Alright, I know this is ancient history, especially given that the match has been over for months now, but after an International Marketing class of mine today - I couldn't help digging up the past and venting a bit. We'll get to that in a minute.
Today, we started discussing FIFA and how they're marketing for the event...pretty interesting stuff if you're into marketing...or FIFA. Basically, they're relying heavily upon mobile-marketing and social networking sites to establish a personal connection with fans and potential consumers.Which is pretty amazing when you think of the online phenomenons that Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace have become over the recent years.
One problem: there is a multitude of ambush marketers that are jumping on the FIFA pseudo-sponsorship bandwagon. For those who don't know what ambush marketing is, it's basically associating yourself with a product (or in this case an event) with out shelling out the money for the endorsement.
Adidas, Coca-Cola, Emirates, Kia/Hyundai, Sony and Visa, FIFA partners for the 2010WorldCup, have all been on the receiving end of ambush marketing by their traditional rivals. Nike, Pepsi and American Express have been very prominent in the past as a result of their creative ambushing tactics. As a result of these often widely publicised exploits, one has to ask whether the enormous sponsorships payable by the official partners have given them any better exposure than the ambush marketers. It is almost an industry fact that Nike does not want to become “official”, probably because of the aggressive and very successful ambush marketing campaigns it has had in the past.
As with Nike ambushing Converse in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, American Express ambushing Visa in Barcelona in 1992, Nike ambushing Umbro in UEFA Euro in 1996, Bavaria Brewery ambushing Budweiser in the 2006 FIFAWorldCup in Germany or Pepsico ambushing Coca-Cola in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the 2010FIFAWorldCup in South Africa will be no different. However, the time has long gone for blatant and unimaginative latching onto such mega-events by ambush marketers. One only has to consider what FIFA has put into place from a legislative point of view to protect its partners, sponsors and supporters, to realise that the casual, unsophisticated ambush marketer is in for a rough ride. (Du Toit)
Until recently, I had no idea this actually went on. It seems a bit catty and below the belt, in my opinion. However, there is an estimated 2.6 billion viewers...yes, I did say BILLION...so I can see the desire to advertise during such an event, but when did we get to the point where business is conducted in an unprofessional manner? Oh well, I guess global marketing isn't for the fainthearted anyway.
Okay, now on to what really grinds my gears. There are 32 qualified teams competing in the World Cup. That's just fine and dandy, except for one thing:
Yep. The Irish just came out in me...again. What the HELL were those referees thinking? Oh, wait, they weren't. A blind man could see that Henry f-ing palmed the ball.
If the match had been handled fairly, I wouldn't have anything to complain about. Had the point been revoked and the game continued and France had still managed to win, then they would deserve their place among the 32 qualifiers...but the fact remains: they don't deserve it at all. Ireland has been denied a rematch and an unprecedented 33rd spot in the World Cup. Since they won't have another opportunity to qualify until the next tournament...I hope France gets CREAMED. Thankfully they're in Group A along with South Africa, Mexico, and Uruguay...my wish will soon come true. I'm going to root for the USA, well, because I kind of have to now. I could go for Germany or the Netherlands to cheer for my roots, but without Ireland in the mix my ancestral fervor seems to have diminished. I'm liking Brazil, though. Group G is looking pretty impressive, and definitely will have one of the top contenders. I wouldn't mind a Brazil - South Africa match up, that would be one hell of a game.
Okay, my FIFA rant is pretty much complete. By the way, I held back a TON of French slurs, and I'm very proud of myself...but from June, 11 to July, 11, I WILL be intoxicated most, if not all, of the World Cup...and I can't be held responsible to hold my tongue any longer. So, yeah...
Du Toit, Mike. "FIFA World Cup 2010 -€“ Ambush Marketing or Pseudo Sponsorship?" Lexology. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2010.
The Complete Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, is an autobiographical exploration into her childhood and how she came to terms with herself amidst political upheaval and the influence of Western culture. The graphic novel is a black and white rendering of the important frames in her development. The film, however, utilizes not only movement and sound, but the use of black, white, and gray tones in stark contrast with vibrant colors to achieve a similar story telling effect. This paper will focus upon the implications created by Satrapi’s specific use of color within both graphic novel and film.
Within Satrapi’s graphic novel, each and every page is dominated by two colors: black and white. There is no color, save for the protective binding of the title page. There are no shades of gray. If the color gray were desired, a thin black felt pen would be utilized to demonstrate texture and lighter tones. Would it be safe then to assume that the graphic novel medium is laboring under the pretense of “Life is black and white”? In essence, the multitude of characters in the novel, as well as, the physical background and settings are all concrete and deliberate – they are the two-dimensional embodiments of what it means to be “black and white”. According to Leatrice Eiseman’s Color: Messages and Meanings, every color holds an inherent meaning. The symbolic interaction between color is important, and Eiseman states,
“The combination of black and white always expresses extreme opposites. Symbolically, the ultimate connection is something that all humans can relate to as in the cover of night vs. the light of day. They are the alpha and omega, the yin and yang, the salt and pepper that season the flavors of color. The visibility factor of black against white in print, or vice versa, is indisputable. The final authority that verifies the ultimate truth is often expressed by ‘I want to see it in black and white’” (Eiseman 64).
In the novel, Satrapi gives her personal account of what life was like growing up in Iran and Austria. She chronicles diverse characters who are polar opposites of one another: the “Bearded men” in Iran, Momo, Frau Doctor Heller, Markus, Kia, and Reza. They all come from different countries, political, religious, and other demographic backgrounds, but through using specific colors like black and white to illustrate them, they become homogenous. They no longer hail from different countries or possess different skin tones. Instead, they fall under the broad category that consumes them: “Life is black and white.”
It may be argued that The Complete Persepolis is a novel set in perpetual flashback. The narrator’s tone suggests autobiographical reflection upon what is deemed important to remember and transcribe onto paper. The memory process “is not a passive one of mere retrieval from a memory bank. Rather, the remembering subject actively creates the meaning of the past in the act of remembering. Thus, narrated memory is an interpretation of a past that can never be full recovered” (Smith 16). If this narrated memory is an interpretation of an unrecoverable past, then memory itself is an intangible quality that can be explained through a number of ways. The text also goes on to explain that, “Memory is evoked by the senses – smell, taste, touch, sound – and encoded in objects or events with particular meaning for the narrator” (Smith 21). So, does color, or the lack of color, hold particular significance for Satrapi in The Complete Persepolis?
Undoubtedly, the answer is ‘yes.’ The limited colors of black and white communicate the author’s desire to represent a memory, a past experience in her life, as being a precise and meaningful endeavor. In addition, the selectivity in color creates a paradox: it allows a wide spectrum of people to vicariously insert themselves into a culturally bereft illustration. This is not to say that Satrapi fails to make her nationality known throughout the text, but in terms of the ambiguity of color, she allows the audience considerable freedom to experience her memories alongside and within the frames of the drawings.
In relation to other autobiographical narratives, the freedom that is found within the graphic novel form is only surpassed by one other medium: film. Where graphic novels seek to illustrate through frames and gutters, the superiority of film fills in what cannot be seen.
Unlike the graphic novel, the film Persepolis uses a much wider variety of color. All of the characters were translated into the film as they had appeared in the text – in black and white. However, it was the physical surroundings that underwent a noticeable change. In addition to the dominant colors of black and white, varying shades of gray, and other more vibrant colors were employed throughout the film. Eiseman notes that gray is “the middle ground between black and white, truly the perfect neutral…Because of this perceived neutrality, gray does have some interesting psychological connotations attached to it…[People] use their wisdom and ‘gray matter’(the brain) judiciously” (Eiseman 49-50). It is because of this fact, that we may interpret the film adaptation as an ascription to the expression “Life is not black and white,” because there is much more (gray area) at work.
In Persepolis, color is used as a means to convey a passage of time. Where the graphic novel as a whole could be seen as a continuous flashback, the film arranges scenes to direct the flow of memory and information. Additional scenes were added to the film to describe a subplot of Marjane as a young adult permanently leaving Iran, while functioning as the transition into the reflection of her past. In order to do this in a clear manner, the film employed the use of color to distinguish between past and present. The adult Marjane is illustrated in and surrounded by color, and her memories were limited to black, white, and gray tones. While not necessarily a flashback, there are a few similarities between this aspect of Persepolis and the classic film, The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy’s dreams are represented in vibrant color, while her mid-western reality is in sepia tone. Conversely, Marjane’s present reality is in color, while her memories are presented in black and white. Although these examples are not identical, the use of color allows the memories and dreams to be represented in a deliberate way, as to convey certain meanings that are specific to the storyteller.
In the film adaptation, color is also used to show Marjane’s cultural specificity. As previously mentioned, the graphic novel allowed for a broad audience to adhere themselves to the culturally ambiguous character of Marjane. In many ways, the film still allows the audience to do the same during her regression into her memories. However, it is during the present that we see Marjane colored and culturally specific.
Another interpretation regarding the use of color is that instead of being solely dependent upon time in the present, it also relies on the psychological maturation of Marjane. In essence, she is in color because she has overcome obstacles of politics, religion, and war to come into her own. She has become who she was meant to be. She is enlightened and illuminated – illustrated in color. In the 1998 film Pleasantville, the main characters David and Jennifer are transported into a 1950’s television sitcom via a magical remote. Their surroundings are entirely in black and white, which is the norm. Gradually over the course of the film, color is brought into their world through a loss of innocence and finding their true selves. This is very similar to what Marjane experiences throughout the novel and film, however, the main difference being that the latter medium provides an expression of this loss of innocence and self-discovery through the use of color. Ironically, Pleasantville’s promotional tagline was, “Nothing is as Simple as Black and White.”
Works Cited
Eiseman, Leatrice. Color: Messages & Meanings. New York: Hand Books, 2006. Print.
Persepolis. Dir. Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi. Perf. Chiara Mastroianni and Danielle Darrieux. 2007. DVD.
Pleasantville. Dir. Gary Ross. Perf. Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon. 1998. DVD.
Satrapi, Marjane. The Complete Persepolis. New York: Pantheon, 2007. Print.
Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. New York: University of Minnesota, 2002. Print.
The Wizard of Oz. Dir. Victor Fleming. Perf. Judy Garland. 1939. DVD.
It may be argued that confessional poetry is an example of psychoanalysis set into literary motion. Subsequently, one might argue that Sylvia Plath and Sigmund Freud go hand in hand when discussing theoretical perspectives of her Ariel poetry.
Undoubtedly, one of Plath’s most widely recognized poems – “Daddy” – has been revered and torn apart over the years since its publication. In it, a young girl with an Electra complex has to act out an “awful little allegory” before she can be free of it. If we approach this poem as an alliance between both biographical and psychoanalytic interpretations, we may be able to shed more light upon the Freudian and psychoanalytic impacts on Plath, and her disputable methods of dealing with a traumatic object loss – her father.
Despite multiple interpretations and inferences made about her work, psychoanalytic theory provides invaluable insight into the inner mechanizations of a poetic titan. This paper will examine the ways in which Plath uses literary and psychoanalytic techniques to “cope” with the trauma of losing her father, Otto Plath, and also the psychic costs that repression had on her.
In “Mourning and Melancholia”, found within the binds of Essential Papers on Object Loss, Freud publicizes his studies on the nature of grief, mourning, and hysteria. As a result of his research, he formulated distinctions between what he considered normal mourning and pathological mourning. From my understanding of his concept, the more serious pathological counterpart is founded on an unconscious uncertainty toward a lost object (may be a person, as well as an object).
During the normative stages of mourning, once the steps have been experienced and completed, the “ego becomes free and uninhibited again” (Freud, 40). However, it is in pathological mourning that we begin to see, “an extraordinary diminution in his self-regard, an impoverishment of his ego on a grand scale. In mourning it is the world which has become poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself” (Freud, 40). Freud then continues by generalizing some symptoms displayed by a melancholic: representation of self as worthless, incapable, and despicable. Plath often expressed in her journals thoughts of worthlessness and suicide,
“Read Freud’s Mourning and Melancholia this morning after Ted left for the library. An almost exact description of my feelings and reasons for suicide: a transferred murderous impulse from my mother onto myself: the ‘vampire’ metaphor Freud uses, ‘draining the ego’: that is exactly the feeling I have getting in the way of my writing” (Scott, 150).
Plath’s journal passage exemplifies Freud’s belief that the self-reproaches and vilifications exhibited by patients are actually reproaches against a loved object or person that have been redirected on to the patient’s own ego. According to modern interpretation and application of Plath’s continuous self-deprecating tirades, the psychic costs of repression meet the criteria for “major depression,” “mild mania,” and anxiety so severe that “it can only be judged schizophrenic” (Claridge, 211).
Jill Scott presents Plath’s literary techniques in “Daddy” as a means of reverse incorporation. The father in the poem is constantly represented as an “unsignifiable thing.” Since his image cannot be fully realized, she argues that Plath, “demonstrates this willingness to go to extreme lengths to falsify the image of the father, as if it might provide some relief no matter how tentative” (Scott, 153). She believes that this stems from survival: the innate will of the daughter to gain control over the image of her father, and of patriarchal oppression.
Guinevara Nance and Judith Jones present the idea that the persona in “Daddy” is attempting to exorcise the childlike view of her father,
“The first twelve stanzas of the poem reveal the extent of the speaker’s possession by what, in psychoanalytic terms, is the imago of the father – a childhood version of the father which persists into adulthood. This imago is an amalgamation of real experience and archetypal memories wherein the speaker’s own psychic oppression is represented in the more general symbol of the Nazi oppression of the Jews” (Nance, 125).
Plath’s use of infantile words like “chuffing,” “gobbledygoo,” “achoo,” and “daddy” helps to further their argument that the persona, however related to the actual poet, is in fact trying to rid herself of the childish vision of her father as “daddy.” Here, Plath uses this as a technique to reclaim her self-identity as separate from that of her father.
According to the biographical information provided in Sounds from the Bell Jar, Plath’s father was a severe and rigid man who expected his wife and children to be submissive to his patriarchal rule. The young Sylvia depended upon her strict father’s approval, and often went to great lengths in order to excel and garner his attention. The text argues that, “All her writing is autobiographical; she can never escape from the subject of her own impressions, her own miseries, terrors and nightmares” (Claridge, 207). If this is so, then we can infer that the persona employed within the poem of “Daddy” is a literary interpretation of Sylvia herself. The acting out of the allegory may then be seen as Plath seeking to achieve freedom through the figurative murder of her father, and the image of her father that she made in her husband. Trouble arises, however, when we take a look at the resolution, or lack there of, in the poem. Can there be any resolution when the speaker’s rage is evident throughout the poem? Furthermore, could the process of healing ever have occurred with the implementation of a surrogate father-figure, her husband, Ted Hughes?
In either of these scenarios, there is a cyclical pattern of self-inflicted abuse. Plath was never able to completely heal over the loss of her father, much like the persona in the poem. And how could she heal when she actively replaced her dead father with a “model” of him? This further suggests that in both the poem, and in Plath’s personal life, she was never able to come to a resolution – a stage of loss, grief, and then the eventual healing process – over her father. Instead, Plath was seemingly trapped inside her adolescent self, forever living and reliving the horrors that accompanied the death of Otto.
Although psychoanalytic approaches are often viewed with skepticism, Plath seems to integrate it seamlessly into her poetry, often using Freudian terms and concepts as a way to construct her own identity. Her inability to resolve the patriarchal trauma of her youth undoubtedly contributed to her overall literary voice, as well as her own personal trials and tribulations. While it may be unfair to attribute and dissect every detail of Plath’s work as purely autobiographical, one may see the benefit in applying psychoanalysis in order to better understand the psychological implications this had on a traumatized poet. The object loss of her father may not have been her entire identity, but it may be said that it most certainly comprised a significant portion of it. By repressing her issues, Plath was enabling herself to remain stagnant, unable to ever heal and lead an adjusted existence. Even being locked into a pathological state of mourning, melancholia, Plath has provided us with powerful and haunting poetry, as well as a psychological insight into the inner workings of a literary genius.
Annotated Bibliography
Bundtzen, Lynda K. "Plath and Psychoanalysis: Uncertain Truths." The Cambridge Companion to Sylvia Plath (Cambridge Companions to Literature). Jo Gill. New York: Cambridge UP, 2006. 36-51. Print.
Bundtzen uses psychoanalysis, made popular by Sigmund Freud, as a way to explain readers' interest and continuous display of intrigue over Sylvia Plath. She believes that Plath's unconscious repression yielded detrimental psychic costs, and an inability to ever move on and heal. "Freud explained the importance of repression and denial in keeping these oedipal desires and drives buried in the unconscious, but also the psychic cost of resistance in neurotic symptoms such as anxiety, depression, hysteria, and paranoia" (36). Bundtzen uses Plath's "Daddy" to demonstrate the cyclical trauma and eventual destruction that she was subjecting herself to. After the persona's first attempt at suicide, "she did not surrender the wish to 'get back' to him, but married a surrogate figure and significantly, a Daddy substitute who would punish her, repeating a masochistic relationship to a dominant male figure" (39).
Claridge, Gordon. "Shadows on the Brain: Virginia Woolf, Antonia White, Sylvia Plath." Sounds from the Bell Jar: Ten Psychotic Authors. New York: St. Martin's, 1990. 200-11. Print.
The chapter was a biographical look into the life of Sylvia Plath. While it does not go into any great "Freudian" detail, it does delve into the realm of psychoses and lists some instances in which would be considered psychotic behavior. It insists that there was a predisposition of psychosis within her family, "Sylvia's paternal grandmother was hospitalized more than once, and an aunt and cousin were depressives" (200). This alone does not warrant the declaration of her psychological instability, but the chapter goes on to chronicle the young Sylvia's desperate need for her father's approval, saying that it was necessary to her very survival. After his loss she replaced him with father-figure after father-figure until she met and married a man who was, "huge and authoritarian, like her father; he was the only man in the world, she said, who was her match, a god, 'rough, crude, powerful, and radiant', who was to solve all her problems, in whom she was to sink her own troubled identity" (204). The chapter also stresses that all of her writing is autobiographical, and that she was never able to successfully escape from the horrors that tormented her.
Freud, Sigmund. "Mourning and Melancholia." Essential Papers on Object Loss. Ed. Rita V. Frankiel. New York: New York UP, 1994. 38-51. Print.
Sigmund Freud studied the implications of pain and grief. In his studies he observed grieving patients, more specifically, ones who had experienced what he called object loss. When dealing with the loss of an object (which could very well be a person as well as a thing) he distinguished between two varying degrees of mourning - normal mourning and pathological mourning, referred to as melancholia. Melancholia can be characterized as a refusal to abandon the object of loss, "This opposition can be so intense that a turning away from reality takes place and a clinging to the object through the medium of a hallucinatory wishful psychosis" (39). Plath, especially toward the end of her life, displayed melancholic characteristics - many of which may be interpreted within her poems, like "Daddy."
Nance, Guinevara, and Judith Jones. "Doing Away with Daddy: Exorcism and Sympathetic Magic in Plath's Poetry." Critical Essays on Sylvia Plath. Boston, Mass: G.K. Hall, 1984. 124-29. Print.
This essay proposes the idea that the persona in the poem of "Daddy" was attempting to "exorcise her childish view of her daddy" (124). Rather than viewing the subject within the poem as a literal translation, Nance and Jones believe that this is a psychic purging of the father image - namely the childlike view of him. "It is inaccurate to see this last statement [Daddy, I have had to kill you] entirely as a suggestion of patricide, for the persona's threat is against the infantile version of the father which the word "daddy" connotes" (126).
Plath, Sylvia. Ariel: The Restored Edition A Facsimile of Plath's Manuscript, Reinstating Her Original Selection and Arrangement. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Print.
This is the version of Ariel that Sylvia Plath meant for readers to view. It provides a look into the poet's intentions regarding the publication and the interpretation of her final poems. Throughout the poems, she touches upon issues of motherhood, infidelity, marriage, death, suicide, and in relation to my paper - her issues with losing her father, Otto Plath. While there is more than one example of this trauma evident in her poetry, I have chosen to focus on her famous (or infamous) "Daddy".
Rose, Jacqueline. "'Daddy'" The Haunting of Sylvia Plath. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP, 1992. 205-38. Print.
Rose's interpretation of "Daddy" and the elements within it are a means for Plath to construct her identity. She compares the real life experiences of Holocaust survivors and their children to their aggressors (Nazis). "The perpetrators experience themselves as victims in order both to deny and legitimate their role (to be a perpetrator you have first to 'be' a victim); the victim identifies with the aggressor out of retaliation in a situation where not only psychic but concrete survival is at stake" (210). The latter describes what I believe to be Plath's deadly compulsion. Plath continually gives power to her deceased father, who has the ultimate control over her mental well-being.
Scott, Jill. "A Poetics of Survival: Sylvia Plath's Electra Enactment." Electra after Freud Myth and Culture (Cornell Studies in the History of Psychiatry). New York: Cornell UP, 2005. 149-50. Print.
Scott's argument regarding Plath's use of the father in her poem "Daddy" is that it is a falsification: "this phenomenon in terms of a 'denial of negation,' whereby, in the manic phase, the depressive elaborates a 'false language...ersatz, imitation, or carbon copy" (153). It is in this way that Plath is bringing into consciousness what was unconscious, however, not accepting it. Scott concludes, "I propose that this is all part of the poetics of survival, the will to take control over the father's image" (160). While that may be argued, Plath clearly was never able to take control over the image. We see him throughout her literary career. Even if she were to establish control over him, it is possible that the damage had already been done, as he was apart of her own identity.
Posts
