Week 1 - Jan 28th Reading

After doing the readings, what continually entered my mind was the idea behind the "Freudian slip." The articles referred to how jokes and the unconscious tie into each other. At first the reading brought up the idea that what we may consider jokes to be are "any conscious and successful evocation of what is comic, whether the comic of observation or of situation" (Freud, 1). However, when seeing or hearing certain jokes the unconscious mind may play into the joke itself as well. What enters my mind are all the stereotypical racist jokes or jokes that judge whole groups of people that may or may not (usually not) fit into the categories that the joke is describing. While the joke may be funny to some it also stands as offensive towards others. I believe that telling these jokes may sometimes be like a Freudian slip as to the joke tellers personality and views of others. While it could be viewed as a social commentary it also may reveal that there are underground racist contexts to those thoughts. For example:

Why do (n-word)'s always have sex on their minds?
Because they have pubes on their heads!

This was a random jokes I pulled off the internet. While some may view it as a social commentary, most would view it as completely offensive towards African-Americans. While it may bring up laughter, underneath it all is the hate-fueled ignorance and racial division by the joke teller. The teller may or may not be a racist, but in my mind telling this joke is kind of like a Freudian slip signaling others that the teller does not fully appreciate humanity and it's differences among human races. I believe every joke (whether dirty or clean) has this sort of unconscious underground context that can be viewed either as funny or offensive and is viewed differently by everyone that hears the joke. This unconscious context can reveal more about that teller's personality as well as the listener if he/she completely understands the joke and how he/she reacts to it.

Week 1 - Jan 28th Screening

There were multiple questions raised while watching the screenings but the one that popped out to me the most dealt with Miranda July's "The Amateurist." The question I kept thinking about over and over again was "What was July's intention and purpose of using all of those numbers and comparing different angles and shapes made with the human body to those numbers?" The film made clear that July had a background in numbers but I didn't fully understand the connection to why she would explain these numbers using the legs of the woman in the tv screen. What further perplexed me was "what was the relationship of the professional to the amateurist (woman in the tv)? If you step aside from the knowledge knowing that July played both parts and look at it from a more narrative angle as two separate characters, where was the amateurist? Was she trapped in the same room modeling for the professional? Could she hear the professional instruct? The use of a B/W surveillance camera (as mentioned by a student) did give off this trapped-against-her-will, serial-killer kind of feel to the piece. July was a professional? A professional of what... holding people against their will forcing them to make numbers with their limbs?! While I may be way off with my analyzing this piece I felt that this piece represented a disturbing narrative of a psychopath (i.e. "professional" ) holding a scantily clad woman hostage. To make my point more persuasive look at what was presented.... 1) a scantily dressed woman in the same room with a camera pointed at her. When it comes to the stereotypical hostage holding crazy, the victim is usually a woman and she will usually be barely dressed or nude. 2) A person claiming to be a "professional" watching this woman over a surveillance camera. Once again the stereotypical hostage holder will have some sort of guard over the victim. 3) The so-called professional has an obsession with numbers. Many brilliant psychopaths tend to have obsessions that they feed off of. These three factors lead me to believe that this is not a film about empowerment or women's rights, but instead a short film about a hostage and a number obsessed psychopath. As for answering my own question, I believe this weird fetish with numbers and limbs is simply a disturbing ritual that the professional psycho feeds off of.