Children of the Screen

So, I tried to be objective in this piece, but I read it over and I just sound like a big jerk face and a stalker.

Well, I’m not sure quite how I should approach this essay. When I first read “Children of the Screen” I was surprised by the lack of factual information presented to me. Then I recalled that before reading this essay Professor Lee had informed us that because it was such an opinionated paper it as likely to be easier to respond to. But I was still a bit distraught as to the overall tone of what I thought was an article pulled from a newspaper or an academic journal. The overuse of quotes and the tone of the essay read like an Anti-American Green Day song, and it all threw me for a loop.

So I googled the name “Hannah Baylon.” and found her face book page with her status as a WSU alum and all the pictures of her new tattoo. As well, a blog she wrote for another class is pretty easy to find with Google's help.

I think that I have to disagree with this essay. The idea that we are “Children of the Screen” is true, but I would be more poised to say that we are products of technology. We aren’t really children of the screen, or at least I wouldn’t say that, it’s more like we are masters of the screen. I mean, we aren’t going to be living up to our “fullest potential” as she put it without using the screen. Communication and Information sharing are two of the most important tools needed to “flourish” in our modern day world. If we are products of anything it is technology. We fathered the screen not the other way around.

It’s a pretty central theme of human existence that we adapt to our environments. Technology is kind of the way that we adapt, and the screen is its latest physical form. I’m sure that X amount of years down the road when a new and better technology has become the norm old timers like me will talk to their grandkids about the “Golden Days” when we only had a TV and a computer to keep us company.

Hannah does have a point when she says that we “waste” time in front of the screen. But wasting time has been a human tradition. I love going to the theatre (in a very masculine way) but I’m not doing anything productive there. And I’m sure that it wasn’t that productive back in the days of the Greeks. So yeah, that’s how I feel, like a big jerk face. So, sorry for being a big jerk face book stalker.

Sincerely,

The Picture Of Dorian Gray

Dorian Gray is a young British Aristocrat who is the subject of a portrait painted by another Brit, Basil Hallward. The artist is infatuated with the innocence and youth of the subject and feels that while painting the portrait he was guided by supernatural forces. Lord Wotton, who is present at the completion of the painting, comments that Dorian’s youth is wonderful and dwells upon how splendid it would be if the painting grew old instead of Dorian himself. Dorian, entranced by this notion, wishes in the presence of an ancient Egyptian idol that in exchange for his soul he would never grow old. His wish is granted (cue lighting and dramatic music).

Dorian falls in love with a wonderful singer, Sibyl Vane, and the two are soon to be married. He breaks of the engagement, but looking at his painting he notices sinister lines in his face have appeared and decides to reconcile with her. Before he has a chance though, Lord Wotton arrives and informs Dorian of her suicide. The next day Dorian is emotionless and continues on like this for the next eighteen years. The only thing that ages is his portrait. Eighteen years later we see much evidence of the pain Dorian has caused people and rumors persist about the sorts of terrible things that he has done. Dorian kills Basil Hallward, the man who painted his portrait and Hallward’s niece, who now is the same age as Dorian appears to be, falls in love with him and they are to be married.

The brother of Dorian’s first love, Sibyl Vane, has been searching for Dorian ever since his sister’s death and attempts to kill him. The brother is killed in a hunting accident. Dorian resolves that he can no longer go on hurting people like he does and stabs the his portrait in the heart with the same knife he killed it’s painter with. This in turn kills Dorian. His body is discovered moments later.

I don’t get the sense that the piece was created with a message. I think that it was a very interesting idea for a novel and a film but I don’t know if it was written with the original or sole intent of pushing a life lesson. If there was to be a life lesson I did get the idea that one only has one life to live and should keep a healthy soul while living it. As well, the idea that one is the sum of what they have done and should enjoy each of life’s stages equally from birth, to youth and to death.

The final scene where Dorian stabs the painting and kills himself I found particularly interesting. In seemingly every other scene in which the painting was displayed a color shot of the portrait was shown. I’m not sure why a color shot was omitted this time. In this scene Dorian no longer speaks in the clever way he and his fellow Englishmen spoke throughout the film. He is reduced to a ranting lunatic, discussing wild plans of moving to another country to start anew. He held the notion that he could somehow change his portrait (soul) for the better and erase the blood from his soul. When Dorian stabs the painting it seems to me that he hoped he was killing the memories of what he had done. But the portrait was not a scrapbook, it was his soul. And as to the message, this adds to the idea that you are what you have done and you can’t erase the past. Dorian tried to erase his wrongdoings, but he finally paid for them.

January 15th - "Who is that person?" Assignment

This portrait looks very Middle Ages to me, the pose that the subject holds, along with his clothing and the paints used, all back up that theory in my mind. The subject is young and looks like he has never worked a day in his life. His soft, pale skin that leads me to believe that he was born into some deal of money. If he or someone could afford to have a portrait commissioned of him they would have to have a bit of money back in the middle ages and even in today’s time.

It’s possible that he is royalty, being the son of a king, or a duke, or someone else donning a crown. The ring on his finger looks to be golden or some sort of precious metal so someone he is related to has money. I’m not one hundred percent sure what the children of royalty dress like but his cap doesn’t strike me as something that the rich would wear. It could be that he is the son of royalty who holds himself in a bit of a rebellious anti-wealth kind of style. His hair doesn’t look perfectly well kept, but it’s clean. He’s definitely the kind of person that can afford a regular bath.

Even though he doesn’t look like he has done much physical labor in his lifetime, his face looks tired. He’s glancing over his right shoulder at something that he has a great deal of emotion attached to. I’m not sure if he’s watching men ride off in to battle and wanting to be one of them, or watching the love of his life walk away from him. But whatever he is looking at, he appears to be lost in deep thought about something. He looks like he is both optimistic and sad about whatever has caught his gaze. I’m curious as to why for portrait he chose a pose that is so effeminate. Typically when I see a portrait from this time period, or a portrait of anyone in general, they are striking some kind of valiant pose. Or at least a pose that puts them in some sort of positive or at least masculine light.

There really is something about the subject’s face that strikes me though. I can’t seem to wrap my mind around what is going on in his mind. He doesn’t look sad, but he doesn’t look happy, melancholy, optimistic, pessimistic, noble, apathetic, or any of the emotions that come to my mind. He just looks like he is thinking very hard about something.

As a last thought I will add that to my knowledge, portraits were paid for by the arm and leg (hence the phrase). So my other wild idea is that he is a young Irish businessman (he looks very Irish) about to go off into battle with the damn Brits. His wife is pregnant and in the case that the man dies in battle he wants a portrait for his son to remember him by. So he and his wife scrape together what little money they have, the man takes a bath and puts on his father’s golden ring and a portrait is painted. Then the Irishman goes valiantly off into battle to fight the British.

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