Ip Man defending Cultural Identity

I started with this amazing idea of pulling a bunch of footage from all the greatest kung fu films, then I realize that there was not so much of an argument in doing so, and it was a huge amount of work. My piece is a humble attempt on trying to reinforce what Ip Man 2  teaches us during this film in a concentrate 3 minutes short film. Yip Man is talking about the importance of Kung fu as “the heart of the Chinese people.” This means that he values his traditions and worked his life passing these on, from one generation to another. Sadly, there are people who believe that one tradition is better than others, and because of globalization matters, cultural identity is becoming standardize. Even though since the beginning of the semester I’ve argued that globalization is not so much as a problem but an opportunity to share and embrace different cultures. If there are no people to share, keep and pass on their own cultural traditions a hybrid culture and the sharing wouldn’t be so much. Because of this,  I’m arguing against people who feel that other cultures or traditions are better than others only because they are more globalize or popular. I believe in taking a stand on people who undermine one culture over the other by defending, keeping and sharing with others the power of traditions and cultural identity.

First of all, I did think to big for starters on what I wanted to accomplished in my video taking two text that one of the film Ip Man 2 is too explicit with my own argument, and the other was too complicated to organized as is the series Dragon Ball Z. Because of that, I decided to reinforce the message within Ip Man 2 with different Kung Fu Films that represent the traditional oriental cinema such as Seven Samurais, Ip Man I and II, Hero, Fearless, The legend of the Drunken Master. With all these films I also included the starts of Kung fu Films and the one who trained and defend this martial art as is Yip Man the grand master, followed by Bruce Lee, Donnie Yen, Jet Li, Jackie Chan. That is one of the first thing that I wanted to include, but to make this more into a globalize world I include Hollywood references such as Kung Fu Panda, Kill Bill, Matrix. Finally, I add some of the Dragon Ball Z series because I felt that it was a huge influence on myself and thousands of children to learn more about the intensity of martial arts. Also, Goku’s story is based on a traditional Chinese tale; I thought it was appropriate to have him to defend this tradition against the boxer who insults Chinese traditions calling it stupid.

 I think I was able to achieve a really simple narrative with a beginning, middle and end, Ip man introducing himself and then training different students from a wide variety of backgrounds. Then, the Boxer came in and insult Chinese tradition; there is a challenge and a fight that he successfully wins. At the end he declares the importance of respect to all cultures. I believe that the message comes across pretty easily, and there are some interesting moments in the three parts of my story like the interaction with Ip Man and other characters, the fight have some good moments, and the celebration fits very well with the audio of Ip Man. Although I tried hard to make this a decent video, took me hours to think about my list of films, selection and acquisition of all these footage, it feels rough at some points, and I could have done a better job with the fight. Over all, this was a great learning experience to understand the hard work that people who dedicate time to remix on videos.  I feel very critical with my last product; still I think that with some weeks more of work this can be a great subject to go viral.

In conclusion, feeling superior and better than other culture only shows little care and information for the importance of cultural identity and how this contributes to a Hybrid culture in a globalize world. My work wants to portray the invaluable power of traditions and the impact that can have in a globalize world. Kung Fu wasn’t popular from day one; there were people such as Yip Man who taught important students who later on became world wide recognized stars. This was due to their highly skill abilities and the product of globalization that allowed countries far way from China to became interested in Chinese traditions and Martial Arts.  Feeling superior and better than other culture only shows little care and information for the importance of cultural identity and how this contributes to a Hybrid culture in a globalize world. 

Ip Man Defending Cultural Identity

We are wizards and Why Heather can write about Harry Potter

We are Wizards and Why Heather can write about Harry Potter are a complementary help for each other to see the many different worlds that the harry potter fandom created. The documentary shows the many colors that the Harry Potter story brought to society, especially children that wanted to be part not just of the books, but of a new reality.  Both the Film and the Documentary show the positive reactions and influence of this massive interaction of people around the Harry Potter books. Also, the conflict of people who is against Harry Potter and the downsides of taking something that have been bought by a large company to mostly profit. The documentary We are Wizards by the end conclude in a positive interaction between these two powerful entities, the audience or the fandom and the big industry behind Harry Potter.

Even though the documentary itself didn’t completely caught my attention, probably for some poor choices in their main characters, I believe that the main point came across trough it. The highlight of children teaching other children is consistent as Jenkins explained in the reading.  Furthermore, the examples of Heather is one of the most compelling and smart choices for the positive portrayal of the Harry Potter fandom.  Something else that I agree, in some portion is the fact that she worked and manage a media that empowered her even though she wasn’t professionally qualified to do it, as is direct a newspaper.  I believe that, the documentary and the example of Jenkins about maybe giving children the authority can get a downside, to me is the fact that things are not going to always be in the right direction, and it can get a bit messy. Maybe the documentary is an example of that, it wasn’t probably shot is directed by children, but it seems as a really disorganize presentation of different consequences of the fans of Harry Potter.  Its messy at a times, it has two or three moments when I thought it would come to a resolution, or an end but it continued with the same idea reinforcing or maybe just  showing in observational way the reality of the fans. The good, the ODD, the bad,  all the elements of a whole theme.

Another interesting thing was the appropriation of the fandom to create different characters, and stories related to Harry Potter, and how this would served as means to help with the things that they as kids or adolescence are dealing in real life.  The born of a tale related to the place and context on which each one of the fans would express their own story related to the Harry Potter story.

In conclusion, I believe that as Jenkins point out, the appropriation in media of children is a big contribution to themselves and to adults to grow and learn from children. I think it would be ideal if adults may be more involved in this process, not in control, but as active participants. Also, I wouldn’t expect that this growing process it can go always in the right direction or as educational as adults may expect, it can be messy and there might be some misinformation and misunderstanding, but the result of what brings the children involvement in media literacy is more important to me than any other uncontrolled mistake that can happen along the way. 

Wonder Women and Storytellers

From the documentary Wonder Women the untold story of super heroines I learned so much about the awesomeness of the effect that wonder women created and how trough the ages it change to serve for different purposes, especially related to the roll of women in the States.  In connection to this interesting documentary the reading portrait something that not only happened centuries ago with old tales, but also with the evolution of wonder women. Both the film and the reading entangle an interesting and redeemable way to tell and keep stories alive.

No long ago my mother went to a storytellers conference because of her job as a librarian.  She works as one of the head of the initiative “bibliometro” (small libraries in subway stations), and also “bibliometro” invite storytellers to gather people and create stories in the subway train stations. The reading helped me to remind the times were I used to go to the readers club in my childhood and would listen the storytellers in the library. It is interesting how relevant for an specific culture a story can change an be re told in different ways, only because of the different social class or upbringing. Comparing this with Wonder Woman and the changes that this her story had, it is incredible how the feminists groups have tried to preserve the original story of the tale. In the reading said that one of the purposes of the appropriation of tales in the twentieth century was the transformation of tales “to amuse and distract audiences and make money.” This means that once the tale served its purpose to the audience as such in the case of the second World War in the comic, later it was purely a continuation to continue profit without any consistency in the story, not like passing a story mouth to mouth, but rewriting the story completely.

Another important thing that pointed the documentary and the reading is the differences between folklore and literature, both were developing a different story from the same tale, one the literature was written and rewritten, more than re-reading, they created a formal text, comic, TV show, and lately other merchandizing that help with the globalization of the female super hero that little by little had disappear from the collective thought of the fandom of super heroes.  On the other hand, and what makes this documentary particular is how the feminist group defend and idealize Wonder Woman as a symbol of feminism, an example the power and self reliant personality that Wonder Woman would show, within the original comic and her superpowers. Later, this female super hero would take part of the discrimination, undermining sexist society that would merely use wonder woman story to represent the “place” that women had to take in history. The evolution of the character and what this created as a phenomenon in television as the first super heroes and one of the first lead females on TV. The story and the changes were told within the community and the fandom of Wonder Women is faithful and well informed about the characteristics of the super hero.

In short,  either the literature and the Folklore behind Wonder Women feed from each other, the stories and the community around this tale is a demonstration of how people can be empowered of stories and the power of story telling may preserve and be used to express values depending on the times and the context society is facing.

Ps:  interesting documentary available on netflix or youtube  about the changes of the roll of women in Television is the documentary,  and other interesting topic about genders.