The Reality of Photographs

This week we read a section of On Photography by Susan Sontag.  In this piece, Sontag writes that photographs are for "consumerism" and do not depict reality at all.  I agree that most photos with people smiling and posing don't represent reality, but staged photographs can reveal a truth about society.  For example, consider the image above.  The photographer obviously positioned these girls to sit and act the way they are.  Most teens aren't always on their phones when they are with their friends, but the purpose of this picture isn't to represent reality; it is to illustrate how attached teens are to their phones.  Many teenagers are relying on their phones to communicate that it is limiting their ability to be able to have conversations face to face.  Having these girls sitting next to each other on their phones without talking to each other effectively reveals this flaw in society.

Another example is this photograph to the right.  I feel that this image, although staged, represents how women feel the need to look perfect.  She seems discouraged because she has one minor imperfection.  Although this isn't a candid picture, it still has some truth to it.  I know I have felt like this at one point or another.  I do not agree that photographs are "mental pollution."  Even though most images these days are edited or staged, they don't fill people's mind with useless images.  They reveal an underlying truth that is beneficial to society.

Hair Straighteners

Over the years, the hair straightener has become more and more popular.  Women all over the world use it to get their hair perfectly straight.  God forbid there be a single curl or wave in their hair.  I don't think I have a friend who doesn't have a straightener in her home.  But why do some girls feel like having straight hair is the only way they feel confident about themselves?

I have a friend who straightens her hair almost every chance she gets.  She naturally has curly hair, but has repeatedly told me how much she hates it.  She even wants to get it permanently straightened.   Just like how David Foster Wallace is "confused" on the morality of killing lobsters, I am "confused" on her motives.  I do not understand why she wants to get rid of her naturally beautiful, curly hair for stick straight hair.  I understand why people want to straighten their hair sometimes; it's fun to chance your appearance once in a while.  But permanently changing your appearance to conform to a standard is very nonsensical.  What part of society has made it alright for women to believe they have to change themselves in order to fit in?  Women should be able to feel confident without feeling like they need to change something as simple as the way their hair looks.

The Hours

This week in class, we finished Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf and watched the movie The Hours which is based off of the book.  I thought it was very clever how they made the book apart of the movie.  They had Virginia Woolf writing it and they had Laura Brown reading it.  I really liked how they combined characters to make one character in  the movie, such as Richard and Septimus.  Richard, like Septimus, is tired of "the hours" always following him so he decides to fall out the window, freeing himself from "the hours."  Woolf based Sepitmus off herself and I can see that when she is talking to her husband, Leonard, about how she is the only one who understands her illness.  Leonard reminds me of Rezia because he wants to help Virginia get better, but he doesn't understand what she is going through so it is impossible for him to help.

Laura Brown reminded me a little bit of Miss Kilman during the movie.  She is so distant and isn't very affectionate towards her family.just like Miss Kilman is towards everyone.  The only person we see Laura Brown show fondness towards is Kitty in the same way we see Miss Kilman only loving Elizabeth.  Laura Brown is so unhappy with her family that she decides to leave and live by herself because they only thing she desires is the one thing she can't have.  At the end of the movie, Laura has the same realization that Clarissa has at the end of the novel.  The realization is that life is beautiful and that no matter how many hardships you may face, you should keep on living. 

Unexpected Friendships

      "But this young man who had killed himself - had he plunged holding his treasure?  'If it were now to die, 'twere now to be most happy,' she had said to herself once, coming down in white.
       Or there were the poets and thinkers.  Suppose he had had that passion, and had gone to Sir William Bradshaw, a great doctor yet to her obscurely evil, without sex or lust, extremely polite to women, but capable of some indescribable outrage - forcing your soul, that was it - if this young man had gone to him, and Sir William had impressed him, like that, with his power, might he not then have said (indeed she felt it now), Life is made intolerable; they make life intolerable, men like that?" (Woolf 185).

Although Clarissa has never met Septimus, she seems to have a great understanding of his mind and his decisions, even more than Reiza has.  Earlier in the party, Clarissa hears that Septimus was in the war which is why he suffers so much.  However, Clarissa realizes that it wasn't his illness that caused him to commit suicide, it was the doctors, like Sir William, that made his life "intolerable."  The "treasure" that Clarissa mentions is Septimus's soul.  By flinging himself out the window, Septimus saved his soul from being corrupted by the doctors' wrong solutions for his condition.  Clarissa is the only character in the novel to understand that by killing himself, Septimus saved himself.

This reminded me of an episode of Merlin where the main character, Merlin, meets a boy named Daegal and doesn't fully comprehend his motives until he dies.  This isn't an exact comparison because Clarissa and Septimus never met but it still applies because Daegal and Merlin barely know each other.  Originally, Daegal was working Morgana, the evil witch, and tricks Merlin into going far into the woods so Morgana can kill his best friend, King Arthur, without Merlin interfering.  However Daegal has a change in heart and decides to help Merlin save Arthur from Morgana.  While they were saving Arthur, Daegal was shot and died.  Merlin realized after his death that he didn't come back and help him just to be nice, he did it to prove to himself that he still has goodness in heart after everything evil he has done.  Everyone in the kingdom thinks he is just a nice guy; only Merlin knows the truth about Daegal's actions just like Clarissa is the only one who understands Septimus' decisions.

Flashbacks

"Of course I did, thought Peter; it almost broke my heart too, he thought; and was overcome with his own grief, which rose like a moon looked at from a terrace, ghastly beautiful with light from the sunken day.  I was more unhappy than I've ever been since, he thought.  And as if in truth he were sitting there on the terrace he edged a little towards Clarissa; put his hand out; raised it; let it fall.  There above them it hung, that moon.  She too seemed to be sitting with him on the terrace, in the moonlight" (Woolf 42).

This passage represents how the past directly affects the present.  Peter Walsh just returned to London after five years of being in India and the first thing he does is visit his former love Clarissa.  He reflects back to the night he proposed to her, also the night she rejected him.  He sees the moon which they "looked at from a terrace."  His old feelings of love and "grief" are coming back to him through his flashback, proving how past events correlate with current events.

Just like Mrs. Dalloway, the TV show Arrow begins with no back story, it goes straight into the plot.  The show follows Oliver Queen, the son of a billionaire who goes missing for five years until he finally returns home, and his quest to protect his city by using his knowledge of the past to help with his current situation.  During each episode, there are two different time lines going on, one in the past and one in the present.  In order to understand the events occurring, you must understand the events that caused it to happen.

In this passage, there are also two timelines, one where Peter is in Clarissa's room and the other is the moment that Peter wishes he can forget.  But just like Oliver, he can't escape the past; the past is what shapes the present and the future.