Going too far with inappropriate images

The popularity of the name Ariel for baby girls
in the United Sates (#1113 out of 4276).

The 1989 Disney movie, The Little Mermaid, responsible for a spiked interest in the early 90's for naming children Ariel, also caught attention for explicit sexual references and hidden, slightly inappropriate images.  Look closely at the clip below, it will slow down for emphasis: the priest has a bouncing boner.

 Yummy.

After last week's first experience with animation, I can understand how the process could turn tedious, and I suppose, too, the temptation to add a little inside joke.  The problem, as we've come to find, people are always paying attention.  They want to catch the hidden things -- and they usually will.

Here are a few examples:

 In The Lion King image -- where Simba has plopped down on the edge of a cliff -- the dust that's knocked into the sky seems to spell out the word "sex."  The next clip is from The Little Mermaid's original cover; in the center of the castle stands a penis.  Just one of the sexual clips from Roger Rabbit, when Jessica Rabbit and Eddie are thrown out of the cab, there are a few frames where Jessica's vagina shows.  Lastly, there's an image from The Rescuers where it appears that Miss Bianca is handling Bernard's "penis."  

However, what I'm more interested in this week, is how this ties to the current issue dealing with the New York Public Library.  As it goes, "cannot prevent adult patrons from accessing adult content that is legal." 

I first saw the story on CNN, yesterday.  What it boils down to, from what I understood, it's a First Amendment issue-- freedom of speech.  The question is, should people be allowed to watch porn at the library next to researching children?

This issue has come up before, for example, with the Washington Public Library.  The issue was taken to the Supreme Court:  should libraries be allowed to install a program that will "fliter," what's viewed?

What's wrong ... she's
not even naked?

Personally, while porn may be a form of expression and art, there are certain boundaries people have a right to uphold.  And really, I'm not sure I see the appeal to watching something like that in public.  Unless, of course, that the kind of thing you're into.

Solicitor General Theodore Olson, the Bush's administration's top lawyer before the Supreme Court, argued that libraries routinely choose which reading material they keep on hand. "The government says libraries should be allowed to make the same decisions about the Internet they have voluntarily made over the years with books," he said. "This law does not regulate speech."

Honestly though, if people want to watch porn, and this becomes an even bigger issue, perhaps the libraries could include an "adult" section.  Though, with the way things are in the world, and  this country -- with libraries already struggling to stay open -- I don't think this is what we should  spend our money on.

Moving Forward

My mom first showed me how to do it.  She gave me post-it notes and a pencil.  I came up with something like this:

My mom continues to show the younger
members of the family this trick.

 "You take corner of your post-its, and flip through them like this," Mom would instruct.  This  is known as traditional animation.

Animation -- a rapid display of sequenced images -- can be traced back to the earliest of paintings, often trying to convey motion by redrawing the same figure in a slightly different position.  Because the human eye retains an image for a split second after the source of the image disappears, the chopped nature of drawn movement becomes nothing more than an illusion on screen.

I always picked this movie off the shelf at the video
rental store -- my poor brothers.

There's no real creator of animation; many people were working on it simultaneously.  However, credit for stop-motion animation goes to Georges Méliès.  Stop-motion animation is literally when the camera is stopped, the props are moved, a frame is shot, and repeat. 

The 1993 stop-motion film, particularly close to my heart, The Nightmare Before Christmas was rated "a stunningly original and visually delightful work."


And now, as we move forward with technology, animation only grows.  I used computer animation to take my post-it example I created in paint to make them move.  Still fairly new with technology, I definitely didn't realize how much goes into even the simplest of GIFs (graphics interchange format).

This is my first animation!

The art here, is in the tedious process of animating.  I used Photoshop (Photoshop is awesome!).  I had to separate the strip of characters I created in paint into different pictures.  Then I layered the images on top of each other in the right order.

After that, the sizes of the images all had to be adjusted to the same dimensions.  Then I had to individually move the characters so they were centered on top of each other, to give the illusion that only the legs and arms were moving.

Lastly, I pressed play.

It doesn't sound like much, and it might not even look like much, but this took a while and I feel rather accomplished with myself.

Starting is often difficult, so I find it easier to begin with the end.

My great-grandpa—a World War II Navyman—died April 6, 2011. In the last months Papa had fallen into, what my older brother referred to as, the ending-stages of Alzheimer's disease. I spent my spring break in full company of the disease's effects.

"I don't need friends, I have my family,"
Joe Slaten, married 65 years, said.

“It was like he was uncomfortable in his own skin,” my cousin said a few days before he died. It was a sort of comfort that death came soon thereafter. In my mind, a well-deserved peace awarded to a long-lived man of 85.

 Death, something feared more than accepted, is a part of every life.  Every moment we spend living we spend dying--a rather morbid approach to life, much like the glass is half empty approach as apposed to half full, but nonetheless true.  Every second brings us that much closer to the end.  

The "tame" approach to death, the acceptance rout primitive cultures took, has long since been lost to pre-13^th century communities—before the Black Plague.

"Many died in the open street, others dying in their houses, made it known by the stench of their rotting bodies," poet and writer Giovanni Boccaccio reflected on the plague with a lasting horror and fear. This era, 1348-1350, left a lasting stain influencing the arts, enabling crafters to venture down gruesome paths of expression:

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An increased sense of the self narrowed the view of death to a more personal identity awareness. As it has morphed before, in the 19^th century, romanticism fancied death into something more about the survivors, or the significant others left behind. Graveyards, a place for mourners to congregate and pay their respects, were regarded as such (source).

Papa, when telling a joke, would
laugh the whole way
through.

Naturally, when the time for Papa's funeral came, I was brainstorming art within death as coffins, urns, the whole layout of the cemetery, the military send-off, the board my mom decorated, and the flowers. What really overtook me, however, was my family and their reactions. So, what I was expecting to research were the surface materials for a funeral, a death. What I came to research was the art in dealing with death.

The first of things I stumbled across were very basic: the five stages of grief. Reported in 1969, after working with terminal cancer patients, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross noted these phases people experience when dealing with death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—in no particular “structure or timetable.” 
 

Grief-stricken significant others bare the heavy burden of physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual overwhelmings which can lead to feelings of helplessness, fear and isolation. While some withdraw and numb themselves to a disconnected drained space, others reach out for support (source).

My great-grandfather, Mervin and his father,
George King at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles.

What has amazed me most about my family, what has always amazed me about my family, is their willingness to come together for support. In sad times, despite all our individual differences, we find our way to each other. We find a way to cry and laugh with each other. We take the time to listen. We take the time to comfort each other, even in the stillness of apprehensive silence, through our acknowledgment and presence. We are family.

But there is only so far that silent support will take the grieving process. There is a certain level of personal dealings that a mourner must undergo. Everyone is different, and because of that, I can only give examples of how to bring oneself to that final stage: acceptance.

Most of my family turn to their religion as a source for comfort and peace of mind. Embracing a community of others whom share their faith and beliefs helps. However, when conversing with someone, Ann Kihara—a licensed marriage and family counselor in Pacific Grove, CA—has a few suggestions on what not to say:

“It's unhelpful, even callous, to say things like, 'This is God's will,' 'They would not want you to cry,' or 'They are in a better place.' We cannot presume to know the will of God nor the emotional state of our loved one who is grieving” (source).

I've found, if the urge to include the comment, “You are in my prayers,” comes to mind, it might be better just to keep it simple: “You are in my thoughts.” After all, a pray of any kind is thought. This world is full of individual spiritual preferences, and we cannot presume to know what and won't offend someone, even if it is family.

The power went out at my graduation party
so we pulled out the guitars.

My family has often come together, in times of happiness and sadness, to make music. All my life music has been the tool for expression, communication, and togetherness. Using music as a form of therapy, to let the emotions melt, are in some ways a more powerful technique than even talking (source).

 No one's the same in the grieving process.  Some days are better than others, and emotions come in waves. Speaking from my personal experience, it is hard. And I wish I could be closer to my family during my own process of grief. But, as it goes, I have people I can rely on a little closer to school and work.