Tag Archives: psychology

At Furry Weekend Atlanta this year, there was a panel on character psychology in #Zootopia. During Q&A, someone in the audience mentioned that the way that #GideonGrey, the fox who abused #JudyHopps as a kid, gave his apology to Judy as an adult sounded like someone who graduated from a 10-step anger management program and was reciting his apology from a script.

that’s something I think we’ll see from #AlexanderDowning in the future after he’s been shaken enough from the aftermath of his rage on South Padre Beach. He has a rap sheet with domestic violence and violence against seniors.

The Safety Net: Communication within coming-out groups for LGBT people

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Harry Underwood
Compare and Contrast Pt. 2
COMM 3010
3/26/2013

The Safety Net: Communication within coming-out groups for LGBT people

In the decades since the Stonewall riots of 1969, the mass movement for civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people has largely depended upon a willingness by the movement’s participants to self-disclose one’s sexual orientation or gender identity as a marker of identity and a challenging of social stigma. In the absence of a visible, persistent demarcation to personally indicate ancestral or other biologically-inherent backgrounds, the process of this self-disclosure, or “coming out”, has resulted in a sea change in the wider heterosexual and cisgender perception of the very concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity, leading to a greater integration of LGBT people into the socioeconomic life of human societies. The process of coming out, however, is one which strongly involves human communication between the “closeted” individual and the recipient of the disclosure, and the role of proper communication in any successful coming-out process is a mutually-sustained role, involving the behavior of the receiver in reaction to such news. This paper seeks to compare and contrast contemporary communication theories with each other in their explanations of aspects of the “coming-out group”, and to also explain the origins and utility of such a group.

The history of coming out to a peer group setting as a phenomenon derives in part from women’s “consciousness-raising” meetings in the 1960s, in which women shared their personal, everyday experiences as women with each other in a group setting. Through these events, women’s rights activists could inspire women to challenge their current lot in life and reassess their own humanity, sexuality and sense of power. An important tool in the growth of political awareness of women’s rights in the 1960s and 70s, consciousness-raising was imported by lesbians who had worked with the women’s liberation movement into the growing number of gay liberation organizations in the United States (Taylor and Whittier, 1998, p. 351). The process of self-disclosure, in itself, also derives from early suggestions by the likes of pioneering sexologists Magnus Hirschfeld and Iwan Bloch to early 20th-century German homosexuals to disclose their sexuality to their family and authority figures in order to push against anti-homosexual legislation (Johannson & Percy, p. 24).

Two theories can be applied to this phenomenon of the coming-out group: symbolic convergence theory and uncertainty reduction theory. These two theories come at the phenomenon of coming out to welcoming peers from slightly-differing perspectives. While uncertainty reduction theory is concerned with how “interpersonal relationships develop as individuals reduce uncertainty about each other,” symbolic convergence theory is more concerned with the development of a symbolic and fantastic narrative which engages, unites and propels the emotions of the participants (Yoo, 2004, p. 191). Uncertainty reduction theory, on the other hand, relies upon the pre-existence or prerequisite development of an active, certain relationship or a mutual openness to such. Furthermore, while symbolic convergence tends to be applied more to group settings, uncertainty reduction theory was largely crafted with interpersonal relationships in mind.

Both theories, however, are similar and compatible with each other in that they each find exhibition in the coming-out group’s changing or challenging prior assumptions about sexuality or gender among the participants. Uncertainty reduction is at play, as newer attendees who are unaware of how to properly approach their own or others’ sexual orientation become more aware of how to conduct their inquiry and exploration further on in the midst of peers. Ramón cites Soliz et. al on how families of LGBT people may become more distanced with their LGBT loved ones “if a new dimension is added to the relationship after a child’s sexual identity has been disclosed” due to the “parents often suffer[ing] cognitive dissonance when trying to understand the conflict between inundation of negative images surrounding homosexuality and the loving relationship they have established with their child” (Soliz et. al, 2010, p. 78-79; Ramón, 2013, p. 20). When such does arise, the next best solution for the LGBT person seeking to develop a social network which is less fraught by such images is to seek out a body of peers who already possess a minimum body of LGBT-affirmative symbolism and more likely to be open to a certain, more familiar process of welcoming of the individual from out of the closet. Stein calls the “coming-out” process “the gay community’s ‘development myth’. It was an account of heroism in the face of tremendous odds and societal pressure that was based on the ideal of being ‘true to oneself’, expressing one’s ‘authentic’ self” (Stein, 1999, p. 83).

In conclusion, there is a synergy which takes place between symbolic convergence and uncertainty reduction theories when it comes to assessment of the communication and interaction styles in a coming-out group. Such groups are likely to possess the prerequisites of both theories – a membership or leadership with a base familiarity and certainty concerning personal and mutual conduct and an oppositional narrative against, or parallel to, negative images – often making such organizations a more affirmative environment for LGBT people than their own estranged biological families. This convergence also demonstrates that coming out just as much involves and impacts the receiver of the news as it does the deliverer, and finding an infrastructure which is welcoming to the individual and prepared to consensually close the distance of uncertainty is paramount in the self-realization of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Works cited

Johansson, W. & Percy, W. A. (1994). Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence. pp. 24. Harrington Park Press

Ramón, E. K. (2013). “Mom, I’m gay.” Homosexual language used in the coming out process and its effect on the family relationship. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from Texas Digital Library). http://repositories.tdl.org/tamucc-ir/handle/1969.6/398

Soliz, J., Ribarsky, E., Harrigan, M. M., & Tye-Williams, S. (2010). Family communication with gay and lesbian family members: Implications for relational satisfaction and outgroup attitudes. Communication Quarterly, 58, pp. 77-9. Web.

Stein, A. (1999). “Becoming lesbian: identity work and the performance of sexuality.” The Columbia Reader on Lesbians & Gay Men in Media, Society, and Politics. Gross, L. P., & Woods, J. D. (Eds.) pp. 83.  New York: Columbia University Press.

Taylor, V., and Whittier, N. E. (1998). “Collective Identity in Social Movement Communities: Lesbian Feminist Mobilization.”  Social Perspectives in Lesbian and Gay Studies: A Reader. P.M. Nardi and B.E. Schneider (Eds.). New York: Routledge.

Yoo, J. H. (2009). “Uncertainty Reduction and Information Valence: Tests of Uncertainty Reduction Theory, Predicted Outcome Value, and an Alternative Explanation?” Journal of Human Communication, 12(2), pp. 187 – 198. Retrieved from http://www.uab.edu/Communicationstudies/humancommunication/05_Yoo_final.pdf

Shapeshifting as an Allegory for Sexual Desire in The Company of Wolves

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Harry Underwood
Film Analysis
NMAC 4481
10/18/2012

Shapeshifting as an Allegory for Sexual Desire in The Company of Wolves

In literary fiction, the shapeshifting trope is one of the more popular applications of fantasy to a large body of scenarios, ranging from horror to romance. As an act of fantasy, it also has strong cultural currency, as mythologies and folk tales emanating from China to South America have utilized shapeshifting for similar effects. As such a trope is largely fantastic and psychologically-impactful, it is little wonder that shapeshifting of entities or objects is often encountered in dreams. People like Sigmund Freud made it partly their life’s work to view dreams and dream acts such as shapeshifting and animal behavior as representative of the brain’s very structure and composition, and his emphasis upon the dreamwork as a means of dream interpretation has helped to redefine the dream state. Such imagery fits easily into the dream-like scenes and scenarios of Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves, which utilizes various cinematic and psychological techniques in order to emphasize the shapeshifting of dream entities as both an allegory for sexual and orgasmic desires and an expression of the human dream pattern.

Sexually orgasmic imagery is evinced in at least one transformation in the film, as narrated by the grandmother. The gory transformation of the enraged lycanthrope ex-husband against his wife and his subsequent beheading results in the fall of his bloodied head into the vat of milk. The film’s slow-motion depiction of this scene dramatically evokes Freud’s theories on yonic and phallic symbolism, with the milk within the vat splashing fulsomely in reaction to the plunge of the werewolf’s head. The head’s subsequent final reversion to its human state upon its reappearance to the surface of the vat is emblematic of the ultimate realization of sexual release. However, the act of the beheading of the werewolf may also be emblematic of Freud’s statement that the “dream-work represents castration by baldness, hair-cutting, the loss of teeth, and beheading” (Interpretation 170), whereby the werewolf’s sexual desire for his wife, who is now prohibitive in her sentiments regarding him (an Oedipal reference to the “wrongness” of such a relationship between the inferior upstart and the motherly figure), have been short-circuited by the appearance of the new husband (a ‘fatherly” figure), one who is already able to assert his authority by having had children with her, resisted the werewolf’s headstrong advances and struck his wife in the face when she expresses fascination with the late werewolf’s disembodied visage (whereas the werewolf sought to do far worse to her in retribution for her remarriage).

In another segment of the film, slightly contrary to the trend from much of the film, shapeshifting is also utilized in the seeming taming, rather than unleashing, by one character of another’s sexual passions. Rosaleen’s shooting of the Huntsman, his subsequent transformation into his wolfish form, and his acquiescence to Rosaleen in his transformed state would be most emblematic of Rosaleen being able to repress her sexual desires. The Huntsman, outwardly, shows himself to be as cunning and gentlemanly as he can to Rosaleen, thus confirming himself to be a fulfillment of all that Rosaleen was told of both men and wolves by her grandmother and arousing her hackles. The camera posits this, climactically, as an oppositional moment between the two characters through repeated shots and reverse-shots, with Rosaleen being shown with lower-key frontal lighting in her fright. Yet, when revealed as the wolf underneath, he doesn’t pursue her further and sits at his position opposite to her; she realizes his station in the world and she finds herself less apprehensive against physical contact with the wolf. The high key backlighting of the moment, accented by soft fill light, helps to affect the display of new-found intimacy between the two characters. The lighting and camera work in this contrast between the two characters both before and after the Huntsman’s transformation help to identify the displacement of Rosaleen’s sexual feelings for the Huntsman from the “problematic” human form (one which was plagued by his striking yellow eyes in his semi-shifted state) to the “acceptable” wolf form (one which, in comparison to the other fantastic transformations in the film, is not shown as being especially ravenous, visibly showy or predatory, but accommodating to Rosaleen’s touch). Freud considered this to be “dream displacement”, in which “it is often an indistinct element which turns out to be the most direct derivative of the essential dream thought” (On Dreams 34).

The approach to the depiction of such transformations, or, more specifically, the resulting forms of such transformations and the sexual subtexts of their accompanying scenarios are largely influenced by the bias of the character. From the older and more soured Granny’s perspective, the bloody, hyperbolic transformation of the estranged werewolf husband reveals a churlish, fearsome creature underneath an uncontrollable, ungainly, haggardly humanoid guise, one that is wrought by frustration and rage. In contrast, Rosaleen’s werewolf is cheery, cunning and quite in control of his human guise, and is only brought to his own violent transformation through being physically, momentarily wounded. Underneath the guise, however, is the downcast, humbled figure of a gray wolf who is a stark contrast in behavior and depiction to Granny’s bellicose beast. This wolf, in fact, may be emblematic of Rosaleen’s entire diegetic time within the dream: shy, downcast and selective of to whom she will open her ears and heart, yet possessing of a yearning, unfulfilled potential sexuality which is innate to herself.

The importance of shapeshifting as a shift to a more animalistic state is key to understanding the sexual and wishful undertones of such events. As shapeshifting usually involves the changing of the physical image of an entity from one state to another, on dreams. The transformation of characters into other species is emblematic, superficially, of a core mantra of the film, that men are sexually-charged animals. However, as it is a young woman who holds the dreams depicted, Freud holds that such dreams “fulfilled wishes which were active during the day but had remained unfulfilled. The dreams were simple and undisguised wish fulfillments” (On Dreams 21). Granny, on one hand, represents an authority figure who represses such thoughts as loathsome and perverse, although Granny is an expression of Rosaleen’s fears of her own sexuality. On the other hand, Rosaleen utilizes men in the film as figures of both fear and admiration, those who are able to hide themselves in public yet contain the most rapacious desires, thus imbuing the transformations in the film with new meaning.

In conclusion, The Company of Wolves succeeds in exhibiting characters and their actions as composite conveyances of the relationship between both the most instinctual desires from within the human mind and the most rigid repressions which are integrated from outside. In particular, the transformation of the lycanthropes in the film best conveys the eruption of desire – be it violent or from behind the dream facade, while giving due importance and reason to both aspects. Through targeted lighting, cinematography and special effects, the film testifies to shapeshifting as a tool of wish fulfillment, sensory distortion and sexual desire in one’s individual dreamscape.

Works Cited

Company of Wolves, The. Dir. Neil Jordan. Per. Sarah Patterson, Angela Lansbury, and Stephen Rea. Henstooth Video (Video & DVD), 1984. DVD.

Freud, Sigmund. Interpretation of Dreams, The. 3rd Edition. MobileRead. 2009. Print.

–. On Dreams. New York, New York. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1980. Print.

“Altered States”: a terrifically trippy TF film

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I watched Ken Russell’s 1980 film Altered States tonight, and I was astounded by all that occurred in it.

But I was surprised about the lead character’s (played by William Hurt) temporary transformation into an earlier ancestor of homo sapiens that then goes romping through the city for a night. I was surprised because this clearly reminded me of Whitley Strieber‘s 1990 novel The Wild, which follows alot of the same path of plotline as Altered States up to very close to the last scenes of the film. The "hallucinatory" degeneration of the lead character’s sense of reality, the physically-manifested changes of his own body, the near-breakdown of his (ex-)wife’s sanity at the sight of his situation, the involvement and intervention of his closest colleagues, all of these elements are present in both Russell’s film and Strieber’s book, both with equally-vivid description and elaboration.

Either way, I love both works.

Subliminal messages

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Originally posted here. 

I remember watching an episode of “Conspiracies” on TechTV that was dealing with conspiracies concerning the mind, like mind control and brain implants. However, one thing has stayed with me since then: subliminal messages.

Subliminal messages are messages that are transmitted subconsciously (and clandestinely) through different mediums, although our senses are unable to detect them or their transmission (unless those who are responsible for their transmission are put under scrutiny and investigation of the most strenuous kinds).

Such messages have been alleged to have been transmitted through tv commercials and radio pop music hits, and if so, are most likely to say such things as “buy this product”, “buy my album”, or even “my sweet satan”.

But exactly why would they transmit these types of messages in the mediums of pop culture, like tv, radio, or maybe the internet?

The purpose of subliminal messages is for whoever the transmitter is to intoxicate the senses with media fodder in order to bypass them and etch a message of some kind into the subconscious. In this way, even although your senses may lead you to a repugnant attitude toward that particular medium’s fodder, a message has been communicated to the subconscious, a message that may be telling you to buy this album or product, and you’ll be surprised to find yourself at the store, buying that product, not long after! :lol:

So, now that Ive explained subliminal messages in the best way I could, I now come to a conclusion: As subliminal messages are meant to bypass the senses to write a somewhat penetrating message into your mind, wouldnt it be possible for subliminal messages to combine with the whole therianthropy/tf/anthro/furry thing?

My thing is, for us who have trouble with m-shifting, as if p-shifting was an unreachable goal already, wouldnt it help if subliminal messages could write something into our subconscious, like “you are not human. you know this. you are turning into a horse. you are growing a muzzle….” and so on?

Because think about it: if you read that message just now, didnt it sound a little, well, off? If so, then imagine if your senses didnt detect anything off about it? Basically, when something is fed into your subconscious, it becomes a piece of reality, truth, or fact for you, or at least it should….

I think that such messages, if given full effect, would change the way we sense and perceive things that are familiar to us. Even things that we imagine or wish could be more than mere imagination or wishing if they penetrated into and infiltrated our subconscious.

What do you guys think?