Journal Response to Kara's Afrofuturism in Tanekeya Word's Artwork

My computer wouldn't let me comment on Kara's blogpost so I decided to post my response here:

I think what I find the most interesting about Tanekeya Word’s visual art is the ways in which the people are sometimes blended into the background of the paintings. The colors in all the pieces are vivid and bright, yet the characters are camouflaged within their surroundings. I’m not sure if this is a purposeful tool by Word or not, but in some of the paintings that feature fully clothed women, the characters seem to stand out the most. An example of this can be seen in the paintings “Pucker Up” and “Sweetheart.” The characters are placed in front of a background that contrasts with the patterns of their body. In paintings such as “Bootsie” and “Lyric” the body seems harder to distinct from the background they are placed upon. The bodies of both characters are textured with various colors and it is hard for the viewer to determine if the characters are fully clothed or not.

I think this concept of blending into the background is reflective of themes we can see in Butler’s work. In the pieces we have read so far, we have seen characters that have an ability to blend into society; yet also have aspects of that can isolate them from the rest of society. The colors in Tanekeya’s work seem to be a somewhat chaotic, and yet still hold general rules and patterns. Similarly, Butler’s work represents characters amongst a society that is in chaos and our protagonists are representative of an “Other” that could be lost among that chaos, or stick out. In each of Tanekeya’s images, she portrays a solitary person representative of Afrofuturism because of details to body features, and symbols that directly correspond with the culture, combined with themes of alienation and outsider figures seen in Afrofuturist pieces. Butler similarly creates many themes of alienation that center around and outsider figure (as seen with Lilith, Anyamu, and Lauren) and how those characters evolve in a society such as that.

Bits of Afrofuturism in Predators

For this assignment I had no clue where to start to find modern examples that related back to Afrofuturism. I started by thinking of recent movies and literature that I’ve read that were in the science fiction genre and how African American characters were portrayed in them. In doing so, I got to thinking about the 2010 remake of the movie Predators, directed by Nimrod Antal. In this film, members of our society, usually trained in some type of combat, are drugged and sent away to a distant planet which turns out to be a game preserve for these alien species known as Predators. The predators hunt down the humans for sport and each year new humans are sent to their planet.

                Laurence Fishburne is the only African American actor in the film, and he plays the character Noland. Noland has survived on the alien planet for years and has learned how to outsmart the Predators. The viewers initially think Noland is helping the group of humans to escape the planet; however we learn he is only a scavenger trying to kill them for their weapons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX42qv---AM

What relates Noland back to Afrofuturism is the way in which he represents an “Other” figure to both the human survivors and the alien race. He has lived in solitude for years, and even created an outfit out of the Predator armor in order to camouflage in the forest areas. Due to lack of human contact, Noland repeatedly speaks in fragmented sentences and speaks to a voice that is talking to him in his head. In the clip I attached, producer Robert Rodriguez describes Noland as “completely crazy” because of these constant strange behaviors. Noland becomes an Other that is “broken, irregular, and fragmented, not unified and whole” (Melzer 256) because of his time spent in isolation, on an alien planet, while being hunted by Predators.

Melzer’s essay asks questions of the Other and the Self, and at what point do we stop and realize that the self becomes the Other? The character of Noland represents the struggle to sustain the Self when “the other becomes inseparable from the Self.” (Melzer 257) Noland may look human, and at times at human, but he has inherited traits as a result of living among the Predators for so long. He begins to dress like them, camouflage as they do, and even kill humans for personal gain. What Predators does is portray Noland, the only  African American character in the movie, as a middle boundary between human and alien, and constantly battle with the self as he argues with a voice no one else can hear.

Layered Question: Dawn

Layered Question from Dawn

In Dawn, the concept of hybridity is a recurring theme within the text; the goal of the Oankali is to create a new race composed of genes that originate from humans and Oankali. By the end of the novel, Lilith is disgusted by the fact that the baby she is carrying is derived from the ooloi and refers to any human/Oankali hybrids as monsters because “they won’t be human.” (248) However, in the context of hybrid races, Lilith herself is not altogether human anymore; she has inherited abilities from the Oankali and can no longer be regarded as human. What is Butler suggesting about American society both today, and in the past, through Lilith’s hybridity and her aversion to bearing any children that is a combination of the two species?

Lilith's Brood Dawn Discussion Questions

Lilith’s Brood: Dawn Discussion Questions

1.       How does Butler define what it means to be “human” in Dawn? How does this definition compare with how humanity is defined in the other novels we have read?

2.       The definition of family is an interesting concept in Dawn. Nikanj claims that Fukumoto and Oankali are family because “they have accepted him and he has accepted them. He has no other family, but he has them.” (101) On page 139, Lilith claims all humans that are Awaken without their families will now become a part of a greater community; therefore establishing a family among themselves. By the end of the novel, Nikanj reveals to Lilith that she is pregnant with Joseph’s child. Lilith is immediately disgusted and refers to her unborn child as “a thing. A monster.” (247) What does Lilith’s reaction to this biological child, and earlier discussions of Oankali/human communities, reflect about Butler’s interpretation of “family”? Why is this important in relation to Afrofuturism?

3.       Is the relationship between the Oankali and humans, Lilith in particular, a symbiotic or parasitic relationship? Why do you think so?

4.       What is the significance of the ooloi being a sexless creature? Why might Butler choose such a creature to act as a source of pleasure and reproduction?

Journal Entry 3: Clay's Ark - Extraterrestrial, disease infected, kidnapping, non-rapists that love their disease-induced mutated children.

“Eli says we’re preserving humanity. I agree with him. We Are. Our own humanity and everyone else’s because we let people alone. We isolate ourselves as much as we can, and the people outside stay alive and healthy – most of them…Before, I was a private hauler. You know. Good money, if you survive. My truth broke down all the way over on I-Fifteen, and Eli caught me outside. When I realized what he had done to me, I thought I would bide my time and kill him. Now, I think I’d kill anyone who tried to hurt him. He’s family.” (525)

Clay’s Ark offers issues focusing around various topics of ethics, enslavement, and control. People are unable to control their actions that are a result of the extraterrestrial disease. Lupe justifies their actions by saying they are saving their humanity and sanity by creating a strong knit community; in this sense, Eli has created a community that strives to protect the human mind rather than body. Lupe’s argument also states that they are saving the humanity of people on the outside because, physically, they will remain uninfected if they remain separate from them. Looking at the end of the passage, we can tell that there is a strong sense of loyalty to Eli because of the way Lupe directly relates to him as “family.” Again, Butler sets up yet another binary of the mind and body. Because the characters in this novel are unable to protect their body from this contagious disease, perhaps they feel the need to justify the actions of community by continually asserting that they have control over other actions. Such as the amount of control Meda exerts when Blake and his daughters appear. Meda’s actions are assertive as she claims that “all three of you are here to stay.” (478) The control seems most evident by the fact that in this society, “none of us are rapists here. No one is going to take your kids to bed against their wills… our men don’t rape. They don’t have to.” (488) I think Butler creates this non-rapist society (which is completely opposite from what we have seen in the other novels in Seed to Harvest) because she wants to implement some form of a Utopia-like aspect. If this were a society where the men were just as bad as Doro, it would be easy for us, as readers, to write them off as bad. But Butler adds this factor of a tight family circle, which loves their children despite mutation due to the disease, to force us to question the society as a whole.

Reading this novel, I began to think back to our class discussion about parasitic versus symbiotic relationships. Despite the negative and terrifying ways Butler describes the disease, those infected are eventually able to be completely accepting of their changed lifestyle. It is as though the disease is manipulating their prior emotions as “the organism changed, adapted, and chemically encouraged its host to adapt.” (494)

 I suppose one of my questions is: If the disease was intentionally controlling the people living in Eli’s new community, could we still consider it to be a symbiotic relationship? Despite the fact that those infected are persistent on maintaining a close structure and there is some benefit of a sense of “community,” does the good outweigh the cost of kidnapping people like Keira, Rane, and Blake? Is the suffering of few, to preserve the whole, justify the actions of Eli’s community?

Wild Seed

Chrisitna Low

ENG 423

Journal Post 2

“Anyanwu could not have all that she wanted, and Doro could no longer have all that he had once considered his by right. She stopped him from destroying his breeders after they had served him. She could not stop him from killing altogether, but she could extract a promise from him that there be no more Susans, no more Thomases. If anyone had earned the right to be safe from him, to save his protection, it was these people. He did not command her any longer. She was no longer one of his breeders, nor even one of his people in the old proprietary way. He could ask her cooperation, her help, but he no longer coerce her into giving it. There be no more threats to her children.” Wild Seed (252)

                In reading this passage, I began to think about female agency and in the relationship or Anyanwu and Doro, who has the most power? This is an arguable issue, and one that I don’t have an answer to. This passage is one of the last wonderings Butler leaves us with at the end of Wild Seed. Throughout the book, female agency seems rather limited as women are held captive as slaves, breeders, and forced to endure inescapable abusive relationships. I began to think that women had no control over their bodies and some, such as Doro’s mother, are forced to literally submit her body for her son to take as his own.

                I began to think about Anyanwu and what power she has, as a woman, in this novel. She is the only being alive, equal to that of Doro, and is the only woman who is in full control over what happens to her body – she can even terminate a pregnancy if she wants to. I believe, despite having her body being used as an incubator for children and forced into marriages against her will, that Anyanwu has the most power out of any character in Wild Seed. By the end of the novel, Anyanwu is the only character that can exert some control over Doro. It is her threat of suicide that pulls Doro in to her demands because, without her, his dream of his “perfect” race is impossible and he would be left alone on Earth. Butler does not give Anyanwu complete control by the end of the story because despite Doro’s submission to her demands, he is still unable to change his nature of killing. Anyanwu wants Doro to “promise not to interfere with any of her descendants, but he would not” (252) because by this time they have descendants scattered all across the country and it would be almost impossible for Doro to avoid killing someone related to them. I believe Butler has Doro maintain this power to show that despite the agency Anyanwu has, there is no way for her to control everything.

                I think Anyanwu’s situation speaks to the larger issue of women in society, more specifically African American women, because to some degree she has the most control over her body and can direct the actions of a God-like figure like Doro; however it is impossible for her to have control over every situation. There is still a lack of power that Anyanwu is missing by the end of the novel and it takes extremes of almost committing suicide for Doro to come to some compromise with her. Relating Wild Seed to a larger theme of power, I think Butler wants her audience to think about Anyanwu not only has a powerful or weak figure, but to see her as both elements conflicting with one another. If Anyanwu were to claim to be all powerful, then she would merely be a mirror image of Doro. If she were portrayed as a “weak” character with no voice, then there wouldn’t really be much of a story to tell; Doro would win, end of story.

                Looking at the various book covers available for Wild Seed, I think it’s important to note that almost all of them are images of African American women. It seems evident that Anyanwu is the protagonist and, though depicted as weak in some situations, in the end she is the only one that can control the all-powerful character of Doro. It is her determination and ability to alter her body that gives her the control she needs.

Discussion Questions:
Who has the most power/control? Anyanwu or Doro?

How do the science fiction aesthetics of giving Anyanwu healing and shapeshifting abilities contribute to overarching themes of feminism and what it means to be an African American woman?

Journal Entry 1: Afrofuturism

Journal Entry 1: Afrofuturism

Nisi Shawl’s short story Deep End depicts a time in which the minds of criminals are uploaded into a prison ship known as the Psyche Moth, a ship set on a track for a prison-colony world known as Amends. After reading this short story, it reminded me of our last in-class discussion about what we consider freedom. In Ursela Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas it was clear that no one was actually free; the community’s happiness depends on the misery of one child who is enslaved to live in solitude and constant abuse. Bringing this subject of freedom back to Deep End, I began to question if any of these people were actually free once they reached Amends. The people that chose not to stay within the freespace of the Psyche Moth are unhappy and have their lives controlled by Dr. Ops. Those that chose to leave to go to Amends are forced to live within a body that is not their own. Not only do these bodies reflect that of their oppressors, but many are in damaged condition (possibly due to a “radiation-induced mutation) causing constant pain to the prisoner which inhabits that body. I wonder if any of these people are really free or if they even deserve to be in this kind of state. Shawl never says what any of the crimes of these prisoners were so I continue to wonder if it is justifiable that they be banished from Earth in such poor conditions.

The aspects of taking over someone else’s body reminded me of the movie The Source Code (2011). In this movie Jake Gyllenhaal portrays an army man named Colter Stevens that is a part of a program called the Source Code. The Source Code allows him to relive the last eight minutes of a person’s life; thereby putting them into someone else’s body. **Spoiler Alert** By the end of the movie, Colter Stevens finds a way to live forever within the Source Code and his mind is permanently within the body of this person he took over. Stevens has no acknowledgement or guilt that he has taken over this person’s body, life, and future and immediately claims it as his own. While reading “Deep End” there was one scene which stuck out to me which was when Wayna is standing in front of the mirror as she “studied her face, noting the narrow nose, the light, stubby lashes around the eyes…whose face had this been? A senator’s? A favourite secretary’s? Hers, now.” (20) I find it interesting how Wayna is immediately able to accept this new body as her own despite the fact that it is in a deteriorating condition and it is not her original. But then I began to realize the reason she might be able to accept it so easily is because of what the alternative choice would be – to stay within freespace and live a more controlled life under the rules of Dr. Ops.

In Nalo Hopkinson’s Introduction, the quote that struck me the most was “massa’s tools will not dismantle massa’s house.” (8) After reading this introduction, that was the part that stuck with me the most. I think this quote means that by taking the tools of the “masters” we are not using it as a detriment but as a strength to build new bridges. Hopkinson continues to add, “I don’t want to destroy it so muh as I want to undertake massive renovations – they build me a house of my own.” I think this can be connected back to Shawl’s Deep End because of the ways in which Wayna approaches her new life. She is stuck within a deteriorating body that could be considered that to be the “tools” of her masters. It is a tool created by that of Dr. Ops and the other white oppressors to serve as punishment for the prisoners. Rather than continue to be frustrated and stay within the compounds of the Psyche Moth, Wayna continues to renovate her outlook and use this new body as a tool to her escape. Wayna realizes that Dr. Ops and the Psyche Moth are not her only sources of life and strength; therefore she is able to use the situation to claim the body as her own because “this was her body. She’d earned it.” (17)

Discussion Question:

Who is more free? Thad and Doe left to live within the freespace of the Psych Moth? Or Wayna living in the a deteriorating clone body of her enemies? What is freedom for these characters?