Author Archives: Juan Bravo

Video Mash-Up- “The Dark Knight Trailer Recut – Toy Story 2”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QFWBFIEuig


This video is a mash-up of the films Toy Story, Toy Story 2, and The Dark Knight. It was uploaded onto YouTube on August 10, 2008 and as of April 28, 2011 has gained 1,498,101 views.
The video takes the soundtrack from a theatrical trailer for The Dark Knight and cuts footage from Toy Story and Toy Story 2 to match the onscreen action and dialogue. Woody becomes the Joker, Buzz Lightyear becomes Batman, and Rex the Dinosaur becomes Alfred Pennyworth. The footage is cut together to create the impression that the Toy Story franchise is a dramatic franchise in the same vein as The Dark Knight, appropriately cutting action shots from the films to create a more adventurous tone than the two original films. None of the footage is altered (except for time cutting and splicing) and the soundtrack is similarly unaltered- the artistry comes out of the combination of these very different film franchises.
This is reflective of a very postmodern collapse of different facets of culture: While both film franchises are very successful, Toy Story is directed at family audiences while The Dark Knight skews toward adolescent male audiences. While this was made shortly after the release of The Dark Knight, the inclusion of Toy Story reflects the modern generation’s nostalgic attachment to that 90’s film series. While Toy Story 3 would bring the franchise back to relevance in 2010, this mash-up demonstrates continued interest in the series even in the late 2000s.
As with most mash-ups, there is the question as to how original this editing actually is. However, the art of film editing has always been something of a mash-up art form: Editors cut together footage created by the director of photography. As such, there seems to be a more direct appreciation of video mash-ups, because it’s a more practiced and recognized art form (and the great success in viewership testifies to that). The widespread availability of digital editing has democratized that process and made it possible for people to cut footage from popular films like this.
Furthermore, the great disparity of the two franchises (an animated comedy series and a dramatic crime-thriller) is reflective of this generation’s desire to combine interests. With digital archiving, facets of our childhood are immediately accessible, whether via DVD or the internet. At the same time, we have our contemporary interests, such as films like The Dark Knight. With both so readily at hand, there is no need to separate them. If anything, this video seems to be an attempt to combine those interests and address the desire to experience everything at once, as is common in our age of information overload. The result is a piece of artistry widely regarded as cleverly amusing.
Annotation:
“YouTube- Watchmen & WALL-E Mashup Trailer – 720p HD.” YouTube.com. 8 Aug. 2008. Web. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Ka8DnUVEQ>.
This mash-up video goes even further with editing, altering the images of the film WALL-E to fit the trailer for the film Watchmen. Again, there is a combination of an animated comedy with a dramatic comic book adaptation. This mash-up features more dramatic editing, slowing down and speeding up footage, creating unique title credits, and even using supplemental features from the DVD release to cut something that matches the trailer soundtrack. It is debatable, however, whether or not the greater editing contributes to its lesser popularity on YouTube, as if it skewed too far away from the attachment to WALL-E.

Chinese Eating Habits- Seniority at the Dinner Table

The informant is an eighteen-year old student from Los Angeles. He was born in Taipei and received schooling in America. He had been studying in Taipei before moving back to the United States for university. He speaks Chinese and English and will be referred to in this transcript as “GS.”

GS: We, we Chinese people like to have, uh, a lot of family gatherings for, for dinner. Basically lunch and dinner we gather all the relatives in the house to have lunch and dinner in these big round tables and you pass the food. You don’t really pass the food, but the food is placed on this spinning table, the spinning table and then uh, people spin that to eat.

Interviewer: We call that a lazy Susan, what do you call it?

GS: Uh, we just call it, like, the spinning table.

GS: And then, um most of the time we get together to celebrate different phases in people’s lives or relatives coming back home. There’s lot of occasions where these, um, things, um, but one particular thing about this family eating at the round table is that I was always taught that elders are supposed to get their food first. So, let’s imagine you’re all sitting down at the table and then the food is there. I mean, naturally you’re really hungry so you want to dig in, but you can’t, you have to wait, in terms of seniority you have to wait for, let’s say your grandpa, of course the male, the grandpa to get his food, then the grandma, and then, you know the oldest uncle, the oldest- second, the oldest, like, it goes in like age as respect so the more, older someone is the more respected they are. And they get the food in that, in that order and um usually a kid, a young kid, might be the last one to get his food. Unless, you know, per, unless you know perhaps they might be celebrating his return from college or something, but even in that case the grandma will definitely get food first. Uh, also I know here in America there’s this thing where you wait for everybody to gather to the table before you start eating and then uh, to you know, circumvent that, or to escape that kind of thing, you can ask, ‘is it okay to eat first,’ and mostly they’ll reply yes, and then you can eat first, but in, um, back home you can’t do that, you have to wait until everybody is seated, you know, till the father, or the patriarch, the grandfather, you know, the head male figure, picks up his chopsticks, eats, and then everybody else can eat, and then everybody else digs in. So uh, this is really significant of this patriarchal society in uh, Taiwan or Chinese culture. The thing I was talking about was basically the very Confucian belief in (indistinguishable) piety where the older you are the more respect you have.

Again, GS here mostly explains the significance of seniority in a social event (such as dinner) in Chinese culture. The emphasis on age and gender is rarely deviated from, particularly in comparison to such habits in the United States.

As GS touched on, I found this system to be much stricter than for United States practice. In Chinese culture, while the child might be the last to get his food, they might also be able to exercise the least restraint of all the guests at the table. In American culture, thus, a small child might begin eating right away without any consequence. The strict adherence to social rules in a Chinese dinner thus reflects the strong value in tradition and discipline in that culture. The lack of deviation (and minimally so even on a special occasion) demonstrates how important these rules are. In addition, by my own interpretation, dinner is an incredibly important ritual of ingesting nutrition. The oldest in the family is not likely to have the greatest health, and thus eating is most important for them (as opposed to the younger family members, who can handle a short time without eating). Thus, this strict order addresses the nutritional needs of the people involved. This may also be influenced by the responsibility of bringing food for the table: It can be assumed that the patriarch has been providing food for the family for the longest time (via employment), and then the matriarch the second-longest (via food preparation). As such, this practice seems to be an exercise in rewarding the hardest workers, again instilling a sense of discipline at the dinner table. As food can be such a personal part of life (one very closely related to emotions), the values instilled here clearly represent a monumentally important facet of life in this culture.

Mexican folk prayer, “Angel de la Guarda”

The informant is a 47-year old accountant working in California, originally from Michoacán, Mexico. She lived a modest life as a young adult, having to take care of her family at a very young age while still finding success in management. She then moved to the United States with her husband to raise their family and now works in accounting. She primarily speaks Spanish with English as a second language.  He shall be referred to as MB.

“Ángel de la Guarda, mi dulce compañía, no me desampares, ni de noche ni de día, porque sin ti, yo me perdería.”

“Angel of the Guard, my sweet company, no me abandons, no of night no of day, because without you, I myself lose.”

“Guardian angel, my sweet friend, do not abandon me by night nor by day, because without you, I would lose myself.”

This is a common prayer taught to small children. As MB explained, this is often the first prayer children learn in Mexico, even before the traditional “Our Father” (“Padre Nuestro”). It is often taught as early as the age of three, or whenever children begin speaking. MB explained how this becomes a very personal prayer for small children, who take it as a sign of security. Because it refers to “my” guardian angel, every child who recites it will interpret it as a very personal relationship with a guardian angel. In a Catholic community, MB explained that this reinforces the idea of divine protection from a very young age. It is often recited when children are feeling afraid, or sometimes simply before bed. In that case, it is usually accompanied by a small picture that portrays a tall angel guiding a small boy and small girl over a narrow bridge, crossing over a tumultuous river. This provides a visual reference for the children, who may have trouble with the idea of an unseen guardian angel at first.

MB noted that in her family, her younger sister believed for the longest time that their own picture of the guardian angel was a photograph of herself and her brother, the two eldest children in the family.

By my interpretation, this demonstrates the closeness a child can form with this prayer, even if not directly relating to them. The guardian angel becomes an extension of protection from the home and the family, as the angel can protect children wherever they go. It also encourages an active prayer relationship from an early age, as this prayer does not take on the form of a formal address to God, but a simple, rhyme-based call to the guardian angel. The portrayal of small children in the picture also reinforces a youthful involvement in religious life, particularly to the small Catholic town that MB grew up in.

Chinese Legend- Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai-shek and National Disasters

The informant is an eighteen-year old student from Los Angeles. He was born in Taipei and received schooling in America. He had been studying in Taipei before moving back to the United States for university. He speaks Chinese and English and will be referred to in this transcript as “GS.”

GS: Okay, so, uh, this is something that my grandmother said during a family gathering ‘cause, like, I guess in Chinese culture everybody look after our their elders, it’s a dominant belief, so, like, uh we have family gatherings every week at our house, there’s always someone over at our house. So this is during a family gathering and we’re sitting around the living room. And she, uh, tells us about how- I don’t exactly remember the context, but she mentions how back in um, when Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong’s time, when Mao Zedong passed away, there was a great earthquake in China. She mentions the great earthquake, but what I think she’s referring to is the Tangshang Earthquake in 1976, and when Mao Zedong passed away that big earthquake happened and because, uh, he was actually a turtle spirit, the reincarnate of a turtle spirit from heaven. So when he passed away he made a big ruckus. That was Mao Zedong, but Chiang Kai-shek is a sky spirit, he’s like a dragon or an eagle, like a sky spirit, so when Chiang Kai-shek passed away, there was a great storm. There was a great storm in Taiwan and my grandmother describes it as all of a sudden, she said she was, at the time, she was in the living room, and then all of a sudden everyone heard and all of a sudden this great storm, there was peace and then a great storm, and the next day the news reports that Chiang Kai-shek died in the night yesterday. And she like, really said okay, Chiang Kai-shek died, that storm, he caused it ‘cause he passed away to heaven, making a ruckus as he left, as he went into the sky. And uh, interestingly, my mother and my father both remember this, they both remember, of course, cause the Tangshang Earthquake is, you know, infamous in how many lives it took, they remember the Tangshang Earthquake and said yes, this is about the time that Mao Zedong died, and they also remember the great storm that came all of a sudden in the dead of the night when Chiang Kai-shek passed away, uh, it’s interesting cause I wanted to tell you this so I just searched it up, but the Tangshang Earthquake, was in a, uh, it was in June, it, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, (he laughs, as he’s trying to fix a problem on his phone), in June, 1976, or July, 1976, but Mao Zedong passed away in September of 1976…  (indistinguishable) ever most known strangely associate this happen together. I’m not sure when Chiang Kai-shek passed away because that storm isn’t that as notorious as the earthquake. But this is this belief that these two people were so historically, like they changed the, uh, East Asia so much historically because one is an earth spirit and one is a sky spirit, and they fought each other.

Interviewer: And so what’s the significance of that story?

GS: I, I think, it’s just uh, for Asians they or, not just Asians, Chinese, but like my background Chinese and Alamanese, they think that great historical figures are often like, like, uh, reincarnates or descendents of some kind of celestial being so they would say, you know Mao Zedong is an earth spirit, and then they would say, uh, Chiang Kai-shek is a sky spirit because of how much change they did to the world.

Interviewer: Cool.

GS: Just like, another belief in like the supernatural for the Chinese.

As a person born into Chinese culture and educated in the United States, GS offered some interesting insight into this and other of the stories he shared. As he explained, for older Chinese generations, this story happened literally: His grandmother immediately attributed both the earthquake and the storm to the death of Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek respectively. GS explains that grand political figures were associated with celestial bodies that affected life on earth. For the modern generation, he felt the story was more symbolic than a literal story as told by his grandmother. Nonetheless, while not always associated with the powers of the heavens, the deaths of political figures are usually seen as major social upheavals even in our own society. Consider the international mourning of Princess Diana or It seems that when a figure has life as powerful and influential as that of Mao Zedong or Chiang Kai-shek, their people felt that their deaths could only be matched by just as devastating a force. Because of the belief in the eternity of the spirit in China, it is no surprise that the work of an influential figure is far from done after death.

Annotation-

Cheater, A. P. “Death Ritual as Political Trickster in the People’s Republic of China.” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 26th ser. (1991): 67-97. JSTOR. Web.

The relation between people’s reaction to Mao Zedong’s death and the Tangshan Earthquake is discussed in this article, albeit it in a reversed context from the one GS related. While GS only heard the story in positive terms (always that Mao was “influential” and “powerful,” never “ruthless”), it is clear that some people did not hold him in high regard. As stated by Cheater in the article, “When the Tangshan earthquake preceded Mao’s death by less than three months, some invoked the ‘feudal’ notion that the Mandate of Heaven was slipping” (80-81). Here, while his death and the earthquake are connected, it is more in the context of criticizing him.

Chinese Wedding Game

The informant is an eighteen-year old student from Los Angeles. He was born in Taipei and received schooling in America. He had been studying in Taipei before moving back to the United States for university. He speaks Chinese and English and will be referred to in this transcript as “GS.”

GS: Uh, this one is a wedding way, something like a wedding folkway like something we do um, what it is, is that we, first of all when couples get married we don’t really have ma-, wedding ceremonies, uh, the wedding ceremony is when, like, a banquet, a wedding banquet where we invite all the relatives to come eat together in this big ballroom. And then we announce the marriage and then, uh, people sign the names and then they leave some sort of money for, you know, the marriage. So it, congratulation money for the marriage. Um, so guests are in this big banquet and then the, the groom or the husband goes around, you know, drinking with everybody and he usually gets really drunk and so there’s the bride, the bride goes around and drinks with the females and the male goes around and drinks with the males. Like toasting, basically and they both get really you know, I guess, kind of really tipsy and then the family usually plays games with them. So one such game is that they tie, I’m not sure what it is but, don’t get disgusted by this, but like a heart, like, um, uh, boiled and, uh, flavored heart. And uh, I’m not sure if it was, I think it’s pork or is it cow, a heart and they tie it on a string and then hang it from, like, a wooden rod and then the couples have to tie their hands behind their back, blindfolded, and then they both try to eat the heart together. So it’s, yeah, okay, so then you’ll just see these two tipsy couples like (slurp sound) floundering around on the you know, pol- the, the stage! Because, you know it’s a ballroom, on stage, trying to eat this pig heart.

…

Interviewer: So what do you think is the uh, significance of things like the heart eating or the interruption of uh-

GS: Okay, so, first of all the heart eating thing or the heart eating thing is, uh, I don’t really see why, I think it’s just a game, you know, uh, like, what is it tricking or messing around with the couple. I think that there are a lot of traditions, uh, in the western world, too, that mess, you mess around with the couple on their wedding day, you know it’s kind of like a prank that you do.

…

Interviewer: So out of curiosity, um, the eating the heart, does that seem weird to me just because I’m from Western culture or is it weird in that context as well?

GS: Um, I said don’t be disgusted because I thought you might be disgusted by the idea of eating an animal’s heart, sometimes it’s a liver, eating an animal’s liver, but you just have to accept like, these are really, like, common foods, ‘cause, like, we eat these at the dinner table all the time and we also, like, there’s on the street vending and it’s just flavored heart, it tastes really good you come to Taipei I’ll treat you to one. You might be disgusted by the idea but I tell you it’s chicken then you’re gonna eat it and I’ll be like ha, you just ate heart. But uh, yeah, but the whole concept of tying on the string and playing with the couples, I think it’s interesting, not weird

Interviewer: Mkay, cool, thank you.

The wedding ceremony demonstrates the active role of the family in a newlywed couple’s lives. The presentation of money seems like an investment in the lives of the two who have just gotten married, again showing that they all hope that this will mean the continuity of the family name.

The heart-eating game, however, seems to be more of a fun game to be played than anything else. As GS points out, the couple is usually intoxicated at this point, increasing the absurdity of the game. As it is slightly embarrassing and challenging, it seems to be a unifying exercise for the couple (they are usually on a stage during the event in plain view). I expect the family subjects them to this point of ridicule to unite them in their awkward struggle, hoping to create a bonding event to strengthen the marriage right at the start.