Reading:Donna Harraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto"
(After skimming the beginning of the article, begin reading in earnest at the section marked Fractured Identities.)
Question:
Born in Flames is a sci-fi look at a fictional future wherein a socialist revolution has taken over the country and all people are supposedly "equal." How does the film represent technology and the media? Are they tools for empowerment or repression, or both? Does the film represent technology as "gendered?" Did you see any connections between the film and Sobol's discussion of oral culture and literate values? How do you feel the film resonates with issues of identity and technology that Donna Harraway discusses in her article, specifically with regard to her conception of the cyborg?
A reminder about our schedule over the next couple of weeks:
Thursday, November 22nd - Eat turkey
Thursday, November 29th - In class we will discuss afro-futurism, the intersections of technology and race and gender, and Born in Flames. Open Korsakow workshops - Computer labs will be open for you to work on your projects independently with guidance from the TAs.
Thursday, December 6th - Presentations of completed Korsakow projects. Projects due to your TA by the end of class.
52 comments:
the film shows the use of media to express ideas, it is used for propaganda. it showed the truth along with lies, which is a big issue today. no one knows if they can trust the media. the technology in the film i thought was pretty old technology compared with what we have today, but it is used to spread information, just like technology is today. we strive for ways to make technology spread out information in easy ways. for exapmle the internet, its a good source of information adn we try to make it extremely easy to get connected to it, like making it accessable through cell phones. i definatly think it is used for enpowerment and repression. whne they used the radio programs to express the feminist views and what is happening to women is an example of enpowerment. they were able to spread their messages to many. the use of newspaper to lie about the death of norris was an example of repression, it gave false info to hinde the truth, which was immoral. the film represented technology as gendered. the only radio they showed were feminist radio programs and when the womens army went into the tv news set it was mostly men working, and also they women who worked for the newspaper was run by a man.
the film shows how women are mistreated and are not equal to men even though it is said to be. the article disscusses this. how women's eqaulity is imagitive. "The cyborg is a matter of fiction and lived experience that changes what counts as women's experience in the late twentieth century" she discusses how we are cyborgs due to is real and technological componets. development of technology is believed to be male dominate, leaving men to create the cyborg women.
First, I don't think the statement "all people are supposedly equal" is relevant to the film we watched. Perhaps I missed something, but the whole thing seemed more about striving to bring this equality, rather than that equality being part of the film already. Second, I found it disturbing that the film showed a group of women who were out to help other women from getting raped as people with "too much power and acting outside the law." How many times have we heard this? Whatever happened to citizen's arrest? Yes the film was based obviously upon women's equality, but it could be said that it was more about the government's wishes. Yes, the women did things they shouldn't have, such as breaking into CBS and broadcasting their message without permission, but I think we are focusing too much on gender and not looking beneath the issue enough. Ultimately these women simply wanted fair treatment and stood up for what they felt they deserved. They made people listen. When they came across women getting attacked, they took matters into their own hands. This takes power away from the government, which they of course see as a bad thing. No government official wants a thinking or self-motivated citizen. But the "man" can't be everywhere. In fact, perhaps this is the gender issue right here...not women against the workforce, but rather women against the government's suppression. The tie I see between the cyborg and the women in the film is this sense of connection we have to technology. Technology furthers the women's campaigns in the film. If it weren't for that technology, they would not have been as effective. Yet, on the other hand, that technology also hindered them, when the "man" stepped in and covered up Norris's murder. Following this path, technology can be male or female in gender, but in accordance to the film's perspective, the government, or male, side, it the "dark" side. Furthering this thought, the woman that was small and frail and sang on the radio show looked like she could pass for a man easily. Perhaps this is yet another reference to the impersonality of technology, how it can be male or female, good or bad, depending on who controls it.
~Jackie Bentley, Group 3
Michael Schafer Group 3
First, I agree with Jillisa Suprise in that the media used throughout the film was used for propaganda. The main sources of technology used was the radio, and the television. They had an all women's radio station talking about the mistreatment of women and that they should stand up, conform together to put an end to this. They hijacked the t.v. station and had one of the women's coalition leaders give a speech. Other leaders of the coalition would walk up and down streets getting other women to join. The message was spreading fast and to a vast majority. In that sense, the depiction of technology wasn't so far off. Now-a-days information is instant. If you live in California and a platoon was killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb you know instantly. But now that information is instant you can never rely on the source. Wikipedia is a prime example. People update information on that daily and most of the stuff is made up. Information is becoming more and more bias. You have ten different interviewers at one spot to cover the same story. They all ask the questions to get answers they want to hear. They get what they want out of them. And you hear to many sides to the story. Much like today's political campaigns. You see candidates make videos about their competition. The videos are meant to demean their opponents. Some many lies are passed through those videos you don't even have a clue who's telling the truth anymore.
The film “Born in Flames” represents the media a conduit for people trying to their own view points to the masses. We saw that different types of media were employed by different parties and were obviously slanted to the views of the people using it. Network television was used primarily by the new socialist government. The large and heavily influential broadcasts portrayed woman activists as extremists who were doing harm on society. Smaller venues such as pirate radio and flyers were used by the woman’s army. These forms of media reflected the activist’s viewpoints which in the context of the film were closer to truth as opposed to propaganda.
Technology was seen as somewhat gendered. The film portrayed women being rejected not only socially but from a technical stand point as well. This was prevalent in the later half of the film when the feminist radio was forced to go on the move due to vandals. The fact that the woman’s army had to forcibly break in a television studio to show what they wanted broadcasted is a clear indication of women’s exclusion from the technology used everyday. We also saw that the television studio was run solely by men. Oral culture was a major device used by the woman’s army in the film. They had to work mostly underground, so oral records were safer than writing things down. It was used as a protection from a government that didn’t want to see these ideas spread. The article describes that in the future, cyborgs will face hardships like women are now. It says that the white male majority will continue to favor itself and prevent the new cyborg minority from obtaining more power. This is much like the events depicted in the film.
Lydell Peterson
Group 1 (Emir)
“Born into Flames” represents technology through the media both through a propaganda standpoint and through a standpoint of sharing different views. The use of the television broadcasts to influence the audience into believing that these acts are of an extremist nature (even terrorist nature, like when they force the tv station to play their recording at gunpoint) is how technology is represented in the media. Also, the fact that the message is broadcasted represents an alternate depiction and different angle to the story that the masses may (and probably aren’t) be receiving in the media. I believe that they can be viewed as both tools for empowerment and repression, depending on which side you choose after viewing the film. If you side with the “born into flamers” then you will be more empowered. If you side with the “anti-flamers” you might feel more of a repression. I believe the film does represent a hint of being gendered but when further analyzed it can be applied to all who face oppression. I believe that oral culture is used thoroughly by the “flamers” in effort to equalize the playing field and help better organize. In one part of the film agents looking for paperwork of the leaders of the “flamers” were unable to find distinct acknowledgements as to who was running this organization. This helped in the success of the organization and helped prevent it from being squashed from the top down.
I believe that the film resonates with Harraway’s article in the sense that eventually our convergences into becoming more and more cyborg will only further the separation and oppression as to who really is human. While being more cyborg may help when it comes to handicapped or disabled people feel more human, the human fear and anxiety of machines taking over also comes into play. Thus, the idea of the cyborg population being repressed, just like the “flamers” were in “Born into Flames.” (Depending if you chose to side with their view).
Donna Haraway uses the image of the cyborg figuratively, not literally. The entire Cyborg Manifesto is to introduce her ideal of a 'genderless' world. She believes that old classifications of humans (into race, gender, class) no longer work, and she uses the cyborg (an organism which is half alive and half machine) to demonstrate how these boundaries can be 'breached'.
As for technology as a tool for oppression or domination, I can not believe that. Any technological device is non-gendered (until someone comes out with a genital scanner, I don't see a device HAVING or BELONGING to any gender) and non-motivated. A tool's motive only exists in relation to the user of the tool. A hammer is a tool with neither a constructive motive or a destructive motive, but the same person could either use a hammer to build (construction) or could also use it as a weapon (destruction).
As for Born in Flame's relation to the Cyborg Manifesto, the ideals of sexism, racism and classism are both seen as ideas of oppression and both seek to incite a revolution or change in how we classify people.
~~Eric Fritz, Group 3
The film incorporates both technology and media, when the women’s army took over a live television broadcast to get their views across. They were used to show how they socialist government has power over everyone, and wanted to make a statement on how it needs to end. Empowerment and repression were also both used but it depends on your individual views/opinions of the film. I’d say most of the film is gendered, mostly women but also shows how the government was controlling different races and politics. Donna Harraway talks about how cyborgs are taking over society and becoming more and more like humans, to the point that we wont be able to tell the different between the machine and a human. But I don’t see that ever happened, yes technology is becoming more advanced and new inventions are made everyday but I don’t believe they could ever take over the human race.
A. Gray
Group 4
Lizzie Borden uses her media to spread ideas into our culture. Just like in “Born into Flames” the women up risers use the media to spread ideas into the socialist culture that has come to be. They use technology/medias to integrate their ideas among everyday people. This is a major representation how media and technology and how it’s used. They use technology and media as tools of empowerment to reach the minds of the citizens. But they also showed media’s, such as technology, as repression because lies were being fed through them. For example when Norris died they lied about her death through the newspaper. The film can definitely show example of gendered technology. With each media that was presented in this film there always seemed to be gender to it. For example when the women invaded the news station there seemed to be mostly if not all men working there. One major connection that I saw between oral culture and “Born into Flames” was that the women used oral culture to reach their audience. Especially when trying to keep their cause underground oral culture seemed to be the way to go. Men technically don’t have more rights than women but it seems that women feel that men have dominance in our culture. You could say that women feel like men have created them into a type of cyborg minorities and they feel that it will stay that way.
Colin Sytsma, Group 3, 115
The use of technology in "Born In Flames" was definitely in use on both sides; for truth and empowerment and for lies and repression. The women operated radio stations and when they took over the TV station at gun point were examples of how the technology was being used to spread the truth and help motivate people. On the other hand there were several TV broadcasts (given by men) where they spewed propaganda saying the women were terrorists and attacking men at random.
On the subject of technology and gender, theoretically, there should not and is not a distinction between which gender should have access to what technology. But in the film they make it out to seem as there is a distinction. Women aren't supposed to use guns, shouldn't be able to ride bikes and blow whistles, shouldn't be able to run their own radio stations. We have moved away from that diversionary type of thinking but there still seems to be a small, unconscious hesitation for true technological equality.
I think the connection to Sobol's arguments is in the understanding that you cannot trust what you see on TV just because it's on TV. That information is not true information, it has been filtered through the person writing the actual news thus making it that much further from the truth. In respects to Harraway's de-gendered, de-individualized, mechanistic, cyborg society; it would only work in a world focused only on production and consumption and it would work perfectly. But there is so much more of life; relationships, loves, hates, loyalties, etc., that it would not work and cause what the women in the movie wanted: a revolution.
Toby Staffanson - Group 4
The film used media and technology to get their message out there into the world. They were fed up with being walked on and ignored, they wanted to be heard. I think these women used the media for both empowerment and repression. They used it as empowerment when they tried to get their voice out and to get women to listen and stand up for themselves. They tried to get women to join together to fight for their rights and equality. They also used it for empowerment after the two womens’ radio stations were burned or whatever, they used the media to basically say they were still here and to get people together against that kind of violence. I agree with the people who said previously that media nowadays is very biased. You really can’t tell what’s true and what’s lies. Even watching the news, each station has their own spin on it. For example, if there’s some kind of story that breaks out in a city, that city may present the story one way, perhaps in a more delicate way as if not to scare the people of that city. However, another city may present it in a completely different way.
-Sarah Myszewski Group 3
I thought that Born in Flames was an excellent piece for portraying the need for equality between genders. The media technologies from the film were radio and television. All of the radio broadcasters were women. I kind of saw this as the older technology being thrown to the women while the newer technology, AKA TV, was run by mostly men if I remember correctly. These medias could be used for empowerment or repression depending on how they are used and the audience they reach. I think it would have been interesting to introduce the internet as a technology for this movie, because the web is the largest and most encompassing technology that we have right now. It makes me wonder which gender would have been portrayed with the control of it, that is if it would be a gendered technology. With regard to Sobol's ideas of oral culture and literate values, the movie portrays this well. The women control the radio which is very oral. Not only that but to keep secrecy about involvment women's army they spread news by word of mouth. Harraway's article was very confusing for me, but I think basically her conception of the cyborg is that our technology has started to intertwine into our personality and our identity. Technology has started to play a very important role in basic life. And the people that have power over how it changes our identity are the people that have the power over technology. In order to stop the conception of a cyborg, be it any race, gender, or sexuality, we have to take care when dealing with technology and I think that the film shows this very well.
Throughout the film "Born in Flames" technology was both shown as tools for both empowerment and repression. Technology allowed the women to broadcast their message more efficiently, using television. They did it in an illegal way, but it was still a use of technology. However, technology was also used to track these "extremists" and attempt to control them. In the film I didn't see the "equality". It seemed as if women and poor and underprivileged people still had to fight for their rights and did not seem equal.
Joe Simanis (Group 2)
The film represents technology and the media through the interesting use of radio, television, and other sources of advertisements and the spread of information. The technology and media portrayed in the film are conveyed as empowering because the figures and persons employing the uses of these technologies use them to gain power and support for their radical and zealous causes. The technology, however, does not appear to "gendered." There is no splicing of it's power between sexes and there is no bias display showing us that only, or a preferred gender, controls the media and/or technology. Rather it involves a split conscience between what is executed orally and what is executed in other manners, such as physical and concrete, splitting what is said to be true and what is in fact reality, differently. There is the concept of what is supposedly real, and then the reality of what is truly going on. This involves the separation of worlds, allowing individual identities to careen off course and become something else . . . possibly allowing this "cyborg representation" a possibility.
-Matthew Balz Group 3
Concerning the film Born in Flames and how it represents the media, I think it does represent it as both a tool for empowerment and a tool for repression. In the scene when the four women break into the news studio, they use the media to broadcast their message on television. However, it can be said that the same scene can be viewed as a form of repression because when the news station covers the story of the invasion, they use terms like terrorists to persuade their audience into viewing these rebellious women as detrimental to society. Relating to Donna Harraway’s article, Harraway says, “Cyborg feminists have to argue that 'we' do not want any more natural matrix of unity and that no construction is whole.” I think this relates to the issues of identity and technology in Born in Flames because, like in the movie, they are constantly oppressed even when they have strength in numbers.
Max Larsen
Group 3
Tony Lopez
Group 4
This web of inventions that we call media can be used in thousands of different ways. The technologies can be abused in some ways, and they can also be brilliant for communication or other uses such as entertainment. People can use communication such as film or radio for terrible uses. Eli Roth’s Hostel was actually a commentary on how the modern world uses these technologies. Hollywood uses film as a form of entertainment. News affiliates use film to get stories and information out. Local radio channels use radio waves and transmitters to get their music out. There is also people in this world that use technologies for higher reasons, and people who use them for horrifying reasons. People in this world find these technologies to get their struggles out. Terrorists use communications such as film and radio to get their message out to the world. Terrible images are floating around the media. Born in Flames depicts the same thing happening. Just this time its for a more just cause, but still a revolution of sorts. In a mans world, men dominate the mediums. The scene where the girls of the revolution break into the Television studio you may notice there is only men operating the directors booth or guarding the entrance. This gives the women the power and dominance. They broadcast their message of “equal rights” across America. However, this film is only fiction. Men still dominate the mediums, and create the upcoming opportunities. The male’s of our specie is creating the technologies that become us, the inventions that become extensions of our bodies. The females are letting these male dominated mediums become part of them.
Jacob Feiring
Group 2 Emir
Born in Flames conveys the idea that technology and media are used in a variety of different ways, and in some ways they are tools for empowerment and tools for repression and in some ways they are both. The film showed how media and technology were used to explain and spread ideas and information, however, it was also used in ways to spurt propaganda. Media is an important tool in obtaining and sharing information, however, it can also be used negatively. When the women hijacked the TV station for example, the use of media for sharing ideas could have been interperted as telling a truth to a blind society or using propaganda. It's up to the viewer to recognize what holds value and truth in the media.
The film clearly resonated with issues of identity and technology that Harraway discusses as the idea of humans becoming “more cyborg” theoretically suggests a way for a more equal society. However, as we strive to institute this way of thinking, it can potentially create more problems. Harraway states, “Cyborg imagery can suggest a way out of the maze of dualisms in which we have explained our bodies and our tools to ourselves." Perhaps Cyborg imagery can take society out of its confines of division, and make us strictly notice the skills that humans have to offer, whether male or female, however, as we strive to strictly notice the human, we intentionally try to distinguish ourselves by category.
In relation to Sobl’s argument of oral culture and the film viewed in class, it seems that the common tie is based on the idea that the media is a powerful tool that can be useful but can’t always be trusted. There is truth and there is propaganda.
This film had views similar to a previous posting about filmed to recorded events hold more validity simply because a camera is present. The idea that a camera doesn't lie and portrays all events effectively and without bias, is something we see again and again. This film forces their propaganda at the audience, knowing we, as the viewers, are more apt to believe it if we see it and hear it. Now of course we can do this more effectively now with the higher forms of technology that are available to us today, but the principle is there, and it worked for them.
I think Donna Haraway is using the word cyborg to make up this "perfect, genderless life form". Taken solely from the good qualities of a human and her views, she make a, sort of, re-mix of the human population. A sci-fi type of idea but this portrays her views rather nicely, and it's a nice dream world for her. She does touch on some good ideas of equality and such, but these views have been seen, time and time again, and repeated throughout history. She does, however, force them on her audience in a different way, which I liked.
~Kurt Sensenbrenner
group 3
I agree with Jackie Bentley that all people are not created equal in this movie because the women are striving to make society see them as equal to men. They are discriminated against in society for being women and are trying to show they can be just as powerful as men. This film represents technology and media by having it used as a form of propaganda. The women use media like radio to get women to come together and show that they are just as powerful as men. The women’s army in the film used oral culture because it was smarter for them to plan everything by talking rather then having written documentation. Technology and media are tools for both empowerment and repression because they help the women come together but show arrogance at the same time. I think the film does show technology as gendered because you only see the women using certain technology. Donna Haraway pretty much states that the chapter “…is an effort to build an ironic political myth faithful to feminism, socialism, and materialism.” She talks about feminism and the movie was pretty much about feminist women who wanted to show their worth to society by acting out and helping women who are being attacked or raped. She also talks about how a cyborg is a creature of social reality as well as fiction. The women’s movement, the experience itself was a fiction and fact of the political kind just like the notion of cyborgs.
Judith Marker
Group 1
Born in Flames was hardly a sci-fi movie; if anything it was a mocumentary about a fake revolution that results in a ruling Party. We know from 1984 and the USSR that one ruling Party scares the citizens into pretending they're safe. The technology I saw was still from the '90's, not updated in any way. TV studios still look like that, radio stations still look like that, and rogue radio programs can still steal airwaves from inside a van (such as in Sonic Outlaws). The film represents media as being the only outlet for protest, which it isn't. Media begins as a tool for revolution and uprising, but only to a certain point. The women writing the paper can protest a little, but they are fired when they try to take full control. Technology itself is shown in the film to be a man's thing that has to be stolen by women for use. A connection to Sobol's oral culture is that radio is still around and used. One has to pay for a small TV channel or hold up a TV studio for air time, but radio can be easily stolen from the air. Relating to identity, the women in Born in Flames must work under men in the government who misunderstand them or work illegally above them; Harraway says cyborgs have no gender, meaning they cannot be placed in an unequal system and they will be unwelcome in an equal system. However, I don't think Harraway's ideas relate to Born in Flames at all: she's rather off topic considering this film is not futuristic, simply an alternate reality.
-Julianne Arnstein G4
Timothy Sienko, Group 4
Media can both oppress and empower both the producers and consumers. The film takes great lengths to remind viewers that the opressive socialists were once the oppressed victims of democracy. However, the media as used by the dissenting women's factions seems particularily subversive. The media is not only the tool of the government but it is also masculine. The women who've commandeered radio frequencies for their own agendas speak into phallic microphones. The film never shows anyone listening. When they finally hold up an established television station at gunpoint, the world finally takes notice. The various radio stations employed by the women's action groups relied very heavily on oral values rather than literate values. Their meetings were never recorded, their objectives were interpreted in an open dialog over the airwaves, rather than transmitted as truth.
Harroway's ideas of the cyborg echo the identity of the women (and all members of the socialist society) that is both incubated and suffocated but the use of technology and the media. The women communicate and broadcast their ideas using the same media that is oppressing them,
Technology in "Born in Flames" is used primarily for propaganda, from either side of the little civil war which takes place in the movie. It is gendered, as television is primarily used to display the "male" side of events, and the radio and newspaper is used to transmit the "female" side. However, as events progress, television is slowly taken over by the female perspective using another form of technology, automatic weaponry.
The film addresses females being considered lesser than men, as in the article cyborgs are said to be, in the future, disrespected and considered lesser by humans.
The film Born in Flames shows how the media can often take things and add propaganda. When the Women’s Army came to the rescue of a woman being attacked by men, the news immediately labeled the group terrorists. In this film, the media and technology are gendered, as men used the media to condemn the women from speaking out about fair wages and equality. Women used pirated radios to speak out and rebel against the government, and by the finale of the film the women were able to use the male orientated media to help themselves.
I do see a connection with Sobol’s discussion on oral culture in that with oral culture one doesn’t hear a woman’s point of view. Because of the machismo that is prevailing, people often ignore what women’s point of views, opinions and everything else. Born in Flames basically reminds me of a quote. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” The socialist movement came into the United States and it was to make everyone equal, yet in this story we find out that women aren’t really equal. As the government is telling everyone one thing, we, the viewer, are seeing what is happening to each female character who tries to live day by day. The women however, aren’t seen as complete humans but simply objects that are there for the enjoyment of men. With Donna Harraway’s article, I could definitely see some of her article in the film. There wasn’t a sense of identity among the women, as they all came from different places. (Even some of the characters themselves, made references to why they couldn’t get along with the Women’s Army.) Some women were placed higher on the totem pole than others, and others voices were being quiet all together.
Veronica Mosley Group 4
Theresa Ennis
Group 04 (Chris)
The Film "Born in Flames" represents the media in the form of them taking the opposing side of what the womans army, and the two radio stations. The television studios are repressing the movement and helping the government try and detain the leaders. There is a connection between the film and reading showing oral culture, because the majority of the movie was showing people voicing their opinion over public airwaves.
the use of media in the film is alot like what we see today. It is used to spread lies to miss-guide the people but also it speaks the truth about some things too. This is alot like media today because you really can't trust what you see. The government censors really influence the media in alot of ways. Technology in the film was pretty old school to todays standards but back then, it was pretty high tech. It seems like all the main-stream technology that has been coming out lately has been for mass communication or ways to get our information spead easly. Cell phones and the internet have made accessing and retrieving information extremely easy. They even have made internet accessable phones. I think it was really used for enpowerment and repression because of the feminist views. The radio station really showed enpowerment because how it portrayed women and what was going on with them at the time. The way the media lied about the death of Norris is a way of repression because the are keeping the truth from the poeple and lie to them. The article really talked about how men and women are not equal. She said that woman's rights were imaginitive.
Our society and the culture we have growing today is highly influenced by the media. The media is able to manipulate our youth and subject them to things that might not always be true or benefitial in that matter. The movie we viewed in class, Born In Flames, definitely used older film technology and it was apparent throughout the film. Today,in our contemporary film world, we have the highest quality, most up to date technology right at our finger-tips. This also applies to the world we live in, outside of movies and television. our culture is always looking for the next best thing. And with media, we are able to use these new techniques and technological tools to our advantage. Like in the movie, they were able to use the radio as a way to broadcast their feelings and anger and emotions. Even when they air the videotape on the news, they knew because of the media's dominant power, the footage would be view by a great number of people.
But with this development of technology it seems to be surely dominated by men. She talks about this in the article. And because of the power of the men, they are the ones creating the cyborg women, for better of for worse.
Tyler Hudson, Group 1
Born in Flames is a sci-fi look at a fictional future wherein a socialist revolution has taken over the country and all people are supposedly "equal." However, the use of technology in "Born In Flames” demonstrates the falseness of this equality. The women were forced to operate underground radio stations and had to take over a TV station at gun point. These are examples of how the technology was being used to spread the truth and help motivate people. On the other hand there were several TV broadcasts where the male dominated government spewed propaganda saying the women were terrorists and randomly attacking men. One can see how technology is used for both moral and immoral purposes. In “born in Flames” technology is certainly gendered. The film portrayed women being rejected not only socially but from a technical stand point as well. This was prevalent in the later half of the film when the feminist radio was forced to go on the move due to vandals. The fact that the woman’s army had to forcibly break in a television studio to show what they wanted broadcasted is a clear indication of women’s exclusion from the technology used everyday. We also saw that the television studio was run solely by men. This made oral culture a major device used by the woman’s army in the film. They had to work mostly underground, so oral records were safer than writing things down. It was used as a protection from a government that didn’t want to see these ideas spread. In her article, Donna Harraway says, “Cyborg feminists have to argue that 'we' do not want any more natural matrix of unity and that no construction is whole.” Donna Haraway is using the image of the cyborg figuratively, not literally. The entire Cyborg Manifesto is to introduce her ideal of a 'genderless' world. She believes that old classifications of race, gender and class are no longer practical, and the cyborgs is used to demonstrate how these boundaries can be abolished.
Matt Smaglik
Group 1
In my opinion, 'Born in Flames' takes (at least a semi-recent) wave of technology to progress the cause of this socialist-feminist movement it entertains. I think it portrayed the media somewhat realistically, though the abitlity of the feminist characters to advertise their opinions seemed to be done with too little discouragement. In the respect of the narrative, the use of the media seemed to empower these women, to further them. A few variations I picked up were through the socialist newspaper, the two radio shows with female DJ's, the airing of their stories on network news, and finally thier take-over of the news station. I think Sobol's idea that oral culture has come to dominate literate culture supports the stance of the female characters in the film; in the case of their protests and on-air displays of rebellion. To me these women weren't as concerned with documenting what was going on, (with the exception of the newspaper), but rather in executing their cause, and passing along their message word-of-mouth. Harraway's article, to me, was about technology coming into contact with human life on a very realistic level. I think her idea of the cyborg being a sort of ultra-feminist heroine is realistic enough for the ideals that the female characters in the film may have entertained; it could have been a dream come true for them. Outside of the film, though, I don't think I would give her theory much room to breath.
Nacia Schreiner g1
The story of a revolutionary movement for women is the center piece for the film Born in Flames. Through use of media technology such as radio and television, the feminists of the woman’s army send their message across the country. A popular radio show features the revolutionary women as they recite their manifestos and promote movements, the television news programs pick up the drastic stories of the women’s army events. Furthermore, the high jacking of one particular prime time show allowed a deep message to be sent across, uncensored to the thousands tuned in. The high jacking also symbolized the struggle for women to gain awareness in a patriarchal society, taking over the men at the television station to broadcast a woman’s perspective instead.
Donna Harraway describes the women’s movement as a societal cyborg, meaning “a hybrid machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction.” Because the women act in cohesiveness with technology they become a cyborg existence and therefore allowing the audience to interpret their significance, fact or fiction.
Born in Flames is centralized around technology and its ability to give their efforts a louder voice. Radio was a way for them to recruit more women to support their cause. Television was a way for them to make public the crime the FBI had committed. These were both tools for empowerment. Radio could possibly be considered female, just because women dominated the stations throughout the movie. However, television could be considered male until the women broke into the station and demanded their tape be played.
I think there are similarities between the way the women were treated in the film and our fear of how we may be treated if cyborgs became a race on our planet. The women's attempts to gain social equality may stir anxieties we have of becoming inferior.
I personally found the film to be frustrating rather than liberating. Some of the women's methods didn't seem as productive as they could have been.
Devin Smith, group 1
Technology and the media are represented in this film how they were about 15-20 years or so ago, when almost everything was still communicated by radio and television was used mainly for big announcements. The only media you see are the two radio stations that show their own views on women's rights through music. They are tools for both empowerment and repression. Empowerment because its a way for women to get their message out but repression because it's clearly stated that those two stations are the only voice that women have legally and they have to go to some extreme measures in the film to get any more respect from anyone. In the same way you can say that the technology was gendered because it is assumed that the rest of the radio stations were run by men. In regards to Sobol's article on oral elements, there is sort of a connection in the way that the women in the film chose to convey their message to other women. Music that says something without words, or even better with, is a very powerful way of getting your message across. The thought that Haraway has with the falsifications of the cyborg idea in politics and how she says the "woman's experience" is false for those who say it because it being a matter of life and death when none of the woman speaking of it have died is exactly what is in this film. Up until the "assassination" of one of the leaders in the film, the voices over the radio(cyborg) is no more real than the people's experiences behind them. While the idea behind it is very true, the means in conveying this idea are a bit more machine than human.
Derrick Markowski - Group 3
I find it interesting how a lot of the themes and information in these different sources (Born in Flames, A Cyborg Manifesto and Hip Hop's Four Oral Elements) seem to have absolutely nothing in common. From technology to feminism to hip hop, these topics are very different, however, when you take the time to think about their themes and messages, there happens to be much in common. Both "Born in Flames" and "Hip Hop's Four Oral Elements", talk about equality. Whether it's by race or gender, both have themes which highlight the differences between races or genders. Now, it's easy to see how these two fit together, but "A Cyborg Manifesto" is a different story. At first, I didn't see how feminism tied in with the cyborg and it's representation of technology. But, once I started to think about the themes of these articles and the movie, I realized that the cyborg is a representation of the fantasy of equality. Cyborgs or robots are raceless, genderless and classless. They don't fall into a cycle of colonialism or capitalism, etc. They just are. They are create to perform a task, or multiple tasks, and as long as they are successful, they are equal to all other cyborgs. Essentially, this is what all of the authors we read are talking about. They want a society with equality. Where that becomes scary, and this is represented well in the movie, is that if people start to resemble cyborgs, then when does technology take over. And when does equality turn to monotony? There are many topics of discussion and potential scenarios that come out of these essential questions. All in all, very thought provoking articles.
Kristen Gibb Group 3
Peter Holzinger
group 1
Born in Flames represents technology and the media as being used much as it is today. They are tools for empowerment which also makes them tools that can be used to oppress a group with interests that conflict with those of the group that is being empowered. Born in Flames showed women using radio as a means of empowerment. Through it they could make people aware of the wrongs that were being done to them as well as call for unity in order to stand up against the powers that be. The film also showed the ability for media to repress through their big brother-like surveillance of the feminist group's activities and the false information presented to explain the death of Adelaide Norris. Born in Flames definitely presents technology as gendered. The television station that the women break into has only men working in it and the newspaper, while it has women working for it, is run by a male chief editor who all the women must answer to. While the women do have control of their radio shows, this is probably the weakest form of mass communication when compared to the other two. I would say the film does address the issues of oral and literate cultures. The feminist group operates and organizes itself through oral means leaving behind no condemning paper trail for the government to follow. This is shown when their meeting place is raided by the surveillance people and nothing useful is found. Again, the concept of radio hits on this oral tradition as well. Conversely, the government relies on literate values in order to keep everything under control and maintain the status quo. The film draws parallels between the notion of a mistreated feminist faction unifying against favored society and what Harraway predicts will happen to cyborgs. The cyborgs, like the feminists, will be forced to band together in order to look out for their interests since they will be the repressed group in society. However, the task seems even more difficult for cyborgs than for the women in Born in Flames. While the women still had problems - differing opinions about what they needed and how to get it - they shared unifying qualities such as gender and sexuality. Harraway writes that the nature of cyborgs will mask these unique qualities making it more difficult form groups based on obvious similarities.
Born in Flames was an interesting investigation into the concept of woman's involvment in political decision making and the usage of media that is necessary to empower such decision making.
By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs.
In relation to Harroway's article on cyborg's, it seems as if she means only a relationship between the organic individual, and their given relationship with technology. In Born in Flames, the groups of "feminists" who are really seeking for equality for all in a warped socialist society that needs to be reset. The radio stations that the different groups maintain are a venue to spread their desires and opinions to those with a radio. The radio station and the personal radio both being "extenstions" of the human body in electrical form. Those who have the quality of a "cyborg" that means communication between mass groups of people have insight as to the corruption of the U.S. Government.
Overall, the comparison of the film to media is interesting to see a hopeful way of change for those who see corruption in our government. Media is not only a way of corruption, through propaganda and selective new's reporting a lack of truth, but also a way to dissolve corruption. Unfortunately, Born in Flames ends on a violent note, hopefully media is a strong enough form of change on its own without the use of violence.
Born in Flames represented the use of media as a medium to get a message across. This is why media is present in society. The only challenge is how to get messages onto the media in order to send that message in a widespread area. The film represents radio as a medium which was transmitted through a small area. It then represents a takeover on a nationwide television channel to create a message throughout a very large area. Different types of media reach different size areas. Technology and media was a key to get their message across.
Technology was "gendered" in the film due to the topic at hand. Women were not being treated equally in the new socialist society and were being left out. Men were dominating society as well as the media in the film. Women were placed second and forced to spark a revolution.
Oral culture was not just a big part of the film, but rather, THE film. Women were outspoken on their unfair treatment and spoke to other women to bring more people to the resistance.
On Harraway's views of cyborgs reflect what the women in Born in Flames were doing to get their message out. Women were using their human side to voice their opinions and views and using their technology side, which was radio an television, to deliver that message.
I find it interesting that cyborgs can be looked at in a modern sense, or more closely related to our time period. I like how "Born in Flames" is a sci-fi film but you would never know it from just watching it. yes, it takes place in the future but the mechanical droids, astros and beakers and such are missing. I guess its wierd to see an "indie" sci-fi flick with real political implications. In the film, technology is used as a tool for change, or opression, depending on who has the power. The radio and the media serve as the number one influnce to society (just as it does today).
The "social revolution" sounds like such a good thing, yet these women fight against it because it doesn't include them. It is a wierd form of science fiction, where politics take more of the center stage than actual science. The "cyborg", as Donna Haraway explained, is the media, and it serves to feed us our information and show us how to live as citizens of whatever media conglomerate we choose. I realized while i was watching but didn't address it to myself, when i saw that they hijacked the whole television network with just a gun, that was so powerful. It's like they hacked into something that can change millions of people lives with just a handgun. The media is like a giant cyborg, and i never realized it till i read the article by Donna Haraway.
"communications sciences and modern biologies are constructed by a common move — the translation of the world into a problem of coding, a search for a common language in which all resistance to instrumental control disappears and all heterogeneity can be submitted to disassembly, reassembly, investment, and exchange."
This quote from her article makes so much sense. The media is just out to unify everyone into something that the country wants. It shapes the mind and drives the country. It's funny because i never though a "socialist revolution" would be horrible, but it sounds terrible now. Individuality would all be lost and the "cyborg" could take over the media. Not that it hasn't already.
Noah Therrien
Group 4
Ryan Laing
Group 2
As Donna Haraway talks about in her article, that society is becoming much more reliant on technology and as a result is creating a much more generalized world. While in some aspects it is helping with issues of racism and sexism and other biases in society, on the other hand it can also be argued that it is helping remove individuals sense of identity , and the 'human' aspect of living. In Born In Flames, the women use technology to get their word out and get their issues across to the masses like many other 'respected' organizations do, but since they are black women, their voice and issues are not heard with the same respect. It brings up the issues of gendered media and shows how while technology and media can be used to help spread the ideas of people who otherwise couldn't get their ideas out, it takes time before society grows to accept that fact because clearly in the movie people still are hesitant to listen to the women as people with legitimate issues rather then just rebels hijacking a tv station. I think at this point in real life this is finally starting to happen with the internet and blogs where anyone can voice their opinions becoming so acceptable.
The film Born in Flames used technology through media to get their message out to the world. The women wanted their voices to be heard opposed to being ignored all the time; therefore I believe that they used technology for both empowerment and repression. The reason it was used for empowerment was to get their message out to other women so that it would be known that there are people who are willing to stand up for what they believe in, and will never stop even if their radio station gets burned down. I believe that technology was also used for repression because no one ever knows whether or not television stations are telling the complete truth in what they send out. Every station has their own political views behind every move they make therefore making it impossible to distinguish truth from lies. The film can relate to Donna Harraway’s article relating to the cyborg in the sense that technology plays a key role in the identities of many people and therefore who ever controls the technology controls how people identify themselves. This relates to the film because whoever controls the television stations, being the technology, controls the vast majority of the media therefore manipulating people into what they should become.
Mike Terrill
Group 4
“Born in Flames” is a film about propaganda more than anything else. All sides of the issues within this film used what media they had available to spread propoganda, the problem with this obviously being there was no exchange of views and no attempt to come up with a solution, each side did nothing but praise itself and demonize the enemy. The government mainly used television, while the women's army and the rival splinter groups used radio and television, but as the women's army gained power they were able to use television as well, albeit at the point of a gun.
Throughout history this kind of exchange takes place, with the government hammering ideas into people's heads with whatever mainstream media is available, and dissenters often having to use guerilla tactics and "old" media to get a message out. The interesting thing about the modern world is that this division is shrinking fast, the "dominant" media of television is losing fast to the internet, where any random person with a computer can put up their media and get views from all over the world. The government and powers that be end up trying to use the internet as well, and often end up looking clunky and unprofessional, this is not what they are used to doing. The internet can cause cultural change more than any other media so far due to how far it reaches into other cultures, new ideas spread around like wildfire, you run into concepts that you may never have without it. The traditional cultural borders such as the borders of the country you live in are no longer that powerful. This can tie in with the article in terms of how technology is affecting us as human beings... we carry this new technology with us everywhere, akin to cyborgs, and it employs new measures of control as well as outlets for new ideas.
^^ Jon Hillbo, Group 1
Film uses media to express ideas of and FOR propaganda. Of course, how soes it use it? Does it lie to us to sway our thoughts, or does it simply use the truth? In the film, I thought the technology they used was fairly out-dated. I feel that the tools are mostly used for empowerment, but also to show that the women are being repressed. The women in the film definately used the media for propaganda. Especially the part in which they cut off the president to address the issue of Donna Harraway's death. I would say that the film is gendered towards women (obviously). I agree with matt that the Oral culture was a major device used by the woman’s army in the film. since they were working secretly, it was easier for them to say things than write them down.
Mainly, the films shows how women are mistreated not just in the work place, but in all sorts of ways. And even though people say that there is equality between men and women, there really isnt. And these women wanted to prove to everyone that they were being mistreated. I think that the film is like Harraways' article in that we and our convergences into becoming more "cyborg" will only further the separation between men and women and oppression as to who really is human.
In my opinion the way in which the revolutionaries manipulated the story behind their comrade's death was in effect the equivalent of fascist propaganda. The revolutionary group changed the facts and exploited Norris's death for their own purposes. It is clearly evident that this group became a violent one as we saw in their terrorist attack, they utilized brute force and a display of performance violence in order to get their message out, but to what end? Why would murdering innocent people make us sympathize with their cause, or using guerrilla tactics to completely control the medium of television? Well these tactics aren't used for empathy these tactics are the same tactics socialist dictators use to instill fear into their people. It is a method of control over society. This kind of totalitarianism is comparable to that of fascist socialist states. A non-violent approach is always best, as proven by Martin Luther King Jr. and Ghandi. I would be more willing to empathize with the women's cause if they made a strong convincing argument rather than resorting to terrorist tactics. The women in this film used fear in order to assert complete control over other individuals.
-Brian Shea 4
Born in Flames represents the relationship between humans and the technology and media that we create. Media is used as a medium for communication for a global community and allows a "gate" into the minds and emotions of the people that it is heard by. The primary technology that was used by these women was their radio station broadcast where they were still able to play their music and speak their mind. As Haraway discusses in her Manifesto, the boundary between physical and non-physical is very imprecise for us. Born in Flames shows the irony of the relationship we have with our technology. The women are conscious of their presence and the effects that they have on their community, allowing for them to use technology and the media as a tool for empowerment, but without the development of this technology their communication would be repressed. I think that in our present cultural age that these technologies are viewed as merely common occurrences because of the overwhelming progression we have seen in the past 100 years. Humans display their ability to empower through our innovation, but it also displays the beginning developments of a society that is a hybrid of human and machine that oppresses the distinction we will have between organic and inorganic subjects in the future. Technology as a tool has an ability to empower and restrain simultaneously within our modern society.
I believe that Born In Flames represented technology as feminine because it was used for the empowerment of women specifically, but also empowerment of the general public in its underlying message. Oral Culture is how women raise the awareness on what they are fighting for, much like how Sobol discusses how rap emerged in the 1970's over the radio airwaves to exploit a socio-cultural problem. By embracing an oral culture they free themselves from the stereotype that to be literate is merely to read and write. They both show that to be accepted and to be acknowledged as having an understanding does not mean that you must read or write to be perceived as intelligent, but rather people can use the power of their mind to convey their ideas and understandings lucidly.
Harroway says that by the late 20th century we are all theorized and fabricated hybrids. I feel that it creates the sense that the border between man and machine is breeched and man's identity is overwhelmed by the power of machine, but both are condensed within one image. This gives an interesting identity to our modern culture and the identity of the characters within Born In Flames. The film raises the issues of identity within a "hybrid society" where we are Harroway's "cyborgs" that are losing our disconnect from these technologies, but within the film the character's possess the consciousness to fight for their identity. I think that this film and Harroway's manifesto raise awareness for the issues that technology brings forth presently regarding our sense of our identity and our understanding of technology's conceptions and incorporations into our everyday lives.
--Nick Reindl, Group Two
As many of the previous posters said, it seems as propaganda is coursed through the media and that the lives of the civilians are rote. It brings a question of technology and media and how much we should allow in our lives. I think they are tools for empowerment, only to an extent. Technology such as the internet empowers many to be connected with other, to learn, and to explore the world through their computer.
The women and the radio station is the example that sticks out in my mind when the question was raised of gendered in the film. Otherwise, I don’t see technology being gendered in society. Sure some technologies are targeted towards gender but I don’t see any large scale examples that would change society indefinitely.
Born in Flames was completely intertwined with technology. They go completely hand-in-hand together. Throughout this film, technology as well as the media both play a significant role in what the film is trying to say. I think that they are tools of both empowerment and repression, as many others have said. Obviously, the underground radio stations that the women used to get their message out and across to each other gave them a true sense of power. They were able to expand their influence through the media form of radio. Even when the women took the TV station hostage and forced them to play their tape, that form of technology became another conduit for empowerment. It doesn't matter whether the actions were illegal or not, either way, the women got their point across and the tape was played, displayed their message and influence to the whole world. However, in this film, the media is also a source of repression. News broadcasts and other such outlets continually pegged the women as terrorists and tried to slander them. So the media in Born in Flames is a real double-edged sword. It both helped and hurt the women's cause. I think that the technology, as represented in this film, is indeed gendered. It was more centered on a masculine ideal. I mean, the women had to use underground radio broadcasts to get their message out - they could have never used a mainstream source to do that. This just points to the exclusion of women from the mass media and technology. As someone said, the women's army had to go so far as violently breaking into a TV station to acquire an outlet for their message - this was of course after they had been forced to abandon their radio means by vandals. Odviously, tying in with Sobol's oral culture, Born in Flames clearly demonstrates oral tendencies. The sheer act of using radio broadcasts in completely oral. That was how the women's army relayed information with its members - through an oral tradition. Someone mentioned how Born in Flames ties in with Harraway's conception of the cyborg. I agree with this. The women are both advancing and being repelled by technology. The women have to communicate with each other through the same media that is oppressing them. I think that is an interesting point.
Four is my group number.
The film "Born in Flames" reflects how technology can be used in different ways, as a tool of information and progress, or as a way to spread propaganda and repression. I agree with what some of my classmates have said about the line between truth and a lie being a blur in today's media. Nowadays with most of the things that you read, see, or hear about in media you can not determine if you should trust it or not. My impression is that media and technology are definitely a double-edged sword and can be used in different ways.
The film itself did seem to represent technology as "gendered". The film concentrated on the problem of women's equality and rights. I agree with what Jackie Bentley said in her post: even though breaking in CBS office and broadcasting their message was not the right thing to do, however it was done because of the things that happened that sparked that kind of action, and yes, it did make people listen.
The theory of men creating women cyborgs because they are the ones in charge of the scientific and technological domain, I find that true because it is natural for us to create the objects of our desires in ways that we want to see them.
The film shows us how media and technology can be used to spread propaganda and fear. The use of the television broadcasts in the film reminds me very much of the "Minute of Hate" type of propaganda that takes place in Orwell's "1984" and is very relevant to the fear mongering we see on Fox News.
Harrway's article can be very closely linked to the notion of technology becoming intertwined with our body and our identity. I thought that it was very interesting that the women in this film take control of technology to reclaim both their rights as women and as human beings. Equality can only be achieved through radicalness is the message I walked away with here. I think the relation between this articl and Sobol's article is that their is a thin line between the power of technology for good and its use for propaganda.
Brian Dunigan
Group 1
Born in Flames shows the irony of the relationship we have with our technology. I believe that technology was used for both empowerment and repression. The reason it was used for empowerment was for the women to get their message out to other women. However, in this film, the media is also a source of repression. News broadcasts and other such outlets continually pegged the women as terrorists and insulted them. So the technology in Born in Flames is ultimately, bilateral. Just is the case in our present world. All sides of the issues within this film used what media they had available to spread propaganda, the problem with this obviously being there was no exchange of views and no attempt to come up with a solution, each side did nothing but praise itself and demonize the enemy. (Hmm, current day politics)? One could argue that the technology in this film was “gendered” but if the women took over the news station doesn’t that mean that, with the right tactics, any race or gender can be in control?
Born in Flames represents technology and the media as being extremely, if not primarily, male driven. It gender associates technology with the phallus. It also shows that the testosterone drives toward manipulation of the truth, so technology is created and used to form propaganda. In this manner, media gives the people who use it the power to control others. The women try to use this by broadcasting radio stations, yet when we see the news broacasting company, we see primarily men working.
Troy Key
Group 1
Emir
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