Author Archives: kcl928

In her text “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, Gloria Anzaldua poses the question of how exactly “do you tame a wild tongue?” Anzaldua adds to this, wondering how to keep it quiet, how to bridle and saddle it, and how to make it lie down. These descriptions make a tongue out to be something that must be forced into submission, rather than willingly becoming civilized. A wild tongue must be shackled down by bridle and saddle, forbidden to speak the way it wants to, and is pushed down, rather than being given the choice to speak. Thus, to tame a wild tongue, one must prevent it from uttering anything wild, whether it’s expletives or “unfitting” language, forcing it to conform to the wishes of those around it. By removing the tongue’s ability to speak freely, you also remove its ability of self-expression and identity. Culture and personality come from the “wild” phrases that one chooses to utter and through the taming of the tongue, a voice loses its sense of self. However a person’s sense of wildness cannot be suppressed, no matter how much society forces their wild tongue to bend to their so-called “standards”. Despite facing a society that shackles its words, a wild tongue will ultimately find a way to make itself heard.

– Kenny Ly

-wild woman: I remember her being much more closed off, but she really is a wild woman now!

-wild man: Like a wild man, he shut himself away from the world after the incident. The loss of his child struck him with such grief. 

-wild animal: The wild animal slowly retreated back into the forest after encountering the open road.

-wild beast: As it rampaged across the city, the wild beast made sure to leave nothing but ruination and destruction in its wake.
-wild thing: They moved akin to a wild thing, overflowing with speed and ferocity.

– Kenny Ly

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was a popular Irish author, playwright, and poet of the late Victorian era. He was a vocal promoter of the Aesthetic Movement which preached that art should focus on depicting appealing and beautiful imagery instead of telling a message to escape the reality of the Industrial Age. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, received harsh criticism, being called out for embracing sin and lacking morality. The book was also negatively received due to the homoerotic subtext, which likely were from reflections of his own life. Wilde would later go and revise the book to both follow and argue against these criticisms. Nowadays the book, along with his other works, are recognized as classics. Wilde had been in a marriage with two children, but would later begin an affair with another man and end his marriage nine years later. This affair would lead to his lover’s father calling Wilde a “posing somdomite” which prompted Wilde to sue in response. In an unlikely turn of events, the court noted his history of homoeroticism and arrested him on charges of sodomy and gross indecency.

From both his history and his works, I would call Wilde a “wild” writer. Getting jailed after losing a court case from suing someone who insulted you is a far from normal experience. In addition, committing adultery was and still is immoral, especially with another man due to public standards of the time. His poetry also embodies these aspects of wildness. The Ballad of Reading Gaol was written by Wilde to describe his suffering in prison. Wilde shifts from times of no emotion where “what was dead was Hope.” and transitions into great bursts of emotion. Calling upon gruesome imagery, he repeats the phrase “and makes it bleed”, using pathos to represent his sickening fear in prison. He continues to create brutal and uncomfortable imagery, detailing his experiences watching his inmates get punished.

They stripped him of his canvas clothes,

And gave him to the flies;

They mocked the swollen purple throat

And the stark and staring eyes:

And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud

In which their convict lies.

Wilde creates a sense of empathy for both the punished prisoner and for himself as he is forced to watch what unfolds. Pathos is used once more to detail how emotionally devastating his time in jail was.

– Kenny Ly

Hemingway’s The Good Lion and Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are both reflect ideas of wildness in a similar manner, using it to describe beasts out in nature. The Good Lion features lions out in the African wilderness. Likewise, Where the Wild Things Are has fictional monsters, called “Wild Things” who have “terrible teeth” and “terrible claws” like the lions. This also shows a similarity in how both sets of creatures act “wild”. The lions are shown to “roar and grow” while the WIld Things “roared their terrible roars”, establishing wilderness through making loud and threatening noises. These roars later culminate into proper threats in both stories. The good lion is attacked by the wicked lioness after saying “I think I shall kill you and eat you, wings and all”. Interestingly, the Wild Things threaten Max similarly, telling him that “We’ll eat you up!” These scenes showcase wild as a destructive and antagonistic force, with both main characters being threatened to be consumed.

One aspect of wildness that The Good Lion showcases that Where The Wild Things does not is in its main character, the good lion. The good lion is shown to be almost the complete opposite of the wild lions of Africa. He prefers “a Negroni or an Americano” over “the blood of the Hindu traders” that the lion pride was drinking and is called out for being a “pasta-eating lion”. The good lion also speaks in a multitude of romance languages, compared to the lion pride’s African dialect. The differences between the good lion and the African pride showcase what wildness is not. The African lions are highly “uncivilized” in comparison to the good lion, not having refined palettes of pasta & wine, and speaking in the non-romantic African dialect. However, the good lion still shows wildness through his wings. Having wings is incredibly unorthodox for a lion and in combination with his differences with the lion pride, his wildness is shown by being abnormal.

Max from Where the Wild Things Are portrays wildness much more light-heartedly. Max is shown to be a boisterous child, making mischief and yelling at his mother that “I’LL EAT YOU UP!” While he is behaving in an undomestic manner like the lions, he does not act as maliciously as them. Max’s actions are more playful as he wants to be free to act as he wishes, without his mother stopping him.

– Kenny Ly

The Wizard of Oz, was written by Frank Baum who serves as the story’s communicator. Through the characters and setting of the novel, Baum inputs his own beliefs about our own world. While Baum states that the book was written for children, there is deeper meaning in his words that appeals to adults. The Wizard of Oz uses a magical adventure in a fantasy world with a colorful cast of characters to appeal to younger audiences, but the topics covered can be seen as allegory of the early 1900s in the leadup to the Great Depression. The Good Witches of the North and South are representations of the common folk laborers. On the other hand, the Wicked Witches of the East and West represent corporate greed, politics, and mistreatment of workers. In addition, the Wizard of Oz himself represents the illusion of a powerful leader in politics, likely referring to the presidents at the time. The story at a surface level is likely to still appeal to kids though, with the supporting characters of the Tin Man, Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion & the adventurer they go on with Dorothy.

One instance of the use of “wild” in the text is found in Chapter XXI, The Lion Becomes the King of Beasts. Dorothy’s group is walking through the notably rough country, noting that it “seemed wilder than ever”. This instance of the word uses it to describe the unruly nature of the terrain they are traversing, mentioning the muddy holes and tall, rank grass. Another instance is when the group refers to the animals of the forest as wild. Wild is used here to describe how the animals are native to nature or “the wilds”. This use of wild, being out in nature, is often paired with being uncivilized which is subverted later in the chapter. A pathos appeal is used to make the audience wary of the growing of the wild animals, appealing to their emotions to worry about the characters safety, only to instead explain that the animals are holding a “civilized” meeting.

– Kenny Ly

“Smell of the Game” is the opening theme for the fighting game Guilty Gear -Strive-, with Daisuke Ishiwatari being the producer of the game and the composer of the song, and Naoki Hashimoto of the band Outrage as the vocalist. The song is a mix of hard rock and heavy metal and was fully released to promote the game on November 5th, 2019. The Guilty Gear games, like the music, contain many rock and metal elements that are seen in the sharp UI, elaborate character design, and even the gameplay with its massively over-the-top attacks.

By their nature, the dual genres of “Smell of the Game” already make the song wild, under my definition of wild things being exciting or exhilarating. Death metal growls accompany guitars and drums, creating a sense of thrilling energy as the song progresses. Delving deeper by examining the lyrics, the song first talks about the speaker’s bestial nature with “long fangs” & “nails sharper than ice” This and a later lyric which speaks of being “trapped in a dark cell created by this world” conjures the definition of wild as the savage beast who must be contained as well as an acceptance of the speaker’s own status as the beast. The speaker is repetitively told to acknowledge “that is who you are”, and that “norms, standards, rules, and guidelines must be kept” but ultimately rejects these statements by calling them “bullshit.” Though still a beast, the speaker breaks their chains and fights back against the “new world order”. Even if they are beaten down, their “heart is still blazing” and pushes them to continue fighting against the lies set by the rules of their world. This act exemplifies wildness, continuing their unrestrained rebellion and repeating that their heart won’t burn out even in death, claiming no one could break them. Overall, wildness is the core identity of the song. From the explosive instrumental to the themes of being a beast and rebelling against society, I see “Smell of the Game” as an embodiment of many aspects of “wild.” 

– Kenny Ly

Wingsuiting is an extreme sport similar to skydiving that uses a special wingsuit that features webbing connecting one’s limbs to increase glide speed and distance as the diver falls. Divers will jump from high altitudes as they glide through dangerous landscapes at high speeds, deploying parachutes once they are ready to land. Participants and fans, while aware of the dangers and death the sport can lead to, love wingsuiting for experiencing or watching rushes of life or death risks. Divers see the danger as a challenge to overcome and live for speed only experienceable through sport. This chance to do what is believed to be impossible – to push limits of human action – fits into people’s desire to be wild.

Wingsuiting rules generally concern safety instead of strict point-scoring systems since flights are scored on an individual’s speed and/or distance traveled. That being said, diving rules are still extensive as careless flight can threaten the safety of an entire group of divers. Because of this, and the sport not involving defensive/offensive action, wingsuiting is open for simultaneous participation by both genders. However, with wingsuiting, and many other extreme sports, there is a lack of female participation. As seen with the wingsuiting group in the video, the sport is predominantly male, and while there are a fair amount of women who take flight, most other videos follow this trend of male representation. This phenomenon seems to be due to the marketing of extreme sports to men due to their “wild” nature that some believe may not appeal to “womens’ feminine interest” as well as the lack of spotlight that female participants seem to get. The truth of the matter is that while the sport is defined by thrilling and risky action, gender does not make a difference while wingsuiting, but current gender norms about extreme sports make it so. Wingsuiting is defined by its wildness through the opportunity to break the restraints of humanity and take to the skies, regardless of gender.

Kenny Ly

Wingsuit Flying Formation in “The Crack” | Miles Above 3.0

A film that I consider wild is Promare, produced in 2019 by Japanese animation companies Trigger and XFLAG, directed by Hiroyuki Imashi, and written by Kazuki Nakashima. The movie stars Galo Thymos (Kenichi Matuyama), a rookie member of the Burning Rescue firefighting team who faces Lio Fotia (Taichi Saotome), the leader of the arsonist terrorist group Mad Burnish composed of pyrokinetic humans called the “Burnish” who must burn to survive. As the film progresses, Galo learns from Lio that the Burnish are facing persecution from his childhood hero, Kray Foresight (Masato Sakai), eventually leading them to join forces & stop Kray from using the alien Promare inside the Burnish to fuel a spaceship needed to flee a soon to explode Earth. Working together, Lio and Galo pilot a mecha to destroy the ship and let the Burnish burn off their Promare harmlessly, preventing Earth’s destruction and allowing humans and Burnish to live together. The movie has themes of prejudice, segregation, perseverance, unity, & love as Galo and Lio figuratively (and literally) get together to destroy the walls that separated the Burnish and humans. What makes this film wild for me is Trigger’s explosive animation work and electrifying colors, along with the spontaneous and insane plot, creating a viewing experience that is excessively over the top and captivating.

One scene that best reflects my reasoning on Promare’s wildness is the finale of the film where Galo and Lio burn the Earth. The two of them power up their mecha again through the support of the humans and Burnish they represent and transform to galactic proportions, in which they then proceed to punch the Earth several times to combust all of the Promare on the planet, allowing them to burn safely. Their punches echo through the solar system, igniting the other planets and allowing them to send the Promare back home. I feel that the intensity of the action combined with the visual overload of colors, which some may say is hard to follow, ultimately encapsulates the extravagant nature of Promare.

Trailer

– Kenny Ly

From my research, dictionaries seem to commonly share the idea that being wild means someone or something is unregulated or uncontrolled. These descriptions tend to appear more negative in tone, linking words like “violent and barbaric” to describe the manner of “wild”, mainly referring to supposedly uncivilized tribes in unexplored lands. Being wild can also indicate an attunement to nature and being free with dictionaries using “land, country, and animal” as examples of the use of the word. On the other hand, dictionaries also describe “wild” more positively by using it to describe circumstances that are excitingly unusual. Overall, the word wild as described by dictionaries conjures the image of an unkempt & vicious savage who is more beast than man.

In my own life, my use of “wild” lines up with how dictionaries describe it positively. My experiences with using the word come mostly from attempting to speak like a “90’s skater kid”, mixing it with other words like “rad” and “sick”. Falling in line with this, I regularly use wild to describe any kind of exciting action or event I came across, often combining it with various curse words to enhance how spectacular I thought it was. Meanwhile, I generally shun using wild negatively, focusing primarily on how the dictionary links being wild to being uncultured. I believe that when the word is used to describe tribes, it leans on being insensitive as most tribes are just as civilized as the common city, just in a different way that many don’t seem to understand or respect. The use of the word feels like a holdover from the old eras of colonization which leads to associations of tribes to the wild wilderness that they live in, & paints the picture of “savage beasts of the land” that I feel discredits their way of life.

– Kenny Ly