Tuesday, June 28, 2011

- duels in binary code: Pierrot vs Ferdinand -



Marianne: Have you killed a man before, Pierrot?
Ferdinand: My name is Ferdinand. Why do you ask?




Pierrot
01010000 01101001 01100101 01110010 01110010 01101111 01110100

1 - 50%
0 - 50%



Ferdinand 

01000110 01100101 01110010 01100100 01101001 01101110 01100001 01101110 01100100

1 - 47.2%
0 - 52.8%



Although Pierrot and Ferdinand is the same character, first name (Pierrot) is completely ambivalent in binary code with same amount of 1 and 0, while the other (Ferdinand) shows predominance of 0. Name Pierrot is more important for understanding the symbolic dimension of this character, while Ferdinand shows his real, inexplainable dimension.

Friday, June 24, 2011

- animal character's stereotypes and philosophy -

In order to make any kind of sense of the “great, blooming, buzzing confusion” of reality, in order to get a hold on the “mass of complex data that we receive from the world,” it is necessary, inescapable even, that we employ generalities, patternings, typifications. Stereotypes are simply a form of this “ordering” and in themselves need not be considered a force for evil: the stereotype sleeps within each sign after all. It is the unreflective iteration of signs that lends them their stereotypic character, and which results in increasingly rigid, sharply defined categories. The danger with stereotypes lies in allowing them to hide their limitations and partiality, in failing to appreciate that it is an incomplete picture that they paint.
Saussure’s horse and ox
There are two particular uses to which animals have been put by philosophy and critical theory that complicate the question of the stereotyped or stereotypic animal. On the one hand, writers who have clearly had no interest in animals per se have not been able to resist employing them as ciphers. A cipher is any person or thing which “fills a place, but is of no importance or worth” in its own right. The real power lying elsewhere, the cipher remains “a nonentity, a ‘mere nothing’” employed for the benefit of others (Oxford English Dictionary). Though all manner of entities are fair game, so to speak, for cipherous appropriation, literary and cultural theorists like Barthes, as well as a long history of philosophers, have been especially keen on animals. Saussure’s horse and ox are a case in point. In order to investigate language, Saussure begins his Course in General Linguistics, famously, by examining the nature of its basic unit, the linguistic sign. The sign is composed, he asserts, of two distinct but mutually dependent elements: the concept or signified (signifié) and the sound-image or signifier (signifiant). Thus, the sign for a horse, Saussure’s first cipherous animal, will comprise, on the one hand, the mental concept of a horse (“a solidhoofed perissodactyl quadruped, having a flowing mane and tail,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary), and on the other, the word “horse” (h-ō-s). Both elements, Saussure stresses, are “psychological”: the signified is not an actual horse, but the mental concept of one, and the signifier is not a physical or material sound but a “sound-image,” an “inner image” that we can recite to ourselves without actually vocalising.
The use of animals as ciphers by literary and critical theory is a particular example of the casual anthropocentrism that so often pervades these disciplines. Theorists have frequently conversed using animals, but less often do these discussions prove to be about animals. They remain invisible, metaphorical phantoms, employed merely as examples of epistemological problems, metaphysical speculations, or linguistic analyses. With the cipher, the reader disregards the animal and concentrates instead on the argument, the example, the heart of the matter. The animal used as a cipher is employed to make a point for which there is no obvious or necessary reason that this animal was chosen. On the other hand, there is a use to which animals have been widely put which entirely depends on their distinctive, characteristic presence. An index points out a particular quality or behaviour that is peculiar to the animal, and therefore intrinsic or necessary to the philosophical argument.
As George Fyler Townsend, the best known translator of Aesop into English, says of the fables: “The introduction of the animals or fictitious characters should be marked with an unexceptionable care and attention to their natural attributes, and to the qualities attributed to them by universal popular consent. The Fox should be always cunning, the Hare timid, the Lion bold, the Wolf cruel, the Bull strong, the Horse proud, and the Ass patient” 
On the other hand, however, we know that the animals in the fables are present only as impersonal instantiations of various diverse qualities. They are, as G. K. Chesterton puts it in his own introduction to the fables, “like abstractions in algebra, or like pieces in chess,” chosen over human protagonists the better to communicate the truths, or moral truisms, of the tales. Chesterton argues that it is only by stripping the tales’ protagonists of any individual personal traits that the virtues or vices that they exemplify can be made incontestably clear. A human person will therefore not do, and the animal that takes their place must be of an emblematic, even heraldic type. 
Aesop’s animal alphabet operates, then, with both indices and ciphers. The creatures may or may not be chosen for their peculiar characteristics, but they always serve as media for the time-honoured and much more important moral at the heart of the tale. In the fables, as with philosophical and theoretical texts, animals are neither ciphers nor indices. Aesop’s fox is not intrinsically one or the other, but rather functions as a cipher or as an index. The use of any given animal will tend at one time toward the cipherous, at another toward the indexical, and will many times exhibit elements of both. The more indexical the use, though, the closer we come to eliminating that rather lifeless creation, the animal in the “general singular.” It is the particularity of the animal index, or rather, the particularities of a host of indices, that serve to reanimate the lifeless ciphers and thereby help to bring about the death of “the animal.”
The potential problem for any animal that functions indexically, however, is that she or he is likely to ossify into a mere stereotype. In short, though carefully selected for some distinctive quality, indeed because this is the case, the index is still a sign, and as Barthes pointed out, “in each sign sleeps that monster: the stereotype” 
Derrida's cat
Derrida has insisted on the importance of the singular, concrete, individual animal in his own work. In “This Animal That Therefore I Am (More to Follow),” he talks about a particular, individual cat. He does not want here to concern himself with any cat that is a figure or allegory, that appears as an ambassador or representative of the “immense symbolic responsibility” with which cats have always been charged. He wants to discuss a real, actual cat, the “unsubstitutable singularity” of a particular cat, sitting now, gazing at him.
The animal in the “general singular,” says Derrida, is “a sin against rigorous thinking, vigilance, lucidity, or empirical authority”. We must look closely at faceless animal ciphers, then, and see whether they might in fact be highly individual indices. 
Derrida never tells us the name of his cat. Does the cat’s name matter? Derrida thinks so: in the very paragraph in which he marks the difference between his real cat and the symbolic cats of literature, he says “Nothing can ever take away from me the certainty that what we have here is an existence that refuses to be conceptualised. And a mortal existence, for from the moment that it has a name, its name survives it.”. This feline is not named, though, either actively (elle s’appelle) or passively (nominatur).
Derrida does not actually say that “it has a name,” of course: the reifying pronoun is an unfortunate consequence of the English translation. Derrida has pointed out to us, indeed it is relevant to the embarrassment that he feels, that his cat is a female cat, “une chatte”. But having made this specification, having drawn our attention to her gender, Derrida persists in using the “generic masculine” (un chat) that he had formerly confined to the cats of figure and allegory: he says “il a un nom.” Derrida’s cat, who has a name, though she remains unnamed, is both une chatte and un chat . Her existence both as a female cat and as an individual cat seems, by this curious conflation, temporarily to be overlooked.These oversights, if such they are, do not take anything from Derrida’s important argument that it is individual animals who demand fresh thought about animals. They point, rather, to the persistence with which forms of discourse, philosophical and otherwise, can work against the attempt to use words that are genuinely naked.




(excerpts from Tom Tyler's "Quia Ego Nominor Leo: Barthes, Stereotypes and Aesop’s Animals")



Monday, June 20, 2011



- stereotypes of animal characters -

Animal characters in cinema, TV and other media depict human characteristics via anthropomorphism.

There are stereotypical traits which commonly tend to be associated with particular species. Often these are simply exaggerations of real aspects or behaviours of the creature in question, while other times the stereotype is taken from mythology and the true origins are forgotten. Many modern stereotypes of animals have a long tradition dating back to Aesop's Fables, which drew upon sources that included Ancient Egyptian animal tales.

Many animal stereotypes are unfair to impose upon actual animals in nature, since moral is not inherent to any other species but human. So we can conclude that animals are used in cinema, advertising etc. in order to depict certain human characteristics, and morally judge them. Despite that, the use of such animal stereotypes is generally considered less problematic than it is for human stereotypes.

"Man gave names to all the animals, in the beginning" says Bob Dilan in his song, meaning that animals were created by God, but the owner of their name in man, which gives him right to exploit them.

Using animals in media should be regulated by some kind of law, not only preventing cruelty, which was regulated 1939. after a horse was killed during the shooting of film "Jesse James" but also with some kind of ownership rights. If someone use image of an animal to promote some commercial product, the species used should benefit from it somehow.

Aware that "all characters are fictitious", even characters in documentary films, it would be nice anyway to see some animals in films that challenge common stereotypes, not by being better or worse, but by being more realistic. 


There is a list of most common stereotypes of animal characters:

Bats 
the bloodthirsty or evil bat

Bears 
the dumb bear, the cuddly, sweet bear

Bulls 
the aggressive bull who attacks everyone and everything with the color red

Cats 
The cool cat, the lazy cat, the evil/villainous cat

Dogs
the loyal dog, the dim-witted dog, the vicious bull dog

Donkeys 
the stubborn or stupid ass, the horny or virile donkey/stallion/bull

Elephants 
the unforgetting elephant, the mice-fearing elephant

Foxes 
the wily, cruel, cunning or intelligent fox

Hippopotamuses
the female hippopotamus who acts like a fat human lady

Horses 
the noble horse, the virile horse.

Hyenas 
the comical / always-laughing hyena, the cruel, bullying hyena

Kangaroos
the boxing kangaroo

Lemmings
the suicidal lemming

Lions
the proud, brave, noble or royal lion

Mice
the quiet mouse, the heroic mouse

Moles
the blind or near sighted mole

Moose
the slow-witted moose

Pigs
the greedy and/or filthy pig

Rabbits/Hares
the horny rabbit or hare, the hyperactive / fast-running rabbit / hare, the smart rabbit or hare

Raccoons
the criminal or scavenging raccoon

Rats
the evil or kleptomaniacal rat

Simians
the funny monkey/ape, the mischievous monkey, the monstrous or brutish ape (usually a gorilla), the amorous ape who lusts for human women

Skunks
the smelly skunk

Sloths
the lazy sloth

Squirrels
the hyperactive squirrel

Tigers
the vicious tiger

Weasels 
the sneaky and thieving weasel who always manages to flee.

Wolves
the cruel or evil wolf, the honorable wolf, the solitary or renegade wolf

Chickens
the stupid and or easily frightened chicken, the cock/rooster who has delusions of grandeur or is vain

Crows/Ravens 
the ominous raven or crow, the Afro-American crow

Ducks
the overconfident, arrogant duck who isn't as smart as he thinks.

Eagles
the child-stealing eagle, the proud, noble eagle

Geese
the gossipy goose[citation needed]

Magpies
the thieving magpie

Ostriches
the nervous ostrich

Owls 
the wise owl

Parrots
the talkative, annoying, and/or smartypants parrot/cockatoo (no distinction)

Peacocks
the proud peacock

Penguins 
the formal penguin

Pheasants 
the stupid, nervous pheasant

Storks
the baby-delivering stork

Crocodiles 
the weeping and hypocritical crocodile, the villainous crocodile

Dinosaurs
the fearsome, terrifying tyrannosaurus, the vicious, cunning Velociraptor

Frogs/Toads 
toads and frogs are often anthropomorphized into fat people.

Snakes 
the evil or untrustworthy snake

Turtles/Tortoises
the patient or slow-witted turtle / tortoise (No distinctions are generally made between the two.)

Dolphins
the joyful dolphin

Sharks 
the bloodthirsty shark

Whales 
the man-eating whale, the gentle whale or orca

Ants 
the diligent ant, the militant ant, the thieving/ bothersome ant.

Bees
the dopey (or "bumbling") bumblebee, the workaholic bumblebee

Crickets 
the cricket who plays violin

Grasshoppers 
the lazy / carefree grasshopper

Mantises 
the patient mantis

Spiders
the evil spider

Squid
the man eating monstrous giant squid who attacks and destroys ships

Termites
the destructive termite

Wasps 
the wanton and vicious wasp 

owl

Friday, June 3, 2011



- duels of characters in binary code: Moses vs. Aron -


In Schoenberg's opera Moses und Aron, which was put to the film by Jean-Marie Straub and Danielle Huillet, Moses represents idea, abstract word. Since people are unconvinced by Moses’s abstract words, Aron is here to give the people tangible proof in the form of miracles. However:



Images [would] lead and rule this folk
that you have freed,
and strange wishes [will be] their gods,
leading them back to the slavery
of godlessness and earthly pleasures.
You have betrayed God to the gods,
the idea to images,
this chosen folk to others,
the extraordinary to the commonplace... 



Moses accuses Aaron: "You...expose them to strange gods, to the calf and to the pillars of fire and cloud; for you do as the people do, because you feel and think as they do." In Schoenberg’s interpretation, this is why Aaron is bound to fail; it follows that when Aaron is set free, he falls down dead. Moses is left victorious to proclaim the ultimate goal: "Unity with God." 

The superstitious Schoenberg omitted the double “A” in Aaron so that the title would not contain 13 letters. This influenced a bit their duel in binary code:



Moses
01001101 01101111 01110011 01100101 01110011 
1 - 60% 
0 - 40% 
Aron
01000001 01110010 01101111 01101110 
1 - 53.1% 
0 - 46.9% 

Aaron
01000001 01100001 01110010 01101111 01101110 
1 - 50% 
0 - 50% 


In any case, Moses is victorious character, he has more 1 than 0 and wins both Aron and Aaron in this relation. However, by changing his name to Aron, Schoenberg made him to be stronger competitor for more than 3%.