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.

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.

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.

Sex Comedies & The Graduate

Tamar Jeffers McDonald defines the main goal of the sex comedy as "[pitting] woman against man in an elemental battle of wits, in which the goal of both is sex.  Only the timing and legitimacy of this differs from gender to gender, with woman wanting sex after, and men before or without, marriage" (38).  The latter part of this definition is debunked by the Kinsey Report, which revealed that women also had sexual desires.  The initial publication of the report created much shock to the public, who could not imagine such a revelation of truth.  This was, and still is, a double standard, where it is considered acceptable for men to have multiple lovers, but women, on the other hand, are looked down when they sleep around.

What I found most interesting was the introduction of a "'hierarchy of knowledge' in which he knows more than she and we know more than either" (45).  This type of battle-of-the-sexes game between is quite evident in How to Lose a Guy In 10 Days, where Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey duel it out -- for Hudson, to write a magazine article, and for McConaughey, to win a bet.  Without revealing their true motives for most of the movie, their battle of wits turns into real feelings for each other, and the ending suggests that they are in a committed relationship with one another from then on.  The audience, of course, has full knowledge of what's actually going on, which drives the storyline even more and makes the movie enjoyable.

Indeed, we can fit The Graduate, with Dustin Hoffman, into this type of romcom.  It would appear that Hoffman and Anne Bancroft have their own reasons for wanting to get each other in bed - Hoffman's character is [in all senses of the word] awkward and doesn't really seem to have any motivation to move forward after graduating from college and Bancroft's character, as she later reveals, does not have a great relationship with the rest of the family, obviously jealous of her daughter and sleeping in a different room than her husband - so for the first part of the movie, sex is, subconsciously or otherwise, their main goal.

McDonald, Tamar Jeffers.  Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre.  New York: Wallflower Press, 2007.  Print.
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Movie trailers for The Graduate and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.

The Graduate trailer

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days trailer

Ethnography

During a sunny afternoon at CSUN, I parked myself in the middle of the University Student Union outside seating area.  It was 11am in the middle of the school week and, with the sun bearing down on the campus, a number of other students had claimed tables for themselves to study, eat lunch, or simply relax with friends.  I immediately began looking around for couples and found two friends chatting at a table to the right of me, along with another pair of friends standing in the shade by the first floor of the computer lab.  For the duration of both exchanges, which were each about 15-20 minutes from the time I sat down, no other individuals joined their conversations and they were not showing any normal signs of affection, so it was not clear whether either pair was actually together or not.  To my left, I heard a male voice say, “Sure, join me” as another male student put his lunch down onto the table.  The male that was already occupying the table was wearing what appeared to be a wedding ring, though they did not seem to know each other until that very moment, as it was only the lack of shade that motivated the second male student to find another, nearby table to relocate to.  Although I was not close enough to them to make out their complete dialogue, they ate their lunch while keeping up a long conversation.

As I looked more generally at the people around me, I noticed that many of the students sitting by themselves at tables were female; meanwhile, more males were walking with friends to their next destination.  A table was filled with girls wearing clothing of their sorority, while many of the isolated individuals sitting at tables had books cracked open.  Countless students were passing through the area, probably headed home, to class, or to get food.  Many couples strolled by, holding hands and laughing, and there were also numerous male-only and female-only pairs of friends.  A common characteristic between all of these couples and friends was an apparent hurriedness and purposefulness to their walking, in addition to multi-tasking, with cell phones, books, and food in hand.  I also noticed a commonality in the clothing people wore and the accessories students had – Abercrombie-, PacSun- and CSUN-covered individuals with brand-name purses, sunglasses, hats, and backpacks, together with skateboarders and people on scooters riding along.  Despite the time of day and number of people that I witnessed, there were only a few probable couples to be found.

The media is no doubt responsible for how exactly we distinguish relationships in society – we look for normative representations of love according to the way film and television depict relationships.  As Tamar Jeffers McDonald points out in her book, Romantic Comedy: Boys Meets Girl Meets Genre, movies can make love and romance a valuable product just as much as they can make Coca-Cola or Nike products more desirable to people (15).  My ideal notion of couples, as a result of years of television and movies, is that those holding hands must be dating.  When I first sat down, I was immediately looking for couples by means of public displays of affection and pairs of one male and one female.  Pairs passing by me while holding hands were quickly identified as an item.  On the other hand, the two couples I initially found casually talking to each other could not be absolutely classified by me as dating, since I never saw them hold hands or hug, nor did I hear any part of their dialogues.  My assumptions, in both cases, could indeed be wrong.  Indeed, it is difficult to determine actual couples when looking for what the media deems as couple-appropriate behavior.

Other than these possible couples, there were no out-of-the-ordinary actions.  The two males I saw eating lunch together could have been seen as radical, had they shown any signs of affection to each other; although, they were most likely not together because of the presence of a ring.  In the face of such gender issues, it was very acceptable for the second male to ask to join the table.  If a girl had been the one to ask, it might have been seen as flirting or an attempt to get to know the male, even though the intense heat was actually the main cause of table switches.

Overall, I believe that the media is the most prominent influence upon today’s idea of American culture.  Further, each person whom I witnessed portrayed themselves through a specific identity – skater, athlete, fraternity brother, sorority sister, Christian, Muslim, teacher, student – identities most likely marketed in mass media.  In his book, Cultural Studies: Theory & Practice, Chris Barker suggests that “identities are discursive constructions that change their meanings according to time, place and usage” (217), and in the film, “American Psycho”, Patrick Bateman conceals what is an unacceptable identity of a murderer, instead representing himself as a wealthy and educated businessman.  What I witnessed during this somewhat-relaxing hour on the CSUN campus consisted predominately of school-based identities.  I would not expect the same actions and behavior from each person if they were sitting in class, and the way which people act with friends would not always equate to how they act with family.

Through life experiences, and more so through mediums such as religion and television, we learn what acceptable behavior is and how we can and should portray ourselves within society.  We are taught certain ideologies regarding love and self-identity, then go out and expect to see certain behaviors and practices among others, embracing clear actions that meet our criteria – the norm – and quickly dismissing those that do not – the radical.

Bale, Christian, perf. American Psycho. Lions Gate Entertainment, 2000. Film.

Barker, Chris.  Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice.  Los Angeles: Sage, 2008.  Print.

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

Love and Lies

While reading Tennessee Williams's play, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", it is almost too hard to focus at times because you can really sense the noise, disillusionment, and intensity of this family living in the Mississippi Delta in, presumably, the mid-1900s.  Just in the first few minutes of the play, Maggie and Brick reveal a lot about themselves, both through what they say and what they don't say.  Brick is utterly emotionless, and his name even suggests his apathetic attitude towards life and Maggie especially.  Maggie, on the other hand, feels the constant need to fill a void no doubt created by the expectations (and, as a result, the disappointments) she had regarding her future with Brick.  She verbally makes it known that she is lonely and victimized, and seems to be desperately seeking any attention from Brick.  Maggie almost seems like a psycho at times, obsessed with Brick, and it makes you doubt if Maggie is really in love with Brick or if she's only in love with the idea of Brick.   Just like a cat on a hot tin roof, Maggie is uncomfortable where she is, yet looking for security within the Pollitt family.

Mendacity is a key concept that forms most of the play.  Each relationship experiences it: Brick/Maggie and Big Daddy/Big Mama are lying to each other, everyone lies to Big Daddy and Big Mama about Big Daddy's condition, Mae and Gooper's intentions for returning to the plantation are concealed, and Maggie tells everyone that she's pregnant with Brick's baby.  Further, Big Daddy and Brick state how mendacity is simply a part of their lives; something they can't live without.  While Brick is busy attempting to experience the click he seems dangerously trying to attain, Big Daddy exclaims "I've lived with mendacity!--Why can't you live with it?  Hell, you got to live with it, there's nothing else to live with except mendacity, is there?" (81), to which Brick begins talking about how he tries to run away from life by way of alcohol.  Brick later affirms his belief in the power of the bottle, by stating that calmly stating that "[m]endacity is a system that we live in.  Liquor is one way out an' death's the other..." (94).  The plot centers around the lies that they tell one another, whether verbal or indiscreet -- it's no wonder that Brick sees liquor and death as the only ways out.

Williams, Tennessee. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. New York: Penguin, 1955. Print.

Causational Love

Causational Love: The idea that love can be both a cause and effect of actions and thoughts, represented by mass media and created by the individual.

In English 313: Popular Culture, we'll be focusing on the "Radical Romance" and seeing how the world and, specifically, our American society views and portrays love.  What is love, and what are its implications on our own lives?

I originally became interested in this course after Professor Wexler came to my English 455: Literacy, Rhetoric, and Culture class as a guest lecturer in 2009 to help us discuss the evolving concept of technologically-based literacy.  Extremely intrigued by the idea of integrating blogging with literature, in addition to finding out that the theme would be the "Radical Romance" once again, I simply had to jump at the opportunity to take this course!

As I dive into this semester, I personally hope to take an in-depth look at how love can be both real and fake, but also how it is a cause, effect, and catalyst for much of what we do and who we are as human beings.

:)


Following my notion of how love is causational, I'll end this first post with a prime example of love, as represented by a modern-day movie: my favorite scene from the 2006 film, Casino Royale.  Vesper has just witnessed James Bond recklessly and viciously kill Steven Obanno, a leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, and his bodyguard after a brutal fight in the stairwell in the hotel.  Extremely shaken by the event, Vesper withdraws to the shower, where Bond finds her.  This is just one of the multitude of scenes in the movie that show how the more-popular personality of Bond develops.  Bond's love for Vesper becomes the reason for his careless behavior and, at the same time, is the consequence of becoming a young, double-0 agent for the MI6.