Does Selma in the film "Dancer in The Dark" portray a good example of Marx's form of labor alienation that he speaks of?
Marx describes labor alienation as someone who is not themselves at home because their mind is always at work. When they are at work, then they are at home. During this form of alienation, the persons form of alienation will affect their mind and can put them at danger both mentally and physically. Selma exemplifies a perfect example of this when she alienates herself at work in the film, "Dancer in the Dark". The musical aspect of the film, is when Selma is showing Marx's form of labor alienation. Her "daydreaming" as she likes to call it, is her form of labor alienation. This example portrays Marx's theory of labor alienation.
How does Selma in "Dancer in the Dark" portray Marx's labor alienation?
When Selma is "daydreaming", she puts herself at risk of being injured at work. She works in a factory where a person must pay very close attention to what they are doing and if they mess up on anything it can break the machinery and shut down the plant.
Selma goes into her "daydreaming" at work, when she hears noise and creates music in her mind. When the musical numbers are going on in the film, it makes it seem as if Selma is having an outer body experience. This causes Selma to mess up by putting two sheets of metal in a machine and break the machine and hurt herself. Because of this, Selma is fired.
This is an example of labor alienation and how Selma feels at home at work because she can hear noise which then creates music in her mind and then brings her to another place that is home to her. Musical numbers equal home. This puts her at risk of hurting herself and affects her minds way of thinking properly. Because she was alienating herself at work with her musicals, she then alienated herself from her work with then took her away from home as she knew it.
No comments:
Post a Comment