Personally, I think you should all go out and rent Who Killed the Electric Car? (or put it in your Netflix queue). I was bummed when we had class and it was showing at Scripps, but it just released on DVD yesterday and I watched it this afternoon instead of writing a Spanish essay and I could not be more pleased with my decision. It is an extremely well-put together documentary that kept my attention and gave me a massive amount of information about something that I had little or no knowledge about before.
Just a bit about authorship before my verdict in the murder case and other rantings. The film brought me back to issues that we discussed about Authorship and Film. This film was written and directed by the same guy, who clearly has a passion for the topic, but he use of other materials (clips from movies, television broadcasts, etc) add a lot to the film and make it much better, so there is a blurring of authorship, like there is with many documentaries. Also, I expected the narrator to be the voice of the director/writer and was a bit surprised when the credits rolled around to see that the voice was actually that of.... Martin Sheen. Interesting. It is also quite clear that it took a lot of people to make this film work and the authorship was a collaborative effort, rather than just the director.

In her article “Postmodern Blackness,” bell hooks shows that the largely avant-garde concept of postmodernism is not only interesting in theory, but potentially progressive in application. She refers to its “deconstruction of ‘master’ narratives” (point 9) and its “critique of essentialism…to affirm multiple black identities” (point 11). Stereotypes can be redefined, and marginalized voices can be heard. That is the ideal application of postmodernism.

I wanted to address two ways in which these ideas have impacted me. First of all, I did a research project this summer that involved the creation of an online biography. As my subject, I chose my grandmother, and in my academic analysis of my project, I described the importance of presenting previously silenced perspectives on history. Because she is a Mexican woman who was dealt with stereotypes of gender, religion, etc., her voice is marginalized. In writing this explanation, I had no idea that it connected so directly to the heart of postmodernism, that elusive word that always get tossed around in high circles of culture in the ivory tower of academia. Reading bell hooks’ article has helped me to feel more of a personal connection and interest in this concept. (The online biography of my grandmother is at http://abuelitarosita.com/ and the academic discussion is located under the “Discussion” tab.)