(my son Tyler in the mirror after a bath)
Ever since my son could focus his eyes on an object, he was able to identify himself. The mirror seemed like a magical place where the being on the other side of the glass was their best friend. At nine months he was waving to himself when we would pass any reflective object in the house. It was like seeing an old friend. There was excitement and joy across his face. At one year he began to walk, and give big sloppy open mouth kisses. It wasn't long before we found him laying a wet one on the bedroom mirror. "Give yourself a kiss," we would say, and with both hands on the glass, he would lean in for a kiss. Now, he is 17 months, and each night when he is pulled from his bubble bath and wrapped in a towel, we spend a few minutes reflecting in the bathroom mirror. He loves seeing his hair wet and his eye lashes clumped together. He laughs and giggles at himself, and is overcome with pure joy.
Jacques Lacan's phenomenon "The Mirror Stage," is not just a step in development. "it illistrates the conflictional nature of the dual relationship." This dual that Lacan implies, is one between the Ego and the body, the real vs. the imaginary. The baby, as early as six months, is able to recognize himself through his own uncontrollable body movements.
"This moment in which the mirror stage comes to an end inaugurates, by the identification wiht the imago of the counterpart and the drama of primoedial jealousy. The dialectic that will henceforth link the I to socially elaborated situations" (Lacan 444). Lacan's term meconnaissances (misrecognitions)means a false recognition of the baby's image.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Discipline and Punish
This week in class we talked about Foucault's "Discipline and Punish," and applied it to two videos withing Bye Bye Birdie and West Side Story. In West Side Story one of the gangs sings a song about being shove around from psychiatrists to social workers to penetentaries so that they can be fixed of their "bad" ways. The song is a mockery of this system, but it was when they call their delinquincies a "social disease," is when they play into Foucault's power of knowledge. I think that the following clip of Life is Beautiful, clearly illustrates how these powerful positions can influence citizens just by saying what they think is true. In the clip, Guido, a Jewish man pretends to be an inspector from Rome, sent to teach the children in Italy that Jews are a less superior race. Guido goes to the school to impress a girl he likes and finds himself mistaken for the inspector. Guido then has no choice but to follow along and makes a mockery of the lies.
"Where can you find someone more handsome than me?...I am an original 'superior race' pure Aryan...The ear. Look at the perfection of this ear...They dream about these in France." During the holocaust, this superiority in races was taught and people on both sides were convinced because they were TOLD so.
Another movie I feel really reflects Foucault's theories of the Panopticism and universalizing versus individualizing is the movie, Law Abiding Citizen. I feel like this movie breaks down this idea of the Panopticism because Foucault says if you have guards at the center of the cells, the inmates will behave because there is a possibility of being watched. Below is the trailer to the movie. In Law Abiding Citizen, Clyde Shelton's wife and daughter are brutally murdered. One of the murderers is let out after three years and one sent to the death penalty. Ten years pass, and Clyde reemerges with a plan for Justice. He brutally kills both men, and then once arrested and inside the prison, he kills everyone who touched the case ten years ago and let the murderers walk free. Clyde is in solitary confinement, but still manages to "misbehave" while in the watch of the prison guards. Foucault would say that inmates would be less likely to misbehave for fear of being watched. Clyde has everything planned to a T, and completely breaks down the Panopticon. Clyde punishes those that did not give his family justise. He also tries to make deals with the D.A. so that other lives will be saved. But when they don't agree to the bargain he presents and they don't keep to their word, they are punished and the consequences are fatal.
Lacan, Jacques. "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Second Ed. Julie Rivkin & Michael Ryan. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004. 441-446. Print.
