Finding Mr./Mrs. Right

I thought that all of the texts from this week at least touched on the issue of power and control based on gender.  Stereotypes about men and women (especially men and women in relationships) were also prominent in this week’s readings. 

“It’s Not About the Nail” was a comical, satirical video about women’s needs in a relationship.  Although I did not relate to the woman in the video, I think that there is some truth to the video’s message.  I have definitely met women who really love to talk about their problems, but who aren’t really looking for a solution because they would rather complain about it.  These women drive me crazy.  While I did find the video funny, I also believe that this is an unfair stereotype about women.  For the most part, I do not think that females enjoy complaining and being miserable more than being happy and without any complaints.  I also noticed that the woman in this video seemed to have the majority of the power in the relationship.  She basically manipulated her boyfriend into sympathizing, or pretending to sympathize with her unsympathetic whining.  “Women and Marriage at Princeton” also talked about the power dynamic between men and women.  The letter from the Princeton alumna suggested that women who attend an elite college should not lower their standards and marry a man with less than the same level of education that they have.  Susan Patton basically told Princeton women that they are better than most of the men, and that they have the power and the right to find a husband at their college.  I thought that Patton’s letter was both offensive because she basically degraded anybody, man or woman, who did not attend Princeton or another Ivy League college.  However, the facts at the end of the article about the trade-offs that men and women make imply that both genders have ‘power’ to be selective when choosing a partner.  Similarly, the video about the horrible dating profile attests to the facts in the previous article.  The men were willing to ignore the woman’s horrible traits and education because she was attractive.  Again, the idea of women as powerful comes into play here.  However, in this example, the power that the woman has is due to her physical appearance.  Her body was what had the power to draw in the men. 

Trifles takes place in an older, different time, but the story deals with stereotypes about women and men.  In the story, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale sympathize with Mrs. Wright, the convicted murderer because they feel that she was stuck in a bad marriage.  The men in the play dismiss the women and their “trifles” because they find them petty.  The men do not seem to care about the circumstances of the Wrights’ marriage; their primary concern is proving that Minnie is guilty.  Again, this play shows the stereotypes that men make about the things that women consider important.  “Hanging Fire” describes the sadness of a fourteen-year-old African American girl who has to deal with an absent mother.  Based on what the girl says about her mother being “in the bedroom with the door closed,” I assumed that the mother was probably either sleeping with men for money or spending more time with a boyfriend than she spent paying attention to her daughter.  This may be a criticism (or it may be a stretch to say this) about how men have the ability to make certain women feel important.  I thought that this poem criticized lower-income, African American women specifically.  It played into the stereotype that they have to sleep with men for either attention or money, neglecting their children.  Lastly, the NCJRS page about criminal women informs the reader that many female felons come from very rough pasts.  Many women are abused and actually victims themselves.  Although there is not really an excuse for serious crimes, this website shows how men, parents, and other people can be a major cause of women’s criminal activity.  Trifles, “Hanging Fire,” and the NCJRS site all can be interpreted as revealing the kind of power that men have over women, whereas “It’s Not About the Nail,” “Women and Marriage at Princeton,” and “Woman Creates Monstrous Dating Profile” seem to be more about the control that women have over men. 

Superheroes

When most people think of a superhero, they picture a strong, masculine, straight, American, white male such as Batman or Superman.  However, it seems that considering how much our culture has changed since the original comics were created, there should be more diversity when it comes to superheroes and heroines.  The question that I took away from the texts for this unit was what makes somebody or something heroic in our eyes?

I did find the different approaches to the portrayal of King Arthur interesting.  In the story, the focus is on Arthur’s background and his family history.  The story ends just as Arthur pulls the sword from the stone and is declared the rightful king.  The reader learns about the strange and complicated incidents surrounding Arthur’s birth and childhood, so does his this knowledge further our notion of him as a hero?  Or is our idea of Arthur as a heroic character merely based on his ability to remove the sword and prove that he is the king? In the Camelot trailer, the attention seems to be focused on Arthur’s love life and his reign as a middle-aged king.  The narrator says that it is “the most poignant legend of love in our language; the immortal tale of King Arthur.”  Lancelot is also recognized in this trailer as “the perfect knight,” leading the viewer to believe that there may be more than one heroic character in this film.  The clip from Monty Python and the Holy Grail depicts Arthur as a boastful and proud king, disconnected from the common people.  In the short story and the Camelot trailer, the reader/viewer was given the impression that Arthur was well liked, adored, and somewhat idolized by the people.  In this satirical movie, the primary reason that Arthur became king—pulling the sword from the stone—is mocked instead of praised.  With these three different representations of Arthur—as a young, noble, innocent child; as an older and romanticized king; and as a pretentious and self-righteous ruler—the reader is left wondering what exactly about the legend of King Arthur makes him such a heroic character?

            The remaining texts more closely examined how gender, race, sexuality, and identity affect how society classifies superheroes or icons as heroic.  In the NPR review, “Superheroines, Fighters, And Why Isn’t There A Wonder Woman Movie,” Linda Holmes discusses the somewhat subtle presence of female superheroes throughout time, but also wonders why there has been no film about Wonder Woman.  It seems that in most comics or superhero movies/shows, women are usually portrayed as either victims or love interests.  In the superman comic (I had a difficult time connecting this one) Superman rescues a woman from taking her own life.  Though the woman eventually makes her own decision, she is portrayed as an emotional, mentally and emotionally weak victim.  Most of the rescuing is left to the men.  Holmes also alludes to the fact that Wonder Woman was formed as a response to WWII and the political and social issues of the time.  There has not been a new film or show about Wonder Woman since the Lynda Carter show.  Was Wonder Woman considered a hero because she was created during a time of war?  Why do female heroines not seem to prevail through the decades in the same ways that male heroes do?  Similarly, the lack of racial diversity in superheroes is discussed in “Who Gets to be a Superhero? Race and Identity in Comics” by Gene Demby, “Meet the new Muslim-American Green Lantern” by The Week Staff, and “What if the X-Men were Black” by Orion Martin.  All three of these articles point out the domination of white males in the world of superheroes.  Orion and Demby argue that X-Men is furthering discrimination and promoting assimilation because of the lack of characters of color.  However, the idea of creating brown X-Men brought about criticism from white fans.  They felt that changing the race of superheroes would “confuse a lot of people.”  For some people, it seems that the fact that superheroes are strong, white, heterosexual males is what makes them heroic.  But, in reality, it seems that the idea of superheroes is based on so much more than these characteristics.  Although one Green Lantern was recognized as being gay, my impression was that he was recognized as being gay only after the comics about his specific Green Lantern character were done being made.  I think that The Week does make a valid point that political overtones are fine in a comic, but they need to be sharper and more suiting to the plot of the comic.  Creating superheroes and heroines that vary in race, gender, sexuality, and identity is something that can and should be done, but I believe that these traits are still not what make a hero heroic. 

Back to the Future

As we can see from the readings for this unit, the obsession with the future is not a new fad.  While most people like to think of their own future as happy and tranquil, many of the futuristic texts that we obsess over depict a less than desirable world.

Why is this such an obsession?

The YouTube clip titled “Why Do We Love Zombies?” poses an interesting theory to this obsession with monsters and zombies.   He suggests that monsters can symbolize the scary part of good things; more specifically, he believes zombies represent technology.  I had never made the connection between zombies and technology, but the blogger does make some interesting and valid points.  He does not believe that technology or zombies are evil, they are merely taking over and threatening the livelihood of humanity.  There seems to be an unspoken fear that threatens our future, but it is never directly addressed.  This underlying fear seemed to be a common theme in all of the texts: fear of technology/zombies in the YouTube clip; fear of unfair advantages in “Harrison Bergeron”; fear of zombies and monsters in Night of the Living Dead; fear of unknown objects, events, and people in Welcome to Night Vale; and fear of many threats in the “Dystopian Timeline to The Hunger Games.”

            In many of the texts, the fear also seems to be controlled or suppressed by the government.  IN the story about Harrison Bergeron, the government uses sounds, masks, weights, and other distractions to prevent the people from having unfair advantages over others.  This idea that an oppressive government will control everybody in the future is one that has been around for a while.  As the “Guide to Dystopian Literature” reveals, novels about oppressive governments and a lack of freedom have been very popular and present since the 1930s.  Today, The Huger Games series is extremely popular.  It also depicts a world in which the government, or “The Capitol”, controls the lives of the residents.  In the pilot episode of Welcome to Night Vale, there are mentions of government agencies and helicopters, city councils, and business associations.  There seem to be very strange and unknown events, sightings, and occurrences in Night Vale, but the public is not given much information about any of these things.  It seems that the podcast is only supposed to provide limited amounts of information to its ‘public’ because the government does not want the residents to be privy to certain information.  Even at the end of Night of the Living Dead, the police and either a detective or government worker investigate the house and end up shooting the man.  A sense that the government is looking over your shoulder is present throughout the texts in this unit.  I think that the creator of the YouTube clip was definitely onto something by believing that zombies, monsters, or dystopian futures can be symbolic of present fears.  So, do we obsess over these dystopian and scary futures because we believe they will never happen to us?  Or do we obsess over them because we are trying to indirectly release our fears and let them be known?