Blog #26 – Henry And June, My Thoughts

Okay, so I’ll be the first to say that I didn’t vote for this movie. I thought the one about transvestites would be quite funny and with the amount of sex we’ve had this semester (in this class and my other 3!) I wanted something different for a change. So needless to say when I saw that the rest of the class wanted to the watch the sex video, I was slightly disappointed.

But needless to say, I think the idea is very well done and the plot is nice, but I wish there wasn’t as much love making on camera. I don’t know about the rest of the class, but I feel so awkward watching those parts! Maybe I’m just embarassed and stuff, but I truck through it!

Over all, I think it’s a decent movie. I really like it so far! I see how it fits into our class, because both Henry and Anais are authors and they fall in love with each other for that talent (at least that’s what I saw from it). Not only does it fit in that technical way, it’s really about Anais’ journey to becoming who she is meant to be, despite how wrong some people might feel she is. Henry is really her call to this journey and he is also her supernatrual aid.

Add a comment December 8, 2009

Blog #25 – It’s Complicated!

So I was watching tv the other night and this advertisement for a new movie came on.  It was for a movie called “It’s Complicated” and I thought it had a similar theme with queer theory. When we talked about queer theory relating to anything that is different from the normal ideals of society, we discussed Middlesex being that in more than one way. One way being that Calliope was both a boy and a girl and then decided that she wanted to be a boy in the end. It was also related to queer theory in the fact that Lefty and Desdemona were brother and sister and fell in love and had a family. Practially all countries in the world label that as wrong, much like they would label being gay as being wrong.

The reason why I think “It’s Complicated” fits into queer theory is that it’s about a woman and man who were once married and hook up again, even though the husband is remarried to a much younger, prettier woman. I feel this works with queer theory because most people once they are divorced won’t hook back up with their ex-spouse. Not only that, but the husband, as I know, cheated on his former wife with the woman he is currently married to. Most of society would have kicked that man/woman to the curb and never came back! But this fits into queer theory because it doesn’t fit what society calls normal, even though from the commerical it seems to be that the woman’s friends really enjoy the fact that she’s having an affair with her ex-husband.

Add a comment December 8, 2009

Blog #24 — Queer Theory

On Friday, we discussed what Queer theory is and its significance in our lives. I thought for my blog I’d just give my thoughts on queer theory. I have a few friends that just came out since we graduated high school about being gay, and I feel with everything going on today about gay and lesbian rights, it’s a very relevant topic.

One of my very best friends came out last year and told us he was gay. At first, I was like, “Wait, what? You’re gay?” because he had had a number of girlfriends and never did the stereotypical ‘deny I’m gay like crazy’ thing. Even though I have a few other friends that came out years prior to this about being gay, it was still shocking to me, and made me feel even stronger than I did before about gay and lesbian rights.

My parents see very differently than my brother and I do when it comes to gay marriage. I don’t think they are wrong for their decision, but I don’t think they are right either. As we said in class, most of my generation grew up being raised to accept all people, no matter what their race, gener, religion, and sexual preference. So for my brother and I, when we’ve discussed such issues in the news, we feel that anyone in love should have the right to marry. My personaly opinion about this whole ordeal is that we are placing religion too far into our laws still, and while I believe in God and have faith in Him, I know our forefathers did not want us to mix church and state.

I chose the poem Equality to represent how I feel about this. (here’s the link: http://www.poetseers.org/contemporary_poets/maya_angelou_poems/equality/) Basically, the poem is about a person that is fighting for his equality. I’m not sure if it was written about a man that was gay or not, but I felt it sounded like it could have been the reason for writing it.

Add a comment November 16, 2009

Blog # 23 – Shug Avery and Celie

I’ve decided to do my blog on Shug Avery and Celie. I chose this because we had just watched the part of the movie where Shug sings “Miss Celie’s  Blues” and I remember back to the class where we discussed their relationship. After watching up just past where Shug leaves for Memphis again, I witnessed enough of their relationship to discuss how they interact within the movie. So, without further ado, I’ll discuss why Shug and Celie are each other’s guides according to the movie.

When Shug Avery arrives, she’s pretty ill. She calls Celie ugly and then lays in bed for a long while. When Mister tries to cook breakfast, Celie notices how he goes about trying to make everything perfect for Shug, only to have that breakfast tossed out the door and all over the wall. Celie then takes a stab at it and Shug doesn’t fling it all over the wall. Celie also took the time (and mostly because her husband demanded her) to take care of Shug. If it wasn’t for Celie, Shug probably would not have pulled through her illness. Even Shug realized that after a while.

As for how Shug helped Celie, in the book, they share an intimate moment over a mirror, which was basically Shug telling Celie that she was beautiful and she just needed to see it for herself. In the movie, Celie keeps covering her smile and Shug tells her that she’s beautiful and she shouldn’t hide such a beautiful thing. Celie was in dire need of a strong female character (like Nettie) to help her gain a self identity. Since Nettie hadn’t written, Shug served as that role. Celie even became attached to Shug before she even met her: She saw her in the photo graph that was kept by her husband’s bedside.

I chose the poem Yin and Yang  by Nicole Nicholson. (Here’s the link: http://ravenswingpoetry.com/2009/06/02/yin-and-yang/) Even though she states that the poem is written about her and her fiance, I felt that it portrayed Shug and Celie just as well. Both Yin and Yang are wandering in misery alone, and until they come across one another, nothing is whole. Once they meet, it’s like all is well, because the one helps the other.

Add a comment November 8, 2009

Blog #22 – Project Summary

What I want to do for this project is to apply the monomyth and archetypes to the Pendragon series. I understand that the reading level of the series is far beneath me, but I just finished the final book (there are ten in total) this past month. The series, which I started when I was in 8th grade, has been slow in coming, and since I had just finished it completely, I feel it is fresh enough in my mind that I could disect it very thoroughly and more accurately than a novel I read last year.

The series, even though it’s ten separate books, is one giant story, and that is where I would like to make the monomyth and archetype connections. I don’t want to get each book’s plot involved, because that would be just too much work for one person to handle with this amount of time. I will instead, like I said, disect the major plot that extends from book one to book ten. There is still ample amount of information for me to work with to apply the monomyth and the different archetypes to the different characters.

I prefer to do this project myself, since I’m not the biggest fan of doing group work. This way, I know what information I need to cover and don’t have to rely on someone else to. I seem to always get people that don’t pull their weight on projects, so I plan on nipping that in the bud and flying solo on this project.

Add a comment November 3, 2009