Remarks and notes
The shouting woman with blue hair on X; Visceral to rational; Cinematic reference; Federico Fellini; Baz Luhrmann
Right now, my plan is to begin this post with what I left over, without writing it in an elaboration much in the previous publication “Remarks on these things to note on”.
Already the kick-off sentence above is weird enough if you happen to be thinking, the first part of this post can be regarded as its embodiment.
Let us go on.
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So, a bit about X (Twitter) and my note of yesterday (Nov. 14). All of my notes are now in a state of apparition in my home page for I made it reappear this morning. Thus, you can take your second look at the note of which I’ve spoken.
It is about RadioGenoa on X and his (re)post of the shouting woman with blue hair.
The original date of the post on his X was Nov. 13 and as of Nov. 15, today, it is still on. I confirmed it when I visited RadioGenoa on X this morning. Therefore, the full view of the woman and the whole setting are accessible to public while I reframed the image in my note for conscientious reasons.
A brief description by text may suffice to indicate the nature of the scene. Her upper body is only shown fully as naked. She is in front of a desktop computer. There are snacks, beverages, foods as side by, it’s indoor. She is shouting at the screen. Yes, she is reacting against something, whatever it may be.
And? How about our reactions? Reactions … well ….. against her? Or, for her?
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First, let me explain my speculation on the making of the image. It could have been staged, it might have been digitally altered. One possibility according to me is that all items, factors, and the female (or trans gender more precisely) figure as central, were designed allegorically by algorithms for abhorrant reactions to viewers to induce. I know “abhorrant” is a provocative word on my part to employ to say of it, but such seems to be a purpose. We live in the social media era in totality.
Nevertheless, the degree of viewers’ reactions may differ. From visceral, to refusal, to desire for an absolute oublion, to “this is nothing, look at those stuff!”, to whatever (to ascend toward the rational). Let me confess. My shot-beyond-all of my intellects at the view was describable to be visceral. I lost temporarily all my appetites for foods for hours and such is rare for me because I’m a tough viewer against artificial images as being a cinéma-phile of different kinds of films. So, meaning? For me, the photo was real, or very real looking.
For the clarification, it is not about her weight above the average or the shape of her naked upper body. It is because she is not about to take a bath or in any other circumstantially understandable situation to be her being naked. (Why, even if so, such a situation can be posted as a photo on social media is a question on a different level).
It is rather about the indication of her lifestyle, daily activity as such, along with her aggression ready facial expression as to be a social or political warrior willing to crush with no mercy anyone who is against her solid firmly established social and political opinions.
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Trying to speak of correlations between radical feminism and trans women of LGBQ can go even onto an academic field of cultural and social studies. In short, the topic would be widened or extremely narrowed down. In my view, women are better to be women than not to be women because they are women. Simple and straight. I have no desire nor intention to criticize harshly other kinds of women who choose not to be women as understood as to be women … well.. what’s the words? … yes, traditionally or conventionally.
If you navigate conservatives’ social media wows, you’ll see some aspects of their being provoked, or very provoked, thus disgusted by what, for example, is embodied as figures, or associable images, or behaviors, by the shouting woman with blue hair as, again, an example as if a sample model. I mean, it works on both sides, conservatives and progressives for the opposite effect of each against the other. Mockeries and insults are other aspects, but some are beyond, such as effects from this shouting woman with blue hair for a person like me. It is visceral, let me repeat.
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After passing through my initial reaction against the shouting woman with blue hair, I came to the second stage, which was a cinematic association. I tried to find image-shots from Federico Fellini (1920-1993; Italian film director) by google search this morning, but quickly gave up what I was looking for; several scenes in Rome he shot in his films. If not her being in American social and political contexts of today as indicated and elucidated visually in the photo, she is a divine from Fellini’s film. Unfortunately for now, the screenshots below are not what I wanted to make a linkage between Fellini and her. Those who know his films would get what I’m saying, nevertheless.
The first image seems to be one from La Strada (1954) for me, but I’m not sure. The second is from Toby Dammit (1968), film based on Edgar Allan Poe’s story. (Courtesy to Google images for both).
Below is my reframed shot of the shouting woman with blue hair. (Courtesy: RadioGenoa on X).
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Fellini:
La Strada (1954) is a ultra classic film and one of the must-see-genre. Many people know the fact already, I believe. Now, the most sensitive point I want to make follows. In the past, vaguely designating the word “past” to all contexts, de-figurative or deformed humen could have been words and expressions for the elucidation for people whose physical shapes were somewhat or drastically different from other people whose physical shapes fell into the averaged range or closer to such a range. That we name it in variety with medical terms did not exist in those days. The difference in social structures to put aside, the assertion to include all different people as inclusive should be a beauty of social rights movement, could it be, while it does not look so in my view and a natural question is why not and how come.
One obvious reason is its over-stance by which the other side and all those who do not agree with them tend to be regarded or are absolutely regarded as antagonists aiming to take away their rights as collective oppressors.
Other reason can be said that the progressive stance needs the subversion of all things which have existed for the sake of their being as progressive.
My caution to myself is the evident fact that there are many progressive people who are not necessarily standing on the exactly same ground. However please note my self-advocacy. I came so far up to this point, starting from the photo posted on X, that shouting woman with blue hair.
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Fellini’s Toby Dammit is a relatively short film, but a true horror in literary and edgy ambiances, which could be said as a proto-psychic occult film appealing to viewers of all eras thus timeless. For me, this film defies even its genre while I see it be the proto-horror from which all derivatives have ramified to today. The scenes are urban and mist in the end. Cameras, spotlights, carnival, airplane, sports car at high end, fog and night, closed windows, barrier to get through. This film haunts. There are also lots of neuve effects in imageries, editing, and sounds. The mood is a combination of cinéma avant-garde and quasi futuristic insanity. It was made in 1968. How much the vision was said as of cutting edge into our sense of 2023!
I did screenshot this image from Google site for Fellini’s Toby Dammit. Sometimes or often, Google includes photos of quasi-relevancies in a particular search result. I have an impression that this one might be such a one, so not directly from the film, but I cannot tell with confidence. I haven’t watched the film for so longtime since … then? That’s even out of my exact memory. The color photo (above the shouting woman with blue hair) is the protagonist of the film. The girl, literally petite fille, is … how to call her … well, devil, properly devil, she can be named such. This film comes into viewers’ nerves, minds, emotions, taste for art, and many other things at the same time. Stylish and visionary wrought, cacophonic polyvisions and misty concentrations of quiet terror as no return. This is truly something for those who appreciate such elements as to be a unified art work of very edgy fright.
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I mentioned windows closed. In the end of the film, Toby Dammit, the message was: I don’t want to see, I don’t want to know, you’ll cross it and I’ll stay here, you’re chosen that’s not my business. Or, words in silence, being impossible to spell out by any means except as shut-off.
In numerous different occasions, I state my likeness of Baz Luhrmann’s films for his Baroque decors of bygone era. When I watched for the first time his Romeo and Juliet (released in 1996), the scene which most impressed me was a windy-scape in which residents in the house closed their windows in response to Romeo’s troubled gaze just before fatally facing Tyvalt. I thought immediately of the ending scene of Fellini’s Toby Dammit, in which the same happened. No one will help you, when the fate chose you.
Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet and Fellini’s Toby Dammit are very different films, any one agrees upon. I mentioned the former here just because of the scene of windows being closed in both films in addition to Luhumann’s decoratively wrought taste of art in an European style. Romeo and Juliet is a drama set in Italy by Shakespeare, by the way. Federico Fellini was an Italian film director. Those connections of mine are merely impressionistic.
Then, I’ll finally move to the ending section of this post.
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When I viewed the photo post of the shouting woman with blue hair, this idea had never occurred to me, but the shot itself might have been an image cut from an existing film or video circulated more than on social media. At this point for me, it does not matter so much for I’ve been writing this much on it into this direction. Though I can infer one. If the photo is from a film, it could have been a horror genre.
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There are few which I still want to cover, those I didn’t develop in the previous post and this one was supposed to be continuous. So, not conclusive, obviously, this turned out to be. I’ll thus continue it to the next.
At any event, thank you very much as usual for your interest in Juliette Masch Writes! You came down with me so far to this end!
Juliette Masch