Elizabeth Losh http://losh.ucsd.edu

More Media Seductions Mixtape Winners!

The Final Examination
Half Short-Answers, Half Essays
• 6 out of 8 short answer questions (answer with a paragraph of 3-5 sentences each) 42%
• A short answer question about activities and
discussion in section written by your TA 8%
• 1 out of 2 long answer questions that will require you to write an essay length response comparing several works 25%
• A synthetic essay requiring knowledge of the entire text of Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows
25%

Sample Long-Answer Essay Question
The word “melodrama” literally means a play with music.
Analyze the role of music in three major
works that we have studied this quarter in a coherent essay about media influence and aural experience.

Goes Beyond Ideas Discussed in
Lecture and Section
Sample Thesis: Specific songs are often associated with specific places, and frequently in the works that we have studied this quarter particular melodies call up associations with home and homecoming to create a feeling of nostalgia or longing for home. In the play Uncle
Tom’s Cabin, the film Bontoc Elegy, and the melodramas of Nazi filmmaker Veit Harlan, music reminds the characters of their ancestral or family homes, even if they can never actually go home again.

Sample Thesis: Music reinforces the feelings of regret associated with the “too late” condition of melodrama. The songs of Uncle
Tom’s Cabin, the orchestration of the melodramas of Veit Harlan, and even the music in A Clockwork Orange make the audience feel the gap between what is desired and what can be attained.

A General Thesis or Controlling Idea
Sample Thesis: Music and pain are closely associated in many of the works that we have studied this quarter. Music adds to images an element of physical response that increases the audience’s engagement. Uncle Tom is lashed with music that matches his physical lashes, Alex is physically tormented with the music he once loved, and music is extremely important in The Satanic Verses as well.

How can you use the rubric for Paper Two?
How can you master the expectations for this course?

To understand the depiction of Muhammad in
Part II and Part VII of The Satanic Verses, it is necessary to understand the framing narrative of the entire novel, because the angel and devil characters are an integral part of the story of the prophet. We can’t understand either the book or the controversy without seeing Gibreel’s narcissistic cinematic visions or hearing Saladin’s manipulative and often subversive voiceovers and remixes as central to the story.

Part I: The Angel Gibreel
The backstory of the two contemporary characters:
Gibreel and Saladin
Part II: Mahound
A retelling of the story of Mohammed as
“Mahound the businessman”
Part III: The two contemporary characters assume life as angel and devil in the modern world

Two Main Characters
The Angel and the Devil
Both born Muslim
Both actors
Both part of the Indian diaspora

“Aasman Se Aaya Farishta” from An Evening in Paris http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9tuwC6sXM

Gibreel Farishta, born Ismail Najmuddin
Indian “Bollywood” film star, specializing in playing Hindu gods

Ganesh and Hanuman
(24-25)

Prohibitions on Representation in Bollywood Films
Why are on-screen kisses taboo?

Alleluia Cone – a famous blonde mountain climber
Rekha Merchant – the adulterous wife of Gibreel’s neighbor, a wealthy industrialist
Pimple Billimoria – one of Gibreel’s Bollywood costars
Rosa Diamond – an old widow who takes him in after the plane crash

Saladin Chamcha
Born Salahuddin Chamchawala, a voice impersonator, "Chumch," "Spoono"
("chamcha" is Hindi for "spoon”)
A man who sets out to make himself up is taking on the Creator’s role, according to one way of seeing things; he’s unnatural, a blasphemer, an abomination of abominations.
From another angle, you could see pathos in him, heroism in his struggle, in his willingness to risk: not all mutants survive. Or, consider him sociopolitically: most migrants learn, and can become disguises. (49)

Because he did have that gift, truly he did, he was the Man with a Thousand Voices and a
Voice. If you wanted to know how your ketchup bottle should talk in its television commercial, if you were unsure as to the ideal voice for your packet of garlic-flavoured crisps, he was your man. (60)

India in the Sixties and Seventies http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5ky5ClIjL8

Pamela Lovelace – his wife, a Trotskyist actress, later becomes Jumpy Joshi’s lover
Zeenat Vakil – the first Indian woman Chamcha had ever made love to, writer of The Only Good Indian
Mimi Mamoulian – a fellow voice actor, later a companion of Billy Battuta
Hyacinth Phillips – a physical therapist who takes pity upon him after his transformation

How does Zeeny try to politicize Chamcha?
The Bhopal Disaster (1984)
‘What is Amrka for us?’ he demanded. ‘It’s not a real place. Power in its purest form, disembodied, invisible.’ (56)

Phoolan Devi (1963-2001)
“The Bandit Queen”
Her swearing: Page 13
Her dark skin: Page 59

But instead of putting on a lifejacket and holding up a blow-tube whistle etcetera, she quickly lifted the black djellabah that was her only garment and stood before them stark naked, so they all could see the arsenal of her body, the grenades like extra breasts nesting in her cleavage, the gelignite taped around her thighs, just the way it had been in Chamcha’s dream. (82)

Terrorism in the Story
Sikh Terrorists not Muslim Terrorists
Chamcha was drifting back into sleep when the cabin lights came on; the movie stopped; and the illusion of the cinema was replaced by one of watching the television news, as four armed, shouting figures came running down the aisles. (78)

A Long History of Hindu-Muslim
Conflict
Indian Partition in 1947
Indo-Pakistani War of 1965
(page 46)
Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
1983 Nellie massacre in Assam
(page 57)

The Story Predates the 1992 Bombay Riots

The Story Predates the 2008 Mumbai Massacre

Discussions of Islamic Culture in Part I
Stories of the prophet from Gibreel’s mother (22)
The incident of the Satanic verses (24)
Hamza-Nama cloths (70)

Part II: Interpreting the Title
What were the “Satanic Verses”?
“these are exalted females whose intercession is to be desired”
In Mecca, in pre-Islamic South Arabia, Allāt, Uzza, and Manah were believed to be the three chief goddesses of Mecca; they were called the "three exalted cranes" (gharaniq)

Page 93: “soft, seductive verses” of “his fiendish backing group”
Page 101-102: “Uzza of the radiant visage, goddess of beauty and love; obscure Manat, her face averted, her purpose mysterious, sifting sand between her finders – she’s in charge of destiny – she’s Fate; and lastely the highest of the three, the mother-goddess, whom the Greeks call Lato. Ilat, they call her, or, more frequently, Al-Lat.
Page 108: “He asks for Allah’s approval of Lat, Uzza, and Manat.”
Page 110: “Lat, Manat, Uzza – they’re all females! For pity’s sake! Are we to have goddesses now? Those old cranes, herons, hags?”
Page 113: “Lat, Manat, Uzza . . . can I call them angelic? Gibreel, have you got sisters?
Page 121: “She has long ears; has already heard what he said about Lat, Uzza,
Manat. So what? In the old days he wanted to protect the baby daughters of Jahilia; why shouldn’t he take the daughters of Allah under his wing as well?”
Page 123: “Lat’s, Uzza’s, Manat’s. The – shall I call them mosques? -- of your new angels”
Page 128-129: “Lat, Uzza, Manat, flapping around his head, clawing at his eyes, biting, whipping him with heir hair, their wings.”

Born in Mecca
Married at 25 to wealthy widow Khadijah
Muhammad had several children with Khadijah, including his daughter Fatimah.
Had first visions at 40
Married to Sawda bint Zama and to Aisha, his favorite wife, around the age of 50
Migration to Medina in 622 and more marriages
Political and religious victories that united the region

Pages 120-121: “As for him, Prophet
Messenger Businessman: his eyes are open now. He paces the inner courtyard of his house, his wife’s house and will not go in to her. She is almost seventy and feels these days more like a mother than a. She, the rich woman, who employed him to manage her caravans long ago. His management skills were the first thing she liked about him.”

The businessman looks as he should, high forehead, eaglenose, broad in the shoulders, narrow in the hip. Average height, brooding, dressed in two pieces of plain cloth, each four ells in length, one draped around his body, the other over his shoulder. Large eyes; long lashes like a girl’s. His strides can seem too long for his legs, but he’s a light-footed man. (95)

Prohibitions on Media Representations in Islamic Culture
Why are images of sentient living beings prohibited?

Iconoclasm in the Western Tradition
Plato’s preference for celestial love rather than physical love
Plato’s contempt for shadows experienced by the senses or imitations of imitations

Iconoclasm in the Western Tradition
Protestant fears of images and icons as corrupting influences and Catholic syncretism of Roman polytheistic beliefs

Iconoclasm in the Western Tradition
Why did Hegel think that architecture and sculpture were the lowest arts and poetry and music the highest?

Common Ground between East and West
The Abrahamic Tradition
Hagar discussed on 94, 97, 99, 101, and 103
The Legend of the Kaaba
The Festival of Ibrahim 118

Jahiliyyah (Arabic: ةيلهاج ǧāhiliyyah/jāhilīyah
"ignorance") is an Islamic concept of
"ignorance of divine guidance" or "the state of ignorance” Pages 96-99

“Gibreel: the dreamer, whose point of view is sometimes that of the camera and at other moments, spectator. When he’s a camera the pee oh vee is always on the move, he hates static shots, so he’s floating up on a high crane looking down at the foreshortened figures of the actors, or he’s swooping down to stand invisibly between them, turning slowly on his heel to achieve a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree pan, or maybe he’ll try a dolly shot . . . “(110)

Reaction to The Satanic
Verses in Iran
The ayatollah and the
Iranian Islamic revolutionary state

In the name of God the Almighty. We belong to God and to
Him we shall return. I would like to inform all intrepid
Muslims in the world that the author of the book Satanic
Verses, which has been compiled, printed, and published in opposition to Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur'an, and those publishers who were aware of its contents, are sentenced to death. I call on all zealous Muslims to execute them quickly, where they find them, so that no one will dare to insult the Islamic sanctity. Whoever is killed on this path will be regarded as a martyr, God-willing.
In addition, if anyone has access to the author of the book but does not possess the power to execute him, he should point him out to the people so that he may be punished for his actions. May God's blessing be on you all. Rullah Musavi al-Khomeini

Moving every three days

A strategy of appeasement. Reclaiming Islam.

Attacking Translators
1991

“Real Devils Don’t Wear Horns”
1993 with Bono as “Mr. MacPhisto”
Rushdie retracts his apologies.

"The Government of the Islamic Republic of
Iran has no intention, nor is it going to take any action whatsoever, to threaten the life of the author of 'The Satanic Verses' or anybody associated with his work, nor will it encourage or assist anybody to do so.”

Protests against Rushdie’s Knighthood
2007

• Profession of Faith
• The prayer
• Zakat – compulsory charity
• The Fast of Ramadan
• The Pilgrimage (Hajj)
(Where does jihad fit in?
Is personal struggle a sixth pillar?)