EVERYTHING is part of a class system, bummer

"A work of art has meaning and interest only for someone who possesses the cultural competence, that is, the code in which it is encoded." (499)

I'm starting to notice that so many things bring me back to "The Educated Imagination" by Northrop Frye, and because it was happening so frequently, I thought about why. I guess it's because Frye was kind of spot on. I think that his essay has a great deal to do with what we talk about in class, and thats because it contains a very valuable and universal message. We honestly don't have much, if ANY, originality. To create, we must learn, and as we've learned from Bourdieu's piece, to consume we must learn. If we did not understand the 'code' of what we are consuming, of course it would seem like nonsense. I honestly had a hard time understanding a lot of Bourdieu's essay, but I think I got the main point (?) that because we must learn to consume, and because what we learn is influenced by our social status, what we ultimately end up consuming reflects said status. So I guess if I had any questions to ask about this, it would be what is the solution to escaping this subliminal class system of culture? Do we need to make everything much more accessible? Is this even possible? And most importantly, IF it's possible, why has it not been accomplished?

can they stand alone?

"An art which ever increasingly contains reference to its own history demands to be perceived historically," (500)

This quote from the Bourdieu excerpt piqued my interest because to me, it looks like a counterargument to my opinion about remaking stories over and over again. I'm of the opinion that recreating stories makes it far more accessible to people, and is an excellent way to keep around some stories that might otherwise be lost to time. Had Romeo and Juliet not be re-worked so many times, would it still be as prominent as it is? I tend to believe that you don't necessarily have to compare a re-worked story to the original--it should be created to stand on its own. I don't compare the Lion King to Hamlet every time I watch the Lion King, I just watch the Lion King because it's a good movie.

This quote, however, challenges my belief. From my understanding, it says that as a work is recreated and recreated over and over, you must continue to look at where it came from. My question here is, where do you stand on this? Is it alright for a remix to stand on its own, or is it important to remember the origin of said remix?

Romeo&Juliet same as R&Julie?

I am unsure if this will be the popular opinion, but I cannot seem to make enough connections between Warm Bodies and Romeo & Juliet for it to make sense to compare them. I can see the resemblance in the names, and the two opposing worlds colliding, but other than that I am lost. If someone could help me out with this I would appreciate it. 

I can clearly see the connection between West Side Story and Romeo & Juliet, that seems much more apparent than Warm Bodies and Romeo & Juliet.
So my question is: how do you connect Warm Bodies and Romeo & Juliet other than the name similarities and the opposite worlds coming together via two people?

What makes "Great Art"?

I chose to watch Warm Bodies(2013) along with West Side Story(1961).  I found this version(Warm Bodies) of Romeo and Juliet to be entertaining.  The story was modified to fit pop culture and the intense interest in zombies and the apocalypse.  As I was reading Bourdieu's piece, he included a quote by Suzanne Langer that said, "But now that everyone can read, go to museums, listen to great music, at least on the radio, the judgement of the masses about these things has become a reality and through this it has become clear that great art is not a direct sensuous pleasure.  Otherwise, like cookies or cocktails, it would flatter uneducated taste as much as cultured taste." As I read this quote, I understood it to mean that great art is not something that can just be consumed, you have to be educated to understand the deeper meanings behind it.  Is Romeo and Juliet still a product of high culture?  Especially in the Warm Bodies adaption of the story, I feel like the story has been adapted to fit popular culture and has created new ideas that did not exist in the original story.  Besides R, the zombie, Romeo and Julie being the human, Juliet they were not really star cross lovers and there was less of a focus on the other characters except for the role of Nora as the best friend/advisor.  The major theme seemed to be that love and understanding can change even the toughest of hearts.  That seems to be quite different from the original Romeo and Juliet.

 Image Source: http://rebloggy.com/post/nicholas-hoult-warm-bodies/43178547120

Image Source: https://www.rappler.com/entertainment/20992-warm-bodies-tops-us-box-office

Perspectives across time

West side story in 1961 New York shows us New York in transition. After the war but before the upheaval of the 1970s the hedonism of the 1980s and the optimism of the 1990s. The Dodgers and the Giants are gone the Mets do not yet exist. The World Trade Center Towers will not dominate New York’s skyline for another 12 years. Addition of Puerto Rican characters culture and ideas is very important because 1961 is just before the lifting of immigration quotas based on race. To take the story of Romeo and Juliet and put it in New York in transition allows us to see through the telescope of musical comedy What the stresses of the postwar transition looks like two neighborhoods in families. By making the rivalry between the two families based on raise rather than historical misgivings this is a production for about and during the 1960s.

The 1985 version is fascinating the original language set in Pete Wilson’s California With the Montague and Capulet clans transformed into gang France for the mafia. The setting is very much 1990s California brimming with optimism before to.com and housing bubbles would change the state forever just beginning to experience the neighbors at eight that Pete Wilson is trying to head off in his second term as governor. Obviously adapting swords and daggers Two pistols and revolvers is simply a modernization but the ability to keep the original mail log and pacing and cadence as intended by Shakespeare is remarkable considering that DiCaprio and Danes were so young in 1995.
There are flashes of more overt Catholicism in this version which suggests an audience and director were comfortable with the role of Catholicism in modern American life. The illusions to Catholicism in west side story are there but their carefully disguised as to not alienate a protestant audience.

Who Decides What is Art?

While watching the two reboots of Romeo and Juliet in the 1996 Baz Luhrmann and the 1961 film version of West Side Story, I'm struck by two things:  How well they've both aged (although the casting of Natalie Woods is a different discussion. .  ), and how they were created to be accessible for their culture/audience to create their own meaning and relevance.  I chose the above picture because I think Banksy is an excellent, current day example of creative people pushing the arts in a direction that makes it challenge the authorities of what should be considered art, just as those two films did during their time period.  The division between "high" culture and "low" culture is being destroyed even as we speak.  As an example, I remember when Lin Manuel-Miranda went to a White House dinner in 2009 to celebrate "poetry, music, and spoken word."  At this performance the opening of his new project, Hamilton was performed for the first time.  Here's a link to watch on your own. It is interesting to watch the crowd!  At first laughter, then realization of pure genius. All done at the White House in front of the President of the United States. In many ways, it's an example of how suddenly the culture and background of "old, white men" can be transposed/transferred for the rest of us.  Like Romeo and Juliet the story doesn't change, just the intended audience.  I see this as a source of a power grab by the "folk," the "popular culture" takes the material, then shapes it as necessary for their own meaning in their own life.   

Baz Luhrmann more like Bad Luhrmann

"Even in the classroom, the dominant definition of the legitimate way of appropriating culture and works of art favours those who have had early access to legitimate culture, in a cultured household, outside of scholastic disciplines, since even within the educational system it devalues scholarly knowledge and interpretation as 'scholastic' or even 'pedantic' in favour of direct experience and simple delight." (499)

This "early access" to legitimate culture, whether at home or in school, that is mentioned in this quote from Pierre Bourdieu reminded me a lot of our class conversation from last week. Today, less and less children are reading Romeo and Juliet seemingly than ever before. If they're exposed to this story at all, it is likely through one of the adaptations produced in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries, whether it be West Side Story or Romeo and Juliet the film, or something of the like. I still find these adaptations to be less enriching of an experience than reading the original play, or seeing a live performance of it. But less enriching doesn't make these films or only seeing this story through the lenses of these films any less "legitimate" or favorable, rather they are just...not as aesthetically good, in my opinion. There were some choices made in both West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet (1996) and phew were they something. But I guess they are not any less legitimate...although we really should continue to challenge our children with what they read.

What is Art?

Romeo and Juliet has shifted into the category of “high art” due to its transformation from function to form; that is over time the play began to look less like our own world and more like that of a time bygone allowing it to take on an art aesthetic and move away from resembling our everyday life. The language began to sound less like that of our own and as a result required deeper thought to process and relate the story to our own lives. 

Adaptations, though, re-ground the original story in function. When the plot is re-imagined in our own world and is recognizable we are able to more easily process what we are seeing/reading/hearing. Adaptations allow a modern audience to have instantly recognizable feelings. Bourdieu describes in his article "Distinction and the Aristocracy of Culture" that according to theory emotion makes something ordinary. He writes, “a systematic refusal of all that is ‘human’, by which he means the passions, emotions and feelings which ordinary people put into their ordinary existence, and consequently all the themes and objects capable of evoking them: ‘People like a play when they are able to take an interest in the human destinies put before them’, in which they ‘participate as if they were real life events’” (177). An example of how Westside Story is “functional” as opposed to simply a subject of artistic form comes in the number “Gee, Office Krupke.” In the song the Jets sing satirically of how they ended up in their current situation. They sing of lacking parental love and care, i.e. social guidance to learn right and wrong. This song relates to a social function and as a result shifts it away from simply having an aesthetic form. 

https://ramblingrooby.wordpress.com/2013/08/03/jay-z-the-artist-picasso-baby-a-performance-art-film/ 

Romeo Must Die and "Art"

Admittedly during the first 10 minutes of Romeo Must Die I probably had about five eye rolls, and that doesn't begin to consider just how annoying Anthony Anderson's character was. However, I must admit I did not hate it. When I considered why this story worked, why this remake of Romeo and Juliet worked for me I was not quite sure of the reason. I guess the mild humor of the remake helped ease that. I mean really, who would work that hard to get the Raiders to come back? Still one thing that I really enjoyed about the movie was the fall of the two houses. Through all of the lawlessness and internal fighting, the heads of the houses ultimately fell. Personally speaking I feel like I enjoyed that because this story of Romeo and Juliet is so ingrained in our thought process. Because this narrative is so stuck in our schema we naturally root for them- at least I do. Instead of them dying, they get to walk off in the sunset(metaphorically), and hey maybe even Trish will learn some Kung Fu. Although I have my doubts that she'll ever master that spine breaking kick. Oh right, back on relevant topics. I think this remake also forces the viewer to consider what truly matters from a modern viewpoint and I found to be refreshing. I don't know that I would say that Han and Trish end up together because they are star crossed lovers, but instead because they are honorable people. It shows how the infighting (within the houses) was really quite worthless and the lust for power truly is corrupting. So will this be an instant classic? Probably not, but it is an interested lens into why this story keeps working.

Rant Part II.
As a self proclaimed, whats the point of_________ expert, Pierre Bourdieu's text Distinction & The Aristocracy of Culture felt very practical to me and I appreciated it. I completely buy the argument that art functions as a way to divide the aristocratic from everyone else. "I matter because I like art." "I matter because I can look at pictures and talk about how they make me feel." One of the things that is always so striking about this discussion is it is almost always one sided. You have someone who values art and asks why don't others value what I like as well? Then they come up with reasons as to why they believe the other side does not value it. Then ultimately come up with an argument as to what they can do to make it more valued and thus matter to more people. Personally I think instead of getting more people to appreciate a limited or narrow focus, perhaps the solution is consider what is valued to the "other" and widen the scope. However then art would not have the divisional aspect to it that is so valued to those who are in "the know". Maybe I should just take a trip down to the Walters in Baltimore so I can be a bit closer to included. 

The Art of Love and Zombies

"A work of art has meaning and interest only for someone who possess the cultural competence...the code into which it is encoded."

My experience with rewatching and finally finishing West Side Story then to jump into Warm Bodies was strange to say the least. The variations of the love of Romeo and Juliet, the remixing of the nurse and the two "houses" at odds with each other, even death is switched up a bit to accommodate to the remixed plot. I find it hilarious that these directors and writers can create the same premise but make it fit into the current times, especially in a zombie apocalypse.

The quote above I disagree with completely. A work of art can have meaning and interest for many people. You can show a random person who isn't fully culturally aware Warm Bodies, they'll still understand that it's clearly a zombie movie that wanted to jump on the zombie hype train of the time but make it a love story. Sure, they won't delve any deeper than that meaning for them but this quote seems to have a narrow view on what makes culture culture.

References and Popular Culture

"A work of art has meaning and interest only for someone who possesses the cultural competence, that is, the code, into which it is encoded."

For all the snobbery present in Bordieu's piece, he makes an important point. We use the media we produce and consume to communicate with others who share our interests, experiences, and beliefs, and over time this generated an ever-evolving lexicon of cultural shorthand. This goes far beyond the level of elitist snobs looking down on people who could not afford the education and access needed to consume media deemed "high culture" or whatever term is chosen to imply "too good for them". Members of a fandom will have inside references which someone who is a casual consumer of that text might recognize but not fully understand, and someone outside that group would miss altogether. Some of these are either so ubiquitous or so deeply rooted in the human psyche that they appear everywhere, crossing cultural boundaries at every level. Those are things like the Hero's Journey being a metaphor for the progression from child to adult and Rags to Riches reflecting the wish for a better life and/or power of human perseverance in the face of adversity.

As I said before, this lexicon is constantly in flux, even more today than in the past with the rise of meme culture and viral popularity of new media made possible with the advent of the internet and easy access to it with the rise of smartphones. with respect tot today's subject, I submit
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/opinion/west-side-story-broadway.html about the stereotypes and improper portrayal of Puerto Ricans in Westside Story, how the 1961 film still influences their public perception, and why it's time to let it go.



addendum;
For the sake of interest, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/06/star-trek-tng-and-the-limits-of-language-shaka-when-the-walls-fell/372107/
discusses the Star Trek TNG episode "Darmok", which involves a species whose entire language is comprised of references which all of them understand, but which are incomprehensible to anyone who does not have detailed knowledge of their history and culture.

Swine.

Pierre Bourdieu’s exploration of the intersection of class and culture (and its philosophical roots) underscores the persistent structures of power and capital. The discussion of form over function is an expression of privilege; as Bourdieu observes about eating habits, “the taste of necessity…favours the most ‘filling’ and most economical foods, and the taste of liberty—or luxury--…shifts the emphasis to the manner (of presenting, serving, eating, etc.)” (502). Food, like other artifacts of culture, becomes a means by which we express our social and economic status, because to have the space or “distance” to explore the form of food means we are not starving. At Marx’s funeral, Friedrich Engels commented that what Marx understood was “the simple fact that man must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing before he can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.”  This means, of course, that the superstructure in which culture is housed is necessarily exclusive to the bourgeoisie. (It’s worth noting that these are not observations rooted only in Marxism; western philosophy has long favored distant, rational “viewing” over, as Bourdieu puts it, “the primary stratum of the meaning we can grasp on the basis of our ordinary experience” [499], a viewpoint that not only privileges the educated but also men, as those two qualities were so often linked and as women’s experiences were considered too embodied and intuitive to discern “the secondary stratum of meaning” [499]. End of Marxist feminist rant.)

This all provides an interesting backdrop to question both the role of the artist and the role of the critic. Susan Boyle horrified the classical opera community, because the general public was unable to discern between an entertaining singer and someone with “real” artistic talent. The comments sections of the articles about Romeo and Juliet were filled with people who obviously felt their opinions were valid, and in light of Bourdieu’s article, were probably also expressing their own class status. How concerned are we with how our particular preferences express our education or class? (PS. I drink boxed wine.)

Reboots and Deviation

In comparing West Side Story and Warm Bodies to the original text of Romeo and Juliet. I caught myself wondering if, outside of context, I would have recognized the films as remixes of the play.  Of course there are the subtle (and not so subtle) nods to the play; the balcony scenes, names of characters, and perhaps even lines or phrases from the original text, but I’m not certain that a love story between two members of opposing parties makes a work recognizable as a Romeo and Juliet remix.  Sure, the folks who wrote Warm Bodies modeled their story heavily off of Shakespeare’s play, but deviations from the source material may lead readers to claim that a reboot does not do the original work justice.  I was dissatisfied with the “happily ever after” ending of Warm Bodies, but perhaps that is simply because it didn’t go in the direction I was expecting.  Had I been unaware that the film was a remix, maybe I would have been relieved, rather than annoyed, that nobody died.

Westside Story

During the final scene of Westside Story, Maria says, "Don't you touch him!" "You all killed him. And my brother. And Riff. Not with bullets and guns. With hate!"

These quotes are so powerful and tie the whole movie together in one moment. Hate and love coexist and shape the world we currently inhabit.

THE VULGAR

R from Warm Bodies: https://cnsbranches.wordpress.com/2015/05/18/warm-bodies-imagine-dragons-and-conversion/

“The denial of lower, coarse, vulgar, venal, servile—in a word, natural—enjoyment, which constitutes the sacred sphere of culture, implies an affirmation of the superiority of those who can be satisfied with the sublimated, refined, disinterested, gratuitous, distinguished pleasures forever closed to the profane. That is why art and cultural consumption are predisposed, consciously and deliberately or not, to fulfil a social function of legitimating social differences” (Bourdieu 503). 

With each remix we encounter, there’s different levels of enjoyment the audience gleans from it depending on the context of their past cultural consumption. For example, people who have never been forced to read through Romeo and Juliet may not recognize its influences in something like Warm Bodies on their own. Although they miss out on the references, they can still appreciate the story in that form because it’s zombies and comedy and love and entertaining. The problem becomes when people are so wrapped up in their sense of high culture that the existence of Warm Bodies bothers them because it distorts the refinement of the original text, and they’re so distracted by the changes to the story and their discomfort with the setting that they’re unable to acknowledge its natural value.