The aspect of my
identity I chose to represent in a textual poaching piece is my heritage. My
Dad’s side of the family is Italian. My Grandpa immigrated to Boston as a kid.
He married another Italian girl and raised my Dad in Boston. The Italian
language diminished over the generations but the culture lived on. The food
lived on. The energy lived on.
The film, The Godfather, produced in 1972 represents Italian culture. It
doesn’t exactly represent my family so I remixed some scenes with dubbed
dialogue to more accurately represent my family and identity. The Godfather portrays an Italian
culture that sees family as the highest priority. Your family comes before
anything else. That is a similar characteristic I share with my family. The Godfather also portrays the very
serious side of the culture. It shows the violence and danger in an Italian mob
world. That part of The Godfather does not represent my family. So I remixed
it.
My family is loving, very
affectionate, loud, and much less serious. Their lives are faster paced than
those in The Godfather. They talk
over each other rather than engage in very business-like talk. So to remix The Godfather I came up with a story
that would represent my family and adapted it to some Godfather scenes. The
story is about a family hosting a family reunion. Family reunions in my family
are regular and a big deal. So I wanted to show some characters getting
chastised for not showing up to the reunion, but in a loving way. I wanted to
bring my family into The Godfather by creating a whole new plot. And I wanted
Don Coreleone to represent my grandfather who we always poke fun at for being
Don Coreleone. He is the overseer of the reunions and makes sure everyone shows
up. The opening scene of two guys planning the reunion is similar to when my
Dad or Uncle is planning the reunion and goes over the plans with my
grandfather to get approval. I took the wedding scene and converted it into a
reunion. My family reunions are very loud and fun. The scene after the reunion
when they talk about the canolies is just like my family. We talk about food a
lot, specifically Italian food and use exaggerated hand gestures as we talk
about such a basic subject.
The reading about Textual Poaching talked
about how a toy means nothing until the boy gives meaning to it. The audience
pumps more meaning into a piece than the artist ever intends. The readers
aren’t supposed to just find the artist’s meaning but remix material to fit
into the context of their lives. Then the text becomes more than it was before.
I thought this is a very interesting way of looking at art. Sometimes artist’s
get mad when the audience takes a different meaning from the piece than
intended but I think it’s a very cool thing that anyone can create a variety of
meaning from something. I took The Godfather and interpreted it in the context
of my family, which is a huge part of my identity.
Robin Skouteris’ PopLove is a great example of textual
poaching. It is a mash-up of 24 big pop songs from 2012. The artist placed all
the songs in the same key and ran running background track through the whole
thing. It was amazing seeing how well so many songs fit together. It took a lot
of creativity to put those songs together. And the visuals in the video
represent pop culture today and the artists’ interpretation of these songs. The
artist interprets these songs as fun and a means of expression of inner
desires. It’s a celebration of pop music with its fast cutting and use of
color.
I really enjoyed exploring a new way
of looking at art. By looking at it from the audience’s perspective art can
reach many more people. I think as an audience member I will enjoy different
art more if I don’t spend so much energy trying to search for the artist’s
meaning but just feel what comes.
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