Dylan Middleton English 2112 Professor Ricki Weaver 3 May 2014 “And of Clay We Are Created,” by Isabel Allende, offers an observation of what social psychologists know to as the bystander effect. In the story, Azucena is a young girl, trapped in the muck, in need of a great amount of assistance. As she suffers and countless reporters are on the scene filming, no one ever stops filming to aid her. The reporters care more about getting the story than saving the precious life of another human being. As the story progresses, Allende connects Eva Luna to Rolf and Azucena use voyeurism as a key dramatic device. Using the interpersonal relationships of the characters, Allende takes a look at how voyeurism can be a contributing factor to the growth of social insensitivity to another’s needs. In this story, Allende paints a picture of a little girl who is having what should be a near death experience, but will instead lead to her demise. This change is a result of the fact that even though a passel of reporters and cameramen on the scene, all are insensitive to the suffering of Azucena. The situation is a strong example of the bystander effect. Studies have indicated that in situations such as this one, the members of the group are likely to pass responsibility for saving Azucena to another member of the group. As more news crews report to the scene, each individual feels less compelled to provide aid to this poor girl. Allende lays heavy fault upon the government for not taking appropriate action, saying “geologists had set up their seismographs weeks before and knew that the mountain had awakened again”. She proceeds to say that the geologists knew the ice could be detached from the slopes, but no one would heed their warning. The f... ... middle of paper ... ..., precision lenses, recorders, sounds consoles, lights, reflecting screens, auxiliary motors, cartons of supplies, electricians, sound technicians, and cameramen,” when a single water pump was nowhere to be found. It is borderline inconceivable that all this technology could be present to document such a tragedy, and none present to save the girl’s life. As Azucena endures her struggle, Rolf undergoes a change, leaving the previously detached personality that had helped get through the tasks of a reporter, instead allowing the gravity of the situation to strike him personally. It is at this juncture that voyeurism comes into play. Typically, voyeurism is defined as observing a sexual occurrence in order to receive personal gratification, but some scholars use it to describe intense, distant gazing. The initial aspect of voyeurism in this story is the news camera.
Edelstein, David. "'Trouble The Water' Captures Katrina On Camcorder." NPR. NPR, 29 Aug. 2008. Web. 30 Nov. 2013.
Thus, comparing the media to vultures waiting for the death of their prey, Allende questions the use and value of human technology and the sense of detachment and apathy that lead camera operators and reporters to witness without lifting a finger to save Azucena from a preventable death.
Kitty Genovese case led to the development of the 911 emergency call system and inspired a long line of research led by psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley around the time of 1970 into what circumstances lead bystanders to help someone in need. They discovered that, the more people available to help, the less likely any individual person would help—a phenomenon they called the “bystander effect.” If you are the only one around when an elderly person stumbles and falls, the responsibility to help is yours alone, but, with more people present, your obligation is less clear. Latané and Darley called this the “diffusion of responsibility” (CSI). A more recent case of the bystander effect was when assault victim Marques Gains laid motionless in the street due to by a hit-and-run; traffic whizzed past along with a few people stopped and seemed to stand over Gaines, who was crumpled near the curb on North State Street. No one tried to lift him from the pavement or block traffic. The lack of action by passers-by cost the hotel cocktail server his life after a cab turned the corner and drove over him. Experts says that a traumatic or odd event occurring in a public setting triggers an array of social and cultural cues and, combined with human nature, often leads to the lack of action by witnesses
**Voyeur** Observers, or *voyeurs* are openly accepted at some events and not embraced at others. Basically, voyeurs like to watch the action without participating.
Staring involves an interesting conflict. It is an impulse giving us all the potential to be the starers as well as the starees and it is a natural response to our own curiosity bridging a communicative gap. Staring can be a very pleasurable experience as well as a demeaning experience depending on which side of the staring you are faced with. Similar to other bodily impulses, like eating or sex, staring and the way people stare is excessively regulated by the social world. The conflict with staring is between our urge to do it and the social constrains saying we shouldn’t that makes it such an important and intense provocative social exchange. Our society has adapted and has given us different opportunities to come in contact with people from all walks of life. When we simply stroll around the city or turn on any form of media, we see people that are different from us and we are given the opportunity to learn from them. The opportunity that often is not taken. A group of people who were excluded from the public world, were people with disabilities always being the staree and often not the starer. Through Rosemarie Garland-Thomsen’s reading, I will evaluate the roles of the starer and the staree and their impact to the communication of both parties as well as apply these roles to the film, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and the staring roles within that media.
Human’s, according to the bible, will always be evil because of one action; the action of biting the apple. Films like Fargo, Magnolia, and Pleasantville portray human nature constantly “biting the apple.” These films seem to share many views on how human nature is portrayed with the Bible. Betrayal and forgiveness are two prominent themes in the Bible as well as all three of these films. In particular, the film Magnolia seems to have almost every character commit betrayal of some kind. The one character that is true to Bonhoeffer’s “true discipleship” is Officer Jim Kurring. He values the lives he saves more than his own life, he is truly unselfish.
Cameras are everywhere. More people died while taking selfies than were killed by sharks in 2015. On the British television show Black Mirror, one episode called “White Bear” was a satire of how these cameras on our phones, computers, and buildings affected our society. The premise hinges on a woman who passively filmed her boyfriend torturing a young girl they kidnapped. Although it may seem that cameras are causing us to become a passive and voyeuristic society, they actually have done more good than harm. “White Bear” does not show the reality of these situations, documentation of horrible events has led to a better understanding of history and public action.
Bystander effect refers to the instance in which there is an emergency and people witnessing don’t respond when there are others around witnessing the same event. This happens because of pluralistic ignorance which is when people assume that there is nothing wrong because others surrounding them don’t look concerned. Two researchers, Latan and Darley, conducted an experiment to further study the bystander effect. In this experiment, Latan and Darley took multiple college students and one at a time, put them into cubicles. In a cubicle next to them there would be a recording device producing noises emulating distress noises in the form of choking. Eighty five percent of the students went to help; this is not an alarming number. The surprising
Diane Urban, for instance, was one of the many people who were trapped inside this horror. She “was comforting a woman propped against a wall, her legs virtually amputated” (96). Flynn and Dwyer appeal to the reader’s ethical conscience and emotions by providing a story of a victim who went through many tragedies. Causing readers to feel empathy for the victims. In addition, you began to put yourself in their shoes and wonder what you would do.
In the short story, “And of Clay Are We Created” written by Isabel Allende, a reporter named Rolf finds himself alone with a small girl, Azucena, of whom he tries to save from a mudslide. As tragedy strikes, he finds himself staying by her side until help arrives. His darkest secrets creep out of the dark as he begins to tell the girl stories from his childhood. In the end, he lets her sink into the mud as she closes her eyes to fall into a peaceful sleep that becomes the end of her life. The theme of the story is that as a person, no one can move on if they have not taken care of their personal demons or past that haunts them. The author shows multiple forms of literary devices within the story, such as foreshadowing, flashbacks, and imagery, to form the theme of the story.
The bystander effect is one of the biggest reasons why Genocides keep occurring in our world today. The bystander effect is when you see something that you know should not be happening and you ignore it and expect someone else to take care of it, and then they just go on with their lives and act like they didn’t see anything. This is what made it possible for so many people to get away with it for so long, because they knew that the people will just act like nothing is going on. Mostly because they don’t want anything to happen to them or their families, which makes sense, you always want to protect your family, but if you do nothing, millions of other families are getting ripped apart and ruined. It is so important to know what is going on and put a stop to what we know is not right or okay on any level, and just not being a bystander is such a huge, important thing.
According to www.merriam-webster.com, contemporary is defined as happening or beginning now or in recent times. When utilized in art and photography, it’s connoted as vague, obscure, and by definition always in flux. For some it signifies “cutting edge” – work that pushes the limitations of recognized practice, style, subject matter, mediums, or concepts.
The film Missrepresentation, by Jennifer Newsom, is about the underrepresentation of women by the media (2011). The film challenges the viewpoints of media that are constantly depicting females as to being dependent on males. Furthermore, even when females are displayed as lead characters, the plot will ensure that their life’s will surround the life of a male. Examples of these include, a lead female falling in love with her “prince charming” as he saved her from great dangers. We rarely see a female character saving a male in the media (2011). According to the film the media continues to encourage the ideology that a women’s power is associated with her youth, beauty and sexuality, instead of her knowledge and intelligence (2011). The film also provides starling statistics, for instance by the age to 18 78% of females are unhappy with how the look. Also of the 8 million people with eating disord...
...ames M. Hudson and Amy S. Bruckman study a specific component of the bystander effect: social cues. This component states that, “Individuals actively look to one another for cues about how to behave in the situation. The inaction of others will likely cause the inaction of the individual” (Hudson and Bruckman 170). Humans are always worrying about what others think of them. Therefore, if there is a situation which requires help, but the majority is simply watching, an individual who may be willing to assist will quickly change their mind. This is the case with the magistrate. Since so many people were watching and treating his torture as a spectacle, those who would want to help didn’t for fear of standing out. This fear of helping the magistrate and going against the Empire is a result of the pressure that war brings to stay completely loyal to a person’s nation.
The Bystander effect can be described as the apathy to help others in distress situations. The higher the number of bystanders facing an emergency situation, the less likely are them to help. This is a demonstration of how others influenced the way we act in different situations. As we learned in class, many factors influenced our apathy to help others in distress situations. “The bystander effect contains different components related to the assistance of the bystanders helping behavior, as well as different social and cultural manifestations and their relevant causes (Rodarte, 2015).” One of the main reasons why the Bystander Effect occurs, it is that sometimes we do not perceived the situation as an emergency. Nowadays,