What role, if any, does an audience play in the ethics of a rhetorical situation?
I'm not sure how much an audience plays a role in the ethics of such situations. It is popular belief that the majority of people don't know anything until they hear it from the news, which means in that case, that the audience's role is to listen to the newscaster. Thus, it is their role, also, to decide which side they are on. Thus, the newscasters or the newspaper writers have a job: convince the audience.
As far as the ethics... newscaster and news journalists have a duty to tell people the truth, because they know they are the main source for information the population has. However, in order to get ahead of each other, they will tend to fudge numbers or use fallacies, such as ad hominem. Such tendencies are not ethical, people, by definition, a fallacy is unethical, because it is a deception, or deviation from the matter at hand.
Illegal immigration is a very difficult subject to tackle.
I say difficult, because, as a college freshman from Los Angeles I have found that
1. The issue is always debated
2. There's no easy explanation (and I've asked around a lot to try and find one to no avail)
3. It's always current (which goes back to #1)
I mean to say that illegal immigration is not black and white. There are many factors to consider, such as...
1. Children born in the USA from illegal immigrated parents
2. Healthcare for illegal immigrants
3. Jail? Judicial system?
4. The danger of crossing the border
5. The rise in unaccompanied children making the journey to the USA to reunite with their parents
On April 19, "The New York Times" published an article (here) called "A 12-Year-Old's Trek of Despair Ends in a Noose at the Border".
The article discussed Noemi Álvarez Quillay, a young girl from Ecuador who was trying to get to her parents in the Bronx.
The article really shows the horrors and dangers of border-crossing, especially for young children.
I wonder how many people would be okay with open borders, although that will not happen. In Los Angeles, I wonder how life would be if all the immigrants went away for a day? Would "Americans" really be okay with that?
I found an article on "The Foundry" (link) that discusses the DREAM act in relation to military service.
The article reads:
"Here’s a disturbing new idea from some members of Congress: Trade instant citizenship to illegal immigrants if they’ll agree to serve in the U.S. military.
Serving in the military is a high calling and a privilege—certainly not something to be treated as a bargaining chip in immigration politics. Yet these congressmen are trying to sneak this provision into the larger National Defense Authorization Act, which lays out the budget for the Department of Defense.
What’s more, the immigrants in question would be those who are brought to the U.S. as children—often called DREAMers (after the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act)."
Basically, the writer, Amy Payne, is against this act, because she thinks it would encourage illegal immigration because it would give minors a way to stay in the country without much hassle.
On another note, quickly, let's talk about the Dream Act.
On the official website for the act (here), it has a list of qualifications undocumented immigrants must have in other to be eligible for help:
Must have entered the United States before the age of 16 (i.e. 15 and younger)
Must have been present in the United States for at least five (5) consecutive years prior to enactment of the bill
Must have graduated from a United States high school, or have obtained a GED, or have been accepted into an institution of higher education (i.e. college/university)
Must be between the ages of 12 and 35 at the time of application
Must have good moral character
Here's the thing... just like how "Stop and Frisk" allows the police to stop and search people of "suspicious nature", and the question is, define suspicious nature.....
How is "good moral character" defined, and what stereotypes does the Act buy into...
Perhaps I can connect the film "A Better Life" into this whole scenario.
Also, it would be important to connect the relational dimension to this argument, as heavily discussed by Dr. Keeling in lecture.
This past weekend was the LA Times Festival of Books, hosted at USC! I attended the festival on both Saturday and Sunday.
SATURDAY
I spent Saturday looking around at all the booths. I picked up some things at the Hi De Ho Comics book stand, and also at a secondhand books booth. At this booth I found very interesting literature, including a book which directly references a topic discussed in the General Education class: Exploring Ethnicity through Film:
This book's character: Fu-Manchu, was described by Professor Kara Keeling as a character who embodies the worse stereotypes of Asian people in the first half of the 20th century. He was characterized as the "unassimiable other". The stereotype was that Asians are always foreign to the USA, and that this "foreign-ness" is an intrinsic part of them.
The counterpoint is that the history of Asian immigration shows that Asians have been in the USA for a very long time.
After meandering through these books, I went and watched a panel of three writers, Francesca Lia Block, John Boyne, Jonathan Auxier, and Ransom Riggs. Here is a clip of Riggs reading from his new book:
SUNDAY
On Sunday I attended two speaker series. The first was a conversation between Ransom Riggs and Daniel Handler, the author of "A Series of Unfortunate Events" under the pen name "Lemony Snicket". I found the whole conversation very amusing, and it was all in all a good time. The place (Bovard) was packed. I was sitting in about the middle, so this was the best picture I could get (Handler on the left).
The second speaker series was of T.C. Boyle, author of "The Tortilla Curtain", a book I had read and very much enjoyed in 11th grade. He read aloud two of his short stories and also offered some insight into his creative process. I'll paraphrase something he said. "People say write what you know. I say, write what you don't know, and learn something."
Then, I ended my tour of the festival at a book stand that was selling everything for very cheap. When I arrived, the manager was yelling repeatedly, "Everything must go! Everything half off the price on the orange sticker!"
Quite unbeatable deals...
I didn't buy these books, but I thought they were funny:
Film Noir captures the grittiness behind the façade of assumed utopic society. The films of Noir, which were borne from the novels by authors such as Raymond Chandler, are dark impressions in which man is deemed immoral from the get-go. Our main character has deep problems, usually a unagreeable past, yet he pursues the “bad guy”, or exposes the “crime ring”. Does he do it for the money? Maybe he does it to impress a girl. In very few cases, out main character, who faces adversity, solves a crime out of pure goodness of the heart, or because he feels it is his duty. The shadow-lined streets, the neon-blinking signs of bars and motels, and the slick pavements are the world in which Noir grows. And it is in this sinister and pessimistic world that we can learn, as well. Race and class are often present in Noir, for there are the slums, where our main character lives, and then there are the mansions and Hollywood and Beverly Hills, home to the “client”, and more often than not, as in the case of Chinatown, home to the “villain”.
“Villain”, in this case, rests within quotes due to the moral ambivalence of Film Noir. There is no hero, because our main character has flaws. He drinks. He talks dirty. He abuses women. He kills. But, at the same time, we admire him, we look up to him and we want him to succeed. The same goes with the “villain”. Noir relies heavily on contrasts between black and white visually, but it shies away from it literarily. Nothing is handed to the viewer. Who we think is the bad guy, in many cases, shares the viewpoint of many politicians and higher-ups in society. These men are shown as immoral, but how much more immoral than our main character?
"The mechanics of filmmaking in TOUCH OF EVIL, the play of shot and countershot, of dialogue and ambient sound, seem glutted by some strange weariness, the film’s motives and events and meanings clouded by ambiguity. Perhaps noir could simply go no further than the appallingly corrupt vision of society TOUCH OF EVIL provides" (link)
Touch of Evil, Orson Welles' last large production, is also considered the last film that marked the era of Film Noir. As the quote above explains, Touch of Evil portrays such a vile, immoral reality of the world that no film afterwards could shave competed, or exemplified the tropes of Noir as well as it did.
Let us revisit the tropes of Film Noir....
(the following is from here)
Film Noir Characteristics:
(do remember though that it is not necessary for a film to have all of the characteristics to be considered film noir).
Urban environment
Rain-soaked streets
Seedy taverns, diners, and run-down buildings
Claustrophobic interiors
Flickering street lamps
Neon signs
Scenes appear dark, as if lit for night, with many dark shadows
Oblique and vertical lines, especially in regards to lighting
Shadows
Films done in black and white
Narration, especially flash-back narration
Criminal underworld
Hopelessness
Corruption
The "heroes" tend to be morally ambiguous, alienated from society, and
have a fatalistic outlook.
Characters torn by psychological conflict
The femme fatale
Alright, so which do Touch of Evil embrace?
The setting is urban in most of the film, for it takes place in a border town (Mexico-USA).
Many building appear rundown, or at least they do not appear to be brand new or in the greatest condition. In fact, the whole border town, and the motel in which the lead actress stays, appear seedy.
The filming style is claustrophobic in that there are very tight shots-- Orson Welles plays Hank, the corrupt detective. To play the role, Welles put padding underneath his clothes to appear fat, and the camera, in its tight angles, helped to show this "fat".
The scenes appear dark. The subject matter of the film is dark, and the characters appear in shadows. You never know what is hiding in the dark, or what will come out of it.
The film is done in black and white, and this definitely added to the atmosphere.
There is a criminal underground. In fact, there are two rings. The first is the Mexican grime ring, and the second is by Hank himself, whose corruption runs team and has caused much death.
Yes, corruption is a big theme of the movie when it comes to Hank, the white detective who is arrogant and racist, the man who is the most immoral of all. In this movie, the "hero", Charlton Heston (Mike Vargas is the character) does not appear morally ambivalent. He is alienated from white society, but he does not carry a pessimistic viewpoint. Instead, he seems to want to see the best in people, and he also carries a strong sense of honor and sense of duty to reveal the truth.
The issues from AMST 274 that make an appearance into the film is the relational dimension in the way that the police as an institution, by way of Hank, automatically assume certain things about Mexican people, negative, racist things. Just like in A Better Life, when the police ask the boy to take his shirt off so he can photograph his gang tattoos, only to see that the boy has none, in Touch of Evil Hank persists in making racist comments and looking down on Vargas, assuming that he has less brainpower and also assuming that he has intrinsic favoritism towards Mexicans when it comes to laying down the law.
The following is about Peter Travers' review of L.A. Confidential in "Rolling Stone"
The full review can be found here...
Travers' review is not formal in its language, but instead (being that it was published in "Rolling Stone") lashes out and uses profanity to emphasis his point.
It's interesting that, today, the actors from the film are recognizable and famous (esp. Russell Crow), but at the time they were relatively unknown. As Travers writes,
"For the two Los Angeles police officers at the core of the plot, Hanson has cast Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce, who happen to be native Australians and relative unknowns. The femme fatale is Kim Basinger, who hasn't made a movie in three years or been in hailing distance of a hit since the first Batman"
Overall, Travers praises the film, noting that Chinatown and the other initial markers for L.A. Noir were followed by several wanna-bees, but most of the time, the films were bad and heavily criticized. However, Travers believes that L.A. Confidential should be remembered as an important film for L.A. Noir. He notes the fantastic contrast between the characters, and the build up that results, paving the way for a twisty-turvy film in which, as Travers writes, "Moral rot infects the characters."
Travers is able to touch on several markers of the L.A. Noir genre in a remarkably short article (roughly a page). For instance, he writes about the moral ambiguity of characters in L.A. Noir, and how an audience should not have gone into the movie expecting to see/root for a hero. It's not about that. It's a bout the grittiness of human nature. For instance, one of the cops, played by Guy Pearce (Ed), wants to get ahead, and will do so at any cost. Thus, his actions for the most part are motivated not by strong morals/ethical concern, but by the drive to be better than everyone else. Although this is not an admirable trait, it is realistic.
Travers also mentions Kim Basinger's role as the femme fatale. I looked up what this means, and wikipedia gave me the following:
"A femme fatale is a stock character of a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art"
The femme fatale is also a trait of L.A. Noir. Basinger adopts this role int he film, as Travers remarks, for, just like Daphne in Devil in a Blue Dress, she uses her "feminine wiles" to get what she wants, and appears helpless and innocent, while more often than not being part of a dangerous plot.
There is also, as Travers writes, "Hollywood fixation". This seems to be a common trend in L.A. Noir: Hollywood. Los Angeles is in the title of the film, and is commonly used as the setting for Noir (i.e. Chinatown and Devil in a Blue Dress).
Travers also writes about the successful lighting executed in L.A. Confidential. He writes,
"Though the film is rich in atmosphere — cinematographer Dante Spinotti lights Ruth Myers' costumes and Jeannine Oppewall's production design to optimum effect — the emphasis is on character and on quality acting"
Dark lighting, or shadowy places, are a trope of Noir, and obviously L.A. Confidential was no exception to the rule. Lighting plays a very important role.
As a final note, here is a scene from the film that shows: femme fatale, shadowy lighting and... Russell Crowe in the film that made him famous...
I'm not sure how much an audience plays a role in the ethics of such situations. It is popular belief that the majority of people don't know anything until they hear it from the news, which means in that case, that the audience's role is to listen to the newscaster. Thus, it is their role, also, to decide which side they are on. Thus, the newscasters or the newspaper writers have a job: convince the audience.
