Kathryn Wittmeier HCOM 225 Fall 2008. Identity, as it relates to human essence, is the distinguishing character or personality of an individual. While.

Kathryn WittmeierHCOM 225

Fall 2008

Identity, as it relates to human essence, is the distinguishing character or personality of an individual. While many aspects of an individuals identity are genetic, many aspects are learned though secondary sources and through the enculturation process of a particular culture.

The purpose of this power point is to illustrate different aspects of human identity, such as character, past experiences, sexuality and social status through examples provided in popular works of film and literature. The examples I will be using have been taken from the following films:

Smoke SignalsMail Order WifeLone StarThe Matrix

And literary works such as: A Voice in Every Wind

When Living was a Labor CampThe Color Purple

Smoke Signals is a story about delving into ones past in order to fully understand ones present. This theme is clearly identified through Victor, the main character in Smoke Signals, who must take a cross country bus ride with his friend Thomas, in order to retrieve the ashes of his dead father. Victor has inner conflict regarding his father, whom he remembers as being an abusive alcoholic that abandoned him at a young age, while Thomas remembers Victors father as a hero and exaggerates him into myth like proportions.

Because both men were so young when Victor’s father left the community neither one really knows his true identity, other than the fact that he is Native American. But what does being Native American truly mean, and how does its cultural reference shape the identity of a person?

Victor and Thomas define their cultural identity in two very distinct ways. Victor plays the role of the serious and stoic Indian brave, who is introspective in his demeanor, and feels like he knows what it means to be a true Indian. Thomas, on the other hand, is outwardly playful and talkative, which sets him apart from his peers. An underlying cultural reference with Thomas that can be easily missed however is his desire to keep the oral traditions of his people alive through story telling and myth making.

Smoke Signals is affective in examining parent and child relationships and reflecting on family dynamics. It is a firm reminder that we are all just victims of victims and the discord between family members occurs with each generation and it is up to the individual to break their cycle of discontent or abuse. This theme is directly illustrated in the quote by Thomas, where he reflects on his relationship with his father and asks,

 “How do we forgive our fathers? Maybe in a dream. Do we forgive our fathers for leaving us too often, or forever, when we were little? Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage, or making us nervous because there never seemed to be any rage there at all? Do we forgive our fathers for marrying, or not marrying, our mothers? Or divorcing, or not divorcing, our mothers? And shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness? Shall we forgive them for pushing, or leaning? For shutting doors or speaking through walls? For never speaking, or never being silent? Do we forgive our fathers in our age, or in theirs? Or in their deaths, saying it to them or not saying it. If we forgive our fathers, what is left? “

Throughout the film, both Victor and Thomas contemplate what it means, to each of them, to be a young Indian Man growing up in America today. On the way to Phoenix both of their perspectives change a little and they both understand what it means to be human and the mistakes that come with being a mere mortal. Once the two men make it to Phoenix and understand that the house burning was an unintentional accident, the film concludes with Victor achieving a better understanding of Thomas and Thomas' unconditional reverence for Arnold.

What does it mean to live in a culture, and have an identity, in a culture those values’ anonymity above individualism? And what is it like moving from such a controlling culture into a much more liberated one? The novel, A Voice in Every Wind, is a collection of short stories chronicling the assimilation of Asian individuals into American society.

In Chinese society individuals are denied basis universal rights and liberties, such as the freedom of choice and the freedom of self-expression. Because the government has such forced control over its members it was also able to stunt the formation of their personal identity.

One of the principal themes of A Voice in Every Wind is freedom and the lack of freedom. This theme is clearly expressed in the short story Angels of the Magpie Bridge. Ping, the main character, has never been exposed to images of a nude body because strict governmental control in China deemed nudity immoral. Because such images are forbidden, the government is literally taking away his right to choose, and therefore his free will. By doing so, it is compromising the essence and individuality of his spirit. In contrast, the American students that Ping is working with are individualistic and free, and expressive in their differences, further illustrating the theme of freedom and the lack there of.

One of the not so obvious themes in A Voice in Every Wind is expression. A person can express themselves in many ways and through many channels, such as their sexuality, choice in education, and affiliation with a chosen ethnic group. However, during the time A Voice in Every Wind was written in China “both religion and sex were seen to the Chinese government as “ poisonous and unhealthy to people’s socialist spirit and morality.”(pg 101)

A Voice in Every Wind is effective at conveying the importance of individual expression and the means in which a person chooses to do so.

“Pulling a butterfly” means that a person uses cultural stereotypes to their advantage in order to achieve their desired results.

In the film, Mail Order Wife, Lichi, the Asian bride who was purchased through mail, uses the stereotype of a traditional disciplined, coy and controlled wife, in order to gain the trust of her first husband, Adrian, and her future husband, Andrew.

In the beginning of the film, is audience is lead to believe that Lichi identifies herself as the typical submissive Asian bride. It is only later that we find out she was manipulating her identity to only further her own selfish intrests.

The film also exploited the stereotype of Adrian, a typical American slob who is self-preserving and uses his new wife as a maid and a sex object in which to live out his own personal fantasies without any regard for her feelings. At the beginning of the film, Adrian provides some comedic relief, however as the film progresses, we find that he is driven by issues of control.

Andrew symbolizes the warm hearted and concerned American man, who is always fighting on behalf of respect and human rights. Later in the film however, the audience realizes that his good deeds revolve around his own self interest as well, as he pursues, and eventually marries Lichi, at the expense of everyone evolved.

Diana Garcia tackles personal and cultural identity by using such themes as power and equality, and what it means to live a dual life while growing up in California labor camps. Her collection of poems directly reflects her experiences a young Mexican-American woman born into poverty and segregation. The following summaries are of poems that shed particular insight into what makes up her cultural identity.

The poem The Girlfriends is told from both a first person and a third person account. It is about a young girl, Rosie, that gets pregnant and her boyfriend denies that the baby is his. The poem ends with two different outcomes: Rosie miscarries the baby and feels like she is lucky, or the Author has the baby and feels like she is lucky. I feel like this poem directly reflects the emotions that the mother of an unwanted pregnancy would feel, and the ambiguous nature of the poem directly correlates to the split mind of the mother (ie-do I want to keep my child or abort/miscarry). Diana Garcia is very gifted at provoking emotion and uncertainty through her use of language in The Girlfriends and she is successful at invoking empathy in her readers.

The poem Other Marias is about 50 Marias that each have 50 lovers. Their promiscuity is the reality of their situation, however is Mexican culture in order to be desirable a woman must be pure, like a virgin. With the Marias swapping husbands, boyfriends and lovers, this is a direct contrast to what their cultural code dictates, however it does not make them any less Mexican. Other Marias provides an excellent example of the strict cultural guidelines that are found in any culture and the hypocrisy that naturally goes along with it.

The poem Occupant: Blue Roof Apartments tackles the image and emotions of the anonymous poor. In the poem, the tenants of the blue roof apartments receive mail addressed to Occupant instead of their names, taking away and not acknowledging their own unique identities. The author views being called Occupant is much like being called by a number, it is vague, heartless and degrading. The family that is receiving mail and living in the blue roof apartment is also on welfare and looking for a job. This is a sharp contrast to the understated brown roof apartments next door, which have their own security guard and fenced in pool. The tangible apartments are effective at portraying the symbolism of anonymous poor and pampered elite.

What does it mean to be a minority in a place where the law does not work to protect you from segregation? The film Lone Star delves into the different perspectives of two lawmakers and their feelings on the issue.

Buddy Deeds, the protagonist in the film Lone Star, believes that minorities have basic human rights, even is their citizenship is not legal. They are entitled to be treated like human beings and to have their cares, concerns and safety taken care of by local law enforcement and community members. His empathic heart is shown all throughout the film by his willingness to help those in need and the appreciation that they reciprocate to him in return.

Sherriff Charlie Wade, the sadistic antagonist of Lone Star, views minorities as sneaky and underhanded and believes that they sneak around the government and try to extort money from social services. Furthermore, his character feels like since they have no voice they are easily exploited. This is made apparent by his overall treatment of minorities in the film, and well as all people, and his willingness to kill them in cold blood without remorse.

All of the abusers in Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple are multidimensional and have a side that is venerably humanistic while still being dark and sadistic. Their identities are wrapped up in their roles as both victims and abusers, serving as both prisoners and liberators. The individuals who are the most violent are themselves victims, most often of sexism and racism.

By not fully understanding their own identity because of their upbringing involving abuse, the characters are forced to find out who they are, often by violent or degrading means. One character, Harpo, for example, beats his wife, Sofia, only after his father implies that Sofia's resistance makes Harpo less of a man.

Mr. ______ is violent and mistreats his family much like his own sadistic father treated him. In contrast, a person with a weakly formed identity can be intimidated by an assertive person, such as when Celie advises Harpo to beat Sofia because she is jealous of Sofia's strength and assertiveness.

The characters are largely aware of the circular nature of harmful behavior. Only by forcefully talking back to the men who abuse them and introducing them to a new way of viewing the world do the women of the novel break these cycles of sexism and violence, causing the men who abused them to stop and reexamine their ways.

A great film for analyzing what makes an identity is the film The Matrix. In the film the main character, Neo, has three main identities which all directly correlate to his social situation at any given time.

The first of those identities is Thomas Anderson, his work identity. While he is at work, Neo conforms to his day in day out routine of clock punching and suit wearing. He is depicted as wearing only black or white and half-heartedly working in his tiny cubicle while his life rots away. Thomas Anderson, is the least real of all of Neo’s identities, which is a sharp contrast considering that this identity is the one most respected to the outside world. The character of Thomas Anderson represents the self that we present to the world.

The second identity that we see is Neo, the computer hacking criminal. Neo has an inclination that what he knows to be the world is really an illusion, and tries to find the answers to his questions by hacking into confidential files online; which is considered to be a huge crime. In the world where Neo lives, his true identity is dangerous, and he would be shunned if anyone were to find out. The character of Neo represents the person we are behind closed doors and the person we become when we retract the judgments that the word pushes upon us.

Neo’s third identity is simply reffered to as “The One.” As this identity, Neo, as we know him, no longer has choice over his destiny. As Neo makes the shift from ordinary man into a hero he begins to fully understand that he is simply a pawn, or catalyst, of something so much larger than himself. Neo, as “The One,” represents the person we are when we allow our true identity to make our path for us.

As we have seen, by using various literature and film references, a persons identity is multidimensional. While many aspects of an individuals identity are genetic, many aspects are learned though secondary sources and through the enculturation process of a particular culture.

However, even though a person can be heavily persuaded into acting or affiliating with a particular group or culture, ultimately, the choice in how they perceive themselves is up to them.