Analysis # 2

Same Canvas but They All See a Different Picture
To those who have some knowledge of the catholic religion, it makes sense that the writer wrote that it was a saint that saved the boy. However, to those that have no knowledge, it might not be a saint. How is it that you could have a group of people standing in front of the same picture, but they all see something different? The answer is in what Ferdinand de Saussure calls Semiology. Although Saussure is speaking in terms of language, the theory can also be applied to the visual. What a viewer sees when he or she looks at a picture is also influenced by the social system that they were raised in.
The writer assumes that the large image of the man dressed in white, is a saint. The assumption comes from the large yellow circle that was placed above his head. For those that were raised or have knowledge of Catholicism, they know that all pictures of saints come with a similar halo type circles around their heads. However, one must remember that it is a halo, if being looked at by the social system that is the Catholic religion. If someone who has no knowledge of saints or Catholicism is analyzing the picture, they might say that maybe it is the sun or the moon. Even then, based on people’s social make up, the circle can represent many things.
The writer also assumes that the other person in the picture is a small child. A child would be something that many would say that they could identify because many have seen a child. They know that a child is smaller than an adult, so small that one could probably carry it in their arms. So, the child in the picture cannot be an adult because it is not small, it is not as big as the other man in the picture, and it is not impossible to carry. Many words or in this case pictures are “constituted not by its material substance but by the differences that separate,” (Saussure 69). Who is to say that the larger person in the picture is not a giant holding an adult? To many, it is because of the oppositions that are seen between the small person and the large person that reflect the same oppositions as adult/child.
The way that people view this picture is based on what one knows based on their social background. To some there might be a saint with a halo and death squad helicopters trying to put out a fire. Others might see a man carrying a child away from the large sun while the helpful helicopters try to put out the fires. Interpretations are also based on binary relationships. To some, helicopters mean good because they do not hurt people, they do not cause fires, and they do not cause harm. To other, the helicopters are bad because they do not save people, they do not bring peace to their communities, and they do not put out fires. Overall, everything goes back to the social, it is the most important thing when it comes to making signs and symbols.

Works Cited
De Saussure, Ferdinand. "Course in General Liguistics." Literary Theory, an Anthology (Blackwell Anthologies). 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Blackwell Limited, 2004. 59-71.

Word Picture

It was the Saint that saved the child. While his house and the people around him were melting from the flames, the small child stared. Before flames could turn him to ashes, as they did to the rest of his family, a soft hand grabbed his. Up he went into someone’s arms. There was no time to see whom they belonged to. Outside the sky was gray and filled with the large dark metal birds, as it had been since he was born. The arms carried him down the mountain that he had lived on his whole life. Down, down, down he went. He turned his neck. “Don’t look back,” said the arms. So instead the child looked up, to see a saint carrying him away.

Analysis 1

The Truth in the Mirror
Most people, before leaving their homes in the morning, look into a shiny piece of glass. They do this to get an answer to a very important question; “How do I look this morning?”. But is what they are seeing in the mirror really the way that they look? Plato would argue that it isn’t. The reflection that many people are seeing in the morning is a false representation of them. So it isn’t a trust worthy answer in Plato’s opinion. However, even worse than believing the image that they see in the mirror, is believing the picture that say a painter would paint of the person. That is even farther representation of the way that person looks. To believe the painting, is to believe a lie. For Plato, this also goes for poets, and overall artist. In today’s day and age, one could probably add films to the list of false representations especially films that are representations of true events like biofilms. The clip that I chose is a piece from the movie Frida, which is suppose to be the true story of the life of Frida Kahlo.
It is true, that there was an actual person that once walked the earth named Frida Kahlo. And, it is true that she did cut off her hair after her divorce from her husband Diego Rivera. It is also true that she painted a picture for that event. The makers of the film want their audience to believe that what they are seeing is actually what Frida Kahlo lived and did in that moment of her life. However, the fact that they had to replicate that does not make it at all reality but instead, a false representation of what happened in Kahlo’s life, as close at it may be.
The reason why is because of how far away the clip is from the truth. Plato uses the example of a bed to show the three levels of reality in an object.
“’Well, we’ve got these three beds. First, there’s the real one, and we’d say, I imagine, that it is a product of divine craftsmanship’… ‘Then there’s the one the joiner makes.’… ‘And then there’s the one the painter makes” (Plato 69)
In the case of the clip, it is God that created the situation that Kahlo would go through in her life. The joiner would be Kahlo who physically made it happen, and, the filmmakers who made it on screen. Plato then goes on to say that God makes the one true reality; that the joiner is the manufacture, and the artist is the representer. (70)
In terms of what is true, Plato says that representation are not truths, but instead they are appearances of things. (70). It is because “representation and truth are a considerable distance apart, and a representer is capable of making every product there is only because his contact things is slight and is restricted to how they look.”(Plato 70). The filmmakers of Frida made the appearances of the way things looked to them in terms of the stories they heard about Frida Kahlo, her paintings, and her journals. It is what they think things should look like.
Although, the filmmakers of Frida made sure to do their research and got pretty close to the truth, Plato would argue that it is not at all a truth but an appearance of that moment in Frida Kahlo’s life. If Kahlo’s painting of herself in that moment of time in her life is a representation the filmmakers must be even farther from the absolute truth then what Plato thought.
Works Cited
Plato. "Republic: Book X." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W. W.
Norton, 2001. 67-80.
"YouTube - Self Haircut for a Self-Protrait." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. N.p., n.d. Web. 15
July 2009. .