First comes love. Then comes marriage. Not quite. In our modern society, as Michel Foucault put it, “our epoch has initiated sexual heterogeneities,” and thus, our form of entertainment has progressed along to include more sexual heterogeneous situations. Whereas before there were clear cut expectations- man loves woman, man marries woman, man gets child from woman- those expectations were not only clear cut, but there was no divergence from that train of thought. Now, woman can love man, woman can have sex with man before marriage and if it doesn’t workout, woman can choose new partner, repeat, until woman decides man is right for woman to marry. And, that’s only if she chooses to get married. Though that seems to be the staple of our every day life, in celluloid, that is called “radical romance.”
In Clerks II, the protagonist, Dante Hicks, is a fry cook at a fast food restaurant, on his last day of work, who is engaged to Emma Bunting, a controlling woman who “probably wouldn't have given Dante the time of day back in high school” (Clerks II). Emma is extremely excited to be getting married to the underachieving Dante, albeit, after she has "already played the field for a decade." In the film we find out that Dante had been working in a convenience store for a decade before it burned down, and is now working at a fast food restaurant at the age of 33. His marriage to Emma is ensuring that he leave the state of New Jersey to work at a car wash (owned by Emma's father), to live in a house (bought by Emma's parents).
Dante, the character we are rooting for, isn’t a character without flaws. In a typical romantic comedy, the flaw of the male is that he wants sex. As it says in Tamar Jeffers McDonald “Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre,” “at the heart of every romantic comedy is the implication of sex, and settled, secure within-a-relationship sex at that.” Dante seemingly already has that with Emma, but then that would be the end of the story because they are a month away from getting married, therefore, Clerks II is not simply a romantic comedy, nor a sex comedy (since sex isn’t the goal), but a radical romance due to the steering away from the formulaic genre.
Dante’s flaw does not come in wanting to have sex. It comes in having sex with another woman, that woman being Dante's boss, Becky, a 20-something-year-old, which is now pregnant with Dante's child. Becky chooses not to tell Dante that she is pregnant because she simply does not want to jeopardize his engagement to Emma. Becoming pregnant after a one-night fling with Dante, Becky remains tight lipped about her pregnancy throughout the day (the entire film takes place in the course of one day). Another major flaw in Dante is the fact that he is willing to leave Becky behind, so long as Becky doesn’t say anything, just to ensure that he is able to forgo his plans with marrying Emma, a girl who Dante “isn’t too crazy about in the first place” (Clerks II).
Becky’s character can ultimately be described as a recherché and independent woman, whose personality is seldom seen in films and who is aware of both her sexuality and freedom as a woman. In fact, I would suggest that Becky is a "postfeminists." As Chris Barker's book, "Cultural Studies," describes it, postfeminists "are not necessarily oppressed by dint of being women. Not all men are oppressors and it is unhelpful to understand gender relations in terms of 'men vs. women.'" To articulate, Becky found herself in a situation where most women would succumb to feel the necessity of a man by their side for such a crucial event in their life, but, Becky’s “recognition of male loss and vulnerability" and "the understanding that women can wield sexual power" empowers her character beyond the typical romantic comedy female character that is constantly trying to get the attention of the man, or making themselves vulnerable for the male lead to save them.
I make the same argument for Emma’s character, whom after finding out she has been cheated on wastes very little tears before beating up and leaving Dante for his infidelity. After finding out about Dante’s adulterous act, she never played the victim, which is what a feminist would have done, but the postfeminist argues “ the performance of victim identity reinforces the myth that women are the ‘weaker sex’ they say, and risks perpetuating the power dynamic inherent between victim and perpetrator (or victim and voyeur)” (Barker). Clearly, neither of the women in the film are ever in any state of “weakness,” but rather stand tall with what has been dealt to them (Becky and unexpected pregnancy and Emma a cheating fiancée). This case also breaks the with a generic genre of romantic comedy which states “crying is frequently occupies an important space in the narratives of the romantic comedy: as an index of the pain a lover feels when apart from the beloved, when rejected or lonely.” Both Emma and Becky faced either a rejection or a state of isolation from Dante, but neither of them cried.
Although it may seem like Becky has become what Simone de Beauvoir called "just a womb," Becky's character is not debilitated by becoming pregnant with a man who is about to get married to another woman. Also, in opposition of de Beauvoir's statement, "[woman] cannot think of herself without a man." Becky does not tell Dante that she is pregnant until Dante confesses his love for her. This flips the tables again for what Barker has in his book which states "men are less inclined to verbalize emotions." Here, it is Dante who is confessing his love to Becky, while Becky never gave any inclination about her feelings (to her sex is just human nature and does not requisite the emotion of love, but more on that later), she describes her part in the affair as someone who just "fucks ugly, indecisive losers in the kitchen," but with a smile, of course.
Aside from the strong feminine characters’ personalities with how they deal with situations commonly associated with a female breakdown, Becky also exhibits an unconventional ideology about sex and marriage. In the first thirty minutes of the film, Becky and Dante have a conversation about marriage that is more inclined to the quote of Foucault. "I think marriage goes against our primal nature," "To be loved?", "[No], To fuck as much as possible." While Dante takes the role of 19th century conservatives who thought that sex and marriage "constitute[d] a sexuality that is economically useful and politically conservative," (despite not being too conservative himself), Becky's part in this dialogue goes from a "fact" Foucault had when he said, "this power [over marriage-less sex] had neither the form of law, nor the effects of the taboo. On the contrary; it acted by multiplication of singular sexuality. It did not set boundaries for sexuality; it extended the various forms of sexuality, pursuing them according to lines of indefinite penetration."
Becky is basically the spokesperson for Foucault’s eighteenth century ideas on sex and sexuality. Dante, being a very flawed male character, does not necessarily man up to the pregnancy, leaving Becky to assume that she will have to deal with her unborn child on her own. In her stride she goes to an abortion clinic and the film leaves it ambiguous (for some time) whether she made the appointment to abort it or not. That is another radical idea that is never mentioned in light-hearted romantic comedies. For instance, most comedies try avoiding the idea of abortion, never even saying the word, like in “Knocked Up.” When Allison, the woman who gets the honor of being the titular character who got knocked up, goes to her mother for advise, her mother asks Allison what she plans to do with her unplanned baby and suggests only to have it “taken care of,” never actually saying “abort it,” while Ben’s friend, Jonah, also tells him to “take care of it,” and continues to tell him to have a “schmishschmorshun.”
Becky’s character asked no one for advise, taking it upon herself to make the decision. Foucault “argues that from early eighteenth century onwards, women’s bodies were subject to the discourses of modern science. These discourses produced women as hysterical and nervous subjects while reducing them to their reproductive system” (Barker). That discourse that Foucault argued can be brought up in the comparison of characters between Allison from Knocked Up and Becky from Clerks II. As noted, Allison is told by her mother and is suggested by Ben (after getting advise from his friends) if she may want to abort it. Allison hardly knew Ben and yet she tagged him along for the ride throughout her pregnancy, despite him showing a distinct lack of interest. In opposition, Becky knew Dante was not interested and took it upon herself to deal with her situation.
I am not making an argument that people are stronger when they do not get support, but I am saying that Becky is not reduced to just her ovaries at any point in the film, even if she is pregnant, despite any lack of social support. Allison, on the other hand, is only picked on for her “hysterical outburts” caused by the imbalance of her hormones due to the pregnancy and despite having her mother, sister, and man who impregnated her by her side. Simone de Beauvoir said “woman has ovaries, a uterus; these pecularities imprison her in her subjectivity, circumscribe her within the limits of her own nature. It is often said that she thinks with her glands. Man superbly ignores the fact that his anatomy also includes glands, such as his testicles, and that they secrete hormones.” Despite what de Beauvoir stated is true, it is the woman who makes the excuse for the man saying that it is her “imbalanced hormones” that cause her emotional outbursts, giving Ben an excuse to come to her aid.
After Becky returns from the visit to the abortion clinic, Emma discovers the affair between Dante and Becky during a sex donkey show at the fast food restaurant where they work, which was a gift to Dante by his best friend Randall. Here Emma accuses Becky of being a whore, and ends the relationship with Dante by kicking him in the testicles. When it comes to Emma’s character and the categorization of whether this is more radical than typical romantic comedy, I took into consideration other films where this happens (i.e. male lead has wife, fiancée, girlfriend, etc., but chooses female lead and the one that got cheated on/replaced/rejected just accepts it without rhyme or reason). In the movie Twister, Bill Paxton’s character ends up with Helen Hunt’s character despite Paxton having a fiancée. As stated, the fiancée simply accepts it without questioning it. In Disney’s Enchanted, the same exact thing happens, which in all honesty makes a strong case for women’s inferiority as a sex.
Of course, in this film, Emma does not take it with a grain of salt and shows an actual reaction that is more likely to happen once a woman realizes they have been cheated on. Why is it that most mainstream Hollywood films have the woman succumbing to such a demeaning act? As de Beauvoir put it, “‘…man can think of himself without woman. She cannot think of herself without man.’ And she is simply what man decrees; thus she is called ‘the sex,’ by which is meant that she appears essentially to the male as a sexual being.” The women from Twister and Enchanted certainly fall into this “sex” category that de Beauvoir mentions, but Emma (nor Becky) does not. Using her better judgment, she leaves Dante without question again, making it a radical romance, where there is no chance of reconciliation.
What some may be argue makes this film a more typical romantic comedy is the ending of the film. Becky decides to keep the baby and Dante, in the most unromantic of ways, proposes to her through the drive thru window where they both work (I presume. The film never explains what Dante does during the 8 months after that he finds out about the pregnancy to whether he still worked with her or not), making it a radical proposal to a less radical trope. Still, if you compare The Graduate, which is categorized as radical due to the last 30 seconds of the film (the facial expressions of uncertainty shared by the two leads), then this film can also be assessed as radical because everything but the last 2 minutes is radical, including the characters personalities, actions and developments.
Though the formula for the typical romantic comedy is the “meet cute” blue print, where in short, “boy meets, loses, regains, girl,” Dante and Becky never actually go through any of those motions. The plot to Clerks II is ultimately a bit more complicated than that. Though it ends with the saccharine marriage proposal that all romantic comedies are indicted with, the trials and tribulations that get them there are the true marker that separates this would be generic romantic comedy and propels it to the likes of The Graduate and its predecessor Clerks, which doesn’t end with a marriage proposal but with an infidelity, a break up, a fight with a friend and no reconciled love life. The reason I chose Clerks II is because it is much more fascinating in its complicating categorization. Though some may argue that due to it’s conventional ending it simply is a romantic comedy, I have clearly argued against it, mainly just the ending.
With my arguments for and against "radical romance" and conventional romantic comedies, I cannot help to think that this movie is much more radical, than its predecessor and contemporaries. McDonald wrote that a radical romance is "[self-reflexive] as a modern and more realistic form of romantic comedy in contrast to earlier [film] texts," which Clerks II certainly is, but with all it's unorthodox plot points and characterizations, it found a median that other radical romances and typical romantic comedies cannot do. It provides a look at contemporary romantic life and problems such as unplanned pregnancy, infidelity, dead end jobs, unsure futures, and real life consequences to those mistakes. Dante did not end up winning the lottery to conveniently be able to raise a kid, have a home and maintain his bride-to-be, Emma left Dante without looking back, and Becky continues working at her “McJob” because bills need to be paid.
Isn’t that what makes The Graduate a quintessential radical romance, uncertainty
of the choices made? There’s a feeling of happiness in knowing that despite Dante is imperfect he still get s the girl, but he doesn’t know what will happen. As Benjamin and Elaine ride off in the bus, and as Dante and Becky move forward into a future, uncertainty is present, just like in real life.
Work Cited
Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage
Publication, 2008.
Clerks II. DVD. Dir. Kevin Smith. View Askew Productions, 2006.
De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. 1949.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. 1870.
Knocked Up. DVD. Dir. Judd Apatow. Universal Pictures, 2007.
McDonald, Tamar Jeffers. Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre. London:
Wallflower, 2007. Pg. 9, 15, 67
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Maybe She's Born With It...
Dissatisfaction. Nobody doesn't have it (everybody has it). Whether a person is dissatisfied with their job, their adequacy in their child's education- but we are Americans so more likely that dissatisfaction will be in looks. Nose not "white" enough? Rhinoplasty! Hair not Caucasian enough? A mix of peroxide and a hair straightener will fix that. Skin not pale enough? Bleach it. Everything a person needs to become more beautiful (i.e. Caucasian-like) to satiate that physical dissatisfaction is available and it is no coincidence that all of it a in a profitable market.
Susan Bordo takes on the issue of women who do plastic surgery, wear color contacts, dye, straighten and sleek their hair in the name of just wanting to feel beautiful, but not because media dictates what is beautiful. Or so they think.
In "'Material Girl': The Effacements of Postmodern Culture," Bordo has several quotes from women who are defending colored contacts and an ad that suggests that "Brown eyes [get] a second look," because brown eyes are ugly. Okay, so it doesn't say that brown eyes are ugly, but they assuredly imply it. Why be satisfied with dull brown eyes (which is the prevalent color in ALL minorities) when you can have blue eyes (like white people) and green eyes (like white people). Essentially white is right, but that is definitely unfair to Caucasians for the simple fact that white women are just as unsatisfied with their looks as any other woman. Bordo says, "if we are never happy with ourselves, it is implied, that is due to our female nature, not to be taken too seriously or made into a 'political question.'" So if all women are dissatisfied with how they look, but all of them are flocking to look a certain way, who is dictating what beautiful is? Who better to tell a woman how she looks but... a man.
Of course a man would be behind the pressures of being a certain kind of beautiful. Even Oprah Winfrey cannot escape the perception of what "beautiful" is. "Oprah Winfrey admitted on her show that all her life she has desperately longed to have 'hair that swings from side to side' when she shakes her head." Bordo said it was Oprah "[revealing] the power of racial, as well a gender normalization, normalization not only to 'femininity,' but to the Caucasian standards of beauty that still dominate on television, in movies, [and] in popular magazines." So when one of the wealthiest women of the world admits that all the money in the world could buy her hair happiness, does everyday Jane have to worry? (As a small tidbit, the richest woman in world is Liliane Bettencourt, daughter of Eugene Schueller).
So how are men controlling fashion and beauty statements for men? Is it outright that men are perpetuating what you should look like? Don't women have sort of freedom or say on the matter? According to a girl in class, she stated that growing up she always wanted "blonde hair," and eye lashes like "hers (pointing to another girl in class who had curvy lashes)." Well companies are giving you freedom. For example Maybelline:
Maybelline doesn't hide that they are instilling a beauty that you don't have. They are downright telling you, thus giving you freedom and power. A power that ads and television give you, but as cultural critic John Fiske said, "the subordinate may be disempowered, but they are not powerless. There is a power in resisting power, there is a power in maintaining one's social identity in opposition to that proposed by the prominent ideology." So according to Fiske we have power to say "no, straight and sleek is just as good as wavy and curly." But what if even in magazines that are meant to support your unique look if you are black, or Latina you are reading articles that illustrates beauty as a white, thin, blonde hair, blue eyed woman. "This invitation to cognitive dissonance reveals what Essence must grapple with in every issue, as it tries to keep its message clear and dominant, while submitting to economic necessities on which it survival depends.
So as I mentioned before, who are the powers to be that make a specific beauty so? As professor Wexler mentioned, maybe all the people in charge are white, blonde hair, blued-eyed men who want to keep them as a societal norm. Of course that too is changing as the Latino population is growing. Maybe soon the market will find it more profitable to have this on covers:
Of course, ads are for making money, and just a couple of seconds of make-up will not make you beautiful. That takes an entire team and perfect lighting. Maybe she's born with it... maybe not.
 |
| Loreal's new make up that makes you beautiful (and several shades lighter it seems) |
In "'Material Girl': The Effacements of Postmodern Culture," Bordo has several quotes from women who are defending colored contacts and an ad that suggests that "Brown eyes [get] a second look," because brown eyes are ugly. Okay, so it doesn't say that brown eyes are ugly, but they assuredly imply it. Why be satisfied with dull brown eyes (which is the prevalent color in ALL minorities) when you can have blue eyes (like white people) and green eyes (like white people). Essentially white is right, but that is definitely unfair to Caucasians for the simple fact that white women are just as unsatisfied with their looks as any other woman. Bordo says, "if we are never happy with ourselves, it is implied, that is due to our female nature, not to be taken too seriously or made into a 'political question.'" So if all women are dissatisfied with how they look, but all of them are flocking to look a certain way, who is dictating what beautiful is? Who better to tell a woman how she looks but... a man.
 | ||
| Eugene Schueller, founder of L'Oreal. This guy looks like someone who knows beauty in women. |
So how are men controlling fashion and beauty statements for men? Is it outright that men are perpetuating what you should look like? Don't women have sort of freedom or say on the matter? According to a girl in class, she stated that growing up she always wanted "blonde hair," and eye lashes like "hers (pointing to another girl in class who had curvy lashes)." Well companies are giving you freedom. For example Maybelline:
 |
| Maybe you were lucky to be born with features that we made up, but in case you weren't, we have a solution. |
So as I mentioned before, who are the powers to be that make a specific beauty so? As professor Wexler mentioned, maybe all the people in charge are white, blonde hair, blued-eyed men who want to keep them as a societal norm. Of course that too is changing as the Latino population is growing. Maybe soon the market will find it more profitable to have this on covers:
 |
| Yes, that is a Latina without lighting her skin, hair or eyes |
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
I Thought Love Knew No Bounds
First comes love. Then comes marriage. Not quite. In our modern society, as Michel Foucault put it, “our epoch has initiated sexual heterogeneities,” and thus, our form of entertainment has progressed along to include more sexual heterogeneous situations.
So we come to “Clerks II,” which I am not too quick to call romantic comedy, but ultimately, its saturated ending makes it so. As Tamar Jeffers McDonald’s book, “Romantic Comedy,” says, “a romantic comedy is a film which has as its central narrative motor a quest for love, which portrays this quest in a light-hearts way and almost always to a successful conclusion.” Yes, there is a successful conclusion in the plot, but it is how it got there that makes it a not-too-generic, borderline radical romance film. Therefore, I am apprehensive to fully categorize it just as a romantic comedy, but not quick to say it is a complete radical romance on the levels of “The Graduate” or a sex comedy like “10.”
In Clerks II, our protagonist, Dante Hicks, is a fry cook at a fast food restaurant, on his last day of work, who is engaged to Emma, a controlling woman who "probably wouldn't have given [Dante] the time of day back in high school."
As can be seen, Emma is extremely excited to be getting married to the underachiever, Dante, albeit, after she has "already played the field for a decade." In the film we find out that Dante had been working in a convenience store for a decade before it burned down, and is now working at a fast food restaurant at the age of 33. His marriage to Emma is ensuring that he leave the state of New Jersey to work at a car wash (owned by Emma's father), to live in a house (bought by Emma's parents). None of it is in the name of love.
Dante's boss, Becky, all the while, is pregnant with Dante's child, choosing not to tell him this because she simply chooses not to be open with him about it, not wanting to jeopardize his engagement to Emma.
Becoming pregnant after a one-night fling with Dante, Becky remains tight lipped about her pregnancy throughout the day (the entire film takes place in one day). If not for this fact, Becky would ultimately be an independent woman who is aware of both her sexuality and freedom as a woman. In fact, I would suggest that both Emma and Becky are "postfeminists." As Chris Barker's book, "Cultural Studies," describes it, postfeminists "are not necessarily oppressed by dint of being women. Not all men are oppressors and it is unhelpful to understand gender relations in terms of 'men vs. women.'" To articulate, both Emma and Becky are in high standings in a socio-economic status, "the recognition of male loss and vulnerability" (Dante finding out he's fathering a child and Emma kicking his ass for finding out he's fathering a child that isn't hers), and finally "the understanding that women can wield sexual power."
Although it may seem like Becky has become what Simone de Beauvoir calls "just a womb," Becky's character is not debilitated by becoming pregnant with a man who is about to get married to another woman. Also, in opposition of de Beauvoir's statement, "[woman] cannot think of herself without a man." Becky does not tell Dante that she is pregnant until Dante confesses his love for her. This flips the tables again for what Barker has in his book which states "men are less inclined to verbalize emotions." Here, it is Dante who is confessing his love to Becky, while Becky never gave any inclination about her feelings, she describes her part in the affair as someone who just "fucks ugly, indecisive losers in the kitchen," but with a smile, of course.
Another subject the film takes into matter is that of sex and marriage. In the first thirty minutes of the film, Becky and Dante have a conversation about marriage that is more incline to the quote of Foucault. "I think marriage goes against our primal nature," "To be loved?", "[No], To fuck as much as possible." While Dante takes the role of 19th century conservatives who thought that sex and marriage "constitute[d] a sexuality that is economically useful and politically conservative," (despite not being too conservative himself), Becky's part in this dialogue goes from a "fact" Foucault had when he said, "this power [over marriageless sex] had neither the form of law, nor the effects of the taboo. On the contrary; it acted by multiplication of singular sexuality. It did not set boundaries for sexuality; it extended the various forms of sexuality, pursuing them according to lines of indefinite penetration." From this radical look at romance, the movie slips back into the more conventional by the end ensuring the romantic comedy ending.
As the plot comes to a climax, Emma discovers the affair between Dante and Becky during a sex donkey show at the fast food restaurant where they work, which was a gift to Dante by his best friend Randall.
Emma accuses Becky of being a whore, kicks Dante in the balls and slams a cake she had baked for him in his face (maybe as a symbol that she won't bake like an idealized woman... and she won't get cheated on and stand for it either).
What leads this movie into the conventional is that ultimately, Becky decides to keep the baby and Dante, in the most unromantic of ways, proposes to her through the drive thru window, making it a radical proposal to a less radical trope.
With my arguments for and against "radical romance" and conventional romantic comedies, I cannot help to think that this movie would have been considered a radical romance had it ended as part one did with both women leaving Dante. McDonald wrote that a radical romance is "[self-reflexive] as a modern and more realistic form of romantic comedy in contrast to earlier [film] texts," which it Clerks II certainly is, but with all it's unorthodox plot points and characterizations, it just ends falling for a happy ending–which truthfully isn't always a bad choice.
Work Cited
Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publication,
2008.
De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. 1949.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. 1870.
McDonald, Tamar Jeffers. Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre. London:
Wallflower, 2007. Pg. 9; 67
So we come to “Clerks II,” which I am not too quick to call romantic comedy, but ultimately, its saturated ending makes it so. As Tamar Jeffers McDonald’s book, “Romantic Comedy,” says, “a romantic comedy is a film which has as its central narrative motor a quest for love, which portrays this quest in a light-hearts way and almost always to a successful conclusion.” Yes, there is a successful conclusion in the plot, but it is how it got there that makes it a not-too-generic, borderline radical romance film. Therefore, I am apprehensive to fully categorize it just as a romantic comedy, but not quick to say it is a complete radical romance on the levels of “The Graduate” or a sex comedy like “10.”
In Clerks II, our protagonist, Dante Hicks, is a fry cook at a fast food restaurant, on his last day of work, who is engaged to Emma, a controlling woman who "probably wouldn't have given [Dante] the time of day back in high school."
 |
| Emma and Dante. |
Dante's boss, Becky, all the while, is pregnant with Dante's child, choosing not to tell him this because she simply chooses not to be open with him about it, not wanting to jeopardize his engagement to Emma.
 |
| Despite what it says, Becky is not ALWAYS Open |
Although it may seem like Becky has become what Simone de Beauvoir calls "just a womb," Becky's character is not debilitated by becoming pregnant with a man who is about to get married to another woman. Also, in opposition of de Beauvoir's statement, "[woman] cannot think of herself without a man." Becky does not tell Dante that she is pregnant until Dante confesses his love for her. This flips the tables again for what Barker has in his book which states "men are less inclined to verbalize emotions." Here, it is Dante who is confessing his love to Becky, while Becky never gave any inclination about her feelings, she describes her part in the affair as someone who just "fucks ugly, indecisive losers in the kitchen," but with a smile, of course.
Another subject the film takes into matter is that of sex and marriage. In the first thirty minutes of the film, Becky and Dante have a conversation about marriage that is more incline to the quote of Foucault. "I think marriage goes against our primal nature," "To be loved?", "[No], To fuck as much as possible." While Dante takes the role of 19th century conservatives who thought that sex and marriage "constitute[d] a sexuality that is economically useful and politically conservative," (despite not being too conservative himself), Becky's part in this dialogue goes from a "fact" Foucault had when he said, "this power [over marriageless sex] had neither the form of law, nor the effects of the taboo. On the contrary; it acted by multiplication of singular sexuality. It did not set boundaries for sexuality; it extended the various forms of sexuality, pursuing them according to lines of indefinite penetration." From this radical look at romance, the movie slips back into the more conventional by the end ensuring the romantic comedy ending.
As the plot comes to a climax, Emma discovers the affair between Dante and Becky during a sex donkey show at the fast food restaurant where they work, which was a gift to Dante by his best friend Randall.
 |
| A Donkey show for a going away party. Why not? |
What leads this movie into the conventional is that ultimately, Becky decides to keep the baby and Dante, in the most unromantic of ways, proposes to her through the drive thru window, making it a radical proposal to a less radical trope.
With my arguments for and against "radical romance" and conventional romantic comedies, I cannot help to think that this movie would have been considered a radical romance had it ended as part one did with both women leaving Dante. McDonald wrote that a radical romance is "[self-reflexive] as a modern and more realistic form of romantic comedy in contrast to earlier [film] texts," which it Clerks II certainly is, but with all it's unorthodox plot points and characterizations, it just ends falling for a happy ending–which truthfully isn't always a bad choice.
Work Cited
Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publication,
2008.
De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. 1949.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. 1870.
McDonald, Tamar Jeffers. Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre. London:
Wallflower, 2007. Pg. 9; 67
Thursday, October 7, 2010
What I Contributed to Sula?
“Sula” really leant itself to coming up with many discussion topics. Finding how to have eight people work together, bounce off ideas, and get everyone in class to participate was a difficult, but not impossible. At the end, the group worked well together because we all contributed.
As to what I contributed to the group was topics at hand when we had no idea where our direction of discussion was headed. In the brain-storming process, I gave ideas (that were and were not ultimately used). Some ideas that were not used were the ideas of xenophobia, especially with the Sula and Shadrack characters whom the town distanced themselves from for varying reasons. I also made sure we steered the course with keeping with “Radical Romance,” which the novel made simple with its topics, themes and issues.
Ultimately, we chose binaries. I suggested “The Bottom/Valley” binary and the one that I researched, which was “Traditional/Non-traditional Gender roles” in the book. I picked out four passages from the book and did the questions for the gender portion of our discussion as well.
In one of our get-togethers I also brought up potential theories we could use, such as Derrida’s differance, and DeBouvoir’s quote “a woman is a womb,” which I did not discuss in class. Another theory I mentioned was Saussure’s “Sign,” but it became too convoluted to use.
As to what I contributed to the group was topics at hand when we had no idea where our direction of discussion was headed. In the brain-storming process, I gave ideas (that were and were not ultimately used). Some ideas that were not used were the ideas of xenophobia, especially with the Sula and Shadrack characters whom the town distanced themselves from for varying reasons. I also made sure we steered the course with keeping with “Radical Romance,” which the novel made simple with its topics, themes and issues.
Ultimately, we chose binaries. I suggested “The Bottom/Valley” binary and the one that I researched, which was “Traditional/Non-traditional Gender roles” in the book. I picked out four passages from the book and did the questions for the gender portion of our discussion as well.
In one of our get-togethers I also brought up potential theories we could use, such as Derrida’s differance, and DeBouvoir’s quote “a woman is a womb,” which I did not discuss in class. Another theory I mentioned was Saussure’s “Sign,” but it became too convoluted to use.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Ethnography
“Radical romance” is much harder to come by in a public place than I anticipated. I went to Disneyland to observe, and catch a glimpse of “radical romance,” but instead was surprised that much romance stayed in the realm of the status quo. What I mean is I used a “traditional” sense of romance: heterosexual and of the same race to define “traditional.” This was my criterion for trying to find “non-traditional,” which would go into the realm of interracial couples and homosexual couples.
I decided to do my observation at Disneyland. In a park that boasts 50,000 guests on an average day, I thought that in an hour’s time there would be plenty of both “traditional” and “non-traditional” romance to abound. This was not the case.
In the entire hour of observing guests walk by whilst I waited for a parade to start, I saw only four interracial couples and only one homosexual couple. Strangely, all four interracial couples were a Caucasian male and an Asian female. The other “non-traditional” couple was a lesbian couple that had three children with them. One was in a stroller and the other two were approximately the same age (around four years old). I could not believe that in an hour of observing people going back and fourth, only five couples were “non-traditional.”
Moving on to the “traditional” side of romance, I wrote down notes on who was in charge of the children. I focused my attention on families with kids, paying close attention to who was taking care of the children. Unsurprisingly, with four families sitting around me, it was the mother who was running around after the children in all four instances while the father either stayed sitting or was only talking to the oldest (in a show of coincidence, the oldest in all four families was a male but none of them older than the age of eight).
In analyzing why there was such a shortage of interracial couples, I looked no further than everyone’s favorite baby-sitter, television. A couple in either television or movies is rarely portrayed as interracial, and when they are, most of the times it is met with reluctance from either one or both families of the people in the relationship. Many of the times this reluctance is caused by the fact that the families just don’t understand the others culture.
Recently I saw a romantic comedy called “Our Wedding” where a Mexican woman was going to marry a black man. All the plans are going to hell because both families want to have a “traditional” wedding. By traditional, I mean, by their cultural customs. In real life this is a real obstacle for some. The fact is getting in a relationship with a person of your own race eliminates having to accept customs from a completely different culture, religion or race. When I dated a Jewish girl, her immediate family was cautious of me and the rest of her family was extremely worried that I was a gentile. My family (which consists of just my Catholic mother and I) was much more accepting as my mom’s bosses are all Jewish and I have always known about the Jewish culture through them. The point is, race is seriously much ado about nothing, until it get involved with your son or daughter.
The second point of analysis that I wanted to bring to light was the role of the woman, the mother, in the “traditional” romances. As Simone de Beauvoir wrote the “woman is a womb.” I noticed that the older children were all bonding with their father while the mothers all took care of the younger ones (either toddlers or infants still). At one point in my observation I noticed that one mother went to the restroom without having her two boys noticing (one was about 4 and the other about 6). When the younger brother asked, “where’s mommy?” the dad never looked up at what the boy wanted (the dad was looking at the Disneyland map) and the boy ran off. The older brother had to run after the brother as the dad unenthusiastically yelled for his son.
This is completely a guess, but in that family I perceived that it wasn’t the man’s job to take care of the little boy. Even when the mother wasn’t present, it was up to the older brother to calm the younger brother down and assure him that mommy was coming back. As I wrote in my notes, “Eventually the older boy spotted the mother coming back off in the distance which made the younger brother start jumping for joy. The father remained as unenthusiastic as ever.”
Another thing de Beauvoir wrote was “in truth, to walk with one’s eyes open is enough to demonstrate that humanity is divided in two classes of individuals whose… occupations are manifestly different.” In the case of the four families, the woman’s job was to care for the children and attend to them, somehow even when they are not present.
“Traditional vs. non-traditional” and man vs. woman in a relationship is adherent to our society now. Whether reinforced by the movies we watch or the ideals we pass down, changes are made, but they are simply superficial. There is still a clear divide between what is right and what is “right.” To view people and realize that the norm hasn’t changed much since the civil rights movement is still shocking, but I guess that is why when something is in fact out of the “ordinary,” it is regarded as a “radical romance.”
Thursday, September 16, 2010
The Romantic Comedy
As a guy, I can say that romantic comedies are not my best genre to be knowledgeable in. Or so I thought. Tamar McDonald says "a romantic comedy is a film which has as its central narrative motor a quest for love, which portrays this quest in a light-hearted way and almost always to a successful conclusion." Now, I can disavow any knowledge of ever having seen any romantic comedy such as "Pretty Woman," "27 Dresses," "Maid in Manhattan," and so on. In truth, critics call romantic comedies a lowbrow, none thinking 90 minutes of an excuse to get men laid for taking their girlfriends to watch it (okay critics may not say that, but they sure as hell think it). Romantic comedies are thought of as "cliché" films. They are films that you know what will happen before when you watch the trailer for it. Hell, sometimes just the poster gives it away.
The tagline says it all: Julianne fell in love with her best friend the day he decided to get married. Wow, there's a picture of Julia Roberts; she's removing the bride piece from the cake; and the title is "My Best Friend's Wedding." This movie cost $46 million to make and grossed nearly $300 million. Every person who entered that theatre knew the exact thing that was going to happen and yet it made more money then most cerebral films make.
There are many reasons people who continue watching this sort of movie. Mainly it helps us fantasize about an ideal that is technically unreachable, but who the hell would want to feel that. Who benefits from watching a film that you know the ending to? I'll cover that later. But trust me, somebody benefits and it isn't you miss dream wedding or mister I'm gonna get laid tonight (okay maybe him but for one night only).
Now, I'm being very tough on this genre. After all, this is a genre and a genre is only a word and as Saussure taught us, words are pretty arbitrary. At least connecting them to a specific something. As Derrida would further that, categorizing something is just plain futile. Are romantic comedies just brainless kinema? Is a romantic comedy always spewing celluloid of fantasy? Yes, but it doesn't ALWAYS have to suck. Enter the greatest romantic comedy every.
Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" is so great that it is the only animated film ever to be nominated for "Best Picture" for an Academy Award. As a Disney fan, I can guess that if it has a princess in it, it is a romantic comedy.
Aside from the aforementioned definition, McDonald gives us other criteria for it to fit in the rom-com genre: visuals (a.k.a. iconography), narrative patterns, and ideology. I will try to show how the greatest animated film ever fits smoothly in adherence to those criteria and how, despite fitting comfortably into the rom-com genre, it still makes the genre a little more respectable.
First things first: what do we see. The visuals and iconography. In "Beauty and the Beast," Belle- the plain, intelligent, independent and most sought after woman in her town- is too busy being independent and intelligent to realize she is being sought after. Things happen and she winds up meeting a beast (the "meet cute" narrative pattern which will be spoken about shortly). But this beast is no ordinary beast, he's a prince.
So they meet and there's everything that a modern day fairy tale romance needs: a castle, a screwy cast that is pushing the couple to be together (that happen to be animated inanimate objects), a man who wants to be with the girl, but everyone (including the girl) knows that hes not good enough for her, and most iconic of all from this film: the big first date with that special dress.
We have our visuals and icons we are all use to, now the cookie cutter narrative pattern. This is called the "meet cute" pattern. It is "boy meets, loses, regains, girl." Now here's a curve ball since in this film you switch the roles of boy to girl. Belle meets the beast, loses him (when he "dies") and regains him (when she cries, him, another trope of the rom-com genre, and that somehow resurrects him). So far so good. The movie never veers of course from this, only adding the occasional Academy Award winning musical into the mix (suck on that Clarice).
Finally, the ideology. What is the purpose of this film? Remember when I posed that question earlier? Well, what can a 1991 children's animation film in the category of romantic comedy offer to us Americans? Well, aside from the fantasy of happily ever after, what else? The books says "at the heart of every romantic comedy is the implication of sex, and settled, secure, within-a-relationship sex at that." So mister I'm getting laid tonight, are you willing to commit? Miss independent, I don't need no man, wouldn't you rather feel safe and secure?
Well that's what most romantic comedies want to assure: one is capable of achieving a trusting, and aove all else, everlasting relationship. How does society benefit from watching a strong woman succumb to a gruff and tough monster of a man (literally) who abuses her, isolates her from her family and imprisons her in his dungeon and tells her to starve if she isn't willing to have dinner with him? Better yet, how does capitalism benefit from it? Well seeing as the woman tames her man and then gets a beauty golden gown, little girls and even grown women begin to think "I'd look damn beautiful in that gown." Yes, walking around Disneyland you will see that for the very low low price of $72.99 you too can look like Belle. And then that everlasting love for adults? Well, you're going to need a big diamond ring to prove love will last forever. about $2 grand? Then the wedding? Roughly $25 thousand. Your new apartment? $1,200 a month for rent. Realizing it isn't going to work out:
So how can lowbrow, simplistic, cookie cutter storytelling cost you more than the cost of two tickets and some popcorn? Well, it's suppose to, and it does it quite well. Next time you think a romantic comedy is harmless and mindless celluloid, remember, is it worth it? Yes. Yes, it is.
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| Sherlocke Holmes spent YEARS figuring out who the groom would choose! |
The tagline says it all: Julianne fell in love with her best friend the day he decided to get married. Wow, there's a picture of Julia Roberts; she's removing the bride piece from the cake; and the title is "My Best Friend's Wedding." This movie cost $46 million to make and grossed nearly $300 million. Every person who entered that theatre knew the exact thing that was going to happen and yet it made more money then most cerebral films make.
There are many reasons people who continue watching this sort of movie. Mainly it helps us fantasize about an ideal that is technically unreachable, but who the hell would want to feel that. Who benefits from watching a film that you know the ending to? I'll cover that later. But trust me, somebody benefits and it isn't you miss dream wedding or mister I'm gonna get laid tonight (okay maybe him but for one night only).
Now, I'm being very tough on this genre. After all, this is a genre and a genre is only a word and as Saussure taught us, words are pretty arbitrary. At least connecting them to a specific something. As Derrida would further that, categorizing something is just plain futile. Are romantic comedies just brainless kinema? Is a romantic comedy always spewing celluloid of fantasy? Yes, but it doesn't ALWAYS have to suck. Enter the greatest romantic comedy every.
 | |||||||
| Best. Movie. EVER! |
Aside from the aforementioned definition, McDonald gives us other criteria for it to fit in the rom-com genre: visuals (a.k.a. iconography), narrative patterns, and ideology. I will try to show how the greatest animated film ever fits smoothly in adherence to those criteria and how, despite fitting comfortably into the rom-com genre, it still makes the genre a little more respectable.
First things first: what do we see. The visuals and iconography. In "Beauty and the Beast," Belle- the plain, intelligent, independent and most sought after woman in her town- is too busy being independent and intelligent to realize she is being sought after. Things happen and she winds up meeting a beast (the "meet cute" narrative pattern which will be spoken about shortly). But this beast is no ordinary beast, he's a prince.
 | |
| Not quite. |
 | ||||||||
| This lost to "Silence of the Lambs" |
Finally, the ideology. What is the purpose of this film? Remember when I posed that question earlier? Well, what can a 1991 children's animation film in the category of romantic comedy offer to us Americans? Well, aside from the fantasy of happily ever after, what else? The books says "at the heart of every romantic comedy is the implication of sex, and settled, secure, within-a-relationship sex at that." So mister I'm getting laid tonight, are you willing to commit? Miss independent, I don't need no man, wouldn't you rather feel safe and secure?
Well that's what most romantic comedies want to assure: one is capable of achieving a trusting, and aove all else, everlasting relationship. How does society benefit from watching a strong woman succumb to a gruff and tough monster of a man (literally) who abuses her, isolates her from her family and imprisons her in his dungeon and tells her to starve if she isn't willing to have dinner with him? Better yet, how does capitalism benefit from it? Well seeing as the woman tames her man and then gets a beauty golden gown, little girls and even grown women begin to think "I'd look damn beautiful in that gown." Yes, walking around Disneyland you will see that for the very low low price of $72.99 you too can look like Belle. And then that everlasting love for adults? Well, you're going to need a big diamond ring to prove love will last forever. about $2 grand? Then the wedding? Roughly $25 thousand. Your new apartment? $1,200 a month for rent. Realizing it isn't going to work out:
 |
| Capitalism seems to have it's own circle of life... different film tough. |
Friday, September 10, 2010
Has Anyone in This Family Ever Even Seen A Chicken?
Chicken! The word read out loud or to ones self brings an array or signified (conceptual) images to the head. Maybe a white chicken in a farm, or a chicken on a plate you're about to eat. Maybe even an egg.
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| Or if you're in the Bluth family, you've never even seen a chicken |
Ferdinand de Saussure laid it down pretty simply: either the the sound of the word (a signifier) brings up an image to mind or a picture brings to mind the word (signified). Both concepts together form a "Sign."
That's fairly simple to grasp. Complications do in fact arise as Saussure expected to. "This conception is open to criticism at several points. It assumes that ready-made ideas exist before words..." In other words, does something exist if we do not have a word for it. Is a tree a tree if we have nothing for it. This is similar to "if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it does it still make a sound.
For example, in Africa there use to be a legend of a human/monkey hybrid that would come from the mountains to kidnap humans to eat. It was rarely seen, but when it was, it was a ferocious and carnivorous creature the natives called "ngila."Of course they turned out to not be just things of myths and legends. These creatures do in fact exists. We just know them now as silverback gorillas.
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| Ngila |
This brings us to the first principle, "the principle between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary." The example of the gorilla all but proves this correct. The way I remember learning this principle was we know something is something by what it is not. Though this too can get confusing.
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| A mass of people amass at Sunday Mass |
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| A confused ngila |
Derrida may have stunned the world with this idea, but I still think Saussure had a point. Despite the instability of Saussure's definition according to Derrida, I believe it still works. Yes, a word is very limited and so is it's idea. For instance, the onomatopeia for a rooster crowing in English is "cock-a-doodle doo." It sounds natural since if you are reading this, I will presume you are English-speaking. In Nepal this same sound is "frooti-tooti tu." In Armenia it is "tsoo-ghoo-roo-ghoo."
Language itself is very unstable and Saussure had his fault in trying to oversimplify it, but it works for beginners. Derrida wanted to master language and thus his idea doesn't fly completely over my head, but is harder to grasp without simplifying it. Whether we are trying to conceptualize an ape, a rooster's sound or what a chicken is, it is varied since we all have different ideas, despite speaking the same language.
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