AETERNA VOL 1 - NOSTALGIA

AETERNA

2021 VASA Visual Arts Supporters' Association

NOSTALGIA

noun [ U ]

nɒsˈtæl.dʒə

A feeling of pleasure and also slight sadness when you think about things that happened in the past.

Ana Moyer is the Editor In Chief for VASA. She is an MA candidate at Western University in Art History and Curatorial studies. She has a BA Honours in Art History with a in minor Museum Studies from the University of Guelph and a Personal Support Worker from Fleming College.

Publication Team

Mia Fielding is the Copy Editor for VASA. She is a second year of Museum Studies at Western.

Bilques “Billie” Hafeeq is the President and Gallery Coordinator of VASA. She is a fourth year student currently pursuing an honours specialization in Art History & Museum Studies, and a major in Classical Studies. Billie is also VP Events for USC’s Public Arts Commission, currently AVP Events for AHSC and the incoming VP Events for AHSC.

Mackenzie Smith is the Layout Editor for VASA. They are a non binary autistic artist in their fourth year of their BFA at Western University with an honours specialization in Visual Arts.

Their work mainly focuses around queer identities, disabilities and mental health.

Working in the print studio at Western is such a special and rewarding experience!

different techniques used in etching, silkscreening, lithography, and lino is incredibly inspiring.

The diversity of techniques in print really allows each student to show off their own style. I personally love the precision behind printmaking. When my mind is always bursting with creative ideas,

Printmaking At Western Lucy Villeneuve

Printmakers make up only a small population of artists, so I find we really establish a tight-knit community in the studio.

The professors and students in printmaking are all so welcoming and jovial! We walk a fine line between technical complexity, and fun experimentation.

Seeing the array of

. I find that the rhythm of the print process really grounds me. The tactile experience of levelling a lithography stone or exposing a silkscreen creates a calm space where I can fully immerse myself in the process. When my mind is always bursting with creative ideas, When my mind is always bursting with creative ideas,

I find that the rhythm of the print process really grounds me. The tactile experience of levelling a lithography stone or exposing a silkscreen creates a calm space where I can fully immerse myself in the process. It becomes almost like yoga in this way!

Through printmaking, I am able to challenge myself by thinking logically about layering, materials, and textures, while being creative and free with my subject-matter.

I think a lot of us feel this way. The print studio becomes like a second home to us, not only based on the sheer number of hours we spend in there, but because of the familiar faces always in the space. We all really cheer each other on. There are days that prints can work perfectly, and other days where they never turn out right. All of us in the printmaking community are accustomed to the unpredictability of the medium,

and we are always there to support each other no matter the outcome of our projects. I always leave the studio feeling inspired, encouraged, and exhausted, but in the best possible way!

Biography Luvy Villeneuve is a fourth year Honours Spec. in Art History and Studio Art., they specialize mainly in silk-screening and lithography,

Cultural Memory and Nostalgia Dr. christine sprengler

O

in conversation with Mia Fielding

ur publication's theme this year is nostalgia, and we were hoping you could tell us about some of your past research that has involved this, such as your book Screening Nostalgia?

For better or worse, I think all my research has touched on nostalgia in some way, starting with my MA thesis… written here at Western nearly 25 years ago! Screening Nostalgia (2009) was my first concerted attempt to track the history of the concept of nostalgia, to identify the origins of its

dominant strains in visual culture, and to define the nostalgia film. For instance, I investigated how the visual aspects deemed responsible for a film’s identification as a “nostalgia film” might fuel, rather than impede, engagements with history, initiate critical or oppositional readings, generate multiple layers of meaning that enrich the filmic text and the cinematic experience, and produce analytical pleasure for the invested spectator. In short, I wanted to rethink nostalgia’s value, rescue it from its strictly conservative uses and identify critical potential in its most derided expressions – those heavily invested in generating visual pastness. Many of my case studies for this book were postmodern and thus governed by a satirical edge that played selfreflexively with historical tropes, often to critical effect. After Screening Nostalgia, I also wrote several articles on the subject, focusing on case studies like Mad Men (2007-2015) and Grease (1978) as well as representations of modern art in nostalgia films like Pleasantville (1998) and Far From Heaven (2002).

But with the purported “death” of postmodernism, I then turned my

attention to how understandings of nostalgia and engagements with retro aesthetics (or “deliberate archaism”) have shifted in the 21st century. I have a forthcoming article that considers the possibility of a “metamodern” nostalgia in films like Hidden Figures (2016) and Carol (2015), and therefore in relation to Civil Rights and LGBTQ+ histories, respectively. Metamodernism, a term advanced by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker, describes a new cultural logic characterized by an oscillation between modern enthusiasm and commitment and postmodern irony and detachment but, in the end, seeks to replace the latter’s penchant for deconstruction with an investment in reconstruction, hope, and meaning. (I suspect WandaVision [2021] is a good candidate for analysis in relation to metamodern nostalgia as well!). I’m also currently completing another book that touches on nostalgia, Fractured Fifties. In this project I propose that, on the one hand, cinema has helped define the 1950s by contributing in considerable and meaningful ways to the process of periodization and thus our general

conception of the decade and, on the other hand, cinema has fractured our sense of the 1950s. It challenges a reductive and fairly cohesive set of tropes, often referred to as “The Fifties,” with a complex amalgam of representations that also intervene in debates about historiography, historicity, cultural memory, mediation, and nostalgia.

Much of your research is focused around cultural memory and nostalgia - what impact, if any, do you believe the current climate of our world has had on society's understanding and draw towards nostalgia? Do you believe the pandemic has altered or influenced the discussion of cultural memory?

What importance does nostalgia hold in the creation and appreciation of artworks?

I think nostalgia is, and has always been, a concept shaped by the cultural and political contexts in which it circulates, by its uses and theorizations as well as by prevailing views on history and memory. From its origins as the medical condition of homesickness afflicting Swiss mercenaries in the

17th century through various manifestations aligned with loss and longing at the hands of industrialization, psychology, and commodification, nostalgia has accrued and shed the resonances of its travels through time, space, theory, political ideology, and media.

Nostalgia has been fatal and frivolous, a psychiatric diagnosis and a political tool, public and private, a deeply affective condition, but also little more than an aesthetic mode, divorced from feeling altogether. It has been viewed as a conduit to history and a threat to history. Sparked by present stressors, nostalgia returns us to – or invents – a past with therapeutic potential.

Artworks and films often generate these pasts, though the ways in which they do so varies a great deal.

And, yes, I suspect that the pandemic will inflect how we think about cultural memory and nostalgia. In fact, I’ve already seen a few stories in the press to this effect. Just before the pandemic, metamodern conceptions of nostalgia seemed to be shifting away from purely aesthetic engagements toward more affective investments in notions of home, thus returning to nostalgia’s

roots. But relationships with what may constitute a “home” during the pandemic have become increasingly complex and fraught and, as a result, conceptions of nostalgia may pivot again. For some, home is a refuge or sanctuary, for others a dangerous space. Others still might feel imprisoned, isolated, threatened, bored, or at constant risk of losing their home. For essential workers, home may be a space they are rarely able to inhabit. For those displaced by conflict, environmental disaster, or in exile, experiencing what Hamid Nacify describes as a “split subjectivity,” the idea of home—as well as feelings toward it—can become fractured, perhaps even more so given the instability wrought by the pandemic.

We would love for you to speak on any other concepts regarding nostalgia in representations of history in media and art that you may feel are pertinent.

I imagine concepts like “prosthetic memory,” a term coined a number of years ago by Alison Landsberg are due for a revival and degree of adaptation.

Prosthetic memories are ones not personally experienced, but nevertheless become part of our stores of memory because of our encounter with them through media.

This is what permits us to feel nostalgia for events that precede our birth, for instance. Experiencing things virtually, mediated by various technologies of representation and connection, will certainly have an impact on memory formation and our relationship to those events. There are, of course, dangers inherent in this, but also, for Landsberg, possibilities too, ones do with the formation of community, empathy, political action, and historically engaged subjects.

Biography Dr. Christine Sprengler is an Assistant Professor in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Western Ontario. She received her Ph.D. in Film Studies from the University of London in 2004 and has published on British and American cinema.

Kaitlyn Hwang Biography Kaitlyn Hwang is a fourth year Visual Arts student and multimedia artist pursuing a BFA with an Honours Specialization in Studio Art at Western University.

I'm interested in exploring the role of materiality in memory and the cultivation of identity, and the omnipresent consciousness that lives on through the objects we keep and the spaces we inhabit.

Incorporating representational and ambiguous forms, my work is influenced by the narratives connected to personal memories, found objects and photographs, and intimate space in a contemporary context. I’m interested in representing the self in a state of flux, marked by imagery nostalgic of the past collaged with elements of the body, nature, and growth.

'Leave a Light on for Me, I'll be Home Soon.'

This painting was part of a recent group exhibition at Satellite Project Space called "Keepsakes" that explored ideas surrounding the human connection towards material objects, heirlooms and domestic spaces, and the ways in which we assign meaning to these entities to preserve memory and form identity. I was particularly drawn to vessels such as vases and urns from domestic spaces of antiquity and their capacity to preserve and represent memory and spirit. The scene contained within the urn is one that is nostalgic to me, as it is inspired by childhood summers spent at my grandmothers home in rural Ontario, catching frogs in the surrounding ponds among sprawling raspberry bushes.

Personal anecdotes aside, this painting came from exploring ideas surrounding our need to preserve and contain memory visually, and how we can recognize spaces, sentimental objects, individuals, and fleeting moments as eternal in their impact on us in terms of how we grow and cultivate our sense of self.

Since 1914 to present, Takarazuka Revue has been an influential form of theater in Japan and has been viewed in several different ways by scholars alike throughout the years. The women of Takarazuka Revue blur the

gendered hero/heroine, she is expected to be “butch” off-stage as well as on.” In contrast, the musumeyaku plays an almost hyper-feminized character. Musumeyaku 1 are almost outshined by otokoyaku who are often viewed as one dimensional in their roles as they historically were trained to embody ‘feminine’ ideals such as submission and moral purity.2 Both the musumeyaku and the otokoyaku are trained to portray their second assigned gender flawlessly

Takarazuka Revue: Living in a Shōjo Fantasy Priscilla Chang Dreamworld lines of gender in their performances through their roles of the otokoyaku, the male role and the musumeyaku, the female role. In Takarazuka Revue, women are assigned gender roles, the otokoyaku are women who are selected for the role of the male. The role of the otokoyaku relies heavily on emulating ‘male behavior’ both offstage and off such as wearing ‘masculine’ clothing, as well learning as ‘masculine’ behavior. “To avoid shattering their conception of their re-

on the stage, and to achieve perfection, they needed to operate fluidly within those roles.

Although themes revolving around homosexuality was prohibited in the Takarazuka Revue in the later part of the eighteenth century, Takarazuka became not only a place to escape for Japanese audiences, but a space for audiences to explore their gender identities. This essay will explore the ways in which the Takarazuka Revue acts as a shōjo fantasy space for its female audiences and how its

actresses transcend the boundaries of gender within their male and female roles.

Similar to the role of the musumeyaku, the onnagata also performed as a woman and were trained to excel in these roles because they were able to embody the gender roles that Japanese women were put through at the time.

Women were expected to adhere to Confucian moral codes and values that were prevalent at the time such as remaining courteous and humble. The famous onnagata Yoshiwaza Ayame I (1673-1729) endorsed these womanly ideals for onnagatas, stressing that they were an integral part of being a successful onnagata much like how the Takarazuka Revue perfected their gender roles. This is very similar to the process that the musumeyaku go through in their training The performers of the Takarazuka Revue and the onnagata were able to keep their gender fluid by rehearsing their roles outside of the theater. As Ayame performed “womanly” attitudes both on the stage and inside the dressing room, the otokoyaku also, according to Jane Singer, went through “rigorous instruction in learning how to move, act and sing like a man.” Because of this

rigorous gender training, both Takarasiennes 3 and the onnagata can operate between genders, which allow them to perform their second assigned roles.

In the same way that Ayame taught other onnagata how to embody femininity through Japanese women’s gender roles, Kobayashi Ichizo (1873-1957) also urged his students enrolled in the Takarazuka Revue Company to embody social standards for women.

Before Takarazuka, there was kabuki, a form of theater that had a notorious reputation for being associated with immoral behavior such as prostitution and being associated with lower class citizens in Japan.

Kobayashi was likely influenced by Confucian teachings that expected women to adhere to certain social moral codes.

Kobayashi’s vision for the women in the company was to provide “strictly wholesome entertainment” for the public and urged women to retire from the company once they were married. The company survived through two world wars and was respected for 4 their performances in Western countries. Their motto, “kiyoku, tadashiku, utsukushiku” or “purity, righteousness, beauty” was emulated in their

performances both in Japan and abroad, and had a massive influence on audiences wherever the company performed. After the events of 5 World War II, Kobayashi promoted commercial and state interest in “New Japan”. He began to promote Western music instead of antiquated kabuki theater which did not promote the spirit of the times, as women were being introduced back onto the stage.

Kobayashi’s Takarazuka Revue 6 was successful because of its appeal to the global market, as the company used Western productions such as Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story, which was well received amongst Japanese audiences.

“Theater was one of the most conspicuous sights for the new government to 7 display Japan’s legitimacy as an advanced nation, one that could not only avoid colonization by nations such as the United States, Britain, Germany and France, but one that would eventually become a colonial power itself.”

Because of Takarazuka’s global reputation, wholesome values 8 were important for women to embody within the company, as their performances had influence on not only Japanese audiences but a global audience.

In its way, Takarazuka Revue has influenced cultural movements such as shōjo culture.

The father of manga, Tezuka Osamu (19281989), grew up in Takarazuka where most of his inspiration for his stories came from going to theater productions with his mother. “He fostered his sensibility in it’s culturally affluent environment. Takarazuka Theatre was for him an inspiring fantasy realm allowing encounters with the unknown worlds, presented in the impressive, lavish theatre sets and costumes.”

Tezuka’s shōjo manga, Ribon no Kishi or 9 Princess Knight (1967), incorporated elements of a Takarazuka Revue production. Princess Knight was flowery, dramatic and romantic as a Takarazuka play that paid homage to his nostalgia for his hometown.

Princess Knight was popular amongst girls and tells the story of 10 Princess Sapphire, who was the only child of the ruler of the kingdom of Silverland that was set in the medieval times. Sapphire was born as a girl, who had a spell cast on her before birth which gave her strength of a boy. Since the successor could only be a male heir, her father raised her 11 as a boy, pretending

that she was a prince to hide her identity. Because of Tezuka’s upbringing in Takarazuka, he incorporated much of the aspects of performance and glamour within the manga. Characters speak with exaggeration, and musical scenes take place with dancing and singing in the same way that Takarazuka’s performers do.

Sapphire, who impersonates a prince, is portrayed as having the same charms as an otokoyaku. It is no surprise that Ribon no Kishi was 12 popular among girls and women as the heroine was a character that they could relate to. To quote Tezuka Osamu, “They [Japanese girls] must have been really hungry for that kind of thing ...girls of that time had a wish to dress like boys. I guess there are still many families who expected their daughters to be apron-string, gentle, and polite.” Tezuka created relatable female 13 characters in his shōjo manga for girls and adult women. These characters, just like boys, wanted action and adventure.

Tezuka created many parallels in his work with his nostalgia for 14 Takarazuka and shōjo manga. Tezuka’s final resting place in Takarazuka reflects the inseparable relationship between

shōjo manga and Takarazuka.15 The writings of Tezuka paved the way for other shōjo manga to be translated into the Takarazuka stage. While the work of Tezuka was influential in Takarazuka, Ikeda Riyoko’s shōjo manga work, The Rose of Versailles (1972) was also very popular on the Takarazuka Stage because of its complex main character, Oscar and her relationship with her childhood best friend, André. A quote from the director, Ueda Shinji describes how it could be translated onto stage; I was dismissive at first. It was absurd to adapt a manga to the Takarazuka stage.

After carefully examining the manga, I realized it would work. First of all, the story was interesting and I was moved by the fact that Ms. Ikeda Riyoko wrote it with a very serious attitude....I thought it could be done. ...There were men whom real men couldn’t possibly portray, like André.

Male writers would be too embarrassed to create such a male character. Even if he thinks these things in his heart, a Japanese man wouldn’t say them aloud.

These words are expressed without hesitation. Then I understood that women wanted to hear these words from men, and so I selected as many as I could and wrote all those expressions women would like to hear from men.

16

Many women who attend the Takarazuka Revue were looking for an escape from everyday life, as well as action and adventure. Manga had the ability to create characters that are a part of the fantasy space. An example is Ikeda’s character Oscar, a woman raised as a man during the reign of Marie Antoinette. Oscar’s best friend André, fits the ideal example of an otokoyaku because only he has the ability to express language that women want to hear.

In the fantasy space that Takarazuka creates, only otokoyaku have the power to express themselves in such language.

Takarazuka’s otokoyaku embody androgyny and gender fluidity throughout their performances by emulating shōjo culture.

Shōjo can be defined as a term for a teenage girl, or sometimes referring to a period where females are between puberty and marriage.

In 17 Takarazuka, the role of the otokoyaku does embody aspects of the male gender however it also takes on a asexual, prepubecent version of “the tomboy years of freedom.” The term shōjo was 18 coined in the Meiji period, it means a “not quite female” female which is used in reference presently when discussing teenage girls and young women in their early twenties. “Shōjo also

implies heterosexual inexperience and homosexual experience.”

Further, shōjo commodity 19 culture in Japan allows women to have a safe space outside their adult bodies.

“The word most often associated with this shōjo culture is kawaii, or ‘cute’. This aesthetic value is directly linked to the consumer role that shōjo exists to play. A kawaii girl is attractive and thus calorized, but lacks libidinal agency of her own. [...] in Japan, one might well argue that shōjo constitute their own gender, neither male nor female but rather something importantly detached from the Bibliography Abbitt, Erika Stevens. “Androgyny and Otherness: Exploring the West Through the Japanese Performative Body.”

Asian Theater Journal, 18, no. 2 (2001): pp 249-256.

Blue Acres, Harley. Gender Bending and Comic Books as Art: Issues of Appropriation, Gender, and Sexuality in Japanese Art. The University of Alabama, 2007.

Chen Yelin. ‘Gender and homosexuality in Takarazuka theatre: Twelfth Night and Epiphany’, Performing Ethos 1: 1 (2010), pp. 53–67.

Grăjdian, Maria. “Kiyoku, Tadashiku, Utsukushiku: Takarazuka Revue and the Project of Identity (re-)solidification,” Contemporary Japan, 23: 1 (2011); pp 5-25

Yamanashi, Makiko. A History of the Takarazuka Revue Since 1914 : Modernity, Girls’ Culture, Japan Pop Boston: Global Oriental, 2012

5Isaka, Maki. Onnagata: A Labyrinth of Gendering In Kabuki Theater. Seattle, Washington : University of Washington Press, 2016.

Priscilla Chang is an Master's of Library and Information Science student at Western University. She completed her undergrad at the University of Guelph in 2020, majoring in History and minoring in Museum Studies. Her paper published in University of Guelph's student journal Footnotes entitled, "Performing Femininity: Exploring Onnagata Kabuki in Japanese Theater," explores how men perfected "womanly" roles within the context of 1800-present day Japan.

Her interests within her program involve introducing non-binary language to libraries and advocating for student mental health and wellness.

Kano, Ayako. Acting Like a Woman in Modern Japan: Theater, Gender, and Nationalism. (New York; Houndmills England; Palgrave), 2001.

Nakamura, Karen and Hisako Matsuo. “Female Masculinity and Fantasy Spaces,” in Men and Masculinities in Contemporary Japan by James E. Roberson and Nobue Suzuki.

London: Routledge, 2003.

Biography

Author's Statement

Park, Sang Mi. "Staging Japan: The Takarazuka Revue and Cultural Nationalism in the 1950s–60s." Asian Studies Review 39, no. 3 (2015); 357- 374.

Park, Sang Mi. “The Takarazuka Girl’s Revue in the West: PublicPrivate Relations in the Cultural Diplomacy of wartime Japan.

International Journal of Cultural Policy 17, no.1 (2011), pp 18-38.

Robertson, Jennifer Ellen.

Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

Singer, Jane. “The Dream World of Takarazuka.” Japan Quarterly, 43, 2, (1996); 162.

Suter, Rebecca. “Gender Bending and Exoticism in Japanese Girls’ Comics.” Asian Studies Review 37, no. 4 (December 1, 2013): 546–VI. http://search.proquest.com/doc view/1470078756/.

This paper examines the influence of the Takarazuka Revue, a Japanese all girls performing arts group. This essay explores the ways in which girls within the group perform male and female roles that create a fantasy space that transcends gender and goes beyond binary roles.

Takarazuka Revue creates a nostalgic experience for its female audiences, that provide women a chance to escape back into their adolescence, where adventure awaits.

Mackenzie Smith Biography Mackenzie Smith is a fourth year BFA candidate focused around an Honours Specialization in Studio Art as well as a Beal Art Alumni. Mackenzie is a a non binary neurodivergent artist who specializes in creating digital illustration that is representational of disabled and queer folx; as well as work that explores mental health and how trauma and negative association affects perception of memory. Some publications and shows they have been involved with in the past include: The IWD Exhibition at the Embassy Cultural House, Sustain.ability, and Uncommon Possibilities.

'Bubble-Dream'

This work explores memory and how your fixation with certain aesthetics and objects can be manipulated by the way a person makes you feel at a specific time. This work questions how an object can make you feel depending on the relationship that you have with a specific person.

SiHyun Vision Kim Biography SiHyun Vision Kim is a 20 year old visual artist, born in Korea but raised in Canada. Currently a student studying Studio Art and Art History at the University of Western Ontario majoring in Fine Arts, with a profound interest in digital arts such as illustration, concept art, video game design, web comics, and animations. SiHyun is self-taught in the digital medium, and is on a constant search for learning and exploring new mediums and techniques. SiHyun enjoys creating various different worlds with a unique atmosphere and artworks that are very compact, whether this is with details or emotions.

Most of her works are based on stories and imaginative worlds that would often ponder about in her everyday life. Each artwork has a story, which creates a unique narrative for each work because she wants the viewer to be able to immerse themselves into the world that is trapped in their head. SiHyun wants others to be able to feel and experience the world that she can see through her artworks. However, she has noticed that this tends to complicate the viewer’s understanding of what they are looking at. SiHyun hopes to be able to create artworks that give others a place to separate themselves from the world around them.

'Nefelibata' Nefelibata: One who lives in the clouds of their own imagination; An unconventional person.

When I was younger I created my own imaginary world where I could be whatever I wanted to be.

But as I grew older I started to forget what the world looked like.

Sometimes I would think about that imaginary world that I built for myself even though it is no longer as vivid as it used to be. I sometimes feel nostalgic about these imaginary thoughts that I’ve had, but find it very difficult when describing what that place looked like and the emotions I had when I am there. While this image may not be an accurate description of what my imaginary world looks like, but I hope that by looking at mine others could be reminded of their own imaginary worlds and characters.

Reverie: A state of being pleasantly lost in one’s thoughts; a daydream. When you feel nostalgic, you are longing for a pleasant memory of the past. However, I do believe that sometimes when you are longing for something that was good, it could be from negative emotion. This illustration, depicts myself sitting lazily on the chair while staring aimlessly at the ceiling. From the number of items that surround the room to the several posters and light particles, it creates a very warm and peaceful atmosphere. Yet I wanted the person in the center to look lonely and tired of the world around her and as if she is remembering the good in a longing way.

'Reverie'

The balance between museum and Church, functioning as two separate entities within the same space and time as found in Canterbury Cathedral is an example a modern reorganization of a venerated environment under newer contexts of cultural tourism.

saying “Sir, we would like to see Jesus”.”1 The belief in a sacred area that can put an individual in contact with the higher, anagogically, certainly reflects the values held by abbot Suger.

Examples of the creation of sacred space are not limited to medieval England, however.

The creation of the tomb of poet, saint, and founder of the Mevlevi order, Jalal alDin Rumi, who died in 1273, is one such example.

This tomb is lavishly decorated and contains

The Universality of Sacred Spaces Through Cultural by: Heritage and Art Ana Moyer

As a traditional site. of pilgrimage, still holding daily worship services and sacred objects, Canterbury Cathedral has a dual space as both a secular and sacred space.

The continued display of sacred objects within the Church space, rather than in a museum setting, convey the importance of religious spaces on personal spiritual experiences.

Most interestingly, the website for the church features the quote from John 12:20, “Among those who went to the Temple to worship were people who came

areas including rooms for communal prayers and Mevlevi turning ceremonies (semahame), cells where dervishes lived, as well as a kitchen, toilets, quarters for the senior dervishes and the sheikh, rooms for visitors to stay, a large courtyard with graveyard and fountain for doing ablutions outside of the main hall, a library, and its own mosque (mescid).

The semahame was the mediating building between Rumi’s burial site, contained in the iconic ‘green dome’, and the

mosque. This turbe, or tomb, is the sacred center of the complex, which has been the site of massive numbers of pilgrims every year since its creation. The use of green is associated specifically with the Prophet Muhammad and is thus a statement of orthodoxy. However, when the tomb was occupied as the head tekke (meeting lodge) by the Mevlevi order, peasant pilgrims congregated at the courtyard. Therefore, the creation of a lavish sacred space was singularly for the Mevlevi dervishes and wealthy patrons, which could be easily compared to medieval monasteries.

This space was specifically intended to aid in the creation of spiritual states when doing the sacred dance (sema – “mystical concert and dance”). Furthermore, a traditional area was set for dervishes to practice meditation and read sacred books near the head of the tomb.3 When group interests are at odds, places such as the tomb of Rumi quickly become places of intense conflict due to their inherently social nature and the collective cultural memories associated with the space.4 The museumification of the tomb of Rumi reflects how conservative Muslim opinions of ‘heretical’ Sufism reflect their belief

in the impact of sacred spaces on individuals, as mentioned by abbot Suger. Aslan defines the process of museumification as, “imposing national identities onto a conserved heritage site and recreating a heritage site with a specific agenda that conforms to the ideals of the nation. The process considers every place and object connected to a distinct culture or religion to be an artifact that can be preserved and represented in an acceptable format.”5 By redesigning this tomb as a museum, the state sought to secularize this important sacred place in order to remove said quality, and thus undermine the Mevlevi order that had been criminalized since 1925. 6 Almost all other Mevlevi tekkes were reused for other architectural purposes, but the cultural influence of Rumi outside of the Mevlevi order was too significant for the site to be similarly destroyed.

Since pilgrimage to the tomb could not be prevented, the reconfiguration of the tomb as a folk heritage museum was an attempt to suppress the religious aspects of visitation to the tomb and remove the spiritual qualities associated with the space.

The museumification of the tomb of Rumi reflects how conservative Muslim opinions of heretical’ Sufism reflect their belief in the impact of sacred spaces on individuals, as mentioned by abbot Suger.

Aslan defines the process of museumification as, “imposing national identities onto a conserved heritage site and recreating a heritage site with a specific agenda that conforms to the ideals of the nation. The process considers every place and object connected to a distinct culture or religion to be an artifact that can be preserved and represented in an acceptable format.”5 By redesigning this tomb as a museum, the state sought to secularize this important sacred place in order to remove said quality, and thus undermine the Mevlevi order that had been criminalized since 1925. 6 Almost all other Mevlevi tekkes were reused for other architectural purposes, but the cultural influence of Rumi outside of the Mevlevi order was too significant for the site to be similarly destroyed.

Since pilgrimage to the tomb could not be prevented, the reconfiguration of the tomb as a folk heritage museum was an attempt to suppress the religious aspects of visitation to the

tomb and remove the spiritual qualities associated with the space.

Instead, the site would reflect universal values surrounding nationalism and, of course, make money for the state.

Religious tourism is defined from pilgrimage by the lack of path, route, and goal that is a part of the pilgrim’s experience.7 As esteemed Sufi historian Annemarie Schimmel writes, “To what extent would they [tourists] appreciate the sama of the Mevlevis, seeing it not merely as a nice and interesting folkloric performance but rather as an expression of the sweetest and deepest secrets of mystical love?” 8 The argument that space is the construction of the sacred itself, rather than a reaction to the sacred parallels Suger’s belief that the transformative qualities of a decorated church will aid the viewer in attaining a spiritual connection with the higher.

However, as Bremer notes, the ‘simultaneity of places’ allows spaces to be both a sacred and secular space, as is the case with Rumi’s tomb or the Abbey Church of Saint Denis.9 Both places now occupy a wide touristic visitation as well as genuine pilgrims and other spiritual practitioners, such as the dervishes or the clergy.

The use of art, which is widely believed to affect the sensory system allowing for emotional reactions outside of the daily experience.10 Both the Tomb and the Church reflect the qualities found within the following quote: “Inside is a different world, strangely beautiful and decidedly holy. Hazy sunlight filters through stained-glass windows onto the mausoleum's tiled walls creating a kaleidoscope of opulent hues and mysterious patterns... Everything is exquisite. Everything is divine.”11 The use of decoration, architectural elements, and modified light helps convey the concept of intangible cultural heritage, a valued cultural good. Aulet and Vidal argue that customs, rites, and forms of folk culture provide an evolving sense of identity and community, and such sacred places have a human capacity to produce and absorb meaning as visible sites of this heritage.

12 Additionally, the social prestige of a holy site, often inhabited and controlled by ritual specialists commanding the respect of religious adherents, is gained through reciprocal meaningfulness.13 Art and urban space is used to establish an atmosphere

that can provide or encourage an emotional reaction from the viewer.

As such, in the case of the museumification of the tomb of Rumi, the inherent cultural heritage, particularly due to the tomb’s history as the largest Sufi tekke open only to the Mevlevi order, supersede the attempts at secularizing the space for a significant number of visitors. The intricacies and attention paid to the space convey intention, and whether a true spiritual connection is or is not attained, the emotional and cultural values are certainly impactful on the viewer regardless.

Bibliography Rose Aslan. "The Museumification of Rumi’s Tomb: Deconstructing Sacred Space at the Mevlana Museum,” International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage. 2, no. 2, (2014): 1.

Silvia Aulet & Dolors Vidal.

“Tourism and religion: sacred spaces as transmitters of heritage values,” Church, Communication and Culture, 3, no. 3, (2018): 237-259.

Thomas Bremer. “Sacred Spaces and Tourist Places.”

In: H. Olsen D and Timothy DJ (eds) Tourism, Religion and Spiritual Journeys.

London; New York: Routledge (2006), 25-36.

Canterbury Cathedral.

“The Cathedral's mission is 'To show people Jesus'.”

Home Page. (2020). https://www.canterburycathedral.org/.

Andrew Moyer. “Paper 1: The Shrines” Sufi Shrines in Central Anatolia.

Unpublished dissertation. (1984): 1.

Biography Ana Moyer is an MA candidate at Western University in Art History and Curatorial studies, focused on Indigenous Art. She has a BA Honours in Art History from the University of Guelph and is also a Personal Support Worker from Fleming College.

Author's Statement This essay addresses how sacred spaces have both transformed dramatically in the modern context while remaining important spiritual and cultural places of destination or pilgrimage.

These spaces elicit specific feelings and elevate

spiritual practices both through the architectural organization of space and the ties to spiritual figures, such as saints. Particularly with the increased tourism and museumification of such tombs, temples, churches and other sacred spaces, this essay identifies with the nostalgia such spaces can evoke.

Hannah Verster Biography Hannah Verster is a third year Visual Arts student at Western.

My artistic interests include photography, watercolour painting and printmaking, and my artwork frequently explores themes of femininity, identity, and sustainability.

Before switching into visual arts, I studied psychology and human understanding, a background which continues to inform my creative works today. I am also an activist of veganism and sustainability, which shapes how I create. In the future, I hope to pursue a career in the field of Museum and Curatorial studies, helping to make museums more inclusive and eco friendly for future generations.

''Untitled' My image of an isolated table and chair is situated on a property that has been in the same family for over a hundred years. The image is meant to capture feelings of nostalgia surrounding the countless conversations and moments that have taken place under the tree shown in the photograph. People used to sit under this tree to read, write and gather. The still, quiet and bleak silence of the photograph reflects our current world in the midst of the pandemic, where such gatherings are not possible.

The chair and table, however, much like the tree that stands behind them, remain.

They become objects of nostalgic memory that have the power to remind us of connection and hope.

Holly Granken Biography Holly Granken is a third year student doing a BFA in Honours Studio Art and Art History at Western with a minor in Japan Studies. In the past Holly had received the Global Opportunities in Arts and Humanities Award and the International Learning Award.

I have been creating for as long as I can remember, and have been a photographer for more than 20 years. I enjoy trying new techniques and experimenting with materials and concepts.

Natural beauty, and the cute and creepy are some of my biggest influences. In 2020, Good Sport in London added a copy of my zine, “Black Cat” to their permanent zine collection. I was involved in the Department of Visual Arts and Artlab Gallery, BFA Vitrine Exhibition with my show, “Ikinuki” In the future I hope to get my master's degree with the ultimate goal of teaching. I also want to study traditional Japanese art further. I enjoy the concept of wabi-sabi, which is finding beauty in imperfections and impermanence- it is a foundational part of a lot of my work. I love Japanese methods when it comes to pottery, like raku ware and kintsugi, In addition to the concept of wabi sabi, I'm also inspired by nature. I love flowers and animals, and have a special interest in bones. I have a collection and have started incorporating them more into my practise.

'Transcendental Lights' Nostalgia can be a dreamy sort of emotion. Nothing is quite in focus, and everything is soft. Sometimes you just see colours. My photos reflect the haze of a sunny day, or the blur of streetlights at night. I have been focusing on the abstract in my photography practise lately.

I love the interplay of colours and light.

Stitches and Stories: The Quilt’s Symbolism in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles Written By: Luke Lee Young Quilting has been an important occupation for women calico diary” (Witzling 623), meaning that women, throughout American history. Patricia Mainardi says, through quilting, could document their lives or “quilts, as they were first made in America, were a product alternatively put, share their stories. Quilting, as a form of necessity”ecause during the sixteenth and seventeenth of storytelling, figures in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles. “two centuries, settler women in the American colonies housewives, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, accompanying quilted blankets and garments in order to keep their their husbands who are investigating the murder of a families warm during the cold, winter months (Mainardi man by his wife, discover in the kitchen the clues which In the nineteenth 334). indicate the motive of the century, quilts were no murderess, and silently longer just a product of The essay is about quilts as agree to withhold this necessity, but a way for evidence from their an American art form and women to have a role that husbands” (Alkalay-Gut 1). transcended the domestic that studying quilts can One of the clues that Mrs. space. During the Civil War, Hale and Mrs. Peters reveal historical conditions “women’s quilt-making discover in Minnie Wright’s funded much of the of women at different (the murderess’) kitchen is confederate war effort” an unfinished Log Cabin periods of American (Higgs and Radosh 57). For quilt that “looks as if she example, women who history. didn't know what she was volunteered for The about” (Glaspell 17).

Sanitary Commission (“an organization that provided The quilt is “so nice and even,” but then goes “all over the comfort to soldiers by supplying soap, razors, and place” (17). As Trifles is set during a period of American other needed items”) fundraised by making and selling history when quilting was an avenue for women to tell quilts (Higgs and Radosh 57). Throughout the their stories, it begs the question: how does Minnie’s quilt remainder of the nineteenth century and the early express her side of the story as to why she murdered her twentieth century, women persisted with selling their husband? It is important to note that Minnie does not quilts so as to contribute to their family incomes. ever appear on stage nor does she speak in Trifles. In fact, However, with the increase in fabrics, patterns and her story is initially told through Hale’s perspective at techniques, quilts primarily became a means for the beginning of the play when he reports his encounter women to “express themselves creatively—a woman with her to the county attorney. That being said, the worked on her quilt in the evenings after she had done women of the play are able to decipher Minnie’s side of the day’s chores” (Mainardi 335). Louisa May Alcott, in the story by virtue of her quilt amongst other objects in her story “Patty’s Patchwork,” describes the quilt as “a her kitchen. In this essay, I will use the history of the quilt

in American culture to explain how Minnie’s quilt symbolizes her reasons for killing her husband..

In American culture, certain types of quilts and patterns have their own intrinsic meanings. There are bridal quilts that “may be made with scraps of fabric from the bride’s baby clothes” (Higgs and Radosh 66), mourning quilts that “were made to commemorate those who departed the earthly plane” (Witzling 626) and friendship quilts. In her essay, Mara Witzling provides an example of a friendship quilt where “a woman was moving from Vermont to Wisconsin and her friends made squares with pieces of their dresses —so she could remember them, perhaps take a bit of each along on the journey” (624). Patterns also "give rich insights into the lives of the women who made them, and their lives give insight into the content that the design elements held for them” (Mainardi 338). The Jacob’s Ladder pattern (otherwise known as the Underground Railroad pattern) was used as a code “to help slaves escape and to point them on the road to the Underground Railroad” (Higgs and Radosh 58). According to oral traditions, a woman who “looked out of her window and [saw] sunflowers blooming” and a woman who was “distraught at her husband staggering home drunk” respectively created the Ohio Sunflower and Drunkard’s Path patterns (Witzling 621). Although these quilt patterns are not literal depictions of sunflowers and drunken husbands, the fabric is configured in such a way that evokes the experiences of the women that made them.

In Trifles, Minnie’s Log Cabin quilt is configured in a way that evokes her experience of losing her identity after her marriage to John Wright. A Log Cabin quilt is “formed by placing strips of fabric around the four sides of a central square, much as notched logs would be laid together in building a log house” (Witzling 622). The central square is typically red, which represents the hearth of the home. This is all to say, the Log Cabin quilt represents the domestic space— both its exterior (a log house) and the interior (the hearth)—and how the fabric on it is configured tells the quilt’s observer about how its creator felt about their own domestic space. Minnie’s quilt is defined by being “so nice and even” and then “it’s all over the place” (Glaspell 17). Mrs. Hale also adds that when she is “tired” (18), she sews this way as well. Mrs. Hale uses the word “tired” in the sense of being “fatigued,” but “tired” also means to be “weary of” something (“tired”).

In Minnie’s case, she has become weary of her domestic space; her quilt shows that she views her domestic space as a trap in which she has lost her sense of self. The start of the quilt—which is “neat and even”—is like Minnie before she was married. Minnie “wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the choir and sang” (22); white is the colour associated with cleanliness and being “neat.” Once she gets married to Mr. Wright, her life is not neat, but “all over the place”; her domestic space, namely her

dkitchen, is “left without having been put in order— unwashed pans under the sink, a loaf of bread outside the bread-box, a dish-towel on the table—other signs of uncompleted work” (Glaspell 9). Furthermore, Mrs. Hale notes that the quilt “looks as if she didn’t know what she was about” (17). Minnie’s marriage took her former, neat self and reduced her to a state where, like her quilt, she "didn’t know what she was about” anymore.

Minnie’s choice to do a Log Cabin quilt hints moreover at her isolation from the community on account of her marriage. A Log Cabin quilt is typically knotted because its strips of fabric are of different sizes, which make them difficult to quilt by hand. The Sheriff and the County Attorney ridicule Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters on three occasions because of their interest in whether or not Minnie “was goin’ to quilt it or just knot it” (Glaspell 17): SHERRIFF. They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it. [The men laugh, the women look abashed.] (17) …

COUNTY ATTORNEY. [As one turning from serious things to little pleasantries.] Well, ladies, have you decided whether she was going to quilt it or knot it. (21) …

COUNTY ATTORNEY. [Facetiously.] Well, Henry, at least we found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was going to—what is it you call it ladies? (24) Minnie’s decision to make a quilt with a pattern that is typically knotted is significant. Karen Alkalay-Gut writes, “patch working is conceived as a collective activity, for although it is the individual woman who determines the patterns, collects cuts the scraps, and pieces them together, quilting work on an entire blanket is too arduous for one person” (Alkalay-Gut 8). This is why Quilting Bees were so popular amongst women during the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century.

Quilting Bees were “an all day affair, lasting from dawn to late in the evening” where women would come together and sew all day “usually on two quilts, and then have husbands, brothers and friends in for supper and dancing” (Mainardi 341-342). Unlike quilting, knotting can be done by one person, which further emphasizes Minnie’s loneliness. Minnie “kept so much to herself” because her husband “was close” and so, she was no longer in a position that would allow her to interact with women or even ask them to quilt with her (Glaspell 15). By virtue of her husband’s possessiveness, Minnie does not take part in choir anymore or other communal activities such as “the Ladies Aid” (15) where, like The Sanitary Commission, the other women in her community assemble and presumably fundraise by making quilts. Her home is also isolated from the community; Minnie is “down in a hollow and you don’t see the road” (19),

which is one of the excuses that Mrs. Hale makes for not visiting her. Both Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale describe her home as a “lonesome” place (19) and Minnie does not have children, which make “a quiet house, and Wright out to work all day, and no company when he did come in” (19). The only company Minnie had, other than her husband, was her canary. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters notably discover the strangled canary in Minnie’s sewing basket, which contains patches amongst her other sewing materials.

When quilting, patches are “put together to form a coherent beautiful whole” (Witzling 629).

Consequently, the fact that Minnie puts the strangled bird into the sewing basket and wraps it in “silk” (Glaspell 20) means that the bird is also a significant piece of her story. As Mrs. Hale points out, Minnie “was kind of like a bird herself—real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and—fluttery. How—she—did—change” (20). Once Minnie married, she changed; she lost her sense of self and was isolated from the community in her home. She was put in a cage, so to speak, with no one, apart from her husband and her bird, to interact with. Mr. Wright strangled Minnie’s canary like he strangled Minnie by preventing her from communicating with others. Alkalay-Gut points out, “this comprehension makes the murder totally understandable” (Alkalay-Gut 6). As Minnie’s quilt gets messier over time, it shows her growing frustration with her life and her isolation. Once her husband destroys her one companion, she is pushed over the edge and murders him in cold blood. The bird in the sewing basket, like a patch about to be sewn onto a quilt, is thus an integral part of her story as to why she murdered her husband.

As Helen K. Bell writes, “quilts contain symbolic messages and stories that are told and that exist beyond the life of the quilter” (Bell 365). Minnie’s quilt reveals that she murders her husband because he is responsible for her loss of identity, isolating her from the community and killing her only companion. The men in the play are quick to dismiss her quilt because they think it trivial or a “trifle” (Glaspell 12), to use the play’s vernacular. The women do not dismiss Minnie’s quilt because they quilt as well and therefore, understand the processes and thought that goes into making one. The quilt becomes a code, "a secret language” (Mainardi 338), that Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are able to decipher in order to understand why the murder took place. This play can be read as an extended metaphor for why quilts—an art form that is “underrated precisely for the same reasons that jazz, the great American music, was also for so long underrated—because the ‘wrong’ people were making it” (Mainardi 344)—should continue to be studied.

Quilts, including their patterns, techniques and fabrics, can elucidate the circumstance of real women who lived in different periods of American history.

Bibliography Alkalay-Gut, Karen. “Jury of Her Peers: The Importance of Trifles.” Studies in Short Fiction, vol. 21, no. 1, Newberry College, 1984, p. 1–9.

Bell, Helen K. “Quilts.” Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research : Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues, edited by J . Gary Knowles, and Ardra L. Cole, SAGE Publications, 2007. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Glaspell, Susan. Trifles: A Critical Edition. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014.

Higgs, Elizabeth, and Polly F. Radosh. “Quilts: Moral Economies and Matrilineages.” Journal of Family History, vol. 38, no. 1, SAGE Publications, 2013, pp. 55–77, doi:10.1177/0363199012470063.

Mainardi, Patricia. “Quilts: The Great American Art.” Feminism and Art History, 1st ed., Routledge, 1982, pp.

330–46, doi:10.4324/9780429500534-18. "tired, adj.1." OED Online, Oxford University Press, December 2020, www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/202447.

Accessed 19 February 2021.

Witzling, Mara. “Quilt Language: Towards a Poetics of Quilting.” Women’s History Review, vol. 18, no. 4, Routledge, 2009, pp. 619–37, doi:10.1080/09612020903138351.

Biography Luke Lee Young is a fourth year student in English Literature and Theatre Studies at Western University.

Author's Statement The essay is about quilts as an American art form and that studying quilts can reveal historical conditions of women at different periods of American history.

Tia Bates Biography Tia Bates is a fourth year Visual Arts student at Western.

Hi, I’m Tia. Nice to meet you. I have three dogs, and my favourite colour is green. I am a contemporary artist currently based back and forth between Alcona and London Ontario. Anywho, I’m not sure what I’ll be doing after finishing up my BFA this year. I’m considering an MFA further into the future, but for now I’ll be moving back home to write and paint and work. Hopefully we’ll be back in theater seats soon so the work I’ve created this year remains of current relevance and not just a reference to the past.

'The Framed Voyager'

This painting references the cinematic as a nostalgic experience, how our personal cinematic experiences have become something from our past, spectator is drawn into the theater screen. I am exploring the nature of storytelling through the cinematic as an experience that affects personal and collective identities. I am representing the feeling of and the impossible desire to recreate a unique experience. Within my practice, I make art that draws the viewer into the surface of he work in a way that references how a seeing a movie for the first time and having that moment of awareness and wanting to chase that moment and recreate that feeling. Along with the relationship the viewer has with storytelling and the viewers awareness of how the story playing out on a screen in front of them etches itself into memory and becomes part of identity.

"Beckoning to you from across the room - you’ve seen this kind of thing before illuminating the world around it with its radiant light. The light pouring from the edges and hitting all of its surroundings. Everything around it catches its light and soaks it up into the fibers of its own being. Looming over the room and completely hypnotizing you, but you wanted this. After all, you are here by your own volition. You paid to be here, sitting in this room, bathing in the light of pure intention. Everyone gathered here for this.

And when it starts, when that light comes on, it hits everything and everyone. That room you sit in becomes a vessel that transforms into any place, any time, and what does it do to you?

When the light touches everything in sight, it touches you too. What does it do to you?

You’d think after being exposed to this kind of thing time and time again you’d be immune - and maybe that is the case for the most part - but every now and then, when the credits roll, and the lights some back on, something inside of you doesn’t quite feel the same as it did before. And maybe that only lasts a few moments until you inevitably move on with your day. Or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe that cascading light has soaked itself so deep into your skin that it will never wear away. Maybe it becomes part of the light that etches you into the world, that distinguishes you from your surroundings."

Darcy McVicar Biography Darcy McVicar is a third year Studio Art student at Western. Darcy graduated from Western University in 1990 but returned in 2018, and hopes to enter the MFA program at Western in the future.

His recent published works include Nuit Violette and the Sustainable Arts Publication, and he has worked extensively with the Society of Neuroscience Graduate Students (SONGS). Like Olafur Eliasson, Darcy was also a trained breakdancer, and primarily works in watercolour.

'Local Calls Only'

This is the type of phone I grew up with!

Shutter Speed: The Use of Cinematic Elements in Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills and Gregory Crewdson’s Beneath the Roses (Excerpt) My essay looks at the works of Cindy Sherman and Gregory Crewdson and how their photographic images appropriate cinematic elements to mediate between the real and the imagined.

T

Natalie Scola

he cinematic elements in both Cindy Sherman and Gregory Crewdson’s staged tableaux photographs blur reality and force the viewer to confront the ambiguity of the narrative, a scene captured before or after a momentous event. They rely on prescribed understanding of mass culture, specific

lighting and framing and a deliberate filmic construction to give their works the element of the cinematic. In this paper I will be examining the elements of the photographers work,looking at the cinematic aesthetics they use to create a specific effect as well as looking at the films that inspired each of their works. I will start by giving an over view of Sherman and Crewdson’s works then move into examining specific photographs.

Beginning in 1977, American artist Cindy Sherman turned to photography to discuss the social construction of femininity. Her work, Untitled Film Stills, is a series of sixty-nine black and white photographs taken between 1977 and 1980. In the works, Sherman appears as the sole subject in a variety of costumes and locations. She makes a nod to B-films and film noirs of the 1950s and 60s with her vintage clothing and an array of hairstyles and makeup. The title of the series comes from each image appearing to be a discreet, closed scene from a film. The stills have no direct external origins, making them simulacral, but the viewer still feels a sense of nostalgia and familiarity; Sherman’s pastiche of cultural tropes creates the feeling of having seen the work. By acting as both the author and the subject, she is complicating the idea of ownership and authorship. The tight framing of the stills generates a sense of claustrophobia, yet Sherman is always isolated in the still. Yet, in never looking directly at the camera, there is a voyeuristic element that plays into the male fantasy. This is furthered by the ambiguous narrative of the works, where the story can be manipulated.

In contrast, Gregory Crewdson adapts Sherman’s one-woman low budget idea into something much grander. His photographs feature large scale sets, shot with cinema-grade equipment and edited extensively postproduction. His 2008 series Beneath the Roses exemplify the dramatic and baroque. His works appear as “stilled” images of small town America, representative

of social decay but infused with a sense of deep atmosphere and the uncanny. The small town feeling is given a heightened sense of underlying hysteria though the detailed compositions of the set and Crewdson’s use of atmosphere and lighting. The sets are carefully created to control and limit the viewer’s gaze, with the architecture of the set itself framing the scene. Crewdson carefully lights the scene, with the light sources often outside windows or doorways, given a sense of narrative beyond the limits of the photograph and adding to the “otherworldliness” of the construction. The feeling of cinema is enhanced by the poses of the characters who do not look out to the viewer but instead engage with each other or with events outside the frame.

To further unpack Sherman’s use of the cinematic, let us look at arguably her most famous still, Untitled Film Still #21. In it, Sherman is silhouetted against tall buildings. What attracts the viewer is the look of confusion on Sherman’s’ face as she contemplates something outside of the scene, beyond the viewer. The photograph is tightly framed, focusing in on her face, but it is shot from a low angle to include the buildings behind that serve to dwarf her form.

While simulacral with no external origin, the still is a nod to Hitchcock’s films particularly Vertigo (1958). One scene has John “Scottie” Ferguson (James Stewart) shot from below, silhouetted against a large building, similar to the ones in Sherman’s still. Sherman was inspired by the psychological complexities of Hitchcock’s films; his movies dealt with ideas of identity and the construction of femininity which Sherman addresses in her photographs Sherman also looked to the European film movements as well. Her Untitled Film Still #16 references works by Michelangelo Antonioni. It features a woman sitting on a chair smoking, while gazing disapprovingly to the side of the frame.

Like #21, it is shot from below, with the viewer looking up from the woman’s feet. However, it is not as tightly cropped but the woman is still engaging with something that the viewer cannot see. The suggestion of psychological uncertainty and unease are emphasised by these voyeuristic intrusions; these in turn are codified by the relation to Antonioni’s films. For instance, his 1961 film La Notte deals with the psychological implications of love and affairs, and is a feminine critique of society. One scene in the film has Valentina Gherardini sitting and smoking while looking despondent.

Sherman’s still is staged similarly and she draws on ideas of feminine critique of society through her photographs.

Sherman’s use of static, captured moments was adopted by Crewdson in his prints. Crewdson, like Sherman, is influenced by famous cultural films. His Untitled (Dylan on the Floor), acts as a nod to Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Crewdson’s image features a man on all fours in his living room, gazing in confusion at beams of light that have suddenly bored through the floor. The shot is muted in colour, with the architecture of the space fading into the background against the bright luminescence of the light beams. The viewer is left unsure as to what the light beams are, giving a sense of uncertainty and otherworldliness. This is seen in Close Encounters of the Third Kind with the way Spielberg uses lighting to signal the otherworldliness of the aliens.

Lighting is used iconic scene of the

young boy standing in front of the illuminated door as well as in other beams of light throughout the film. The open door and lighting signal the presence of a larger narrative beyond the scene.

The film itself is tied into the element of virtuosity with an emphasis on new special effects. The use of effects in the cinematic is reflected in the Gesamtkunstwerk of Crewdson’s images Crewdson also looks at Hitchcock for his physiological intensity as well as how colours are used cinematically. Hitchcock used colour to affect mood and atmosphere. Crewdson adopts this by using bright, over saturated colours for his sets and props, but then washing out the characters in muted tones. This is seen in his Untitled (Woman with Flowers), where Crewdson combines colour with lighting to produce an unreal nature. The image features a woman, disheveled in a pale dress, kneeling amongst vibrant flowers. The right side of the image is illumined by bright rays of light, coming in through windows from an unknown source. The intensity of the lighting brightens the space and brings an intensity to the flowers, but also alerts the viewer to the unreal nature of the scene. The use of flowers contrasted with muted colours seems to be a reference to the flower shop scene in Vertigo. The character Madeline is framed by the flowers but is wearing a soft grey suit which does not immediately catch the viewer’s eye.

Hitchcock used colour to code moods and themes in the film and the abundance of colour speaks to a mixing of emotion and psychological confusion. This same sense is found in Crewdson’s image, where the viewer is presented with an image of the uncanny.

In using different methods, Sherman and Crewdson both rely on the staged, still shot to get to the essence of the cinematic. Untitled Film Stills and Beneath the Roses are comprised of discreet shots that all have an element of a connecting narrative. Individual images with no

clear link suggest alternate readings for the viewer, allowing them their own interpretation. While a concrete connection between the stills is lost, the photographs contain elements that are repeated, which gives the viewer subjectivity in determining the link.

Sherman and Crewdson clearly do this by having references to a narrative beyond the frame and having their characters not acknowledge the camera.

Seeing a repeated series of stills, the viewer’s mind will link together a narrative though the idea of the “montage”, as theorized by Sergei Eisenstein. That is, film stills become a mode by which narrative functions could be implemented. The uncanny cinematic nature of the stills results from the abundance of visual details and cultural cues but also from the tension between movement and stasis.

The figure frozen in action or contemplation hearkens back to the art historical tradition of tableaux. Often seen in historical paintings of the nineteenth century, paintings were characterized by stilled, sculptural figures in clear poses. Tableaux paintings adopt the pictorial convention of displaying dramatic moments further highlighted by theatrical effects such as lighting and framing. Representing a moment at its climax, tableaux are demonstrating the idea of peripeteia, the moment in which a story hangs in balance. The pictorial frame is temporally bound and loses the narrative continuity that film has in a succession of moving images. However, by representing the peripeteia, tableau

opens new ways of interpretation and narration while calling attention to the finite dimension of actions. By remediating the filmic through pictorial representation, the photograph is able to go beyond its temporal bounds in using the aesthetics of the cinematic.

Biography Natalie Scola is an emerging museum professional currently completing a Masters of Museum Studies at the University of Toronto. She holds a honours degree in Art History & Museum Studies and a major in the Arts and Humanities from Western University. Natalie is interested in museum education and programming – especially getting people to think about art! When not visiting museums, Natalie spends her time thinking about cooking and baking, and how food can be a connecting point for people, heritage and museums.

In her spare time, Natalie love to cook, read lots of books and gardening. You can find more of her writing at http://musingsmmst.blogspot.com, where she writes about food and fashion history.

Author's Statement My essay looks at the works of Cindy Sherman and Gregory Crewdson and how their photographic images appropriate cinematic elements to mediate between the real and the imagined. Cinematic elements in the artists’ staged tableaux photograph blur reality and force the viewer to confront the ambiguity of the narrative- a scene captured before or after a momentous event. I believe my work relates to the theme of nostalgia because both of these artists rely on nostalgic and familiar elements of cinema to imbue meanings into their works.

Sherman takes inspiration from B-movies and noir films while Crewdson relies on dramatic, baroque staging and motion picture technique. Both attempt to engage the viewer in imagining a narrative beyond the photograph, relying on the viewer’s prescribed understandings of mass culture, particularly the sense of nostalgia gained from viewing an image.

Laura Butler Biography Laura Butler is an interdisciplinary artist currently pursuing an Undergraduate Degree in Visual Arts with Honors, and a certificate in Museum and Curatorial Studies. Her recent work uses a combination of scientific research and pseudo-scientific stories to examine plant intelligence and sentience. She also studies the harmful effects of greenhouses on the environment and the benefits to caring for a real plant versus the ease and certainty of buying an artificial plant. Laura works in both acrylic paint and linocut printmaking because they each offer the use of solid blocks of colour to create imagery. She has received various scholarships in her undergraduate degree including the Bess A. Hewitt Scholarship in Visual Arts in 2019, the Gray Creative Arts Award in Visual Arts in 2019, the Mackie Cryderman Award for Excellence in Visual Arts in 2019, and the Kate and Robert Taylor Scholarship in Visual Arts in 2020. She is currently the Assistant Curator at the Kawartha Art Gallery in Lindsay, Ontario. As Assistant Curator, Laura has curated the online exhibition Homecoming in August 2020 and has begun the new program Art Warrior; a series of themed and juried art competitions for youth in the Kawartha Lakes.

'Grandy and Dandy'

My painting "Grandy and Dandy" was inspired by a photograph of my grandparents holding hands as they had both fallen asleep outside in the sun. The photo itself is four years old and I did not consider any artistic choices like lighting or composition when I quickly captured this moment, but it perfectly shows their love for each other. This year, I painted the photograph in bright colours and minimal detail to demonstrate the timelessness of this moment and their relationship.

Gloria or Norma: The Consequences of Playing a Part Too Well Written By: Jackson Adams In August 1950, director Billy Wilder and Paramount of Sunset Boulevard in 1950; one concerning celebrity Pictures released Sunset Boulevard starring Gloria identity and the other concerning celebrity prosperity.

Swanson. The film tells the story of a faded, Hollywood star In a profile piece, one Los Angeles Times article crafting a comeback film with her acquired writer and questioned Swanson’s celebrity identity revealing, lover, Joe Gillis. Boulevard received great critical acclaim “Miss Swanson admitted she is concerned lest theatre and commercial success and currently sits at the AFI’s 16th patrons confused her [too] closely with Miss greatest American film of all time (American Film Institute, Desmond…” (Scheuer, 1949). There was a concern from 2007). Sunset Boulevard is Swanson herself that her not only successful due to celebrity image would be This excerpt examines the content of the film itself; too focused on the it also finds significant Gloria Swanson; an iconic glamorous Norma. Crafted resonance in its through publicity for the silent film actress that is capitalization of stardom film, Swanson’s celebrity and celebrity. Faded silent most famous for her meta, narrative surrounded the film star, Gloria Swanson, undying glamour she theatrical, glamorous role brings real-life authenticity sustained; being fifty years to the character of Norma as Norma Desmond in old when Boulevard began Desmond and consequently, production,“…authors were 1950's Sunset Boulevard. the larger-than-life Norma tasked with reconciling Desmond has profound Swanson’s middle age with influence on Swanson’s career post-Boulevard. This the endurance of her glamour” (Peterson, 2013). The paper will examine the relationship between star and correlation with Norma’s celebrity narrative was strong, character by examining Swanson’s influence on as she reminds Max in Boulevard’s climax, “Stars are Sunset Boulevard and Norma Desmond’s impact ageless…” (Sunset Boulevard, 1:43:18). When Norma on Swanson and her celebrity. These influences narcissistically catches her reflection in the mirror, it expose more negative aspects of the celebritymimicked the newspaper outlets’ obsession with character relationship and, as Swanson herself has Swanson’s appearance, from her unchanged, small foot noted, highlights the consequences of, “…[playing] the size (Colton, 1949) to her nickname “Glamorous part too well” (Swanson, 1987).

Grandmother Gloria” (Petersen, 2013). It was not just age The character of Norma Desmond had a lasting that assimilated the two Hollywood characters, influence on Gloria Swanson’s career and celebrity Swanson’s career seemed to mimic Norma’s postafter the release of Sunset Boulevard. Two concerns Boulevard. emerged from newspaper articles following the release

The most notable instance of Norma influencing Swanson’s career was during the 1951 Best Actress Oscar race following Boulevard’s release. Swanson was competing with Bette Davis, the star of All About Eve which won the Best Picture award that evening.

However, despite the strong competition from both women, young comedian Judy Holliday won the award for Born Yesterday, likely the result of Swanson and Davis competitively splitting the vote and Holliday’s runner-up performance triumphing (Aurora, 2016). It is possible that Swanson’s age, as thoroughly reported by newspapers, also factored into this decision; the age of the Best Actress for most of the 20th century averaged in the mid-thirties (Brown, 1990). A great degree of the publicity surrounding her role as Norma routinely centred around the fact that, “Swanson was so well preserved…. at the age of fifty, [that] the conversation often turned to her strategies of enduring glamour and fame…” (Petersen, 2013).

Regardless of reasoning, Swanson’s loss exposed her non-Norma qualities to the public, possibly jeopardizing her career. Following her loss, Swanson revealed in an interview that she was not upset by the loss but that, “‘people wanted [her] to care… In fact, they seemed to want more than that. They expected scenes from [her], wild sarcastic tantrums. They wanted Norma Desmond’” (Wilson, 2003). The attention that Swanson brought to Sunset Boulevard translated outside the film and bled into the newlycrafted celebrity of Swanson herself. The expected response audiences had for Swanson and disappointment that Swanson’s composure contrasted her fictional, melodramatic counterpart indicates a repercussion of the Hollywood star system. If operating too effectively, the Hollywood star system can encourage an actor’s fictional portrayal to be projected onto that actor’s celebrity.

The results of this consequence can be identified when examining Swanson’s career postBoulevard, answering the concern of career prosperity that emerged in the film’s publicity: “[w]ill this part bring [Swanson] back into more pictures? Or is it a one shot revival?” (Hopper, 1949). Sunset Boulevard created a character that Swanson could portray in the real world that, evident by the positive reception of the film, could have created a successful celebrity image.

However, after losing the Oscar, Swanson did not throw tantrums as Norma would have and her classic star narrative diminished. Swanson acted like a modern celebrity, with the composure and elegance of Grace Kelly or Audrey Hepburn. This was relevant in celebrity culture because unlike in Swanson’s era, “… spectators actually relate[d] to star images (both onand off- screen), [different] from the earlier perspectives on stardom, which might be termed ‘celestial’” (Bolton, 2019). The issue is such relatable behaviour did not translate with Swanson’s star image and celestial, grand performances. Swanson faltered in

aligning her celebrity image to complement her work (her sponsors) and her selfhood in a stable manner. Failure in balancing these elements harms a celebrity’s relevance because, “to keep in touch with the media image, to be involved within its narrative, is to blur the boundaries between sponsors and selfhood” (Rice, 2006). Swanson received multiple opportunities to return to the Norma Desmond-type role receiving many scripts with similar characters to Norma but consciously decided to avoid a repeat of the iconic character (Wilson, 2003). Her refusal to be type-casted and her stark contrast to the eccentric Norma Desmond character caused a rejection of her celebrity and her star faded as it had post-silent era.

Audiences rejected the delineation Swanson established between her selfhood and her work resulting in her celebrity to fall out of the narrative Boulevard wrote for her. Swanson failed to recapture her silent star fame and pursued other interests aside from Hollywood.

Alternatively, Judy Holliday continued to play her ‘dumb blonde’ persona in Born Yesterday (whether intentional or not) even testifying in a Communist investigation using the, “…’dumb blonde’ persona to deflect the committee’s attempts to implicate” (Jewish Women’s Archive, 1951) according to transcripts. Evident by the rapid decline in Swanson’s celebrity status, the consequences of the Hollywood star system of the 1950s seem to come in the form of dangerous ultra-perfection. Swanson’s performance was so convincing that audiences desired Boulevard’s narrative for Swanson’s celebrity revival and the absence of intended reaction resulted in disappointment and disengagement of the star herself. In her autobiography she revealed, During [her] years of obscurity, the public had forgotten Gloria Swanson. In order to spring back to them in one leap, [she] had to have a bigger-than-life part… [she] had somehow convinced the world once again of that corniest of all theatrical clichés— that on very rare occasions the actor actually becomes the part.” (Swanson, 648) Swanson’s defiance to act as the egotistical Norma Desmond and her consequential stardom rejection speaks to the nature of Hollywood’s hunger for melodrama, extravagance and eccentricity in their stars and the influence a film can have on a person’s life and career.

Despite being a silent film star and receiving global recognition, Gloria Swanson’s Hollywood career endured negative repercussions of celebrity culture due to a combination of factors. Using her similar career path and glamorous brand, Swanson developed Norma Desmond into a believable character. Post-release, audiences then expected Swanson to behave similarly to Norma and her refusal to match Norma’s eccentricity resulted in a disinterest in Swanson’s glamorous, pre-established celebrity. The result of these factors resulted in the dissolution of Swanson’s relevance in the public image and her star faded once more. Boulevard tells a gripping

tale of a star’s desperate attempt to reclaim her celebrity in the market of Hollywood; but the publicity, awards and subsequent career paths that surround Sunset Boulevard tell an ironically dispiriting story. The story of a faded star who may have played her part too well.

Bibliography

Los Angeles History. “Second Takes -- Billy Wilder.” The Daily Mirror, 1 May 1949, latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/2009/04/secondtakes-billy-wilder--12.html.

Petersen, Anne Helen. “When Her Pictures Got Small: Gloria Swanson, Glamour, and Postwar Stardom.” Journal of Film and Video, vol. 66, no. 1, 2014, pp. 3–20. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jfilmvideo.66.1.0003.

“The 23rd Academy Awards: 1951.” Oscars.org | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1951.

Rice, Jeffrey. “Celebrity, Literacy, the Alter Ego.” JAC, vol. 26, no. 1/2, 2006, pp. 103–128. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20866723.

“AFI'S 100 Years...100 Movies - 10TH Anniversary Edition.” American Film Institute, 2007, www.afi.com/afis-100-years-100-movies-10thanniversary-edition/.

Scheuer, Philip K. “Gloria Swanson Bringing Old Hollywood to Life .” Los Angeles Times, 1 May 1949. Swanson, Gloria.

Swanson on Swanson. Arrow Books, 1987.

Aurora. “Best Actress of 1950, A Race to Remember.”

Once upon a Screen..., 13 June 2016, aurorasginjoint.com/2016/02/05/best-actress-of-1950a-race-to-remember/.

The New York Times. “Rebirth of a Star.” The New York Times, 23 Apr. 1950. The New York Times. “The Screen: Inner Workings of Filmdom.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1998, movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/12/27/specials/wildersunset.html.

Bolton, Lucy. “Introduction: Film-Philosphy and Stardom.” 2019, 10.3366/film.2019.0104.

Braudy, Leo. “Knowing the Performer from the Performance: Fame, Celebrity, and Literary Studies.” PMLA, vol. 126, no. 4, 2011, pp. 1070– 1075. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41414176 .

Wilder, Billy, director. Sunset Boulevard. A Paramount Release, 1950. Wilson, Andrew. “Living with Norma Desmond.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 9 Mar. 2003, www.theguardian.com/film/2003/mar/09/features.review2.

Biography Brown, Richard, and Gretchen Davis. “Ages of OscarWinning Best Actors and Actresses.” The Mathematics Teacher, vol. 83, no. 2, 1990, pp. 96–102. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27966554.

Colton, Helen. “No Wrinkles Grow on LA Swanson .” The New York Times, 22 May 1949, p. 5.

Farber, Stephen. “The Films of Billy Wilder.” Film Comment, vol. 7, no. 4, 1971, pp. 8–22. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43752857.

Goodman, Ezra. “Von Stroheim 'Directs' Again.” The New York Times, 3 July 1949, timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1949/07/03/ 96462937.pdf? pdf_redirect=true&ip=0.

Henderson, Amy. “Media and the Rise of Celebrity Culture .” OAH Magazine of History , Oxford University Press on Behalf of Organization of American Historians, 1992, Spring, www.jstor.org/stable/25154085.

Hopper, Hedda. “Columnist on Hand to Report on 'Crime'.” Los Angeles Times, 1949, latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef01156f 2d8f61970c-pi.

“Judy Holliday Wins Academy Award for Best Actress.”

Jewish Women's Archive, 29 Mar. 1951.

Jackson Adams is a second year Huron University student, currently pursuing a dual major degree in Accounting and Film Studies. Passionate of film culture and the Hollywood industry, he hopes to enter the film industry after graduation and pursue a career in film marketing or distribution. Though not experienced in professional writing, Jackson hopes to expand his abilities in film analysis in future endeavours. This excerpt is from a small collection of Classical Hollywood writings that focus on different aspects of old Hollywood production and stardom structures. This was written for the Classical Hollywood course at Western.

Author's Statement This excerpt examines Gloria Swanson; an iconic silent film actress that is most famous for her meta, theatrical, glamorous role as Norma Desmond in 1950's Sunset Boulevard. The essay describes the influence the character had on Swanson's career, especially surrounding Swanson's subsequent Oscar campaign for Best Actress. The piece retrospectively examines Classical Hollywood and the star system, nostalgic of the whimsical nature of Hollywood's glamorous celebrities but aware of the potent sexism that plagued Swanson's rise to fame. The nostalgia of the Classical Hollywood era, demonstrated in this essay, is a balance of fondness and disdain for the past.

Sasha Opeiko Biography Sasha Opeiko (b. 1986 in Minsk, Belarus) is based in London, ON. Her practice varies between painting, drawing, media, installation and collaborative projects. Sasha received a BFA from the University of Windsor (2009), a MFA from University of Victoria (2012), and she is currently enrolled in the Phd in Art and Visual Culture program at Western University. Her work has been exhibited widely at galleries such as Artcite Inc. (Windsor), Thames Art Gallery (Chatham), Deluge Contemporary Art (Victoria), and Manifest Gallery (Cincinnati, OH). In addition to her individual art practice, she works collaboratively with her partner Martin Stevens on an ongoing, object-based basis. Their installation Third Line was exhibited at the 2014 International Zizek Studies Conference: Parallax Future(s) in Art and Design, Ideology and Philosophy. She is a recipient of several grants, such as the Canada Council for the Arts Project Grant to Visual Artists (2015), the Ontario Arts Council Visual Artists: Emerging Grant (2016), the City of Windsor’s Arts Culture and Heritage Fund (2017), and OAC’s Visual Artists Creation Projects Grant (2019). Sasha participated in the AIR Studio Paducah Residency (Paducah KY, 2016) and the BAiR Late Winter program at the Banff Centre (Banff AB, 2016 and 2020). Her recent project Obraz, Obrez, Ostatok focuses on visual and material residues of culture, specific to post-Soviet nostalgia and memory.

'Obraz, Obrez, Ostatok' The title of the project – Obraz, Obrez, Ostatok – translates from Russian as image (or appearance), edge (or slice), and remnant. The project reiterates fragments of appropriated Soviet-era images in combination with collected Sovietera objects.

Wall-based installations consist of Soviet-era materials juxtaposed with sections of film stills showing domestic objects, acquired from Soviet films of the 1970s-80s; portions of the constructions were photographed and printed on clear film to then be reincorporated into the constructions.

Stephanie Fattori Biography Stephanie Fattori is a third year student studying Art History and Museum Studies with a minor in French, and hoping to continue their education with a master’s in Art Conservation.

I've always been fascinated with going to museums and art galleries. I draw inspiration from people around me and places I've visited and I'm always thinking about what to create next. Since coming to Western I've found a strong arts community and have been able to practice my skill and meet like minded people.I'm very involved on campus I've been published in AHSC's publications, Iconoclast, Museum Studies Collective, and a couple of USC's Public Arts Commissions exhibitions. I'm inspired by nature and travel, I love to base my works off of past places I've visited, or past experiences and I often use art as a way of expressing the nostalgia I feel for these moments.

'Redstone'

This painting is based on a photograph of my Dad and I swimming while visiting a family friends cottage on Redstone lake. This in one of my favorite photos, my dad is someone who is always encouraging me to explore the outdoors and most of the time we spend together is doing just that. Since then my family has gotten our own cottage. Since then my family has gotten our own cottage on this lake, this photo to me marks the beginning of all the amazing memories and experiences I continue to have with my dad at Redstone lake.

Jordan Peele’s 2017 absurdist satire Get Out is deemed a masterpiece by both critics and audiences for providing a critical commentary on race relations in America.

Although the film was released during Trump’s presidency, Peele based it on his

became once again obvious that racial politics cannot change overnight.

“In post-racialism the problems which necessitate an anti-racist praxis are safely displaced onto a cultural fantasy of the past, i.e. the racist era’, whose only bearing upon our present is as an unrecognizable ‘before’ photo to which the contemporary image of our post-racial ‘after’ can stand in stark, selfgratifying contrast.” 2 […]

Peele’s film depicts the subjugation of black

(De)colonizing the Black Body in Jordan Peele’s Get by: Ira Kazi Out [Excerpt] observations of the postracial period, which began with Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and his historic victory. “For many Americans, casting their ballots for this atypical candidate was proof that the United States had moved beyond race and overcome its racist past.

Obama’s message of hope meant the hope of a less racialized future…

However intoxicating this feeling was, it was short lived.” 1 Even with a black man leading the country, systemic discrimination had not improved and it

people that is hidden beneath the mask of postracial liberalism that operates under the assumption that racism is an issue of the past. Using Frantz Fanon’s works, I explore how Peele’s film depicts the black body as a site for colonization and offers a possibility for decolonization of the body.

The Armitages initially appear to be typical liberals, who not “see” racial differences. In a scene reminiscent of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), Mr. and Mrs. Armitage meet Chris for the first time without

knowing his race. Chris is welcomed literally with open arms as they are “huggers.” However, their inherent racism soon becomes apparent as they and their friends relate almost every conversation to blackness. For example, both Rose and her father say almost verbatim that Dean would have voted for Obama a third time if he could. “They name-drop black figures … in order to signal a racial affinity – yet it is one that functions via reduction and metonymy, i.e. the same process by which the election of Obama meant that ‘racism was over.’” 3 Their words appear rehearsed, which Chris immediately notices but convinces himself otherwise. Tendayi Sithole explains: “Freedom, justice, and equality occupy the liberal norms and way of political life, and are referred to here as the White liberal façade if extended to Blackness.

This is a façade being conferred by White subjects in their capacity qua masters where the Black subject is told that there is no difference, whereas there is.” 4 Peele elaborates: “Part of being black in this country, and I presume being any minority, is constantly being told that … we’re seeing racism where there just isn’t racism.” 5 Numerous moments, such

as someone tempering with his phone or being asked by the police to show his identification (despite the fact that Rose was driving), show all is not well in Upstate New York but Chris chooses to ignore or downplay them.

While Rose, as a white woman with privilege, can express her anger, Chris, as black man in a space that is not his, remains calm to gain acceptance and survive. For Fanon, “black and white exist by virtue of their relationship. Black exists always in relation to a standard or norm that is white.” 6 While Chris and Rose are in a relationship, he operates under the norm of her society. Chris plays two roles – as himself and the role of the good boyfriend by accepting acts of microaggressions.

By doing so, he, like other oppressed people, alienates himself, which for Fanon is the most serious tool obstacle to the liberation of the colonized.

7 […]

The attraction to the black body is the premise behind Armitage family’s operation of abducting and gaining control over black people. Stuart Halls explains: “Fanon makes us alive to the fact that racism is inscribed on the skin of the subject. It's something which is literally visualized… which is the sexualized nature of the

look.

Looking always involves desire…The reaction in racism between black and white partly... arises when the white looker becomes aware that he is, as it were, attracted to the black subject.”

8 Rose’s grandfather, Roman Armitage, whose claim to fame was losing “in the qualifying round for the Berlin Olympics in ’36 against Jesse Owens,” develops a method of taking control of the black body to have his athleticism. There is an attraction to the body while also feeling jealously and anger over losing to a black person which “he almost got over.” Roman in Walter’s body is shown running to beat Jesse Owens’ time as if to prove his superiority. He has the colonial mindset that while he may not have the physical capabilities of a black man, he has the intellect to conquer him. The film further clarifies at the attraction to black bodies when Chris asks Jim, his would be proprietor: “Why black people?” Jim responds: “People want a change. Some people wanna be stronger, faster, cooler.” The white characters objectify the black people by reducing them to their physical attributes. […] The black man is sexualized by the white gaze which is

exemplified in the brief conversation where a woman asks Rose: “So, is it true? The love making. Is it better?” Rose laughs at the bluntness of the question while a shocked Chris almost chokes on his drink. She continues to size Chris up and asks Rose: “I’m being too forward?” to which Rose replies: “We’ll talk later.”

The embarrassing exchange about Chris’ sexual prowess occurs between two white women, one of whom ignores him while objectifying him.

The black man’s voice is not of any interest amongst the white buyers at the party and colonizers in general. […]

Akin to the European colonizers, the Armitages view the black body as a resource that can be used for profit. They kidnap or seduce black people and sell them in an auction.

“The transition to the auction scene is incredibly unnerving as it represents the climax of the racist Akin to the European colonizers, the Armitages view the black body as a resource that can be used for profit. They kidnap or seduce black people and sell them in an auction.

“The transition to the auction scene is incredibly unnerving as it represents the climax of the racist responsibility, or difficult life decisions. Isn’t that what you’d want?

…You were chosen because of the physical advantages you’ve enjoyed your entire life. I’m certain that with your natural gifts and our determination we’ll soon both be a part of something greater.” He operates under the belief the “ignorant” colonized would want subjugation for a “better’ life with “no more responsibility, or difficult life decisions.”

The belief that colonial leadership would lead to “something greater” is a part of colonist rhetoric.

Fanon says: “The colonist makes history... He is the guarantor for its existence: ‘If we leave, all will be lost, and this land will return to the Dark Ages.’ Opposite him, listless beings wasted away by fevers and consumed by ‘ancestral customs’ compose a virtually petrified background to the innovative dynamism of colonial mercantilism.” 10 Thus, according to this view, the oppressors think that the colonized need as much as they need them.

Additionally, the Armitages profess that their business allows black and white people to live in harmony, yet according to Fanon, this is existentially destructive to the subordinated group. 11 Through his emphasis of corporal body (as the subjects are first hypnotized (in “the Sunken Place”) and then g

iven a brain transplant surgery), Peele makes visible the psychic effects of oppression and shows the impossibility of a harmonious coexistence as long as there is subjugation. […]

Fanon argues that “it is only by violence that the colonized can achieve their freedom. Violence first liberates consciousness, and second, it destroys the social and political institutions of the colonial society. It is necessary to destroy these institutions because they were set up not for free individual but as instruments of oppression.” 12 In the climax of the film, Chris, who is tied to a chair by the Armitages, picks the cotton out of the chair’s handle and used it to block his ears, thus resisting the hypnosis of the Missy’s voice. The cotton picking subverts the relation of black slavery and cotton.

He uses something used to brutalize black people as a tool for his fight against his slavery. He asserts his identity as he is able to think for himself again.

The act of resistance sets forth the violence necessary for him to break free from oppression. He then grabs a mounted head of a buck and kills the patriarch of the family to escape from captivity.

The deer,once a free animal, is captured and

displayed for the viewing pleasure of the killer, which is similar to the capturing of black people.

The buck also reminds the audience of the doe that ran into Rose’s car and died earlier in the film.

Chris watched the helpless creature die, which represents Chris and his helpless situation.

Throughout the film, Chris quietly endures the racist comments from the Rose’s family and friends, including questions regarding sexual prowess as black man, while not having his voice heard.

The horn, a phallic symbol, is used as a weapon against the oppressor to reclaim his freedom, identity, and masculinity. […]

For Fanon, “[D]ecolonization, which sets out to change the order of the world, is clearly an agenda for total disorder.” 13 Chris’ escape involves the violent deaths of the Armitage family, including the enslaved black bodies. The violence is not simply for pleasure or retribution in the film but a new beginning for the freed character. Chris, who is visibly shocked by the events, enters his friend’s car (a safe space) and they drive away. While his future and how he deals with the trauma is not shown, his “happy” ending is that he breaks free from the cycle of violence and can have a new beginning.

Throughout the film, the black body is colonized and the decolonized in ways that are both realistic and fantastical. However, the most frightening moment of the film occurs not in scenes of bondage but after Christ escapes from the Armitages’ hold and the presumed police car with flashing lights arrive. In those few seconds, Chris’s fearful face and history of police brutality against racialized people, inform the audience of his fate as a black man standing among dead bodies. We are reminded that the institutional racism is a more persistent enemy than the isolated case of the Armitages and their friends. Peele initially planned on the ending with the arrival of the police but changed to the happier ending of the car belonging to his friend who is a TSA officer. “The ending needed to transform into something that gives us a hero, that gives us an escape, that gives us a positive feeling,” Peele says. 14 As the film ends with Chris’ escape, the audience is reminded that the seemingly infallible systemic racism caused by the suppression of black and other racialized people has been, is, and will be present in our society unless we protest and make changes.

Bibliography Bailey, Andrew. The Broadview Anthology of Social and Political Thought: Essential Readings: Ancient, Modern, and Contemporary Texts.

Peterborough, Ontario, Canada: Broadview Press, 2012.

Desta, Yohana. "Jordan Peele "Get Out Almost Had an Impossibly Bleak Ending." HWD. March 03, 2017. https://www.vanityfair.com/holl ywood/2017/03/jordan-peeleget-out-ending.

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin White Masks. Translated by Charles Lam Markmann. London: Pluto Press, 1986.

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, 2004.

Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask. Directed by Isaac Julien.

San Francisco, CA: California Newsreel, 1996.

Get out. Directed by Jordan Peele. Performed by Daniel Kaluuya, Bradley Whitford, Stephen Root, Allison Williams, Caleb Landry Jones, and Catherine Keener. Universal City, CA: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, 2017.

Hansen, Emmanuel. Frantz Fanon: Social and Political Thought. Ohio State University Press: Columbus, 1976. ughes, Brooke Dianne-Mae. "Our Sunken Place: "Post-Racial" America in Jordan Peele" Get Out." Order No. 10823725.

Buffalo: State University of New York, 2018.

Jarvis, Michael. 2018. "Anger Translator: Jordan Peele's "Get Out." Science Fiction Film and Television XI (1): 97.

Mitchell, Eliane. "The Black Body as a Site of Colonization (and Decolonization) in Get Out." Medium. November 04, 2017.https://medium.com/@eliane_ mitchell/the-black-body-as-a-siteof-colonization-and-decolonizationin-get-out-9a9850f65338.

Oliver, Kelly. Witnessing beyond Recognition. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2001.

Richomme, Olivier. "The Post-racial Illusion: Racial Politics and Inequality in the Age of Obama." Revue De Recherche En Civilisation Américaine. January 30, 2012. http://journals.openedition.org/rrca /464.

Sithole, Tendayi. "The Concept of the Black Subject in Fanon."Journal of Black Studies 47, no. 1 (2015): 2440. doi:10.1177/0021934715609913.

Biography Iraboty Kazi (she/her) is a Bangladeshi-Canadian PhD candidate at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.

I am studying Art History and my research explores how the spaces presented in Italian Early Modern pastoral paintings are reconfigured and mobilized in constructions of nature in queer cinema. My research interests include Dante, post-colonial theory, queer cinema, representations of hijras, Early Modern art and literature, and heterotopic spaces.

Author's Statement : This work examines how the idea of racism being a thing of the past in post-racial America masks the subjugation of black bodies in Jordan Peele's Get Out.

Hilary Rutherford Biography Hilary Rutherford is a second year student from Windsor Ontario; majoring in Psychology and minoring in Studio Art at Western, Growing up, I’ve always had such a passion for making art and I’m so thankful for Western’s Art department for letting me grow and explore and both as an artist and an individual!

Some art shows/places that my past art has been featured at included the GECDSB office building and the mayor art awards 2019. It is a dream of mine to attend an art school in the United Kingdom after my undergrad. If not, I’d love to become either a school teacher or occupational therapist and continue to my hobby and business of painting. I tend to take Inspiration from artists, Bryant Giles, Andrew Salgado and Francesco Clemente.

'Reflection'

For this painting, my goal was to capture the feelings of being betrayed in a relationship that you valued. My painting represents nostalgia because it seeks to display not only the feelings of looking back on a relationship that you were once happy in but also the realization that not everyone has true intentions. This message is showcased though the child-like window view that represents having a naive outlook. The various faces are used to express the emotions associated with a love hate relationship and reflecting on both the good and bad experiences involved with it.

The Representation of Indigenous Peoples of the Americas in Popular Culture within Film The excerpt of this work possesses the incentive to demonstrate the negative representation of Indigenous people in in cinema, addressing the much-needed discussion for these complex matters.

Written By: Cassandra Rego The fabrication of the Indigenous peoples in film culture, on the precedence of stereotyped remarks, reflects the consistent historical inaccuracy perpetrated by white colonizers. In the second portion of this essay, positive strides through Indigenous films and filmmakers will be enlightened as astonishing works push the boundaries put on Indigenous peoples.

endured to appear less severe. Ultimately, this ideology lends in favour to the leaders of the corrupted society. 5 In Walt Disney’s production film, Pocahontas (1995), this ideology was addressed by a swarm of contradictory reactions that related to the portrayals of Indigenous people in the animated film. Specifically,

Throughout these the depiction of these harmful depictions of the people created outrage This work reflects on the Indigenous, stereotypes because of the representation of Indigenous peoples in arose, causing these misrepresentation of their American pop culture, more individuals to be history and the inaccuracy specifically through film. This in itself portrayed sublimely as of the hardships and abuse is nostalgic because we are reflecting “bloodthirsty savages”; the that they faced. 6 Many were back to the films we watched as men and women were also appalled by the main song, commonly referred to as the “Savages”, which was children, or back to a moment where “Noble Savages.” 1 The reiterated we were entertained by these cinematic consistently “Noble Savage” is a timethroughout the film. 7 experiences. honored romanticized Additionally, Western stereotype woven in past society referred to literature, that is meant to create utopic stories by Indigenous peoples as “filthy vermin”, “barely even Westernized societies. Consequently, Western human” and being associated to “dirty shrieking devils”. 8 societies exploit these historical realities in a biased Turner Strong argues that the song has the most utterly notion. 2 The “Noble Savage” is further depicted as an odious stereotypes of Indigenous people by representing individual that is permanently stuck in the past and them as “filthy little heathens” and “only good when unable to reassociate themselves with the present dead.” 9 Moreover, Elizabeth Bird’s text, Dressing In period. 3 The term is a frequent romanticization of the Feathers The Construction Of The Indian In American Indigenous people, where superficial ideals are placed Popular Culture expressed that the audience was meant on these individuals by a superior race. For example, to “condemn the derogatory view of Indians to perpetuate Western society believes that “Noble Savages” are in hatred alone.” 10 complete touch of their spiritual deities and “acts as a In the film, The Road to El Dorado, the song “It's ‘model ecologist.” 4 As a result, this causes the Tough to Be a God” represents Indigenous people historical devasting hardships that these individuals through marginalized generalization and stereotyping.

Within the song, it presents Indigenous peoples as prone to violence and labelled as having savage-like tendencies. Essentially, the idea that they are viewed as “bloodthirsty savages” is reiterated, and therefore reinforced. 11 By illustrating that Indigenous peoples perform sacrifices hastily, these individuals are being put in a negative light. 12 This is exemplified when the Indigenous peoples are barbarically cutting watermelons in half, demonstrating slaughter and bloodshed. 13 This depiction forces the audience to believe the stereotypical preconceptions about Indigenous communities that are based on the misrepresentations of this population. 14 Another stereotype is the “Native Warrior”, which is described as a violent threat to a civilized society. 15 Ultimately, Western society places a label of savagery on the Indigenous population that must be audaciously overcome by “progressive aspects” of Western civilization. 16 A more current rendition of the term is eroticized by Paul Gessell, a journalist who transcribes that, “a lot of skin, [and] looking for some white woman to ravish.” 17 One of the most prolific stereotypes of the Indigenous population in film is recognized by Johanna Feier. 18 She argues that the term “Native Warrior” is perhaps the most damaging to Indigenous peoples because they are perceived as “willing to go to war against the whites.” 19 The “Native Warrior” is also characterized as a “figure lacking emotion”; these people are dehumanized because they’re being perceived as unable to possess humane emotion. Ultimately, this suggests that they are embracing bloodshed and do not feel sympathetic after killing. 20 In the movie Smoke Signals directed

by Chris Eyre, the theme that is constantly expressed in the film is the clash between Westernized culture and their representation of the Indigenous population. For instance, in one particular scene, the two characters, Victor and Thomas, discuss how an Indigenous individual should look and act, even going to lengths to pardon themselves from expressing emotion. As Victor explains to Thomas, “Indians ain’t supposed to smile…Get stoic. White people will run all over you if you don’t look mean. Look like a warrior.”

This dispute emphasizes the absurd views and radical stereotypes which are constantly altered throughout films to distort the Indigenous image. 21 Another derogatory portrayal of Indigenous people is the “Indian Princess”, who is described as a “Native Beauty”. She is portrayed as naive enough to be “lured” by white males, whose mission is to deceive the woman into separating from her tribe and inherit his culture. 22 In essence, his motive to marry her servesas an alternative motive to marginalize her people. 23 In this regard, the “Indian Princess”, would be persuaded to assist in luring in more Indigenous people to Western society.

24 As the plot develops, the “Indian Princess” is also

described as an individual that befriends the white man; often the Indigenous character must choose between the white man whom she has fallen in love with or her tribe as an alternative motive to marginalize her people. 23 In this regard, the “Indian Princess”, would be persuaded to assist in luring in more Indigenous people to Western society. 24 As the plot develops, the “Indian Princess” is also described as an individual that befriends the white man; often the Indigenous character must choose between the white man whom she has fallen in love with or her tribe. 25 It is important here to reflect on the idea that that the “Indian Princess” is expressed as lesser than a white woman. 26 Following the historical accuracy of this status contestation, it is more likely for the white man to choose a white maiden over her. 27 In the movie Pocahontas (1995) the Indigenous female character had many flaws, the film accentuated her physical appearance by sexualizing the heroine, in clothes that sculpted her figure. 28 This is perverse because an accurate representation of the clothing that Indigenous peoples wear would be a more modest traditional style of clothing. 29 Women from Indigenous tribes wore a deerskin apron, moccasins and leggings while working on the land and gathering food for the village. 30 Consequently, the “Disneyfied” version of Pocahontas is highly falsified because the character is presented as a young woman, when in fact the character is based off of Matoaka, an Indigenous child. 31 As a result, it is highly unlikely that Pocahontas would be wearing these types of clothes because she was approximately 10 years old. 32 Nevertheless, it was common for children before to be unclothed before they entered puberty. 33 Displaying the overtly glorified unity between Western civilization and the Indigenous community proposes that Disney is sexualizing a child in order to profit from the movie’s success. 34 Due to many of the misconceptions and fabrications of the history and entirety of this culture, various allegations about the relationship between John Smith and Pocahontas were enlightened. 35 According to Camilla Townsend, a history professor at Colgate University and author of "Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma, "Smith wrote often later in life about beautiful young girls in all parts of the world throwing themselves at him, always putting his interests ahead of their own”. 36 Furthermore, Townsend went to the extent of calling the film a “pornographic narrative”.

37 He did not mean this exclusively in a sexual sense, although, the colonizers believed that the Indigenous wanted them there, and that they worshipped their way of life. 38 Viewers brainstormed theories that suggested that the middle-aged man, Smith, would have likely raped the preteen, Pocahontas, in accordance with the more accurate portrayal of their history. 39 Due to the oftenglorified tale tells that were misconstrued in order to captivate the targeted audience, fictionalizing Pocahontas’ story further romanticized the narrative. 40 As a result, the story was simply “a tale ostensibly promoting equality between races.” 41

Bibliography Through further analysis of the film, the distortedness of these historical events become enlightened by Disney’s crew and the outraged audience. As explained

by Sarah Green the film’s producer, “"First and foremost we've created a love story," this further demonstrates that their motivation was to captivate the audience’s attention, not to exhibit the historical events accurately. 42 This is troubling because many Indigenous individuals had hoped for an accurate portrayal of their people and looked forward to the film being developed because it was Disney’s first animated film representing them. 43 Unfortunately, the production of the film has placed negative exploits on Indigenous peoples for enjoyment purposes. For the Pocahontas film, the contributing individuals were aware of Pocahontas’s authenticity and thoroughly understood her historical relevancy to the Indigenous community. 44 Despite this, the production still glorified and romanticized her life and relationship with John Smith. 45 As a result, Indigenous individuals who took part in producing the film, such as Shirley “Little Dove” Custalow McGowan, now have irreversible doubts for contributing to the execution of the film. 46 “Little Dove” was hired by Walt Disney to share her skills and heritage of her “famous ancestor” in order to help produce the animated children's film, Pocahontas. 47 Serving as Disney’s “chief Native American consultant”, Shirley “Little Dove” Custalow McGowan stated that Disney “had said the film would be historically accurate. 48 I soon found that it wasn’t to be…I wish my name wasn’t on it. I wish Pocahontas’ name wasn’t on it.” 49 The film Pocahontas has proven to be resentfully disrespectful to Indigenous peoples, as argued by Yup’ik “Uguvaaq”, an Indigenous person.

50 She states that, “Pocahontas was the first film where I saw and heard the word ‘Indian’ explicitly on screen…

I was never allowed to watch the film; my mother was always aware of how unsettling and inaccurate the film was and never wanted me nor my siblings to be exposed to it.” 51 Yup’ik goes into detail about her first experience watching the film at age six, “I was uncomfortable at the portrayal of my people on screen and asked myself if those that I saw were my own, growing ashamed of how grotesque the cartoonish Indians were.” 52 She puts emphasis on the productions choice to ignore the devastating aspects of Pocahontas’s life, such as “Pocahontas’s kidnapping by the English colonists, the forced isolation from her people for a year, and her conversion to Christianity.”

53 In summary, the representation of Indigenous peoples in popular culture and within the films presented have been negatively exaggerated in order to establish an appealing narrative for the audience.

As a result, this has belittled the Indigenous communities struggles and has exacerbated the overlooked issues between Western and Indigenous film.

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“Pocahontas,”June 23, 1995. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114148/.

“Powhatan Tribe.” Smore, October 12, 2016. https://www.smore.com/d9ws4-powhatan-tribe.

“Representations of Native Americans in Dances with Wolves and The Searchers.” Bartleby. Accessed November 8,2020.https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Representationsof-Native-Americans-in-Dances-with-F3CSVNPZVC. “Site Index.” Facts, Clothes, Food and History. Siteseen Limited, January 16, 2018. https://www.warpaths2peacepipes.com/indiantribes/powhatan-tribe.htm.

Atwood, Margaret. "Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner." Globe and Mail 10 April 2002: R10.

Bird, S. Elizabeth. Dressing In Feathers The Construction Of The Indian In American Popular Culture. Boulder: Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.

Bodenner, Chris. “Does Disney's Pocahontas Do More Harm Than Good?” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, June 30, 2015. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/201 5/06/pocahontas-feminism/397190/.

Chagollan, Steve. “The Myth of the Native Babe: Hollywood's Pocahontas.” The New York Times. The New York Times, November 27, 2005. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/movies/the-mythof-the-native-babe-hollywoods-pocahontas.html.52 Ibid.

53 Ibid.

Correspondent, Beverly Fertig. "Little Dove Shares Her Indian Heritage.” dailypress.com, August 12, 2019. https://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-xpm-199301201993-01-20-9301190273-story.html https://indiancountrytoday.com/opinion/stopcomparing-indigenous-women-to-pocahontasn4nBrGPwt0aDXRhIEgLQkw. Feier, Johanna. We Never Hunted Buffalo: The Emergence of Native American Cinema. Berlin: Lit, 2011.

Gauthier, Jennifer. “Indigenous Feature Films: a New Hope for National Cinemas?” Cineaction!, no. 64, CineAction, Mar. 2004, pp. 63–71.

Biography Huhndorf, Shari. "Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner: Culture, History, and Politics in Inuit Media." American Anthropologist 105.4 (2003): 822-26.

Kiyawasew, Kimberley. “The Perpetuation of Native Stereotypes in Film.” The Perpetuation of Native Stereotypes in Film (MAIS 700) (n.d.).

Kuhn, Olivia. Rep. Savages to Satirical: A Look at Native American Representation in Film, n.d.

Mansky, Jackie. “The True Story of Pocahontas,” March 23, 2017. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/truestory-pocahontas-180962649/.

Mihesuah, Devon A. (1957- ). American Indians: Stereotypes and Realities. Atlanta: Clarity Press, 1996.

Ono, Kent A., and Derek T. Buescher. “Deciphering Pocahontas: Unpackaging the Commodification of a Native American Woman.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 18, no. 1 (2001): 23–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295030109367122.

Pak, Eudie. “Pocahontas: Separating Fact From Fiction About the Native American.” Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, October 15, 2020. https://www.biography.com/news/pocahontas-facts.

Person. “Indigenous Representation in Media.” ArcGIS StoryMaps. Esri, December 15, 2019. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/34bdcbb62ba04aa2 a63a2bdc1e8accab.

Pocahontas. United States: Buena Vista Pictures, 1995.

Ropati, Charitie. “Stop Comparing Indigenous Women to Pocahontas,” December 12, 2019. https://indiancountrytoday.com/opinion/stopcomparing-indigenous-women-to-pocahontasn4nBrGPwt0aDXRhIEgLQkw. Rountree, Helen. “Powhatan Indian Women: The People Captain John Smith Barely Saw.” Ethnohistory 45, no. 1 (January 1, 1998): 1–29.

The Road to El Dorado, 2000.

Vickers, Scott B. Native American Identities: from Stereotype to Archetype in Art and Literature.

Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998.

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Lehigh University Digital Library. Accessed December 2, 2020. http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/trial/reels/films/list/0_64_7.

Cassandra Rego is a 20 year old, raised in Oakville Ontario. Originally, she became passionate about literature and art through overcoming her learning disability despite having been given a predeterminate that pronounced she would not be able to attend university. There was a perceived limit to what she would be able to achieve, though she persevered through and surpassed the expectations put on her. With Western University’s continual support, Cassandra was able to pursue her passions in literature and art for the use of advocating for marginalized groups, therefore, deciphering complex issues that are often associated with these people. She is dedicated to overturn these interpretations in society and emphasize these issues to her audience. Cassandra is also interested in photography and supposes that photographs possess the power to speak louder than words. Additionally, she believes that photography gives viewers the opportunity to experience various sceneries and moments not capable of being seen otherwise; a concept that inspires her future aspiration of working with National Geographics. Furthermore, throughout the remainder of her undergraduate degree, she strives to utilize Western University’s connections and opportunities to further showcase her literature and artwork to a larger audience.

Author's Statement This work reflects on the representation of Indigenous peoples in American pop culture, more specifically through film. This in itself is nostalgic because we are reflecting back to the films we watched as children, or back to a moment where we were entertained by these cinematic experiences. The excerpt of this work possesses the incentive to demonstrate the negative representation of Indigenous people in cinema, addressing the muchneeded discussion for these complex matters. The work resonates with the theme of nostalgia through the audience’s perception of the film and the emotions imposed on the viewer once the film is observed. Thereby focusing on the negative side of the concept of nostalgia, I was able to harness a more powerful impact on the readers and generate this crucial reflection by the audience. Optimistically, the use of nostalgia from these negative renderings will help propel change and growth among these Americanized societies that often belittle these specific groups. Reflecting upon these films will provide recognition for Indigenous communities struggles and hardships, therefore, making the readers reflect on what can be done in the future. This would reinforce the idea of nostalgia and the power of retracing the narrative that society instills in film culture.