Blog #9

American psycho was the topic of our class meeting on November 16, 2010, or more exact the themes of Consumerism and Identity. I have never watched American Psycho before but from the scenes we watched in class it pinpoints to those very themes. Patrick Bateman is a successful and rich lawyer who has a need to kill other human beings. This is when the problem of identity comes in, that is linked to his consumerism. Patrick is a composite of many things, not really being a person but a result of outside influences like the media, advertisements, magazines, movies, the Internet. He hides his real self through a fake exterior, not showing his inner desire to kill because in our society that is not viewed as a normal way to act. Everything Patrick quotes or uses in his daily language with his friends comes from outside sources. He is a product or assembly of many influences of society, even the people and things around him like his friends, his career, where he lives, etc. He adapts his "normal" persona in order to "fit in" with all the others. He talks about TV shows and music, anything clichéd because he can't find it in himself to express emotion. The only time Patrick has any reaction to anything anyone says is when he analyzes what type of new or expensive merchandise they have. An example is the scene where all the lawyers are showing off their new business cards and when it comes to Paul Allen's extremely classy card, Patrick begins to sweat profusely almost in a trance like panic with shaking hands soley based on the fact that Paul had a better card than him. This says a lot about his character. Even in the beginning of the movie in the shower scene Patrick describes himself as not being there, how he likes having things in order and taking care of himself through diet and rigorous exercise. It's his "regime of the self" where he only cares about himself and is a part of the performance aspect of himself, the side he wants to display to other people in order to be accepted. He even said it in another scene how the only two feelings he ever feels are greed and disgust, which he portrays throughout the film; an example being when he kills the homeless man in the alley for being pathetic and without a job. He is making a socio-economic distinction here where he is the wealthy one flaunting his superiority and money over the helpless and poor man living on the street. Patrick doesn't feel pity on the man, just disgust. He hates and looks down on the excesses of society, who he views as a waste of space. American Psycho's ideas on Consumerism actually reminds me of another movie, Fightclub who realizes and sees the constructs of Consumerism taking hold on our society. Here is a scene that explains:

Here Brad Pitt explains the eroding nature of our modern concept of society and identity. We define ourselves through the things and objects we buy. That is exactly how Patrick is defined, as layers and layers of constructs of a pre-existing world along with the growing philosophies of a modern, media based, brain-washed society. Patrick doesn't have a real identity and he acknowledges that in the beginning of the movie. The same way Patrick hides his inner psychotic and socially unacceptable desires he must hide that side of himself in order to be accepted by the society.

Blog #8

Hello there again! I haven't written in my blog for a while now but i would like to redeem the last two or three blogs i missed by posting them tomorrow. For class this last week there was not a lot to do since we had the veteran's day off, so no school on that Thursday. There was a presentation on Tuesday so I will talk about the presentation. The presentation was on a show I enjoy watching very much! Seinfeld. Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer are the main characters, and quite memorable characters they are! For the presentation, the group focused on the language aspect of Seinfeld, and how either they created the language or if it's taken from language from past society?They said that many words that originated from Seinfeld are still used today, like the phrase "yada yada yada". It may not be exactly a real world, but it somehow came about into mainstream society, either from Seinfeld or from our past society, the way they mention in the Cultural Studies book by Barker, page 15-16. The larger community understands what they are saying, but can it be that Seinfeld was the creator of those words or are they reflecting on language from our society? The media, especially mass media like Seinfeld that is broad-casted to millions of thousands of viewers and the general public/ population has a huge influence on the whole society. This show about apparently nothing at all has been extremely popular for some reason. In the past people thrived on learning new things, or reading material that can help increase their knowledge but recently in our contemporary society it seems like man is taking a step backward; more focusing on non-important, vain, materialistic and many times useless information.

In the presentation, the group spoke about homosexuality, and how Seinfeld somewhat explores that topic in one of the episodes. The question was if homosexuality is biological or not? Elaine tries to turn her homosexual friend heterosexual by having sex with him and seeing if he likes it or not. It seems to work at first by saying how he is the perfect man who wants to "have sex and shop all day". After a while the heterosexual high seems to go away due to his "biological" standard of being homosexual. He can't seem to change that aspect of his way of being. Even though he slept with Elaine, he didn't become less homosexual. His biological homosexuality didn't let him.

Another topic the group explored having to deal with sex is the sex between a man and a woman. In McDonald's book Romantic Comedy, the subject of sexuality is said to not be a barrier in Romantic Comedy movies. Almost all couples in Romantic movies have sex in contemporary films, and it isn't a problem anymore like it was in the old days. It was established in an early work that both men and women desired a sexual endevour, not just men. In Seinfeld, Elaine and Jerry both desired sex but didn't want to ruin their friendship so they set up ground rules with no strings attached. They were basically becoming friends with benefits. In the end the sex ends up complicating the friendship and it seems like they are unable to follow their own rules. When sex is added to the twist it always comes with strings, no matter how much people wouldn't want it to be. There can never be sex without strings. Elaine and Jerry started arguing all the time when they started having sex. Elaine wants more from Jerry. It's a biological fact that women are more emotional than men and can't control their feelings as well as men can. In a couple or relationship, either the man or the woman will grow an emotional attachment toward the other. It's just something that usually happens. Most people define love and romance nowadays with sex included in the package, they just call it "making love" so it won't sound as dirty but more pure. Elaine has sex just as much as her three male friends in the Seinfeld bunch; she is portrayed as being a woman feeling open with her sexuality, yet she is not seen as a whore or a slut, while other women might. Perhaps it's because she is around three male friends who always have sex that the audience don't see it as strange that she would act in that manner. People are so used to men and women having sex in our modern society and it's so frequently advertised everywhere we go that the controversial truth that people discovered in the past article that surprised a society acknowledging that both men and women desired sex is no longer a surprise now.

The issue of other separate, perhaps not well known cultures also comes up during the presentation. There is an episode called Puerto Rican Day, where the gang is stuck in traffic during the Puerto Rican Day Parade ans they absolutely hate it. It could be that the gang is inconvenienced by culture and want nothing to do with it or the Puerto Ricans, or the fact that no one likes being stuck in traffic. Perhaps it's both.

The last topic the group touches on is identity. What is considered normal, and what is not? In the episode "Bizzaro Jerry" Elaine tries to fit into a group that she considers "normal", who happen to be the opposite counterparts of Jerry and the gang. The Bizzaro gang is an intellectual bunch with great manners and proper etiquette. Elaine tries to fit into this Bizzaro world that represnts the opposite of what Seinfeld represents, but since Elaine is so used to fitting in with Jerry and the gang she is unable to assimilate into this abnormally "nice" Bizzaro world. Jerry and the gang are vulgar, unfriendly and get mad at everyone and everything, and Elaine is so used to being around people who are not polite she doesn't know how to act around people with good manners. The question here is, who is "normal" and who is the "other"? The Seinfeld gang or the Bizzaro gang? Seinfeld shows no emotional characteristics and the four characters never learn from their mistakes; they are selfish, self-centered, and greedy. The Bizzaro gang is actually nice, polite, caring (expressed at the end of the show when the friends all hug), and like to share. Both groups share exaggerated qualities, but most students in the class chose Seinfeld to be a more realistic and "normal" representation of our modern society. People see Seinfeld as more relatable, and I would have to agree with them. People are naturally more neurotic than nice it seems.

Blog #7 (another late one, sorry :/)

Well for last weeks class meeting we were suppose to read Romantic Comedy Chapter 4 and also read from the Cultural Studies book. I wasn't able to show up for class on tuesday due to the two finals i was having on that day, so I had to study for them and unfortunately miss English. These were difficult finals but due to the sacrifice of the english class, I believe I was able to pass. I read the chapter from Romantic Comedy that would be dealt in the class discussion of that day, but i will talk about it here in a little bit. I would also like to explain my sudden disappearance from class on thursday. It all started in the morning when I was getting ready to go to school, when I went to take my daily pee I realized I had the curse! So I knew my day would be ruined. I made it through my lab class at 8:00 am but when I came to English class, I could feel the familiar monthly pains seeping through that just make me want to kill myself already (It really sucks to be a girl!) It was already almost 11:30 and I was sweating like a tortured pig, my head was about to burst and with all the power I could muster held in the churning vomit that was about to mess up the professors floor. The pain was unbearable, the pain in my abdomen area. I dislike leaving class in the middle of a lecture but my bladder couldn't hold it any longer so I went to relieve myself but I was still in unbearable pain I just couldn't hold in so I went back to class and left early, and for that I apologize. I appreciate that the professor isn't too difficult with piles of homework and assignments, so my absence from two class lectures is hopefully not a drastic hit on my grade.

Now for the Romantic Comedy! Chapter 4 was about the Neo-traditional Romantic Comedy genre, which adopt more conservative and traditional ending, where the couple in the end somehow reconcile just in time before the films end kind of like in the movie the Wedding Singer, where the girl is on a plane leaving with her fiancé to get married in Las Vegas but the guy goes to the airport and buys a plane ticket to Las Vegas in hopes of stopping the wedding, but what he doesn't know is that the girl is on the plane so he sings a song to her through the speakers and then walks in front of the girl and finishes the song for her. Her bad fiancé is locked into the toiletry and the two true lovers make up and end up together in the last scene of the movie. That's very lucky it would seem, and very unrealistic, but that's part of the Neo-traditional appeal. This genre gets it's references from romantic dramas, not the good old screwball or sex comedies of the past. The neo-traditional romantic comedy genre is the current dominant form of romantic comedy. The definition of the neo-traditional romcom is "it reasserts the old boy meets, loses, regains girl structure, emphasizing the couple will be heterosexual, will form a lasting relationship, and that their story will end as soon as they do so. Examples of the neo-traditional romcoms are Kate and Leopold, You've Got Mail, How to Lose a Guy in Ten days, and many more. Some characteristics of the neo-traditional romcoms are: a backlash against the ideologies of the radical film alongside a maintenance of it's visual surfaces, a mood of imprecise nostalgia, a more vague self-referentialism, and a de-emphasizing of sex. The setting of most of these neo-traditional romcoms are in the city, usually new york city to be exact. These popular films of modern times are not a advancement in the romantic comedy genre, but more of a step back, re-iterating the past views on love. But people like it so for now, this current form of Romantic comedy genre will retain its domination.

The Response paper

Katherine Alvarez
Eng 313 Tu, Thu. 11:00am
Professor Wexler
10/14/10

Response Paper

If love wasn’t complicated already, what would it be like with time traveling thrown in the mix? If you haven’t guessed it already, I will be reflecting on a novel I enjoyed very much due to it’s original story line and it’s take on the subject of love; it’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. What is more radical than having a husband that time travels and trying to keep a stable relationship with a man that literally vanishes from your life in unpredictable patterns and comes back randomly? This is definately not your typical love story. What ever happened to the boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back storyline observable in almost every traditional Romantic movie out there? That is exactly what makes this novel radically exhilarating, with an unconventional twist.

The book focuses mostly on themes dealing with love, loss, marriage, and time of course. It is a victory of love over time. As impossible as that may sound, through all the hardships and pains the two protagonists of the story endure, they still have the deepest emotional attachments to one another, something rarely accomplished in real life. The divorce rate in America is higher than 50% (marriage101.org) , which is astoundingly high, making you wonder, “where did the love go?”. Are people less in love in contemporary America, or are they forgetting what love is? How can Henry and Clare keep their marriage going for so long even with Henry’s genetic disorder to time travel, and how can their love stay strong and endure that type of distance away from each other? They are not like most couples. What keeps them united is the fact that they have known each other most of their lives, almost like childhood friends. They are connected through the past, present, and future and know absolutely everything about each other. When modern couples meet or date, they are meeting for the first time, its hard to see what that person is truly like, so they make opinions based on first impressions, while their flaws are inconspicuous in the beginning. Henry tells Clare “That’s what I love you for: your inability to perceive my hideous flaws.” In his perspective he believes Clare is blind to his flaws, but perhaps it’s that she loves him regardless of those flaws. This is an unconventional love with an unconventional ending even though they do end up staying together like most Sex comedy movie genres that end with a happy ending(McDonald, “Romantic Comedy and Genre” Chp. 3). But The Time Traveler’s Wife explores life after marriage unlike the Sex comedies of the mid century. They have problems conceiving a child, and and Clare has to live with a disabled husband after he suffers hypothermia and both his feet are amputated. The radical part of the story is that regardless of everything they go through, they stay together, when any other modern couple would probably end up in divorce, and even after Henry’s death Clare never finds another partner because she knows she will never find another Henry. He’s the only man she ever loved.

The book does not deal with any political, racial, class or even gender issues so it’s difficult to try and connect it to other readings or movies. The main theme of the book is love and time, a love incomparable to most works of literature. It may not be as radical as Romeo and Juliet killing themselves for love, but the love that Henry and Clare share is timeless, even after death. Clare tells her friend Gomez “I can reach into [Henry] and touch time...he loves me.” Due to Henry's tangible love for Clare she finds time to be just as tangible to her, like she’s living the past and future in the present with the man she loves. Time and waiting are always an issue in the book, “Its hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he’s okay. it’s hard to be the one who stays.” There is a strong motif dealing with the hardship of distance and waiting for the one you love to come back. In the movie “Dear John” waiting is also an issue, she has to wait for John for years to come back while he’s at war, but the difference is the female love interest leaves John for another man. She couldn’t deal with the pain of waiting, watching time pass every day, every hour, every minute. It was too painful for her to stay and to endure the anxiety of waiting. Clare had the will to endure, through better or for worse she endured. If that isn’t radical I don’t know what is! That is true, passionate love! Unlike most Romantic movies in the past and present. That is what makes this novel exceptional. The theme of love, and human emotion is portrayed in a deep, passionate and emotional level.

The novel is radical because they don’t have a preconceived happily ever after type of ending most people expect, but the test of their love in real life with real and unconventional problems and hardships never diminished the love they felt for one another. Their love stood the test of time, through good and bad, something rarely accomplished nowadays. Their love feels real and true. They were never perfect and could never be perfect, but the love they had was the only sure thing in their lives.

Works Cited

"Divorce Rates in America." Marriage 101. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. .

Niffenegger, Audrey. The Time Traveler’s Wife. San Francisco, CA: McAdam/Cage, 2003.

Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. Naperville, IL: Source MediaFusion, 2005. Print.

McDonald, Tamar Jeffers. "Chp. 3 Sex Comedy." Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre. London: Wallflower, 2007. Print.

Dear John. Dir. Lassee Hallstrom. Perf. Channing Tatum Amanda Seyfried. Warner Bros., 2010. DVD.

blog #6

Well last week wasn't the best of weeks for me, (sighing while typing on the blog) I had written some mighty fine notes that I truly regret not directing, because I even had philosophical questions!! (okay okay, only one was philosophical) but it was a thought provoking question i thought even the teacher would enjoy...Since I didn't get the chance to say anything i wanted to say in front of the class i will type up my potential presentation here so the professor will see how it was suppose to come out:

----When Sula is alive her presence in the community of the Bottom makes all the residents live harmoniously with one another.

===>Ex. Wives with their husbands

===> Mothers with children (ex. Teapots mom treats him better due to her hate for Sula)

===> How families treat their old people

-----------The harmony of the town quickly dies out after Sula's death

Question 1: How does the community define Sula after her return to the Bottom? What is ironic about their attitude toward her?

---------The community defines her as the personification of evil. As their animosity and hatred toward her grow, they impose meaning on random occurrences. They need to do so in order to solidify their definition of her as an evil person. Their hatred of Sula reflects their sexism. A man like Ajax can sleep with whomever he chooses without being condemned. Their horror at Sula's consensual affairs with white men reflects the extent to which racial segregation defines their lives and psychology. Ironically, the community's labeling of Sula as evil actually improves their own lives. Her presence in the community gives them the impetus to live harmoniously with one another. Although the community regards her as an evil person, her return to the Bottom is actually a blessing in disguise.

Question 2: Why do you think that everyone in the community have a strong sense of animosity/hate for Sula Peace but not for her mother Hannah or her grandmother Eva when they all lived unconventional lives?

-----------Sula breaks social convention by putting Eva in a nursing home, having an affair with her best friend's husband, having multiple affairs with other women's husbands, and even her consensual affairs with white men made the animosity of the town grow to the point of seeing her as an evil being without morality.her unpredictable behavior frightened the already suspicious community of the Bottom. In order to understand their fear, they labeled Sula as "evil". Like Eva, they impose order on her influence by retroactively imposing connections on seemingly unrelated events (ex. the "plague of robins" becomes an evil omen of her return) Eva and Hannah were not considered to be serious threats to the social fabric (same as Shadrack) whereas the entire community, including Eva considered Sula a threat.

Question 3:What have been some instances or events in society that people have been viewed as relatively negative or bad but have had some implicitly good consequences like with Sula on the Community of Bottom? (I wont answer this question)

Question 4: Without having bad people or bad things happen in our society, how will people be able to define what is good? How do people define themselves as "good" if there was no "evil"?

Not too bad right?? I really wish things had come out differently, I'm a disappointment onto myself who might not make it in life due to this fear of public speaking, my hands shake, my face turns red like a tomato, my body is nervous, my words come out choppy, and I stutter and say "UMMM" a lot(which I hate about myself). Sometimes I wish i could just kill my self for being such an embarrassment to society. I just don't fit in, no matter how much I would like to, it's hard, it's just so damn hard...but still when things are looking down on me, when I feel like a failure I can't give up either, I need to stay in this game of Chess, I need to keep going no matter how easy it would be to just quit. Life isn't easy, I know that, but I have to stick in there for as long as I can muster. The professor is cool and has taught me to see aspects of life a little more different, and there sure is more to learn! I won't give up! :')

Group Write up

Well everyone in the group did an excellent job! They all had great ideas and presented their parts so well! Everyone e-mailed each other and their binary partners to make sure we all had the cat in the bag, everyone spoke well about their own individual parts, except for myself who still isn't the best of public speakers to exist but I still hope that won't ruin my grade in the class. I would have preferred writing a paper instead since I'm capable of expressing my ideas better in writing than through speech. As an overall group I believe we were all more than adequate, I just hope my own part doesn't mess up the grade of all the others. They were all engaged and highly interested in all the themes in the book, which made the presentation a lot more interesting.

blog #5 (a little late but still here)

well lets see here, last week of class we were learning more about the RomCom genre of movies, and the professor showed us some scenes from "The graduate" and another movie called "10" . The Graduate is considered to be a radical romantic comedy, not the story line entirely but the very last scene of the movie when the two lovers have a look of unease, it's not your typical "happy ending" you'd expect from the average sappy chick flick. That very look in the end of the movie breaks all barriers of RomCom norms! I found it exhilarating! finally a movie that seems more like real life! Not those fantasy love stories that are just as mythical as the theory of Evolution! The story is nice and interesting, but without an ounce of realistic endeavor! Just that look at the end changed the course of Romantic comedies forever! (If u haven't seen the movie, i would recommend watching that last scene ;p) What will we do now? Where will we live? How will we survive? YES! Not typical at all from other lovey dovey movies! There was no fairy tale ending, with a "they lived happily ever after" moment.

For the movie "10" the story is very different from The Graduate, the main character George Webber becomes obsessed with this beautiful woman he only sees once where she is obviously going to her own wedding, but Webber through fixation follows her to the wedding, and ends up following her to her honeymoon where he saves her husbands life and while Webber is making love to her, her husband calls her and when they are on the phone she tells him she is with George, but the husband has no concern or any sign of jealousy. She explains their open relationship and mutual honesty which Webber finds appalling and due to his initial thought of their rendezvous being of "forbidden pleasure" his obsession fizzles out just as quickly as it came. This is another great example of a radical type of romance. here's a fan-made clip i found on youtube if you'de like to see a little of their story and meeting:

Out of topic, but this week I will be presenting with my group on the novel Sula on Thursday, I'm very bad at presentations, so wish me luck! :o