The United States is one of the countries where gun violence is more present. We have seen a document from the Brady Campaign where they show the number of people killed in the US because of gun violence compared to other develloped countries. We can see that the difference is pretty big.
But before showing other examples of documents, let's just give a quick look to two main definitions.
The Founding fathers of the United States were the individuals of the Thirteen British Colonies in North America who lead the American Revolution against the authority of the British Crown and established the United States of America.
Another key definition is National Rifle Association which is an american non profit organization which for gun rights. It was founded in 1871. The group has informed its members about firearm-related bills since 1934, and it has directly lobbied for and against legislation since 1975.
This document is a cartoon from Steve Sackcalled Gun Lobby and Congress from 2010.
In this document we can see two characters downwards from the Capitol. One is dressed in brown and has a bag with the dollar sign written on it, and a briefcase where we can read "Gun Lobby". He says to the other character "Now, where were we, before we were so rudly interrupted...". The other character dressed in blue has also a briefcase with the word "Congress" on it. Both men are smiling. The men with the moustache seems to be giving the dollar bad to the other man as if they were negociating something just before being "interrupted". He is bribing him. We suppose that this man is from the NRA (National Rifle Association). From the Congress, we can see blood flowing down the stairs as if a tragedy was happening inside of it. This tragedy is probably assosiated to a gun attack. The gun lobbist man let us think that he makes business with the gun sale. It is a critic of the bribery done by those people (in this example the NRA) who create business thanks to the gun sale.
The next document we are going to talk about is a caricature from Dave Grandlund called Second Amendment and NRA (2013).
This document compares two types of man ownering guns. The statue from the left is a statue from someone from the Founding fathers' age, and the one on the right is from someone from nowadays. Let's talk first about the one on the left. It is a statue, as we already described, from someone around the 19th century. The statue is represented with a simple riffle and dressed as a soldier from that age. He seems to be a soldier fighting in the Independance war. This statue doesn't bother anyone because we see it as an usual ancient soldier with just one riffle. Compared to it, we see the other soldier from the right, owning 3 dangerous riffles, and with ammunition under him. We also notice two hand guns hooked on his knees. We can conclude that this man is full of armament. This is also a critic about the NRA because in this man on the right is a amendment defined by the NRA. It seems that the NRA gives too many armament to civil or army people. It arrives to a level that it is ridiculous. With just one weapon is fine to
Mobile phones have been invented in the 70's by the company Motorola. Since those years, mobile phones have changed a lot. When they were created, mobile phones were harder to get, because it was a new invention, but since that time, more people get phones until it became one of the most important things people use in their dailylife. Even if mobile phones are one of the best inventions humans have invented, everybody probably noticed that even if more people manage to get phones easily, they are not as good as they were before.
In our first document, we see the purcentage of people that owns a mobile phone in 2013 and in 2017. We can see that just in 5 years that number increased a lot. Nowadays, the mobile phone became such an useful tool in our society, but those technological advices are not as good as we think. Every new phone that is selt in the trade, is with the years, more and more breakable. This is because of the planned obsolescence.
The planned obsolescence is a purposefully implemented strategy that ensures the current version of a given product wil become out-of-date or useless within a known time period.
The second document I have chosen is kind of a parody of this planned obsolescence. In that document we see a mobile phone of a few years ago and a new one. We can conclude that the new phone is more fragile than the old one, because it describes what it could happen if the two mobile phones fall to the floor. The new one breaks his screen, and the old one breaks the floor. Saying this, the author wants to criticize the "strongness" of the new technological inventions.
The Revenant is an american movie from 2015, directed by the mexican producer Alejandro González Iñarritú and starring the well- known actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
The script of this movie was inspired by the novel written by Michael Punke. - 3 Oscars: best director, best actor (Leonardo DiCaprio) and best shots.
The Plot: In 1820, some Mountain Men* were attacked by Indians in the actual territory of Louisiana, who stole them their coats. Hopefully, some survived, and one of them was Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) who was the only one of the survivers that knew their way, but he was terribly attacked by a grizzly bear. As he couldn't walk longer, his captain Andrew Henry (Domnhall Gleeson) decided to abandon him with his indigen son Hawk, and other two men of his army, the young Jim Bridger, and the ex militant John Fitzgerald. This latter always seemed not to really like Glass, and tried to kill him to "liberate him from his agony". But Hugh's son tried to stop this murderer by pushing him down, but instead of stop it, he get hurted by the knife, and died in front of his injured father. Fitgerald told Bridger that Glass and his son died in normal circunstances, so they moved away. But, Hugh managed to cure himself, and he started his way to survive from the crucial artic weather ad also to find Fitzgerald to get revenge for the death of his son.
This character fits very well in my opinion, with the idea of the perfect hero. He is the perfect image of the nobel hero who does courageous and noble acts in order to help or defend people. He managed to survive to the indian attack and to the weather just to get revenge from his so's death. Also, before being abandoned by his captain, he was very solidary with his companions. It shows a very noble fact of his personality that makes him fitting vey well in the notion of the nobel hero.
Today I want to talk about an exibition I saw a few days ago virtually that I pretty much enjoyed! This exibition took place in Madrid. it was difficult for me to move there, so I visited by the internet.
This exibition called Pop Art Myths took place in 2014, in the Thyssen Museum of Madrid. Here I add the link of the exibition, if you want to visit it.
This museum is situated in El Paseo del Prado, 8, in the center of Madrid. It is a very nice place to go. After visiting the museum, you can enjoy the nice parks of the surroundings.
This exibition was presented from the 10th July to the 14th of September 2014.
In this exibition we could find a lot of different artists or performers of this artistic mouvement, and also to classify them into different categories. For example, there are a few paintings of comic figures as one of Andy Warhol Double Mickey Mouse from 1981, or Look Mickey by Lichteinstein from 1961.
There are a few sections dedicated to women as the painting of Marylin Idol from Wolf Vostell, Cleopatra from Mimmo Rotella and Marylin Idol (details) from Wolf Vostell. This sections illustrates some women idols.
Marilyn Idol, Wolf Vostell, 1962
Other sections are the ones dedicated for the paintings that represent advertisements of products we use to consume in our dailylife. Those paintings are Big Torn Campbell's soup can and Brillo Soap Pads from Warhol, but also the painting Still Life from Tom Wesselman where we can see a bottle of the well-known brand Coca-Cola.
I think this exhibition presents a view of modernity and originality through art. It is not as the paintings that we would imagine when we talk about art. And also, when I saw it I thought the paintings were very easilly understood, the concept and all of it.
The works I valued the most were the ones illustrating Disney chararcters. I think they are funny and also I like everything that it is about Disney. I also think they are very cute, and they enable you to keep closer to your childhood, which mine was very close to Disney movies or characters.
Double Mickey Mouse, Andy Warhol, 1981
I also did like the ones illustrating Marylin Monror, because I do like this singer. She's an icon and a myth. I love how she is represented in those paintings.
About the exhibiton, I personaly don't think there's something missing. I think this exhibition is pretty completed, very creative, and interresting.
I would like to emphasize more in the myths that are represented in the exhibiton. As we know, this exhibition is called "Pop art myths" so I want to talk about the myths represented in this exhibiton.
One of the most famous myths that are represented here is the myth of Marylin Monroe. It is represented two times by Vostell. Other myths represented in this exhibition are Marlon Brando, which I already talked before. Another myths is the myth of Venus, the gooddess of love. This painting is called Details of Renaissance paintings by Andy Warhol. I liked those paintings because they represent famous myths of our society. These are different types of myth such as actors or mithology gods. I probably would add the paintings of Mickey Mouse as paintings of other types of myths from the american society.
OK, guys so after introducing the exhibition, I would like to introduce myself. I was raised in a family where there is a huge presence of all that refers to art. My parents and I visited a lot of exhibition during my childhood, which influenced me since I became an art critic. I studied 4 years of fine art at the university, and then I speacilized in Art Critic. So, to show you guys I'm not lying, I will criticize the next painting. It is called Marlon from 1966, by Andy Warhol.
Marlon, 1966, Andy Warhol
I wanted to present this painting, because this man represented in it, is a famous american actor who became a icon of the cinema. This actor as Marylin Monroe, is kind of a myth, because he was and keeps very famous. There are several aspects that I liked in this painting. At first, this painting seems to be an old picture (I speacially like old pictures, I think they are very elegant); then, I also like the way Marlon Brando is represented. He is on his motobike, with a leather jacket, and a cap. that makes me think about the movies of the 1960's. I also think he is very well-done represented because of his look. It gives me a feeling of mistery with his cap hidding half of his upper face. As I already said, this work was made by Andy Warhol. This latter was an american artist with Eslovaquian origins borned in 1928. He started his carreer in the 1950's, participating in the decoration of the illustrations of a shoes advertisement. Those illustrations were placed in the art gallery Bodley of New York. Warhol wanted to emphasize the misterious, and the elegance represented in Marlon Brando. Using this american shot, he wants to give us the feeling that he is kind of an icon. Also, this filter in black and white, gives us the feeling of rebelliousness, elegancy and mistery.
This exhibition was organised by the Museo Thyssen of Madrid, in collaboration with Japan Tobacco International. This exhibition hasn't travelled but some of its artist recieved awards. Andy Warhol received the 35th Annual Art Reward for Distinctive Merit for his she advertisement that made him famous. He also won the Independant film award from Film Culture magazine.
A few of them became very famous for their works, as Andy Warhol for his Marylin Monroe portrait.
Into the Wild is an american drama movie created in 2007 and directed by Sean Penn. It is based on a true story of a young american man called Christopher McCandless, who decided to travel across North America on his own to feel the extremist freedom.
His dream was to live the experience of a completely freedom, in a very wild land, Alaska.
It seems that Christopher or his character in the movie (Chris or Alexander) played by Emile Hirsch is what we could call a noble or good savage.
I found this picture in internet about the trip of the real McCandless.
This movie as I said is a biographie of the last years of a young man called Christopher McCandless, who decided to travel North america. He wanted to reach Alaska as reaching what he's longing for, the ultimate freedom. He feels that the nature is closer to what life is in real, and not what the civilization created.
The movie is very close to the real life of this man.
The movie first begins with the trip of Chris arriving to Alaska and how he provides himself buying in some stores. While we are watching those scenes, we see the letter that Chris is writing to Wayne. Then, we watch the arrival of Chris to Alaska, brought by his friend Wayne who gave him some supplies to provide himself in the wild.
After waving off his friend, he started his way into the nature.
Sean Penn took one poem and a song (at the beggining of the movie) to illustrate his feelings about society. This poem is a poem of Lord Byron (a poet from the english romanticism) called Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. This is the extract that uses Sean Penn in his movie:
Also this painting fits with the poem of Byron. It represents the idea of a misanthropist. It means that it is someone who doesn't like humans and doesn't feel confortable in the company of his/her fellow humans.
Those two documents represent the idea of the romantic. This poem and this painting, belong to the romanticism.
Then, the song is one of the songs created by Eddie Vedder. It is called Long Nights.
This song fits pretty well in the movie and in relation with Chris's feelings, because it also has those ideas of the romantic philosophie.
During the song, Penn knew very good how to link the song to the images. Let's just talk a little bit about when the song is playing. The first scenes show us the nature and the landscape of Alaska, including the sky and the mountains covered with snow. Those images enable us to discover the lofty ideals of Chris. Sean Penn probably wanted to show the sky to link the images to the expression "the sky is the limit" as saying you don't have limits because the sky is impossible to reach. It shows that Chris has very big ambitious.
I would like to add that this scene remember us the previous painting we studied about Lord Byron's poem.
Sean Penn decided in the movie, to mix the present with the past. The present is when Chris lives in what he called the Magic Bus, a bus he found in the middle of the wild and let us know that someone has already lived there, because he found some enamelwares and a bed. The past is narrated by his sister who was very close to him. During the movie, we see all his steps until he reached Alaska. He met a lot of people during his trip, and went to a lot of places but didn't find the perfect place that brings him the ultimate freedom, that's why he decided to go to Alaska. He started that trip because of the hidden past of his father that he discovered when going to California to visit some family's friends. He felt betrayed. He didn't give any information to his family during those two years he travelled across North America.
We see Christopher's story in a chronological order. We could say that his trip across North America in habited places, was his first step to the noble savage he is going to be when living in Alaska.
*** The myth of the nobel savage
We said that Chris represents the idea of a noble savage. Before proving that we will look for a definition of a noble savage.
A noble savage is a literary stock character who embodies the concept of an idealized indigene, outsider or "other" person that haven't been "corrupted" by civilization. He simbolizes humanity's innate goodness. The myth that persists is that there was ever, at any time, widespread belief in the nobility of savages.
Even though the myth of the nobel savage has been removed in the 18een century, it reappeared in the mid-nineteenth century, however, when the "myth" was deliberately used to fuel anthropology's oldest and most successful hoax The origin of the term first appeard in Englishin poet Dryden's heroic play, The Conquest of Granada(1672)
"I am as free as nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran"
A few centuries later, Terry Jay Ellison wrote a book called The myth of the noble savage (2001) where he explains the origins and the term in general.
The modern myth of the noble savage is most commonly attributed to the 18th-century Enlightenment philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau. He believed the original “man” was free from sin, appetite or the concept of right and wrong, and that those deemed “savages” were not brutal but noble.
Chris seams to be someone that doesn't really like to follow the rules forced by the society. He thinks that it is not neccesary to do everything as the society and most of the people does. To illustrate this idea we could give the example of a scene. The scene is played in a restaurant during the day of his graduation form College. In that scene his parents told him they are going to buy him a new car because his looks very old, but he wasn't agree with that idea.
He wants to break up from society and to feel the ultimate freedom. He did an interior monologue in the movie where he expresses his thoughts about his experience. Let's talk about it!
First, he says "Two years he walks the earth.
No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes
ultimate freedom, an extremist
An aesthetic voyager who's home is the road."
Those stanzas introduce his feelings, his life and what he really is.
He also imitates a dialog between him and his father "hey, listen, old man"
He uses the term "two rambling years" to designate the two years he spent travelling.
"spiritual revolution" is what he uses to designate what he is doing: to live this experience in the wild.
All this monologue, give us some clues to conclude he is a noble savage. Someone who hasn't been "touched" by the monster of the society in all its bad things.
He had to hunt to eat and had to learn how to live in the wild. That made him to be close as a real noble savage. For Rousseau, as I said, a savage doesn't need to be brutal, he 's more like a noble person. Tha'ts why Chris represents properly this term. He is not savage as being brutal but more savage in that term of being a noble savage.
During the movie, we have the example of a very energic Chris, who wants to live the life as happy as he can. For him the ultimate happiness is when you are like a savage, someone who doesn't follow the rules. As he thinks that the society makes us being egoists and consumers. Our society is based on a consuming way of life. But he thought that living in the nature was easier than it was later for him. He had problems speacially when hunting and preserving the meat. The meat is very fast infected by flies who leave their eggs into it. That scene in the movie, in my opinion is very stressful. He manages to hunt a moose, but after it he couldn't eat it because of the flies, and other bugs.
Another scene which show us that Chris wasn't ready for everything he finds in the wild, is the scene when he wants to come back to the civilization. He wanted to cross the river back but it was impossible for him. The river increased a lot because of the thawing during the summer.
But, at the end of the movie, we see his deseperation of living in the wild. He get very thin, and it was impossible for him to hunt, because of the disappearance of the anmails, probably hibernating.
When he was dying alone, he noticed that, being a savage doesn't make you being happy. He uses a sentence, which I think it's true, and it is the one "happiness is only real when shared". He knew that being a savage, alone, in the wild, out of the society, doesn't make him happy. At the end of the movie, is when we see in real he is not what we call a noble savage. He doesn't have the habilities to live in the wild for himsel. I also just need to add that the savages we can find in the nature nowadays (like the savages we can find in the deepest Amazon rainforest) live in communities, all together. They help each other when hunting and so on. But Chris was on his own. Someone who has grown in the civilization, doesn't have the habilities to know how to manage nature in all senses. Chris is more like a romantic savage than a noble one. Living in the nature is for him a choice, an ideal. For noble savages, living in the nature is their way of life. They are able to live out there. Like the definition of a romantic designes someone who likes romanticism, which is like a philosophie of life. Romantics love nature, Romantics love nature, old things like castles and churches, love poetry and beauty, and have a tendency to get carried away by ideas. That's why Chris fits exactly in the term of the romantic savage and not in the noble savage. He loves nature, and has lofty ideals he'll never reach. He is a day dreamer. A romantic dreamer. Then, it is impossible for someone who has lived in civilization all his life to go and live in the nature. To survive in the nature you need to be very stong in all its significations. All people who live in the completely nature, live with other people, and they all make a community, different to ours but one. Also, after living in the civilization, you adapt yourself to what is around you. We really never think about it, but we have a lot of amenities in each moment of each day. Those amenities, most of them, are impossible to find in the wild.
***
In a nutshell, Chris doesn't represent what we call "a noble savage"He is more like a romantic savage. His ideals of living in a life without judgements. Out of our consumer life. Even if he tries to live in the nature, it is not easy as he thought. Thanks to the magic bus he could survive longer. That shows us we couldn't live without any amenity. Finally, Sean Penn wanted to illustrate the romantic savage using some philosophical subjects as the poem of Lord Byron, the monologues and some sentences, that gives Chris the feeling of being a perfect romantic savage from litterature. Chris has lofty ideals, who remember us the romantics poets of the Romanticism, always connected with nature, with lofty ideals, and philosophical thoughts.
