For my final blog, I feel that it is important to reflect on issues brought up in the course as well as my ideas of appropriation and authorship and why they are important. We have seen how appropriation occurs in many forms of media such as art, film, and music. Throughout the term I feel that my opinion has changed in regards to what appropriation is. At first I thought that appropriation had a very negative connotation, and even though in general I still feel people view it as negative, I no longer do. Through an examination of all the different definitions of appropriation I have found Craig Owens definition most helpful to me. He claims that appropriation may be viewed as “the reading of one text through another.” This can be seen through the work of Sherry Levine in “Fountain.” Her work was one of our earlier examples of appropriation. I feel that although her work comes from an original idea by Marcel Duchamp, it is still original. She has taken an object and recreated something new out of it based on how she views it. The audience is able now to examine this view as new and interesting. This is also an example of how appropriation is viewed as work that is borrowed and how images and ideas can be reused to make something new.

Before I believed that appropriation was more a form of stealing, but now I view appropriation as paying homage to the original. Through examples viewed in class like the Simpson’s parody of the film Mr. and Mrs. Smith; it becomes clearer to me that this type of parody pays homage to something that was very influential in today’s culture. By using humour, The Simpson’s are able to draw from what is happening in society and are able to comment on it. I do not think this form of appropriation is negative, I feel that it is a sign of how popular the film Mr. and Mrs. Smith really is.

Throughout the course the idea of the original was often brought up. Is there such a thing as an original idea anymore? I think it depends on the situation and how close to the original it is. Take music for example. Is there not only so many notes and so many cords that can be used in a song? Now a day so many artists use other artist’s melodies or even do complete cover songs. This brings up the idea of stealing from other artists. Although legal, how can it be stealing if people are able to recognize that these songs come from somewhere else? The artists are not denying the original songwriter; they are simply paying homage to them by recreating their work. I do believe that nothing is as great as the original; therefore I feel that an artist who recreates an old song is only making it more popular by introducing it to a new generation. The original will always be there and the artist recreating the song is simply bringing their own twist to the song and showing their take on it.

There are several issues that have come up in the course, especially the debate of appropriation verse plagiarism. I do not feel appropriation is a form of plagiarism. Plagiarism steals the idea without acknowledgement of where it came from. Appropriation may borrow an idea, but there is always recognition of where it came from. We also looked at authorship. An author always has his or her name on a piece of work, so we know who created it. In my opinion, the author must die for the reader to be born. The author is a function which brings information to its viewer. In order for the viewer to understand and appreciate what he or she is reading or viewing, the authors view must be set aside so that the viewer can draw their own conclusions. Whether a work is authentic or original will always be questioned, so that is why I think it is important to look at all forms of art, music and film as appropriation, that way we can recognize that it is a borrowed idea, yet at the same time recognize that it is still something new.

Laura