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XTRA CREDIT

JB 400 posts Jun 20, 2003 4:16 PM	Post an analysis of one of the following. Try to be as specific as you can: 1)What impact does the post-colonialism have on the family depicted in Lee Tamahori's "Once Were Warriors"? What different paths do the characters take to escape their surroundings, and how do some achieve resistance and self-dertermination? Which methods of resistance strike you as most effective? Finally, who, to you, is the central character? Why? Be as specific as you can. 2) Analyze ways and scenes where the universal and specific merge in Mira Nair's "Monsoon Wedding." Also consider the role of hybridity and globalism in the content of the film. You may also respond to what human and visual elements you found most interesting. 3) Choose one or more of the books, films, articles or authors we discussed in class and discuss how it challenged a specific assumption you had about a given culture. Try to be specific and reflective (not too general). Consider new ways the content asks you to see your/our culture as well the one represented in the material you discuss.
Aztech 3 posts Jun 22, 2003 11:07 AM	In the movie "Once Were Warriors" post-colonialism has been addressed in the very beginning where we have an establishing shot of the beautiful naturalistic state of New Zealand, then we start to pan away from that into the growth that it has emerged itself into with the freeways, cars, and buildings, something that these tribal people at one point in their history where not used to living their lives with. They must now place themselves in the working world so that they can thrive in their own society. A society were all the people seem to struggle to maintain a livable life, at least from what the film depicted, I saw now upper-middle class or upper class people in the film. Every member took a path to escape the realities of their own family as well as from the progression that society was heading. The father who was to be considered a slave back where tradition still holds true, tries to be the big shot. Theirs nobody that is above him in his own little world, over powering his wife, who is of some importance in the tribal lands, with words and brut force, making her seem very inferior to him, turning her into the house wife of the 50’s were they do everything that is told to them. The wife struggles to keep her family together by tiring to satisfying everyone but ultimately causing more damage within the family structure. She pushes her two oldest boys away from her, one try’s to make a new family within the false embracing arms of the gang life and the other is taken away by the city, were as her daughter is be forced to be conditioned in the ways that the mother struggles so hard not to be like, that 50’s wife. The mother unconsciously is cultivating her daughter like this, not realizing the harm its doing to her. The son that is taken by the city has been forced to learn the traditions of the people, before post-colonialism took place, were he resists at first but quickly takes a liking to it. The central character in the film was the daughter, in her writings of her cultural fairy tales, tried to keep here family in tacked. She was the only one there for the whole family. And in her death she was able to open the eyes of her mother were she then took all her children to their ancestral home with the exception of the father who was the down fall of the family. Phillip Lozano w 12-4pm world lit.
Aztech 4 posts Jun 22, 2003 11:35 AM	In the “Monsoon Wedding” the wedding itself showed the traditional was of preparing for and the actual participation of both Indian and Americanized cultures. Their was the status of wanting to be more than who you where, were the wedding coordinator seemed to be a pretty important man but in the long run he lived in poverty with his mother who always nagged him. There was also the maid who wanted the feeling that she would one day receive the same treatment as the bride to be, a wanting of someone to admire her and a desire to take hold of such a treasure, being her. The bride still after that passion that we all lust for but just can never achieve. The use of cell phones through out the film established a good sense of hybridity and the old son that has some what left his culture for that of the American teen hip hop culture. The use of the porn industry in India was a nice instrument for the use of hybirity showing what directions their culture has adapted to, even in the language and clothing that the people who were engage in the heated discussion about porn were wearing. The most interesting thing about the film was using all of these elements to describe a culture to another one, naming mine for one. Phillip Lozano