Partial Objects

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We welcome critical thinkers and analytical minds to share their perspectives on art, culture, media, and politics. Submissions are welcome, and routinely make the front page. To get an idea of what makes a good post see the About page. Comments, questions and suggestions are welcome and can be sent to seen@partialobjects.com.

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Pastabagel | Comments Off

Just take it

The most common complaint I have heard on my psychiatry rotation is that of stress. Their job stresses them out, their husband stresses them out, the mountain of housework stresses them out, their to-do list stresses them out, their kids with ADHD stress them out. “Just something, just anything, doctor, to take the stress off.”
After the first week I… Read the rest

Posted on May 15, 2012 by andon | Tagged medicated life | 12 Comments

Drug Use in American Culture

Hey guys, here’s an essay I wrote for my English class. It had to relate back to Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest in some fashion. Tell me what you think!
The Dialectic Of Drug Use In American Culture
Hundreds of little pills, each uniform and purple, rattle down the assembly line. The conveyor belt is like a… Read the rest

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Red | Tagged drugs, prozac | 15 Comments

Ghosts of the Republic

The media circus surrounding Trayvon Martin’s death has seemingly come to a close. The tents taken down, the elephants caged, the props placed back on the wagon to head off to a new old town aptly denoted “The Past.” For weeks, America stood up in arms over the legitimacy of statutory law, over the prudence of government bureaucracy, the… Read the rest

Posted on May 2, 2012 by paxilpaul | Tagged citizens united, election, money in politics, obama, romney, supreme court, voting | 22 Comments

Inmate brags about how great it is to be in prison

I found this video hilarious, but I know a lot of people will disagree.
If you unclench your jaw for a second, you could ask, “so what?” He’s still in prison. We tell ourselves and each other that we object to the hoarding of food, certainly the weed, and the cell phone, but the part that enrages is simply… Read the rest

Posted on April 26, 2012 by TheLastPsychiatrist | Tagged jail, media, weed | 50 Comments

How Katniss Wins The Hunger Games

Posted on April 17, 2012 by TheLastPsychiatrist | Tagged comics, movies, the hunger games | 6 Comments

What’s in a Name?

Nameberry, a website devoted to baby naming, has analyzed the page views of its own site and come up with a list of names likely to be the most common choices this year. (Go here for the same story, one meta-level removed). They don’t say much about their methodology other than to say that they have a pool… Read the rest

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Guy Fox | Tagged branding, kids, labels, naming, pop culture | 17 Comments

It’s All The Same Inside The Matrix

An exercise in application of a line of thought.
From a recount of a study in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology (click through for full citation. Since I have no access to the actual journal I’m taking for granted the recount is accurately representing the study’s results).
258 US school girls and 171 female undergrads were… Read the rest

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Keath | Tagged culture | 11 Comments

“I refuse to be a supporting Character”

http://gawker.com/5899046/ryan-gosling-saved-me-from-a-speeding-car-but-theres-war-in-the-middle-east-so-everyone-calm-down
Recently, a rising Hollywood superstar saved a young woman’s life from an oncoming cab in New York City. Most women would swoon over a guy like this coming into contact with her let alone him being a hero (a real human being) to her. Instead, she revealed a very telling thing about her nature; as opposed to thanking him… Read the rest

Posted on April 8, 2012 by AdamSaleh1987 | Tagged feminism, gratitude, Ryan Gosling | 16 Comments

The Media at Its Finest

As news leaked today of a gaffe on the part of Mr. Obama, news outlets responded in varying and telling ways. Perhaps this observation is simply a reinforcement of the adage “If you’re watching it, it’s for you,” that we seem to read in just about post and/or comment associated with Alone’s writing but I felt it might be… Read the rest

Posted on April 5, 2012 by wm1687 | Tagged media, politics | 2 Comments

Susan Boyle, Redux

Here’s the latest viral clip from Britain’s Got Talent, currently approaching 8 million views after just over a week on youtube, a number which is exploding now that the American audience has discovered it. Perhaps you’ve seen it but if not, watch and pay attention to your reaction.

On the surface of course this is a feel-good story with the… Read the rest

Posted on April 4, 2012 by BHE | Tagged britain's got talent, media criticism, narcissism | 17 Comments

Naomi Wolf Joins Fox News

I do not think Naomi Wolf is stupid. And if she was, there’d be no point in using her example. It was because she is smart, and a feminist, that her misreading of the video was so important.
If you showed her a Yelawolf video she’d be able to find hidden misogyny in the color… Read the rest

Posted on April 3, 2012 by TheLastPsychiatrist | Tagged naomi wolf, narcissism, politics, rage | 18 Comments

Katy Perry is silly, Naomi Wolf Is Completely Insane

This video is silly. Katy watches her boyfriend flirt with a woman, so Katy strokes out and joins the Marines. The rest of the video is her doing Marine stuff.
Enter a crazy person named Naomi Wolf:

Have you all seen the Katy Perry Marines video? It is a total piece of propaganda for the Marines…I really want

… Read the rest

Posted on April 3, 2012 by TheLastPsychiatrist | Tagged feminism, katy perry, naomi wolf | 43 Comments

Why do anorexics wear baggy clothes?

At the Oscars, there was some levity made of Angelina’s clearly purposeful exposure of her leg. “Look, I’m still sexy.”
But the real place to look for understanding is her arms. An example of Lacan’s partial object is the 40 something woman who looks in the mirror and decides she is losing her looks– say, getting fat.… Read the rest

Posted on April 2, 2012 by TheLastPsychiatrist | 28 Comments

The Van Infuriates

One thing about Honda’s “The Van Beckons” ad has driven me crazy for about a year now:
Why did I see it?
Clearly because it’s meant for me, but I can’t discern an obvious reason why. On the face it’s stupid and insulting (I saw it while watching hockey games, thinking “Is this what Honda thinks hockey fans are… Read the rest

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Keath | Tagged advertising, deconstructing | 7 Comments

racial representation in postracial fiction and the banality of ultra-violence

I don’t see what all the HUNGER GAMES hubbub is about. I mean, Jennifer Lawrence has experience playing a person of color. That isn’t good enough for you people? (What do I mean, “you people”?)
Strike that, start again. I don’t get what all the HUNGER GAMES hubbub is about. The black characters in the book exist to be… Read the rest

Posted on April 2, 2012 by pulchrifex | Tagged avatar the last airbender, film, hunger games, racism, ultra-violence | Leave a comment

Brief Examination of Metaphor in PS3 Title ‘Journey’

Journey is not a deep game: not in interface, nor storytelling. It is a very straightforward game that depends on honest emotive content to convey feelings. It poses no game-over, no challenge that holds *conventional* consequences. If you fuck up, your scarf gets smaller. That’s it.
It is beautiful on its own, but many of the themes are dependent… Read the rest

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Dodge | Tagged art, Journey, Metaphor, PS3 | 6 Comments

What They Don’t Show You On Hoarders: Vibrators

Interesting insight: on Friday Bill Paxton was on Opie & Anthony talking about his years on Hoarders as a cleanup guy, and he reluctantly said this (paraphrasing from memory):

The network doesn’t really like me talking about this… in every hoarder house I’ve ever been to, underneath the bed or somewhere else, are like… 600 dildos. Or vibrators, I

… Read the rest

Posted on March 26, 2012 by TheLastPsychiatrist | 10 Comments

The Kite Runner

When I picked up The Kite Runner, upon seeing it was written by someone whose name I couldn’t pronounce, I was intrigued. Kahli-, no, Kahled Ho-, Hosen-, Hosseini? Like Houdini? Ckah-lead ho-see-knee. We’ll stick with that. And upon realizing that it was written by an Afghani, a nation that most Americans fear and hate for the “world-splitting” event of 9/11,… Read the rest

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Red | Tagged culture, the kite runner | 14 Comments

Of Daisey, Kony, Conmen, Journalism, and Activism

I. A monologist named Mike Daisey struck guilt-over-white-privilege gold when he started touring with his monologue, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. Interspersed with Apple history in Daisey’s carrying, fat man voice is a tale about his trip to Shenzhen, ostensibly to meet the sort of people who were assembling his Apple gear. In his tale, he interviewed… Read the rest

Posted on March 23, 2012 by flurie | Tagged daisey, kony, media | 5 Comments

Teaching Metaphor: The Double Life Of Veronique

How do you teach kids to look at films and books as metaphors and allegories? They try to teach something like this in school, but it usually fails. Maybe the students are still immature, maybe the method is terrible, maybe the books they use are even more terrible. Perhaps taking small snippets of art– a page from a book… Read the rest

Posted on March 23, 2012 by TheLastPsychiatrist | 22 Comments