Taylor Rients Kathy O'Dell Response Week 2

Overall, I really enjoyed O'Dell's observations about performance and film. This excerpt gave beneficial information that was a good reminder but that I had heard before. However, O'Dell also provided other insights that were fairly knew to me, like the audience. It is very easy to overlook something 'external' like the viewer when making films or photography (with which I am comfortable with)...what are the differences between the viewer of a photograph versus the viewer of a film? Are there any?

Although O'Dell had valid points--for this audience, her phrasing and examples felt outdated and complicated. I felt myself having to do some extra research to understand her opinions, which somewhat detracted from, what I believe, she was trying to argue. However, this may have been an older reading with older phrasing and examples.

O'Dell described that "television was mediating our own subjective positions" (O'Dell 1). I was quite confused by this--what does this mean? I am assuming that O'Dell is trying to say that the television, itself, was in charge of how we were being subjective while viewing film. Think MEDIUM. Now broken down, this point really makes sense and is going to be an important factor to keep in mind, through the semester. 

O'Dell depicts when children first see a photograph of themselves and recognize it as themselves. She then goes on to say, "'the very image which places the child divides its identity in two...'" and I want to discuss this in class to hear what some other people's opinions are about this...the type of viewing we have is established from an early age...is this true (3)? How do we know?

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