Reforming ideals
"Admiro, desde luego, el trazo enérgico y el corte casi quirúrgico con que el francés esculpe a los personajes en la página, la rudeza de los diálogos, sin embargo echo de menos en ellos el calor humano, la confidencia bien intencionada hecha a espaldas de los seres inventados del narrador galdosiano."
From Germám Gullón's introdution to CÁTEDRA'S 2000 edition of La desheredada
Reading this quote calls to mind Professor Charnon-Deutsche's comment that very few Marxist novels ever poured out of Spain, proletariat concerns grossly underrepresented in Iberian cultural production. At the same time, it calls to my mind the fact that I appreciate the warmth of the manchegos as opposed to cooler exchanges with those from northern Spain or other parts of Western Europe, my experience mainly limited to France and Switzerland. This difference in comportment I would like to relate to a difference in literary styles, attributing my appreciation for Galdós to his Spanish warmth, his willingness to show human warmth and his own weaknesses, not just those of the characters, as opposed to the calculated precision and perfection of Zola and Spanish writers following after the forms of Idealism.
Art, literature and film serve to reinforce socially constructed beliefs. Everyone wants to be a doctor because television and film laud the glories of these professions. Even when these or other media do not show the shiny side of this profession, careers in medicine are depicted in cultural representations much more than other professions, subtly sending the message that this is the one of the only careers worth talking about.
Because the amount of face time a given profession, cultural form or institution gets in media and culture directly relates to societies appreciation and valuation of the social element, I would like to create representations that focus on careers and institutions that do not participate as frequently in mimesis. By focusing on those careers and institutions that are currently outside popular or mainstream media, the new texts will encourage readers to reflect differently on what they value. If I can write a short story that shows why a garbage manner is happier than a lawyer, I will have succeeded in breaking down a stereotype. If a movie I help to produce shows the value of living in the world as a means of social change as opposed to going off the grid, extremism, I will have won a battle. If a novel I write helps to align an individuals perspective away from professionalism, prestige, and selfish individualism and toward an individualism mediated by a sense of community, toward spending time with people, toward humility, toward a kind of power predicated on service, then I will be very happy.
From Germám Gullón's introdution to CÁTEDRA'S 2000 edition of La desheredada
Reading this quote calls to mind Professor Charnon-Deutsche's comment that very few Marxist novels ever poured out of Spain, proletariat concerns grossly underrepresented in Iberian cultural production. At the same time, it calls to my mind the fact that I appreciate the warmth of the manchegos as opposed to cooler exchanges with those from northern Spain or other parts of Western Europe, my experience mainly limited to France and Switzerland. This difference in comportment I would like to relate to a difference in literary styles, attributing my appreciation for Galdós to his Spanish warmth, his willingness to show human warmth and his own weaknesses, not just those of the characters, as opposed to the calculated precision and perfection of Zola and Spanish writers following after the forms of Idealism.
Art, literature and film serve to reinforce socially constructed beliefs. Everyone wants to be a doctor because television and film laud the glories of these professions. Even when these or other media do not show the shiny side of this profession, careers in medicine are depicted in cultural representations much more than other professions, subtly sending the message that this is the one of the only careers worth talking about.
Because the amount of face time a given profession, cultural form or institution gets in media and culture directly relates to societies appreciation and valuation of the social element, I would like to create representations that focus on careers and institutions that do not participate as frequently in mimesis. By focusing on those careers and institutions that are currently outside popular or mainstream media, the new texts will encourage readers to reflect differently on what they value. If I can write a short story that shows why a garbage manner is happier than a lawyer, I will have succeeded in breaking down a stereotype. If a movie I help to produce shows the value of living in the world as a means of social change as opposed to going off the grid, extremism, I will have won a battle. If a novel I write helps to align an individuals perspective away from professionalism, prestige, and selfish individualism and toward an individualism mediated by a sense of community, toward spending time with people, toward humility, toward a kind of power predicated on service, then I will be very happy.
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