Final Project: Sexual Revolution in the Media

These are the videos from our project. Unfortunately I could not upload the powerpoint itself but I think this gets the point across well enough. The goal of this project was to explore the prevalence of sexuality through various outlets of media, such as food advertisement and music.

The Need

As I was reading Chapter 8, I came across this quote,

"Falling in Love is like an obsession with me, and I had been going through one of the loneliest periods of my life because of the ephemeral company I'd been keeping...I needed the "love of my life". I needed to die for love, to live for love, to fall apart for love." (p123)

This made me think of how in the novel, Yocandra throws around the concept of "love" without ever really knowing what it is. I believe she fills the void left by the changes done to her life (due to the revolution) with sex and she tries to justify it by saying that it is "love". For in fact, in this quote she admits that it is an obsession as a result of her loneliness.

Her "love" is superficial, and she falls in love at first sight. Her lovers use her and her body, as she uses them for their bodies and the way they make her feel. Are her sexual acts a form of rebellion? Her sexuality being part of her identity, something that she still has a slight grasp on. Or is the sex she has so pleasurable that it takes Yocandra to an alternate reality...a place with endless nourishment?

Jennifer Lopez's "Do It Well"

I came across the music video for Jennifer Lopez's "Do It Well" and I was intrigued by the reference to Fellini's "Satyricon" that we watched in the beginning of the quarter. The music video, released in 2007, is reminiscent of the scene in which Encolpio passes through a brothel to get back to his apartment. The music video depicts images of sex and feasting, emphasizing on extravagance and excess.

Best,
Jesada M.

Havana--The New Art of Making Ruins

Dear Students,

Havana—The New Art of Making Ruins (2006) is a documentary directed by Florian Borchmeyer and Matthias Hentschler. The documentary tells the story of the ruins of Havana and the people who inhabit those ruins—from a homeless man who lives in an abandoned theater (in which Italian tenor, Enrico Caruso once sang to Cuba’s high society), to an expropriated landowner, to a young woman living in one of the rooms of an old hotel. We also hear from Cuban writer and poet (and ruinologist, according to him), Antonio José Ponte. In recent years, Havana’s ruins have been romanticized and valued for their magical decay, for its poetic evocation of a glorious past now lost, in particular in Buena Vista Social Club; however, for the people who inhabit them, there is very little poetry left in these ruins. What we see is the conflation of the voice of the people whose stories we hear with the ruined city itself, a product of both the passing of time and the absolute neglect by the state. This documentary will help us contextualize the poetry of Carlos Jesús Cabrera Enríquez, as well as Zoe Valdes’s Yocandra in the Paradise of Nada. Hunger in these works comes in many disguises and it is our challenge to make connections between the images we see in this documentary (as well as what we see in Suite Havana—the following post) and the graphic sexuality of a novel such as Yocandra.

Colors in Breath, Eyes, Memory

In the novel, I came across some reoccurring colors that I found interesting.

First, the color yellow is mentioned numerous times. When things were going well, it seemed as if Sophie, her aunt or the flowers she passed by were a bright yellow color. Her favorite flower, the daffodil, is also a brilliant yellow color. She imagines her mother being “wrapped in yellow sheets” before she moves to New York to meet her.

Also, the color green is mention when a new life is to be created. When Sophie goes to her sexual phobia group she says: “We sat on the green heart-shaped pillows that Davina had made. The color green stood for life and growth. ” Also the balloon that was released with the note to the abuser was also green representing a formation of a new life because the events were to be put in the past.

When death and sadness are foreshadowed /seen, the characters are described wearing black clothing and near darker looking people.

Sophie’s mother’s house was also all red. The umbrella they used to protect themselves on page 158 was also red. The bloody pig meat was red as well.

This website attaches very interesting meaning to the colors we see every day!

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/colors1.html

Guest Poet--Pauline Marie Spirtos

Pauline M. Spirtos

Primal Hunger

                   I want to consume you,

pull apart your ribs and taste

each thin, white tip

with tenderness.

                   I would run my tongue

over grooves in your clavicle—

find the pools of flavor in

my favorite of your bones

which re-healed in such a lovely,

jutty way; with curves and dips

and pointed parts.

                    I could slurp warm

platelets from your spindle-cells

as easy as sucking sweet milk

from sponge cake.

                   I want to gorge

on your thick sensibility,

overpowering reason and principle,

but if I can indulge myself further—

I pass on the politics

to save room for an intoxication-laden

desert.

                    I picture myself twirling a crystal

glass by the stem

while the garnet liquid undulates

and opens petals of scent—

fig, chocolate, and dark

over-ripe cherry.

Your fluid imagination—

a sparse luxury.

Ton-Ton Macoutes