Cat on a Hot Tin Roof--- 9/12/10

The last couple of class sessions we have been talking about the Tennessee Williams play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. For those who not read it (and everyone should, it’s an amazing piece of work) the play tells the story of a wealthy Mississippi family. The events are untold through the course of one day. During this day, issues of mortality, marriage, addiction, birth right and homosexuality are addressed with searing passion. The Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, written in 1955, was progressive for its time and still resonates with its contemporary audience

Big Daddy is the patriarch of the Pollitt family. He is a man who believes in hard work and is proud of the immense fortune he has made for himself. He is every bit the stereotype of a Southern plantation owner, but in many ways he much different than what you would expect. In my opinion Big Daddy is the most important character in the entire play. Throughout the play every character makes an attempt to understand Brick. Every character has their opinion about both Brick‘s alcoholism and his sexuality. Maggie, Brick’s wife, and Big Mama, his mother, try throughout the play to get answers from Brick, but they are never able to get more of a few words from him. Brick’s older Gooper and his wife Mae make up their own assumptions about Brick from conversations overheard through their shared walls. But it is Big Daddy who gets Brick to open up and speak truthfully about his relationship with Skipper and the source of his drinking problem. Big Daddy is persistent with Brick, just as the others are, but he relates to Brick’s “disgust with mendacity”. Big Daddy admits to hating his wife, his eldest son and his wife and kids. He admits that every day he lives a lie because “you’ve got to live with it, there’s nothing else to live with except mendacity…” (Williams 81). Hearing Big Daddy’s own admonition of hatred for his family seems to cause Brick to also release his own secrets and regrets. It is for this that I believe Big Daddy to be the most important character in the play. This strong wealthy, plantation owning Southern man was able break down his son’s defenses and extract more of the truth than any other character was able to. This symbolizes the type of man that I expect Big Daddy has been his entire life. Unafraid of obstacles, ready and willing to tackle them head first even if they are his own son‘s troubled life. So it seems understandable that Big Daddy is the only person Brick talks to about Skipper. Big Daddy seems invincible and strong, having returned from the doctor with what seems a clean bill of health, and the only one capable of carrying the burden of Brick’s secret. Any other character would have been too shocked to cope properly. Big Mama would have faint or sob, and Maggie would whine and baby Brick. But Brick is not looking for sympathy from anyone. He has too much pride for that, and so he tells Big Daddy. Who only listens as a friend and reassures his son. I was shocked by the reaction Big Daddy has to Brick when he talks about his relationship with Skipper. As I said before, Big Daddy is in many ways a stereotypical Southern farmer, but he is also incredibly atypical. I assumed that as a Southerner he would have little tolerance for a possibly gay son. But he does not get angry or shout at his son; instead he asks questions and delves even further into the truth. Most importantly Big Daddy does not allow Brick to “pass the buck” any longer. Big Daddy lays the truth out to Brick, “…We have tracked down the lie with which you’re disgusted and which you are drinking to kill your disgust with, Brick. You have been passing the buck. This disgust with mendacity is disgust with yourself.” (Williams 92).

Philosophy of Language and Jerry Maguire

This week in class we discussed theories of language and the ways in which language defines society. We read very different works about language. The first is from Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and the second is from French philosopher Jacques Derrida.




Saussure---”Course in General Linguistics”



Saussure argues that in language, every word, or sign, is comprised of a signifier and the signified. The signifier represents the visual or the actual sound of the word. Whereas the signified is the concept that is conjured in the mind by the signifier. Saussure calls this relationship between the signifier and the signified arbitrary. Every sign needs a context in order to be relevant. The sign’s meaning is wholly dependent on location and time. Saussure believes that no sign can exist alone. The sign always has an “other”. All signs have a binary relationship with “other” signs. However Saussure says that there is still a moment of presence when a sign is only a marriage of the signifier and the signified, and the sign’s “other” plays no role in defining the sign.



Derrida---”Difference”



Contrary to Saussure, Derrida’s philosophy of language is more encompassing of sign and its “other”. Unlike Saussure who believes the relationship between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary, Derrida goes even further to say that the sign itself is arbitrary. The sign is always dependent on time, place and its binary relationship. What the sign is not is just as important to its meaning as what the sign is. Derrida says that there is not moment of presence, where a sign exists alone. Instead every sign’s meaning is derived from its binary relationship. Modern day users of Derridian philosophers are lawyers and politicians. Derridian philosophy of language works to their benefit. Signs and their meanings can be manipulated to affect the audience’s understanding because no word stands alone the binary relationship will play in the audience’s mind. In the film Jerry Maguire, Jerry is a fast talking sports agent who uses language to his advantage. He uses language that can easily manipulated to his advantage. There is a scene where he asking his fiancé what people thought of him after he had been fired from his job. She ends up using the word “loser”. In Derridian philosophy, the moment “loser” is said is comprised of more than its signifier and signified but of its binary relationship to “winner” and the hierarchical relationship between the two.

American Psycho and the Post Modern Self----9/2/10

In this week’s reading, the author discusses identity. We all think that we have a handle on who we are. If asked today, who are you? We like to think that we could answer confidently and truhfully without any hesitation. Yet Barker suggests that perhaps the identity is not some entity created out of thin air and brought to fruition by yourself, with you being the biggest influence on your identity. But, that maybe identity pre-exists us. Anti-essentialist philosophy says that our identity is “culture specific”. That is to say that at the time of your birth the dominant culture, and the time and place that you live are already deciding what exactly your identity within your culture will be.




I must admit I found this all a bit “heady” and at times difficult to understand. But perhaps I was attempting to defend my own identity. That sense of self that I have always felt I determined for myself. I did not want society and its language to have such a hold on me that even though I think I have decided who I am; in actuality society had already made that decision for me.



Another aspect of identity is the concept of the post-modern self. The post-modern self is a socially constructed self comprised of multiple identities. This post-modern self is many things at many times depending upon what society requires of it. In class we watched a few scenes from the film American Psycho. The main character is a man named Patrick Bateman. In the first fifteen minutes you see vignettes of him having a fancy dinner with colleagues, paying his way into a swanky club, defending Jews from anti-Semitic remarks and taking us through his daily morning routine. In the end, while peeling a beauty mask from his face, he makes a startling declaration, “There is no real Patrick Bateman”. The mask itself symbolizes the different masks Bateman wears in his own life depending on society’s needs. He is a great example of the post-modern self. The movie takes place in the 1980’s on Wall Street and Bateman has been socially constructed to be every bit the commodity that society expects him to be. There is no real Patrick Bateman because every influence on his identity is materialistic and unreal. His life is so much based on the cold and the plastic that his identity is nothing more than extension of that. He is society’s coat hanger, so to speak, he wears the designer suits, drives the expensive car, lives in the high end condo and meticulously keeps up his appearance. Bateman’s identity is not fixed; it changes from scene to scene, just as the post-modern moves fluidly from identity to identity.

Popular Culture

Hello and welcome!!! This is my first ever blog. And quite frankly I’m a bit nervous, but excited. This blog will focus on popular culture. The word culture often provokes different feelings for different people. For some it is allusive and unattainable, available only to the rich and highly educated. For others it conjures images and ideas of far away places with ancient languages and customs that can never be truly understood by the modern human. And for others, like myself, culture both unifies and differentiates. My blog will serve as an outlet for my thoughts on popular culture and most importantly how it has defined, changed and perhaps revolutionized love and romance. The new type of love that is emerging is called RADICAL ROMANCE. Radical is not usually a term used to describe romance or love, but writers, artists, poets, musicians and everyday people are daring to break the norms of conventional love and romance and replace it with something radical. Romance and love will be explored through five different culturally important mediums, a novel, a play, a film, a television series, and a website. This semester should prove to be an enlightening experience that will force to look at my own ideas and beliefs on romance and love and just how large a part culture has played in shaping those ideas.