Aila, Shreya and Chloe
Defining topic Myth of Justice:
The surrealists are talking about total transformation of society, not just granting aggravated populations greater political and economic power. They are speaking of new social relationships, new ways of living and interacting, new attitudes toward work and leisure and community. In this respect, they share much with radical feminism whose revolutionary vision extended into every aspect of social life.
Freedom Dreams, Robin Kelley.
Based on this definition, the group will produce and respond separately to the subject.
Aila:
In my point of view, we could have a hybrid work, practical and theoretical to suit all of us. The myth of justice is a topic largely discussed in the fields of Human Rights, Modern Law, and History (just to say a few of them), usually connected to restoration or reparation – or the idea of a restoration or reparation.
The word “myth”, from Greek, has a range of meanings, from “word”, “speech” to “story”, “fiction”. These different layers of meaning are an interpretational key to unveiling complex realities, because justice means very different things depending on who you ask for.
In order to illustrate those layers, a topic which is very popular, “women’s empowerment”, can be used to make a clear point. Imagine a woman dancing for a video camera at Washington Square.
The camera is just frontal. She seems to be enjoying it. On her back is a sign written “please, get me out of here. I don’t want to do that.”. Just the people who are at Washington Square can read it. Just the people who actually stop to pay attention and can walk around her, looking at the picture in 360º can see it. The camera just records the dance in a way that her back never appears, nothing else. This simple performance could reveal (1) the importance of getting all the angles, the perspective to understand what is happening; (2) the subject of “empowerment” itself, thinking about what is empowerment or for what women this kind of empowerment is valid; (3) the archival itself, because what is recorded is just a slice of the reality that could be used to validate something that the woman recorded disagree; (4) the reaction of the people at square that read her back, would they help?
We could do the performance, record, and unveil in class to talk about those items. This is one idea.
Shreya:
I would love to help document the performance – I had some ideas of how it might look aesthetically.
For my project, I want to focus on different case studies of legislative theater:
Prima Facie is a one-woman play that stars Jodie Comer on Broadway – it looks at a criminal defense barrister whose view of the legal system changes after she is sexually assaulted. Jodie Comer is perfect for playing the role due to her appearance as Villanelle in the popular Hulu thriller Killing Eve.
Kaitlyn Jorgensen is a lesser-known figure who is attracting some attention as a “psychotic” (through a patriarchal lens) AKA powerful woman – she helps “victim-survivors & proactive protective moms, creating stronger strategies in response to intimate partner violence and post-separation abuse”. Her “survivor’s sales pitch workshop” is interesting in the way it teaches survivors to essentially perform their story (which is where men take advantage of this aspect of performance to turn the table on women, blaming them in court, like in the case of Johnny Depp versus Amber Heard, which is now also a documentary on Netflix, produced by Depp – what they fail to take into account is the power dynamic that is created within an already male-dominated room with his role as the producer). Here is Kaitlyn’s sales pitch:
“Years ago, I met with a local Prosecutor. She did not care for me. Nonetheless, I persevered. I sat up straight in my chair and in 60 seconds, I summed up years worth of abuse. I pleaded with her for intervention, and reprieve. In that moment, I felt disconnected to my story, which is exactly what helped me secure my ability to perform. I created a Sales Pitch out of the most dehumanizing things that had ever happened to me. It never dawned on me that I would have to convince her to Prosecute my abuser but it taught me a lesson: I would need to convince the powers that be that I was worthy of protection.
By the time that I was done speaking, the Prosecutor let out a big sigh. She rolled her eyes at me and told me that she’d have to send our case downtown. I thanked her, and then I left her office.
That was it. This Prosecutor may not have liked me, but she believed me. I realized then that I possessed the capability to advocate for myself under extreme circumstances. This realization changed everything for me. Most importantly, I also realized that I had secured my performance by depersonalizing my story and condensing my language. I had created a Sales Pitch that made others feel inclined to believe me. It made others want to intervene on my behalf.
I am safe today because I narrowed down what parts of my story that others would respond to. While I can not guarantee you a similar and/or favorable outcome, I do believe that safety will be within your reach, once you do the same.
This Workshop includes an 1 1/2 Zoom Recording and a written excerpt for you to refer back to.”
I will also be performing (and/or recording) the sales pitch for further discussion.
Chloe:
To do:
I’m also really happy to help with documenting this performance. I would like to respond to the performance, through writing, drawing and collage. With the idea of owning the shadow. This figure of a woman masking, performing in the streets in a body she doesn’t want to be in. Forced to perform. What if this is the shadow we all have in common. What if we all respond to how we could own, heal this shadow? So I guess what I’m suggesting is that we all respond in our own ways to this performance. This issue…..
Defining topic Myth of Justice:
The surrealists are talking about total transformation of society, not just granting aggravated populations greater political and economic power. They are speaking of new social relationships, new ways of living and interacting, new attitudes toward work and leisure and community. In this respect, they share much with radical feminism whose revolutionary vision extended into every aspect of social life.
Freedom Dreams, Robin Kelley.
In the film Mother Küsters’ Trip to Heaven by Rainer Werner Fassbinder we see Mother Küsters speak to the Communist Party. She addresses them by saying she is not there because of their politics but because of who there are as people in the room. People she goes on, who have taught her that there is a reason for the injustice she and her husband have faced. That the death of her husband was not a natural fate but a political death.
Two things come up in this film of interest for me. The first is related to Robin Kelley’s quote that social life and the reimagining of it are where to start. Second, the proposition that when we solicit help, our story gets appropriated, that we need to ‘own our own shadow’.
Judith Herman sets out recovery as reliant on state/socal acknowledgement of the wrong, while this is not only not only possible for groups of people, it also risks more harm. In Mother Küsters’ Trip to Heaven the formal channels to justice warp the story and take us further and further for the truth.
The definition I found was slightly different. Myth – a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.
I liked the intimacy of storytelling written in Hirsch when describing Maus (p.32). How survival tactics, knowledge and memory can be passed down in stories and these ‘lived connections’ (p.33) can be retained. Scenes of subjection is a clear example of the myth of justice, claiming the change in law ended slavery, while this evidently didn’t happen. The myth of justice is for me these unembodied claims. Non truths we are fed as reality.