Rosen's Debate on Self Image: To Brand or Not to Brand

Jeffrey Rosen's "The Naked Crowd" suggests how the crowd, along with the media, creates a demand for exposure. He touches on the differences of 'sincerity' and 'authenticity' as well and explains the two terms in great detail. Rosen explains to the reader that the goal for a person to be sincere is to simply tell the truth at all times. Now for his definition of 'authenticity,' Rosen writes that all thoughts or feelings of an individual should be revealed. Rosen is hinting at how each individual should portray himself as person with no filter. With these two distinct traits, that Rosen wants humans to inherit and develop, everyone will become more trustworthy and more open while true emotions will be revealed.

Now with a more open society, everyone will seem to get along and relate through emotional connections. Rosen draws on this claim a little bit in his introduction about "Portraits of Grief." He discusses how photographs of 9/11 are depicted in the New York Times just days after the horrific event. Jeffrey Rosen tells the reader about how these pictures were supposed to give authenticity and individuality to each one of the 9/11 victims. However, he suggests how these pictures actually take away from the individuality of each victim and rather generalizes them and lumps them in specific groups or personality traits. The pictures were supposed to lay an emotional connection upon the readers of the newspaper but it did just the opposite.


Rosen transitions from these 'Portraits of Grief' and individuality to discuss a similar idea of "Personal Branding." What a reader can gather from Rosen's evidence is that personal brands are merely a competitive device. That is why these self-help books nowadays are so popular because everyone cares about their image. People are telling themselves they need to make a 'brand' for themselves because that is what separates them from another person in the competitive world that we live in. However, this branding of oneself can be a difficult thing to accomplish. The competitive, job-seeking individual must ponder what things he should keep private and what things he should make public about himself. Should he display his true emotions to everyone to seem more 'real' or should he hide them and only project positive emotions to seem more "marketable"? People should realize that it should not matter who they portray themselves as. They should get over their self-consciousness and realize that everyone is self-conscious about something. They should be who they want to be and who they are happy as and the right people will come into their life. This builds on Rosen's "trustworthiness" because you can't be honest with others until you are honest with yourself.

Sobchack's Condition: A Cinema Born Dilemma

Vivan Sobchack's "Postmorbid Condition" discusses how the film industry in present day constantly neglects the meaning behind its violence. The essay also focuses on how there is almost no purpose to all this violence that the the casual movie goer experiences. Sobchack writes about why the average film audience needs "noise and constant stimulation" to make up for this lack of meaning portrayed through violence. The constant bodies being tossed and thrown throughout a scene by fire power and various weaponry should be viewed as "dummies" or "straw men" according to Sobchack. Technology has simply made producers, executives, and directors careless with their movie making and bodies are simply "squandered" throughout many violent film scenes nowadays. Sobchack's Postmorbid Condition is simply something that people experience through modern film and there is no shock factor anymore; they've seen it all.

Vivan Sobchack refutes her own earlier essay from 25 years prior to this one. This begs the reader to ask, which Sobchack should I believe? The one who thinks violence is meaningful? Or meaningless? In this essay, she obviously focuses on how it is meaning-LESS. No longer are people sensitive to recent school shootings and that is a sad thing. Phrases like "Oh, there was a school shooting in Ohio the other day? Well that doesn't sound good," are constantly being heard and mentioned in passive tones and that is scary. This is what Sobchack is kind of hinting at in her writing and how modern movies such as Pulp Fiction and Natural Born Killers have desensitized people in society. These movies are so "outrageous" and "over the top" that they almost elicit laughter. This is not the way it should be and Sobchack is addressing this issue. The one time she does let a violent movie slide, Saving Private Ryan, is because it does serve a purpose because the events of World War 2 were black and white and actions of right and wrong could be easily distinguished. I definitely have to agree with Sobchack on that one and also on how film makers are constantly showing off their latest technology to make death scenes more gruesome and violent. People of society should always take a step back when watching such terrible acts like murder and similar actions should never be viewed in a passive manner and should always be taken seriously.

Cohen the Confuser And His Cultural Codes

Jeremy Cohen's "Monster Culture" covers a great span of information with seven interesting theses. The theses focus on how history is made up of fragments to how Aristotle failed to classify 'monsters' into categories of race because the “monstrous genus is too large.” Cohen is definitely a scholar and his writing reflects that with his word choice and phrasing. He goes on to say how people need to understand different cultures and the monsters they bear. Monsters, who function as alter egos, must be examined within a matrix of relations such as social or cultural. These monsters also question the cultural assumptions of the human race. Some of these assumptions include race, gender, sexuality and our perception of differences. However, it is through the monster that humans can explore their deepest fantasies of aggression and domination; the monster is the symbol of desire. Additionally, Cohen tells us that these much fantasized monsters also ask why have we (as humans) created these assumptions and how do we perceive our world through them.

I believe Cohen, even though very hard to understand at times, has definitely shed some light on cultural perspectives. He talks about these monsters as being a cultural product of the moment in time they were born and he helps the reader understand two narratives of the monster. These double sided narratives include how the monster came to be and what event sprung its ideas and also the purpose this monster serves in culture. One great example he gives is vampires. Vampires have been an issue throughout history but our perspective of them is constantly changing. For instance, to paraphrase Cohen, in the later part of last century movies about vampires could be seen as AIDS awareness to growing adults. Nowadays, Vampires are seen as a racial issue and as a cultural boundary in movies like Twilight and shows like True Blood. However, it is the monster that lives within us that Cohen is constantly alluding to in his writings. Only we as a species can control our acts and the monsters that we create should all be symbols of our behaviors that need to change.