And the rant begins in …5…4…3…2…1!!! April 17, 2008

I really enjoyed Tuesday’s class discussion concerning Cayce’s character. As I’m sure everyone was able to tell, Cayce annoyed me. I was bothered by her character, because I felt that her actions were problematic. Cayce’s actions were problematic for me, because her actions left me with many unanswered questions. For instance, why do only certain name brands bother her? Why is she able to drink Starbucks coffee, but unable to walk through a Tommy Hilfiger section in a department store? Why and how is her illness cured at the end of the text? After our class discussion, however, I think I somewhat get what Gibson is trying to do through Cayce’s character. Today’s society is fueled by consumerism. Advertising is all around us, and it’s definitely difficult to resist the influence of the media. For instance, I may go to the co-up whole food’s store on Central Avenue and get angry because everyone is feeding into the fad of eating organic, but there is no denying the fact that I shower with organic body wash. I think Gibson is using Cayce to show that in today’s consumer drive society there is no escaping materialism. Cayce tries to throughout the entire novel, but in the end she is cured of her illness; she is no longer allergic to fashion. Although Cayce is technically cured, I think she has simply internalized the advertising world. Cayce can’t fight against the plight of the advertiser, and as a result of this she internalizes the messages of the media and she becomes a pawn adhering to the ruling ideas. Although this may not be a positive ending, it is realistic, just take a look around.

I also found our discussion pertaining to the footage interesting. The footage is certainly something of importance to the frequenters of the F:F:F forum. The people on the forum admire the footage, and people, such as Cayce, desperately try to protect it from the masses. Essentially, if the footage gains popularity it will produce money becoming a commodity and therefore, it will be tampered with. When and if the masses tamper with the footage, it will lose its aesthetically pleasing quality. I was able to form an interesting connection based off of the idea that the masses are capable of tampering with art, the footage. I am doing my final paper on the Oprah Winfrey book club and what it does to the literary community. Typically, I am a fan of Oprah. In addition, prior to reading the Fitzpatrick article for class this semester, I felt that there was nothing wrong with Oprah’s book club. I have read books that Oprah has recognized on her show, and I always enjoyed her reading suggestions. After I read the Fitzpatrick article and we discussed the Oprah book club in class, however, I began to feel differently on the matter. The Fitzpatrick article recognized a particular author who turned down Oprah’s seal of approval, for he didn’t want his work to be reduced by the masses. At first, I felt that this was pretentious, but my feelings have changed since researching for my paper. Oprah’s book club recognizes Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, which is a book that I really enjoy. A branch of Oprah’s website is dedicated to the book club, so I checked out the link that featured message boards and discussion questions pertaining to Morrison’s novel. I have to admit that I was alarmed and somewhat nauseated with what I found. An entire section of the site was dedicated to being both a mother and a writer! Okay, Toni Morrison is a mother, I get it, but what in the world do her maternal skills have to do with The Bluest Eye?! It then occurred to me, however, that motherhood is discussed on the site, because Oprah is trying to appeal to her audience; Oprah isn’t a stupid woman, she realizes that a majority of her viewers have children, therefore, she is trying to appeal to the masses. After navigating Oprah’s site, I completely understand why authors wouldn’t want the Winfrey seal of approval on their covers. I think I feel similar to these apprehensive writers, for I too value books and I certainly don’t want them being tampered with. Essentially, I don’t want Toni Morrison to be recognized for being a mother above her writing. For me, Gibson’s footage is comparable to my favorite books and I understand why Casey and other frequenters of the F:F:F form don’t want their art being tampered with. After all, isn’t “art” one of the only facets of society that isn’t completely poisoned by the media?

William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition April 15, 2008

At the beginning of the semester, the entire class mapped out the difference between reading verse navigating the web. The discussion showed that for the most part the class viewed reading as a solitary experience while navigating the web was seen as communal in nature. In my opinion, Gibson’s text affirms this belief. I think Gibson’s novel shows that although in actuality navigating the web is not a communal experience, it is seen as one by its participants. The World Wide Web is seen as communal, because it promotes discourse. For instance, Cayce can’t help herself from visiting her favorite forum F:F:F in order to discuss the latest footage. Cayce even goes as far as saying that the online forum is her second home, a place she feels comfortable to freely express herself. The idea of spoilers is also mentioned in the text by Cayce, and this simply shows another aspect of the convergence culture. More or less, individuals are so invested in the footage that they actively search for answers before they are willingly given up by the show’s producer. I find it interesting how Cayce differentiates the different bloggers on F:F:F. She seems to separate them into two different groups, the completists and the progressives. According to Cayce, Parkaboy is seen as a progressive; this is because he feels that the footage consists of fragments of a work in progress, something unfinished and still being generated by its maker (46). Mama Anarchia, on the other hand, is seen as a completist, for she is convinced that the footage is comprised of snippets from a finished work, one whose maker chooses to expose its piecemeal and in nonsequential order (47). I’m not sure if I am reading too far into this, but in my opinion the progressives represent the new while the completists represent the old. Essentially, Parkaboy believes that the fragments of footage represent an original creation. More or less, Parkaboy is under the impression that the maker of the footage is creating something out of scratch, and as a result of this, snippets are shown to viewers once they are completed. Mama Anarchia, on the other hand, believes that the footage reflects an already finished work. Cayce also mentions that Parkaboy hates how Mama Anarchia incorporates theory, such as Baudrillard, into her posts. As a result of this, I couldn’t help but view Mama Anarchia as the traditional literary canon. This is because Mama Anarchia, similar to other completists, operates under the notion that contemporary artists merely mimic the work of the classics. In addition, due to the fact that Mama Anarchia holds theory in high esteem, she believes that theory is keeping the arts alive.

The idea of copying the original is also seen in Cayce’s descriptions of her surroundings. Cayce suggests on multiple occasions that she is living in a mirror-like universe, where everything is a reflection of the past. I read this as Cayce implying that nothing is real, because the world has been tainted by extreme capitalism/consumerism. On Cayce’s second day in London, when she meets the group of men selling the grenades, she tells her audience that she is in desperate need of coffee. She wants Starbucks, but it is still closed. One of the men selling the grenades, however, takes her to buy what she describes as the “white” coffee. Cayce finds the “white” coffee disgusting, and she ends up throwing it away in order to buy a Starbucks coffee. She then describes the Starbucks coffee as being a mere replica of the original “white” coffee. It seems as if everything in Cayce’s world is label intensive, and all of the small businesses and industries have been dominated by the larger monopolies, such as Starbucks. As a result of this, everything in Cayce’s world possesses hints of what came before, but the large institutions of power have taken full control.

Last, I find it really interesting how Gibson writes Pattern Recognition in the present tense. This is a fiction writing technique that I do not often see, and I admire it. I find myself reading Gibson’s words extremely closely, because I am monitoring his text in order to see if there are any slip ups in tense. I am not yet done reading the text, but it seems that thus far Gibson has done an excellent job of maintaining his tense.

Well that’s all for now, see everyone tomorrow!

Annotated Bibliography April 7, 2008

Hey everyone! I’m using one of the MACS at work, and I am a miscrosoft user, so I have no idea how to get the book titles underlined. I wanted to post in time, but when I get home I will update things. Sometimes I really hate technology!

Annotated Bibliography

Eco, Umberto.  The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts. 
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979.

When discussing the literature that appears on Oprah’s booklist, Winfrey place a great deal of emphasis on the role of the author.  By placing a great deal of emphasis on the author, Winfrey blurs the difference between fiction and nonfiction.  I use Eco’s text in order to discuss the role of the author as a way of showing that Oprah is not removing the writer far enough from the work of fiction. 

Fick, Thomas H.  “Toni Morrison’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’: Movies, Consumption, and
Platonic Realism in The Bluest Eye.”  The Journal of the Midwest Modern
Language Association.  22.1 (1989): 10-22. 

In my paper, I discuss how the reading of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye differs depending on who is approaching the text.  In order to show the difference between the readings of the literary scholar verse the average audience member, I compared the popular themes discussed in scholarly journals to the popular themes discussed on the Oprah Winfrey website.  Fick’s article is one of the journals that I used to prove my claim that Oprah’s audience members leave the texts suggested on the Winfrey site with superficial readings. 

Fitzpatrick, Kathleen.  The Anxiety of Obsolescence: The American Novel in the Age of
Television.  Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2006.

I focused on one particular chapter of Fitzpatrick’s text to establish my argument.  Fitzpatrick’s text suggests that writers who agree to accept the Oprah Winfrey stamp of approval place their work at the risk of being reduced by the masses.  I agree with Fitzpatrick’s claim, and use my entire paper to back it up.   

Harpo Productions, Inc.  Oprah.  4 April 2008.  27 March 2008 http://www.oprah.com.

I use the Winfrey website to show the typical reading experience of Oprah’s audience members.  The website includes author biographies, interviews, discussion questions, and online forums where readers can go to have conversations about the text.  I strictly focused my attention on Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, and the site showed me the aspects of the text that Oprah and her staff find of importance.  

Harris, Jennifer and Watson, Elwood, eds.  The Oprah Phenomenon.  Studio: University
Press of Kentucky, 2007.

The following text examines the origins of Oprah’s public image and its substantial influence on politics, entertainment, and popular opinion.  I hope to use this text in order to prove that Winfrey has become a household name, and people turn to her daytime television show for guidance.  In addition, I want to show that Winfrey uses her public popularity in order to promote the ruling ideas, so that she remains a dominant force in society. 

Johnson, Nan.  “Reader-Response and the Pathos Principle.”  Rhetoric Review.  6.2
(1988): 152-166. 

Oprah’s website places the greatest emphasis on what readers gain from the text.  Although Oprah does not classify this at reader-response theory, her site makes it clear that this is what she, as well as her staff, views as important.  I use Johnson’s article in my paper, to show the similarity between the claims Oprah and her audience members make on the site and the definition of reader-response theory and the pathos principle. 

Kuenz, Jane.  “The Bluest Eye: Notes on History, Community, and Black Female
Subjectivity.”  African American Review.  27.3 (1993): 421-431.

In my paper, I discuss how the reading of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye differs depending on who is approaching the text.  In order to show the difference between the readings of the literary scholar verse the average audience member, I compared the popular themes discussed in scholarly journals to the popular themes discussed on the Oprah Winfrey website.  Kuenz’s article is one of the journals that I used to prove my claim that Oprah’s audience members leave the texts suggested on the Winfrey site with superficial readings. 

Marx, Karl.  “Capital.”  Literary Theory: An Anthology.  Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael
Ryan.  2nd ed.  Massachusetts: Blackwell, 2004.  665-672.

I plan on using Karl Marx’s take on the Bourgeois and the Proletariat to explain Winfrey’s influence on the general public.  I want to show how Winfrey uses her empire in order to secure her place as a dominant force in the society.  By promoting her empire, Winfrey is getting her audience members to adhere to the ruling ideas.  Winfrey’s audience members adhere to these ideas, for they view Winfrey as a “mother-like” figure that they can trust.  In addition, I want to show that Winfrey transmits the ruling ideas through the repetition of images that appear in the media –the television and the internet, etc. 

Morrison, Toni.  The Bluest Eye. New York: Plume, 1970. 

My entire paper suggests that when writers allow Oprah to stamp the cover of their texts with the Winfrey seal of approval, some of the texts meaning may be lost in translation and/or reduced by the masses.  In order to prove my argument, I compare the reading of literary scholars to the reading of Oprah’s audience members.  In order to narrow down my research, I selected one book in particular that is featured on the Oprah Winfrey book list.  I decided on Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, because she is a respected author and her work is studied in many of today’s classrooms at both the high school and college level. 

Tannen, Deborah.  “The Time 100.”  Time.  Ed. Time Inc.  1 April 2008 .

This particular article, which appeared in Time magazine, discusses the influence Oprah Winfrey has over the general public.  The article pays close attention to the influence Winfrey has on the female public, and how female audience members strive to be like this American icon.  In addition, in the article Winfrey discusses her book club and she suggests on more than one occasion that the books on her list directly correlate to her life; in other words, she feels as though she is the main characters of these texts, and the author is speaking directly to her.  I plan on using this article to show how problematic Winfrey’s take on literature is, for it reduces the overall meaning of the texts appearing on her list.