This blog post is extra long. It's a make up for the week of Dawn when I didn't post, and for the week of Rocky Horror Picture Show. I’m just going to focus on RHPS though.

A few themes from RHPS really grabbed my attention and made me consider how well the movie connected with the class. The first is the “birth” of Rocky. Rocky was “created” by Frank; he was produced, not reproduced. A lot of attention is brought to his (re)production- it is celebrated, and the song immediately following his creation is about how Frank is going to “make” Rocky into a “man.” Rocky’s alternative reproduction makes an interesting comparison with other types of reproduction we have read about in the class- from out of womb brooders to assembly line production to cloning. Unlike the assembly line production of BNW and the cloning of NLMG, Rocky’s birth does not seem to be “for a purpose.” Instead, Rocky’s birth is simply a celebration of life and science, which is similar to reproduction in WOTEOT.

After thinking about the movie, I am still trying to figure out what each of the characters represent. Brad and Janet seem to represent normal, heteronormative society. They comply strictly with social norms, seem to be relatively happy with the life they are living, and do not recognize or know anything outside of what is considered normal. Frank seems to represent two things. First, Frank is the queer and often “closeted” side of society. This includes LGBT and other groups that are often looked down upon hated. Frank is satirically extreme and flamboyant; he is representing a group that is often stereotyped as such. He brings a simple message- give yourself over to absolute pleasure; however, his message is not a simple one to accept, if you are used to a heteronormative society. His appearance and his crazy actions are needed to get his point across. It also makes sense then that Frank’s castle is in the middle of a dark, stormy forest. He is an outcast of normal, safe society. Second, Frank is pleasure itself. Frank, or pleasure, and the desire for pleasure, creep up on Brad and Janet and “converts” them from “safe” and “normal” people to just people that enjoy life for what it is, by embracing what makes them happy and what satisfies them.

I guess Rocky would represent the young and developing youth in society. He is just born in the movie, and does not know much. Just like how sexual intercourse brings pleasure and leads to reproduction, Rocky is produced by Frank, who represents pleasure. Rocky is influenced by everyone in the movie. He is seduced by Janet, who represents the normal way of life in society. Normality and “fitting in” is tempting to youth in society. However, Rocky seems to have a natural allegiance to his creator, Frank. Rocky is conflicted, but he is somewhat loyal to his origin- an origin of pleasure, or of a LGBT identity. Rocky is tempted to turn to normal society, but he is still guided by his desire for pleasure, and his deep inner allegiance. Youth in society are tempted to be normal and fit in, but deep inside, they are often hiding their true feelings and queer identity.

I watched Anupama present her paper at the TO conference. Her paper was about different social classes, and how they can be seen in the art that each social class produces. Her paper was centered around a quote by Pierre Bordieu, which states that different classes designate themselves by by the different kinds of art they produce. Forster, an anthropologist and author, writes about how artistic production manipulates peoples perception of others, and how this can be carried over to a societal level. She draws from A Passage to India, Forster's novel, and a story that is told within the novel. Overall, Anupama's argument was extremely compelling. I enjoyed her speech!

Children of Men was intense. It definitely raised some thought provoking questions...
First, what do babies and reproduction mean for society? Besides the biological need for them to ensure the survival of our species, babies mean a lot to our society. The young represent hope and change for the better of our future, they represent the future itself. Time and the future is something that all humans hold on to when times get tough; things will change for the better, just give them time. Even if all hope is lost in one own's life, parents often sacrifice everything they have so that their children will be able to live a better life, they have hope, in the form of the happiness of their children. In the world of Children of Men, where everyone is infertile, it is as if hope has been lost, for society as a whole. The film represents that quite well... the setting of London in 2027 is bleak and depressing. From the muted colors of the entire movie, to the existence of assisted suicide medication, Quietus, the viewer can tell that 2027 London is supposed to be a dystopia. However, with the presence of a baby, everything is changed. A baby brings hope to the world, for a better future. In the scene where Kee brings the baby out into the streets from the apartment building, everyone stops to stare. Hope has been brought into the world again!

Second, How do people respond to events such as infertility? In the movie, some people try to account for the infertility by providing all sorts of explanations. A protest group in yellow in the movie is an example of one such group that is doing this. Often times, people seem to attribute higher death rates, natural catastrophes, or trends such as infertility to God and God's wrath. For example, in today's world, the Westboro Baptist Church is a christian organization notorious for protesting and picketing the funerals of veterans and americans that are lost in war. Their rationale behind their actions is their belief that America is losing so many of its soldiers because we accept homosexuality, which is incurring God's wrath.

After reading Spiller's essay and taking a step back to think about everything we've read this semester, an astounding realization occurs. Little aspects of the unimaginable dystopian futures we have been reading about have actually occurred, during New World slavery. Spillers described how enslaved communities were used for “medical research,” which is a plight not too far off from that of the donors in Never Let Me Go; both groups of humans, in the novel, and in real life, were bred purely for medical purposes. Spillers describes how this use of human life “demarcates a total objectification” of them, which can also be see in Ishiguro’s novel; the donors are called “creatures” by Madame, and are seen only as organ carriers.

Spillers description of how human offspring are not “related to the owner, though the owner possesses it” can be seen in the dystopia the Connie visits in Woman on the Edge of Time. In that alternate future, Gildina, the female that Connie meets, is a possession of her owner. She sees herself and other women only as sexual possessions of men in their society; their bodies are obligated by contract to their owners. Humans that are seen as objectified possessions by their “owners” is not only something that occurs in science fiction, but can also be seen in history.

Spillers questions “whether or not [sexual] pleasure is possible [in seductions and couplings] at all under conditions that I would aver as non-freedom.” This is a question that is also asked by the reader during Brave New World; the people of the World State seem to be happy and enjoy their sexual promiscuity, but are they REALLY happy? They only derive pleasure from the life they know because they are oppressed by their condition; they do not know any other kind of life.

In our reading this week, the society of the savages is what intrigued me the most. At first, I thought Huxley was going to use the reservation as a contrast to the society that Lenina and Bernard lived in, showing that living primitively is better than living in London in the future. Lenina and Bernard would question their habits, and embrace the ways of the savages. However, Huxley did not do this; he makes the savages evil and primitive by describing their ritual of whipping the boy. I believe Huxley wrote the way he did as a way of emphasizing the xenophobia and sleep conditioning that has been engrained into the society of Lenina and Bernard. In the future, anything outside of what you are conditioned to believe is so weird, that interacting with other humans that live differently is a recreational activity. This appears again at the end of the novel, when people come to watch John whip himself.

Furthermore, the strength of the conditioning that they go through can be seen again in Linda. Her desire to go back to London and use soma, even after living with the savages and raising a child, shows that the sleep-conditioning of their society lasts forever. I believe Huxley is trying to emphasize just how dehumanized and manufactured human life has become. Just like how an object or a tool has no mind of its own and can never break free of what it was made to do, humans in the future have become the same way.

I loved Woman on the Edge of Time. Piercy’s book was amazing, and honestly, the first book I’ve read from beginning to end in a few years. The most interesting scene of this week’s reading was the dystopia world of Gildina. Piercy’s depiction of Gildina really made me think about the course that science was taking, and the impacts it would have on life in the future.

One thing I noticed about Gildina’s universe is the nature of its appearance in the story. This alternate future appears after Connie’s brain implant, but the future reverts back to Luciente’s world after Connie kills the doctors that were experimenting on her. This implies that Gildina’s future is a result of the science that was researched and developed on Connie and other patients. Piercy seems to be suggesting that if a science ever becomes exploitative, as in the case of the mind control devices of Dr. Redding, the future would be a bad, bad place. The ability to control others and program what they do would lead to the complete objectification of humans as sex machines, complete with serial numbers, as shown by Gildina.

Gildina’s universe is Piercy’s speculation on what would happen if science were exploitative in its research and development. This seems to be a theme that is resonant throughout Woman on the Edge of Time. Connie mentions several times of the heartbreak that she went through when Claud died, as a result of the illegal, immoral testing of hepatitis on Claud when he was in prison. Luciente and Connie have a whole conversation on who pharmaceutical drugs are to be tested on; Connie is especially concerned, and questions Luciente when she says that people “volunteer” for testing. A little background research on Marge Piercy shows that she is a social activist. Perhaps this theme in Woman on the Edge of Time was just a way to voice her social concerns.