CJ-600
Aishat Abiri
Showing, Telling and Remembering The Body
Communication as vision.
Showing the body.
Communication as embodiment.
Telling of/by the body.
Communication as collective memory.
Remembering the body.
I find myself quite drawn to the essays discussed under Part II: Materializing.
Communication as vision talks about the importance of visual language in communication.
Communication as embodiment talks about the physical body as a medium for communication,
Communication as collective memory talks about how a community as a collective chooses to
remember history. Together, these three essays are in conversation and they tell a story
which I’d like to title, Showing, Telling and Remembering The Body.
When I turned sixteen, my older brother had a mental breakdown. I remember him saying
incoherent things, writing incoherent things, doing confusing things. I call it a mental breakdown
now, 18 years later. But at the time, there was one word for it: mad. In thinking of
communication as vision, it is helpful to consider communication as analogy and as spectacle,
because with mental illness, one often informs the other. In a study of 10 Nigerian and Ghanaian
movies that depicted mental illness (Ampadu, 2012), the top three causes depicted in these
movies were curses, divine punishment and spirits. Growing up, my family and most other
families watched a lot of movies from Nigeria and Ghana, we were shown mental illness as a
punishment, a punishment with no cure but some spiritual intervention. Accordingly, because
these people with mental illnesses were presented to us as a cautionary tale, they were often
presented as a spectacle. So in real life, we consciously or subconsciously formed analogies,
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comparing mentally ill people with the mad people in the movies, making assumptions and
passing our own judgments. These analogies made it easy for us to make a spectacle of these
people.
When I think of communication as embodiment, what I find most striking is the idea that
the force of the body is the greatest threat and the greatest enforcer of the authority of the textual
class. Power again comes into play. Where the group that has mastered the art of rhetoric is able
to prescribe what is right and wrong, unacceptable and acceptable. Within the context of mental
illness, when orators (religious or political) tell us that mental illness is a profane thing, the body
then becomes a threat: a threat to societal norms, to peace and order. In the same vein, the body
(societal attitudes, stigmatization, disgust) becomes a key tool for enforcing and maintaining
what is “normal”. It is also interesting to see how these measures are recaliberated; an artist
shows signs of mental illness, society agrees that all artists are “eccentric” and perhaps that is
necessary for their art. The body becomes a medium for artistic expression. Mental illness
becomes acceptable in some way. When a soldier shows signs of mental illness, the discourse
shifts. The body is looked at as a dangerous thing.
In addition to various stakes for various bodies, I wonder about the voluntary and
involuntary things we do with our bodies and how maybe sometimes, it is important that
we have room to sometimes detach our bodies from communication. Journaling has often
been a tool recommended in the management of mental illness. As someone who uses journaling
for my own mental health journey, I find it to be a useful tool to either connect with my body
or detach from it, affording me room to speak to and from my body. I think of
communication as embodiment and I think that in moments where the body performs involuntary
acts that could communicate involuntarily, it is helpful that there is an option to detach
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communication from the body. This detachment also comes to play in situations where
communication needs to be anonymous in order to protect the body. I think of communication as
embodiment that has the advantage that it can be put aside when needed.
Culture has often told us what is sacred and what is profane. African culture has
often relied on myths, of people who did something to offend (the gods or even the normal
functioning of their body) and got mad as a consequence. But myths are not empirical and
the question is often, who started it? Who passed it on and why? And by what means? Why
is it important that we remember this version of events? Carol Blair talks about there being
deliberateness in the shaping of collective memory. Who gets to shape collective memory?
Who gets to tell us how to perceive things today, based on all that has come before? Who gets to
tell us how to remember history? Thinking of communication as collective memory challenges
us to think of the power dynamics that come into play. In 2020, while youth protesters were
challenging the violence visited on individuals by SARS (Special Anti Robbery Squad), the
news channels (typically watched by the older generation) were showing fishing festivals
and cultural dances. For Gen Z and Millenials, October 2020 would be remembered as a
time in our nation’s history when people were murdered by the Nigerian military. For the
older generations, it would be a time when young people needlessly caused traffic jams over
nothing. Because if there was anything that really happened, why wasn’t it covered in the
news? But who controls the news? Interestingly, a month later, CNN would release its first
investigative report on the military shooting of EndSARS protesters at the Lekki toll gate
in Lagos. But it had little impact.
In Wicked for Good, the Wizard of Oz sings:
Once folks buy into your blarney
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It becomes the thing they'll most hold onto
Once they've swallowed sham and hokum
Facts and logic won't unchoke 'em
They'll go on believing what they want to
This points to counterarguing and again, the power of communication as collective
memory. Once a people has been convinced to buy and believe a thought, even when contrary
facts are presented before them, they will counterargue and hold on to what they already believe.
I wonder if this has to do with not wanting to be wrong.
In this same way, once a myth has been accepted by a people: that mental illness is
god-inflicted and thus god-curable, even in the face of facts, collective memory has helped them
make a meaning that facts might find it difficult to unmake. And individuals do not exist in a
vacuum. We live in societies, societies that impact us based on the meanings they make of things,
of us. I believe this is where media priming theory would be most beneficial, where we show
people a different meaning of mental illness, before their own prejudice solidifies and hopefully,
society can question their assumptions if not change them fully.
References
Ampadu, V. E. (2012). The depiction of mental illness in Nigerian and Ghanaian movies: A
negative or positive impact on mental health awareness in Ghana (Doctoral dissertation,
Dissertation), University of Leeds, UK).
Blair, C. (2006). Collective memory. GJ Shepherd, J. St. John, & T. Striphas (Eds.),
Communication as...: Perspectives on theory, 51-59.
Chu, J. M. (Director). (2025). Wicked: For good [Film]. Universal Pictures.
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Finnegan, C. (2006). Communication as vision. G. Shepherd, J. St. John, & T. Striphas (Eds.),
Communication as...: Perspectives on theory, 60-66.
Marvin, C. (2006). Communication as embodiment. Communication as… perspectives on theory,
67-74.
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