FINAL ESSAY is DUE TUESDAY, August 12th by 9:00 p.m. Your final essay is to be a minimum of 1500 words. This essay is worth 30 points. I will be grading content that reflects that you have read and understood the text as well as grammar, spelling, citations, etc.  I suggest that you review the link on “Grading Essays”. Referencing the text and outside reading/sources will promote a higher grade. Be sure to cite ALL sources.

Here is your topic: Study your face in a mirror for at least fifteen minutes. Time yourself… make sure you stare for the entire fifteen minutes. (This will be difficult to do!) Study yourself with the same honesty as Rembrandt or Van Gogh did. Study yourself candidly. For the last five minutes, strike several different intentional poses. Write your essay addressing what you see. Use the following guidelines to write your analysis:

•Describe the experience of looking in the mirror for 15 minutes.

At first I simply thought it would be interesting but as I got ready to approach the mirror I started getting nervous and suddenly knew I was not about to see my literal reflection but something else, it felt like I was about to make a confrontation. And in fact I did, what happened next was life changing.

All the most negative parts of me were manifested in this mirror. They were all my most self destructive qualities that I now realize aren’t actually part of me, they simply exist inside of me. I learned this by the way they were manifested in the mirror. They looked like me but lifeless, with soul-less eyes. This is how I knew they weren’t really me but have only been posing to be me my entire life.

As I started to realize this the “reflections” eyes glowed red. I felt fear but I confronted it, I shouted “WHAT AM I!” at the mirror. Then it took off its disguise, its head turned into the most nasty black wolf, with the glow from flames illuminating the inside of its mouth and yellow fangs. In the most penetrating- demonic voice imaginable it roared back at me “I AM A MONSTER!”. That’s when I finally knew that this thing was not really me, only pretended to be me, and it fucked up by ruining its disguise.

So to me this mirror was a gateway into my own mind. I don’t want too say my sub-conscious because this reflection was not me, and had only wished for my self-destruction. If you look at your worst qualities you can group them all together and label them as “the black wolf”. And in the dream world I explored my mind and met face to face with this black wolf.

• If you were a photograph, what style would it be? Among the photographers we have studied, who would influence your image? What would your photograph imply culturally, politically and/or socially?
• Can you honestly view yourself differently from how advertising presents how you should look or be?  Can you identify what influences you emotionally?
• Can you articulate what influences you in an advertisement? Can you separate what makes you feel good about yourself from what advertising indicates should make you feel good about yourself?
• Carefully read Richard Prince’s description of the Perfect Tense in Chapter 9. Does this describe you or do you fall into Thomas Frank’s counter-culture rebellion? Are you somewhere in the context of cultural jamming?  Advertising often participates in turning a person into an object. Do you feel capable of constructing an identity outside the parameters of the advertising market? If so, how do you support this? Where do you fall on the “Advertising Horizon”?
• Do the cultural myths of individualism (the autonomous individual) or love of technology influence your self-image? Do you feel victim or purveyor of bipolar thinking? Finish your essay with a general summary that includes a comparison of your painting, photograph and advertisement and how they reflect the values we have studied all semester. Additionally add a few sentences on what you personally feel was the most important information you learned in this class.