Channel Surfing

The preponderance of episodic frames in television news coverage provides a distorted portrayal of "recurring issues as unrelated events," according to Iyengar. This "prevents the public from cumulating the evidence toward any logical, ultimate consequence." Moreover, the practice simplifies "complex issues to the level of anecdotal evidence" and "encourages reasoning by resemblance — people settle upon causes and treatments that 'fit' the observed problems."

            When I read James Clifford’s “Year of the Ram” I couldn’t help but feel like I watching the news, or flipping through Hawaiian cable television. Though at first, I didn’t realize how these quotes came together, a quick reread made me think somehow its episodic structure possibly encompasses the whole sphere of the constant reshaping Hawaii by outside forces. I quickly went to Google to see if mass media had shared my opinion on it at all. And alas, it did! I found this article by Scott London

            The poem is made up of bits and pieces of seemingly unrelated pieces of poetry, everyday observation, and quotes. And yet somehow, the whole premise of the poem describes Hawaii’s present cultural situation from inside and out. The poem begins describing a simple scene describing “The new Chinatown atrium.” In which one can find the fascinating cuisines of “Japanese, Thai, Korean, Hawaiian, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Filipino, Singapore, Lulu international, U.S….” which gives a sense of what kind of people the islands population are made up of. Which is true, as Hawaii being part of the U.S. is now a land of immigration in this sense. Then in contrast, the poem later alludes to the infamous Operation Desert Storm in the repeating lines:

In a desert the tank is hit, explodes inside, sears the men’s faces, tears sharp pieces of metal into their bodies, and sends up plume of black smoke…

The line projects imagery that is starkly different from the Hawaii most people visualize. In fact it’s not even within the country.

            So how does the poem weave together these seemingly unrelated images? The episodic structure of the new is framed, according to Shanto Iyengar, so the public cannot “cumulate evidence to an ultimate consequence,” and thus issues are simplified. It is this exact framing that makes poem project the greater issues of America’s history with aggressive infiltration of foreign countries without having to in depth about what exactly is happening within each line of the poem.  So whether it is the observance of a simple strip mall with various international cuisines or quotes taken from the late President Bush himself, the episodic structure simplifies a history of colonization and its consequences.