Performativity

I found two types of performance activities. The first one is from the Japanese movie "Departures."  It is about a young Japanese cellist who loses his job and gets another job as an undertaker even though his wife doesn't know at first.  This clip shows how he has learned to perform the ritual of cleansing and preparing the body for the funeral.  This is done in the Japanese culture as a ritual and a time to let the family say goodbye.  He is very careful in each step of the preparations.  In a way, this is a performative act in that he is doing this in front of the audience, which in this case is the family. His movements are almost like a ballet.

What is important to understand is that the Japanese people will shun any person who has this type of job thinking that it is undignified.  That is until they need their services.  During the course of this movie, his neighbor wanted nothing to do with him until mother died and he needed him.  By witnessing this ritual, he was grateful for the skills he learned as an undertaker.

I picked this particular clip because the "girl" he is preparing is really a young boy who is a cross-dresser. If you watch the whole movie (with subtitles), you will find that they have to ask the parents how they want the body to be dressed, as a girl or boy.  The parents finally come to terms with their child's sexuality and agree to let him be dressed as a girl.

The second clip is an example of a performance utterance.  This clip is from an interview with Mary Cronk who is a midwife.  It is about her ideas of what women say about themselves and how destructive that can be and how they "don't fail."   It is interesting that she says that some women need help during their labor and don't need to feel that it is their fault.   I also like that we as women, need to be careful how we describe ourselves and to be careful of the words we use. She says, "Women don't fail."  Do we or is it how the "world" and "society" makes us want to thinks that about ourselves as failures?  This clip makes me think that I don't have to fail because someone says that I'm inferior.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyMFXW57VQ8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycutSsGIAkA


Sue