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Pink Gothic: The Cathartic Aesthetics of The Owl House

December 5, 2022

Academic knowledge that doesn’t attempt to create something new isn’t worth a damn. So, to put my own academic expertise to good use, I coin the term Pink Gothic to refer to the aesthetics of The Owl House – particularly, how “Gothic pinkness” assigns a cathartic quality to these aesthetics.

If you already feel a bit overwhelmed – “too many unknown words!” – worry not. I plan to make this post accessible and interesting. So here’s a simpler way of expressing the same thing as above:

I decided to write a post where, inventing the term “Pink Gothic”, I explore how colors and other visual elements in a narrative are associated with the resolution of fears and anxieties – typically brought to the surface by the very same narrative. In this exploration, I use the animated fantasy series The Owl House as an example.

Indeed, it was the aesthetics of The Owl House that inspired me to reflect on this matter. It’s likely (if not highly likely for my usual readers) that you’re not familiar with The Owl House. Again, worry not. I will offer plenty of examples along the way.

aesthetics of the owl house pink gothic
Pink Gothic is all about juxtaposition; combining visually – and ultimately affectively – incongruent elements. When it comes to the aesthetics of The Owl House, in particular, their cathartic quality is a direct result of intelligent use of color, depth, and space
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Literature Is More than a Sum of Its Parts

August 3, 2019

I have often mentioned this in the blog: Literature is more than a sum of its parts. In other words, a literary text – like any self-respecting art form – provides you with more than simply all of its words, paragraphs, and chapters.

To talk about literature being more than a sum of its parts is another way of saying the following two things:

Literature Is More than a Sum of Its Parts
If you can read more in the verse “Like the beautiful houses lying low/ that are still kept in life’s undertow” than the words reveal, you are closer to understanding why literature is more than a sum of its parts

I was pondering on today’s topic while listening to a song – as I mentioned above, all self-respecting art is more than a sum of its parts. And so, I decided to use this song as an example case.

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Visuality and Memories: A Way of Seeing

January 27, 2019

The term “visuality” might at first appear obscure. We define visuality as “the quality or state of being visible or visual”. This definition might actually make you wonder, why didn’t I simply use the term “visibility”?

However, I like what “visuality” conveys. It’s not merely the quality or state of being visible/visual, as the dictionaries inform us. Rather, I see visuality as a philosophy of seeing.

That’s an impossible weight for a humble word to carry, and doubly so because this is simply the way I choose to see the word. Guess what, however? That’s precisely what I’ll be talking about in this article: the subjective rendering of reality through visual representation.

visuality and memory
The visuality of this scene is not merely what is visible in it, but what I render (=see and remember)
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