Taslima Nasrin-- Muslim Women's Right

                                                                      Taslima Nasrin

 Taslima Nasrin was born into a middle-class Muslim family in the town of Mymensingh in north Bangladesh in 1962. She studied Medicine to become a doctor at the age of 23, when she became a doctor she worked in Bangladesh. As she was working as a doctor, she started writing newspaper column in 1989, which was about the difficulty of women being harassed in the male-dominated society of Bangladesh.  An article called Taslima Nasrin: “They Wanted to Kill me”, she states “. I defended the rights of women against religion and patriarchy, which I see as the causes of women's suffering. In particular, I wrote about the role of religion in this ill-treatment of women” (Middle East Quarterly). When Nasrin’s article was published, the whole country went against her they didn’t agree with what she wrote about. People burn down the newspaper office that published her books in public, and then they filed a case against her.  She writes her book based on what she thinks is necessary to speak up for women’s right. She wants to knowledge people how women are being treated unfairly and they do not have any freedoms because of the way Muslim religion puts restriction on women. When Nasrin went to a national book fair in Bangladesh, the fundamentalist attacked her physically, “I was knocked to the ground and had my clothes torn. At Nottingham in England some Muslim students tried to attack me physically but the police saved me” ( Middle East Quarterly). So, people just didn’t hate her, they desperately wanted to kill her.  People approaches her as Muslim hater because she of her writings, but she is not a anti-Islamist .

Taslima Nasrin was thrown out of Bangladesh 16 years ago. When she left Bangladesh she went to India. Eventually she was thrown out of  West Bangle as well because she spoke out writing about women’s right. Her writings became threats to the countries that men were dominating, the government and men in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan do not want women to be influenced by Nasrin, therefore everywhere she was going she was getting thrown out. Narsin was also banned from these countries and black listed, her books were not being published and the editors do not accept her writings because of the public reaction.  

Although she was facing hate she never stopped fighting for women’s right, she kept writing books, article and magazine about women. She is a very strong woman who never gives up; she wants people to hear what she has to say. Six of her written books were banned and all those books were about how women are being treated and how men approach women. Taslima  quoted, “Come what may, I will continue my fight for equality and justice without any compromise until my death. Come what may, I will never be silenced.'' One of the books she wrote it called Amar Meyebela, the Prime Minister in Bangladesh named Sheikh Hasina declared it was a pornography book, just because she wrote about women’s sexual desires.

Articles

http://www.meforum.org/73/taslima-nasrin-they-wanted-to-kill-me
http://taslimanasrin.com/tn_bannedbooks.html
 

Kai Davis: Spoken Word Poet

As I've mentioned in my first blog post, I love spoken word/slam poetry. Poetry in itself is a beautiful art form, and spoken word performance takes poetry to another outer-worldly level. Just like a scene in a film, the life captured in a painting, a monologue within a play, a verse in a song, seeing and hearing a spoken word artist perform can bring about chills down my body; I can easily be moved to tears within 30 seconds of a performance. Kai Davis, an 18-year-old slam poet from Philidelphia, captivates me with her poetry everytime and tackles a wide range of issues such as racism, homophobia and sexism.

As a young poet she brings all the -isms which affect her (racism, sexism, classism, etc) into her poetry. It is through her performances that she is able to use her personal experiences to comment on the white, patriarchal, hetero-normative society we live in. Kai Davis, and slam poets in general, use words and the performance of these words to literally sucker punch the audience. 

“We don’t mean to offend you by calling you racist.” 

aka Dear Dirty Hipster

Favorite line: "Acting like you're down because you say 'Fuck the system' but in the same breath I caught you gentrifiying the hell out of my hood." AND "They're quick to suck a culture appreciated appropriated Act like its a gesture of love and solidarity when really you just turned it into organic, alternative, indie vomit."

This is a recent performance in which Kai Davis and Safiya Washington deliver a "fearless indictment of hipster cultural appropriation and all its collateral damage."  What I love about this its a spin on dissing the "dirty hipster". The "dirty hipster" is commonly associated with people who are white, privileged and interested in "niche" or marginalized cultures. Rather than attack their dirty flannel and ray ban glasses, Kai and Safiya address how problematic hipster cultural appropriation has become. In a sense through this cultural appropriation, these girls comment on the fact that hipsters not only fail to understand the culture but also erase race, discrimination, oppression to make them feel more comfortable and superior.

Favorite line: “A queen loses her crown when she loses her virginity.
And a queen becomes a bitch when she likes it.”

This poem addresses the objectification and sexualization of women we've spoken about in class throughout the semester. She addresses how we've taken the "crowns" from females in society and in doing so reduced them to sexual objects devoid a voice. She uses colloquials, slang terms that many young people use, such as "hoes, bitches, bimbos, bad bitches, hit-it-from-the-back" and turns it around to show how messed up it is to use this type of language to describe females. The idea of taking women's crowns, is to shame them from their sexual freedom, which Kai closes with. Because "sexual freedom isn’t acceptable for women, due to the misogyny massaged into men’s brains" our patriarchal society has normalized slut-shaming and Kai is not afraid to shout that she sees that.

"Fuck I Look Like"

Favorite line: "apparently Maya Angelou is inferior due to her grammatical errors, but white man Mark Twain can write a whole novel in nothing but grammatical errors and that shit is a literary masterpiece. Well I can’t help but to pardon my people’s slang because real niggas ain’t real niggas if they don’t got a twang I won’t apologize."

In "Fuck I Look Like" Kai exposes the racism associated with intellect and education. We don't realize how microaggressions such as aligning "smartness" with "whiteness" is just as racist as assuming black people don't deserve to learn how to read because their inferior. She yet again exposes how fucked up our society is, using her experiences channeled through poetry. it adds to the dialogue as to why white intellectuals are seen as the cream of the crop in academia, while people of color intellectuals are positioned below the default white group. She brings up another issue of "whitening one's voice" as a way to speak more like the "white man" to distance him/herself from their minority race; such as degrading African American "ghetto" language as an inferior mode of communication. 

I feel like Kai Davis is the slam poet version of bell hooks. She is able to manipulate words to make talking about sexism and racism in a way that is not exclusive or solely for theoretical, academics. She smashes the barriers between age and cultural criticism, proving that teenagers know how fucked up our society is and can see the white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy.

Women and The Work They Make in the Media

There are many media makers and artists whom create art for many different reasons, or even no reason at all. A few outstanding artists are the filmmaker Betty Thomas, the artist Jackson Pollock and the artist/ activist Cat Mazza (Spliced 1,Goodnough 1,Regine 1). Betty Thomas has directed many films; some of them include, The Brady Bunch Movie, Dr. Dolittle, 28 days and I Spy(IMbD). For the Brady Bunch Movie she claimed that she wanted people who she felt were best to play those roles, meaning that the script was not written for a specific actor to play (Spliced 1). For example the Spliced article claimed that Thomas, "was determined to cast 'nobodies'" so that "the audience wouldn't have to shake an image that came with a name actor in order to accept them as a Brady" (Spliced 1). Ms. Thomas here explains that she wanted the movie that she would be directing to not have an actor automatically playing it (Spliced 1). In addition she explains that she wanted her movie to closely emulate the actual television show, which is why she filmed part of the movie where it was zoomed in and not following the characters (Spliced 2). Ms. Thomas's method for filming The Brady Bunch Movie was to closely emulate the television show as well as to not have a particular actor or actress dominate the actual script (Spiced 1).
       Thomas is also working on many other projects including an online series on YouTube called Audry(Elber 1). With that project, she has found many positive and negative aspects to creating the series (Elber 1). For example she says that "you get whoever you can force to work for no money"(Elber 1), and that " in the entertainment industry"(Elber 1) they "are reluctant to get involved in online projects because they don't see any profit potential,"(Elber 1) but she "believes that will change"(Elber 2). Here Thomas explains that some risks of doing this project, is that at first there may be little financial support from larger industries in the beginning, but that she also explains that it is easier to recruit individuals that can partake in her piece (Elber 1).
    According to Robert Goodnough who is the author of the article "Pollock Paints a Picture," some artists and/or media makers like Jackson Pollock, explain that their method is to forget about their emotions and even position their canvas on the floor and paint there, before they hang it up on the wall  (Goodnough 1). For example, he says that when Jackson Pollock paints, "the brush seldom touches the canvas, but is a means to let color drip or run in stringy forms that allow for the complexity of design necessary to the artist" (Goodnough 1). Goodnough explains that the method that the artist Pollock uses is movement in the wrist and lying the canvas on the floor so that a better quality picture is made(Goodnough 1). This technique the  artist used is similar to what Thomas did in conducting her movie. It is similar because Thomas wanted to stay true to the television show but her technique, of filming in the manner that she did, is what she felt was the best way to achieve a film, similar to the television production(Goodnough 2, Elber 2). Both artists have their own technique for making their piece the best that it can be (Goodnough 2, Elber 2).
       While there are many artists whom create artwork for the sake of making a movie, paintings or even sculpture, there is another artist that uses her art to help get involved in important issues because she has strong opinions (Regine 1). That person is Cat Mazza (Regine 1). Cat Mazza uses her knitting work to try and raise awareness about sweatshop labor and support for the U.S military in Iraq (Regine 2) . Mazza explains that "the Stitch for Senate project is an attempt to engage people in discussion with their public officials about the war. There are some tenacious knitters out there willing to knit a helmet  and make a testimony. All of the participants support the troops; most of them are pro-peace (including some military moms)."(Regine 2). Here she explains that through a knitting project she was able to get more people involved with discussing the war and supporting the troops(Regine 2). By doing so, she starts in making the movement towards making a change for the better of the country and those effected by the war (Regina 2). Even with her MicroRevolt project, she is raising awareness in sweatshop labor through knitting and crocheing so that more workers will be treated in a fairer manner (Regine 3).
           Overall Thomas, Pollock, and Mazza, each had their own method of creating their artwork and their own reason for doing so(Regine 3, Elber 2, Goodnough 2). Each artist is unique in what they wanted to achieve and each had their own idea of what they wanted to create(Regine 3, Elber 2, Goodnough 2). Each technique is different for each artist and each artist has their reason for creating what they make(Regine 3, Elber 2, Goodnough 2). For some of Mazza's projects, the goal is to raise awareness and to make a difference (Regine 3). For Thomas and Pollock, their methods are different from each others because Pollock paints in a manner where he does not let his emotions interfere and Thomas filmed The Brady Bunch Movie in a specific way that she believed would be similar to the television show( Elber 2, Goodnough 2). Overall, both of these artists wanted to create a piece of artwork( Elber 2, Goodnough 2).              
















Photo from: http://images.zap2it.com/images/movie-16486/the-brady-bunch-movie-3.jpg

Works Cited

Goodnough, Robert. "Pollock Paints a Picture." Artnews.com. N.p., 26 Oct. 2012. Web. 24 Nov. 2012. <http://www.artnews.com/2012/11/26/pollock-paints-a-picture/>.      

"ImDb Betty Thomas." IMDb.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0858525/>.

 "Interview with Betty Thomas, "Brady Bunch Movie" Director." Splicedwire.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. <http://splicedwire.com/bradyinterview.html>.

Regine. "Interview with Cat Mazza (microRevolt)." E-make-money-not-art.com. N.p., Jan.-Feb. 2008. Web. 24 Nov. 2012. <http://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2008/01/how-and-when-did-you.php#.ULkdeoW7GZ8>.  


The Brady Bunch Movie. N.d. Photograph. Http://images.zap2it.com. Web. 30 Nov. 2012. <http://images.zap2it.com/images/movie-16486/the-brady-bunch-movie-3.jpg>.

The auteur cinema of Agnieszka Holland. 

          Alison Butler in her book defines the term of women's cinema :„ films that might be made by, addressed to, or concerned with women, or all three. It is neither a genre nor a movement in film history, it has no single lineage of its own, no national boundaries, no filmic or aesthetic specificity, but traverses and negotiates cinematic and cultural traditions and critical and political debates”. (1) These words are quintessence of the role of Agnieszka Holland in the world cinematography. She does not represent any specific womens' film school or feministic cinema but as a great auteur creates discussion about women's cinema as continuity that opens dialogue with different works or offering new answers for universal, repeated questions. Agnieszka Holland is the example Teresa de Laurentis wrote about: „The importance of narrative cinema as a mode of working through the relations of female subjectivity, identity and desire cannot be understated”. (2)

This is how the Polish director described herself in the long interview she gave in 2002: : And why no-indefinite identity? Maybe it is my personal issue, maybe it origins inside me, maybe because who I am. The woman performing a masculine profession, half-Polish, half-Jew, I live here or there, as half-alien.” She points out her position as the film director: „The key fact is I was a woman, and it put me in worse position immediately”.(3)

 

         Her way to become one of the most known Polish director was not easy. After the high school she chose Prague Film Academy because of the anti-Semitism promoted by communists in Poland in 1960s. She recalls the atmosphere toward herself and her female colleagues there: „There was reluctance which we only felt, because nobody dared to admit there is no equality of opportunity” (3). She begun her carrer, as most female graduates, at the side of older male directors. Her determination to realize the professional plans and ability to manage the film set became legendary and ridiculed by the male directors.

 

        Agnieszka Holland is an excellent representantive of the auteur cinema. She wrote many of the screenplays she filmed. The most important subject in the Holland's movies is human and his various complicated, difficult relations. She explores different environments, opportunities in which one can fulfill. Her characters try to achieve the feeling of fulfilment but this illusion is usually taken away. They have to make intractable choices. She does not hesist to broach controversial issues as social alienation or political and religious matters.

        Her first major film was „Aktorzy prowincjonalni” („Provincial actors”)- the chronicle of backstage relations including the challenge of debut and efforts to come to terms with both professional and personal life. The film won the International Critics Prize at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.

Kobieta samotna ("A Lonely Woman", 1981) is a tragic love story of two fragile and straight people rejected by society, desperately seeking the affection. But the overwhelming reality doesn't give them any chance to break free from the tragic fate. This film is the first of many touching the issue of love and the relationship between two people. „The relationships I show are usually difficult ones. They are not lyrical. Because bad relationships seem more interesting to the movie narration. My love affairs are hot and cold in the same time.” (3). 

 

    

The first Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film Holland received for her ”Gorzkie żniwa” („Angry Harvest, 1985) a German production trying to tackle with World War II, to show different attitudes in the face of fatal danger and complicated, abusive relations between more and less persecuted.

    

The love affair of XIX poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlain shown in „Całkowite zaćmienie” („Total eclipse”,1995), the relation full of brutality and emotional tensions prompted Holland to confide „It doesn't matter that this is love between two men. I am touched by those carrying their ugliness and desperately fighting over their place in the love world” (3).

„Plac Waszyngtona” („Washington Square”, 1997) shows unhappy love between shy, full of complexes Catherine and poor but handsome young man. The film brings back the XIXth century time when women without money and beauty did not have the right to love.

„Kopia mistrza” („Copying Beethoven”, 2006) is the picture of the unusual relation between old and most eccentric composer Ludvig van Beethoven and his young copyist Ann, the relation which change the life of them both.

From time to time the the metaphysical world enters to Holland's work. First signals were present in „Olivier Olivier” („Olivier, Olivier”,1991) and in „Tajemniczy ogród” (The secret garden”, 1993)- her only movie made for younger viewers.

The real fascination of religious attitudes and psychic, miraculous phenomena occured in „Trzeci cud” („The third miracle”, 1999) and „Julia wraca do domu” („Julie walking home”, 2001). The characters and the presented world open to metaphysical experiences but while asking the metaphysical questions the director avoids the direct answers.

     Agnieszka Holland does not escape from historical and political issues which influence her characters. „Gorączka” („The fever”, 1980) tells about Polish revolutionists and anarchists in 1905 in which the narrative pivot is, passed along to consecutive people, the bomb. The film demonstrates the still actual danger of terrorism and fanatism when the individual is of little value. „Zabić księdza” („To Kill a Priest”, 1988), a political drama, is based on the true story of father Jerzy Popieluszko kidnapped and killed by Polish communist special agents. The director tried to understand the behaviour of the victim and the killer and outline the deep political conflict between the authorities and the society leading to confrontation. 

 

        The international acclaim received the film „Europa, Europa” („Europe, Europe”, 1990)- the fabular biography of Solomon Perel, a Jewish teenager of German origin who after the outbreak of World War II fled to the Soviet-occupied section of Poland and later captured by Germans convinced a German officer that he was German and found himself enrolled in the Hitler Youth.

Agnieszka Holland newest fabular film „W ciemności” („In the darkness”, 2011), her third Oscar nomination, is the true WWII story of saving Jews by a Polish smart-ass, thief Leopold Socha.

She breaks many stereotypes escaping from political correctness- the main character and the group of 21 Jews living in canals are normal people- they are guided by survival instinct, but also by desire of taking advantage of life, the sexual attraction with all the effects.

     

         Holland is a comprehensive artist. The director tries successfully to bring serious issues to television series. In 2012 she made „Horzici kerz” („Burning bush”) for HBO- three episode story about Jan Palach, a student who burnt himself in 1969 in Czechoslovakia protesting against the passivity of his countrymen after the Soviet invasion.

1. A. Butler, „Women’s cinema: the contested screen”. Londyn 2000, p.1
2. T. de Lauretis, “Rethinking Women’s Cinema: Aesthetics and Feminist TheoryNew German Critique, No. 34 (Winter, 1985), pp. 154-156   
3.  Agnieszka Holland „Magia i pieniądze. Rozmowy przeprowadziła Maria Kornatowska