#jonathan levy discourse

[ivystoryweaver]

I have thoughts about Jonathan Levy

thanks to @missdictatorme's mindblowing fic Delicacy

series spoilers below but some will be above the cut

First about the series... See, I know Jonathan discourse is tricky. Some people dismiss him outright because he cheats on his second wife. Understandable.

Some people love him as an innocent, choosing to ignore the events in the final episode, meaning he was only hurt and never did anything else that hurtful to someone else. Also understandable.

But taking a look at the whole person, does anyone consider why he cheats?

I'm not trying to excuse it, but to understand it. When Mira leaves Jonathan, it destroys him. He fights against his love for her and works to get better, to get functional, to move on. He falls back into bed with her because she's familiar, because he loves her, because it feels good to have the person who destroyed you want you back.

He even gets to the point where he can sort of turn her down when she believes it was a mistake. He loves her, he wants her physically, but he knows it's bad for him.

So why does he cheat? Because he thinks it's over for him. He had a chance at a life with a woman he loved, a wonderful daughter, and it crumbled. It takes her leaving and lots of therapy to realize how much they were hurting each other all along. And yes, Jonathan hurt her too, just not in the same way, and you could say maybe "not as much", if there needs to be a comparison.

So, Jonathan dates. He has sex. He discovers a side of himself that was sort of repressed in being the virgin Jewish boy who married such a force of a woman as Mira. He realizes what he likes and tries new things. Then he tries them on Mira. They both like it, but they can't be together. It's over, it's too harmful.

He wants love, but almost as much as that, he wants to be a husband and father. He wants more children. It killed him that Mira terminated her pregnancy, but he knows there is no other choice, it is her body and her choice and he would never go against that, ever.

So he finds a nice Jewish woman who he feels good enough with and gets her pregnant. He has those things he's always wanted. But he doesn't have love.

So, why does he cheat? Because he's given up. He finally "grows up", in a way? (in his mind anyway) But in a sad, defeated way. He actually doesn't believe there is a world where he can have real love, passion, sex, fatherhood and be a good husband. It's a fantasy, forever out of his reach. It's absolutely impossible, in his mind. It's completely shattered.

So the only way to get on with his life is to compartmentalize these parts of himself. With Ava and his new baby, he will try to be a good father. His wife is a puzzle piece to hold that together, and make him a husband even though he's not in love with her.

Mira is a separate part of his fragmented, broken life now. She is where he can find sex, passion, even love. But he can't have them all together. That doesn't exist, he thinks. It was a boy's dream and he's a battle-weary man now.

This compartmentalization is his survival now. He knows it's wrong, but it's not convincing enough for him to suffer anymore than he already has, and stop it.

So some people hate or dismiss Jonathan because of the final ep, or completely ignore that ep, because they can't reconcile how he could do this, and I get that! I totally do.

But it's because he's resigned himself to a world where he can't have love. He can't have his dream, it doesn't exist. And that is a bleak world for Jonathan.

He's given up. So he doesn't try to do better, or be better or act better. He's in a very dark place at series end.

And I WANNA FIX

P.S. Do your self a favor and read Dolli's fic Delicacy

[inklore]

— 𝐅𝐀𝐐 ⋆ ˚｡

this blog is strictly multifandom, but that does not mean that i don’t play favorites for certain fandoms/characters. so there will most definitely be more writings for certain characters and fandoms.

requests: are closed, but thots are always welcome!

in no way shape or form should minors be interacting with anything on or posted to this blog. this is an 18+ space. anon hate and celebrity discourse also has no place here, so please respect that. if you are racist, homophobic, bigoted, zionist, islamphobic, judgmental to what people enjoy writing/reading, can’t depict fiction from real life, you will be blocked.

𝐈 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞…

rpf, necrophilia, incest, pregnancy, daddy/little play, age play, spitting, kitten, bimbo!reader, foot fetish, animal play, race play, watersports, underage scenarios, alpha/omega, domestic violence, kid fics, male!character x male!oc, i hate the word ‘doll’ as a pet name so i avoid it like the plague.

𝐈 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞…

smut (refer to the above list when it comes to this), fluff, age gaps, poly/threesome+, reverse harem, dubcon, noncon, yandere, toy play, cheating (to a certain degree), blood play, knife play, some bdsm, breath play, violence, gore, capture x captive, hunter/prey, praise and degradation, power imbalance, step siblings, supernatural, villainary, choking, mommy/daddy kink (to an extent).

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐄𝐒.

marvel ↷

miguel o’hara, hobie brown, marc spector, thor odinson, loki laufeyson, peter parker (all variants), yelena belova, joaquin torres, doctor strange, wade wilson, carol danvers, eddie brock, scott lang, hope van dyne, kate bishop, hela, pietro maximoff, logan howlett, wanda maximoff, steve rogers, kraven, cable, druig, makkari, thena, blade

dc universe ↷

dinah lance/black canary, diana prince, clark kent, pamela isley/poison ivy, arthur curry/aquaman, harley quinn, adrian chase, pattinson!bruce wayne, edward nashton/the riddler

top gun: maverick ↷

jake 'hangman' seresin, bradley 'rooster' bradshaw, javy 'coyote' machado, mickey 'fanboy' garcia, natasha 'phoenix' trace, beau 'cyclone' simpson, reuben 'payback' fitch

star wars ↷

poe dameron, finn, kylo ren/ben solo, bo-katan kryze, din djarin, young!han solo

scream ↷

ethan landry, stu macher, billy loomis, chad meeks-martin, mindy meeks-martin, amber freeman, tara carpenter

bridgerton ↷

anthony bridgerton, colin bridgerton, benedict bridgerton, kate sharma, simon basset, phillip crane

house of the dragon ↷

ser harwin strong, daemon targaryen, aemond targaryen, rhaenyra targaryen

american horror story ↷

cordelia goode, tristan duffy, michael langdon, harry gardner, madison montgomery, kit walker, xavier plympton, ally mayfair-richards

etc shows ↷

villanelle, lip gallagher, tommy miller, carmy berzatto, luca (the bear), kate parks, daisy jones, billy dunne, warren rhodes, geralt of rivia, love quinn, max wolfe, olivia benson, roman godfrey, dream the endless, lucifer (sandman), jonathan pine, mira phillips, the salesman (squid game), hwang jun ho (squid game), kim geon-woo (bloodhounds)

movies ↷

john wick, finnick odair, peeta mellark, johanna mason, han lue, cipher, walter de ville, tangerine, dave lizewski, thomas sharpe, james conrad, neil (tenet), edward cullen, millie / molotovgirl, dante reyes, thrandull, steve kemp, charlie swan, marquis vincent de gramont, keys (free guy), akira (john wick), beverly marsh (it two), ben hanscom (it two), keith (barbarian), frank (don't worry darling)

adam driver ↷

kylo ren/ben solo, adam sackler, flip zimmerman, phillip altman, charlie barber, henry mchenry, commander mills, rick smolan, officer ronnie peterson, matt the radar technician, clyde logan, paterson, jude

oscar isaac ↷

santiago garcia, poe dameron, nathan bateman, jonathan levy, william tell, blue jones, rydel keener

pedro pascal ↷

din djarin, javier peña, frankie morales, javi gutierrez, joel miller, dieter bravo

chris evans ↷

ransom drysdale, lloyd hansen, andy barber, ari levinson, frank adler, steve rogers, jake wyler

[belsangels]

i hate tiktok i hate queer discourse i hate edgy 14 year olds but how else am i supposed to watch edits of jonathan levy in scenes from a marriage to art deco by lana del rey

[allbestnet]

Guardian Essential Library

Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

The Annals by Tacitus

The Armada by Garrett Mattingly

Aubrey's brief lives by John Aubrey

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X

Beethoven's Letters by Ludwig van Beethoven

Bully for Brontosaurus by Stephen Jay Gould

C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too... by John Diamond

Candide by Voltaire

The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven by Charles Rosen

Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins

The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh

Collected Poems by Edward Thomas

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx

The Complete Poems by Christina Rossetti

The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson

The complete poems, 1927–1979 by Elizabeth Bishop

Cosmos by Carl Sagan

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton

Danube by Claudio Magris

Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville

Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen

Diaries by Alan Clark

Doctor Faustus : The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkuhn As Told by a Friend by Thomas Mann

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Don Quixote's Delusions: Travels in Castilian Spain by Miranda France

The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA by James D. Watson

Dr. Johnson & Mr. Savage by Richard Holmes

E=mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation by David Bodanis

Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane

Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey

English Society in the Eighteenth Century by Roy Porter

Eothen by Alexander William Kinglake

Essays on Music by Theodor Adorno

Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse by Alexander Pushkin

Experience by Martin Amis

The Face of Battle by John Keegan

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton

The Glenn Gould Reader by Glenn Gould

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux

Henry James: A Life by Leon Edel

A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov

If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi

If This Is a Man and The Truce by Primo Levi

In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

In Siberia by Colin Thubron

In Xanadu: A Quest by William Dalrymple

The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens by Claire Tomalin

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. by James Boswell

The Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari

Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdos and the Search for Mathematical Truth by Paul Hoffman

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II by Fernand Braudel

Memories and Commentaries: New One-Volume Edition by Igor Stravinsky

Mendeleyev's Dream: The Quest for the Elements by Paul Strathern

Middlemarch by George Eliot

The Naked Civil Servant by Quentin Crisp

Old Glory : A Voyage Down the Mississippi by Jonathan Raban

On the Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

Orwell and Politics (Penguin Modern Classics) by George Orwell

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

The Painter of Modern Life by Charles Baudelaire

Persuasion by Jane Austen

The Poetry of Robert Frost by Robert Frost

Politics by Aristotle

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

The Prelude by William Wordsworth

The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

The Quest for Corvo : An Experiment in Biography by A. J. A. Symons

Rabbit Angstrom: A Tetralogy by John Updike

Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke

The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Selected Writings [Oxford World's Classics] by William Hazlitt

The Social Contract and Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The Sonnets by William Shakespeare

The Story of Art by E. H. Gombrich

Sun Dancing by Geoffrey Moorhouse

Survival In Auschwitz by Primo Levi

Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal by Jared M. Diamond

Thomas Hardy: The Complete Poems by Thomas Hardy

A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Trilobite! Eyewitness to Evolution by Richard Fortey

Troilus and Cressida; A Love Poem in Five Books by Geoffrey Chaucer

Ulysses by James Joyce

The Waning of the Middle Ages by Johan Huizinga

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot

Ways of Seeing by John Berger

[femaletraffickers]

Sources

Content analysis (n.d.) In Columbia Public Health: Population Control Methods. Retrieved December 10, 2020 from https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/research/population-health-methods/content-analysis

Copley, Lauren. 2014. “Neutralizing Their Involvement: Sex Traffickers’ Discourse Techniques.” Feminist Criminology 9(1):45-545r8. doi: 10.1177/1557085113501849.

Dalla, Rochelle L., Yan Xia, and Heather Kennedy. 2003. “You Just Give Them What They Want and Pray They Don’t Kill You.” Violence Against Women 9(11):1367-1394. doi: 10.1177/1077801203255679

Gerassi, Lara, Tonya Edmond, and Andrea Nichols. 2017. “Design Strategies from Sexual Exploitation and Sex Work Studies among Women and Girls: Methodological Considerations in a Hidden and Vulnerable Population”. Action Research 15(2): 161-176. doi: 10.1177/1476750316630387

Hampton, Michelle DeCoux and Michelle Lieggi. 2020. “Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Youth in the United States: A Qualitative Systematic Review.” Trauma, Violence, & Abuse 21: 51-70. Doi: 10.1177/1524838017742168

Hom, Kristin A., and Stephanie J. Woods. 2013. “Trauma and its Aftermath for Commercially Sexually Exploited Women as Told by Front-Line Service Providers.” Issues in Mental Health Nursing 34(2):75-81. doi: 10.3109/01612840.2012.72330/210/

Levy, Alexandra F. 2016. “Innocent Traffickers, Guilty Victims: The Case for Prosecuting So-called ‘Bottom Girls’ in the United States.” Anti-Trafficking Review 6:130-133. doi: 10.14197/atr.201216613

Marcus, Anthony, Jo Sanson, Amber Horning, Efram Thompson, and Ric Curtis. 2016. “Pimping and Profitability: Testing the Economics of Trafficking in Street Sex Markets in Atlantic City, New Jersey.” Special Section: Sex Work and Human Trafficking 59:46-65. doi: 10.1177/073112141662855

Miccio-Fonseca, L.C. 2017. “Juvenile Female Sex Traffickers.” Aggression and Violent Behavior 35:26-32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2017.06.001

Perkins, Elizabeth B. and Carey Ruiz. 2017. “Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking in a Rural State: Interviews with Adjudicated Female Juveniles.” Child Adolescent Social Work 34:171-180. Doi: 10.1007/s10560-016-0455-3

Preble, Kathleen M. and Beverly M. Black. 2020. “Influence of Survivors’ Entrapment Factors and Traffickers’ Characteristics on Perceptions of Interpersonal Social Power During Exit.” Violence Against Women 26:110-133. doi: 10.1177/1077801219826742

Quinn, Eithne. 2000. “‘Who’s The Mack?’: The Performativity and Politics of the Pimp Figure in Gangsta Rap.” Journal of American Studies 34:115-136. Doi: 10.1017/S0021875899006295

Raphael, Jody and Brenda Myers-Powell. 2010. “From Victims to Victimizers: Interviews with 25 Ex-Pimps in Chicago.” DePaul University College of Law 1-9. 

Reid, Joan A. 2011. “An Exploratory Model of Girl’s Vulnerability to Commercial Sexual Exploitation in Prostitution.” Child Maltreatment 16(2): 146-157. Doi: 10.1177/1077559511404700

Reid, Joan A. 2016. “Entrapment and Enmeshment Schemes Used by Sex Traffickers.” Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment 28(6):491-511. doi: 10.1177/1079063214544334

Roe-Sepowitz, Dominique E., James Gallagher, Markus Risinger, and Kristine Hickle. 2014. “The Sexual Exploitation of Girls in the United States: the Role of Female Pimps.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 30(16):2814–30. doi: 10.1177/0886260514554292

Salisbury, Emily J., Jonathan D. Dabney, and Kelli Russell. 2015. “Diverting Victims of Commercial Sexual Exploitation from Juvenile Detention: Development of the InterCSECt Screening Protocol.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 30(7): 1247-1276. Doi: 10.1177/0886260514539846

Staiger, Annegret. 2005. “‘Hoes Can Be Hoed Out, Players Can Be Played Out, But Pimp is for Life’: The Pimp Phenomenon as Strategy of Identity Formation.” Symbolic Interaction 28(3):407-428. https://doi.org/10.1525/si.2005.28.3.407

Stalans, Loretta J. and Mary A. Finn. 2019. “Defining and Predicting Pimps’ Coerciveness Toward Sex Workers: Socialization Processes.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 34(21-22):4498-4521. doi: 10.1177/0886260516675919

Wijkman, Miriam and Edward Kleemans. 2019. “Female offenders of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.” Crime, Law and Social Change 72:53-72. doi: 10.1007/s10611-019-09840-x

Williamson, Celia and Terry Clause-Tolar. 2002. “Pimp-Controlled Prostitution: Still an Integral Part of Street Life.” Violence Against Women 8(9):1074-1092. doi: 10.1177/107780102401101746

[olliefilm]

Films of the Decade (20 - 11)

What can be said with the utmost confidence is that the quality of film has not slackened. Every now and again, some curmudgeon will grumble that film “is not the same”, “not what it used to be”, “not like the classics”. Oh puff, it will continue to sustain and challenge. Always has, always will. The one ultimate takeaway from this decade is that of how film is seen. By the end of this year, Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman will be released on Netflix, thus proving financial carte-blanche for already established filmmakers is now available outside of the giant studios. Streaming is happening and next year the Disney juggernaut will follow suit with their own service - truly a new, somewhat unnerving era. 

So in revealing my favourite films of the past decade, let’s celebrate the glut of amazing work these last ten years have produced. The list honorable mentions would stretch the circumference of the Earth, but I was close to including: Kathryn Bigelow’s nail-biting Zero Dark Thirty, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s slow-burn procedural drama Once Upon A Time in Anatolia, the colonial fever dream that is Zama, Todd Haynes’ lush Carol, Leviathan and its biblical injustices, Gianfranco Rosi’s quasi-documentary Fire at Sea, the lip-smacking Raw, and Debra Granik’s outstanding Leave No Trace. Not to mention the countless animated features and documentaries which show no signs of letting up. Here’s to the bar being raised forever more as we sit in the dark.

20. Locke

If there is one film this decade for which the weight was placed entirely on the shoulders of one actor to make it work, it is Tom Hardy in Locke. Essentially, it’s about a man trying to “fix” things over the phone while driving at night. Ultimately, his professional and personal life is obliterating around him, all due to a silly one-night stand. What we hear are voices bombarding the tiny space of a car. What we register as an audience is down to the brilliance of Tom Hardy. It is a role many actors would relish and go to town, but Hardy’s performance is introspective, collected, yet far from calm. Locke would work brilliantly as a radio play, but what is also impressive is how it genuine it feels someone driving through the night; from the smooth humming of the company car to the amber lights overhead. It lends a crushing air of solitude.

19. Song of the Sea

Animation has been the most consistently reliable form of media over many decades. The bar is so high, that I honestly struggled to pick one for this list. I floundered between the ingenius of Pixar’s Inside Out, Isao Takahata’s beautiful swansong The Tale of Princess Kaguya, the jaw-dropping sweep of The Red Turtle, the laugh-riot of The Lego Movie, the list truly goes on. One film left me inconsolable with floods of tears, and that was Tom Moore’s Song of the Sea. It is a film soaked in folklore, but it doesn’t fall into the trap of being twee. There is wave upon wave of gorgeous animation being reinforced by themes of family grief, brotherly responsibility and heartbroken spite. Song of the Sea defines a terrific balance many animated films achieved this decade: sublime artwork matching exceptional storytelling. 

18. Dreams of a Life

British documentaries continued the up-and-up throughout the 2010s. It was tough to decide between Clio Bernard’s innovative The Arbor, Asif Kapadia’s poignant Amy, the lovingly delicate Notes on Blindness and the compelling A Syrian Love Story. What Carol Morley manages to do with Dreams of a Life is bring poetic legitimacy to a heartbreakingly lonesome death: Joyce Carol Vincent wrapping presents in front of the TV, she dies suddenly, and is not found for another three years. The interviews with various friends and distant family confirms Joyce’s presence in the world, but the recreations provide her a body and soul so sorely deserved.

17. Under The Skin

There is a tragic forgone conclusion with Under The Skin. The interpretations are plentiful: is it a feminist discourse on male attraction? Alien alienation? Or the destructive nature of human beauty? Director Jonathan Glazer uses the recognisable star power of Scarlett Johansson to plunge her in the grit. She is an alien entity who scouts her prey on the Glaswegian streets. At first she obliterates the characteristic lustful male, then the lines shudder and blur. Her objective becomes lost and she wanders into the Highlands. Even if you don’t buy the meanings behind Under The Skin, it is a striking audiovisual exercise. Not least of all, Mica Levi’s haunting and quivering score.

16. Girlhood

Is it asking for trouble to include two ‘Hoods’ in amongst the pack (spoiler) ? Cèline Sciamma is one of the best female directors to come out of this decade (look out for the sublime Portrait of a Lady on Fire this year). Her ebullient compassion for her teenage subjects against the Banlieue is why Girlhood is a powerful entry in the already-reputable French social-realism subgenre. Where there is roughness there are some thrilling interludes of joy. In particular, one scene with the gang of friends dancing in a hotel room with stolen goods, all set to the affirming “Diamonds�� by Rhianna. Sciamma knows how to capture the vibe of a moment of happiness and let it flower. It makes social realism less a one-note descent into collapse. It takes a knowing and deft hand to pull that off.

15. Paddington 2

Paddington has all the charm and playfulness of a well-crafted pantomime. Paddington 2 visually represents that perfectly through flip-book canvases, which pull back like a colourful and jaunty set change. What is lovely is how first film was a sigh of relief. In other words, Paddington as a beloved literary character has not only been untainted, but it has been brought so cleverly up-to-scratch. The warmth of its message about inclusiveness and family is nothing terribly new, but Paddington has so much heart to back it up. Comedically, the films pack just the right amount of innuendo and silent cinema show pieces, to make this sort of humour seem so fresh. Paddington 2 refines the winning formula.

14. Force Majeure

Force Majeure is about a family going on a skiing trip. The family are initially mundane in how well-maintained they are. They are financially stable, brush their teeth in a squeaky clean bathroom with their electric toothbrushes, and the children are all kitted up. However in one riveting long still shot, the solid family unit is doomed. It is the fallout of that one event and the marital crumbling which makes Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure deliciously tense. Better yet, it makes one want to watch that one event again. Is the father’s one instinctive act a true reveal of his selfish character, or is it something worth forgiving in the heat of the moment? There are no sturdy answers and that is the consequence of a fleeting act.

13. You Were Never Really Here

Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here is a psychological revenge drama in which the revenge is achingly taken away from Joaquin Phoenix’s contract killer and us as an audience. It is a film about trauma. The scenes of violence are either jolting or they are exhaustively unsatisfactory; that is how realistically it is portrayed. One scene in particular robs us of a clear picture of how violence plays out. Like Phoneix’s Joe, we are left with a cold sweat. Revenge is an unhealthy picture through and through. Ramsay makes us feel the discomfort and the lack of glory, at odds with what we are so used to seeing these days.

12. A Separation

A Separation is a constant roll-out of trail and consequence. The ‘separation’ has formally commenced in the opening scene. The couple addresses the camera with pleas and arguments. The judge they’re speaking to has a line waiting outside with couples in a similar predicament, but we’re dealing with one. The film presents the separation like a case study, and it continues to be gripping and emotionally charged throughout. Director Ashgar Farhadi scrutinises our judgement of these characters, for there is always one morsel of information that leaves us second guessing. In the end, the film is tragic because there is no right and wrong. What is clever about A Separation is that, whilst there is a steady underlying context which points towards Iranian society, it is a borderless film. 

11. O.J. Made In America

“There’s no more powerful a narrative in American society than race”. O.J.: Made in America charts a monumental rise-and-fall narrative like no other. For the good part of 467 minutes, there is a wicked absurdity in how the American Dream is favoured and unstable. Ezra Edelman’s charting of O.J. Simpsons’ career, lifestyle and persona is set very knowingly against the relentless chronicle of racial injustice and poverty. It makes re-living the already well-documented murder trial gut-wrenching and compelling all over again. O.J.: Made in America is already touted as one of the best sports documentaries since Hoop Dreams. Like Hoop Dreams, it is little to do with sports, it is about everything around it.

[scribblemethink-blog]

Text and Layout/Narrate, Know, Tell 14/10/19

In this session we explored various theorists and their theories in relation to text and layout.

Beatrice Warde: The Crystal Goblet

·      Seeing text as interface; a medium/mode via which we encounter and interact with as a narrative

·      Legibility; how easy characters are to read (individual characters and space)

·      Readability; how easy sections of text are to read and their layout/arrangement

·      The style of the text shouldn’t interfere with the meaning conveyed

·      Typeface used should essentially be unnoticeable (focus is on the text)

Tzvetan Todorov’s Five Step Narrative theory

The philosopher studied many stories and observed that all narratives follow the same structure:

-       Equilibrium

-       Disruption

-       Recognition (of disruption)

-       Reparation

-       New equilibrium/restoration

Vladimir Propp’s character types

The scholar studied lots of fairy tales and found 31 common narrative themes, in addition to seven main character types running through each narrative;

-       The Hero; reacts to the donor, eventually receives the Princess/Prize

-       The Villain; struggles again the hero

-       The Helper; often magical, helps the hero in their quest

-       The Dispatcher; sends the Hero on their quest

-       The False Hero; takes credit for the work of the Hero and tries to claim the Princess/Prize

-       The Princess/Prize; marries the Hero – acts as a reward for the Hero

-       The Donor; prepares Hero/gives them a useful object for their quest

Michel Foucault’s dominant discourse

The philosopher viewed discourses as being more than ways of thinking and producing meaning. A discourse is composed of semiotic sequences between and among objects, subjects and statements. Examples of discourse:

-       A ‘discourse’ about illegal immigrants

-       A ‘discourse’ about mental health

Dominant discourse refers to the overall expectations that we share within a cultural grouping – making it normative/accepted. It gives us the prevailing ‘accepted’ rules of daily life which are decided by our decision-makers; we have no real power over the dominant discourse.

Claude Levi-Struss’ Binary Opposition

Thesis (idea)       +       antithesis (opposite)      =     synthesis (way of seeing)

Examples of binary opposition include:

-       Psychopathy       +      empathy

-       Tragedy           +          comedy

-       Big                   +          small

-       Beautiful         +          ugly

Binary opposites can be found in all fields of meaning, ranging from the media to society. By comparing two opposing concepts, we can view more meaning within each of them; big would be nothing without small.

Roland Barthes

“narrative is first a foremost a prodigious variety of genres […] narrative is present in every age, every place, in every society; it begins with the very history of mankind and there nowhere is nor has been a people without narrative”

Barthes’ narrative codes:

-       Hermeneutic code (HER): refers to the elements in a narrative that are not explained and exist as an enigma, keeping the audience guessing. Narratives often hold back details in order to intensify the effect of the revelation of diegetic (the created/fictional world) truths.

-       Proairetic codes (ACT): implies further narrative action e.g. a character pulling out a gun. Suspense and anticipation are created through action rather than by the viewers desire to have mysteries explained.

(both the HER and ACT codes are categorised as temporal order)

-       Semantic code (SEM): parts of the narrative that suggest meaning by way of connotation and symbols

-       Symbolic code (SYM): relates to the systems of codes; deeper structural principle which addresses semantic meanings

-       The cultural code (REF): tends to highlight shared common knowledge about the way the world works. The ‘gnomic’ code is an example and refers to the cultural codes tied to clichés, proverbs and popular sayings.

Julia Kristeva

-       Abjection: subjective horror brought o by confronting one’s ‘corporeal reality’ – breakdown in the distinction between what is Self and what is Other

-       Intertextuality: the shaping of a texts meaning by another text. The interconnection between similar/related texts that influence audience interpretation of the text e.g. quotation, plagiarism, translation, parody and pastiche (positive parody). This stems from a central narrative.

Transmedia narrative: the technique of telling a story through multiple platforms using current digital technologies e.g. conspiracy theories. Sharing knowledge through multiple narrative entry points.

Chomsky’s Language Acquisition

Language is like a bell; it sounds and it means

-       Phonic form; sound (a word makes)

-       Logical form; meaning (semantic representation)

-       Syntax; an intervening structure (bell/voice/text/image)

Chomsky proposed that we each have a hypothetical tool in our brain called the language acquisition device, which enables us as children to quickly develop and understand language. It explains how we can rapidly learn language and its grammatical rules.

REFERENCE WEBSITES:

https://forum.frontrowcrew.com/discussion/9339/dominant-discourses-and-dis-empowerment

https://cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/Theory/narraTology/modules/barthescodes.html

ART/ARTISTS/BOOKS

·      Eric by Shaun Tan

·      The Graphic Guides (a series)

·      Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer – cutting into paper

·      Composition Number 1 by Marc Sparta – pages are loose and random so the possibilities of the narrative are endless

·      On The Road by Jack Karouak – a stream of consciousness

·      Writing and Research for Graphic Designers by Stephen Heller

·      Time Walker by William Hogarth

·      Rene Gruau for Dior

·      The Raft of the Medusa by Theodore Gericault

[rabbiandrewrosenblatt]

The Power of Resilience

Co-written with Terry S. Neiman

One of the most important social issues today is the politics of power. We see this in the so-called “me too” moment with its revelations of systemic sexism, and in the struggles of Black Lives Matter. However, we should also consider the unintended effects of reversals of power in response to those movements. In The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure civil liberties activist Greg Lukianoff and moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt take aim at how the way people communicate about power has become as much of a problem as the abuse of power itself.

Their work began as an article in The Atlantic and is the result of Haidt’s professional observations. His job is to protect students from abuses of power by professors, to safeguard their academic freedom. He found that students were complaining about the oppressive effects of their professors’ use of language. The main buzzwords of concern in this discourse are microaggression and trigger warnings.  

Microaggression refers to the use of everyday words and phrases that might seem harmless, but that communicate prejudice and hostility toward someone’s identity or orientation. The term was coined by Chester M. Pierce - an African American psychiatrist at Harvard in the 1970s. When a male professor directs his female teaching assistant to bring him a cup of coffee, it can be experienced as a microaggression, because it reinforces old stereotypes about women being subservient to men in the workplace. Because it is a small, everyday thing, the incident goes unchallenged. By going unchallenged, it becomes reinforced, and normalized.

Lately, microaggression has become closely linked to the notion of intersectionality. This term, coined by UCLA and Columbia law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, refers to how systems of power intersect to reinforce and multiply biases against marginalized groups. When a light-skinned, male professor directs his dark-skinned, female teaching assistant to get him a cup of coffee, it can be experienced as a mutual reinforcement of racism and sexism.

Trigger warnings are alerts that something is about to be said or shown that might traumatize some listeners/viewers/readers. In theory, if a male bible professor were to teach the story of the rape of Dinah, it might cause some students to experience a microaggression. In this case, the mention of the word rape is held to be a trigger that could cause victims of sexual violence to become re-traumatized. Also, in theory, others could become traumatized on their behalf – a kind of victimization by proxy. The dogma of trigger warnings states that the professor should issue a disclaimer or trigger warning that today’s lesson will contain material traumatic for some readers/listeners/viewers.

Microaggression, trigger warnings, and intersectionality have become integrated in the dogma of the social justice activism in post-secondary education. This is how our future leaders are being trained. It is a dogmatic, unforgiving culture of ideological correctness. Lukianoff and Haidt cite an example at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI).

[IUPUI] found a white student guilty of racial harassment for reading a book titled Notre Dame vs. the Klan. The book honored student opposition to the Ku Klux Klan when it marched on Notre Dame in 1924. Nonetheless, the picture of a Klan rally on the book’s cover offended at least one of the student’s co-workers (he was a janitor as well as a student), and that was enough for a guilty finding by the university’s Affirmative Action Office.

Lukianoff and Haidt widen their focus to show that the culture of protection and coddling is happening in tandem with a sea-change in how children are being raised and how it affects their mental health.  

They cite 1995 as the watershed year. People born before 1995 show greater resilience and profoundly fewer mood disorders such as anxiety and depression than those born after 1995.  There are differences both in behaviors and in outcomes. For example, those born before 1995 tended to get their driver’s licence on their 16th birthday; those born after 1995 - dubbed Generation Z - tended to wait until they had more supervision as learners. The members of Gen Z don’t go out as much, they don’t seek jobs as much, and they tend to be socially risk-averse.

Mental health outcomes related to trigger issues for Generation Z are getting worse. They suffer from exponentially higher rates of mood disorders such as anxiety and depression, even as other mental health diagnoses – e.g., bipolar disorder and schizophrenia - remain the same. This is especially prevalent for young women, where hospitalizations for self-harm have been found to be profoundly more common since 2011.  

Haidt - who himself suffered from depression - found that the most effective therapy for mood disorders and anxiety is to not avoid risks, but to develop resilience by taking risks. Thus, removing the representation of aggressions found in nursery rhymes, or the bible, or on the cover art of Notre Dame vs. the Klan is entirely wrongheaded. It is the exact opposite of what today’s university students need.

On the whole, the intent of trigger warnings and the appeal to fight microaggression and intersectional oppression are important, and just causes. However - and this is a big however - in practice they fall short of their purported goals. One problem is that it is impossible to warn an audience that rape will be discussed, without somehow imparting to them enough specifics about what will be discussed to actually warn them.

Another problem is that the backlash by social justice empowered students against teachers is a bad kind of quid-pro-quo. It in effect causes the students to exercise the same abuses of power that they have been taught have been perpetrated against them by broad forces of patriarchy, colonialism, white privilege, and even Zionism.

A colleague who teaches on issues of gender reports being criticized by students for committing microaggressions. For example, asserting that not only those who identify as “women” can be pregnant, students critiqued her use of the phrase “pregnant women,” which she should replace with their preferred language of “pregnant people.” This is a power issue for her, in part, because those evaluations figure into her performance reviews, and the students know it.

Our colleague, a scholar and researcher, concludes that the language of social justice activism “works analytically to a degree, but it is merely a tool, not a valid theory.” In other words, the language and discourse of social justice activism – intersectionality, trigger warnings, and microaggression – has changed from insightfully descriptive tools to dangerously prescriptive dogmas. This is so prevalent and oppressive that our colleague asked not to named, fearing backlash from students, other faculty, or people who have other political axes to grind.

We think this lesson follows very closely with how Torah scholarship understands the language and politics of power. Consider how Rav Yaakov Medan reads the Joseph story. He notes that Joseph and his brothers begin to overtake patriarch Jacob’s leadership of the family. From the story’s outset, Jacob’s leadership - or at least perceived leadership - is waning.

For some time, Jacob's household had been pervaded with a sense that Jacob - the patriarch and head of the household - was gradually losing his leadership ability. It is unclear where this feeling began. Perhaps it was his numerous - perhaps too numerous - bowings before Esav; Jacob may have lost his authority in the eyes of his own household at that time. Faced with the atrocity of Shekhem, he remained silent until his sons returned; they spoke in his place and Shimon and Levi then went out and acted without asking his permission. Reuven, too - in his act concerning Bilha - rebelled against his father's authority, ... In the story of the sale of Joseph and the taking of Binyamin to Egypt, Yehuda leads the family while Jacob is dragged along, almost unwillingly.

Joseph, already wearing the coat of many coloured leadership, and inspired by a set of dreams that places him at the helm of the family, may be making himself ready for the executive suite of his own family. However, he is still a pup, still a נער [a lad] in the words of the Torah.  He needs to grow up, needs to be challenged by life experience. He gets those in good measure, in a series of aggressions that no one would ever wish upon their child.

There is a strong lesson in resilience and growth to be found here. There are no shortcuts to growth. One cannot bubble-wrap the hard lessons. Much of who we become and what makes us wise and robust comes through our actual encounters with risk, adversity, conflict, and challenge. This lesson takes broader significance in the promise made to Abraham that his children will merit the legacy of the Torah and the land of Israel because they will suffer in Egypt. Our suffering has proven to be essential to our growth. Gd’s way of lecturing us – tough loving, respectful – through the stories of the bible is a model for how we should teach and learn life’s lessons.

The good news is that we do not have to inflict hardships on anyone on purpose. Life brings each of us enough growth-inducing hardships naturally. The Torah teaches us two key points in this regard. First, we must be kind in all our dealings. That means that there can be no hierarchies of power or quid-pro-quos of oppression when it comes to human rights, the dignity of the individual, or social justice. Second, we must understand that a Torah approach to learning is transcendent. Today’s narrative of oppression is narrow and myopic by comparison. It is too easily co-opted from a useful analytical tool to a dogma that seeks to redistribute abusive power from one group to another. The Torah’s stories might seem dated and simple, but they are complex and timeless.

[ivystoryweaver]

I'm resurrecting Jonathan Levy Discourse from March

vid 1/3 below vid 2 vid 3

@guruan was amazing enough to find the clips mentioned in this ask

I think it could be great if you could reblog with a clip of his talk with Mira (about how he feels with his new life) so people that haven't watched the show can get a bigger picture of his own introspection about how he ended like that (heart breaking-) I know some people don't want to watch the show because it's angsty, but I think that clip it's okay just to understand in what place Jonathan is in the last episode ❤️

I can only do 1 vid at a time, but I'll link the other 2

So what do we think?

Since some of the discordies are binging SFAM today, I re-thot all these thots

discourse here by me and here by @eyelessfaces and here by @missdictatorme and @reallyrallyauthor (I think @cosmickid-inmotion was in there somewhere too)

somewhat related fics here by @loki-hargreeves and here by @missdictatorme, moodboard and thoughts here by @loki-hargreeves

[ivystoryweaver]

I'm resurrecting Jonathan Levy Discourse from March vid 3

explanation and vid 1 here & vid 2 here

[ivystoryweaver]

I'm resurrecting Jonathan Levy Discourse from March vid 2

explanation and vid 1 here vid 3