Saturday, October 30, 2010

Being Unique in a Postmodern Culture

In "'Material Girl': The Effacements of Postmodern Culture", Bordo states that "the very advertisements whose copy speaks of choice and self-determination visually legistlate the effacement of individual and cultural difference and circumscribe our choices" (1101).


Americans claim that being "unique" is a goal; a privilege that each person should take seriously.  But shirts like the one pictured above seem to question this idea of "uniqueness".  How can I wear a "unique" shirt when a company is producing it in mass quantities?

Even Madonna was originally seen as a figure that overthrew the gender expectations dictated by social norms, but she later made herself look "normal", as Bordo points out.  "She has gone on a strenuous reducing and exercise program, runs several miles a day, lifts weights and now has developed, in obedience to dominant contemporary norms, a tight, slender, muscular body" (1111).  What does this message send to her fans that praised her anti-Barbie look and seemingly unique, expressive nature?  This sudden change in outward appearance suggests that we can only be as unique as society allows us to be, which is not that unique at all.

Bordo, Susan. "'Material Girl': The Effacements of Postmodern Culture." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 1998. 1099-115. Print.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Shakespeare, *NSYNC, and The 40 Year Old Virgin

An eloquent poet from the 17th century, a boy band from the 90s, and a Steve Carell film might have little in common aesthetically, but at the root of their products are complex gender issues.

In "Taming of the Shrew", Kate eventually becomes "tamed", verbalizing her transformation in her final speech.   Although there is much debate about if the speech is actually a reveling of her true feelings, there is no doubt that the images her speech she creates are a recognition of the gender expectations at the time - submissive, subservient, and dedicated to their husbands.


Beginning as early as Elvis, The Beatles brought the Sexual Revolution to new heights, as millions of women went crazy at the sound of a note.  More recently, *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys were two famous boy bands known world-wide who could bring women to tears and screams.  Be it their good looks, suave dance moves, or sensuous voices, not only did they drive parts of the economy, they helped in shaping what we now know as the teeny-bopper or youth culture.

In The 40 Year Old Virgin, the gender roles are reversed and Steve Carell plays a 40 year old male who has never slept with a woman before.  His friends immediately tell him that they have his back, but see his virginity as a "problem" that must be "fixed", based on the apparent societal expectations of the genders and sex.

Although the sexual issues that have been existent for centuries are not visible at first glance, it becomes clear that influential writers, musicians, and films, among other media, have a profound affect on and perpetuate cultural notions of gender roles - no doubt, today's society is no stranger to these continued gender roles, through celebrities like the Jonas Brothers and Justin Bieber.

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Brian Stokes Mitchell and Marin Mazzie performing "So In Love" from the musical adaptation of "Taming of the Shrew", "Kiss Me, Kate".





The 40 Year Old Virgin trailer.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Tennessee Williams and the Radical Romance

During class this week, we discussed Foucault's "History of Sexuality" and the "Radical Romantic Comedy" chapter of McDonald's text.  To get a better idea of the concepts and theories put forth by the authors, we watched Shakespeare In Love and Annie Hall.  However, since I just watched a classic Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menagerie, at the Mark Taper Forum, I'm going to relate some of the things we talked about in class to the play.


The play's narrator, Tom, played by Patch Darragh, takes us through an alter-ego-representation of his life, with his crippled sister and outrageous mother - an all-around dysfunctional family, abandoned by their father long ago.  Jim O'Connor, played by Ben McKenzie, enters Act Two as a "gentleman-caller", invited by Tom as part of a plan (on his mother's part) to find a suitable husband for his sister, who was actually in love with Jim in high school.  As the night progresses, Jim and Tom's extremely shy sister, Laura, are left alone.  Jim is able to get Laura to break out of her shell, they share a dance in the moonlight, and even a small kiss.  Just when it seems like Laura and, as a result, the Wingfield family as a whole will finally live happily ever after, Jim reveals that he's engaged and leaves shortly after, never to return, as does Tom, who follows in the footsteps of his father.

The play itself is set in the late 1930s - before the social upheavals leading up to the formation of the modern radical romance - but many of the issues it confronts seem to correlate to McDonald's ideas.  Williams, instead of creating a boy meets girl to boy gets girl scenario in Act Two, throws multiple obstacles into the characters' pathways, resulting in the implied resolution of Jim to stay with his fiancé and Laura being left single and unemployed, unable to take care of herself.

Tom's idea of what life should be is kept down by his familial problems, his alcoholic-tendencies, and his obsessions.  His mother is portrayed as an overly-loving, financially-dependent, traditional woman, who puts all of her eggs in one basket when Jim comes into the picture.  Both Tom and his sister struggle with their mother to maintain sanity on their less-than-average incomes and less-than-normal family life, and Tom finally decides to leave them both in the end with nothing but a memory of him.  The show in itself is not quite self-reflexive, although it does become a sort of play-within-a-play.  And it's really not about romance at all, but about the more complex issues of life and its failures, self-worth, and truth.  But it is comedic and has its share of romance, nonetheless.  One of the bigger issues, though, is the idea of breaking away from life and its conventions.  Although it's not a radical romance, there are radical notions that defy conventional plots in general, and it most certainly does not end on a happy note.

McDonald, Tamar Jeffers.  Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre.  New York: Wallflower Press, 2007.  Print.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Dangerous Women and the Men Who Love Them



Martinis – shaken, not stirred – Aston Martins and special gadgets, love interests with names containing double entendres, and a gun barrel sequence: these are just some of the many images and ideas that popular culture associates with James Bond.  But what do these symbols actually represent and perpetuate in mass society?  Aesthetically, the films simply serve to entertain American and British audiences, but literary theorists Rivkin and Ryan would argue that there is something more than meets the eye, asserting that “[o]ne sees the media, television, film, and the like as instruments of economic, ethnic, and gender domination…the media inevitably further attitudes and perceptions that assure its continuation” (1026).  Although the 2006 Bond film, Casino Royale, uses action and romance to drive the plot, the film essentially tears down females and puts men on a pedestal, promoting a powerful, patriarchal concept of Western society, not only for the United Kingdom and America, but to international, Bond-loving audiences as well.

In his controversial portrayal of the legendary spy, Daniel Craig’s Bond strays away from the classical interpretation of the character, producing a mysterious, antihero persona.  However, throughout the film, Bond upholds the White, Western idea of the heterosexual male.  Explaining Marxist beliefs, Chris Barker states that “the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class” (56), suggesting that the majority of American and British Bond audiences in the 21st century still desire and advocate this type of dominating figure.  Thus, in keeping with the film, masculinity requires being physically strong, mentally logical, and somewhat emotionless.




In fact, because of Bond’s debonair personality – “the man that men want to be and women want to be with” – it would seem that men are encouraged to strive for these Bond-like qualities.  During the film, Craig’s Bond experiences a short instance of a lack of reasoning when he initially resigns from MI6 to settle down and live “happily ever after” with love interest Vesper Lynd, played by Eva Green.  By the end of the movie, however, he detaches himself from all emotion – this is in keeping with the film’s function as a precursor to the “Bond we all know and love,” who can go through women like a child goes through toys.  This latter stage of the character allows men to desire sex without having to commit to a long-lasting relationship, where the ultimate goal would be marriage and children.  Bond also has an earlier love interest with the enemy’s wife, Solange, which further perpetuates the promiscuous behavior of males as acceptable; sleeping around, in particular, even at the expense of and with no regard for other men.  The movie may unconventionally reject the institution of marriage, but it calls forth a homogeneous construct of masculinity, which serves both the men already in power and the men who want to be power.  By legitimating male domination within American and British societies, such domination is made to appear natural to audiences.

Moreover, the film upholds the notion of the woman as being “the other”.  In The Second Sex de Beauvoir argues that “[man] thinks of his body as a direct and normal connection with the world, which he believes he apprehends objectively, whereas he regards the body of woman as a hindrance, a prison, weighed down by everything peculiar to it”.  Women are regarded as a stumbling block for men; defective, cunning, and dangerous.  Some may seem classy, sophisticated, and self-reliant, but many have skeletons in their closets.  In one of the most famous and integral scenes from the movie, Bond and Vesper share an intimate moment in the shower after Bond carelessly kills several henchmen, illustrating just how easily a man can be seduced by the seeming-innocence of a woman.



Bond later confesses to Vesper that she has stripped his armor from him: “Whatever is left of me – whatever I am – I’m yours”.  Nonetheless, Vesper is eventually shown to be a double-agent who has been able to play both sides until the very end of the movie.  The appearance of an independent woman usually leads to no good, and Bond’s traumatic experience with Vesper serves as a warning for men to stay away from dominating women, who reel you in and wrap you around their finger before ever showing their true colors.  Further, women are used as objects in the movie, endorsing an unspoken desire to put females below males.  Bond seduces Solange to get to her husband Dimitrios, an early villain in the film, and later, Le Chiffre’s organization kidnaps Vesper and uses her to lure Bond into a trap.  These subtle, distinct uses of women serve to strip females of any identity they may have and advance the idea of woman as “the other”, not belonging to any history nor having any sense of belonging at all, but simply living under the rule of males.  de Beauvoir generalizes this notion by stating that woman is “a free and autonomous being like all human creatures – nevertheless finds herself living in a world where men compel her to assume the status of the Other.”  Woman, then, is defined by her male counterparts: father, son, male co-workers and friends.  Instead of having or forming her own identity, she is handed an identity by male-dominated society.


Radical in nature and treatment, Casino Royale breaks away from the traditional representation of James Bond, while repeatedly illustrating normative strands of love and maintaining powerful social and cultural ideologies of Western masculinity, successfully yet subtly oppressing women.  Although women commend themselves for the amount of liberties they have gained in the West, the actual freedom has only been granted as a gift and prize, as opposed to a universal right and entitlement.  Casino Royale seemingly presents the modern world as if no advances for women have actually been made.  Indeed, the Bond franchise will forever be marketed as a simple spy-movie, but the ideologies that the movies actually endorse go beyond the mere façade of a suave, licensed-to-kill, clever assassin.


Craig, Daniel, and Eva Green, perf. Casino Royale. Dir. Martin Campbell. Columbia Pictures, 2006. Film.


de Beauvoir, Simone. "The Second Sex." marxists.org.  Penguin, 2005. Web. 22 Aug. 2010.


Rivkin, Julie, and Michael Ryan, eds.  Literary Theory: An Anthology.  Malden: Blackwell, 1998.  1025-27.  Print.

Friday, October 8, 2010

The Derridian Binaries of Sula

Toni Morrison's novel, Sula, is filled with binary relationships: The Valley/the Bottom, Nel/Sula, Conventional/Unconventional gender roles, and the Bottom before/after Sula.

The most intriguing to me is the relationship between Nel and Sula.  Earlier in the story, the narrator describes their meeting: "Because each had discovered years before that they were neither white nor male, and that all freedom and triumph was forbidden to them, they had set about creating something else to be...they found in each other's eyes the intimacy they were looking for...they found relief in each other's personality" (52-3).  The narrator describes a completion and close similarity of their identities yet also notes distinctions about their pasts and personalities.  After Jude cheats on Nel with Sula, the friendship falls apart - "[Sula] had clung to Nel as the closest thing to both an other and a self, only to discover that she and Nel were not one and the same thing" (119), which shows the previously mentioned differences in personalities.  Their relationship became dangerous because of their rare closeness that caused them to be dependent on each other, as if they should share everything.  However, their relationship had already started coming undone after Chicken Little's death.  During Nel's visit to Sunnydale, Eva Peace claims that Nel had a part in the murder, asserting, "What's the difference?  You was there.  You watched, didn't you?" (168).  The death itself separated them subconsciously, long before Jude came into the picture - Nel would never take a part in the blame for Chicken Little's death; she merely watched.


Morrison, Toni.  Sula.  New York: Vintage International, 2004.  Print.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

George Webber and Jean Baudrillard

As Jean Baudrillard states in "The System of Objects", "...90 percent of the [United States] population experience no other desire than to possess what others possess".  His profound claim not only describes the brand-fueled consumerism of America but is also an ideology found in the 1979 film "10".  George, played by Dudley Moore, is caught in a mid-life crisis.  But after a short-lived affair with Jenny, played by Bo Derek, George finds that the chase was actually better than the catch and that the grass just seemed greener on the other side.Although the movie may seem radical at first, it actually takes on a traditional standpoint, especially regarding the institution of marriage.  Masculinity, femininity, and homosexuality are explored, but George eventually goes back to Sam, and Jenny is in a negative light.

Jenny's character, played by Bo Derek, is first portrayed as an idealized "10", not just because of her looks, but because of her seemingly "perfect" life.  However, when George finally gets her, he realizes how imperfect and idealistic she is - maybe he was more in love with the idea of her than her actual persona.  In this way, Jenny is shown as resisting the idea of love to the mere physical pleasure she gets from a classical piece of music.  On the other hand, Sam, played by Julie Andrews, is depicted as the real "perfect" woman - what men should want.  Thus, she is the protector of romance; the extreme opposite of how Jenny is portrayed.  The angry conversation they have with each other in bed even shows Sam as trying to get George away from degrading comments towards women.  Sam is a feminist - classy, independent, yet sexually-conscious.

Baudrillard, Jean. "The System of Objects." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 1998. 408-19. Print.
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A montage from the movie "10".

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Women and Men: Grey Areas

The Zits comic strip created the following in 2008:




Although the comic strips seems to exaggerate the differences between men and women, it is not so far from the gender ideologies that Americans have created.  No doubt, the words "male" and "female" impose pictures of each sex, however stereotypical, in our minds.  Men have physical strength and think simply, while women lack physical strength and think too much; husbands earn money while wives take care of the kids; men have better spatial recognition than women and are, thus, better drivers, and women have no sense of direction.

Are these just American beliefs and expectations or do all countries have these implicit definitions for genders?  At the core, this is a nature versus nurture argument.  A fairly recent gender theory proposes that gender is not bound by any universal ahistorical subjectives.  Anti-essentialist Foucault suggests that "[g]ender is historically and culturally specific, subject to radical discontinuities over time and across space" (291).  What if our ideas of gender were really just social constructions, subject to change and dependent on mass media and familial life?  It is my belief that the differences between men and women are not as black and white in the world as they seem to us in the West, and I would go so far to suggest that the terms "effeminacy" and "manliness" are simply a product of Western constructions of gender.

Barker, Chris.  Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice.  Los Angeles: Sage, 2008.  Print.
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In a famous 2007 Gap commercial, Patrick Wilson and Claire Danes dance to the Annie Get Your Gun tune "Anything You Can Do":