When we got this assignment I immediately thought of this scene from Anger Management, that "ok" movie with Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson that came out in 2003. John C Reilly plays a Buddhist monk who, pre-enlightenment, was a bully and Adam Sandler, on his route to overcoming his anger, has to confront him. There are a few stereotypes about Buddhism that are mentioned before the excessive fighting starts; including the whole garden that it occurs in, the orange robes the monks are wearing, and that Arnie Shankman (John C. Reilly) is meditating with his eyes closed when first approached. On Brad Warner’s blog he gives instructions on how to do zazen and one of the characteristics is that you keep your eyes open during it. I’ve seen the closed eye meditation in other things but I think it’s a pretty trivial stereotype compared to others. For instance Sandler’s character says that Buddhists can’t even hurt a plant, which reinforces the stereotype of Buddhists being peaceful and pacifistic almost to a fault, even Arnie’s voice is gentle before he gets angry. Then when he does eventually lose it and attack Sandler he acts exactly how you wouldn’t expect a monk to act or fight, this was obviously done to be funny since it’s a comedy. Brad Warner is totally unlike the orange robe wearing monks from this scene, since it seems like the guys in the movie, at least Arnie, would be in the monastery for the rest of their life especially because there are a bunch of different ages represented. . Since I was really intrigued by Warner after starting reading the book I looked at his blog and some of the pictures he has of himself in robes with peers, and they weren’t orange; when I saw that I realized that every time I had pictured a monk or seen a monk in pop culture their robes were orange. I think the greatest “anti-stereotype” quote Warner has in his book is when he’s talking about how the leader of his sangha and his peers saw him as living “…in an apartment in Los Angeles dressed in golden Buddhist robes surrounded by plastic monster toys and dozens of luscious Suicide Girls.” Even though he wasn’t “surrounded” by girls he was still involved in soft-core porn, an industry you would never suspect a Buddhist monk to take part in. I haven’t finished the book yet but I’m already a huge fan of this guy because he seems like a badass
Monday, March 7, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Success and Liberation
Eminem - Elevator (rap, 2009)
Songs about success, like pleasure, were fairly easy to find; especially since in most cases especially in America, success (wealth) would lead to pleasure (sex, drugs, pleasure etc.) even though many people say that money cannot buy happiness it can, in some cases, buy small amounts of pleasure. "Elevator" and "My Band" are both really just Eminem talking about how awesome he is. The Big L song is a play-by-play account of a robbery where he ended up stealing a large amount of money, fairly successful. "My President is Black" and "We Are The Champions" are the really the only 2 songs I could think of that brought a common goal to realization or recognized a group for their achievements. I had a hard time trying to find songs about liberation since, in America, we have so many freedoms that we really do not have one thing that the whole country can come together to liberate us from. However, looking for personal liberation is probably more of what the Hindu aim is directed at, so I chose songs that had to do with that. "Passing The Hat" is the story of a man who realizes the church that he attends is not really doing any good and putting money in the offering hat is the same as throwing it away since no one really knows where it goes. "Holy Shackles" has a similar tone but more accusatory of religion. Halie Selassie was the Emperor of Ethiopia and is thought of as Jesus to the Rastafarian community. In the Rastafarian religion one's goal is to make it back to Zion from Jamaica to be free, in this case Zion is Ethiopia, The Bright Eyes song is about Selassie calling people to Ethiopia to be free.
As Americans I think that we often treat money and material goods as an end or goal where in Hindu culture the goal would be moksha and you really only need money to survive while you are working your way through lives. However the idea of liberation, I think, is the same for us in America. We have to be able to sort through the biases and such we are presented with everyday, and must liberate ourselves from that. Everyone in this country feels that in some way they are not being treated fairly, and should be liberated from that.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Songs for Hinduism
The pleasure aim is infinitely easier to find songs about than service. This is probably because as Americans we like to be happy, and there are many ways to accomplish this; sex, love, and partying are the ones i chose to address and I think that many of them are . Although there are a few songs about general community service I noticed that most of the songs i found were in response to a situation that the artist(s) felt needed to be remedied. "We're All in the Same Gang" was a collaboration of west coast rappers who noticed the rise in gang violence in the 90s and felt they needed to help put an end to the killings. "Tears Are Not Enough" was written as a response to the Ethiopian famine of 1985-1985. Although it is probably hard to write songs about just going out and doing good deeds for people I'm sure thats what the creators of the 4 aims had in mind; not just helping at a time of crisis. I did find that many songs have one or two lines about helping others though that is not the main message of the lyrics so they would have been inappropriate for me to use for this assignment. "Laura Laurent" is about people helping each other intimately and at each other's time of need; which I feel would fall under the umbrella of service, because you don't need to better the lives of hundreds of people to have a positive influence in the world, just one person can be enough. One Conor Oberst lyric that I wanted to use (but the song didn't make the cut because the whole thing did not focus on service) is "See a brother in the gutter you reach out your hand." I feel that this is really what the Hindu people see as service, making the world better one person or one day at a time; not running to Haiti for a week after the earthquake to volunteer, helping a few thousand people and then returning to America and doing nothing more.