Blog #3 :)

Hello there again if there is anyone reading any of the blogs I have written. In Eng 313 the professor gave us an assignment for an ethnography that we are suppose to write and turn in on Tuesday. I just have to pick a place to sit and observe people for an hour and write about it. I hope it's not too difficult. But anyways this week we discussed the play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and one of the questions that came up was if the play was a radical representation of love? In my opinion it wasn't very radical, I thought there to be more a lack of love in the play. Maggie tries to make Brick respond to her in any way possible so he will pay her just an ounce of attention, since he portrays an apathetic persona throughout. Even Big Daddy doesn't love his sons, grandsons, or his wife Big Mamma. Perhaps the lack of love or care throughout the play can be considered radical?

Another question asked, that I also wondered about was why Big Daddy preferred his alcoholic son Brick and his wife Maggie to his other more "loyal" son Gooper and his wife Mae. In the play when Big Daddy is talking to Brick he tells him he hates his son Gooper and his wife, and their 5 little "screecher's" (Gooper and Mae's children), but he actually likes Brick because he is honest. Big daddy doesn't believe Mae and Gooper to be honest people, that they are manipulative and merely after his fortune and land. To Big Daddy his son Brick is like the "all-american guy" who played football and took a job as a news broadcaster. In contrast his other son gooper was just as succesful as a businessman, but Big Daddy still prefers Brick. Gooper always listens to his mom and dad and never talks back at them the way Brick did, but thats exactly what makes him honest. He doesn't want or care for his fathers fortune, unlike Gooper who yearns for it waiting for his father to fly the coop. In the end of the play he admits he doesn't like his father and that his great empire be passed down to capable hands. Even with Goopers superior qualifications big Daddy still prefers Brick. Both Brick and Big daddy despise mendacity! They believe everyone around them to be liars. Perhaps their mutual agreement in their idea of mendacity is what makes Big daddy have more of a preference for Brick. Every time people bring up Brick's deceased best friend Skipper, it always hits a nerve in brick and his indifferent tone becomes defensive, due to the implication of Skipper and Brick's relation when they were friends. No one ever specifically says he is gay but they imply it. Mostly Maggie tho. She's the one who began the implication when she told Skipper to stop loving her husband(pg. 59-60 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof). In the film version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, they take a more conservative take on the film. In the film, Brick is portrayed as sectretly longing Maggie. Since gayness wasn't a touchy subject at the time when the movie was made a more conservative take on the play was taken to action. They focused more on the materialistic aspect of the whole situation. Perhaps the radical part of the story is the fact that we cant tell if Brick is actually gay or not. He claims he isn't but his alcohol addiction implies otherwise.

We began to read the book Romantic Comedy that does an in-depth study on the most looked down upon genre of movies: the Romantic Comedy genre. The author believes that "Romcoms" are a facade for industries and capitalism to take hold of americans idea of what they need to purchase in order to achieve finding true love. Romcoms always show how a woman needs to dress, put on make up, buy new clothes and shoes for a first date, how the man needs to pay for dinner and flowers, chocolates, gifts, all expensive things for a good date. Even marriage is an industry. Just one wedding takes thousands of dollars to put together. Most romcom movies portray or even encourage those types of "advertising" that sticks in the minds of people who watch these movies and believe that is the way love is suppose to be. The basic narrative pattern of romcoms is (1) Boy meets girl (2) Boy loses girl and (3) boy gets girl back. I'm sure you're nodding with me at this point. I never liked romantic comedies because i always thought that all those movies followed the exact same pattern described above. Nothing more and nothing less. There's always a guy running to the airport trying to stop the girl from leaving, and in the end they end up together. Thats why I was always more of a action genre type of girl.