“Finding one’s voice isn’t just an emptying and purifying oneself of the words of others but an adopting and embracing of filiations, communities, and discourses. Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.”
Overall, what Jonathan Lethem means is that our artistic process is merely a remix of what has been created before, but in a way that reflects our own individual interpretation. Given this knowledge, we realized that we needed to glean from the collective chaos of the internet those clips that reflected some ideals that not only embody our existence, but also our observations regarding current circumstances. Additionally, we wanted our battle to not only reflect a certain element of our identity, but also open up social criticism as well. As such, we began with identifying certain aspects of our personal backgrounds that could be stereotyped into creating a sense of conflict. Inspired by the bombastic nature of the recent political primaries, we decided to leverage both of our national identities (Jake being American and Juan being Canadian/Latino) to poke fun at American patriotism and its effect on foreign relations. We found inspiration from personal experience with stereotypes, but also looked towards the art form of the political cartoon to get a better impression of what stereotypes came up most frequently. We boiled down these stereotypes regarding other nations into two categories: pride due to excess wealth and proficiency in war. (Cartoons below stand as an example)
Although we recognize (and do not totally agree with) these stereotypes, we wanted to display how fruitless such notions of American supremacy are in the context of other nations. Thus, we came up with ideas on how Juan (representing foreign countries) could reverse my over-the-top American strategies to put Canada/Latinos/the World into “their place.”
First, it was important for us to come up with an easy concept to understand. With that in mind, we concluded that a round-based battle would be best. Second, we decided to have America start each round because of its past history on striving to be the first at everything.
In order to have a sort of exposition for our respective characters, the Webspinna duel starts with a clash of our respective national anthems, which also quickly sets the rivalry tone of our presentation. Next, we decided to touch on America's pride by having her defend herself with something that she is proud of. With that in mind, we opted for the "Pursuit of the Happiness" song and a "Make Money, Money" audio clip to highlight how America prides itself as the land of opportunity (and you could say wealth as well). Meanwhile, Canada replies with a song by Drake, a famous Canadian artist in the United States, to point out that America's opportunities also extend to other nations. Feeling mocked, America takes the next round to the next level by bringing its powerful and incontestable military arsenal into the mix. The exchange of bullets and nuclear bomb audio clips is an attempt by America to wipe Canada only to realize that the whole operation was unsuccessful (which also hints at some of the weaknesses of a military-based foreign policy). Facing such failure, America switches gears and pulls out his ultimate weapon; finding a bombastic voice that can attack on a more personal level. We recognize that kind of attitude has manifested itself in the recent political debates. As such, we included an audio clip from republican candidate Donald J. Trump (a very strong voice many Americans are backing) attacking Juan's hispanic nationality. Shocked by Trump's intentions to build a wall, Juan rallies a group of friends, chases the Trump, and claims victory as a final declaration that such verbal attacks only harm America’s standing.
However, our presentation ends then on a more hopeful note. While Juan is celebrating his victory, he invites Jake to join him. This is our attempt to show that we believe in a future where nations can still come together despite their differences and/or previous conflicts. On an even more personal note, although Juan and Jake have different backgrounds, we can still look beyond those backgrounds to find similar ground in building up the inherent good that the United States offers to all here at BYU.
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