Tiny Phenomological Analysis of “Elf”

I was watching “Elf” and noticed something I have never noticed before.  (Thanks Jeff for making me deconstruct everything.)  So here’s a shot at a teeny piece of analysis:

The main father character (Walter, played by James Caan) is supposed to elicit a feeling of growth.

There are 2 scenes in Elf that work in parallel: the board room scenes.  In the first scene, Walter is trying to convince 4′5″ Miles Finch, who is alone, to work for him.  While this is happening, his elf son Buddy (Will Ferrell) comes in and aggravates Finch.  The scene goes out of control and Walter banishes Buddy from his life.

In the second board room scene, Walter is talking to his boss Fulton (played by a heafty 5′7″ Michael Lerner) and Fulton’s entourage and trying to pitch a story to him.  During this scene, Walter’s second son Michael comes in saying Buddy has run away.  This time, Walter does the right thing and goes to find Buddy, even though he is getting fired.

First, we see a contrast in the size of Walter’s adversary, first a little person (Finch), then a large man (Fulton).  Finch is someone Walter is trying to hire where as Fulton is Walter’s boss.  In this, Walter starts off not being able to stand up for his new son against someone small, but then grows to stand up agaisnt someone large in stature and in position.  Second, we see that Walter goes from not being able to stand up for one of his sons to being able to stand up for both of his sons.

In these two things we get a sense of growth and an overcoming of bigger challenges.

Phenomenology v. Semiotics

A quick attempt at a the distinction:

— experience ———————————————– structures —

PHENOMENOLOGY
start ———————————-  use this to analyze the start ——->

SEMIOTICS
<– use this to analyze the start ———————————– start —–

I’m not sure if the “experience” and “structure” are ths same for both timelines, but that what it seems like.  What do you think?

Semiotic Analysis of the Wii-mote – An Outline

Overall: Simple and easy

Interaction:

- Buttonless actions/Swinging controller:
- Natural and easy
- Mapping to games are generally natural: shaking something, aiming, swinging (Wario Ware a great example)

- Buttons:
- Only 2 buttons are super comfortable (A and B, B being the trigger).  The D-pad is in second place.  Conveys simplicity as most of the actions are non-button or using one of these two.  5 more buttons are in a third tier.
- Nunchuck is optional and not used in all games.  Adds a joystick and 2 buttons, though the “c” button is a definitely downplayed.
- This is a be move from the GameCube controller where the joystick + 6 buttons were on the top level, and the other controls (c-joystick, d-pad and additional button) are second tier.

Color & shape: White, clean, simple.  Smooth simple lines.  not crazy like old game cube or like rival xbox control, which is more complicated.  only 5 colors on the controller, 99% white, .2% red for the por button, .2% blue for the home button, .4% grey for labels, .2% clear for A button.

Icons: Power button, home button, -/+ buttons.  home button reminiscent of the “home” key on a browser (a big step away from classic start/select buttons of old.).  <not sure what to think of -/+ buttons yet>

Name: Wii-Remote – harkens to the tv remote that people already know (instead of a controller which is very gamer-esque).  Also is contracted to Wii-mote, which is meaningful and playful.  “Nunchuck” also very playful (I think of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles more than anything)

I’m, by nature, a Structuralist

…hopefully this unsticks me…

Trying to do this assignment in pre-writing a phenomenological paper has driven me up a tree.  I’ve been banging my head against a wall trying to come up with an idea that isn’t deeply baked in structuralism and have been having no end of trouble.  But I think I know why I’m having a problem.  I am, by very intrinsic nature, a Structuralist.  When I look at a new encounter, particularly a technical one, I start decomposing it immediately.  The values I first gain come not from the experience necessarily, but by an analysis of the feature list.  The features, in essence, are the experience.

To get to a place where the experience is more dominant, I must understand features so deeply that they finally go away.  And in this, I have had trouble writing this paper.  I chose a device that I didn’t know the features well enough to get to the experience.  Thus, as I have had experiences (a year’s worth, in fact) with the device, I still had trouble looking past the features to find the experiences to guide me.

Hopefully I can find relief as I pick an artifact more carefully understood to me in order to discuss the experiences that will bringme to conclusions.

I Feel Like I’m in Calculus Again

It’s a common story.  I used to sit in math class and start “learning.”  The teacher would talk about a concept and it go over examples on the board.  “Of course!  I get it sir!  I’ll totally be fine!”

Then I go home.

Panic.  Fear.  Confusion.  What did he do again?  I thought I got that.  What is this like?  dx/d what?

The only way to get there, of course, was to do it.  Keep practicing, keep trying, keep learning.  Nothing ever got learned unless I kept doing question after question after question.

Then I got to Jeff’s class.

Flashbacks all over the place.  3:4 v. 16:9.  There’s connotations there about new v. old media, also the kind of people who would be part of a community that uses each one of them.  Gotcha.

Then I tried to do it on my own.

How do I do this?  I have a list of features and some implications.  What does that mean?  Unique voice?  What are you talking about man?  Back to trying over and over and over again.

Eastern v. Western Communication and Phenomologoy

Someone once told me that a key difference between the way people communicate in Eastern and Western cultures is in the roles of the speaker and the listener.  In Western communication, the burden is on the speaker to communicate their ideas effectively.  In Eastern communication, the burden is on the listener to try to appropriately interpret the speaker’s ideas.  The reality, of course, is that it’s never purely one way or the other, but rather how much effort each side takes in the conversation.

I think it’s really easy to see, at least, the Western stance when looking at the way people respond to political talk of any kind, particularly watching the debates.  Responses (esp via twitter) tend to be instantaneous objects from the listener’s worldview instead of reasoned responses in the context of the speaker’s worldview.

A (admittedly fairly shallow) example of the Eastern stance is the teachings of great old teachers, such as Confucius.  The reader is meant to stop and ponder what Confucius was trying to get at.

It seems that Western mentalities (shown through their use of language) believe that there is objective truth.  The language I use has 1 meaning and anyone who listens to it understands that meaning.  Eastern mentalities seem to understand these things from more a phenomological view – at the very least we’re not accessing the direct truth of the the language.  Rather, it is up to me to peel the onion and understand what’s behind the words.

Note: I use Western and Eastern here not in any stricly ontological sense, nor in any real definitive categorization on culture, but rather as mere labels for 2 ideas.

Crackel Barrel and Formalism

…bracing for the scathing response…

Jeff gave an abbreviated version of his rant against Cracker Barrel.  (I say abbreviated because it only lasted 3 or 4 minutes.)  The short of what I understood of it was this:

Jeff: Cracker Barrel is a fraud.

In fact, I think the words were, in hyperbole, “Cracker Barrel is the biggest fraud perpetrated on America.”  Cracker Barrel is supposed to be your southern cooked meal away from home.  Yet, the actual decor, food, waiters, etc is anything BUT southern.  It’s mass produced, not personalized, and artificial.  The “antiques” are artificial antiques.  This seems to be an approach deeply embedded in a realist tradition.

Me: Cracker Barrel is fake, but it’s emotive.

Formalism isn’t about reproducting the real, it’s about reproducting the experience of southern cooking through the medium of the mid-range restaurant.  The antiques aren’t real, the food is mass produced, and the waiters might not even be true southern.  However, it evokes the feeling of being in a southern home eating southern food.

Now, I’d agree that Cracker Barrel may be bad in as much as it’s a sterotype of the south, and a poor one at that.  But the means by which they’re trying to display it seems to be justified.

What the Simpsons taught me about criticism

…catching up on old blog topics…

I now own Simpsons seasons 1-11 and have seen all of them episode3s.  I’m now up to the middle of season 6 in watching the commentaries for the episodes.  As I was watching/listening to this all, I was struck by 2 thoughts.

1. They laugh at different parts than I do.

Watching the commentary is a lot like watching the episodes with a few of your funniest friends who happen to know a little bit about the show.  Of course, they’ll mention interesting facts about what they were thinking about when they made things a certain way or how they came up with an idea.  But there will be periods of silence where they will be watching and then just start laughing.  The slightly distressing part of it all is that I sometimes miss the jokes.  Or alternatively, I don’t laugh quite so hard at things that are their favorite jokes.  This all led me to understand that a lot of it is because they have a background in comedy, film, TV, literature, and writing that gives them a different sensibility than myself.  This isn’t to say that what I laugh at wasn’t intended, as they craft all of the moments pretty carefully.  Rather, it’s to say that their refined eye allows them to have different types of laughing experiences than myself.

2. I laugh at different parts than I used to

The Simpsons started in 1988 when I was 7.  I’ve watched the show since it started and there are some episodes I’ve seen now dozens of times over the years.  I’ll now catch jokes that I didn’t at one time.  I’ll appreciate jokes in new ways.  But more interestingly, now that I’ve been watching the commentaries, I’ll appreciate the episodes all the more so.  I’ll understand not only the joke in and of itself, but understand it in a larger perspective.

For example: When I was younger, I thought that the show was a straight up comedy.  If I wasn’t laughing every moment, then the episode was a flop.  (In this regard, Family Guy is a funnier show than the Simpsons.)  After listening to the commentaries, however, I’m not cognizant of the fact that it’s more of a 90’s sit-com than just a straight comedy.  The writers carefully think about their characters in more ways than just humor.  They care about character development, creating “tender moments” between characters, and making sure that the family is a great family.  Seeing the show in this new light allows me to take a funny show and enjoy it in a more rich way.  (And in this way, Simpsons is a far better show than Family Guy.)

All of this makes me wonder how I can start appreciating design in the same kind of nuanced way.  (<- obligatory tie back into design.  =)

Just in case you’re curious – Season 11 is my least favorite by far.  Season 1 and the beginning of 2 has nostalgic purposes, but is crude and not great.  There is a slight maximum in quality around season 4/5, but I enjoy most of 3-10.

Edit: A simpler example.

“That’s just the icing on the cake.”

When I was a kid, I liked the icing more than the cake.  As I grew up, I learned to appreciate the cake more and the icing really became a tasty lining, but not the substance.

Help with Prince

On page 31 of the text:

Today, indexically based notions of cinema realism exist in tension with a semiotic view of the cinema as discourse and of realism as one discourse among others.

Um.  What?

Boundaries of Communities of Language

…before I forget…

What level of divergent definitions do communities of language now diverge?

For example.  “Communism” is probably understood by english speakers in similar ways, making us a community of language.  However, we may had different interpretations to some degree, e.g. is communism a good or bad thing.  Does that more subtle difference make us a different community of language?  Is there a concept of a “sub-community of language”?

Moreover, do communites of language exist around a single word or a large subset of words?  Are the non-native english speakers in our class who have a smaller set of undestanding of the english language a different community?  Or do we instead have a common community around the word “dog” but not around “baloney”?