Truth's Speech & Ecoporn

In my last blog I wrote about representing truth as a reality. However, I believe that this can be a very difficult feat considering that our perceptions of reality can be so heavily misconstrued with our own personal experiences and emotions. With the readings we have had this week, I can’t help but see how these ideas overlap, specifically the writing of Sojourner Truth’s speech in regards to feminism and with Ecoporn.

Sojourner Truth was promoted as an agency for the feminist movement. But why, is it that in her written speech she was made to have a heavy southern dialect? Why would Sojourner Truth agree (with Gage, the writer) to a direct misrepresentation of reality? Could it be that perhaps Gage’s fictitious speech of Truth’s speech is useful in that it provided agency and circulation to Truth’s words?  Or, could it be that In my opinion this representation is stereotypical. I believe the speech could have been just as impactful if the it was written in her true dialect manner. Why is it that (writers specifically) undermine the capability of their audience. Why couldn’t Sojourner Truth be the smart and brave woman she was with clear speech, and without so many references to her household chores?

From the text, Campbell argues that “…Gage’s fiction allows us to sense what it must have been like to hear Truth speak. We can quote descriptions of Truth’s skill as a speaker, her wit, her clever repartee, her courage in the face of hostility, and her skill in argument; but Gage’s text allows us to experience them; in literary terms, it is the difference between showing and telling (13)” but how can this be a reflection of truth if it was dramatized? It seems that everyone is working for the same team, and have the right intentions of representing something for the cause, but to achieve this by downgrading a woman’s ability to speak is an insult. It is also, a misrepresentation, which is exactly what women are against.

Feminists have struggled with their appearance to men, so why would feminists allow extensive circulation of a dramatized piece constructed by a man, to play a key part in the feminist movement?

Ecocritism is in conjecture with agents misrepresenting reality and entering places where their presence is a disturbance. In the text about Ecoporn, it raises moral questions about our relationship with nature. More so, the text is arguing that “Ecopornography is like ‘real’ pornography because it marks sordid agendas with illusions of beauty and perfection” (55).

There is certainly a difference between art and exploitation. There is some major exploitation happening in the media with bodies in perfect form (especially with woman) and now, if that wasn’t enough, the same thing is happening in nature. To best understand what it happening, one can look to the media. Nature and woman are being objectified visually…it is a seeing game. The game has constructs witch perpetuate a sexual image.

Hyper sexualized natures are the images we see in the media. The depictions are so perfected and manipulated, to a point that it lacks relatable ability. The pictures of nature have been so perfected that it is no longer truth, nor is it an effective rhetorical visual appeal.

Sojourner Truth and Nature have become victims of extremely manipulated rhetoric.