Sex, Identity and Representation Responses Extended

The CW’s One Tree Hill network show is more than a major teen hit soap opera. Many may find this series to be just another teen drama, but to fans it is an entirely different story. The relationships are complex and yet they still seem real. Unlike those who used to watch the soap opera Passions which involved a lot of science fiction throughout the series. The show was created in 2003 by Mark Schwahn. The idea was to captivate the nature of teens and their daily lives as once was said in a paraphrased television interview. However, the show gained its most popularity as the teens grew up into college students, lovers, mothers, and fathers etc. Each character’s history created the future that would lie ahead for them in up and coming episodes. The tangled webs the characters weaved to the love and adornment that they received is what One Tree Hill is all about. This response is to breach from the ideas of sex, identity, and how that is represented.

Take the character Brooke Davis for instance. She has always been a beauty who is completely selfless yet incredibly sexual when it comes to her relationship with her male counterparts. However, as Davis grows she utilizes her strengths and suppresses her weakness in men to become more of a figure of business like qualities. She has her own multi-million dollar fashion company at the age of 22. Not bad. She often feels lonely because she has been neglected by a mother who is verbally abusive towards her and tries to steal her company right under her feet. Since Brooke is missing the emotional attachment she wishes she had with her mother she gains more mother like qualities and cares for others. She also expressed the need for wanting a baby of her own to love and to nurture. According to ChrisBarker author of Cultural Studies Theory and Practice third edition, women are more likely to be seen as nurturing, child rearing, and domestically inclined (p.285). Davis becomes all of these things as she develops from a young teen to a grown woman. Here is a series of scenes that will help you to better understand the realtionship between Brooke Davis and her mother, and why she felt the need to move on with her life to create a bigger and better chapter of it for herself:

The character Nathan Scott was always known as a handsome athlete who is scouted to play for the NBA. He marries his high school sweetheart now know as Haley Scott. Haley gets pregnant in high school with Nathan’s baby. Once the child is born and is old enough to have a nanny trouble begins to brew. The nanny is a physically beautiful woman by the name of Carrie who becomes completely infatuated with Nathan. She would use her understanding of sexual power (Barker, pg. 284) in order to wield in her prey. She was a live-in nanny and takes advantage of the fact that the pool is right outside of Nathan’s window. Late at night she would swim without her clothes on so that he would see her as sexually devourable. Nathan would watch sometimes and she knew it. However, Nathan loves his wife Haley a lot but does not feel the love that he is so desperately wanting. In one scene Carrie get the wrong idea and while Nathan is showering and kisses him. He didn’t see her at first and thought it was his wife. When he opened his eyes he was shocked and left the room immediately. I brought up this situation because it contradicts what is said in Barker’s book. Barker says that due to greater levels of testosterone and lower levels of serotonin men appear to be greater risk takers, have a higher propensity to find multiple partners, and are less likely to verbalize emotions (p.287). However, Nathan seems to be the opposite and Carrie fit these qualities, but she is the woman. Carrie does not care that Haley is in the house while she kisses Nathan proving that she is a risk taker, and she most certainly does not mind the fact that is married with a family. Carrie does not verbalize emotions toward Nathan she only shows them sexually. Nathan is a good man and does not want anything to do with Carrie, but here is an example of what happens to people when they are in the wrong place at at the wrong time:

One of the most interesting relationships in the series would be the one between Lucas Scott and Peyton Sawyer. They fell in love when they were in high school and as they grew older they remained a couple. One night Lucas decided to surprise Peyton with an engagement ring, but she felt they were too young to get married and no ready to take that step. After being emotionally upset Lucas leaves Peyton and finds another lover named Lindsey, who is the editor for Lucas’ self proclaimed novel. Peyton is heartbroken and never gets over the love she had for Lucas. War arises when Lucas asks Lindsey to marry him and Peyton does everything in her power to prevent that from happening, but that is only the beginning. When Lindsey and Lucas are about to say their “I Dos” Lindsey says “I Don’t.” She felt that Lucas was not over Peyton and she didn’t want to marry someone whose heart belonged to someone else. After this saga is over Peyton and Lucas get back together and now they are engaged to be married ( as of today’s storyline). Freudian theories suggest that sexual identity is formed through a developmental process in the context of our first relationships (Barker 294). To me, this means that the relationships that humans create in the beginning are what we will continue to subject ourselves to in hopes to maintain our sexual identity. Lucas’ first true relationship was with Peyton and therefore he developed his sexual identity while he was with her. Their love did not end because of a lack of adoration, but because of lack of communication. Some men have a tendency not to communicate as well as women do. There is evidence that woman are more verbal, co-operative and organized than men are (Barker 286). Maybe if Lucas did not hide from him emotions by investing his time in another woman and communicated with Peyton the two could have fashioned a mutual agreement. As I have said before, men are greater risk takers. I find that sometimes people forget what comes with risks; the ability to lose what you already have (which is a more negative thought) or potentially gain more than expected (a more positive outlook). In this case, Lucas had done both by losing his true love, but then she returns when he is ready to let her in once again. Here is a series of videos: The first one is Peyton asking Lucas not to marry Lindsey, and the next is Lindsey turning down Lucas at the alter, and finally Lucas and Peyton reunited happily again:

Another example of an intricate relationship is the three way triangle between Nathan Scott, Lucas Scott and their father Dan Scott. Dan Scott is a very aggressive man who is constantly having behavioral mood swings and he takes them out on anyone who is around; especially his sons. Dan is a prime example of a man who is more disposed to anger and less to empathy (Barker 287). He has always favored his son Nathan over Lucas, but he is still not loving towards either of them. The final straw is pulled when Dan murders his own brother and the uncle of the two boys, Keith Scott. Dan was found guilty of the murder and was placed into prison for many years. When he finally gets out he does everything to get the love of his family back, but they do not want anything to do with him. Nathan, who has a son named Jamie, wants Dan to have nothing to do with his grandson. Even though Jamie wishes he could be around his grandfather more often than not. The background of these characters lives is important to know so we can determine why they function the way they do. The relationship being described her is between men and their problematic masculinity. “The view that men are problems is a result of the apparent destructiveness of the contemporary men- the move from being naughty boys to being bad men. However, bad men often turn out to be better described as ‘sad men,’ the damaged goods of industrial society (Barker 304). Dan is a prime example of someone who would be considered a sad man. The reason he wanted to kill his brother in the first place was because he was jealous of him. Dan expressed his sadness in an evil and violent way because he did not know what else to do with his bottled up emotions. Here is the scene were Dan kills his brother:

In class readings Simone Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949) quoted what Aristotle once said, “The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities…we should regard the female nature as afflicted with a natural defectiveness.” I thought Aristotle was regarded a smart man, but after I heard this I questioned his abilities. Many of the female characters in this television show produce qualities that are considered to attain high standards in society without needing a relationship with a man to accomplish them. For example, I had mentioned Brooke Davis earlier before. She is a high powered career woman and she didn’t need the benefit of a man to tell her how to run her own multi-million dollar company. Sex has nothing to do with who you are as a person. Sure, men and women have distinct characteristics as Barker has mentioned, but it doesn’t mean humans, relationships, and lives don’t evolve. What is a woman? What is a man? Will we ever really know? As people, we can always deconstruct our ideas as to what “we” are. We can even deconstruct television shows to find the meanings. However, I believe the answer to each question is inside an individual’s self. One cannot tell you how you feel because you are the only one who can feel it. Nobody in Dan Scott’s family understood why he killed Keith, but he did it anyways because he let his anger take control of common deep sensibility. Therefore, through our emotions and actions we express what makes us who we are or what we are like when we live in the moment, even if we indeed may live in a soap opera like fictional characters seen on television.

Works Cited

Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies Theory and Practice. SAGE Publications,2008

De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. (in class readings),1949

www.imdb.com

www.youtube.com

Susan Bordo's Madonna

Susan Bordo’s “Material Girl’: The Effacements of Postmodern Culture had
to be one of my favorite readings so far.  Bordo references Madonna (the
singer) as a woman who has constantly changed the norms of “normal”
society beliefs (or idealistically the beliefs the government has tried
to instill in our minds). Many find her to be a postmodern heroine.
Madonna claims her work is to escape definition. Many people consider
her to be subversive because she is constantly overthrowing societal
norms.  Madonna once said, “Everything I do is meant to have several
meanings to be ambiguous.”  Her music videos, live performances, etc has
entranced many different types of academic critics.  Bordo says that
many of the academic critics Madonna has lured in have accolades that
are reproduced in highly theoretical notions emphasized by the popular
press.
 Madonna’s music video “Like a Prayer” was considered to be
controversial to many conservative audiences.  Once again she was
overthrowing the societal norms through the works of this video.  There
are images of sexuality in church, provocative clothing worn inside the
church, burning crosses, knifes and blood.  Madonna is independent of
patriarchal control and symbolizes rebelliousness. 

Televison Culture Codes with John Fiske

John Fiske proposes that television culture helps to shape the traditional semiotic account of how the television world makes, or at least try to make meanings that will provide society a service to it's most dominant interests. With relation to the hit television series Sex and the City, we can see many different ways in which dominant interests are conclusive to our society alone.

Fiske says that television culture provides various codes. These codes are "links between producers, texts, and audiences, and are the agents of intertextuality through which texts interrelate in a network of meanings that constitutes our cultured world."

I feel that all of the symbolism that is produced in television shows such as Sex and the City would be more predominately apparent if people actually tried to structualize and deconstruct what they believed to be the pure pleasure that society finds in those television shows.

The show is based on four women, all of which are friends (Carrie, Sam, Miranda, and Charlotte).

Our culture comes from all that we know, or what we see others do. When we watch television our mind sometimes enters into new realities and helps us develop a better understanding of what it means to be "cultured person."

We identify with television characters like those in Sex and the City becomes it is what the producers, directors, and writers think what some people's ideas of cultural involvement is.

Carrie says in a line of a season 3 episode "Is it smarter to follow our heart or our head." I am sure that we ask ourselves these questions at least once in our life time. It's code. The television show helps to project codes to its viewers so that it provides a more intertextual meaning.

What we know is what we feel...culture is what we are.

Sex, Identity, and Representation Responses

Let’s start off by saying that the One Tree Hill network show on the CW is more than a major teen hit soap opera. Many may find this series to be just another teen drama, but to fans it is an entirely different story. The relationships are complex and yet they still seem real. Unlike those who used to watch the soap opera Passions which involved a lot of science fiction throughout the series. The show was created in 2003 by Mark Schwahn. The idea was to captivate the nature of teens and their daily lives as once was said in a paraphrased television interview. However, the show gained its most popularity as the teens grew up into college students, lovers, mothers, and fathers etc. Each character’s history created the future that would lie ahead for them in up and coming episodes. This response is to breach from the ideas of sex, identity, and how that is represented.

Take the character Brooke Davis for instance. She has always been a beauty who is completely selfless yet incredibly sexual when it comes to her relationship with her male counterparts. However, as Davis grows she utilizes her strengths and suppresses her weakness in men to become more of a figure of business like qualities. She has her own multi-million dollar fashion company at the age of 22. Not bad. She often feels lonely because she has been neglected by a mother who is verbally abusive towards her and tries to steal her company right under her feet. Since Brooke is missing the emotional attachment she wishes she had with her mother she gains more mother like qualities and cares for others. She also expressed the need for wanting a baby of her own to love and to nurture. According to ChrisBarker author of Cultural Studies Theory and Practice third edition, women are more likely to be seen as nurturing, child rearing, and domestically inclined (p.285). Davis becomes all of these things as she develops from a young teen to a grown woman.

The character Nathan Scott was always known as a handsome athlete who is scouted to play for the NBA. He marries his high school sweetheart now know as Haley Scott. Haley gets pregnant in high school with Nathan’s baby. Once the child is born and is old enough to have a nanny trouble begins to brew. The nanny is a physically beautiful woman by the name of Carrie who becomes completely infatuated with Nathan. She would use her understanding of sexual power (Barker, pg. 284) in order to wield in her prey. She was a live-in nanny and takes advantage of the fact that the pool is right outside of Nathan’s window. Late at night she would swim without her clothes on so that he would see her as sexually devourable. Nathan would watch sometimes and she knew it. However, Nathan loves his wife Haley a lot but does not feel the love that he is so desperately wanting. In one scene Carrie get the wrong idea and while Nathan is showering and kisses him. He didn’t see her at first and thought it was his wife. When he opened his eyes he was shocked and left the room immediately. I brought up this situation because it contradicts what is said in Barker’s book. Barker says that due to greater levels of testosterone and lower levels of serotonin men appear to be greater risk takers, have a higher propensity to find multiple partners, and are less likely to verbalize emotions (p.287). However, Nathan seems to be the opposite and Carrie fit these qualities, but she is the woman. Carrie does not care that Haley is in the house while she kisses Nathan proving that she is a risk taker, and she most certainly does not mind the fact that is married with a family. Carrie does not verbalize emotions toward Nathan she only shows them sexually.

In class readings Simone Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949) quoted what Aristotle once said, “The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities…we should regard the female nature as afflicted with a natural defectiveness.” I thought Aristotle was regarded a smart man, but after I heard this I questioned his abilities. Many of the female characters in this television show produce qualities that are considered to attain high standards in society without needing a relationship with a man to accomplish them. For example, I had mentioned Brooke Davis earlier before. She is a high powered career woman and she didn’t need the benefit of a man to tell her how to run her own multi-million dollar company. Sex has nothing to do with who you are as a person. Sure, men and women have distinct characteristics as Barker has mentioned, but it doesn’t mean humans, relationships, and lives don’t evolve. What is a woman? What is a man? Will we ever really know? As people, we can always deconstruct our ideas as to what “we” are. We can even deconstruct television shows to find the meanings. However, I believe the answer to each question is inside an individual’s self. One cannot tell you how you feel because you are the only one who can feel it. Therefore, through our emotions and actions we express what makes us who we are even if we indeed may live in a soap opera like fictional characters seen on television.

Works Cited

Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies Theory and Practice. SAGE Publications,2008

De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. (in class readings),1949

www.imdb.com

Group Presentation/Discussion

My English professor wanted my classmates and I to create a presentation from one of the primary texts he gave to us to choose from in class. At first I signed up to be in a group that would analyze the concepts of the famous hit television show Sex and the City. Literally 30 minutes after I signed up to be in that group I changed my mind. I wanted to study a text of which I didn’t know much about but had heard of a million times before. So I scratched my name from the list and added it to the Breakfast at Tiffany’s group instead. I feel so fortunate to have worked with such brilliant classmates. Most all of the members and I met once outside of class to figure out what research we would contribute to the presentation. It was then formed into an outline by Kim who emailed it to all of us.

I decided that I wanted to focus on introducing our discussion by watching a little bit of the movie and then telling the class briefly that the book is entirely different. Kaytlen would later describe some of the differences between the two. Before the movie starts I decided to hand out popcorn. This idea came about after reading page 7 of the Romantic Comedy Boy Meets Girl Genre text written by Tamar Jeffers McDonald. McDonald says genre critics have worked to unsettle assumptions contesting the idea that all genre films are inevitably “popcorn movies.” As soon as the section of film is shown the lights will go back on and I will explain to the class that while the movie may have a “popcorn” feel to it the book is completely different. The movie may be happy go lucky, but I want to introduce the real Holly Golightly.

After the movie is watched and all hungry tummies are fed I will go into a brief deconstruction of what Holly Golightly is like. Some examples of what I may talk about are:

1) Women were supposed to know their place in society. They were not to question who they are or should be. Golightly contradicts society’s values. She is born before her time.

2) Golightly hides everything, yet is blunt and straight forward toward others.

3) She acts as a constant binary. Also, she seems to always fleeing for something, but never searching for anything.

4) She is always on the run from herself yet she is not conscious of it.

I will then pose this question to the class: “When you think of Holly Golightly how does she bust all of the general stereotypes of her time?

Hopefully the class engages in my topic of the discussion and everything else I talk about will be branched from there. I want the students to use their creative minds without telling them every little detail in hopes that they read the book.

Image taken from google.com

What is a woman???

From Chris Barker's Cultural Studies third edition book.

My favorite part of Chapter 9 would definitely be on pg. 288 of the
Barker book.  The title of the section is Women's Difference.  The
reason this section stood out to me so much was because it makes us ask
ourselves what is a woman?  What constitutes a woman's nature and how is
it celebrated?  Those questions are answered in briefly answered in the
section.  I am sure Barker could have trailed on about the subject, but
he is in fact taking a lot of information and compiling it into one
small book; a small book to explain cultural studies that is!
He talks about how Collard and Contrucci argue that women " are linked
by childbearing bodies and innate ties to the natural earth that support
egalitarian, nurturance-based values.  Then Barker explains how Rich
(1986) views women and their differences from men saying that it is a
source of childhood that separates them. Rich celebrates what truly
makes females different from the male species.
Sure, I agree with what they say...they researched it.  However, to
really understand a woman you must deconstruct her. Even then do we
really know what makes ourselves tick.  There are so many different
types of women who have different personalities.  So to say that we can
characterize women by what they are or what they are supposed to be
doesn't entirely make sense to me.  What about women who can not give
birth to a child?   Since they cannot physically do this are they still
considered "woman enough?"  Or a woman at all.  Do we need all the
specified traits in order to be considered a woman? I don't know.  But,
what I do know is that every individual is unique and that is what makes
us special.


What is a woman?? Well even though Axe and Dove body products are the SAME
COMPANY...there ads picture women in a different way. 

Here is a Dove body add...notice the woman are curvier. The Company is saying women can look sexy in any size. Feel good in your skin.
Here is an Axe body ad and the woman sexualized and is made to look like an object.

CAN YOU BELIEVE THEY ARE THE SAME COMPANY!!!!

They are sending mixed messages to woman...No wonder some women don't know who they are! We only know what we are "supposed" to be. Thank you media.

American Psycho (the movie) and Jeremy Bentham's jail design

Well this was no Disney movie folks.

Patrick (aka Psycho) is human but does not act that way.  He admits it
himself.  He says, "There is no real me, only an entity." The only human
feelings he says he feels is disgust and greed.  He is obsessed with
perfection and wants everything or anyone to be the same way when they
are in his company.  Example: His secretary was not dressed to the T for
him and he told her to never wear that outfit again.  Patrick is
treating her as an object, or one that can be improved by a skirt and
heels that look like stilts.  He is extremely violent beyond reason.  He
kills anyone he feels like killing.  To Patrick nobody is worthy.  His
mind set is completely different and only thinks of violence and sex.
He is everything he needs to be, yet lacks everything and gets
gratification from killing or belittling.  He is a bi-product, a
signifier. 

On pg 287 of Chris Barker's book Cultural Studies 3rd edition he describes men as:

-Men are greater risk takers
-Men have a higher propensity to find multiple partners
-Men are more disposed to anger and less to empathy
-Men are less inclined to verbalize emotions

Now times that by 10 one million times and you get a personality like
Patrick's. He is an exaggerated version of a man. Only difference is he
has no feel good emotions.  If you see a hint of feel good emotions it
is from killing someone or maybe having sex with them. 

When it comes to women he is a complete womanizer.  Uses uses and
abuses.  This might sound strange... but he himself is his own woman.
He takes care of himself like he would a woman.  All of the pleasures
and passions he has he doesn't share with anyone, let alone any woman.
He is selfish.  And doesn't care for anyone's personal needs except for
his own.

Moving on...we also talked about Jeremy Bentham, a designer of a jail in
which each cell is visible through a guard tower (a panopticon).  He set it up this way
because he knows that people that are being observed are less likely to
do bad things. 

Michel Foucault uses Bentham's design in her studies.  Foucault says it
is what keeps us in order.  Example:  A parent spanks a child, an
observer sees it and says something.  Now the parent is more cautious of
his or her actions because they have realized someone has been observing
them.  They are less likely to do spank their child in public again
because of the fear of being caught again in the act.

Here is two examples of Bentham's panopticon:

Images found on google.com

My...have things changed since the 1950s

Images from google.com

Romance and Love Triangles

This was an interesting week.  I read the chapter in a book about romantic
comedy and genre (thank goodness I bought the book before it sold
out!!!).  Our society has changes so much since the 1950s.  Sex has
become almost as natural as shaking someone's hand these days...well to
some people at least.  In the 1950s words like "gee Mary-sue" or "Golly"
where used. People would laugh if we used those words today.  I guess
what I am trying to get at it time changes and so does culture.  That is
what the lectures and the readings have taught me.

I enjoyed the the film 10 we watched in class.  It makes me glad I am
not in any kind of Love Triangle! That's for sure.  The main character
George wants to feel younger.  Here we have a middle aged man who is
already happy with a woman (Sam) who loves him dearly.  However, to him
it is still not enough.  He is obsessed with finding someone who would
amount to his perfect score of "ten."  He chases this beautiful woman
(Jenny) he sees and follows her to Mexico, where she is having her
honeymoon because she just got married.  Finally, he catches his pray
and is about to get what he wants (sex), but when he is with her her
image changes! She doesn't care about him, only sexual gratification.
George was expecting more.  Jenny was mirroring what he used to be like
and he didn't like what he saw.  Jenny was an object to be consumed, but
he thought that maybe it would mean something more to her.

If we are talking about the difference between a whore and a Madonna I
think we know who is who.  Jen is pure and wholesome and is like a
Madonna, but he doesn't see her like that...right now.  He thinks Jenny
is the Madonna because of her remarkable beauty.  However, she is really
the whore because she sleeps around right after she was married and it
doesn't even phase her.  Maybe, when he looks at Jenny and sees himself
in her reflection he sees himself as a whore too.  He is indeed cheating
and doing the same thing that Jenny is doing.  His view of Jenny as a
Madonna fades as instantly.  She was smoking a joint for goodness sakes!!!

I thought that the movie really tied into the chapters that we read.  I
like how we read and then watch segments of a movie that will reflect
what we have learned in class. It's really fun.

A message from Sam to George from the movie 10 :
Image from google.com

Writing, the mind, and deconstructing

Plato said morality overwrites speech.  There is greater immedacy in the
mind than in writing.  When you write you can edit your own mistakes.
When speaking it is harder to do so.  I am a broadcast journalism major
and I know that fact to be true.  I am constantly editing my own stories
trying to make them the best they can be before I reach the deadline.
Once I actually perform what I have written, it can sometimes come out a
bit differently. Not always in a bad way, just in a way where it is
harder to correct myself. Sometimes it can even workout better that way. 

However Dass says both are not reliable (writing and thought that is).
He says there is more to it than that because one signifier is related
to another which relates to another, and so on and so forth.  It to
never stop or cease to exist and that there is always a way to
deconstruct something or another.

In the Derrida Documentary my classmates and I saw how deconstruction
was important to tells us what "things" are.  In the movie he was even
deconstructing the interview he was in!

Culture from below culture from above...Oh and the Music Man!

We are all consumers and producers of popular culture We had interesting group discussions in English. Those are my favorite because I get to hear what my fellow peers have to say about the topic. We were discussing the difference between culture from above and culture from below. In my group (as well ad in class) we decided that opera, ballet, and theater would be considered culture from above. Culture from below consisted of Bluegrass banjo type music and possibly rock n' roll. However, is rock n' roll music really considered below? I mean look at the lifestyles rock stars live. They are an interesting exception. Famous rock n' rollers live like kings, but sometimes dress as slobs and have a stereotype of acting like pigs, with women that is. So are the culture from above or below? I guess it depends on who you are asking. Personally, I can't decide. We also watched the Music Man musical and applied culture to it. Culture can sometimes be resisted. Dick Van Dyke's character wants the whole town to know that it is a disgrace that a billiards room is being placed in the town. He is not ready to accept that kind of change because it is not the culture that he is used to. However, times do change and so do the people that live in those times. The surrounding culture becomes a different experience. He creates a FEAR of change and expresses this to the people of the town. Also, wants the townspeople to understand how it "can" corrupt children's lives. A pool hall is signifying a lower culture. To Dyke's character culture is domianting and oppressing him. We also talked about Saussure the 19th century linguist. The question posing was how do we know who we are? We help to verify who we are through language. Language is our medium. We have the signified which is the visual concept and the signified that works as a mental concept. We need both in order to understand what language really is...what culture really is. Each sign rests on a binary. You can only know white because it is different than black. You can only know men because it differs from women. Reply Quote Download Close Personally, I can't decide. We also watched the Music Man musical and applied culture to it. Culture can sometimes be resisted. Dick Van Dyke's character wants the whole town to know that it is a disgrace that a billiards room is being placed in the town. He is not ready to accept that kind of change because it is not the culture that he is used to. However, times do change and so do the people that live in those times. The surrounding culture becomes a different experience. He creates a FEAR of change and expresses this to the people of the town. Also, wants the townspeople to understand how it "can" corrupt children's lives. A pool hall is signifying a lower culture. To Dyke's character culture is domianting and oppressing him. We also talked about Saussure the 19th century linguist. The question posing was how do we know who we are? We help to verify who we are through language. Language is our medium. We have the signified which is the visual concept and the signified that works as a mental concept. We need both in order to understand what language really is...what culture really is. Each sign rests on a binary. You can only know white because it is different than black. You can only know men because it differs from women.

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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: What tangled webs we weave

Cat on a hot tin roof holds form to its classic appeal to those who read the play or see it
performed because of the captivating characters whose lives are completely tangled in
the webs they weave.  Each character seems to view their family member in a different
way. Here are a couple of examples that are throughout the texts:

Mae doesn’t think Maggie has an understanding for children.  Mae wants Maggie to lock
up her weapons so that the children don’t touch them.  However, Maggie thinks that if the
children were well behaved then they would have no interest in playing with the
weapons.  Mae then says, “Maggie, honey, if you had children of your own you’d know
how funny that is (pg.23).”  Maggie can’t stand the “no-neck children” because she thinks
they are not “trained” properly.  Yet, she knows nothing about children because she
doesn’t have them, as far as Mae is concerned.  It is a continuously ongoing battle
between the two women throughout the play.  Both women have different ways in
viewing what is the “norm” for how they should live there lives.

Ambiguity also plays a main role in the relationship between Brick and Maggie.  Brick
seems to have no sexual interest in Maggie (even though she is supposed to be
beautiful) let alone have any interest in what she has to say. Stereotypically, an
attractive woman can lure a man into her sexual desires.  However, this cultural idea is
not expressed through Brick’s feelings.  In fact, it poses as the opposite.   He is
consumed by his alcoholism.  Maggie wishes that the alcohol would just make him fat and
unattractive so that she wouldn’t want him so bad.  However, she feels like the alcohol
has done the opposite and has made him even better looking than before.  Somehow,
part of me thinks that Maggie thinks that Brick looks better than before because she
wants what she can’t have.  It’s sort of like that in human nature.  It’s almost like a cat
and mouse chase.  She’s the cat, he’s the mouse.  No matter what the mouse never
longs for the cat.  Not to mention his feelings spiraling out of control over his homosexual
desires for an old friend makes the situation worse.

Cultural Observations and dog walking

Saturday September 20, 2008 (3:00pm-4:00pm):

Observation- I live right across the street from the Rancho Santa Susana Community Park which resides in Simi Valley, CA. I thought it would be interesting to walk my dog (Betty) to the park and see what fascinating people/animals we could find on our little excursion.

We crossed the street and entered the park from the soccer field entrance. There were two children kicking around a soccer ball with someone who seemed to be their dad. The father ran to his children and messed his hair with his hand. Any outside viewer could tell that this was a bonding experience between the father and his children. While passing the field and entering the park I notice all of the runners and joggers trying to fit in their exercise for the day. One man in particular was so focused on what he was doing. His eyes where straight forward the whole time (I know this because he lapped Betty and I three times!) As we were walking through the park’s trail I noticed a woman who was walking her two “weenie” dogs of leash. In her hands she was carrying a plastic bag filled with nuts. The woman took a nut from her bag and carefully bent to her knees. A squirrel came dashing over and took the nut from her hand. In no time the creature was joined by three of his other furry friends each taking a nut from the woman’s palm. I have seen the woman countless times before, but never long enough to see what was in the plastic bag until now. As we were continuing our walk I noticed a family of four petting a brown horse behind its fence. The family dog didn’t look to keen on being near the large animal and was trying to pull away. The funny thing about that is that was same dog I saw earlier barking and pulling its owner toward a squirrel thirty minutes before. Seems like the dog only felt dominant around animals much smaller than him.

Analysis- Raymond Williams said that culture can be the meanings generated by ordinary men and women, the lived experiences of its participants, and the texts and practices engaged in by all people as they conduct their lives (Barker, Cultural Studies pg.43). I found that Williams’ examples of culture really came into play with my observations at the park. Every day we live through our experiences. The means of going to the park and exercising for example is generated by ordinary men and women. Some are there because they believe it will relax them, while others may be doing their daily jog in hopes to lose one more inch off their waist. The woman who was feeding the squirrels may come to the park everyday at 3:30 pm and that may be her way of engaging herself with the lives of others, (not humans maybe, but with animals.) The way we live our lives expresses our ideal values of what we believe culture to be. Runners running, children playing, dogs walking on leashes or without, it all is a part of who we are. It is our culture. Example, why are most dogs on a leash? It’s because our society’s culture tells us that it is safer for the animal and for all those around. Why do we even have park or a place where people can gather? It’s because of culture and I finally realized that through my observations.