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Friday, November 12, 2021
Thursday, November 11, 2021
Warping light
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Saturday, May 22, 2021
Artificial Intelligence
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
White Guy Diary: The Cultural Appropriation Edition
How can we reconcile the anthropological concept of cultural diffusion with the arising critique of the practice of cultural appropriation? I will never argue against the idea that systematic oppression exists, or that it marks with trauma wherever it goes, but the instinct to always protect against hurt -- a noble one surely -- is it always in our best interests? When I was hurt, I knew where my cards lay, where others' cards lay, so I could best play the hand I'd been dealt. The asymmetrical power of a host and a minority culture makes the profiteering off the minority culture certainly odious in a Marxist framework of understanding.
Critiques of cultural appropriation tend to be morally consequentialist. That is, they focus more on the outcomes of actions and behaviour, rather than on the motivations and intents of the actors in such actions and behaviour. They argue that the harm done to those traumatized by oppression by these images, by the act of appropriating culture, often rooted in rude parody, taken up by the host culture renders them morally suspect at best and simply morally wrong at worst. They tend to discount the intent of any member of the host culture as insignificant to their moral calculus, to use a term of William Vollmann's. Certainly the appropriation of cultural practices can come out of a place of respect, admiration, and love. But by sacralizing the trauma of the oppressed's experience, by prioritizing theoretical future pain against any notion of beneficial intent, they reify it and make it harder to overcome. I tend to lean consequentialist, but I must admit outright eliminating considerations of intent makes me uncomfortable. But who knows. . .perhaps this is white fragility, and perhaps they are right.
We cannot be killed with even a thousand paper cuts. On the other hand, pain is an obstacle to pragmatic organizing in anti-oppression work. Humans have always learned from each other; learning is always an appropriation. How am I, as a white guy, supposed to engage this great "shut-up and listen" exercise, without being somehow influenced by what I hear, by taking it to heart (too much, some will whisper to each other behind their backs). And hasn't this "taking it to heart" affected me, consciously and unconsciously, such that I might not appropriate that culture without any conscious intent at all, but simply through the processes of psychological sublimation and Freudian slips? Does this not produce a cyclical relationship between host and minority, where I listen, learn, appropriate, then lose the cultural war? Nobody likes losing all the time. Cultural diffusion: contact produces sharing, whether you like it or not.
One thing that irks me about cultural appropriation debates is how inconsistently they are applied. A straight, white man writing through the voice of a black woman is a no-no, but a Korean family in Toronto opening a Sushi shop is a-ok. Again, here is where the asymmetrical power card comes in handy, because we can aver that the Korean family is making a peer-to-peer cultural appropriation, whereas the white man, even if he is "raising awareness" of issues faced by black women, is making a downward appropriation. No Korean family is going to chastise a white guy eating in their restaurant, no matter how blatant a downward appropriation it is because you don't bite the hand that feeds you. The irony cuts both ways. That Korean family could not give a flying $^$# about cultural theorists' arguments about appropriation, or they might have a college-going child who does, at most.
Saturday, May 09, 2020
Wednesday, May 06, 2020
Friday, December 08, 2017
Piling up in the meadow.
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Valentine's Poem by Trevor Cunnington
Life's Debris
love, a flying buttress supporting
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Glossary
catafalque - a raised platform on which a dead body is placed
pleni-potential - a play on "plenipotentiary," a person with the authority to act on behalf of another
histamine - a chemical released by cells damaged or inflamed by allergies
conglomerate - a pebble and rock composite held together with cement
Monday, December 29, 2014
A Review of Frank Davey's Biography of bpNichol (2012), by Trevor Cunnington
Tuesday, December 09, 2014
An Ecclesiastical View on Visual Culture (if you will excuse the pun)
So it's been a while since I posted anything. If any of you are disappointed, I apologize. Sometimes the lemonade that life throws you can't be turned into lemons. Anyhow: busy is busy. Here's something I wrote in 2009 about the "new" academic field of Visual Culture. Trigger warning: academic language ahead.
For example, in this cartoon, Cruikshank depicts people from various classes working together to export orphans to the colonies. In the nineteenth century, children were not guaranteed the same rights as they are now. Corporal punishment was the norm, and orphaned children were a social problem that warranted, to some, an easily solution: ship them out to the far reaches of the empire. It was common practise also to ship unwedded and pregnant women to the colonies in the interests of "social hygiene." With a nod to Jonathan Swift's satirical essay "A Modest Proposal," Cruikshank here lambastes the practise as dehumanizing. The top hat and erect stance of the man in the centre emblemizes "polite society," that of refined gentlemen. The other man's stance, slightly stooped, and his raggedy bowler testify that he belongs to the working classes. A woman, in the background, also pitches in. This cartoon shows the co-operation of different social groups, often in conflict in other arenas, all working together to rid their society of a group beneath them all -- unwanted children. The tension between the emblems of civilization and an obviously barbaric act -- shoveling children into a cart -- shows the active nature of Cruikshank's "reading" of his visual environment, and then redeploying its parts for persuasive purposes.
With regards to "newness," I usually side with the author of Ecclesiastes, who laments “there is nothing new under the sun.” To claim there is something new is at the same time to claim complete and total knowledge, an act of arrogance, and further, of ignorance of one's own ignorance. However, the pixilated milieu of contemporary existence, especially with regards to communication, has made it such that these liminally conscious processes should be brought into the foreground and conceptualized, following Marcuse’s notion that the image and its superabundance militates against conceptual thinking.
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Letter from Tom Thomson to the world
Monday, September 02, 2013
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Fruitvale Station Review by Trevor Cunnington
Fruitvale Station is a special film that does almost all the right things. I find my thoughts returning to the film quite often in the week since I’ve seen it. It takes a familiar narrative, adds a few surprises, bucks the mold of emotional evocation in film, does some daring things, some plain things, and some innovative things all with panache. It acquires a particularly intense gravitas because of its roots in real events in recent history. I saw it in Toronto, in a less than half-full, smallish theatre, and I hope it was less than half-full because it has been running for a while. This hope is particularly strong because of the resonance between Oscar Grant’s murder by the BART police and the recent murder of Sammy Yatim on a street-car in Toronto. Where is the word of mouth momentum?
The familiar narrative is that of the struggling young black man in urban America, and the difficulty of escaping the ghetto. It takes as its point of departure a cell phone video of the real life event of Oscar Grant having his head slammed into the concrete of the Fruitvale transit station in Oakland, California, and then being shot by BART police officers. Thus, it does a daring thing, narratively speaking – it shows the end of the story first. Not only that, but the footage is so jarringly authentic, I must admit it made me feel a little nauseous. (The advantage of this approach is that the film can’t be “spoiled”). Then, it rewinds to the day leading up to this event, and we follow Oscar trying in difficult circumstances to be a better person. Difficult circumstance #1 is he cheated on his girlfriend, with whom he has a young daughter. Difficult circumstance #2 is he has been fired from his job at a grocery store for lateness. Difficult circumstance #3, we find out later, is a troubled relationship with his mother that he tries to mend by taking on responsibility for the success of her birthday party on December 31, 2008.
After a terse interchange about his activities for the day with his girlfriend, he heads out to the grocery store where he used to work to try to get his job back. One of the innovative things about the film is the blending of onscreen action with a second screen: that of his cell phone as he texts and dials various people. Thus, it tries to deal with the opacity of phone interactions in real life to offer a more internal glimpse of Oscar’s life to great effect. The sequence in the grocery store is marvellously executed. He gets his friend to get him some high-quality crab for his grandma’s famous gumbo, and notices a young white girl struggling to make a decision for a type of fish for a fish fry. After some slick signals with his friend, he lets her know he works there, but is on his day off. Then he calls his grandmother, a master traditional cook, to instruct the young woman. The meaning of this scene is lent some interesting ambiguity by the context of his conversation with his girlfriend in the second scene of the film about cheating and the context of his visit to the grocery store. Being that we don’t know a whole lot about the character yet (except that he has the characteristically fatherly tendency to curry favour with children out of the disciplinary reach of the mother), he could either be trying to pick up this young woman, or he could be trying to go the extra mile in customer service to get his job back. When we learn more about his character, the latter becomes the more likely interpretation.
After this exchange, he tracks down the store manager to beg for his job back. The manager refuses, and we see Oscar has a temper as his voice escalates in anger. The sound editing of this part is masterful, with very subtle ominous tones accompanying his raising voice. As a tactic of persuasion, he asks rhetorically and heatedly if the manager wants him selling dope again (marijuana). This makes no difference, as the manager has already hired someone else. Then we see Oscar driving around in his car, alternately listening to music, and making plans on the phone. One of the plans is his mother’s birthday party, so he speaks both to her and his sister, who can’t make it because she’s working (probably a low-paying job). His mother chastises him for talking on the phone and driving, so he jury-rigs his phone under his skully hat so that he has both hands on the wheel, then he pulls over, showing how he is trying to be more responsible. He’s 22, and we can grant him some slack on this front. He also makes a phone call to a drug buyer to make an appointment.
It is on the rocks (the visual symbolism is telling) of the waterfront that he has a memory, narrated via flashback. The memory is of the year before, when he was in prison for his mother’s birthday, probably for dealing marijuana. His mother visits him, and they discuss his girlfriend and his daughter, from whom they’ve kept his incarceration secret. During their terse conversation, which begins with his mother asking about a welt on his face, a leering inmate makes a stray comment directed at Oscar, and Oscar explodes in anger. Presumably, this is the man responsible for the welt. After this explosion, Oscar’s mother implores him to calm down, and then tells him she will not visit him any more. He then erupts again and is restrained by prison guards, but it is not in anger this time, but despair, as he repeatedly yells an apology to his mother as she walks away in the foreground. This scene likewise has great sound editing, with the same ominous tones accompanying his outburst. We can see the absolute no win situation he’s in: if he doesn’t put on his tough front, he’s liable to suffer consequences later, but by putting on the tough front, his mother’s regard for him suffers.
After this memory, we see him take the bag of marijuana, and empty it over the rocks and the water. When his buyer shows up, he hands him a small packet for free and apologizes by saying he already sold the pot. The buyer rolls up and smokes, and then he goes to pick up his girlfriend from work and his daughter from the day care. His girlfriend verbally heckles him for smoking pot in the car before picking up his daughter, and he doesn’t bother to correct her. We realize later that he is probably mulling over what to tell her regarding his lost job. When they pick up their daughter Tatiana, we see him race her to the car, and this scene is tastefully rendered in slow motion with the sun in the background helping to signify the great relationship he has with his daughter.
Later, as they plan to go out to the city to celebrate the new year, he suggests staying in. She presses. A sequence of his mother’s birthday party is likewise well rendered with overlapping dialogue and a nice touch of domestic realism. His mother urges him to take the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) instead of drive to San Francisco so they don’t have to worry about being sober to drive. All good advice that ends in catastrophe, with all the tragic implications that the girlfriend and mother must bear afterwards. The train gets delayed, so they are stuck on it when the new year turns. But, never fear! Someone has speakers and an mp3 player, and the subway car erupts in a party. Then, to return to the familiar narrative, Oscar’s prison past catches up to him when the man who threatened him during the conversation with his mother recognizes his name when the woman whom he helped at the grocery store sees him and calls his name. In this moment, his troubled past catches up to him and erupts in violence. The BART police are alerted, and the tense events leading up to the shooting are well-acted on all parts. My favourite thing about this film is the editing in the last few minutes. While Oscar is in critical condition in the hospital, having been shot in his back, the bullet piercing his lung and causing massive internal bleeding, we see a shot of him and his daughter Tatiana, speaking lovingly with each other. Unlike most films, which use music manipulatively in moments like these to evoke emotions, Ryan Coogler chooses to leave this segment totally silent. The result is heart-rending. The last two shots are absolutely gut wrenching, as the director includes in the final shot footage of a shy, downcast real-life Tatiana attending the anniversary of her father’s death. Thus, the film is bracketed by amateur video shots to lend its story an extremely endearing authenticity. This is the only film in the last six years I’ve been to that I’ve heard people audibly sniffling at the end.
For my theory nerds, this film is a great example of Benjaminian historiography; it does important work of salvaging history from the distorted view of the victors by telling it from the perspective of the people who get squashed in its imposing march. It is aesthetically wonderful: it doesn’t shy away from metaphor and symbolism to add heft to the story it tells and it is also daring and innovative. For me, it is a close call between this and The Hunt (Jagten) for best films of the year. Indeed for these two films and The Place Beyond The Pines alone, it has been a great year for film.