Multimedia Journal #1: (Post)Television

As the name suggests, the games studio Maddy Makes Games was founded by Canadian game Developer Maddy Thorson and a small team of mostly friends. Celeste is a game about a girl named Madeline, a self insert of the author and lead developer Maddy Thorson, who went to climb a mountain despite having no experience, relying solely on her stubbornness and determination. The reason for her pursuing this adventure is to escape her anxiety she feels in her daily life. And despite the warnings of this crazy old lady that lives near the edge of the mountain, Maddy was determined to reach the peak. This is mostly a gameplay focused game, it is self published on Steam and became popular in the meritocracy that is the Steam marketplace because of its fun gameplay. The game comes off very personal as environments in some of the levels give insight to Maddie's psyche; showing the player her fears and anxieties. For example, in Chapter 5 there are these eyes in the wall that follow your movement across the stage, or in chapter 2 where Madeline has an anxiety attack due to the elevator stopping and gets the advice to picture a floating feather and focus her breathing on it. The best symbolic piece of the game, however, is a character that represents all of her negative traits born from a shattered mirror in her dream aptly named "Badeline" who attempts to sabatoge her journey to the top of the mountain. This self preservative instinct is not necessarily evil, however, and she had to learn to come to accept and live with it in the Chapter named "Confronting Myself" with an inspiring soundtrack by Lena Raine. This game is about self acceptance, overcoming oneself, and growth. It is a very personal game that is clearly made with much love and care into every detail from the art to the gameplay to the music.

Artivism is the idea of doing activism through art "The term artivism is a hybrid neologism that signifies work created by individuals who see an organic relationship between art and activism."(Everett, pg. 82), and this game is one of the best examples of it as Maddy, the creator, is transgender. I have not mentioned it in the summery because it isn't really mentioned in game though some subtle hints are given. This addresses the idea that if you are a person of color/part of a protected group you must make your art about that. People are not just a jumble of identities, they are vessels full of experiences unique to themselves. If we make it so that everyone is simply the culmination of their identities we end up with tokenism and further push stereotyping narratives "In the digital banner See Beyond the Stereotypes (Figure 4), an African American boy and a middle-class European American girl again touch shoulders and reveal the assumptions they held about one another: “She thought I was a frightening revolutionary,” he says; “He thought I was a spoiled white girl,” she responds."(Everett, pg. 98)

To also use Fullbek's work as proof, people don't want to be categorized into certain groups, instead they want to express themselves. People naturally look for uniqueness especially in art and entertainment. The Steam marketplace is one of the few meritocracies left on the internet where small games like Celeste and Hollow-knight can exist and compete with giant IPs worth millions of dollars such as Call of Duty. It stands to prove that the culture wars are a political construct and most people do not care about race sex and sexual orientation, instead they care about artistic intent and being genuine instead of performative.

Like many great African American TV shows, Luke Cage takes place in the City of Harlem, NY. The show consists of two seasons and features a total of 26 episodes. We are introduced to the main character Luke Cage, an ex-convict who wants to leave his past behind and begin anew as productive member of society. He works at a barber shop for a character known by the community as "Pops". As the name suggests he acts as the father figure to the kids in the neighborhood and the barber shop is treated as a community center for young lads. This dynamic shows the main conflict in the show. The community is divided by people who want to lead a better life and those who want to take from others. Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes is the main villain of the show, he is a similar character to the Godfather: a charismatic criminal mastermind with a good public image who secretly influences the political system. His main influence lies in his cousin, Mariah Dillard, who has a sense of justice but co-conspires with her cousin to take advantage of Harlem's community for selfish gains. Luke cage's past hides the fact that he was no ordinary inmate, and was tied to government experimentation that resulted in him gaining nearly indestructible skin. He was reluctant to use his abilities for a long time and wanted to lead a quiet normal life, but after the death of Pop's due to a shootout that took place in the barber shop he decided to finally fight the criminal empire that Stokes has created.

The show tackles uncomfortable ideas throughout the show, instead of an interracial conflict between black and white people, the conflict takes place within the African community. Symbolism is used a lot throughout the show. Pops embodies the positive masculine traits that young people in the community need to keep their lives straight. He has a swear jar, and tells the kids to keep the "street talk" out the door. Cottonmouth represents the person who learned that to survive you must take from others, even those who were unfortunate like you. In a conversation between him and his cousin:

Mariah Dillard: You're wasting your gifts, my brother. This gangster life not what our ancestors fought for. Not what our people died for. Cornell 'Cottonmouth' Stokes: This is exactly what they died for: self-determination, control, power.

Dillard, unlike her cousin, does believe in doing the good for the community, but she is never brave enough to stand up for what she believes and in doing she was perceived to be just as bad as her cousin. The show also uses the n-word for symbolic purposes since the main character, Luke, doesn't like being called that word even by other black people. He views that word as a symbol of Cottonmouth's ideology regarding power and dominance, a "Master" mentality. Luke sees that the violent ways of people like Cottonmouth doesn't make them "Masters" like the slavers he equates them to, it makes them, ironically, slaves. Adopting the violence the shown to them throughout American History is form of continued control exerted by that oppressive system onto his people. Luke cage addresses a gang member who snuck behind him while he was looking at the Crispus Attucks Complex:

Mamba: What are you doing here, nigga? I'm not gonna ask you again. Luke Cage: Young man I've had a long day. I'm tired. But I'm not tired enough to ever let nobody call me that word. You see a nigga standin' in front of you? Across the street from a building named after one of our greatest heroes? Mamba: [Cocking the gun] Yeah, a dead one.

The exact date and artist of this portrait of Attucks are unknown.

This show's addresses self identity a great deal, so as to not tread on old ground, I will use One Way or Another: Asian American Art by Higa K. and The Grace Lee Project: Deconstructing an Asian-American Stereotype by Lee G. as evidence for this claim. It seems that the expectation of media addressing social problem lacking artistic excellence is not uncommon "...according to the New York Times, Frankenthaler "questioned whether the demand for cultural diversity and social consciousness in grant giving was subverting the criteria for artistic excellence"-the implication being that cultural diversity and artistic excellence were mutually exclusive. "(Higa, pg. 22). Luke Cage addresses the racist stereotypes that are placed upon the African American community as well as the people who willingly take on these stereotypes. The Grace Lee project portrays stereotypes such as being a Pastor's kid, or wanting to marry young to space having kids more as annoyances than problems. As in, it is annoying to be very similar to other people in your race group, who often look, act, and live a similar life to you. This is a common and popular talking point in asian communities because of their communal culture and customs. For the Luke Cage series, the stereotype of being a criminal gang member is dealt with a much bigger concern since it is destroying the Harlem community. Likewise, instead of a communal fight against discrimination and stereotyping from artist groups like Godzilla "For me, "One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now" begins where early Godzilla left off." (Higa, pg. 25), Luke Cage looks inward into the heart of the African American community to change and become better, to abandon the stereotypes themselves.

In 1841, Black Musician Solomon Northrup from New York was drugged, kidnapped and later trafficked into the South where he was sold as a slave. For context, he was wealthy (for a Black Man) and had a family he supported with his well paying musical career. Though he does face discrimination he lives a life that is envied by most Black people in America as the American Civil War does not happen for another 20 years. When abducted his name was changed to "Platt" as Solomon was too christian of a name to be afforded to a slave. This naming convention follows the other slaves, who are named less honorable names than their white counterparts. The show follows how Solomon was broken in through the harsh slave life he had to endure, until a person of his education and intellect eventually acted no different from any other slave. The fear that surrounded him crushed his spirit, as he witness lynchings and brutal violence. He eventually abandoned attempting to write and hid his literacy and intelligence. By the end of the show he completely abandoned the idea of returning to his life. As Solomon said to another slave women who was separated from her children at an auction "I survived!" pleading with her to do the same and quit mourning her lost children. Only by a miracle, his white neighbor tracked him to the southern state was he able to return to his life. "I apologize for my appearance" was a very dark a depressing line to say to his family that presumed him dead for 12 years. I understand this as my mother told me how when the Iranian militias abducted her family members, one can never truly mourn because they don't know when and if they died. My Palestinian classmates also tell me the same thing, as the IDF often use the corpses of deceased Palestinians as bargaining chips, sometimes not specifying whether they are alive or dead. This causes the family to be stuck in a painful reality where they can never get truly past their loss. Solomon's reunion was not a happy one, as his family didn't even get past his lost to celebrate his return.

Artists like Legion have always tackled the idea of representation and assimilation of identities in the United States. In the photograph 'we’re black and we’re strong' (1996), "And I think that was about this ambiguity around the march: What were its aims? What was it trying to do? Why do we need to raise our hands in that symbolic space again and again and again to be present in this country? All those things were expressed in that image."(GLENN LIGON Interview by David Drogin, 2010) it is the symbolic ever present struggle for equality that the movie portrays through reversing the Great Migration. The idea of the Great Migration changing the culture of the African American Community has been embodied by Willis D. "Picturing Us", in the fact that the African Americans born after slavery had a different mindset than that of their slave parents. However, in this movie we can see that this generational phenomenon is caused by the socioeconomic status rather than the end of slavery. Solomon and his family were wealthy, they had a place in society and Solomon himself showed much pride in the beginning of the movie. Only later in the movie was the "survival" mindset that exemplified slaves adopted by him. This movie shows a kind of reverse Great Migration and can teach people the nature of slavery on the way people behave or how they express their culture. In a sense, anyone will adopt the "survival" mindset if they are forced to.