French Neo-Classical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) came to be known as a stern guardian of the artistic styles inspired by the predominant European social movement lasting from 1685-1789, The Enlightenment. After being contrasted with contemporaries like Eugene Delacroix (1789-1863) and facing the impending popularity of the subversive Romantic movement, Ingres gained a reputation for preserving classical styles (Gardner, 783). I’ve chosen his painting with a singular, female subject, “The Grand Odalisque”, 1814 for this anthology as a representation of Neo-Classicism, the artistic movement of the Enlightenment Period, which is also known as The Age of Reason.
The Turkish harem prostitute, or “Odalisque”, who represents the Romantic preoccupation with the foreign and exotic, as the subject of this painting could arguably indicate a lack of cohesion to Neo-Classical tenants, but Ingres’s technique and idealized portrayal of the woman adhere to the clarity, logic and order indicative of Neo-Classical art.
The Odalisque’s body is distorted slightly by elongation, but is perfectly proportioned with ample curves and a small waist, adhering to the Neo-Classical idealization of bodies in which men are depicted with sharp, defined musculature, frozen in heroic action, and women are painted soft and feminine. Neo-classicism was preoccupied with recreating historical Roman and Greek spatially-accurate realistic idealism, a technique inspired by the Enlightenment ideals of logic and experience as indicators of man’s inherent ability to understand and interact with the world around him. These concepts are represented through the Odalisque’s face and head painted in the classic, Italian Renaissance style and her natural, relaxed body positioning (Gardner, 783). Although the painting doesn’t feature the Neo-Classical standard of historical or mythological subject matter, the subdued color scheme in favor of focus on clean lines and realistic depictions of surfaces and textures like the folded, silky curtains and golden sheets, or the shiny metal handles make the style of Ingres’s piece truly Neo-Classical.
In addition to being physically idealized through the appearance of her body shape, the woman’s identity is also idealized through what Palestinian post-colonial scholar Edward Said describes as “Orientalism, a way of coming to terms with the orient,” or person of generally Eastern descent, “that is based on the Orient’s special place in European Western experience” (Said, 1). Said is referring to the idea that the European depiction of Oriental subjects is not realistic at all, it is merely a reflection of how Europeans view Eastern people through a racist, colonialized lens. By forcibly establishing the Orient as one side of a cultural and racial “otherness” binary through colonial and economic power structures, “European culture gained in strength and identity by setting itself off against the Orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground self” (3). Therefore, the Odalisque in the painting is completely European-presenting with no indications of Turkish or Eastern racial features outside of the setting and auxiliary objects like the Peacock feather fan. Modern feminism is far off and she is also presented in a sexualized, helpless context, naked on the bed, looking seductively back at the viewer. This painting enforces notions that women, especially non-white women, are second class citizens and exempt from the empowering ideas of inherent equality and rights to happiness and autonomy central to The Enlightenment.
II.
In 2010, U.S. military intelligence analyst and transgender woman Chelsea Manning leaked a video of a Unites States Military Airstrike in Baghdad which killed several civilians, including two journalists, to the anonymously-sourced classified information publishing internet organization WikiLeaks headed by hacker and activist Julian Assange. She divulged this video and several other sensitive documents to WikiLeaks as she believed they “were vital to the public’s understanding of the two interconnected counter-insurgency conflicts from a real-time and on-the-ground perspective”; a perspective which for the purpose of this anthology, aligns with the ideals of the Enlightenment social movement which lasted from 1685-1789 (Manning).
A co-worker turned her in and she was arrested on over 20 treason-related charges and confined in several prisons, first at military prison camp in Kuwait, then in Quantico, Virginia, and finally Fort Leavenworth, Kansas where she was convicted and sentenced to 35 years. As a sitting duck move in January, 2017, then-President Barack Obama shortened Manning’s sentence with a Presidential Pardon.
Despite struggling with depression and the constant fear of the intense, public scrutiny the media frenzy conducted of her choices and of her feminine identity, Chelsea and her WikiLeaks embody the spirit of the Enlightenment by her commitment to the truth. Her sacrifice justified the idea that the people should have access to information because they are capable of understanding and participating in politics and decision-making of their society. The global, but specifically American, public is indebted to Chelsea Manning, for she provided in the Enlightenment style, sensory, experiential knowledge about U.S. military conduct, to revolutionarily discredit the morality of covert military action, and the United States as a whole.
III.
The female, central ‘Lucy’ character in these poems not only calls the role of women in the Romantic context into question, but is an important mechanism which the poet, an assumedly male voice, utilizes to express his Romantic ideals. The poet first proclaims his love and presents a morbid death fantasy – which turns out to be true – about his lady love being dead upon him reaching her home, a “cottage” with a “cot” in quaint rural area (I, 5;15). The daydream-like imagining of Lucy’s death and the intense emotions and memories it induces in the poet are indicative of the Romantic concept of the Sublime, a Romantic artistic phenomenon associated with a fascination with death and its effects on the body, extreme natural beauty, and eliciting strong feelings of awe, terror, and inspiration. ‘Lucy’ is also positioned as deeply connected and metaphorically representative of nature, emphasized by lines like: “The floating clouds their state shall lend / To her; for her the willow bend” which describe Lucy as embodying the power of Nature and having control over it (IV, 19-20). The rural or natural trope represents the Romantic ideal of the inherent goodness of man, which only exists when he is one with nature, uncorrupted by society. Lucy achieves this elevated moral status, “And vital feelings of delight / Shall rear her form to stately height, / Her virgin bosom swell” by embracing and becoming one with Nature in the narrative of the poem (IV, 31-33).
Physical examples of the Sublime in Romantic art include Theodore Gericault’s “The Raft of the Medusa” (1819) or Eugene Delacroix’s Massacre at Chios (1822) in which dead human bodies are depicted in startling, contorted positions and suffering and anguish is apparent on the faces of the living. Both paintings also share a natural setting; Gericault uses the metaphoric power of the sea as his setting, and Delacroix depicts an island’s grassy tableland in the background
However, the “Lucy” character is strangely minimized in poem II, in which the poet describes Lucy as “A maid whom there were none to praise, And very few to love,” or as “a violet by a mossy stone Half-hidden from the eye!” indicating to the reader that Lucy was not extraordinary in any way other than by the passionate Romantic love the poet feels for her which validates her existence (II, 3-4; 5-6). These three stanzas which use nature metaphors to diminish ‘Lucy’ and therefore highlight the poet’s passionate, unfounded devotion – “But she is in her grave, and, O! The difference to me!” – demonstrate how Wordsworth’s work embodied tenants of Romanticism: the import of the poet’s own feelings, and subjective experience (II, 11-12). The focus on subjectivity and passion-driven thought, a rejection of Enlightenment ideals of rationality and empiricism, is central to Romanticism and justifies this poem series’ place within my Anthology as a pure representation of the Romantic movement.
However, because of these Romantic values, the character ‘Lucy’ has no value as a human, female character and is endowed with no internal power; Her importance comes only from the emotions she draws out of poet, and from her association with the power of nature. In the broader context of Feminism, Wordsworth nor Romanticism as a movement, which occurred in Europe from 1789-1832, changed the utilitarian and limited role of women as artistic or literary subjects. Contemporary Romantic literature such as Jane Austen’s Emma – although revolutionary in its female authorship, omniscient narrative style, and exploration of emotions – depicted women as inherently confined to strict gender roles and preoccupied with themes of marriage and status.
IV.
Director and writer Andrew Stanton’s animated Disney-Pixar film Finding Nemo, premiered in 2003, and although it was created long after the period ended in 1832, includes central elements of Romantic art. One of the film’s main characters is Dory, a female Regal Blue Tang fish with short term memory loss who aids Marlin, Nemo’s father on his quest. The movie reached international acclaim, winning an Academy Award for Best Animated
Marlin and Coral, two personified, talking Clownfish are living in a colorful barrier reef off the coast of Australia and are trying to start a family when they and their anemone home fall victim to a predator who eats Coral and almost all of their eggs. Hence the movie opens with and struggles throughout with Romantic themes of death, the effects it has on the body, and the powerful emotions it elicits. Marlin finds one damaged egg remaining after the accident, and proceeds to raise his son Nemo, who has a deformed fin from the damage to his egg, with extreme caution and adherence to rules and societal expectations for clownfish, whose evolutionary survival mechanisms include constantly hiding inside the stinging anemone for protection. A spunky, pre-pubescent nemo becomes fed up with his father’s strict regimen and rebels, swimming off the edge of the reef to touch the bottom of a human’s boat bobbing on the surface of the water. Nemo is consequently scooped up in a little net by a large human arm and to Marlin’s despair, the boat speeds off into oblivion. I see Nemo’s rejection of his father’s safety standards in favor of autonomy as a parallel to Romanticism’s rejection of Neo-Classical focuses on logic and experience as the only source of knowledge, as Nemo lets his powerful emotions put him in a perilous situation and believes that his emotional bravery will protect him.
Distraught, Marlin pursues the now-invisible boat where he smacks into Dory, voiced by Ellen Degeneres, who claims to have seen it pass by, but is quickly revealed to suffer from short term memory loss. Dory’s inability to think logically or linearly endlessly frustrates Marlin as she follows him in pursuit of Nemo. Dory’s character is reminiscent of the Romantic poet in that her non-traditional viewpoint allows her to constantly be in awe of the aesthetics of nature, and although she is scattered and self-conscious, in moments of contemplation, she has miraculous insights which drives the plot forward – such as her ability to read the English word for “escape” helping her and Marlin escape from sharks chasing the pair through a sunken submarine. Dory stops to marvel at the cavernous, dangerous gorge she and Marlin must pass through, a school of silver fish who coordinate to make giant shapes but provide shoddy information, and a giant, gleaming cluster of pink stinging jellyfish, so that the role of Nature in the film can be aligned with the Sublime in that all the animated depictions of nature are beautiful and awe-invoking, yet deadly. Mostly, Dory is representative of the Romantic and, in the contemporary context feminine-associated, ideals of the basic goodness of human nature and sentimentality. She represents the idea that the capacity to express emotions of love and devotion, which Dory proves by sticking by Marlin and Nemo at any cost, are more important than an ability to think logically.
The trials and tribulations of female protagonist Nora Helmer, the “doll” of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s (1828-1906) A Doll’s House make the play a fitting example of the European-American artistic movement Realism which lasted from around 1860 to 1890. In the play’s opening scene, Nora returns to her home with macaroon cookies, an elusive, exciting commodity as evidenced by the fact that her secretly eating them is deemed “breaking the rules” by her controlling banker husband, Torvald (Ibsen, 7). We also learn that Torvald, despite being recently promoted at the bank, belittles Nora’s spending habits with quips like “And it came to so little after all, Nora,” and plays with her financial dependency as if she is toy, preceding to give her money just to see her happy reaction (9).
Right away Ibsen presents the audience with major themes of middle class wealth, marriage, and gender roles which fall under Realism’s greater goal of depicting ordinary, working class people with truth and accuracy. The contemporary Norwegian town setting which allows for this frequent arrival and departure of secondary characters demonstrates how Realism shifted away from Romanticism’s rural trope and towards capitalism and city life. Apparently, Torvald had previously been gravely ill, and being told by doctors that the only thing that would save his live was a trip to the warm, southern shores of Italy. Nora had then apparently, behind Torvald’s back, and unable to borrow money in Norway as a woman, forged her dead father’s signature on a loan issued by Krogstad, a crook-turned-bank-employee, to procure money for the trip, and is now being blackmailed by Krogstad for this crime. This plot line, especially its focus on Nora as woman with sentiments, autonomy, and human flaws, and its portrayal of the structural societal limitations of women marks a rejection of Neo-Classical idealism, and signifies Realism’s focus on the unfortunate and the oppressed.
In the final scene of the play in Act III, although the Krogstad’s blackmail is neutralized, the debt is payed, and Torvald, after a brief panicked outburst, absolves Nora, stating that because of her stupid actions “she has become, so as to speak, at once his wife and his child,” or, incapable of thinking or caring for herself, Nora decides to leave (123). Awakened by her knowledge of low female status in society which she finds out through the terrifying loan situation, hearing the life story of Ms. Linde, a working widow, and her revelations about her manipulative husband’s views on her role as his wife, she is forced to declare: “As I now am, I am no wife for you” knowing that she could never be happy there (120). Ibsen, and transitively Realism, introduce a glimmer of feminine empowerment as they focus on social justice and follow the Realist narrative of society’s structures and restrictions getting in the way of characters like Nora’s happiness.
Karl Marx
Capital: A Critique of Political Economy “Chapter 10: The Working Day”
1867
Although German political theorist Karl Marx’s (1818-1883) lifetime overlapped most significantly with the artistic movement Romanticism, which lasted in Europe from 1789-1832 and in America from 1832-1860, I’ve included “Chapter 10: The Working Day” from his theoretical text, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy in this anthology as including aspects of, and representing Modernism.
In the section of Capital featured, Marx examines Industrial Capitalism and asks and answers questions central to the worker, or proletariat’s, role in the production which generates capital, or wealth, such as: “What is a working day? What is the length of time during which capital may consume the labour power whose daily value is has paid for? How far may the working day be extended beyond the amount necessary for the reproduction of labour-power itself?” (375). His questioning of the violent, exploitative nature of post-Industrial-Revolution capitalism is highly Modern, as it casts doubt on sacrifices that are accepted as objectively justified, promoted by the structures and mouth-pieces of Capitalism. Objectivity being challenged by innovative thinking is a hallmark of Modernism which Marx embodies, ahead of his time.
His conclusions, that “it is self-evident that the worker is nothing other than labour-power for the duration of his whole life, and that therefore all his disposable time is by nature and by right labour time, to be devoted to the self-valorization of capital” speaks to Modernism’s portrayal of the individual as alienated from all goodness in the world (Marx, 376). For Marx, that alienation manifests in the worker’s separation from the basic human rights of freedom and pleasure, and the worker’s separation from the capital their own labor produces, both caused by the ceaseless, greedy, unequal Capitalist system.
Although this piece of the anthology does not feature a central female character and is mostly analytical, Marx utilizes several narratives, such as that of deceased seamstress Mary Anne Walkley, to justify his theories about how Capitalism is a dehumanizing force. Walkley’s death in 1863 made London headlines as it was revealed to the public that she had worked for a “highly respectable dressmaking establishment” run by a noblewoman named Elise, which forced its female employees to work up to 30-hour work days in crammed, poorly ventilated rooms sewing ball gowns (364). “Mary Anne Walkley…died on Sunday, without, to the astonishment of Madame Elise, having finished off the bit of finery she was working on” from exhaustion and poor air quality, shocking the city (364). Marx’s dry, almost playful voice shines through in this quote with Modernist or even Post-Modernist hints of absurdity in his portrayal of the injustices done to the workers of his time. Although she has no feminist value or characteristics outside of her death, Marx uses Walkley’s plight as both a woman and a worker to amplify his Modernist portrayal of Capitalism’s negation of altruistic human nature.
Marjane Satrapi
Persepolis
2000
As an example of Post-Modernism, a movement that has lasted from 1945 through the present, I have included the autobiographical graphic novel Persepolis published in 2000, originally in French, by Iranian activist Marjane Satrapi.
Marjane tells a semi-chronological narrative of her life in during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, a rejection of centuries old Persian monarchy ruling, and an overthrow of United States-backed ruler Shah Pahlavi, who was soon replaced by a religiously fascist Islamic oligarchy. She is a complex and full of spiritual and ethical goals, like becoming a prophet so that she can perform acts of perceived justice, such as letting the family’s maid eat with them, or soothing her grandmother’s knee aches (Satrapi, 6). She uses 80’s punk style and music as an escape, despite being harassed and threatened by conservative Muslim women on the street for wearing sneakers, tight jeans, and a jean jacket (133). After lying to keep from being brought to punishment by the state, Marjane muses “I got off pretty easy, considering. The Guardians of the revolution didn’t find my tapes,” pops in a cassette and jams out to “Kids in America” (135). Her preoccupation with her immediate world and her embracement of popular culture are both tenants of Post-Modernism, which celebrates and embraces the contemporary, the outputs of a globalized, unstable, corporate world.
Post-modernism continues and builds on the ideas of Modernism, the preceding social and artistic movement which lasted from around 1900 to 1939, which centered around a pervasive sense of a quickly-changing and very dark world. The two World Wars and scientific innovations like Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (1907-1915) and Sigmund Freud’s “Three Essays on Sexuality” (1905) resulted in the fractured, intellectual, new nature of Modern art. Similarly, Post-Modernist events like the Islamic Revolution or the American Civil Rights Movement helped to shape Post-Modern art in much the same fashion. There is evidence of this fractured alienation in Perseoplis as from the beginning, Marjane is forced to take for granted her separation from both the conservative social leanings of the new country being built around her – slapping teachers and objecting to the requirement of wearing a veil in public – and the non-religious, “modern and avant-garde” nature of her family, with both her parents entangled in social activism (6; 143; 3).
Even in the most contemporary artistic movement, female characters like Marjane are still dealing with similar societal expectations and limitations. Post-Modernism, however, takes for granted structural, political, and social injustice and can therefore create narratives which illuminate suffering and alienation in playful, ironic ways. Satrapi’s comical, imaginative scenes and drawings seek to illuminate what it means to be a woman in the context of global politics, Muslim religion, and pop culture.
Mitchell Hurwitz (creator)
Arrested Development
2003-2013
The sitcom Arrested Development, another example of Post-Modernism, was created by Mitchell Hurwitz and aired for 3 seasons on Fox Network from 2003-2006; It was later revived on the streaming platform Netflix in 2013 for a fourth season of 15 episodes. It is filmed in the “Mockumentary” style, in which mobile cameras follow characters around as if they are living real lives knowing the camera is on them, like a documentary, when in reality, the show itself is scripted and blocked to appear that way.
Post-Modernism as a continuation of modernism asked: “What is art?” A question which resulted in the reflective, satirical artistic phenomenon which can be colloquially called “movies-about-movies”, or in this case “T.V. shows-about-T.V. shows” of which “Mockumentaries” are a subdivision. By imitating the shooting style and melodrama of reality television shows, Arrested Development illuminates the absurd narcissism and materialism of the film industry and of Hollywood, or broadly, Los Angeles, social strucutures. Both “Mockumentary” style and the show itself are true products of Post-Modernism, and the show’s female characters, especially Lucille, played by Jessica Walter, and Lindsay, played by Portia de Rossi embody the idiosyncrasies and self-consciousness of Post-Modernism.
~ A brief plot summary for context: Protagonist Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) a man in his 30’s and, the only put-together member of the highly dysfunctional Orange County bourgeoisie Bluth family, wants to be rewarded for his dedication and hard work and to impress his son George Michael (Michael Cera) by being promoted to president of his father, George Bluth’s (Jeffrey Tambor) housing construction company. However, the yacht is boarded by the SEC and George is arrested for cooking the books for years at the Bluth Company. Michael soon finds out that his three siblings, older brother and barely-employed party magician GOB, George Oscar Bluth (Will Arnett), younger and emotionally stunted brother Buster Bluth (Tony Hale), twin sister Lindsay Fünke, and mostly culpably his cold and calculating mother Lucille have been illegally spending company money for years to support their extravagant lifestyles. With his father in prison, Michael is then forced to step up to take over the failing company and support and deal with his ungrateful family. Chaos and shenanigans of course ensue. ~
The Post-Modern parody of society, especially female gender roles, lies in the flaws of the show’s female characters. Lucille, lonely and humiliated in George’s absence acts judgmental and elitist, constantly belittling and manipulating her children. Lindsay has an exaggerated preoccupation with pop-cultural activism and physical appearance, which manifests in her infamous “wine and cheese fundraisers” and looking at herself in the mirror a lot. She struggles with her loveless marriage to the seemingly homosexual and unemployed Tobais Fünke. Their struggles with relating to others and their complete evasion to absolute truths or morality by lying and cheating, make Lucille and Lindsay true, fractured Post-Modern characters. They navigate a sea of self-doubt in their newly induced poverty, and try to figure out what it means to be a woman in contemporary America, often coming to misguided, wealth-centered conclusions. They are extremely poor feminist icons, but superb Post-Modern icons.
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