Reference Image Used:
The parrot in the flag is suppose to be a person who painted their body and contoured their body to resemble a parrot.
The Sympathizer is an Oriental Orientalist Plagiarizer
Artists: Jingyi Dong, Vy Nguyen, Miggy Cruz, & Leslie Do
Our inspiration comes from the narrator of The Sympathizer. We identify him as a parrot spy-race traitor and oriental orientalist. Although he portrays himself as intelligent, cunning, sly, and knowledgeable, he is simply using the other characters’ thoughts and ideas without citing them to gain sympathy from all political parties and to falsely deem himself as credible.The Sympathizer is an Oriental Orientalist Plagiarizer
Artists: Jingyi Dong, Vy Nguyen, Miggy Cruz, & Leslie Do
The way he identifies himself as being two in one body coincides with his many references between what he differentiates to be the East versus the West. Looking into the psychosis of this Parrot spy, he introduces himself as such, “I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds” (1). In order to justify his actions of being a spy, he must consciously remind himself his position in accordance to the East-West dichotomy. By intermixing his thoughts with that of others, he grants himself mobility and infiltration into other groups without detection. However, through the lack of quotation marks used to differentiate between other speaker's ideas and that of his own, he outed himself because he is only taking other people's words without fully and deeply understanding their standpoint. He also reinforces orientalist viewpoints of Viet Nam, the “East,” and Asian women (such as Ms. Mori) without being critical of orientalism (as coined and conceptualized by Edward Said.) We specifically chose a parrot with the face of both Viet Thanh Nguyen and the Sympathizer, because the narrator, as an oriental orientalist, mimic words and phrases others present to him like a parrot.
We included Nguyen's face in the collage, because we argue that the main character of the novel did not need to be of mixed race descent. A non-mixed race individual can also share the Eurasian main character’s status as an oriental orientalist. By birth, he is half French and Vietnamese, but much of his knowledge, or so he says, comes from when he studies in America. In fact, Nguyen might have only used a mixed race character to be his protagonist because it made for a better story. However, Vietnamese people can have warped, orientalist, and stereotypical ideas of the East and Vietnam too. One does not have to be mixed race to question their own people’s ideals and to have orientalist ideas of one’s ethnic group.
Very clever reading of The Sympathizer. Your art reflects the concerns you have with the fiction. That said, it is fiction and not an academic piece requiring citations. Nguyen has an academic background and clearly synthesized it to inform his novel. I do not fault the author for this. What would be more interesting if you connect the author's life to the protagonist. Author has given interviews that claims he identifies with his protagonist. Also, I don't believe you did a map assignment. The art itself was slightly confusing and not top notch work.
ReplyDeleteI had a hard time reading the word bubbles on your flag and you never explained why you put it on the flag. I think the flag could have stood on its own without the word bubbles. Other than that, you offer a compelling argument on the legitimacy of the character in the book and the author. The parrot analogy serves your argument well.
ReplyDeleteYou all did a good job at breaking down the book about Asians are fixed to this image of the orient and challenge the book of using a mixed race person. I also agree with Andrea about the absence of justifying the word bubbles.
ReplyDeleteI also had a hard time reading the words on your flag. But relating this back to the topic of mix race, I think this has a lot to do with Rachel Dolezal and the question of Transracial. Although the flag is made under The Sympathizer, I think you are still missing a lot of key topic that can be included in the artist statement. As for the flag itself, I think you guys did a great job. I would agree with Andrea that the flag will do better without the word bubbles.
ReplyDeleteI also had a hard time reading the words on your flag. But relating this back to the topic of mix race, I think this has a lot to do with Rachel Dolezal and the question of Transracial. Although the flag is made under The Sympathizer, I think you are still missing a lot of key topic that can be included in the artist statement. As for the flag itself, I think you guys did a great job. I would agree with Andrea that the flag will do better without the word bubbles.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea that went into making the flag, and the statement was written well - great tie to the Sympathizer. However, I do agree with above that the text is hard to read because it's so compact with details. The text could have been cut down and further elaborated in the statement. Other than that, great piece of work!
ReplyDeleteThis is really well done and I can tell a lot of thought went into this. Nice job on picking a parrot to symbolize the struggles the Sympathizer went through (how he had to mimic ideas to seem loyal). Using Nguyen's face to argue that there's no need for a tragic "mixed-race" stereotype is well done as well.
ReplyDeleteI like how the ideas your group has a very clear argument stated and bold statements. It was an interesting interpretation of the book that made me compare it to how I personally saw it from my perspective. I believe the concept behind your flag was good once I read your artist statement, but without it, I was a bit lost as to what I was looking at and what to take away from it. Of course, after reading the artist statement, I understood each particular detail of the flag. The other concern I have with your project is the font of the text on the flag
ReplyDeleteI like how you tie the Sympathizer into this week's project I kind of understood what the group was trying to portray. However, the project itself does not look like a flag to me because of the word bubbles and it was a bit hard to read. Great work overall. I would just recommend to not overthink too much on the concept behind the flag because simplicity in a piece of art work can say a lot.
ReplyDeleteI like the concept behind this flag. I was slightly confused why did the artists use the parrot and the face and the artist statement was really helpful in term of further explaining the argument. My only concern is the text in the bubbles are quiet hard to read.
ReplyDeleteI think that the concept behind this flag was good. The artist statement helped explain the ideas behind the usage of the parrot. My only concern is that this art piece doesn't quit look like a flag. I think that at first, without reading the artist statement, it can be a handful. Also, the text in the bubbles and the font used makes it almost impossible to read. Try using another font.
ReplyDeleteI really admire how your group was very analytical and chose to dig deep into the reading; it was done very well. Your artist statement did support and explain your artwork, but the artwork itself was slightly a bit confusing. I didn't quite understand the meaning behind putting speech bubbles into your artwork. In doing that, it doesn't really look like a flag, but it looks like a poster. Aside from that, I enjoyed the parrot analogy. Maybe one thing to add would to explain the meaning behind the colors your chose, since colors on flags are quite symbolic.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the artist statement, I really enjoyed learning about your flag. I thought your group did a good job really analyzing your concept and executing it. The artist statement was crucial in understand your piece. The words were a little hard to read, so I would suggest using images to try and convey what you mean, especially in a flag.
ReplyDeleteI can tell this group put in an excessive amount of work and effort to take in everything we've learned this week and analyse and elevate it to even further ideas and notions. I appreciate the inclusion of elements from The Sympathizer, as it was expressed many times how important this book was to this week 6's themes. However, I'm having a lot of trouble reading this as a flag. Even with your reference photo this is still very confusing for me. But the statement is well-written and comparing the MC in The Sympathizer as a parrot is very clever.
ReplyDeleteThe depicted symbolism of the woman positioned and painted to be a parrot is very creative and genius! This very well represents the protagonist of the reading, The Sympathizer. Your analysis of the narrator's being mixed race and spy and conceptualizing that into your art is incredible and well put. A little improvement, the quotes in the flag design can be omitted since the artist statement definitely explains the art already. Overall, thumbs up!
ReplyDelete