Candide is a Jerk

Satire is anything that strives to sway ideas, perceptions, or opinions that exist within a group of people through the use of shock, exaggeration, and/or humor. Both Candide and "The Jerk" have humorous moments wound about exaggeration. Both of the protagonists are naive and careless. Productivity seems to be a theme to be found in both.

Steve Martin's character in “The Jerk” wins over the audience with his innocence and naiveté. Having been born a "poor black child" down south in the backwoods does very little to prepare him for city life. He is easily swayed by advertisements and immediately strives to become famous by getting his name in print. He "successfully" does this by getting his name in the phonebook. As the scene dealing with the excitement bursting out of Steve Martin continues the scene cuts to a sniper having just randomly chosen a name on a page in the phonebook to be his next target. Of course this is ironic and funny but upon further inspection it seems to speak about how standing out or being known makes you more prone to being attacked by the hardships of society. Not that murder attempts are an everyday random occurrence, usually they are premeditated to a degree. “The Jerk” continues to make this a humorous situation by having the sniper continually shout out things like, “die! You normal, regular guy” proving that he has no actual connection to the person he’s so persistently trying to kill.

One blaring similarity is the comment on the nose. In Candide Pangloss the philosopher claims that the only reason for having a nose is to have a place for your glasses to rest. In “The Jerk” Navin R. Johnson, while filling up a customers tank of gas, fixes a pair of glasses so that there is an additional handle that not only allows for the ease of removal but rests against the nose serving as a “brake.” It prevents the glasses from slipping, oddly mirroring the idea that the nose is simply a tool for assisting those with glasses.

Both protagonists come to acquire great sums of money only to lose it in unfortunate ways. By the end of “The Jerk” Navin R. Johnson has become a bum on the street with a thermos as his only possession. Candide sets off from El Dorado with apparently enough money to end virtually all the poverty in the world. As his travels introduce him to new characters he is the unfortunate victim of theft, seduction leading to more theft, and unjust overpricing. This leads me to yet another similarity between the two characters, Candide and Navin R. Johnson; they are both extremely nieve. Candide believes in optimism so he treats life like everything is happening for a reason and therefore why would anything “unjust” be happening to him? To him there exists no evil, only misunderstood good. This mindset causes him to be careless with things like wearing great expensive rings; a red flag that he’s got more money. Had he been more careful and hid the ring he would not have been seduced and robbed furthermore of his money intended for the rescue of Cunegonde. Navin R. Johnson’s previously mentioned invention strikes gold and he receives checks for massive amounts of money. Coming from a poor background he’s unsure of what to do with his newly aquired wealth so he hires servants and then purchases an extravagant mansion. Of course it can’t end well, otherwise it wouldn’t be similar to Candide. Navin is sued because his invention apparently makes it’s users cross-eyed.

Both Candide and “The Jerk” seem to speak about the act of working and being productive as a safe haven. In Candide the conclusion is that working for a purpose in life is more beneficial than spending time pondering about pointless ideas. Meanwhile in “The Jerk” Navin R. Johnson looses his money as a result from sitting back and relying on his sole invention to carry him throughout life. Both protagonists in Candide and “The Jerk” befall misfortunes from the result of not being productive.

Artistic Vision

My artistic vision up to this point has been to simply get people to start thinking more. A photograph is not just a two dimensionally reproduced moment in time. When I take a photograph I try to convey a sense that there is more going on than there appears. There's always a story to be found, one just has to look for it. What I really want a person to think about after they see my work is themselves. Sure, all of the silent accolades that come to mind would be nice as well but i'm really just trying to explore peoples thoughts and ideas. Sometimes I'm trying to transport them to a different place mentally. Maybe i'll occasionally strive to challenge the mood their in by using my images as portals to and from different states of mind.

When I show people my photographs i do not expect them to glance at it for mere seconds and then move along to the next unless they are checking for composition. My images are meant to show a moment in time. Whether it's filled with action or just a simple scenery, if I shot it, chances are that I've stuck in something for you to find and ponder over. If the image seems too obvious then it's meant to be just that, obvious. What is obvious for one person may be completely foreign to another. As I stated in my last blog post I thoroughly enjoy the mysteries of the human mind; therefore when I compose an image I scan through the viewfinder for what is already naturally occurring that may hold stories within it. If I can derive multiple stories from one image then a different story can be discovered or created by each person who views my image. Psychology tells us that each story will in some way relate to them, their lifestyles, backgrounds, upbringings, etc. My fascination lies within how different people can take an image and interpret it in so many different ways. This applies not only to a figurative image but also to visually abstract images. When the viewer is not told what they are looking at there is no limitation to what a simple image could turn into. Photography, though straightforward is the recording of a moment in time, it does not need to be though of as only being able to exist as one thing.

To this day I have not been told that there seems to be a constant societal theme or strive to connect with a specific demographic of individuals present in my photographs. I'm not a religious person and though I have political views I don't tend to aim to project them through my work. I feel as though if I keep an open mind I can create work that connects with a larger body of people. AS I write this I realize that I don't think that that is necessarily a good thing. Keeping an open mind is and always will be a good thing to me, but I do want to create a specific style, or carry a somewhat constant theme evident in my work. Being able to reach out to a large audience is nice but being able to more directly affect a slightly smaller audience feels like it might be a larger accomplishment.

As Artists with the "freedom" of speech behind us I believe that we are put in a place that IF we have something powerful to say then what's to stop us? Our career in art gives us the extended freedom we need in order to convey our message we can do it and not suffer supreme consequences. That is not to say that we should cast aside all recognition of ethics or a moral code. A complete disregard of sensitivity would cast such a shadow on the art community. Rather, we should keep in mind the extreme boundaries and see what messages we can create that brush up against them. I've always been an advocate of envelope pushing.

Intro Post

To be honest, I've got no clue what to write here... and I don't think I'm alone in my cluelessness...

Anyway I think this blogger thing is going to be pretty cool. I've got about three other blogs about my photography so what's one more right? I'm a horrible blogger. If you find yourself having stumbled into any of my other blogs you'll see that they haven't been updated since before summer probably. At least with this class using blogger it'll keep me on some sort of schedule. I'm excited about the books we'll be reading because I've read a couple of them already and was not displeased in the least.

My blogs name is P! T.E.P. and that was something I thought of about 10 minutes ago. It stands for Push! The Edge of Perception. (No, I'm not trying to be like Panic! At the Disco although I just realized the similarity... oy) I just think it's always important to take what you see, read, write, even think and take it a step further. Even if it leads you to the absurd and uncomfortable. You'll end up discovering more about not only what you are perceiving, but who you yourself is. By analyzing what you see, the objects, the sounds, the senses around you you can discover WHY you perceive them the way you do. The mind is a beautiful yet chillingly frightful mystery. I don't want to get all matrix on you but if you think about it, our world only exists as it does to us based on a handful of absolute truths. The rest (all the luxuries like scent, taste, touch, and sound), the indescribable only exist based on our analyzed perceptions we've attained through life.