Okay, so first I think it would be beneficial to address a few of my “final thoughts” on what Dollhouse is trying to suggest (prior to my viewing of the paratexts, although, I’m not sure my ideas changed much after watching them) about some of the themes we’ve been dicussing. Then I’ll add in how I think the paratexts from the class blog addressed these concepts, either supporting or suggesting some other angle to my own ideas.

1. posthumanism and identity: Dollhouse is definitely, in my opinion, trying to argue that an individual can lose their memory and knowledge of who they are, but they cannot be wiped completely clean of their… something. I was inclined to call it their identity. We see that many of the dolls maintain some kind of role throughout the episodes, despite being wiped and given new personalities. Tony/Victor always seems to be the “knight in shining armor,” protecting Priya in “Needs,” gently letting Miss Lonely Heart down in one of the season two episodes, and even in epitaph 2. This is all consistent with his soldier persona. Priya, as much as I wish it wasn’t true, is always the victim. ALWAYS. Echo, though a new person separate from Caroline, is always freeing, saving, and uncaging things. Alpha is always cutting people. Mellie is always falling apart emotionally (one of the paratexts shows that Mellie’s fingerprints came back as all these different people which seems inconsistent with the character we see in “Needs” and after her contract is up. I didn’t remember that scene at all, so wondered if it was all faked to confuse Ballard and make him suspect some other explanation than the Dollhouse. Also, did we ever figure out who was programming the dolls to talk to Ballard? Boyd maybe?)

The first paratext we watched suggests that this “piece” that remains in the body is the soul. I’m not sure how I view the soul as being different from the identity, except that maybe we create our own identity when we grow up, but the word “soul” seems to suggest something that in inherent. I don’t know if I agree with the use of “soul” here, because I think it suggests that the characters underlying traits (for lack of a better descriptive word) are inherent and cannot be circumvented. I think the show disproves this multiple times, like when Priya kills Nolan in “Belonging,” when Alpha has turned good and Echo stays Echo in “Epitaph 2,” and when all of the Rossum workers seem to realize their grave mistakes throughout the final season.

2. Gender/ sexuality:In terms of the necessity of an awareness of gender and the ability to remove it, I think the show is suggesting that gender can be taken out of a persons personal identity in world that is void of societal pressures and norms that require us to treat individuals of different genders in different ways. Dr. Saunders is perfectly fine being a personality with, at the least, ambiguous gender, because within the Dollhouse the actives are dehumanized to a point that gender is almost irrelevant. It is only when the characters leave the Dollhouse that gender becomes a necessary part of the imprint/body match-up. In “Belle Chose,” the switching of gender causes serious issues for Victor and Echo because society’s gender norms are being attacked through the detachment of their gender and physical sex. Likewise, when Dr. Saunders becomes Clyde 2.0, gender is again an issue because they are outside the confines of the Dollhouse.

Throughout the series episodes, we see women getting beat up, but also beating up others. We see them being used for sexual fantasies, but we also see them using sex to manipulate others. I think Dollhouse, overall, can be seen as a feminist text that suggest that societies gender roles for women, including those that address the moral treatment of women and women’s morality, are oppressive.  Why should men have to protect the women in Dollhouse physically when these women are clearly their equals physically and mentally? I think the whole premise behind the moral rule that it is wrong to be physically aggressive with women lies in the belief that women are weak physically, mentally, and emotionally. While I would agree that I am significantly weaker than most men and would prefer not to get in a physical altercation with one, the women on the show are fit, strong, and programmed with karate skills. In terms of sexuality, I think the show is also pushing the idea that rules about sexual morality as applied to women (because years of feminist literature tells us they don’t seem to apply to men) is oppressive and unfair. Women should be able to use their bodies as they see fit. I think the idea of prostitution is prominent in the series, but at what point do we make the distinction between prostitution, rape, and women using their bodies to get their way (which, I think it can be argued, women have been doing since forever). 

The three videos about women both try to address these ideas. Firstly, I like that the “Secret War on Women” video has its own paratext in the form of the article, which definitely pushes the “Whedon hates women” angle to the extreme. Without that article, I don’t think the video would have been as strong, and I can see how people who saw this as an entryway paratext would likely be convinced the claims here are true. Despite this, I still disagree with it. I think the second video and the follow-up video are much better. It shows how the fanvids take the shots out of context and manipulate the meanings, which, after watching the whole series, seem invalid to me.

Also, why did these two videos end with race? In the first, we see the ever-comical moment when Sierra tells Ivy she doesn’t like orientals and the second is when Echo tells Caroline there is a black president. How does gender translate to race in these fanvids? 

3. Ethics: The show has many conflicting ideas about ethics, but I think the over-arching one is that technological advancement is not always whats best for the human race. It suggests that we are not morally and mentally evolved enough to handle the spend at which we our scientists are developing new technologies. I think this is an argument addressed in Galatea 2.2 as well.

The paratexts also seem to suggest this idea. the second trailer takes a “be careful what you wish for” stance on the series. Aside from the fact that they pretty much say that in the commercial, verbatim, it is also shown with the repeated documentary-esque close-ups of the (social?) scientist saying that the Dollhouse’s technology would cause the end of the human species. This seems to attach a negative idea to technological advancement.

So, I had a few ideas for other paratexts. The first is the name of the series… how obvious, but I think is necessary to at least address as a major part of the way we enter into our viewing experience. 

When we think of a dollhouse, we have many associations:  toy, manipulative, lack of autonomy, mimicry, ect. Children use dollhouse’s to manipulative non-autonomous characters in a way that mimics real life. It’s an outlet for children’s imagination, as well as allowing them to act-out parts of life they are trying to understand. 

If you go into the watching the Dollhouse with this image and its connecting associations in mind, you will expect to watch a show in which autonomy is taken away from individuals and they are used as play things (which seems relatively accurate). You may also view Adele, Topher, and other workers at Rossum as child-like in the way the use their “toys.” In fact, Adele says this of Topher “Belonging” when he is finally realizing the implications of dehumanizing the actives. It’s also ironic because in the first season, the dolls are often likened to children themselves. We’re left wondering who the real children are in the series. The dolls in the show are also forced to mimic real life in many episodes, as well as play out imaginative fantasies. In “Instinct,” Echo is imprinted to become a mother to a baby boy, for example. I think over-all, this association gives us a good basis for what the Dollhouse is initially, but then allows us to re-evaluate, or “re-decode” as Gray suggests, our understanding of what the Dollhouse is as the implications of using real people the same way children use dolls becomes more and more apparent. 

Another paratext I thought was pertinent is Fox itself. There are many implications to being associated with Fox, just as Gray remarks about the implications of being associated with Nike and star athletes.

http://www.outfoxed.org/Reviews.php

I found this website, which reviews (I think?) Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism. Both the documentary and the website are paratexts of Dollhouse because viewers would have gone into viewing the series with a knowledge of the arguments against the network and the ideas the network is associated with. Fox is often associated with conservatism, right-winged politics, propaganda, and republicanism (or maybe I’m just a little too liberal for it). For that reason, I think people watching the show on that network as it was aired may view its arguments on the themes of posthumanism, morality, identity, and gender from a conservative perspective, whether they agree or not with those arguments. For example, they might, as Henry Evil X did, view the systematic physical abuse of women in the show through a conservative lens, deeming it misogynistic, instead of considering it a critique of female gender roles. 

I definitely wish that this series had been longer, because I still have some questions that I do not think the series was able to clear up in two seasons. The first, Ann brought up in class. We never really learn how Alpha is able to control himself in Epitaph 2: The Return. I think it is odd that he would leave the Dollhouse, as opposed to remaining there where he is safe from being turned back into the murder he was before being imprinted. Because he and Echo share the ability to compile imprints, would they ever have been able to be wiped for real? or would they have just added to their 40 other personalities?

One thing I found interesting about the finale episode is that the Dollhouse building as been transformed from a cage where people are robbed of their autonomy and their selves to a safe-haven. I think in some ways, it brings us back to Dewitt’s old way of thinking about the ethics behind the business she was running. She always claimed to be helping people. In the first few episodes, it seems that she means the customers, but later, we realize she means the dolls, too. It seems that the Dollhouse is a safe-haven for people like Mellie (Madeline?) and Tony/Victor.  It also brings the story line full circle in terms of setting. They must leave the Dollhouse to save the world, and in the end, returning to the Dollhouse seems to suggest that the mission is complete.

I also find the contrast between Tony and Echo interesting in the final episode. With the mission to put the world right again over, Tony chooses to destroy is USB sticks and return to being a normal person. He even goes so far as the force his power-hungry group mates to do the same, knowing that their unique enhancements would make them stronger than regular people. They could become a super race of half-robot warriors. Tony refuses to see his technology used in this way. It seems, however, that everyone just accepts that Echo is meant to be superior than everyone else and keep her unique abilities. She never ever thinks about going to the surface and being set back to Caroline. I know she isn’t going to try to take over the world or anything, but it seems odd that after all that fighting to “free” everyone else, she would choose to remain altered.

Last class we watched the scenes of Topher, Boyd, and Ballard discussing Echoes new skills and attempted to do some close readings, so I figured I would try to do a close reading. In “Meet Jane Doe,” episode seven, I liked the scene around 20:00. DeWitt leaves Tophers office after and awkward exchange and we see Boyd on the phone. It’s unclear who he is talking to until the shot switches and we see Ballard sitting on a couch. The director’s choices work very well to create suspense for the audience.

First we see a close up of Boyd’s face, as he asks Ballard “When can you come in?” It is this point the shot switches to a medium-long shot of Ballard sitting on a couch. The camera does a sudden, fast zoom in to a medium shot which gives the impression of a hand held camera or someone with little camera experience. Ballard replies to Boyd’s question saying “soon.” After he says it, non-diegetic music begins to play. The music consists of sudden  bass, almost reminiscent of a heartbeat. We then get a medium long shot of a women showering behind a white shower curtain. The next shot is a close-up on Ballard on the phone as he says, “I’ll bring her in soon.” The scene ends with a black shot that indicates the commercial break.

At this point of the episode, we know that Echo and Ballard are hiding from the Dollhouse while she learns to use her new ability to switch between personalities for each situation. The Dollhouse, which has been taken over by the corporation, is currently looking for Echo. The audience has been lead to believe that Ballard has run from the Dollhouse as well and is helping Echo train for some type of mission to bring the Dollhouse down.

because this scene occurs right before the commercial break, it is clear that the director and writers would want to build suspense so viewers stay through to the end of the episode. Many of the choices they make to this. First, the lighting in the shots of Boyd is much darker than the shot of Ballard on the couch. We normally associate darkness with negativity, fear, or evil. In the context of this episode, the Dollhouse is itself in a “dark place.” The corporate heads have no regard for the dolls well being and are sending them on engagements that may get them injured or killed. Likewise, The dollhouse is a threat to Echo and, we would think, Ballard, because it has bad intentions. Light  is normally associated with peace, positiveness, and good. Despite this, there are some negative associations with overly bright light, which makes it difficult to see. It makes me think of those cliche images of being interrogated under a bright light or being abducted by aliens.  The sudden and unexpected contrast between light and dark is jarring to the watcher, leading them to feel uncomfortable visually. The viewer must take a few seconds to readjust to the new ligthing The director reinforces this feeling using unsteady filming and zooming. By juxtaposing the very dark scene with the light one, and adding cinematography that is  visually unpleasant, the viewer gets the impression that the light, in this case, is not good. It also suggests that the good and bad sides (Boyd and the Dollhouse =bad and Ballard and Echo =good) are not as divided as we thought, blurring the lines between the two factions and making it hard to determine who is really on each side.

Having medium-long and medium shots in the first part of this scene allows the viewer to understand that Ballard is the person on the phone with Boyd, even though Boyd tells DeWitt it is someone else.

The shower shot is also very interesting. Showers can be associated with many things, including cleanliness (I hope!), privacy, starting something new, or preparing for something. It also signals a certain amount of trust to shower with another person in the house or room.  Showers can make people very vulnerable. Hearing is impaired, you are confined to a small space, you can’t see what’s outside the curtain, you’re physically expose and unprotected, and you’re an easy target. I think by including the shower scene, the director wanted the viewer to see Echo as vulnerable and unprepared.

In the close-up following the shower scene, Ballard is looking off right past the camera. it seems to suggest he is watching Echo in the shower (CREEPY). We consider the bathroom and shower private places. Ballard’s seeming voyeurism (so much peeing Tom action happening!) adds to the audiences concern for Echo.  This creates more feelings of suspense for the viewer.

I think these shots were created to force the reader to rethink their understandings of which characters are “good guys” and which are “bad guys.” This seems to be an extended issue throughout the series, as characters morals and intentions are constantly being questioned.

I found the opening scene of episode seven to be pretty interesting. Firstly, it repeats the first scene of the series but gives us a few moments before that scene. This is similar to the way Memento works. I wondered what was so important about these few moments thats the director would want us to see them.

At first it seems to speak to the nature of Caroline’s decision making process when she is becoming a doll. It gives the impression that she is coerced or strong-armed into the decision. It causes us to wonder about the other dolls reasons for entering and sets up episode 8 in which we find out the reasons for Mellie and Sierra’s decisions. It suggests that the Dollhouse preys on weak individuals with something to forget. Mellie wants to forget her dead daughter and Sierra was tricked or forced into the dollhouse by a man who couldn’t have her.

This also shows how the episodes within the series fit together. Audience members may be more drawn into watching the series  to the end if the episodes hint at, but do not answer their questions right away.

It also makes us question whether or not the actives are drugged as a means of forcing them to sign up. Caroline seems suspicious of the liquid in the tea pot that DeWitt pours for her. After pouring the liquid, which looks like plain water, into the cup, DeWitt delivers the “nothing is as it seems” line. In other episodes,  this tea seems to be used to calm down clients, co-workers, and actives alike. Each time, the situation seems to warrant some level of control for the director of the Dollhouse.

Lastly. I was curious about what Caroline say in this opening scene in response to DeWitt telling her the were beyond leaving her alone. She replies ” what gave that away, the big black man or being held in this room fir days…” What big black man is she talking about? Boyd seems like the only candidate, but she wouldn’t have met him yet. Likewise, he seems to only want to protect her in the other episodes.

It could be an allusion to the episode in some way, just as the “nothing is ever as it seems” line is. We find that Sam is really the one causing the issues on the campus. He seems to have many of the same ethical reasoning skills that the staff members of the Dollhouse have. He blames Rossum for his friends death even though he literally caused it himself. It’s the idea that without Rossum trying to create this horrible drug, he wouldn’t have had to steal it and drug his partner. This seems to be a metaphor for the doll technology, especially in relation to the way Topher views his job.

When Echo meets Sam, he calls them guinea pigs and says they’re all just entries in a lab journal. This also seems to relate to the dollhouse and the actives.

Dollhouse seems to address many of the themes we have been talking about so far. Using a t.v. show to explore these themes creates a different kind of process for us than some of the other text we’ve watched. If you watched the t.v. show as it was aired, you can only get so much information and so many clues at a time. Unless their are re-runs, you may not be able to re-watch an episode. If you miss an episode, like we did by skipping 3 and 4 for class, you may miss some link that you only get from that episode. In some ways, t.v. series allow less control and participation for viewer.

On the other hand, the structure of a t.v. series also affects the amount of participation from the audience. A movie only has to entertain viewers for a few hours, but t.v. shows must entertain for a series of weeks, while competing with other t.v. shows in the same time slot, and maintaining a plot line. For this reason, it seems that each Dollhouse episode ends with some new question for the audience to consider and speculate on for a week. It isn’t even guaranteed that the question will be answered directly in the subsequent episode, season, or ever. For example, so far in Dollhouse we have developed many questions that do not get answered right away. Who is Alpha and what does he want with Echo? Who is Echo originally and what made her (or anyone for that matter) accept the conditions of the Dollhouse? Is there some hidden relationship between Ballard and the Dollhouse? These are the questions that keep viewers watching the show week after week.

I think one major theme of this series, and our other texts so far, is that, as Dewitt says in the first scene of episode one, “nothing is what is appears to be. In the article we read about Memento and other mind-game films, we discussed that the protagonist will have a “productive pathology” that limits them in some way, but also forces them to solve problems in a new way. This productive pathology drives the narrative. This idea is evident in Dollhouse as the dolls all have technology create amnesia. It drives the entire plot throughout the two seasons as we see these flawed characters attempt to solve problems by adapting to situations and adapting to their “treatments.” This ability to wipe and recreate personalities also links to Memento in that it casts suspicion over all the characters. In the film, it was almost impossible for the audience to come to a final decision about what had happened because the protagonist couldn’t remember anything from his past to verify other characters’ claims. Likewise, in Dollhouse,  it is impossible to “judge a book by its cover” because in the world created in the series, the covers can change continuously.

I also think that Dollhouse takes a stand against the ideas of posthumanists that we discussed while reading Galatea 2.2. While the technology in the story suggests that you can remove consciousness and put in it other vessels, it suggests that doing so cannot eliminate completely the soul of the original person, or even take away all of the memories from other imprints. Echo continues to see Caroline and her other personalities after they have been wiped. Something within her remains there, intact, despite the technology. This, coupled with some of the things we talked about in class, like the ethical considerations and what the directors choices while filming may mean to us, it seems to suggest that postthumanism is not only bad, but truly impossible.

I noticed in class that we all seemed to flock to the lots that contained a few moments of written text. In class, we used the written text as a jumping off point to shape they way we understood other lots. I think we find it comforting to have the story told to us instead of having to deduce it from a series of objects. We’re used to analyzing words, not pictures of salt shakers, pants, and toiletries. It’s hard to understand tone- to explore the connotation of elements of the text- with visual images instead of words. For these reasons, I decided to choose a lot that had no writing. I decided to focus on the last lot, a series of dried four-leaf clovers.

I think the first things to consider is the symbolism of four-leaf clovers. We all know they are considered good luck charms and that they are incredibly hard to find. I looked a lot when I was little and I never found one. In some ways, I wonder if this lot is meant to be ironic. not only did Doolan find one four-leaf clover, she found four.Doolan seems to be a luck hoarder. Despite having the best luck finding mutant plants, she seems to have no luck in love, as this lot (and the one before it) signals the end of her relationship with Morris. On the other hand, its possible that the end of this relationship is lucky for her. Morris is selfish, immature, and old; she could probably do better. Taken from a third angle, Shapton could be commenting on the irrelevance of luck in real life.  If we see anything in this book, it’s that their relationship, though painfully ordinary, was always difficult. Is real love, the kind that Doolan and Morris could not find together, easy? Or is all love meant to be difficult?

Is it odd that I expected four-leaf clovers to be more beautiful? They’re all disproportionate and unsymmetrical. This could easily be a comment on the relationship chronicled in the book, which is often uneven or one-sided. Doolan seems to be constantly pushing the relationship, as many of us discussed in class with the birthday lot. It would have also made more sense with my interpretation of Morris as a character that he would save and press clovers, not flowers in the second to last lot. He seems childish and selfish enough to hoard all the luck, yet it brings back into question the idea of reliability. In traditional texts, its far easier to determine whether or not a character or narrator is reliable. We get no sense of the curator in this book. Should we trust their instincts for order and interpretation?

The condition of the clovers is also somewhat telling. Drying plants is a common activity for grieving loved ones after a funeral. The last two lots conveniently symbolize the end of the relationship, an end that we’ve seen coming from day one (it really only took me to that terrify passport photo of Morris in Lot 1002 to seal the fate of this relationship). Two pages before the dried flora, in lots 1325-6, we see two final notes from the couple in which they seem to stop all contact with each other. Maybe I’m just jumping on Ann’s “someone-must-die” bandwagon, but this screams “death scene” to me!

I think in many ways, the format of this text makes it easy to discover questions, but very difficult to answer them. In a traditional narrative, asking questions is a form of active reading, however, we can often tell by the authors word choices, images, and various other choices, what they think the answer is. In Artifacts…, we have more room to explore the answers and formulate our own opinions.

After considering some of the texts we have read in relation to each other, I began to think a lot about the similarities between Important Artifacts… and Memento. The most prominent of these similarities is in the way the director or author has formed the text.

Memento requires audience members to take and active role in the viewing experience. By segmenting and reordering the parts of the narrative, Nolan ensures that those watching his film must piece each scene together like a puzzle in order to come away with an understanding of the stories basic plot and characters. As the film progresses, we find that elements of the mise-en-scene go from insignificant scenery to major clues towards the narrative’s outcome. For instance, Leonard’s clothes seem to be unimportant until one realizes the significant difference between them and the ones he puts on during the black and white scenes. It seems odd that the same man would wear a flashy suit in one scene and a casual, earthy flannel and jeans in the next. When we finally see Jimmy, the importance of the suit becomes evident. Each and every piece of the film becomes a key component to understanding the story; piecing together a puzzle.

In Important Artifacts…, we are given a series of pictures with very little text. In order to understand the narrative embedded within this faux auction catalog, the reader must pick apart the photos, objects, and letters to discover important clues about Doolan, Morris, and their lives together. With the minimal amount of written text, the reader, much like the movie view, must rely on the visual texts to create an understanding of the characters. If you look at Dr. Middleton’s favorite lots, the couples travel cases, you can analyze the objects to get a sense of the two individual personalities.

In both the book and the movie, the plot seems to take a back seat to character development. it is Leonard’s disability that drives the entirety to the movie’s plot. Without it,  Memento would be another revenge themed action flick. As the film ends, it comes down to which characters you feel most comfortable believing. Instead of focusing on plot, the audiences must analyze the elements of the film in order to make important evaluations of the character’s integrity. In  Artifacts, the plot is probably the least interesting part of the story in the sense that it is so realistic and basic. The process of creating a distinct impression of the characters’ flaws and eccentricities becomes the real story here. Morris’s constant trips, seemingly insincere letters of apology, cosmetics, and expensive outfits suggest a self-absorbed, immature bachelor. Doolan’s lists of pros and cons suggest that she is insecure and unsure of her decisions.

In both of these texts, it seems that the plot is overshadowed by the active participation involved in understanding it. Its that investigation that becomes key, and in many ways, the the reading process becomes the plot. This is also similar to Short’s Galatea, which requires the reader to explore the tricks of using the program and conversing with it. The narrative becomes less important that the process of producing and understanding it.

The scene I decided to analyze is about an hour into the movie when Sammy Jenkin’s wife meets Leonard at his office. I thought this scene had some interesting shots and mis-en-scene, as well as relayed important information about Leonard and Mrs. Jenkins.

The scene occurs within one of the black and white portions. These scenes occur early in the narrative and supply the audience with background knowledge necessary for an understanding of Leonard’s life after his memory loss and what he remembers from his life before it. the scene with Mrs. Jenkins is flanked on both sides with scenes of Leonard on the phone with the mystery caller we later assume is Teddy.  As the scene begins, Leonard’s voice over is more prominent than the dialogue between Mrs. Jenkins and Leonard. This ensures that the viewer understands that Leonard is relaying the story to the caller, not simply remembering it for the sake of remembering it.

The cinematography and mise-en-scene is relatively important.  The shots are short and follow the conversation between the two characters. The scene opens in a medium close-up which establishes the setting and the characters location in relationship to each other. The viewer sees that they are in a spacious business office, though the type of business is indiscernible from the mise-en-scene.  This suggests that Leonard is probably important in the company, but it doesn’t positively say that his memory of his former job as an insurance investigator is completely accurate. The characters sit on opposite sides of the desk. The camera is behind Leonard and the objects on the desk show that Leonard is in the position of power in the dynamic between the characters. It is his desk. The computer and phone are relatively old looking, from the 90s probably. On Leonard’s computer is a note or reminder, which suggests that even then his memory was not perfectly reliable and that this use of notes would later transfer into his new life. The second shot furthers the characters relationship, both spatially and in terms of power. The desk wraps around Leonard, showing it is his. On the back wall is a diploma, which suggests that Leonard has a professional degree.

Side note: this suggests that the director shows no distinction between educated and non-educated people in his assertions that memory can be deceptive and is untrustworthy. It also ties into Galatea 2.2 when we meet Lentz’s wife and other patients at the home. She and the Asian woman were both very intelligent, well-learned individuals who, through physical deterioration lost their ability to remember.

After these initial shots, the rest of the shots are shallow-focused close-ups. The objects in the room are no longer relevant. This may lead back to the idea that “memory can change the look of a room,” as Leonard informs us in the film. The shots of Mrs. Jenkins seem a bit less centered, with a heavy amount of blurry objects on the table in the back ground. This could be speaking to her unbalanced mental state. Shots of  Leonard, on the other hand, are balanced, showing that he firmly believes that this is what happened. If what Teddy says at the end of the film (beginning of the narrative) is true, this part of Leonard’s memory must be fabricated or blended from some other memory because Mrs. Jenkins would really be a stand in for his dead wife. The mis-en-scene is so nondescript that it could be easily fabricated. Is this scene real or a fabrication? Has Leonard blended this memory with a imagined story of Sammy Jenkins in order to mentally accept the death of his wife?

Most interesting about the scenes is Leonard’s appearance. He is dressed in business clothes, no physical blemishes (cuts or tattoos) and his hair is combed to the side. It is a far cry from the Leonard we see throughout the film, with unkempt hair, flannel or over flashy shirts, and cuts. Teddy seems to be right; Leonard does not know who he is anymore.  Mrs. Jenkins looks like an older version of Leonard’s wife. Could that be a sign?

I don’t think I have a lot to say about Memento at this point. I think we really covered all the bases there were to cover. Despite this, these are my final thoughts:

In class, someone had said that we can speculate all day long about what was there, but at some point we have to take a leap of faith, or some other wonderful saying, and trust what the director gives us. I have decided, just now, that I must respectfully disagree. The entire movie is about questioning what is there; about the deceptive nature of our thoughts and the inability to trust “the things you know for sure” (Memento). 

This being said, I am going to take the easy way out and say that the answer is that there is no answers. I think the same can be said for both Galatea and  Galatea 2.2. The story isn’t really about finding evidence of Helen’s consciousness or Galatea’s humanity. The real issue is how we cope with not knowing. In the digital age, and I’m sure beyond it, we will be faced with many instances of not knowing and not being able to fully comprehend.  In Galatea 2.2, we have to accept that we’re not sure whether or not Helen was conscious or if she was just excellently programmed. In Memento we don’t know what is true and how many misread notes Lenny (yes i did that on purpose) is leaving in the dust of his brand new sports car. With Short’s Galatea we had to  ”not know” on two separate levels. We had to suffer with not knowing what kind of story we were going to get from the computer program, and then when we had to analyze that surprise story, we had to deal with not knowing where to place Galatea on the human spectrum. 

Maybe were just like the posthumanist say and you can scramble our brains into consciousness stew and put them in anything at all. It’s just another thing we probably wont know, and I’m not really willing to be that guinea pig. Well just have to stick to rewritings of the Galatea myth and Christopher Nolan movies!

Defining Interactive Fiction

“Interactive Fiction as ‘Story,’ ‘Game,’ ‘Storygame,’ ‘Novel,’ ‘World,’ ‘Literature,’ ‘Puzzle,’ ‘Problem,’ ‘Riddle,’ and ‘Machine.’” by Nick Montfort

                 According to Nick Montfort, the study of new media artifacts often attempts to categorize new texts as either “story” or “game.” These two concepts are placed in opposition to each other; creating a binary in which a text can be one or the other. He suggests instead that new media artifacts often employ elements of story and game, as well as the various other forms that he uses to segment his article. Instead of categorizing them by “story” and “game,” each type of new media should be categorized individually by the forms it employs.

Montfort focuses specifically on interactive fiction (IF), defining it as “a program that simulates a world, understands natural-language text input from an interactor and provides a textual reply based on events in the world” (Montfort 316).

1. IF is a program:

IF is not a textual document that has been published online, like archived journal articles or blog posts. IF is a computer program developed in programming language ( you know <b> make my font bold </b> that you used on Myspace before Facebook was the new big thing). The “author” provides the program with a set of rules that allow it recognize input from the “player” (in this case us) and output a response from a bank of responses. On YouTube, Mont fort explains that “creating IF involves writing a computer program. It of course also involves writing a lot of text and rules for how that text is to be reassembled and put together. So it’s essentially both a writing and a programming activity”(Montfort 1:58-2:10).

2.  IF simulates a world:

Montfort argues that while plot is essential in ordinary texts, like novel or short story, it is not essential in IF. Instead, the most important element of “story” found in IF is setting. He labels this development of a complex setting as world-creation, which is common in other forms of media, including traditional literary texts. What sets the world-creation in IF apart from the development of setting in traditional literary genres is that the audience member’s ability to interact with it. The “player” interacts with a complex world developed by the “author” by inputting information into the program. As information is inputted, the program gradually outputs more information about the world within the program.

3. IF understands and responses with natural-language text.

The computer program behind IF is designed to recognize ordinary, everyday language from the “player” and respond back in a similar fashion. In order to interact with the program, it is not necessary to understand programming language as discussed above (another Myspace reference). A shortcut shown on Short’s “how to” guide shows all the different commands recognized by the Galatea program. It also shows that you can expect specific outcomes to specific commands.

Montfort compares IF with act of figuring out the answer to a riddle. In order for the riddle to be solved, you must “input” guesses in order to narrow down the possible answers. The individual telling the riddle will offer feedback. That feedback will shape later guesses, eventually leading to the correct answer. In IF, the “player” inputs information based on what the program has already provided, shaping their further interaction.

Mary-Laure Ryan claims that “a narrative text must create a world and populate it with characters and objects” (Ryan, 8). Short’s Galatea meets Ryan’s standards for a narrative, as well as Montfort criteria for IF. Short created a world with two characters; Galatea and the interactor. Montfort’s definition of IF seems to agree with Ryan’s definition of narrative.

An article, “Creating a Fantasy World on the 8080,” by Robert T Nicholas published in Byte Magazine seems to agree with Montfort’s definition of IF, especially the focus on the world-creation.  While the article mainly discusses the issues faced by programmers creating IF, Nicholas suggests that the success of works of IF revolves around the programs ability to create a complex fantasy world for the audience member to interact with. The program should respond to the interactor in a logical way in regards to the created environment. For example, in Galatea you can interact with the objects you see, like the velvet curtain. He writes that, “[t]he real pleasure in fantasy-game development, however, is… the fact that the fantasy world the game portrays is limited only by the author’s imagination” (Nicholas 214). Nicholas differs from Montfort in the emphasis he places on IF as a game instead of a literary work. He refers to IF as a “game” and the audience members as “players” who must solve problems in the virtual world.  Responses to Montfort’s article on his website all agree with his ideas, specifically the importance of a world through which the interactor can navigate. They suggest that IF is just the first in a long line of texts that fall under his definition, also suggesting multiple user games where many people interact with an environment and each other at the same time.

The Question:

                Montfort’s ideas are relevant to the way we view narrative because of the combination of programming and writing involved in the creation of IF.  It leads us to various questions about the role of “author” and “reader.” Should we see the “author,” Emily Short, for instance, as a literary writer or a computer programmer? The creation of Galatea obviously required some literary skill. Galatea is a complex character with changing moods and an elaborate history. While Short develops the pieces of the plot, and her computer program fits those pieces together based on her rules of engagement, it is the “player” who inevitably initiates the sequence of events. Likewise, what label should be given to the individual interacting with the program; player, writer, contributor, or reader?

Nick Montfort discusses Interactive Fiction as a genre and its history.

For the Robert T. Nicholas article and others on IF:

http://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archiveXarticles.html