The Gorillaz-Plastic Beach

On the thread of anti-consumerist messages in media, I'd like to present the work of a "band" I've recently become a fan of: The Gorillaz. The Gorillaz is a virtual band with a story and universe crafted around it, product of a visual and musical project headed by musician Damon Albarn and comic book artist Jamie Hewlett.

When they debuted in 1998, I was probably too young to appreciate them very much, but all throughout my adolescence I'd encounter a fervent fan or listen to a track or two, enough to convince me they were a band of merit, even though the art style scared the hell out of 13-year old me. Anyway, discovering them now that I'm older, I found I really do enjoy a lot of their work. The band covers a lot of different genres from hip-hop to electronica to rock. But if I were to describe their music in a few words, it would probably be "dream-like" and usually unsettling....probably due to the lead vocalist's hazy, hypnotizing voice.

Voice like a Lotophagi.

Anyway, I find a lot of their tracks have environmental, anti-corporate or anti-war themes. Sometimes their lyrics appear to be meaningless, but it's usually because the theme is established using one or two lines, setting the tone for the song. The visuals of their striking music videos certainly help, too. Anyway, my favourite album of theirs is actually Plastic Beach, which I found had a unifying theme of criticizing industrialization. I'd like to take the time to present some of my favourite songs, and talk a little bit about why the heck this tangent is relevant.

Because being time wasting-ly indulgent is like, my favourite thing.

Track 2: Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach

The revolution will be televised

And the pollution from the ocean

Now with devotion

Push peace and keep it in motion

This song appears the be designed as an intro to the album, the first two paragraphs serve to present the album's theme. A lot of the other songs in the album feature electrical sounds and have imagery featuring artificial and manufactured forms where a listener would be accustomed to naturalistic imagery, and the first part of the song reminds the listener that in order for there to be change, there needs to be hope for the future, alongside focus and determination and devotion to the cause. (The rest seem to be about Snoop Dog...? He does rap the song...) I remembered we were talking about the very same thing in class

Track 4: Rhinestone Eyes

When the paralytic dreams that we all seem to keep

Drive on engines 'til they weep

With future pixels in factories far away

A love song heavy with industrial imagery. Here, things like rain and the eyes of a lover are compared to artificial things, more specifically, rhinestones and "factories far away". Pollution is treated as part of the natural scenery, having become so prevalent in this setting, even though the narrator is aware that the natural state has been corrupted. The singer sounds weary, not just with how he sounds but concerning the imagery he associates with himself. The minimalist backing comprised of twinkling electronic sounds and echoing vocals give the song a feeling of emptiness.

Track 6: Superfast Jellyfish

Yo, pretty packages of frosted delights

Look, it comes with a toy (hehe, I like that. I wanna number four, a number six, and throw in a plastic doughnut)

Just enjoy the gritty crunch. It tastes just like chicken!

A critique of consumer goods and heavy advertising. All sorts of strategies are used to make a food item appealing, whether it's good for you or not, and some are poked fun of in this song, such as high sugar contents, collectibles, giveaways and free items. The humorous narrative is dictated by two consumers who are placated by the messages advertising sends them. Also, the speed and ease of preparation of these goods are compared to that of a homecooked meal from scratch. We isolated one of the reasons for the popularity of processed meals in comparison to home-made meals was the lack of time available for cooking food, partly due to that we work some of the longest hours in the world in U.S. and Canada. The system as it is now is like: less leisure->more money->less homecooking->more money spent on goods. Current suggestions for change revolve around there being less work hours and less dependence on money and more leisure and time to make thngs for your family and yourself.

Track 7: Empire Ants

And if the whole world is crashing down on you

Fall through space, out of mind with me

Where the emptiness we leave behind on warm air rising

Those are the shadows far away

This song seems to be about the large amount of damage we do to the planet due to our current lifestyles. Comfort is found in routine and habit. ("The sun has come again to hold you"/The falling alcohol empire is here to hold you") The imagery of humanity working a machine is used. Human influence is compared to a wave of plastic, reaching out to even as far as the moon. In order to escape our resource troubles, there is a relatively common fantasy that we can develop the technology for space travel and can escape to other planets. The song describes the planet we leave behind something of a husk.

Track 9: Some Kind of Nature

Some kind of nature (some kind of nature, some kind of soul)

Comes from one within us

Oh, Lord, forgive me (some kind of mixture, some kind of gold)

It's got to come and find us

All we are is dust

The song appears to be a reflection on human nature, with some critique on consumerism. ("They need the eat, and they-they wear phony clothes") Is the human race imbued with a soul or some other innate quality that raises up to dominion over every other species on earth? Or are we merely just a bundle of flesh, blood and chemicals? The song appears to be calling us to remember our humility. In the music video, a flower becomes corrupted as it grows with wires and lights.

Track 10: On Melancholy Hill

Up on melancholy hill

There's a plastic tree

Are you here with me?

Just looking out on the day of another dream

Another love song. The narrator is depicted as an imaginative and free-spirited person. But you'll notice that an artificial replacement for a tree is chosen as a romantic meeting spot. The unnatural fixture is passively accepted as part of the landscape. The narrator also tries to convince their love interest to settle for them since their love interest "can't get what they want". The song seems to be encouraging passivity in a way I can't help but feel is reverse psychology. Of course, a lot of people appreciate the song anyway because it's pleasant to listen to and the music video's pretty fun to watch.

Track 12: Sweepstakes

But you want how you like
Aim high man why not?
Sun Moon and Starry y'alls
Each and every all of y'alls
There's math and there's dealers and players and me
They say that they're winners
Ok well let's see!

Sweepstakes! You're a winner!

I was just reminded of this song when I was reading Peter Victor's Questioning Economic Growth and how he mentioned that the Earth can't sustain the current growth of the developed economies, let alone that of developing nations when they reach the developed level. In this song, every player considers themselves a "winner" and are encouraged to set their aims as high as they can. There is an obsession with money and a resignation to playing by the rules already set in place. Its chaotic direction imbues the listener with uneasiness. I remember Victor stating that the focus on economic growth and GDP wasn't always so; adoption of other economic goals seem more prudent in the face of this fact.

Track 13: Plastic Beach

To the dark, dark seas,

Comes the only whale.

Watching ships go by,

It's the daily troll, oh yes

It doesn't know that,

This songs brings to mind the species that human influence has driven to extinction or endangerment, and paints a picture of loneliness and hopelessness. Here, pollution has gotten so prevalent that it's become overwheming. ("It's a Casio on a plastic beach/It's a styrofoam deepsea landfill/It's Automated computer speech") Reminds me of the video we saw on the first day of class: The Majestic Plastic Bag and the oceanic garbage patches. Once again, the obsession with money is present, however briefly.

Track 16: Pirate Jet

Its all good news now
Because we left the taps
Running 
For a hundred years

So drink into the drink

A plastic cup of drink
Drink with a couple
of people
The plastic creating people

Still connected 
to the moment
it began

These are all the lyrics to the song, so I hope this is self explanatory. Even though we have been living in a growth-focused economy for what simultaneously seems like a short and too-long a time and even though a lot has changed about society since its beginning  we are still the same race with the same hopes, dreams and desires at our cores. At least, that's how I interpret it.

Anyway, 'aint gunna be nothing but reading interpretation's coming up, after that I'll share more related media that I like.

Anti-Consumerism in Media

We were talking earlier on in the course about how media is used to teach us how to consume, but I also remember receiving a lot of anti-corporate and anti-consumerist messages in my youth, too. You could say that while we are being bombarded with advertising messages to consume, we are also being bombarded with messages that tell us to resist or that promote anti-corporate messages. I suppose whichever takes root first causes the other to fall on deaf ears... anyway, I'm going to give some examples from my memories, even from when I was a kid.

Big corporate businesses, lawyers and businessmen are often made into villains or heroes that must rediscover their "human" cores. In the 1997 film, The Game, an arrogant and corrupt business executive is given a hyper realistic adventure game that seemed to be designed to strip him of his identity and sense of reality, but ultimately served the purpose of him casting off his arrogant persona and rediscovering his true self.

Bangarang, dudes. Bangarang.

The same type of character is the main character in Steven Spielberg's Hook, where the adult Peter Pan's identity as a cutthroat and job-obsessed lawyer and distant father are presented as diversions and distortions of who he really is...

...regardless of what anyone else says, I really enjoyed Hook, ok!?

Chickin Lickin good.

Sometimes corporate expansion and executives are portrayed as obstacles and villains. I remember an episode of Arthur where the main conflict was that a large corporation somewhat akin to Kentucky Fried Chicken was looking to buying the building housing the local soda shop and hang-out of our protagonists. One of them organizes a campaign to save their local business.

I also noticed quite a few Christmas movies are like this. In Frosty Returns, the villain is an entrepreneur sells a chemical in an aerosol can that can get rid of snow. In Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer, said Grandma's family-owned store is the last of its kind and is in danger of being bought out. A little ironic, since Christmas time is the most lucrative time of the year for businesses.

Or, sometimes, saving the environment is a goal presented in a positive light, and destroying it in the name of advancement is a bad one. A really obvious modern example would be Avatar. In it, a businessman and military big shot attempt a hostile takeover of the indigenous population of an alien planet in order to gain access to the planet's natural  resources as a parallel to the treatment of Native Americans by European settlers and explorers. No more complicated is Captain Planet, in which 5 youths of different ethnic backgrounds are called by the spirit of the Earth herself to combat a league of dastardly villains who have nothing else better to do but cause oil spills and other assorted environmental disasters.

Both are blue people who face off against villains of similar character and intellectual depth.

DINKLEBURG

And occasionally, greed and envy caused by consumerism is used to establish pitiable characters who sometimes (but not always) throw aside these feelings, which are insinuated to be manufactured and detrimental. For example, Timmy's Dad's envy of the material success of his neighbor Dinkleburg as an indicator of his immaturity and was played for laughs in Fairly Odd Parents...I can't believe I just typed that semi-seriously.

You can say that from when we were kids, we've been getting a lot of mixed messages about our role in society and our relationship with the Earth. I personally think pro-environmental and anti-consumerism stances are more intuitive, since it promotes sustainability and discourages negative and detrimental emotions such as greed and envy, so it's easier and more common for a person to categorize these themes and goals as "good", even as they exhibit consumerist behavior.

As a final treat, I'll post a little video featuring misguided entrepreneur and tumblr darling: The Onceler from the recent 3D animated revamp of The Lorax

Fruity Rumpus Narcissist Factory Part 2

Non materialism second!

Comix below.

Yuumei - Art for Activism

Black, Black Heart

Man, speaking about art, I'd like to talk about and artist who's so much more talented than me! I would just like to share some work from one of my favourite artists Wenqing Yan, or as she's known on the internet, Yuumei.

She is a young Chinese-American artist who does all sorts of fantasy art. But one can argue that she is the most famous for pictures and comics that focus on social issues in order to spread awareness.

Guilty

In her descriptions of her pieces, she posts the statistics and facts that inspired the piece, or a related bit of poetry, or tips for living in ways that are better for the envrionment. I just find her imagery so evocative, and her colour choices are so striking!


Countdown's too big for blogger, so I'll link it here.

I'd also really like to bring to attention her flash comic: Knite. 

Knite: Bringer of Stars

It's a flash comic that consists of several full page illustrations with some lines of text, although she's been posting more traditional long pages with one panel after another lately. Inspired by a trip she underwent to China and noticing that at night, the elderly would fly kites with lights attached to them at night, and that they looked like they were trailing stars behind them.

Tall People only plz

The main character is a teenage delinquent who wants to bring hope to his fellow citizens by flying kites with lights on their tails to simulate the stars, since their smog-filled skies block the stars from view. Throughout the comic, he comes into conflict with other characters and their views on what it would have to take to make things better for the people. It's still being worked on, so no definite ending yet.

Knite-True Price

Some find her depiction of China a little extreme...and I do too, a bit. In Knite, the nation really seems like some industrial dystopia, which is pretty sensationalized. But the issues she presents do warrant merit such as the One Child Policy, inequality considering the distribution of education and pollution.

Anyway, the course has a big environmentalist theme and talking about it made me think of her. Also, in seminar today I noticed a quote in an issue of Adbusters they were handing out about how humanity might have already dealt the fatal blow to the environment and the fight is now more for our present than our future. Humanity is a flexible race and probably has the ability to live through the changes, but the fact that we've gotten this far all due to our greed is...pretty astonishing. In a bad way.

Fruity Rumpus Narcissist Factory Part 1

Now I will proceed to post about topics that require no reading or research whatsoever.

That topic being myself.

In the first couple of weeks of class, the professor mentioned Marsha Richins and Scott Dawson’s 18 statement scale for measuring materialism. She also mentioned later that a lot of students shared their results on their blogs and I've been feeling left out.

Anyway, there seems to be 2 types of questions in this survey: Materialistic and Non-Materialistic. I will colour-code the questions and present a score for each.

Materialism first!

This Week's Seminar: Week 9

So, the theme for this week's seminar was Activism Alternatives.  I enjoyed it, but they opened with a statement that I didn't quite agree with. They stated that consuming was an inherent part of human nature. If you look into the history of advertising, that is actually not true! What is natural to humans is greed, not consumerism. Before the 1600's, advertising was done through posts on notice boards, free samples and personal promotion, largely. But in order to promote foreign goods such as coffee and spices, advertising techniques such as saying nobles consume it or that people that consume it have good things happen to them were developed to encourage adoption by the public.

And after the Industrial revolution in Britain, less workers were needed to create more goods due to technological advancement and demand for these goods had to be fostered. In the late 1800's brands of items began to emerge and advertising was their path to the public. By trying to invoke the right images, they attempted to appeal to the desires of their markets.

That's why her hair is so big, it's full of freedom.

My point is that we were taught to consume, and perhaps we have been taught it is a part of our nature. It may be part of our nature to sometimes be greedy and envious, but consumerism is the vehicle that magnifies its effects.

Anyway, I started blabbing on about an article I saw in Canadian Grocer while I was on break when I worked this weekend. It's a magazine about the grocery industry aimed at franchisees and store owners. Anyway, the article was focused on the problem of waste generated by grocery stores and by people throwing away perfectly good food. She named dropped a documentary coming out soon called Just Eat It,  designed to raise awareness on how much edible food we waste by focusing on a couple that decided to go "freegan" for a while. Even if they had to test everything they gathered before eating, they were never left wanting.

Anyway, the main reason stores stock so much is to give the illusion of plenty as it helps consumer confidence. Waste-reducing initiatives were at the forefront of the article, she made sure to stress the economical and environmental benefits. The writer encouraged store owners to try to help reduce waste both at the store and in their customer's households by developing new systems concerning and educating their customers about best before dates, since there's a lot of confusion concerning when food actually goes bad. Also, she encouraged changing the layouts of stores to change emphasis away from the illusion of plenty. That way less is ordered, and less is ultimately wasted.

Baby carrots are actually chopped up adults!

Also, baby carrots were created because a carrot farmer was sick and tired of throwing away perfectly good carrots that just happened to look deformed. I did not know that!

Also, in the Adbusters magazines they handed out yesterday in seminar, there was a photo of an art piece by Takashi Murakami. Now, Murakami is famous for starting a post-modernist art movement called "Superflat". Style-wise, it is exemplified by flat colours, 2D forms and glossy textures. This is a homage to pre-WWII Japanese art as well as to emphasize "fake-ness" or emptiness. Thematically, Superflat art usually critiques consumer culture and the media. This is done through disturbing forms, black humour and sexual innuendo. Murakami himself tends to focus on the exploitation of things such as human sexuality (especially that of "otaku", a Japanese subculture similar to geek subculture) by corporate bodies, and the distortion of what would ordinarily would be cute mascot characters. One of his aims is to combine "high art" (traditional techniques) and "low art" (popular culture).

Oh my sweet Jesus.

In the early 90's, Japan suffered a long recession after a period of economic prosperity. The consumer culture they adopted from the US what was once celebrated began to be looked at with a critical eye. Murakami speaks about the situation in this article from artnet.com: (Warning, some images on the site are NSFW)

"The Japanese people get fed TV and media for 24 hours a day. Now, we have a chance to think, 'what is my life?'" Consumer culture looks only one direction, not evolved. In the '80s, Japanese people didn't think about the meaning of life because of the strong consumer culture. Now, people are realizing there is an end. They have to think about it more than in the past. Young people are looking outside of consumer culture and asking, 'What is life?'"

Kick this ancient imperial emblem into the dirt! Only $400!

Update

...I'd like to apologize about not updating as much as I'd like. I had a bit of technical trouble since my last post, since my laptop is ancient history in computer time. Also, I had midterms in my non-elective courses, so I really wanted to focus on those. Now I find I have quite a backlog...

Nonetheless, I'm glad the seminar my small group was heading appeared to be a success(?). Naturally, I feel Plentitude is a facinating concept. However, there were a couple of points brought up that I wanted to expand upon and debate further, but we didn't have the time. So I'll just write them up here:

1) There's nothing wrong with selling the crafts/furniture/food/other fruits of your labour you make for money. That's how people used to live, even! Plus, large scale production isn't completely incompatible with small scale production. The fact that both spheres need to exist together was the point of Juliet Schor's Plentitude video. She was suggesting that in society, people would still work for companies, but they would work less. With the extra time they would be able to make goods so they can provide for themselves. If they get really good at it, they can make goods and provide services for others for money. It's just that:

-Large Scale production needs to shrink

-Small scale production needs to grow

And of course you have to consume a little in order to produce your own goods. Big corporations will still try to make money concerning a new d.i.y. paradigm, but the damage we'll be doing to the environment will be much less. Going back to a completely corporate free, "pure" existence AND immersing yourself completely in a consumerist, materialistic society are both completely ridiculous for Western society as of right now. Even if Monsato is pure evil. Or not. Maybe we can grow vegetables some other way...

If you haven't lost faith in humanity yet, Monsato will do that for you.

2) People only do d.i.y. stuff because it's popular? Because it gives one a trendy image? That... really simplifies people and their reasons for doing the things they do. It's not because people want to make a statement about themselves. It's because people can't afford consumer goods! Or at least all the goods they'd like. Attempts to resuscitate the economy have pretty much failed and so many aren't sufficiently employed or employed at all. It's because it's practical. It's because it's cheaper. It's also because people are tired of being yanked around by companies and their brands.

Commercialism is powerful, but not powerful enough to dictate everything we think and do. Sooner or later, reality sets in and we don't do the things the government and the big corporations want as to do because we either start to see through them or we just plain can't. A lot of big corporations forget that ultimately it`s the consumers who get to decide what becomes of a company...and a lot of consumers too. When things get rough, for the corporations that think that we'll buy anything they churn out can under-preform, take heavy losses or get wiped out.

We'll have to undo the programming we've been subjected to since we were little, but the potential for great change starts with us and our lives. The Tim Kasser video essentially came to this conclusion, a little sad we didn't get to present it... 

3) I was a little disappointed that we didn't get much participation when asking the group to consider what skill or trade they would pick up if they were to live according to Pletitude. There's so much you can do! You can generate electricity for the power grid, you can grow your own fruits and vegetables, you can grow your own mushrooms, you can brew your own alcohol, you can raise chickens, keep bees, design and make your own clothes, you can bike to get around, you can organize sharing programs...there's even computer programs and machinery that can help you make practically anything! Maybe it was a bit much to ask ; to pry into other people's plans for the future, but I don't know. I think about this kind of stuff all the time. I'm all for producing things in an environmentally friendly manner. And I have a lot of hobbies in crafting, even though my schedule leaves me having problems pursuing them all. But finishing something, whether it's a painting, a meal or piece of jewelry, is really fulfilling!

I know my youngest sister would love to own a chicken!

4) It was mentioned that stores that specialize in crafting can be pretty expensive, like Micheals. That's true...but you don't have to go to Micheals only for your supplies. The trick is determining what you really need as opposed to what you think you need in order to live up to an image, as it is when dealing with any store that deals merchandise. If one's creative, you can make extraordinary things out of ordinary ones. Even on etsy, people make jewelry out of things like paper clips and clock gears. In my hometown, there's a summer festival every year. One of my favourite vendors deals in jewelry she makes herself out of semi-precious stones she finds in her travels, rather than buying them from stores.

Mad bling!