A central theme of this course is multimedia. We practice weekly to achieve smooth integration of verbal and visual rhetoric in order to convey a message more powerful than one without the other. Perhaps the most potent example of this was our viewing of Earthlings. I read the entire screenplay in the anthology without squirming or looking away from the text, but I can barely get through fifteen minutes of the film. I beheld the power of multimedia as my stomach churned and I focused at the bottom corner of the projector trying to ignore the gruesome images on the screen, unable to look away entirely. The reason for this is “’The artistic representation of history,’ Aristotle said, ‘is a more serious pursuit than the exact writing of history, for the art of letters goes to the heart of things.’”[1] When I think of Dobie’s mustangs, I think of my times in the wilderness when I have observed animals in their natural habitat. In my backyard even, I have been entranced by the behavior of ants, squirrels, and owls. There is indeed something about the artistic representation of nature that cannot be read in a text or even watched in a movie. In their natural state, animals are beautiful.



If there is one animal I wish I could see in its natural state, it would be the lion.[2]

Sometimes, I idolize animals. Certain animals, at least, while the knowledge of what is in Earthlings lurks in the back of my mind. They seem so blissfully ignorant, so unaware of the problems in life, yet so passionate and alive at the same time. My dog Jacie is a perfect example.

She is always ready to play.

What makes them beautiful is what makes them natural. Animals don’t worry about news, technological advances, or college. They worry about what is for dinner and when they can reproduce. What a life. Man, though deemed superior by himself, is so troubled, “the rule is simple: the more machinery man gets, the more machined he is.”[3] The advancement of mankind is at a snail’s pace, yet we are entirely concerned with what might be regarded as trivial in the great scheme of things. The more “machined” we get, the less natural we are, and the less beauty there is in our life. On that same note, it can be argued that this is our normal state—to contemplate trivially the goings on of the universe. But that is another argument.

So it becomes that what is natural is beautiful. Dobie’s mustangs remind me of a scene in American Beauty.


[4]

Although the plastic bag is far from an organism, it is beautiful because it is absolutely natural: “Only the sense of being in place gives natural horse or natural man contentment.”[5] Imagine being that bag, that sense of being in place, not caring where you are going, and breathing in the electricity of the air. Had I an ultimate goal, it would be to be like that bag, somehow. But I am human, and it is not that easy.


[1]850
[2]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BtMuSjnGcY
[3]844
[4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3OhrWr5lzk
[5]843