(A toxic text) The Cohesion between consum and death in DeLillo`s "White Noise"

In Don DeLillo`s „White Noise“ the supermarket becomes an important location for the characters of the novel. Murray and Jack meet at the supermarket as often as on campus. One time Jack says that he likes to be at the supermarket because it does not change except for the better. Furthermore it is well stocked with good and it is melodic and brightly. For Jack it is a place of peace.

When Murray and Jack ones meets at the supermarket, Murray tells Jack that he looks old and fragile without his robe and the sunglasses he normally wears on campus. After that Jack falls into a shopping fever whereby he wants to avoid to age prematurely and may become insignificant. This displays that shopping creates a feeling of peace and safety for Jack Gladney.

But DeLillo also often draws a line between consum and necrophobia. On the way to the Boy Scout Camp for example, Jack associates the toxic cloud with a commercial for death. And for the old Mr. Treadwell and his sister shopping becomes a traumtaic experience when they strayed in the giant shopping mall for four days so that the old woman even dies as a result of this occurance. In this case the shoppingcenter and consum are linked with confusion and death.  

(Critical Junkyard) Environmental lies in automobile industry

In modern times climate protection becomes increasingly more important. Thus even the automobile industry has to join in for selling their products. For this they usually make use of well-known car fairs on which they can utilize the effect of greenwashing.

During the presentation of their e-cars and hybrid cars they give it a totally ecofriendly image.

But Greenpeace and experts already calculated a worse environmental balance for e-cars than for cars with a gasonline or diesel engine. Only when the current will come from renewable energies the balance might become positiv. Even the production of the rechargeable batteries is extremely environmentally harmful.

Nevertheless the automobile industry wants to make the consumers believe that e-cars are ecofriendly due to the fact that they do not emit exhaust gases. But the exhaust gases accrues during the generation of current.    

(Critical Junkyard) *monocultures of the mind*

In chapter 8 (pg. 163) of Ecocriticism, Garrard talks about globalisation and the affects it could have on other cultures around the world. He states, "for some, [globalisation] represents homogenisation in which diverse local cultures are supplanted by monocultures of the mind," referring to the influence that regions such as North America, Japan and Western Europe will have.

I find this important for out topic concerning toxicity because when other countries take on the mindset that our culture has toward consumerism and waste, then the world will become an even more toxic place, filled with more waste than anyone knows what to do with. Instead of other cultures taking on the poorer aspects of our culture, we should be allowing ourselves to be more easily influenced by less wasteful cultures.

(Critical Junkyard) *Simulacrum*

So I'm finding it especially easy to find words and phrases from 'The China Syndrome' article that I don't understand. (I'm right there with you Elisa.)

According to Google's dictionary function, simulacrum is "an image or representation of someone or something" or "an unsatisfactory imitation of substitute."

So what does that mean in relation to toxic discourse? I'm thinking of the media's constant struggle in The China Syndrome to accurately represent the issues unfolding or in White Noise, the SIMUVAC people aren't actually meant to do real evacuations, they're only supposed to train people what to do, so that in the case of an actual evacuation situation the people will know what to do.

When I see the word simulacrum, I think of simulation and that ties in well with toxic discourse because of all of the uncertainty involved in toxic events. It is difficult to pinpoint whether people become sick due to a toxic substance or if they were sick before the event. The only hard science is the simulations scientists can do, but in the field, once an event actually occurs, there is very little that goes as it would in a simulation.

(Critical Junkyard) Parousia

I found this term in the ever-so-strange Baudrillard essay about China Syndrome.

Dictionary.com says, Parousia-"the presence in any thing of the idea after which it was formed"


This freak occurrence of parousia is not only an interesting element of China Syndrome vs its real counterpart the 3 Mile Island disaster, but can also be seen in White Noise. During the Airborne Toxic Event, Steffie and Denise (And later even Babette) only get the symptoms mentioned by the radio until they have already been exposed to hearing about it. Sure, we can say that there aren't any real effects because they are sort of mentally induced, but it still happens this way.

(A Toxic Text) WALL-E

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910970/

WALL-E is a Disney-Pixar film, in which humans have given in to every consumer desire and the world then becomes so full of their waste that WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load-Lifter, Earth-class), a computerized robot is left alone, with his only companion, a cockroach, to clean up all the trash. The human population lives on a ship, travelling through space, subsisting off of a liquid diet and never leaving the chairs in which they sit. They are so many generations removed from their forefathers who created the mess on Earth that they don't even know what Earth looks like and have completely lost their sense of the culture they had on Earth, as well.

Earth, as it is portrayed in this film, is a prime example of Buell's Virgilian mode. In the end, the human population returns to Earth, sees the destruction and devastation that their lifestyle can cause, and that their previous generations did cause. The Kafkaesque image of Earth that they see before them encourages them all to try to begin to clean up the mess and have a fresh start on the planet.

(A Toxic Text) Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104254/

Fern Gully: The Last Rain Forest is about a race of fairies and sprites in a rainforest who fight to keep humans from cutting down all of the trees. The massive tree cutting machine is occupied by an evil oil-like creature, which thrives off of t

he pollution coming out of the machine in order to gain strength. The movie portrays Man as the ultimate enemy of nature.

The forest is naturally illustrated as a picturesque Eden being destroyed by big business. During a few shots in the film, the audience sees the area which has already been eliminated of trees, giving the viewer a very ominous feeling of what could come if Man isn't stopped.

I felt this film exemplifies aspects of all of 4 of Buell's Toxic Topoi. Hexxus, who is an ever present threat in the film, represents the inescapability of the toxin. The idea that Man is facing off against the rainforest, and for most of the film, is winning the battle, represents the David and Goliath myth. Eden (the forest) is betrayed by man, in that a fairly large expanse has already been chopped down and burned to char. Once it is all burned and the whole screen shot is just charred, black land where once stood an Eden-like rainforest, represents Buell's Virgilian/gothicized squalor.

(Critical Junkyard) "Homeopathic Doses"

Hullo,

Luckily for me my vocabulary isn't that good, so I can easily find new terms to post on here.

So in the Baudrillard China Syndrome article that Dr. Davidson e-mailed us, I came across many confusing things.

But I will only discuss the homeopathic dose.

One sentence that stuck out to me (mainly because I am dumb and had to read it 12 times) was "--but the cold simulacrum and of its distillation in homeopathic doses in the cold systems of information".

I think I get stuck on this because the earlier part of the sentence is actually quite long and he says cold twice and I just don't like him.

Okay, so, was does das mean? Well I had to look it up.

"the method of treating disease by drugs, given in minute doses, that would produce in a healthy person symptoms similar to those of the disease"


Okay, so, was does das mean?


I am not sure. But I think it relates to our relationship with the media. (Well, not the literal definition, but I think that is how it interacts with our toxic discourse). On one hand, knowledge about a disaster is a good thing, right? We all want to know about nuclear failures and how to prepare and prevent others, but on the other side, the media kind of causes the event and the panic that goes along with it.

And now for something completely different

Sometime around the oil spill I stumbled upon this video.
Its portrayal of the events surrounding BP and their struggle to stop the spill is a nice change from the toxic discourse with its lost paradise or Gothicised Squalor.

(Critical Junkyard) Ecocide

The term ecocide can be applied to refer to large-scale destruction of a habitat. It can also mean a substance that kills enough species in an ecosystem to disrupt its functionality. Examples for an ecocide would be the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico or the Exxon Valdez.

(A toxic Text) Fierce Creatures

Fierce Creatures is the “not-sequel” to A Fish Ccalled Wanda. It was directed by Fred Schepisi and Robert Young and its cast starred Jamie Lee Curtis, John Cleese and Kevin Kline. The movie is set in an English zoo that has been taken over by Octopus, an American company. The environmentally conscious messages are of course all over the movie, as it is of course about the poor British David against the evil American Goliath (Kevin Kline in a dial role). The Americans (of course) only want to make money which is why Rollo Lee (Cleese) and the other workers (amongst other a brilliant Michael Palin) have to gang up to save the zoo (a plot involving a gun, a lemur and flour).

The scene that environmentally struck me the most though was when Vince McCain brings in an animatronic Panda. At first the workers don’t realize it’s an animatronic reacting all the more betrayed when they find out. They argue that an animatronic doesn’t belong in a zoo because it is “artificial” to which McCain simply replies: “Having pandas in England is artificial for God’s sake!”

This quote crystalizes the constructedness of environmental discourse and its understanding of the “natural” a theme we have spent quite a bit of time on lately.

Another way to die

Hello everyone!
Today, I'm going to present another song. This time it's about the song 'Another way to die' from Disturbed.

The song tries to wake up people with a really direct speech. Just look at the chorus:

"Still, we ravage the world that we love.
And the millions cry out to be saved.
Our endless maniacal appetite.
Left us with another way to die."

The rest of the lyrics can be found at the bottom of this text. So what I thought was the most interesting about this were the videos. Yes, videos as there are two versions to the same song. These videos show many catastrophic scenes like we've seen them before in other videos. But I've never ever seen these videos on television (I can only speak for Germany of course). So even though they try to wake people up, they fail because the media won't support this. How unexpected, right.

Well, here are the videos:

1. Video
2. Video

Lyrics

(A Toxic Text) Resident Evil Franchise (The Obvious)

Everyone knows these kind of movies: A deadly Virus is created by mankind, released, and turns people into mindless, cruel, brutal and bloodthirsty creatures that can't be stopped.

In the Resident Evil Franchise the virus spreads in an underground research facility and then finds it's way out infecting a city first and then spreading over the whole world. There are only a few survivors led by Alice (Milla Jovovich). Together, they try to find a safe place and also try to fight the company that still runs experiments to strengthen the virus.

What's interesting about this is that Alice herself was an experiment, cells were injected and gave her new abilities. And it seems she is the only one that can find a way out of this mess. So basically, they fight experiments with an experiment, science versus science, mutation versus mutation. Humans technology destroys humanity, and only human technology can save them.

Of course there are many different shades that can be analyzed.

*A Toxic Text* Once Upon a Forest

I first watched Once Upon a Forest when I was much younger, and it was a movie that didn't attract much notice. I remembered though that in the beginning of the film, the characters were faced with a crisis when a truck hauling a trailer full of gas wrecks and the gas finds its way to the homes of the animal characters. The cartoon shows both the plants and animals reactions to the gas. Birds flee. Flowers wilt. This is an example of a betrayed eden in the way that the chemical was introduced to the environment and upsetting the natural balance of the forest.

The film received a lot of criticism when it was released in 1993. And a Washington Post article said "And though the humans are redeemed (somewhat) and the woodland parents reunited with their youngsters, the filmmakers -- director Charles Grosvenor and producers David Kirschner and Jerry Mills -- employ shameless shock tactics to send their save-the-earth message. It's true than human beings are polluting and destroying the planet, but does anyone really think that the way to help children love nature is to teach them to hate mankind?"

Another review for Variety comments that civilization is portrayed as the source of evil. That the film creates an us against the world feeling.

While the plot of the film does seem a bit dark for children, it does openly show and/or discuss a massive amount of families that were killed or split apart, the idea that there is a children's film that is conscience of the dangers of pollution and or toxic elements.

Here's two links for the beginning of the film. It really begins about 13:30 minutes into the first part and continues shortly into the second.

Part 1

Part 2

13:30

(Critical Junkyard) Greenwashing in RWE commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhMV0e_cFAI&feature=player_embedded

This is a german commercial of the energy company RWE. This commercial was due, in particular, to the reproach that RWE does nothing for the environment. So the company created an energy giant which looks a bit like the popular character Shrek. Now this character is part of a campaign which should show the innocent of the concern on nuclear plants and reflect well on it.

The sad truth is that RWE only draws about two percent of their energy from clean energy, the rest is obtained from more or less rotten atomic plants. 

(A Toxic Text) Perdido Street Station

Having only recently finished China Miéville's—in my humble opinion—brilliant novel Kraken, I have just now begun reading Perdido Street Station. I cannot account for the whole book, of course, but I have already come across enough useful imagery to justify my pick. Considering that novel is set in a steampunk city-state (and China being a known connoisseur of the English language), drawing the connection to Victorian London is not far fetched.

In fact, Miéville describes his world as follows:

"It's basically a secondary world fantasy with Victorian era technology. So rather than being a feudal world, it's an early industrial capitalist world of a fairly grubby, police statey kind!"

Victorian era and industrial capitalist world can, by all means, only mean one thing: pollution. And there is lots and lots of it. The novel starts of by following the thoughts of a character who arrives in the city on one of the two main rivers (“Tar” and “Canker”) by barge. Through his or her implied eyes we see chimneys “retch dirt into the sky”, how the water “reflects the stars through a stinking rainbow of impurities”, cranes and cogs, machines leaking oil and sludge, and dead fish and frogs swimming in the poisonous water. This could easily be seen as a slightly hyperbolic reference to the 19th century Thames, which was, at that time, not the healthiest river to fall into (*ahem*). The reader does also come across places such as “Smog Bend”, “Gross Coil” or “Rust Bridge”, which all add to image of a polluted, industrial town.

Written by Christopher O'Sullivan

(Critical Junkyard) Theriophobia

This term is also from Garrad's chapter on animals. Theriophobia is derived from the Greek prefix therio- [(wild)animals] and the term phobos [fear] and accordingly refers to an excessive fear of wild animals. Garrad discusses how Hollywood used to exploit and reinforce this particular fear in their 80s movies, such as the Jaws-series. Here, animals serve as the antagonists, the evil, that has to be slain by the human heroes.

Written by Christopher O'Sullivan

(A Toxic Text) Spaceballs

The comedy Spaceballs came out in 1987, was directed by Mel Brooks and starred Bill Pullman, John Candy, Rick Moranis and Mel Brooks. Though the film is mainly a parody of Star Wars it has its own little story about a civilization of space-balls (90’s- pun intended) that has “foolishly squandered their atmosphere”. This starting point serves as a McGuffin to drive the story of kidnapping, saving and returning the Druish princess in distress.
The environmentally conscious part of the movie is pure toxic discourse. The planet Spaceball, though futuristic and still populated, has barely any atmosphere and looks like a mixture of a golf court and the moon (interesting design though you wouldn’t want to live there). A civilization that has used up all its atmosphere and needs to rob other planets in order to survive is clearly a form of Gothicized Squalor (though a child friendly version as it is a comedy after all).
Spaceballs shows that you can have a great comedy which is environmentally conscious without that part seeming taped on or too morally patronizing. You can leave the cinema laughing but as you drive home you might think about that car of yours and how it might not have been necessary to drive those three blocks to the cinema. After all you wouldn’t want to end up like President Skroob (the old Schmock), would you? *click*

Posted by Konstantin Zielke

(Critical Junkyard) “Spaceship Earth”

In Ecocriticism‘s eighth chapter “Earth” we read about “spaceship Earth”. This specific ecological view of the world that tries to envision the world as one big ecosystem in which we all need to work together like the crew on a ship. Mankind has to work together to manage earth’s limited resources in order to achieve the greater good for mankind.

Posted by Konstantin Zielke

(Toxic Text) A Clockwork Orange

"Burgess gave more than one explanation for the origins of the title. In a prefatory note to A Clockwork Orange: A Play with Music, Burgess wrote that the title was a metaphor for "...an organic entity, full of juice and sweetness and agreeable odour, being turned into an automaton."" -Wikipedia

Good morning brothers, my next Toxic Text is about A Clockwork Orange (The movie though, not the book. I couldn't put up with all of the slang when I tried to read it. But maybe now that I am older I could try again).

Now I can't remember when Alex says the above quote in the movie, but I can take an educated guess that it is during his Ludovico "Treatment" when he is forced to watch horrendous, "ultra-violence" on a giant screen for hours at a time.
If you are familiar with the story, Alex DeLarge is pretty deranged by most people's standards (But you still kind of root for him. At least I hope you do, otherwise I am a giant weirdo). Anyway, he is a young man living in a near-future England that gets into a lot of mischief with his "droogs". They beat people up, rape women, and don't go to class, etc. They're bad news. But only until Alex playfully murders an elderly woman does he get arrested and finally sent to prison.
This is when his Ludovico Treatment starts. Now, the images that are on the screen are things that he's use to, he has done a lot of these crimes. But they greatly disturb him and eventually, forcefully and psychologically "change" his whole nature (But of course it doesn't really change anything, he just doesn't want to suffer the physical consequences of participating in the ultra-violence anymore). This is the exact same point that Baudrillard makes (I think??? I hope I understood it. Now I am uncertain). But the comparison at least shows how Alex couldn't recognize how disturbing his actions really were until he had the media mirror it back to him.

I added the quote from the author, Anthony Burgess, just because I liked the juxtaposition of nature and machines. The failure of the Ludivico Treatment shows that you can't control nature and you can't really give it certain characteristics. Some people in the movie are pretty well-adjusted, others are not. And I think human nature and nature nature are alike in that way.

Other elements in the movie can be tied back to Toxic Discourse. We're familiar with Buell's topoi by now, I can think of two that are in the movie. Gothicization, fo'sho. England is a dump! Nature is mostly removed from the story and the cinematography shows a grungy, grey, twisted city.
Also, I kind of feel David & Goliath going on here. I told you earlier that I care about Alex, and I think it's him versus "the system". I don't know though, his parents seem well-adjusted, and their eventual "Alex replacement" seems okay. I just think he is a victim of his times and Virgil would point me out to Dante in Hell for my sympathy.
But since the story does take place in the future, it argues against good ol' Pastoral perception of nature. In fact, I think the movie is just bleak all around; the past isn't thought of as better, the future doesn't seem that appealing, and nothing changes in the future. So, eh, yeah. Not sure what that means.





I couldn't wait until next week to post this, so sorry I did two this week. But I want to be a good student and have more time to dedicate for my paper :D

On Nuclear Power in Germany

Here is a bit from a "Viewpoints" on the BBC Website. You can find this, as well as an argument against it, at the following address:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13594503

I include this piece, simply because--being university types--we can easily see the pros to the decision. Still, as we have seen, these are complex decisions, and many times what seems like the "obvious" and "natural" way of solving the problem conceals the complex ideological support behind it. In this case, the question becomes this: "What net effect on the environment will this proposed shut down of German nuclear power have?"

Malcolm Grimston, Chatham House research fellow:

[The German decision to close its nuclear plants] is not necessarily damaging for the nuclear industry. I think this will create new export opportunities for the French nuclear industry in Germany. The Czech Republic will be another source of the replacement imports. Most of that will be as a result of coal but the Czech Republic itself has a vigorous new nuclear programme. So this does create a new market for nuclear electricity and, as long as that is what has happened, then the environment will not be damaged.

I think the real concern is that last year we had more carbon dioxide emissions than ever before. To have a major European economy inevitably saddling itself with more greenhouse gas emissions - the German Greens are openly talking about building more gas-powered plants and supporting the new coal-fired plants that are being brought online - is, I think, going to be a tragedy for the environment, and I don't think it's going to be good for the German economy.

E. Coli Coverage in the New York Times

Hi, class,

Here's an excerpt from a New York Times story covering the E. Coli problem in Germany:

"The European Union operates as a single market but nations zealously guard powers over certain areas of national policy, including health policy and disease control. Even so, European efforts to track the source of the bacteria were far more effective than in other parts of the world, including the United States, one E.U. official said Tuesday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be seen criticizing other health and food authorities around the world, said high standards of traceability meant that E.U. experts would soon pinpoint the origins of the outbreak.

What I think is interesting about this section is that--just as Babette utilizes the toxic event as a chance to cut down on fatty foods (a ludicrous act, we might think)--so too do E. U. experts use this scare as a chance to discuss their own preparedness. It's strange for a number of reasons. As the actual outbreak occurs, in other words, officials speak about how much more prepared they are than in other parts of the world. It seems logical to ask, though, why it happens in the first place, not how prepared we are. Also, the sense of "preparedness for risk" and the speed with which the E. U. located a culprit (nevermind that the Spanish officials are denying any wrongdoing) also speaks to Gladney's opening remarks about the station wagons rounding the bend into the college at the start of the novel. Social status means "massive insurance coverage." We come to equate prosperity with immunity from risk, even though the new risks we face are not deterred by insurance and data and capital.

Obviously, the fact that, according to this article, fifteen people have already died and over a thousand have been hospitalized is no laughing matter. We have to be careful not to do to this national health problem what Gladney does to Hitler: render it merely a literary trope. Still, the rhetoric deployed by officials in the government, by the media, and by other outlets is potent and "always already" inflected by ideological concerns. Let's tackle those, while also remaining sensitive to the fact that ecocriticism must deal with the "real," as well.