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Susan Sontag and John Updike....

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work it work it come on make it fierce beautiful that's the shot now off you go [Man being photographed and walks away]

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Alfonso he's going to be a star right you want to know who was the real star

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though Susan Sontag, Sonntag was born in New York City in 1933 after establishing [Susan as a baby crying in a cot]

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herself as a writer she burst into the big leagues with her 1964 essay notes on

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camp, it's not about making out on a bunk bed with your summer crush but is

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instead about camp the style which is an overly exaggerated and intentionally

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cheesy aesthetic that was first defined in the early 1900s Katy Perry's 2015 [Katy Perry performing at a concert]

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halftime show performance that featured a giant robot tiger and several dancing

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sharks yeah that's camp ridiculous B movies

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like sharknado they qualify as camp too, over the years

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Sontag gained fame for her nonfiction work including against interpretation [Sontags document appears]

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and other essays illness as metaphor and the George Polk award winning collection

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of essays on photography which we'll be looking at shortly and don't think

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that's the only trophy she's got mounted on her wall Sontag also won the [Unicorn head mounted on a wall beside Susan]

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National Book Critics Circle Award earned a MacArthur Fellowship and even

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won the National Book Award for her 2000 novel in America... Sonntag basically had

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her dream job she was a public intellectual [People cheering for Sontag]

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okay okay so public intellectual is just another way of saying writer but it sure

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makes Sontag sound cool besides notes on camp Sontag is best

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known for her 1977 essay collection on photography don't think the book is a

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guide to taking selfies or something instead it's about understanding photos [Girl attempting to take selfie with Eiffel Tower]

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though it certainly wouldn't hurt your selfie skills to read it in the essay

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Sontag argues that seeing images of something desensitizes us to it no

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matter how shocking it might be to us at first we can apply this rule to violent

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imagery after seeing 10,000 more of these images the 10,000 at first isn't

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going to seem too shocking to you is it kind of like a mortician who isn't [Mortician walks into lab room]

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grossed out by the time he gets to his 500th corpse the same goes for sexual

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imagery or any of the weird stuff you stumble across on the Internet the first

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essay in the collection is named after Plato's cave a famous thought experiment

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by the philosopher Plato no not the clay Plato compares Humanity to prisoners [People chained up to a wall]

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locked up inside a cave forced to watch a shadow puppet show all day every day

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because they've never known anything about the cave these people think that

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the shadows are the real objects and have no sense of the actual things producing

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those shadows they don't even know that concept of shadows [People holding up animal ornaments]

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Plato use this thought experiment to illustrate how our senses aren't enough

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to fully comprehend reality but Sontag twists it here to represent our [Waiter gives woman a menu]

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relationship with images after all like shadows photographs aren't the same as

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the things they're representing though it can be easy for us to feel that way

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sometimes hey maybe we've discovered the reason [Man chewing a photograph]

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images desensitize us they make us feel like we're experiencing something even

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though we're not here's how Sontag frames it in the opening essay....

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Look at all those words she associated with photography appropriate

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object acquire in other words to take a photograph isn't just to document the [Woman holding a photograph and falls over]

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subject matter but to possess it possession as an ownership not the a

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possession of the demonic variety now we don't just mean that you feel a sense of

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ownership over the photograph or jpg or whatever but the actual objects being

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photographed and the moment in time when the image was taken a similar thing

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happened with other types of art like novels or painting but there's a big [Man inspecting a piece of art]

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difference we know that a novel isn't a perfect reflection of reality after all

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it's just a bunch of words on a page the same goes for paintings simply by the [Young girl painting a picture]

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fact that they're paintings we can tell that someone had to paint them but

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photographs are different because they're pretty much exactly what we see

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with our own two eyes it's easy to think that they perfectly reflect reality

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which is completely untrue....

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as Sontag says we automatically

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assume that photographs have a sense of authority as in we assume the

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photographer is knowledgeable about the subject matter they're photographing it

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would be much better in our eyes for example for a zoologist to be taking [Gorilla beating its chest and photograph is taken]

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anatomical photos of animals rather than a plumber we also assume that photos are

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truthful we don't want someone taking a photograph of a dog and telling you it's

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a cat or telling you that they took a picture in New York City when it was

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really actually taken in Topeka Kansas of course we have no real guarantee that

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a photographer is keeping it 100 with us they might for example have posed the

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subjects before snapping the photo as was the case of Jacob Riis; a famous [Woman posing for a photograph]

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crime photographer who would pose his subjects to make them seem as destitute

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as possible to emphasize his anti-poverty message in the digital age

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we also have to consider editing we can see examples of manipulative editing all

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over the place from the cover of celebrity magazines to propaganda images

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from the North Korean military which are [North Korean soldier marching]

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haphazardly photoshop for a maximum intimidation value sometimes it isn't

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about the photograph itself but its context this happens online all the time

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someone posts an image of a person in a real life or death situation claiming [Image of man scared by a burning builder]

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that it's a real-life photo only for it to turn out to be a still from a

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big-budget movie but we don't see any of that manipulation if we see a photograph

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we assume it's true Sontag seem to have predicted our image

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saturated smartphone dominant future right check out this bit for example [Person waves hand over crystal ball]

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here Sontag argues that books are not the best place to see photographs.....

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....and why because they're too linear

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in other words when you look at a book of photographs you move through the [Book pages turn]

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pages in a straight line from beginning to end, fast forward about four decades

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and what device changes all of this you got it smartphones with smartphones you

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don't have to look at photographs in any particular order whether we're using

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snapchat Instagram or simply surfing the web we can look at photos in any order [Person searching the internet for vacation spots]

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we want or however long we want I tried to explain this to Alphonso but it was

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too much for his little noggin to handle cut him some slack

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he's a model not a quantum physicist another forward-looking bit from on [Quantum physicist appears in classroom]

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photography are these comments about camera technology....

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The gist is that falling prices and improved technology allowed

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the masses to just start taking photos themselves leading to the development of

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photography as a legitimate art form at first cameras required a huge setup [Man stood beside an olden camera]

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and professional training to operate before eventually becoming smaller and

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cheaper with each passing year of course when this essay was written the easiest

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camera someone could pick and shoot was a Polaroid a camera that let you develop

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photos instantly but we've got a lot more choices today like inexpensive [Selection of modern cameras appear]

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digital cameras smartphones and even our computers many of which have cameras

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built-in so if we apply Sontag's argument to modern technology we gain a better

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understanding of why photography is everywhere these days

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prices go down technology goes up and people start taking photos like mad but [Woman taking photo of cat lying on a couch]

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Sontag wrote about more than just photography another important essay in

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our arsenal is titled on American language and culture big shocker it's

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about American language and culture hey at least Sontag is straightforward the [Sontag sitting by a window]

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essay starts by focusing on Sontag hometown of New York City which she

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describes as distinct from the rest of the country due to its foreign nature to

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be fair pretty much everything about America is foreign when it comes down to

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it most citizens are descended from immigrants after all even the food comes

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from elsewhere pizza Italy hotdogs Germany Mountain Dew somewhere in outer [Astronaut with a can of Mountain Dew in outer space]

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space we assume but NYC is different Sontag explains... New York has such a

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significant foreign-born population that it just feels different from the rest of

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the country Sontag explores this concept further when she talks about how

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a Swedish member of the Nobel Prize Committee commented on the literary

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taste of foreign writers which given that Sweden is an itty bitty country [Sweden appears highlighted on a globe]

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accounts for like 99.9 percent of the world population so foreignness can mean

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different things depending on the context it can refer to something worth

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treasuring like it is for Sontag or it can refer to something that's viewed

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suspiciously Sontag repeatedly uses the word dialectic to make this point which

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refers to the balance of two contrary ideas in this case the dialectic [Paragraph from American language and culture novel]

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between Americans pride for their foreign heritage and their simultaneous

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distrust of foreign people in most situations it's like they can appreciate

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the idea of foreignness the idea that their ancestors traveled here from a

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distant land but simultaneously look down on the foreign people they [Man standing at a bar and is punched in the face]

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encounter in their lives Sontag also relates America's unique

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relationship with foreignness to the English language itself.....

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and how shockingly few foreign language literary works are translated into

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English Sontag relates this idea to the fact that English is now the dominant

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language in the world which means that it doesn't have to worry about all those

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other small-fry foreign languages she also mentions how American culture is [English Dictionary appears]

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defined by doing things differently from the past which naturally would lead

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Americans to focus less on translating foreign literature than making their own

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then Sontag sticks the knife in with the closing passage arguing that this [Knife lands in piece of paper]

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unique American mindset causes the country to distress anything of too high

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of quality distrust intellectualism and generally act like a bunch of uncultured

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schmucks someone has never watched reality TV, thats quality and

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intellectualism in one tidy package next step will be looking at Sontags essay [Person watching the Bachelor on TV]

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regarding the pain of others, which covers the always lovely concept of war

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she begins by quoting a piece by famed feminist writer Virginia Woolf

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in this piece Woolf argues that war is obsolete and barbaric that men not women

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cause wars and that Han definitely shot first and guess what's used as a focal [Han shoots gun and Han and Chewbacca hold arms up]

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point for the essay, a photograph specifically a gruesome war photo of

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dead civilians that Virginia Woolf wrote commentary for

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Woolf wrote this commentary to prove that men and women saw armed conflict the

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same way which was a roundabout way of arguing against the existence of war [People protesting the end of the war]

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itself what's interesting is that Woolf's analysis of the photo revolves around

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how she can't figure out what she's looking at if you need any indication of [Virginia looking through magnifying glass]

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how nasty the scene is this in comprehensibility represents the chaos

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of war and Woolf happens to believe that war is fundamentally wrong... Sontag

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she's a little more cynical due maybe to the 50-year gap between the two women's

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births Sontag has serious doubts that war will ever really end and argues that [Army soldiers marching in battle]

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we should instead focus on protecting human rights

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stopping genocide and generally keeping armed conflicts as civil as possible

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before you go I have one last friend I want to introduce you John Updike born

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in 1932 Updike wasn't raised in the big city like Sontag but the quaint town of

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Reading Pennsylvania Updike went to college for cartooning oddly enough [Updike walking through corridor and holds cartoon art]

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beginning his writing career as a contributor to The New Yorker after

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graduation in particular Updike is known for his rabbit series of books a set of

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four novels following average middle-class American Harry Rabbit

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Engstrom through his whole life rabbit a former high school basketball star seems [Basketball lands in a hoop]

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to go through a midlife crisis every few years and his trials and tribulations

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end up reflecting American society back at itself the series begins with 1960s

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rabbit run which follows rabbit at 26 years old as he struggles to move past [Rabbit walking through school corridor]

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his high school glory days destroys his relationship with his wife Janice and has

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an affair with a prostitute named Ruth who he also impregnates, hmm wonder if

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those last two have anything to do with each other

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in 1971 Updike released rabbit redux which follows 30 something year old [Rabbit driving a car]

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rabbit in the throes of a midlife crisis his second if your keeping count his

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wife has just left him for another man and he's stuck working manning the line

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at an industrial printing press yikes this one takes place in the 60s so

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a lot of it has to do with the huge cultural changes going down at the time

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like the hippie movement the moon-landing and the Vietnam War and guess

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what happens in 1981 rabbit is rich our boy gets rich and how? well he [Rabbit bathing in cash]

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inherited a Toyota dealership from his wife's dad Janice that is she's back in

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the picture after her extramarital shenanigans last time around of course

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rabbit being rabbit he pays her back in kind with some extramarital shenanigans [Rabbit and Janice in bed together]

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of his own 1990s rabbit at rest finds our hero if we can call him that

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in his worst state yet depressed overweight and unhealthy and retired in

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Florida he has a near-death experience at the beginning of the novel when he [Rabbit falls over while fishing]

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has a heart attack while fishing given this new lease on life rabbit well he

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has another affair rabbit is going to do what a rabbit's going to do at the end

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he has another heart attack this time while playing pick-up [Rabbit having heart attack and young boy appears]

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basketball with some youngsters and this one puts him down for the count

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Updike was a serious literary titan in his time winning a staggering two

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Pulitzer Prizes for fiction one for rabbit is rich and one for rabbit at

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rest nobody besides William Faulkner and Booth Tarkington won the Pulitzer Prize

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more than once making Updike a serious contender for [Updike on stage and title for greatest of all time appears over his shoulder]

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the GOAT of 20th century American literature like Sontag, Updike was a

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major intellectual figure of his era and continued writing up until his death in

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2007 well I hope you walk away with some new knowledge that'll help you down the

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line like for example that Susan Sontag is

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one of the most important American intellectuals of the 20th century if not

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the most important it's pretty easy to see why when we look at our essay

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collection on photography that book is so forward-thinking we wouldn't be

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surprised if it uses the word snapchat at some point we can see John Updike as [John Updike receiving a prize on TV]

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another major American intellectual of the era his rabbit series provides

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decades spanning commentary of the changes to American culture that

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occurred over that time period now I hate to be rude but I really must get

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back to work who knows what Alphonso got up to while

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we were chatting oh Alphonso, oh no he forgot where the food goes again so what [Alphonso appears with hotdog on his head]

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can you do with a face like that you really can't be too picky

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you

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