Weeks 10-12
Modernism:
What does 'The Wasteland' mean?
1) how has it been interpreted? (cite examples)
2)what are some of the key features
3) In what way has it been influential
Post-Modernism
1) What common qualities do 'the beats' share? Why 'beats'?
2) How is beat poetry linked to rap?
3) How was Bob Dylan's 'Masters of War' involved in controversy during the Bush administration?
4) On what grounds was 'Howl' accused of being obscene - grounds for the defense?
5) What kind of protest song/rap other media have come out in the last decade? Is there a spirit of protest anymore?
What does 'The Wasteland' mean?
1) how has it been interpreted? (cite examples)
2)what are some of the key features
3) In what way has it been influential
Post-Modernism
1) What common qualities do 'the beats' share? Why 'beats'?
2) How is beat poetry linked to rap?
3) How was Bob Dylan's 'Masters of War' involved in controversy during the Bush administration?
4) On what grounds was 'Howl' accused of being obscene - grounds for the defense?
5) What kind of protest song/rap other media have come out in the last decade? Is there a spirit of protest anymore?
Post-Modernism
ReplyDelete5) What kind of protest song/rap other media have come out in the last decade? Is there a spirit of protest anymore?
A protest song is a type of song associated with a social movement or change and it is also connected to current events. It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre. Since 1800s, the United States has had a long history or tradition of protest songs. Civil liberties, civil rights, racial discrimination, women’s rights, economic injustice, politics and war all inspired American protest songs. Although New Zealand does not have as much protest music as the USA does, there are a variety of protest songs in New Zealand, with subject matter ranging from Maori pride and resistance to the nuclear free campaign and the environment, to South African rugby tours.
In terms of a spirit of protest, in my opinion, it continues but it is being applied in a different way. In other words, a spirit of protest in the present is becoming more immediate than in the 20th century. At that moment in the 20th century, people had to spend a rather long period writing and publishing songs or posting opinions on newspapers when they were expressing the feeling about current events. Take “French Letter” by Herbs as an example, the nuclear free campaign organized by New Zealand peace groups CND and the Peace Media and it started from the early 1960s, but “French Letter” did not published after this issue happening and it released until 1982. In spite of the fact that this protest song explained a clear opinion about French nuclear events, ‘the band does the work effortlessly in the simple, well-crafted video’ (Freedom to sing NZ protest songs, n.d.). From my point of view, that is to say, it did not make a significant impression for the public at that time. However, in the present and the 21st century, I think new technology can make publishing protest genre more effective and efficient and may provide an immediate impression of a spirit of protest. New Technology today refers to mobile phones, the Internet and social networking websites. People are usually shooting current events through mobile phones and posting them on the Internet immediately and even publishing them on social networking websites, such as Facebook, Youtube and Instagram while these events are still happening.
Reference:
Freedom to sing NZ protest songs. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nzonscreen.com/spotlight/freedom-to-sing-nz-protest-songs
Hi Rachel, you've raised some really good points.
DeleteYou are right in saying that the spirit of protest has become more immediate because of the way that technology has revolutionised communication but is still very much alive. Today it is more common to protest through a click of a button on social media but going back a few years protesting through song/rap was common.
In 2008, a 51 year old man in South Auckland stabbed a 15 year old to death for tagging on his fence. New Zealand hip hop group 'smashproof' released a song 'Brother' which was a sign of protest against the unfair killing and the need for change in South Auckland's climate of drugs and violence (NZ Herald, 2016).
Over the decade there have been many protest songs from Green Days, 'when september ends' which was a protest song of the Bush administration post 9/11 and a confrontation of its foreign policies. To Bruce Springsteen's 2006 song, “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?” which was re-written to protest the way the victims of Hurricane Katrina had been treated in the aftermath. To J. Cole's 2014 release 'Be Free' which was a protest song to the killing of Michael Brown who was shot twelve times by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. The shooting sparked a civil outrage.
During times of social and political unrest 'protest songs' are used to give voice to the masses. The spirit of protest is often captured within the song lyrics or video.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHow was Bob Dylan's 'Masters of War' involved in controversy during the Bush administration?
ReplyDeleteBob Dylan’s ‘Masters of War’ was a controversial song that came out in 1963. The song was written when Cold War tensions were high and United States had already deployed military into Vietnam. Master’s of War became a controversial song like anything else that questions or holds accountable the actions of the ‘powerful’. Dylan’s ‘Masters of War’ is not the usual antiwar and pacifist song but a condemnation of the people responsible for the atrocities of war. The song made accusations on munition makers and their political allies of engaging in an unholy swap of innocent blood and money (Hillstrom & Hillstrom, 1998). The lines “You fasten all the triggers for the others to fire then you set back and watch when the death count gets higher” highlight how the politicians and their funders let others do their bidding, the other being the soldiers sent to war, while they “hide in their mansions.”
Dylan’s songs were socially relevant; his music was popular during the civil rights movement. The release of his second album ‘freewheellin’ featured the song ‘blowin’ in the wind’ which became an anthem song. The civil rights movement seized ‘blowin’ in the wind’ as an anthem and the appellation ‘spokesman of his generation’ began to be applied to Dylan (Hillstrom & Hillstrom, 1998). Masters of War became the voice for those who did not want war. As long as the world has people who advocate for war, songs like ‘Masters of War’ can be used as a form of protest.
Hillstrom, K., & Hillstrom, L. C. (1998). The Vietnam experience: A concise encyclopedia of American literature, songs, and films. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Hi Saajida,
DeleteYou raised some interesting points here, but I partly agree with the point you raised that "Dylan’s ‘Masters of War’ is not the usual antiwar and pacifist song but a condemnation of the people responsible for the atrocities of war".
In my opinion, ‘Masters of War’ is considered as a controversial song, in fact, it is not an anti-war song and it is supposed to be a pacifistic song against war. During Bob Dylan's interview, he mentioned that "the spirit of the song he picked up is speaking against what Eisenhower was calling a military-industrial complex as he was making his exit from the presidency"(Gundersen,2001). In addition, some quasi-intellectuals, who have never understood the cultural spirit when the song is performed, and they usually led down the wrong way for people to get the cultural spirit, at the same time (Gundersen,2001).
Reference
Gundersen, E. (2001). Dylan is positively on top of his game. Retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/music/2001-09-10-bob-dylan.htm#more
Adding on to what Saajida and Rachel have said, the Bush administration the question refers to is likely the first one with George Bush Sr.
DeleteBob Dylan had received a lifetime achievement Grammy in 1991 (just before Operation Desert Storm ended) and played 'Masters of War' at the ceremony, in the midst of what was "America's most adamantly prowar season" (Gilmore, 1991, para. 2). This apparent anti-war statement was striking mostly because of the lack of strength and perseverance in other nationwide anti-war movements – maybe because “Protesting war was an old thing that old people used to do” (Aldrich, 2015, para. 2), or, more likely, because the war was won very decisively and relatively quickly, something which has determined the strength of protesting throughout American history (Stephens, 1991).
In any case, Dylan must have decided that the spirit and sentiments which ‘Masters of War’ espoused weren’t dead just because the momentum was lacking from much of society. Instead, he did what he had done so often in the past and used his music and prominent status as an instrument of demonstration.
Speculatively, perhaps Dylan also wanted to remind the audience and the people behind the Grammys he was still the same person who wrote all those protest songs; the same artist they had not given a Grammy until 1979, some fourteen years after he “released "Like a Rolling Stone" and single-handedly changed rock & roll” (Gilmore, 1991).
References:
Aldrich, M. (2015). Dylan Stumps the Grammys. The Gad About Town. Retrieved from https://thegadabouttown.com/2015/05/24/dylan-stumps-the-grammys/
Gilmore, M. (1991). Bob Dylan at Fifty. Rolling Stone. Retrieved 9 June 2016, from http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bob-dylan-at-fifty-19910530
Stephens, M. (1991). Persian Gulf War Protests - Mitchell Stephens. Nyu.edu. Retrieved 9 June 2016, from https://www.nyu.edu/classes/stephens/Persian%20Gulf%20Page.htm
1)
ReplyDeleteThe Beat Poets were a small group of poets and writers who emerged in the late 1940s and early 1950s, beginning in New York and thereafter mostly centred in San Francisco. They were jaded by mainstream culture and intellectual thought; they wanted to challenge the accepted norms and ideals and bring what they considered to be more honest representations of society to light. Interested in the criminal and socially forgotten underclasses – with some of the early members spending considerable time in the company of small time criminal Herbert Huncke ("Herbert Huncke - bio and links", 2016) – they experienced and described in their work an America that wasn’t the respectable, apple-pie version it was made out to be. They themselves were not just observers, but participants in this other side of society. Allen Ginsberg was a homosexual, Neal Cassidy was bisexual, Jack Kerouac was a hard drinker, and most seemed to have been into drugs in one way or another, as well as Buddhism and other Eastern philosophies. The obscenity trials involving Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights publishing company ("A Brief Guide to the Beat Poets | Academy of American Poets", 2016) strengthened this counter-culture movement with a landmark ruling for the defence – one which set the cornerstone for freedom of speech in writing ("The Beat Generation - Literature Periods & Movements", 2016).
The name derives from Jack Kerouac calling his generation a “beat generation”: ie. tired, worn down, defeated, etc., but also in the sense of the word beatific, or a sort of blissful happiness (Dalzell, 2015).
References:
A Brief Guide to the Beat Poets | Academy of American Poets. (2016). Poets.org. Retrieved 9 June 2016, from https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/brief-guide-beat-poets
Dalzell, T. (2015). The origins of beat and beatnik. OxfordWords blog. Retrieved from http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/03/beat-beatnik-jack-kerouac/
Herbert Huncke - bio and links. (2016). Beatmuseum.org. Retrieved 9 June 2016, from http://www.beatmuseum.org/huncke/HerbertHuncke.html
The Beat Generation - Literature Periods & Movements. (2016). Online-literature.com. Retrieved 9 June 2016, from http://www.online-literature.com/periods/beat.php
2) How is beat poetry linked to rap?
ReplyDeleteBeat poetry is a style of writing which was made forefront in the mid-1950's and 1960's and "incorporates a free-form type of writing that promotes individualism and protests the loss of faith."(wiseGEEK, 2016) A collective of bohemian authors began to write beat poetry and were otherwise known as the Beat Generation whose central was against social conformity and social tradition due to the harsh predicaments Post-WWII.
Rap is another expression of poetry but in spoken form, the themes are similar to Beat poetry in the sense that Rap mainly connotes with injustice, racism, loss and freedom. It is used plentiful in the Modern day and is popular among the youth of this generation.
Allen Ginsberg was one of the leading figures in the Beat Generation and his first book "Howl and Other Poems" led to be the pioneer for Beat Poetry. In his poem 'Howl", he mentions makes reference to 'Moloch' who was "a Canaanite deity associated in biblical sources with the practice of child sacrifice," according to Britannica(2016) and how he is the cause for destroying the best minds of his generation. It is possible that Moloch is a metaphor for the government, war and mainstream culture that has therefore plagued the individual minds of the youth.
Alluding this to rap, world renown rapper Tupac also rapped about the Government in his rap 'The Government.' He makes reference to Dave Duke, who was known as a White Supremacist and former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Now although Duke isn't a super being like Moloch, he is still a metaphor for all that is detrimental to society's youth and plaguing their individual minds and such due to his extremist views, both poems are free-written as well.
Overall, beat poetry is linked to rap in the sense that the themes allude to injustice of the youth and loss of creativity due to the corruption of society and propaganda given by the government. Although beat poetry was paramount in the 1950's and rap being domineering in the 2000's and beyond, they still share the same essence for social freedom and unity.
References:
Moloch. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/topic/Moloch-ancient-god
What Is Beat Poetry? (with pictures). (2016). wiseGEEK. Retrieved from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-beat-poetry.htm