Alex Foyt

GE 30

I could go on for years and years listing my strengths as a writer.  I have an impeccable sense for the proper flow of a paragraph, and craft sentences that delight the eye.  My vocabulary is deeper and wider than the Pacific ocean. I pull analogies and metaphors from the air as though I’m plucking fruit from the tree.  My major strength in writing is my overactive mind. Whether I want to or not, my subconscious continuously searches for and builds connections between ideas.  My greatest weakness, however, is that I have an over inflated ego as a writer and think I know everything. I got into an argument with my mom, a professional writer, about the use of the word “venerable” verses “venerated,” and we still fight about it to this day.  If anyone tries to correct me about anything, I will argue my stance until judgement day. This makes it harder for me to grow and improve as a writer.

My ability to see connections between ideas has been super helpful for writing essays this year.  With my final essay, some of the similarities I draw between Miyazaki and Chihiro are very obscure.  However, paired with my ability to argue any stance until the end of time, I do a good job of defending my random claims.  In terms of my weakness, I have more or less disregarded much of the professional critique I’ve been given and opted to write page long responses to my TAs explaining why their edits are wrong. That’s not a super productive practice.

For this final essay I’m actually internalizing and applying the advice you gave me, which isn’t something I really ever do.  I think that’s just because I genuinely agree with it, so I don’t know if that proves any actual growth on my part.

To Mr. Crabs,

 

In order to market Spirited Away to a modern American audience, I believe we should pursue an archetypal marketing strategy focused on a psychoanalytic understanding of the movie. Of course, you know that Spirited Away is a Japanese animated film, and ostensibly presents an experience and culture unrelatable to American audiences.  As such, in order to connect the film to American audiences, we must emphasize the threads that make the movie similar to what American audiences are accustomed too.  Movies, at their core, are stories. More often than not, these stories have mythological origins, and threads that connect them. This is because these stories evolve from, if not a collective unconscious, a shared an unified human experience that knows no borders between countries.  These stories are ultimately relatable to all of humanity. In terms of Spirited Away, the mythological core can be found in the strong presence of the Hero’s Journey. This Hero’s Journey is a mythological motif found in both American and foreign films. By focusing on Chihiro’s metamorphosis, and trials, we can market this foreign film to an American market that is shifting towards a more isolationist and nationalistic mindset.  It would also be useful to allude, without directly referencing, the undertones of sexual initiation found in the film. Without openly marketing the movie as being about sex, which would likely conflict with the younger market, it would be poignant to suggest these undertones. For many teens undergoing puberty that are conflicted and struggling to understand their own initiation into adulthood, the movie could serve not as a guide, but as an abstract model for understanding the changes in their social and personal lives.  Also, many elements of Spirited Away are drawn directly from Japanese mythology.  The spirits and sourcereces are all typical of Japanese mythology, and strike uncanny resemblances to western myths.  That is because these characters are archetypal, they fill a particular role in many different stories. By focusing on the archetypal nature of the characters, you will make them more relatable to Western viewers

 

Please give me a raise,

Alex Foyt

Dear Aunt,

 

As per our last correspondence in which you expressed interest in my final paper for GE 30, I would like to fill you in on the details of that project. I was initially concerned going into writing my essay, because I did not know how I was going to correlate the hero’s journey in Spirited Away to the production history of the film.  Then, I realized that production history could extend to not just the creation of the actual film, but also to the life of its famous director, Hayao Miyazaki. As I dug into various documentations about his life, I began to see deep connections.  For instance, the genesis of his journey as an animator can be directly compared to the backbone of the hero’s journey. He starts out as a as a college student studying economics. This is his ordinary world. Then, he enters a “threshold” apprenticeship phase.  This is where he works for Toei Animation. Here, he meets his mentor, and future wife. This is his initiation phase. Before he worked there however, before college, he accrued experience drawing manga. However, he destroyed those early works because he felt like he was copying other artists, and didn’t gain experience from making them. This could be paralleled by his decision to leave Toei and create his own works.  Such a risk might not have been profitable for him, but it was necessary for his evolution into a master of the craft. This process is similar to how Chihiro denied the temptation of No Face’s gold, because she had more important things to go after.

I have few concerns about this essay.  Among them, is my teacher’s suggestion that I consider how Spirited Away subverts the classic Hero’s Journey.  He argued that Chihiro’s sad return to the ordinary world runs counter to the classic hero’s journey. I strongly disagree with that idea, because the “return with special knowledge,” or “return to the ordinary world” is an integral step in the classic formula.  Throughout Chihiro’s journey, she accrued that special knowledge. That is, she grew in confidence by leaps and bounds. She also learned about a forgotten part of her past in the form of self knowledge. She even gained a boon from the special world, that hair tie  given to her by Yababa’s sister.

The other concern I have is about an article I read a long time ago.  That article suggested that Spirited Away is actually a story about sexual initiation.  I initially discounted that idea, but as I watched the film I couldn’t not see that obvious connection.  I feel like I have to discuss it, but I’m not sure how well that would connect to Miyazaki’s journey.

Thank you for reading, Aunt.  I wish you the best with your osteoporosis diagnosis.  You’re truly the backbone of our family.

 

Best,

Alex Foyt

The Graduate tells a story that plays on both archetypal and nationalist ideas.  On one level, Benjamin is the typical hero figure who must go on a quest to attain self knowledge.  The elements critical to such a story are all there, but subverted in some way. To begin, Benjamin is pestered by friends and family to pursue a future along various paths.  This is his “call to adventure” as described by the hero’s journey. However, Benjamin is clearly unready to accept this call, and has no interest in doing so. To make this dilemma more interesting, Benjamin encounters a mentor figure in the form of Mrs. Robinson.  Mrs. Robinson has already seen a lot of what adult life and possibilities have to offer, and prematurely tempts him into those experiences through sexual encounters. The rest of the movie portrays Benjamin teetering along the threshold of adulthood, more or less unable to make a single decision for himself.  He does not cross the threshold, and journey into a possible next phase of his life, until he decides to take Elaine away from her wedding and escape into the unknown.

 

The Graduate also plays off of nationalist ideas of the late 1960s.  For starters, this was a time of civil progress in America. The civil rights act, which was passed in 1964, made things like religious and sexual discrimination illegal.  These societal changes are reflected by specific scenes in the movie. For instance, the kind of manhandling that Benjamin performs on the cross at Elaine’s wedding would have been terribly culturally taboo in the years preceding this movie, and probably would have caused severe box office backlash.  Also, the sexual actions that Benjamin performs with Mrs. Robinson, a woman 20 years his elder, probably would have been viewed as pushing the envelope too far before the national relaxation over sexual taboo that occurred in the sixties.

The 1994 film Forrest Gump tells the story of a mentally slow, yet kind and compassionate, Alabama boy as he lives through defining moments in American history.  His journey ultimately ends in tragedy however, when his life-long love interests Jenny dies shortly after their marriage. Jenny’s death strikes as particularly disturbing, because Forrest doesn’t understand exactly how to react to it.  All his life, he was slow to understand complicated social interactions and complications. Then, faced with the death of his wife, that struggle to understand and cope is portrayed on screen with the deep sobs that slowly bubble to Gumps face.  

This reaction struck home with me, because at that age I also had difficulty reading social cues, and understanding the correct emotional responses for given situations. I had frustrations and sad thoughts that I also didn’t know how to deal with or express.  For example, the first time I watched the movie was shortly after the death of one of our family dogs, Mogly. I was incredibly sad about his death, but I didn’t know how to deal with that, or what the correct response would even look like. I remember asking my Dad why he was crying, and being genuinely confused and concerned. The movie has stuck with me ever since, and I think about it whenever I am presented with a loss or a defining moment in my life.