55510.  Accessed March 13, 2011

The Reuse of Japanese stories in American films: a Comparison to the "Jaan Pehechan Ho" Controversy

As pointed out by David Novak’s article “Cosmopolitanism, Remediation, and the Ghost World of Bollywood”, there is an appropriate and inappropriate way to reuse and reproduce images from another culture in another cultural setting, that does not necessarily rely on the artist’s intentions.  Novak describes two interpretations of the Bollywood number “Jaan Pehechaan Ho” from the movie Gumnaan, one in which the number was shown in the opening of the American movie Ghost World and the other when it was performed by a San Franciscan pop band named Heavenly Ten Stems.  While it’s use in Ghost World was seen as an appropriate artistic use, Heavenly Ten Stems was seen as using the song and other Asian songs in a racist and enterprising way.  By using my own example of remakes of Japanese films in Hollywood, I will explore what makes reuse of a one cultures art appropriate, and what does not.

The Magnificent Seven
             From IMDB

Seven Samurai
   From IMDB

The Magnificent Seven, an American cowboy-Western film, is a remake of the Japanese Akira Kurosawa classic Seven Samurai.  Both the American and Japanese films are seen as classics in their own right, and are both fondly remembered by critics as hallmarks of both American and Japanese cinema.  Kurosawa, the director of the original movie, actually enjoyed the remake so much that, according to one IMDB movie buff “ Kurosawa gave John Sturges a sword in appreciation after seeing his film” (IMDB 2003)  The artistic interpretation of the film is acceptable in this instance, and both are seen as expressing something useful about their respective cultures, although the concept initially came from one only.

Gojira
             From IMDB

Godzilla
              From IMDB

In contrast to this is the 1998 American remake of Gojira.  Although no one was accusing the remake of being racist, the American, Godzilla was charged by many critics of being bombastic and campy, almost to the point of insulting the original.  The original Gojira was about a giant reptile awakened by American nuclear testing, and according to Susan Napier fulfilled a particular function to the Japanese viewer: “it demonizes American nuclear science… it [allows] ‘good’ Japanese science to triumph against the evil monster.  The film thus offered its immediate postwar Japanese audience an experience that was both cathartic and compensatory…” (Napier 1993: 332)  When Godzilla came out,  it contained none of the nuanced social commentary (ironically, aimed against America) and was a full-throttle action flick.  It was panned by the critics and fans of the original as being over-the-top, unbelievable and too far a departure from the original movie to be a legitimate interpretation.

To me, comparing The Magnificent Seven with Godzilla, the first criteria in interpreting another cultural expression is taking it seriously.  The Magnificent Seven offered a fully American version of the original, but that still respected the original storyline and developed an artistic enough vision. The American Godzilla was mostly aimed at entertainment value, rather than adding a commentary on nuclear war.  Secondly, the remake has to have something interesting to say about the original – it can’t just be remaking it “for fun”.   This is described when Novak says “what is at stake here is not just the loss of original meaning in a landscape of mediated cultural signs.  It is a question of equivalence… between two sites of remediation whose relations to the original hang in the balance between ‘mockery’ and ‘tribute’” (Novak 2010: 60)

When reinterpreting media from another culture, based on David Novak’s article and the case of American movie remakes of Japanese films, it is important to recognize that there is a line between culture and kitsch, artistic interpretation and artistic license.  It was not a case of whether the song “Jaan Pehechaan Ho” itself was being reinterpreted, or if a Japanese film was being remade, but what this reinterpretation added to the original, and how much it respected it as a significant cultural expression.  

Works Cited and Movie Trailers

IMDB

2003                The Magnificent Seven.  User Comment.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054047/  Accessed February 16, 2011

Napier, Susan J.

1993                Panic Sites: The Japanese Imagination of Disaster from Godzilla to Akira.  In The Journal of Japanese Studies 19(2): 327-351

Novak, David

2010                Cosmopolitanism, Remediation, and the Ghost World of Bollywood.”  In Cultural Anthropology 25(1): 40-72

Youtube

2009                Godzilla (official 1954 Japanese trailer).  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSk-i1UFJWA  Accessed February 16, 2011

2008                Godzilla 1998 Official Trailer.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwf2fqcS3mk.  Accessed February 16, 2011

2006                Magnificent 7 (1960) trailer 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWIlGnJDR zw  Accessed February 16, 2011

2006                Criteron Trailer 2: Seven Samurai. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNqQXC8 Tv8U Accessed February 16, 2011 

Graffiti in Gastown and Chinatown – Wall Art and Small Scribbles in Transitional Areas

Wall mural at the corner of
Pender and Gore, with
mailbox graffiti

In this post, I will be looking at the presence of graffiti in the Gastown/Chinatown area of the Downtown Eastside.  It is an area that was quite recently viewed as the seedy underbelly of Vancouver, and to a certain extent it still is.  The reason why I thought of this area is that recently both have been growing and changing into cultural centres – one into a heritage/young hipster hang out and the other a family friendly cultural area.  I noticed that the graffiti in this area was always appropriately located around the consumer aspects of the growing districts (only barely infringing on store fronts, or being erased off important structures) and what seemed like an attempt from graffiti artists to associate with larger works, in multiple cases commissioned for expression of the cultural area, without actually tagging over them.  Although in a sense the examples of graffiti I saw fit with the traditional view of resistance, they also resisted in a manner that was not overstepping certain boundaries of the consumer area, lest it be erased.

Wall mural behind SFU,
note the tag over the
original tag

My search for graffiti began in Gastown, by the new SFU School for the Contemporary Arts, otherwise known as the old Woodward’s building, a re-emerging symbol of consumerism, that has had some recent tension between community members over its place in Gastown.  One piece  of graffiti I found here was a wall mural tucked around the corner of the building by the parking garage.  It was quite an interesting piece of art, depicting a jungle with a purple sky.  However, the graffiti art had been painted over with other graffiti in one spot, right over the original tag.  I’m not sure if this was in good humour, a competitive statement or just a random act, but his particular mural, being more typical than the ones I will shortly discuss, did not seem official, making it seem to me more susceptible to alterations by unknown individuals.  This contrasts to the more elaborate murals, which were huge, elaborate works of graffiti wall art, and no had attempts to tag over them.  It may have been that the smaller tags could be scrubbed off and the picture repaired, but I noticed that although there was graffiti lacking on the wall murals themselves, there was plenty of smaller graffiti surrounding them.  In fact, particularly in Chinatown, most of the graffiti I saw was on buildings and other surfaces surrounding larger wall murals, like the mural of Lao Tzu at the corner of Pender and Gore, depicted at the beginning of 

this post.  It seemed there was no desire to graffiti over one of these works, but a desire to be associated with   

The side of a small grocery.
If you look very closely,
you can see the graffiti

them.  Otherwise, Gastown and Chinatown had their share of small scale graffiti, often clumped in alleyways, or scribbled into a nook, or in a couple cases in Chinatown inconspicuously written on to a shop wall of a smaller business, never a bank or large shop. 

Describing street art as something that is inevitably consumed due to its public nature, Visconti et al say “given that architecture and urban design ‘are among the very few truly inescapable—and therefore public—art forms’ (Carmona and Tiesdell 2007, 179), the street art practices transforming them highlight the difficulty in representing what public space is or should be, that is, of an ideology of public space”  (Visconti et al 2010: 1)  Given the consumer aspect of both these communities, I think this observation applies well to the situation of Gastown/Chinatown.  Whether posh shops or a thriving market community, graffiti artists tend to put their work where it will be seen by strolling consumers.  Of course, one does not see much graffiti when they stroll down Robson street.  It’s presence still has to do with the fact that Gastown and Chinatown are still seen as “lower class” areas, and as Ley and Cybriwsky describe “the power to claim territory endues the claimant with both identity and status among his peer group.” (Ley and Cybriwsky 1974: 494)  These areas are still trying to be claimed by the DTES graffiti artist, who assert that Chinatown and Gastown are still their domain, yet still fall within rules of the growing consumer area.  If they don’t, their graffiti will be erased, which brings 

Outer wall of the Sun Yat
Sen Gardens.  If you look
closely, you'll see there's
an extra paint job that
doesn't match.

The old Woodward's W,
now for display, has been
graffitied on.  It has been
partially covered up, but
not erased

me to my last pictures and my last point: as depicted in two obvious graffiti erasures on the Woodward’s “W” and the wall of the Sun Yat Sen Chinese Gardens, there are consumerist sections of these areas that are becoming dominant that do not fit with the ideology of traditional graffiti art, yet graffiti artists are still trying to claim them, despite what seem to be enforced rules not to.

Citations

All images my own

Visconti, Luca M. et al

2010    Street Art, Sweet Art?  Reclaiming the “Public” in Public Place.  In The Journal of Consumer Research 37(3).  http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/652731  Accessed February 7, 2011

Ley, David and Roman Cybriwsky

1974    Urban Graffiti as Territorial Markers.  In Annals of the Association of American Geographers 64(4): 491-505.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/2569491  Accessed February 7, 2011

Jai Ho: Cross Cultural Interpretations of a Love Story

The original Jai Ho dance from Slumdog
Millionaire - www.danceinforma.com/magazine
/?p=4672

The movie Slumdog Millionaire was a pop culture phenomenon in the year of 2008 – it had huge box office success in America, won 8 Academy Awards as well as a hundred other awards (IMDB).  The focus of the film being the love story that triumphs against all odds, many people connected to the movie’s theme and relatable plot, as well as sympathized with the tough life of the young characters in the slums of Mumbai.  The climax of the movie involves a Bollywood-inspired dance sequence to the song “Jai Ho” after the moment protagonist Jamal finally meets his long lost love in the train station, and the dance focuses on the happiness of the reunited couple.  It makes sense that this moment in the movie was the one that many people latched onto, and several interpretations of the Jai Ho dance number have surfaced in the media, both by professional artists and amateurs.  Although some focus on the love story aspect, others more on the energetic dance sequence itself.  What they all have in common is that they are taking on a slightly different interpretation of the original each time, interpreting how Slumdog Millionaire showcases a traditional love story and India at the same time, and are purposefully showing it in an international media outlet.

The Pussycat Dolls rendition of Jai Ho
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc5OyXmHD0w

            The official video from Slumdog Millionaire has the dance sequence with clips from the feature film cut into it.  The focus of the dance is on the couple, but the large Bollywood dance crew in the background is also a large part of the number (Youtube 2009f).  The Pussycat Dolls have picked up on the love story aspect – the English version of the song contains the lyrics that focus this, the main phrase being “You are my destiny” (Youtube 2009a)  However, the overall feel of the video is a little different from the original.  The Pussycat Dolls version is more of a music video, and the focus is mostly on the belly-top sporting Nicole Scherzinger strutting through a dark train station and what seems to be an Indian marketplace where a surprising amount of Americans are shopping and two teenagers shopping for CDs ogle her as she walks by.  The setting and clothing are “Indian inspired”, as opposed to the original Slumdog Millionaire video that I would say feels a little more realistically modern Indian, and more for fun and to showcase the movie than a slick American production.  This particular version makes me think of Walter Benjamin’s discussion of the reproduction of art in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”.  The video is inspired by many of the original elements, but the reproduction has altered the original so that it isn’t really the same cultural expression anymore, but something new, although the attempt seems to be to reproduce the original a little.

            However, the Pussycat Dolls are not the only international media to take on the Jai Ho dance – I was astounded at the amount of amateur videos appear online of dance companies, people in their living rooms, and flash mobs, doing the Jai Ho dance.  The videos that are usually two or three people in their living room dancing focus more on the steps and the fact that they are doing the dance.  Almost all of them seem to be Americans, and seem to be just some people having fun doing the dance.  The focus is more on reproducing the moves, although there still does seem to be some sort of fascination with the exotic Indian aspect of the origins of the dance, as many of the females often throw in a few of their own belly dancing moves (see Youtube 2009b, 2009c, 2009d as examples).  On Youtube there are also a plethora of semi-professional interpretations.  Two I looked at in particular were one of a recital performance in what seems to be a Tamil show in Tampa, Florida, and a flash mob group in Chicago doing the dance in an empty parking lot, nearly getting kicked out, but then continuing the dance.  Both almost take on the dance for their own purposes, the Tamil group actually making their own dance for the recital, and the Chicago group taking the original moves, but for the purpose of being a little rebellious and doing a fun dance in defiance of authority in the form of security guards.

            What is fascinating about the Jai Ho dance is how far it really travels from its original context, and the different ways this seemingly Indian movie (although actually American/English produced) is culturally translated then put up into the worldwide web.  I feel that all of the reinterpretations reflect Arjun Appadurai’s concept of the “global ethnoscape” and the concept of deterritorialization.  As he says in his article, “One of the principal shifts in the global cultural order, created by cinema, television and video technology…has to do with the role of the imagination in social life…In the past two decades, as the deterritorialization of persons, images and ideas has taken on new force, the weight has imperceptibly shifted.  More persons throughout the world see their lives through the prisms of the possible lives offered by mass media in all there forms.” (Appadurai 1996: 53-54)  I feel that these video reinterpretations of an Indian, yet at the same time American cultural expression are a perfect example of what Appadurai is describing – the original movie is a cross-cultural media expression, and individuals have responded to this media form to the extent that they take on the story of Slumdog Millionaire and show a part of their world through the medium of the Jai Ho dance.

Citations

Appadurai

1996    Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for a Transnational Anthropology.  In Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization.  Pp. 48-65. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press

IMDB

N.d.  Slumdog Millionaire.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1010048/  Accessed January 23, 2011

Youtube

2009a  Jai Ho (You Are My Destiny)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc5OyXmHD0w Accessed January 23, 2011

2009b  Jai Ho dance.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znxCTZGQrJo&feature=fvw Accessed January 23, 2011

2009c Jai Ho Dance.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEgtwOm2BHM&feature=related  Accessed January 23, 2011

2009d  Slumdog Millionaire Dance – Jai Ho.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7AuQKFlhXI  Accessed January 23, 2011

2009e  “Jai Ho” in Chicago (the Slumdog Millionaire Dance)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxofohmohJY   Accessed January 23, 2011

2009f   Slumdog Millionaire – Official Jai Ho Music Video.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRC4QrUwo9o  Accessed January 23, 2011

 

William Mazzarella’s “Culture, Globalization, Mediation”

A fixed up car from the Australian Aborigine 

TV show “Bush Mechanics”

http://icarusfilms.com/new2002/bush

In his article “Culture, Globalization, Mediation”, William Mazzarella looks at how media and globalization are affecting culture, especially through the process of mediation.  I found this article to be fascinating, because although it maintains a very distanced, almost overly scholarly dialogue that is hard to connect to, Mazzarella makes some very good observations about how people connect with each other in the brave new world of globalization.  Mediation is the main focus of Mazzarella’s argument, largely because he feels that mediation is a process that exists even before the production of “media” in any given society, whether or not they have been affected by globalization, and it is really these processes of mediation that express cultures the most, because of their reactions to and interpretations of ideas.  What these processes of mediation create is an opportunity for cultures to become aware of themselves – one of the facets of mediation that interests Mazzarella the most is the ability to assert a strong sense of national or group identity, despite the supposed homogenizing aspects of globalization. 

What Mazzarella suggests about the effects of globalization is that “contrary to longstanding expectations of McWorld-style homogenization, globalization has in fact led to a revitalization of the local.” (Mazzarella 2004: 352)  Because globalization is so present all over the world, many groups are becoming aware of how they want to present themselves through mediation, and aware of mediation itself, which makes cultures aware of other cultures as unique entities to a larger extent.  Mazzarella’s argument on globalization brings up three main points that he says are three important aspects of the globalizing process: "’the resurgence of the local,’ ‘cultural proximity,’ and ‘hybridity.’” (Mazzarella 2004: 348)  In the process of mediation, these are also the main aspects that express and mediate culture, the three aspects that make cultures reflect inwards in their own selves and think of themselves in relation to others.  The resurgence of the local has individuals thinking about what it is they want to display to the world about their culture, and “cultural proximity” and “hybridity” form grounds for cross-cultural dialogue in amongst strong assertions of group identity. 

What comes to mind when thinking of Mazarella’s concepts of mediation, for me, is a show I once read about in another anthropology class called Bush Mechanics.  Bush Mechanics is a television program where Australian aborigines living in rural areas fix up beater cars that run down fast in the tough environment of the Australian outback.  The style of the show is a light-hearted and documents the ingenuity and bush know-how needed to get around in the outback.  As the site describes, “both the documentary and the series use the memories of Warlpiri elder - Jack Jakamarra Ross - in his early encounters with both white men and motor vehicles.” (Walpiri Media 2002)  The show is a representation of Australian Aborigine identity to the world, and a fun and entertaining television program, mediating Aborigine values and lifestyle in the form of a TV documentary.  The show also riffs on contrasting traditional Aborigine life with the fact that they are fixing up old cars, a Western product.

The most striking of Mazzarella’s statements for me was how “Difference is no longer so much a measure of the distance between two or more bounded cultural worlds; rather, we may now understand it as a potentiality, a space of indeterminacy inherent to all processes of mediation, and therefore inherent to the social process per se.” (Mazzarella 2004: 360)  Mediation and globalization are inevitably changing and strengthening methods of cultural expression.  These in-between grounds and new understandings are not something that should be ignored and shunned by anthropologists as destroying culture, but rather studied by anthropologists as a new way that cultures are expressing themselves in the age of globalization.

Citations

Mazzarella, William

2004       "Culture, Globalization, Mediation". In Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 33                                   (2004), pp. 345-367

Walpiri Media

2002                Bush Mechanics.  www.bushmechanics.com.  Accessed February 8, 2011

Youtube

2009                Bush Mechanics 1962 EJ Holden Part ½. http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=WopdIgBG1dA.  Accessed February 8, 2011

2009                Bush Mechanics 1962 EJ Holden Part 2/2.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wxQWwD9f6Y&feature=related.  Accessed February 8, 2011