You are on page 1of 100

SOCIO-CULTURAL APPROACH

Gesmundo | Guaves | Jose | Liwanag | Lumampao

Cultural Materialism

Cultural Materialism
derived from two English words:
social structure, language, law, religion, politics, art, science, superstition, etc. materialism materiality, rather than intellect or spirituality, is fundamental to reality
culture

Cultural Materialism
It was first introduced by Marvin Harris in The Rise of Anthropological Theory (1968).

Cultural Materialism
It is an anthropological paradigm founded upon, but not constrained by Marxist Materialistic thought. It is a scientific research strategy that prioritizes material, behavioral and etic processes in the explanation of the evolution of human socio-cultural systems.

Steward (Cultural Ecology)


The idea that socio-cultural adaptation is achieved through the interaction of a human population with its environment.

Environment
Steward sees environment as both a passive background and an influence on culture. Harris believes that the interaction of people and environment forms one system. Harris schema thus considers environmental changes in a way that Stewards does not.

Culture
Steward conceives of cultures as sets of traits, while Harris sees culture as a system built on the interrelation of different aspects of religion, politics, and kinship. Steward tends to isolate different cultural practices into traits, Harris sees the practices as systemically interrelated.

Society
Steward: social organization, demography, and levels of integration as sub-sets of culture traits Harris: the interrelations of different aspects of social organization as manifestations of relations between different kinds of groups and networks, with differing status and roles

On Marxism (Dialectical or Historical Materialism)


Cultural materialists are concerned with causality in socio-cultural systems and believe it may be sought through the study of the material constraints that human societies are subjected. Such constraints act on the need to produce food or shelter and to reproduce the population. These can be renamed as infrastructure.

On Marxism (Dialectical or Historical Materialism)


In that cultural materialists prioritize material constraints to explain socio-cultural systems, they are descendents of Marx, building on his notion of historical or dialectical materialism. However, cultural materialism does not take the position that anthropology must become part of a political movement aimed at destroying capitalism.

On Marxism (Dialectical or Historical Materialism)


Cultural materialism allows diverse political motivation. Cultural materialism does not see all cultural change as resulting from dialectical contradictions, but argues that cultural evolution results from the gradual accumulation of useful traits through a process of trial and error.

Skinner (Behavior Psychology, Reductionism)


Harris was also influenced by Skinners reductionism. Skinner, reduced the complications of human personality to stimulus-response. Harris worked in behaviorist psychology and was also interested in peoples behavior, seeking to explain all human behavior with his theory of cultural materialism.

Theoretical Approach on Cultural Materialism


Cultural Materialism retains and expands upon the Marxist Three Levels of Culture Model:
infrastructure structure superstructure

Infrastructure
Production and Reproduction
of Production: the technology and the practices employed for expanding or limiting basic subsistence production, especially the production of food and other forms of energy. Mode of Reproduction: the technology and the practices employed for expanding, limiting and maintaining population size.
Mode

Structure
Domestic economy and Political economy
Domestic Economy: consists of a small number of people who interact on an intimate basis. They perform many functions, such as regulating reproduction, basic production, socialization, education, and enforcing domestic discipline. Political economy: These groups may be large or small, but their members tend to interact without any emotional commitment to one another. They perform many functions, such as regulating production, reproduction, socialization, and education, and enforcing social discipline.

Superstructure
Behavior and Mental
Behavior


Superstructure

art, music, dance, literature, advertising  rituals  sports, games, hobbies  science
Mental


superstructure

values  emotions  traditions

Organization, Ideology and Symbolism


Cultural Materialists believe society develops on a trial and error basis. If something is not beneficial to a society's ability to produce and/or reproduce, or causes production and/or reproduction to exceed acceptable limits, it will disappear from society altogether.

Epistemological Approach
Epistemological principles of cultural materialism are specific to the study of human sociocultural systems. For cultural materialists, sociocultural facts have four aspects:
emic

(phonemic)- natives viewpoint etic (phonetic)- observers viewpoint behavior events - the bodys motions mental events - thoughts and feelings

Epistemological Approach
Cultural materialists divide data collection and organization into emic and etic analyses. Emic Analysis
informants

explanation if informants agree on a description or interpretation of data, the data is considered correct

Epistemological Approach
Etic Analysis
does

not rely on an informants description alone, but on explication provided by many observers using agreed- on scientific measures

Emic and etic analyses can add mental and behavior analyses. Therefore they can be..

Epistemological Approach
The Emics of Behavior : Informants description of a natives behavior. The Emics of Thought : Informants description of a natives thought. The Etics of Behavior : Observers explication of a natives behavior. The Etics of Thought : Observers explication of a natives thought.

Epistemological Approach
Cultural materialism rejects the research strategy restricted to the emics of thought only, which is the idealists favorite. Instead, cultural materialists think both emic and etic analyses should go together.

Methodology
Cultural materialism itself is a research methodology. It prefers:
methods: demography, caloric yields ethnography archeological research etic as well as emic analyses
quantitative

Issues
food and protein food and evolution demography, population regulation warfare, culture and environment

Criticisms
Marxists criticize Cultural Materialism for ignoring Structure's influence upon Infrastructure. Postmodernists believe that reliance upon "Etic" in studying culture is not appropriate, as science is merely a function of culture. Idealists criticize Cultural Materialism for ignoring variables such as genetics, and believe "Emic" is more significant than Cultural Materialists allow.

Asian Cinema and Spirituality

Spirituality
particular perspective on life and its meaning derived from the traditions of the religion covers a persons interior life and awareness and the consequences of this in their daily lives

When we search for spirituality in Asian cinema, we enter into different mind-sets and religious contexts and find different expressions and images from those of the West.

Spirituality in Asian Cinema


ability to tell local or national stories demonstrate a strong feel for humane values place them within religious contexts of their respective countries

Spirituality and the Experience of Transcendence


Spirituality
provides

a way of looking at human realities and perceiving how they are open to something more any finite experience makes us realize that we have a desire for something more, that we have a capacity for something more human spirit reaches out to something, someone, who is beyond our ordinary and limited experiences

Spirituality and the Experience of Transcendence


the transcendent
beyond God

experience

Spirituality and the Experience of Transcendence


Worlds Major Religions
Jewish

scriptures and the God-guided history of the people of Israel Hindu traditions with the many faces of the divine Buddha with the powerful ethical and selfless spirituality that has become Buddhism revelations to the Prophet Mohammad and the interpretations of the Koran in leading its followers to Allah

Spirituality and the Experience of Transcendence


Regional Traditions
animistic

worship in Africa mythologies of the Australian aborigines and their dreaming

Four Focal Themes for Spirituality


1. The Divine

not all Asian religions are comfortable with the notion of the divine all religions understand that there is a greater power beyond us and the world divine can serve as a general word to describe this transcendent experience that so many millions call God

Four Focal Themes for Spirituality


Buddhism (Sri Lanka, Thailand and China )

a Buddhist way of life is presumed, emphasizing prayer and rituals in Buddhist temples with the various statues of Buddha

Four Focal Themes for Spirituality


Islam (Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India)

great sense of sacredness of Allah and Allahs omnipotence more explicit in the presentation of prayer, pilgrimages to shrines, fasting no embarrassment in naming God

Four Focal Themes for Spirituality


Iranian

all films begin with the words In the name of God frequent reference to the Quran and scenes of mosque worship, muezzins calling, imams instructing their students even when the story is quite secular, there are references to the religious context and the will of Allah

Four Focal Themes for Spirituality


Christianity

principally Filipino cinema that portrays Christianity in Asia reality of God is taken for granted and there is frequent God-language the focus is on the person of the human Jesus with great devotion to Mary and the saints

Four Focal Themes for Spirituality


Hindu (India)

whether there are many gods or various facets of the divine, Hindu teachers can explain colorful, even flamboyant, full of music and song Hindu shrines, statuary depicting the Gods (with all kinds of human and animal symbolism) depiction of festivals and shrines

Four Focal Themes for Spirituality


2. Faith
faith

is seen as the official adherence to a religion with the formalities of practice more difficult to dramatize personal faith and commitment faith as an asset of the mind to the truths proposed by the religion is only one aspect of faith

Four Focal Themes for Spirituality


For scrutinizing Asian films for spiritual dimensions, the context of a lived faith is probably more important than many scenes of public and formal religious behavior.

Four Focal Themes for Spirituality


3. Ethics and Morality
Ethics
used by philosophers

Morality
used by religious people

human construct, based on grounded in religious principles of discerning experience and has been between doing good and not communicated in sacred texts doing evil

Four Focal Themes for Spirituality


In scrutinizing Asian cinema for their spiritual dimensions, the presentation of moral issues must be interpreted in the context of the revelation and experience.

Four Focal Themes for Spirituality


The common word for dialogue between religious and secular societies is values. Because cinema is storytelling and drama, it is the embodiment of values in harmony and conflict that gives the power to the story and opens up issues of transcendence and spirituality.

Four Focal Themes for Spirituality


4. Spiritual Life
there

are more important issues that give life to human spirit, whether religious or secular these issues have become alternate faiths with their particular creeds
respect and disrespect for race, culture and life  life issues of birth and abortion, abuse, especially of minors, illness, euthanasia and assisted suicide, death and capital punishment  environmental and green concerns


Four Focal Themes for Spirituality


There is life of the spirit that expresses itself in the traditions and the arts of different cultures, a spirituality of and for the world we live in that, we hope, will continue.

Four Focal Themes for Spirituality


Hebrew

patriarchs and prophets Jesus and his followers and the saints Buddha and the enlightened disciples Mohammad and the saintly mystics of Islam Hindu leaders who are venerated contemporary figures like Mahatma Gandhi

Four Focal Themes for Spirituality


One of the values of a search of spirituality in cinema is to reveal how individuals, in high or low places, live this openness to the spirit, embody values, demonstrate significantly, or in more modest and hidden ways, their commitment to their faith, whatever it be.

Buddhist Tradition: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring


A film that can communicate some of the key Buddhist beliefs to non-Buddhists through images and story:
meditation and prayer harmony with nature reincarnation passion and detachment repentance and retribution redemption and peace

Buddhist Tradition: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring


The setting is an isolated lake surrounded by mountains. At the edge of the lake are painted doors which open at the beginning of each season. An Old Monk instructs disciples who seem committed to a daily routine of prayer, work, reading and the seeking of wisdom. With each season and its beautiful environmental changes, another main character in the hermitage grows, develops and fails. Spring is seen as new birth, new life with its overtones of reincarnation, winter as an ending leading once again into Spring.

Buddhist Tradition: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring


In Spring, he is a young boy who has to learn not to be cruel to and destructive of nature. In Summer, a teenager, he learns sexual arousal and love but has to learn what lust is and detachment. In Fall, an adult at thirty, he has to repent for his violent mistakes. In Winter, a time of ice and snow, the man now in middle age has to return to his origins to learn wisdom and be redeemed. As Spring returns with its change in the weather, the monk continues his ritual, life starts over again.

Hindu Tradition: Water


The film attacks what seem to be inhuman customs concerning the lives of widows and their status and rights in India.

Hindu Tradition: Water


The setting of the story is 1938, the year before the end of British rule and of partition. The title is important, the symbolism of earth, air, fire and water: the river, washing, drinking, the rain, travelling on the water, death in the water. Water can be life-giving, but it can also be life-depriving. The initial focus is on a little girl, Chuiya, who is a widow that must strictly follow the scriptures of Manu. The protocols of Manu require widows to have their heads shaved, wear white and live in seclusion in a compound together where they have to eke out a living or beg.

Hindu Tradition: Water


Chuiya meets Kalyani, another main character, who is kept apart from the other women and forced into prostitution to support the ashram. Kalyani meets a young man, with whom she begins to hope for a marriage. When she discovers that the mans father is one who seeks for sexual favors, she dreads the revelation of the truth to the man, accepts her fate and walks into the river to drown herself. There is also a devout woman, Gyanvati, who accepts her lot with faith, believing that there must be some meaning in her life. She rescues Chuyia and takes her to the railway station, where they listen to Gandhi.

Hindu Tradition: Water


By portraying the lives of the women in detail, the audience can share emotionally in these lives and reflect on the social and religious traditions, to gauge their oppressiveness against the rights of the women. The comments in the background throughout the film remind of the political situation and the change for India within the decade with the partition, the role of Gandhi and the repercussions for India as a Hindu nation.

Muslim Tradition Barefoot in Paradise


The film is about belief, self-sacrifice, even holiness. It is one of many Iranian films which look at religious traditions, and films which dramatize the relationship with Christianity. The focus of the film is on a clergyman who goes to an institution as chaplain. The film begins philosophically with the clergymans reflection on time and the passing of time, with remarks about prayer, the sameness of the routine in the institution.

Muslim Tradition Barefoot in Paradise


The film does not give the audience anything about the clergyman coming to the institution, about his decision. The man seems to have no back-story; he is alone and very serious-minded. As the film progresses, the role of the clergy, the role of the chaplaincy and being on call unfold. The man exhibits great devotion and the way he interacts with the different people he meet. He also ministers within the institution and outside it, illustrating a pastoral and spiritual outreach.

Muslim Tradition Barefoot in Paradise


At the end of the film, with the experience of those he has helped in mind, he carefully removes his shoes, unlocks the door, walks on the floor and out into the snow, a gesture of final self-sacrifice. This is the journey of the clergyman, the effect of life in the institution, his faith, his religious sensibility, holiness, a living martyrdom, his choice. Spirituality should not be simply identified with piety or even devotions, no matter how sincere they are. Spirituality goes deeper.

Catholic Tradition: Santa Santita


This is a film about Catholicism, Philippine piety, and the possibility of miracles.

Catholic Tradition: Santa Santita


Very often in Filipino films, explicit religious belief and practice are in the background, frequently having little more influence than a family having pious pictures of Jesus and Mary on the wall. Life is often shown in a context of squalor and/or sexual exploitation with minimal reference to the church or religion. Those which do explore Filipino Catholicism more explicitly show it in a social light or exploring themes of prayer and the possibilities of prayers being answered with miracles.

Catholic Tradition: Santa Santita


It is a story about a young woman (Malen), whose mother with the attentiveness to the stories of the petitioners sometimes perform a function of confession without the sacramental absolution. However, Malen is rebellious, trying to sell scapulars and rosaries at church but ignoring and defying her mother at home.

Catholic Tradition: Santa Santita


There is a great deal of recognition with parallels to the practices of the Filipinos:
shrines

and churches devout people rituals of devotion and emotional reliance of the petitioners in devotions and prayers possibilities of a superstitious approach to God prayer and problem solving and healing role of the hierarchal leadership

Catholic Tradition: Santa Santita


It sets religion in the social (and justice) context of the country and raises questions about authenticity while respecting the idiosyncratic ways of prayer and devotion. The film believes in the possibilities of conversion as well as God working through unworthy instruments for healing and changing peoples lives.

Depictions of Evil and Spirituality: De Profundis Films


The question arises about the presentation of evil characters and evil situations and whether films depicting evil can be spiritual. Such cinema can be a call to reflection about values and an invitation to dialogue with the film. But, sometimes the road that searchers take in their quest for spirituality takes them into byways.

Depictions of Evil and Spirituality: De Profundis Films


De Profundis Films
can be lost in the depths take audiences into worlds they might prefer not to enter, which mirror the human experience that longs for salvation but does not know how to find it, makes a profound impact.
characters

Depictions of Evil and Spirituality: De Profundis Films


Those involved in the ministry of cinema need to develop their sensitivities, asking not what? is being presented but how? is it presented with both a delicacy and robustness that acknowledges the work of grace as well as the sinful realities of the human condition. Many films treat the superficialities of contemporary life, exploring the surfaces of life. All of them are crying out for meaning and transcendence.

Looking for the Divine in Bernals Manila by Night

Manila by Night (City After Dark) by Ishmael Bernal


was originally 2 hours and a half long was reduced to serve as counter-text to show contradiction to Marcos Dictatorship poverty, sin, chaos, destitution, drugs, sex

Manila by Night (City After Dark) by Ishmael Bernal


used multi-character format that belong to Manilas subculture
Manay Sharon educated gay couturier Pebrero Manays male lover and a live-in partner of Adelina a prostitute on Vito Cruz pretending to be a nurse Baby Pebreros other girlfriend Bea blind masseuse with live-in partner Greg Williams coming home from Bangkok penniless Kano grew up and in love with Bea Alex Manays lover, son of a former prostitute Virgie a Mary Magdalene haunted by her past

Manila by Night (City After Dark) by Ishmael Bernal


full of sex scenes
Manay

Sharon and Pebrero Manay Sharon and Alex Kano and Bea

because of so many sex scenes, it looked like obscene, but has hidden meanings about the objectification of the body

Manila by Night (City After Dark) by Ishmael Bernal


I love you Manila kahit ano ka pa man. Bata, matanda, mabaho, pangit, lalaki, bakla, tomboy. Kano Manila main character of the film Hell is the other. People we love may betray us in the end. Manilas descent into hell.

Christian Imaginary
Vangie and Alex scene wherein they are coming out of the school tender scene of Pebrero and Manay Sharon casa scene woman talking to Manay and Bea scene wherein she was talking about Beas past and Manay being a faggot Bacchanalian party

Christian Imaginary
Catholicism is deeply entrenched in the lives of the Filipino people. Houses of the major characters has imagery of Christ or saints but they dont live the teachings of their religion.

Naming the Sinner: the Virgin and the Blessed


Virgie
example of films engagement with religion modern day Magdalene name means virginal and pure Miriams visit scene discovery of Alex proclivities It is not faith nor Christianity is being challenged in the film, it is blind faith.
clearest

Naming the Sinner: the Virgin and the Blessed


Bea
beatitudes

and Beatrice of Divina Commedia kindness and happy disposition blindness cannot see humanitys heart of darkness and just dreams of a good life

Manay Sharon
sees

too much things even things that are not supposed to be seen lost faith in people

Doublings: Parallelisms
Kano/Sharon lesbian or gay and their quest for true love Pebrero/Alex womanizers and objects of gay desire Adelina and Baby jaded and nave, both are innocent women from the province who were lured into prostitution

Doublings: Parallelisms
Virgie/Alex obsessive-compulsive behavior plus pills or drug addiction, strong or weak Sharon/Bea seeing it all or refusing to see

Doublings: Contrasts
Adelina
means of noble one noble in the sense that she has learned to fend for herself; but a walking lie pretends to be a nurse even if shes a prostitute has another partner than Pebrero sees in Baby her young self

Doublings: Contrasts
Adelina
experience taught her many things knows that the important thing is the preservation of the self told Baby on new years eve to keep her mouth shut or she might end up as a corpse before the night ended, Adelina was killed A twist of faith? Absurdity.

Doublings: Contrasts
Baby
Adelinas younger self nave young woman from the province that is to be exploited This can be seen in their conversation where Adelina is in all white with a transparent raincoat (purity) while Baby is shadowed and illumined by her yellow umbrella (the impurities of Adelina).

Doublings: Contrasts
Baby
got impregnated and told her mother and Adelina that she is keeping her baby because she doesnt have money to abort it another irony since it is poverty and not morality that keeps her from aborting the baby

Doublings: Contrasts
Manay Sharon and Adelina
both fond of wearing white men are responsible for making their lives miserable men are troublemakers but both of them still love men Pebrero/Alex and Pebrero/unnamed person

Doublings: Contrasts
Manay Sharon and Adelina
through them, we can see how the Other fight back battle of the sexes: Alex and Vangie (necklace), Greg and Bea, fight of man and woman (Harrizon Plaza), Kano and Alex chase scene

Doublings: Contrasts
Pebrero and Alex
both are lovers of Sharon both are handsome and womanizers both have no direction in life

Doublings: Contrasts
Pebrero and Alex
Pebrero means romance/purification ritual

a hollow character runs away from Baby faints infront of the wrong Adelina represents the citys hopelessness just ride on and trip lang life is one beautiful trip and all he wants is to go with the flow film ends with him lying on a grass which signifies his still stillness

Alex means heroic man


Dissident Ending
imaginative re-creation of Manila:
Carnivalesque Queer Place The Trannie hovers around the film film is populated by people living in the margins

Dissident Ending
The whole film refuses to concede to false resolution.

Dissident Ending
irony of the supposed epilogue:
Alex rehab Vangie continues to excel in school Kano rotting in jail Virgie helps in an NGO Baby found a lover Bea works as a waitress Manay Sharon devout Catholic

Dissident Ending
films irony:
Deus ex Machina Absurdus ad Infinitum

Dissident Ending
films irony
Bernal shoots indoors from outdoors make the characters look like animals inside a cage

The Divine Manay Sharon


Nuerotic Man
a neurotic that may be the very thing that makes him normal in an abnormal city strong and wise he will not allow anyone to trample him or prevent him from getting to the truth Sa lahat, ang di ko ma-take ay ang nagloloko at nangdadaya. Marami nang masamang tao sa mundo, huwag na nating dagdagan pa.

The Divine Manay Sharon


Nuerotic Man
gives them money yes but he gives them more tries his best to put order in these mismanaged lives caregiver of men but not cling on them to the point of destroying himself burdened of too much knowledge has seen too much in this world and its ugliness

The Divine Manay Sharon


Nuerotic Man
A strong sense of individuality and self-confidence, a dash of hysteria and histrionics, a firm belief in truth and goodness, an incredible amount of courage and playfulness, an ability to philosophize about life and be self-ironic these are His qualities that make him cut above the rest.

The Divine Manay Sharon


Denouement
placing of Santo Nino on a shelf-cum altar This is Bernals commentary on faith
tranquilizer and embodiment of human want to acquire material things attack on people finding morals on films

Lumberas comment:
The conclusion of the film hitching a ride with Jesus is Bernals sly dig at filmmaking that sells sex and violence and then rides on the audiences religiosity to ease its conscience.

The Divine Manay Sharon


Denouement
It can also mean that, it was in the end of the film because neither knowledge about the worlds ways or having multiple partners/lovers has brought Manay Sharon happiness. life through faith One can be gay and Catholic or a celibate gay Catholic at that.

Towards a Conclusion
The film starts with movement because the city is perpetually alive. The wheel mentioned symbolizes fortune and karma. In the ending, characters lives turn 180-degrees.

Towards a Conclusion
A film of care of the self. But contrary to all expectations, mans uphill struggle does not end in fulfillment. Although he is always on the go, he was doomed from the very start. He would never be fulfilled. - Quinto

Towards a Conclusion
A film where individuals had to become true individuals and not types; he created a world where happy endings never came easy. This film finds hope in the consoling and redemptive powers of Art.

Towards a Conclusion
Manila by Night abhors the city but at the same time celebrates it. Through this film, Ishmael Bernal has found his path towards sacred. It is Art, which is the most concrete embodiment of an Artists faith in the living, in the divine

You might also like