Funny. Quite.

Throughout the class there has been an common emotion that keeps turning up. That emotion is anger. From Apes to the film, native americans everywhere know that there is injustice being done, and therefore they are angry. This week has been an odd change of pace from that anger, we've been looking at humor. Requiem for a Leg was just absurd, a legal battle over the possession of a lost limb. It begs the question, whether or not humor and absurdity is an effective way to convey a message. I think it does. It's great by showing the inconsistencies in the legal system through the mock trial, a message is made from mockery. The judge is so kind as to allow Native traditions pass (like the honor song and the offering to pledge on a different object) but not to honor the possession of a leg. Who would want a leg if it wasn't meaningful to them in some way? The whole battle doesn't make much sense, it feels much more like a cultural one than a legal one. Hard Riding wasn't much better. Everyone is scratching their heads trying to fit their concepts of value in a hole that doesn't fit. Appointing fools to nullify their own purpose seems counterintuitive.

Snakepeople

In "The Woman who loved a Snake" the question is brought up about the true nature of the snake. Was it a snake? Was it a person? Was it literal or metaphorical? Mabel wasn't clear about it at all, and wasn't corporative in clearing up the confusion. It leads us to believe that perhaps this snake is both a man and a snake.

But this is unlikely. Mostly because it is commonly accepted that snake people do not exist, and if they did the story would be a lot more than just about adultery. In class we explored that perhaps it is our concepts of storytelling that is the real problem. Personally, I believe that the entire story wasn't real. I don't believe her husband closed the door at night, I don't believe that a man came inside her house just they way she described it. The entire story was a metaphor but reflected behind a very real like story. But at the same time there were points of realism in there. There was obviously a man. And they obviously talked at times away from her husband. The story stands in some sort of middle ground between reality and metaphor. That's why defining the snake as real or metaphorical was so strange to Mabel, it would be inconsistent with the rest of the story.

The fact that another perspective on storytelling exists, forces us to think about stories in general. What are our expectations of stories, especially personal accounts? How is Mabel's different? Why is it so difficult for others to understand her method? In class this brought up more complex concepts of linguistics that simply made my head spin. I am aware that language plays a huge part on how one organizes the world cognitively. How Mabel's language has given her a different perspective on storytelling and perhaps even the world, I can't even imagine.

Wounded Knee

I really enjoyed the film. I loved how it looked, the found footage was amazing. I wonder how they got such good footage, the Natives probably realized that this was history they were making and that recording it was a very valuable thing to do. The only thing that bothered me was how the end became a triumph. The Natives did not get what they wanted, and ended up paying the price. Perhaps it was worth it though. Sometimes it's better to fight and lose than not to fight at all. An act of defiance reveals that the status quo is not alright and that pushing envolope will only cause problems. Is this one of those situations? I'm not so sure. The natives did gain publicity, but it was much less than it could have been because of watergate. It was violent, and people did die. It did however, establish enough publicity to create classes like this one. There is a lot more questions I would need to ask before I can properly decide if this was successful. Need to find out how the status quo changed because of this.