11/22/2010

Gwen's Memorial from Hassan Pitts on Vimeo.

We watched the movie Secret of the Kells last night, (insert youtube trailer)

An Irish tale expertly and beautifully animated, deeply steeped in Irish decorative and illustrative traditions (I really know nothing about Irish art history, but this is what I assume). It set me thinking about current civil conflicts surrounding culture. Not the story mind you, more so the reaction of western cultures (i.e. white Christian predominantly) to other cultures co-habitating as a result of immigration, naturalization, escape, hijacking, as well as invitation. From the people who brought you such incidents as the “war on Christmas,” “mosques at ground zero,” and “The fence that wasn’t tall enough.” The question of cultural preservation is an interesting quandary for those who seem to be giving it up. The problem ultimately is that the dominant society sees the new foreign threat as one of non-assimilation. The ignoring of the “check your culture at the door” sign. But there is one important thing to question which is, why is your culture so dear to you that you cannot understand the idea of other people wanting to hold on just as dearly to their own culture? But an even more important question is at what point did you realize you had been relinquishing your own appreciation for your culture that it has in many ways been watered down? Is Christmas any less Christmas because someone wants to see other symbols and signs in the airports and supermarkets? Or is Christmas any less Christmas because the underlying motive for celebration has become secondary to consumerism and spectacle? Or is it the spectacle of Christmas wreathes, trees, stockings and Macy’s window dressings what makes it thematically apart of American Culture?

So I look at a movie like Secret of the Kells and I think, “what a wonderful way to uncover and display a bit of Irish history!” This is one of those types of stories and I hate to say it but I think children’s stories are the best at telling old folk tales and maintaining bits of cultural currency. I can remember bits of stories I read as a child that in the right circumstances I might conjure such stories as Anansie the Spider, The Trumpeter of Krakow, and Strega Nona that each retain some bit of cultural knowledge that provide another key to my understanding of everyday life.

Stories seem to be where our culture resides and recycle. Culture is not something static, it moves and evolves and if the whole bringing back the eighties has any worth, culture is continuously remixed.

So isn’t it surprising that after Secret of the Kells we watched Rip: a remix manifesto? I will end this post with the following:

1. Culture always builds on the past.

2. The past always tries to control the future.

3. You can find out the other two points by watching the film. I suggest downloading it illegally! ;)

Good night!