This piece strongly reminds me of a movie I saw, "Now You See Me". It's about these new, contemporary, magicians that basically attempt to start a revolution of sorts. But in the end (don't worry no spoilers!) there is a major plot twist that makes you rethink the ENTIRE movie. It's one of those mind-bending moments that I love. "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" by Horace Miner is the exact same thing. (Although, it doesn't have a specific part that identifies as the realization, that must be identified by the reader.) Throughout the piece, the reader is being grossed out and probably thinking of some odd Native American ritual, but in reality it is describing the reader. Personally, I had to reread the whole piece to fully understand the author's work. The real turning point for me was when the title was identified as "American" backwards! Suddenly everything became clear, the toothbrush, the doctors, and most importantly, the extreme satire!
Sunday, February 12, 2017
Nacirema
Even though this wasn't my cold read, this piece really struck me. It's amazing to see ourselves from a completely different perspective. This is basically how we think of the Native Americans hundreds of years ago. We harshly label the things they do as "savage" (not in a good way!) and "barbaric". Yet, if they could see us now, the Native Americans from hundreds of years ago, and others may think that we are "barbaric" and "savage". There is one part of the passage that stood out to me in particular. "It was reported to me that the ritual consists of inserting a small bundle of hog hairs into the mouth, along with certain magical powders, and then moving the bundle in a highly formalized series of gestures" (Miner). At first glance, this was highly disturbing. Who on earth would put hog hairs in their mouth with some random powder that nobody knows what it is?! But on further analysis I realized that WE do. Hog hairs are really a toothbrush and the "magical powder"? That's toothpaste. It also disturbed me that the characters seemed to not know what they were consuming. However, that's still describing us. The author was simply mocking Americans for blindly taking medication and other things. For example, toothpaste. How many of us could really list a single ingredient in toothpaste? I know I can't! That leads to more questions, like what's in the drugs we consume for a cold or a cough? We just blindly accept whatever the doctor gives us. Maybe they have too much ethos!
This piece strongly reminds me of a movie I saw, "Now You See Me". It's about these new, contemporary, magicians that basically attempt to start a revolution of sorts. But in the end (don't worry no spoilers!) there is a major plot twist that makes you rethink the ENTIRE movie. It's one of those mind-bending moments that I love. "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" by Horace Miner is the exact same thing. (Although, it doesn't have a specific part that identifies as the realization, that must be identified by the reader.) Throughout the piece, the reader is being grossed out and probably thinking of some odd Native American ritual, but in reality it is describing the reader. Personally, I had to reread the whole piece to fully understand the author's work. The real turning point for me was when the title was identified as "American" backwards! Suddenly everything became clear, the toothbrush, the doctors, and most importantly, the extreme satire!
This piece strongly reminds me of a movie I saw, "Now You See Me". It's about these new, contemporary, magicians that basically attempt to start a revolution of sorts. But in the end (don't worry no spoilers!) there is a major plot twist that makes you rethink the ENTIRE movie. It's one of those mind-bending moments that I love. "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" by Horace Miner is the exact same thing. (Although, it doesn't have a specific part that identifies as the realization, that must be identified by the reader.) Throughout the piece, the reader is being grossed out and probably thinking of some odd Native American ritual, but in reality it is describing the reader. Personally, I had to reread the whole piece to fully understand the author's work. The real turning point for me was when the title was identified as "American" backwards! Suddenly everything became clear, the toothbrush, the doctors, and most importantly, the extreme satire!
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I do agree. A lot of things People do are labeled harsh. I only think that because people only say their harsh just because it's a new concept, and it's the things that aren't everybody's "normal", that make it difficult for other people to receive.
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