4B - Thursday, October 2, 2008 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 6 6 Events worth a thousand photos Forgotten holidays Hollywood continues to ignore the possibilities of Jewish holiday movies By SHERI JANKELOVITZ DailyArts Writer It's the most wonderful time of the year - the time for film studios to start promoting their holiday-themed (read: Christmas) films. This year will be no different, judging from the two Christ- mas-themed movie trailers that have already been released ("Four Christ- mases" and "Nothing Like the Holi- days"). But with Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) occurring this week, and next week's Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement, and the holiest day of the year for the Jews) fast approaching, it's reasonable to wonder where the Jewish holiday films are. When I was younger, I went through what many Jewish kid goes through: Christmas envy. I wanted a holiday that everyone appeared to celebrate, where miracles could happen (one guy deliver- ing toys to everyone in one night? Impos- sible!) and where everyfamilywas always happy no matter what. Why did I want this? Well, quite honestly, I saw it in the movies. Films like "A Christmas Story" and the unbelievably sappy "It's a Won- derful Life" reminded me that no matter what, I was different. I would never get a Christmas tree or have Santa visit my house. Let me clarify - I am not ashamed to be a Jew in any way, and never was. It's just that South Park had it so right when its token Jewish character sang "it's hard to be a Jew on Christmas." It can be tricky to hang on to your Jewish pride when faced with an endless bar- rage of Christmas images aimed at you by the media. Maybe the problem is that Judaism in the movies has become a joke - liter- ally. The customs and traditions of my people are mainly played for laughs - the beards, the black hats, the "oy vey" whines. Never have I seen a film that truly celebrated Judaism and its tradi- tions without mocking them. In a pre- dominately Christian society, what's so wrong about wanting to see films with Jewish families living, loving and cel- ebrating what makes us who we are? If, as Mel Gibson - who I won't even get started on - once spouted out, "the Jews run Hollywood," why hasn't there been a film for us, featuring our tradi- tions and our holidays? Oh, and "Eight Crazy Nights" does not, and should never, count. Admittedly, the Jewish High Holi- days aren't exactly fodder for big-budget flicks or box office bucks (and apparently they're also not important enough to cancel class for). But why teach Jewish children that the things they believe in are any less important than those of their Gentile friends? It's an unavoidable fact that cinema has a powerful effect on the masses. To demonstrate to Jewish kids every- where that there are others like them out there is a powerful thing. Perhaps fighting to see one Jewish holiday film seems like a trivial cause, but it's about more than that. It's about fighting to see my family up there, to see the rituals I have been performing since a toddler portrayed as something magnificent, not to mention just as important as any other holiday. I'm through being forced by Holly- wood to embrace the holidays of reli- gions other than my own. The values of our holidays and the holidays of the masses are virtually the same: Recog- nize what's important in your life and resolve to be a better person. If that's not "It's a Wonderful Life" material, I don't know what is. By NORA FELDHUSEN Daily Arts Writer Whether we're looking through our own eyes or at a photographic represen- tation, we're dealing with images all day, every day. On a beautiful day this week, I found an interesting juxtaposition of images on the Diag. Madonna's "Like a Virgin" blasted into the open windows of class- rooms in Angel Hall as the intro to a stu- dent's loudspeaker announcement: "That one goes out to all you voter virgins." To the direct left of the voter registration/ DJ table was one of Ann Arbor's infamous sin-haters, a suited gentleman wearing a maize-and-blue-striped tie, carrying a sign that read "Jesus Hates Sin." There were a lot of ideas and ideolo- gies floating around in the form of actual speech and dialogue, as well as T-shirts and signs. The students registering voters responded with their own image, a sign that read: "God Hearts Voters." By just relaxing in the Diag on a beautiful fall day, one could literally witness a political dialogue without any (professional) poli- ticians around. I was lucky enough to catch this moment in person, but of course, just shy of 40,000 students missed it. It's more than possible, however, that a photo- graph of this scene in the Diag could cir- culate among our in-boxes within a few hours. What would that photograph convey? It might highlight new meanings and perspectives to something I watched through my own personal framework. To those who didn't attend, their entire per- spective of what went on would be based on another person's lens. . As Susan Sontag wrote in "Melancholy Objects," "In America, the photographer is not simply the person who records the past, but the one who invents it." There is something of a second reality that is cre- ated with a photograph. Among the dozens of e-mails I receive a day related to the upcoming presiden- tial election, I recently found a real gem. Photographs of an "Alaska Women Reject Palin" rally in Anchorage displayed creative homemade signs and a sizable crowd in a state that boasts a population approximately equal to that of Memphis. Elections this year and in the past decade have relied much more heavily on imagery - conventions are televised and speeches can be watched online. E-mail and YouTube have brought national politics to a new level and a lot of politi- cal dialogue takes place through these means. For the one protest you may expe- rience firsthand, there are dozens more that you will only experience through images and photographs. A photograph, it can be argued, is a limited view of a whole network. Were there anti-Obama demonstrators in Anchorage that day? What was the feeling in the air? French philosopher Roland Barthes believed that photography could act as a "shelter from reality." By living in Ann Arbor I have a holistic idea of the various ideas and thoughts of residents here. But I have very little concept of what goes on 4,000 miles away in Alaska other than this one "Women Reject Palin" protest. It's clear that as governor, Sarah Palin was not rejected by a majority of Alaskan residents. Photography can, as Sontag believes, invent a story. But even thoughI was not present in Anchorage, and know The importance of considering different viewpoints through photos. little about it, I'm still able to infuse the images with a greater understanding of social interactions by looking at various perspectives. The reality invented through imag- ery is not an individual task. Photos do unfold an existence beyond what we see on a day-to-day basis because we are looking through someone else's view- finder. I saw what happened on the Diag firsthand on Tuesday but what did I miss that the group sitting next to me saw? At the same time, what am I missing outside the frames of pictures from the anti-Pal- in protest? There is no camera frame or vision that will fully represent physical reality, but we have the ability to com- pound images and perspectives to form a greater understanding of what the world looks and feels like. a a a I OPERA From Page 1B the company's precious few spots. Imagine trying to get a job as a Supreme Court Jus- tice - one who happens to be partial toward Italian arias - and you're on the right track. Still, the challenge of breaking in hasn't stopped 81 University students from trying. For most Michigan students, the opera department probably flies far under the radar. This is not particularly surprising; in fact, there is no opera department. It's part of the School of Music, Theatre and Dance's Voice Department, which itself has only 15 faculty members. Although much of the training is classical, only a few profes- sors are focused on opera. The whole of the concentration's resources are hidden away on North Campus in that stronghold of the fine arts, the Moore Building. And despite the program's lack of presence on campus, it is one of the nation's best, regularly sitting near Julliard at the top of the list. That hasn't made it much easier for Mich- igan students; it's still an uphill battle, and a critical one. Unlike most degrees that allow for several career paths, a concentration in opera gives essentially one option: opera. This makes the competition especially fierce. With every opera concentrator audi- tioning for the same positions with almost no alternatives, the battle can escalate into an all-out war. This has forced students like Vocal Performance major Wes Mason to think ahead - way, way ahead. "I've been working professionally since I was 16," Mason said. "But I really got start- ed with the Virginia Opera. They took a big chance with me, handing out roles to an 18-year-old kid." At this, Mason cracked a wide smile, and with good reason. According to him, getting roles at a young age is very important for developing as a singer. "Working in a professional environment; you gain experience you can't get in class, and that experience really makes a differ- ence," Mason said. "If you want to do well, walking onstage has to be second nature." In this, Darren Woods agrees with him. "The prepared singer, the one who knows the whole opera and has a feeling for the part onstage - he's just head and shoulders above everyone else. He's so prepared for the opportunity to sing for me." It's fitting, then, that Mason was recently awarded a role with the Fort Worth Opera's world premiere production of Jorge Mar- tin's "Before Night Falls." Mason and Woods worked together at the Seagle Music Colony, and Woods's focus on thorough prepara- tion and dramatic interpretation must have rubbed off. Mason described the audition- ing process in measured terms, like someone who'd clearly given it great thought. "Well, you walk onto a stage - sometimes it's a small room, sometimes an auditorium. There'll be a panel of people, at least three. Sometimes they're really great, like Darren. If he knows the person who's auditioning, he'll get up and give them a hug. Other panels never look up - that's just the way they are." Even speaking about it, Mason was alittle tense. "Your first song should be short and impressive," he said. "You want the panel to get a feel for you, and hopefully they'll ask you for a second piece, or even a third." On the other side of the desk, the panel is thinkingthe same thing.According to Woods, the panel is hoping to request another song as much as the singer is hoping to be asked. "The people behind that table want to like you. They're dying to like you." Opera is a tough gig, and perhaps nothing is as natu- rally terrifying as the audition, but Woods urges students to remember one thing above all. "As a listener, when you see someone come up to audition, the one thing you're thinking is 'Please, God, let them be the person I'm looking for.' " I WRITE FOR DAILY ARTS. I E-mail arts@michigandaily.com for an application.