"The Culture of Cruelty"

“The Culture of Cruelty”

I first found the article eye opening both to what some young boys and girls go through in the sweat of emotional development. 

There are so many differences not only between men and women, but between free and non-free peoples.  The giant leap into manhood, a leap filled with the potency of hope, shares the podium with a mound of other debilitating dilemmas that pay homage to a dangerous attraction - the mask of cruelty, which like cinema leaves its images trampled on the cutting board floor.

W.E.B. DuBois makes us aware of a “two-ness” when it comes to African Americans.  A double social identity, one lodged in the dominant White culture, the other found in the Black culture.  In one respect that “two-ness” is a conflicting identity that is familiar with what is necessary for survival in a dominant society of whites, but is also is trying to keep an African identity.  Assimilation is necessary for survival in this country, so here is a young boy who must negotiate his way through the valley of “The Culture of Cruelty” which necessitates more than an acquaintance with the dominant male image and autonomy, he must also understand survival demands he learn to “drop his eyelids” when challenged by Whites and in spite of everything, find a place where he is considered a man and yet be called by his name.

It is stated in the article, “Among themselves boys engage in continuous psychological warfare… creating an environment that pits the strong against the weak, …the power brokers against the powerless, and the conformity-driven “boy pack” against the boy who fails in any way to conform with pack expectations.”  My question lies in a murky area somewhere – if in fact the end result is institutionally to never be allowed acceptance even if the behavior a boy exhibits really does conform, the dangling carrot becomes the “boy pack” that he will never be  accepted into.  How then does that affect his position/status and where does that leave him within the culture structure he is trying so desperately to negotiate position?

I seriously wonder if “boys urinating on other boy’s belongings stemmed in simple “boy behavior”, or if it was a racial prank would a Black child’s reaction be racially motivated, or could that child ever see these pranks as simply “boy culture”.

“Boys who are under constant pressure to assert power or be labeled a weakling are more likely to level cruelty at others with little recognition of, or regard for, its emotional impact.  Boys are cruel, in part because they are afraid, and their need to defend against that fear is ironclad.”    Have we in this instance found the reason for physical abuse towards women or does this power assertion also turn on itself towards other men?  And if this is the case, can we accept this type of explanation for crime against women and is crime culturally and racially more evenly distributed now?  Does this window of understanding allow us to slacken our intolerance on crimes against women and children?  If striving for masculinity and equality lends itself to more pain perhaps we should be rethinking our cultural norms and becoming more intolerant no matter the cost.         

Responsibility

Assignment # 13

Responsibility

I believe in the old adage, "it takes a village to raise a child".  I really believe that it is true and that many of us would rather be absolved from any responsibility to anyone else including matters that challenge our thoughts and/or our actions.  While viewing the documentary about women in hip hop it was alarming to me that a female felt distance was the best way to handle someone else’s children when it came to responsibility – “if you don’t like what you see and hear turn it off, monitor your children, it is not my responsibility!”  I suppose I was floored because of my traditional thinking, a female should care about children theirs and others; I have since learned that my thinking is obsolete, and women no longer care about a neighbors child as it was back in the 50s and 60s. 

      Because of their own unresolved disgruntlements and disintegrated lifestyles our children suffer the consequences.  Hip-hop music attached to distorted sex has become a heat seeking missile with its target being children.  Why seek children – they are the most vulnerable, most able to soak in a message, our children have Columbine minds – the entertainment industry values that.  There are those of us who care about the fall-out, but often times the ones who are creating the image of this music really do not care, at least not about children who are not theirs.

            There are many different situations where role models unselfishly identify with those it models to.  For instance, during the 1960s Black athletes raised fists at the Olympic Games, an intense surge of power, respect, and representation was witnessed by the world.  We were in turbulent times in this country, times when Blacks were struggling for equal rights and recognition, a place of cultural significance.  So, the athletes carried the burden and the responsibility of the message to white America:  “We are intelligent, we are athletic, we are capable, we are not here to burn your town down or to be offensive, but we are here to exercise our craft.  Furthermore, we’re bearing the responsibility for all of those millions of other black people who will never get a chance to come to your television or be seen on your large screen, or on your local gridiron” (Open Mike – Michael E. Dyson 208.)   Today the higher profile our stars foster, the more demands they face, the more they turn a head towards the sky and move towards the idealism of middle class living (crass materialism) without challenging their ethical mind zones which had moved away from the people they claim to represent.

            This “bling – bling” culture has fallen in love with its own reflection throwing out traditional values and opening doors for glorified violence –the consequences of which are fatal for our children.  However, in all of those who are detrimental in their genre, there are those who are truly gifted poets who are addressing more than sexual prowess, deep pockets and other crass materialism that is leaving our children bleeding to death on both urban and suburban streets.    

As Tupac’s lyrics say, “Somebody help me.  Tell me where to go from here.  Cause even thugs cry.  But do the Lord care?”         

                       

Blogging

            Blogging has been a relief for me, as I am a rather painfully shy person, blogging has given a way of communication that was not available to me before this class.  I have found myself fascinated with the voyeuristic side of blogging and peering into my peers’ thoughts, their hopes, dreams, and dislikes helps me to see people more realistically.  My sometimes bourgeois thoughts don’t get off the ground when I read someone’s realistic opinion then there are other times when I would want to say, “don’t believe the hype”. 

            The other thing this blogging has given to me is respect for my own opinions, to stand behind them whether they are quirky, senseless, or profound.  I am learning to trust what I think, though I am sure that I will continue to grow and change, for this moment I am learning to honor my thoughts and others’ thoughts.

            Blogging has also taught me the scholarship of other students and what is required of one who wants to learn.  Though no one was filled to the brim with negativism, I believe people taught me by honestly critiquing my work.  They gave me deeper things to think on and different ways of looking at situations.  I really think my classmates are brilliant and thoughtful people who are intellectually free and who reflect critically on social and spiritual issues. 

            Somehow in this environment I have even noticed my thoughts are becoming more logical and my understanding of simple literature concepts are becoming clearer.  I consider this the textural part of my education now.  This part is the something I can feel, the substance of my education.  I have tasted the good and the bad and it is laying a wonderful foundation within me these teachings are combining to create a rich impression that will carry me through the balance of my education.

Language

Is where I have learned to hide my mountainous thoughts

Where I dress myself daily with vocabulary that I am not well acquainted with

And it is where I preen before the mirror of me

Wearing frocks of lingo that are enclosed with fire, I look noble neither nesting on guilt or shame

Someplace where thought is more than an acquaintance

But is a real companion

A lover of what he said, and what she said, and what she said too

Mary Joyce Franklin

            “Your silence

Will not

            Protect you”

Some of us—

We dumb autistic ones,

The aphasics,

Those who can only stutter

Or point,

Some who speak in tongues,

Or write in invisible ink—

Sit rigid, our eyelids burning

Mute

From birth

From fear

From habit

For love and money

For children

For fear for fear

While you probe

Our agonized silence,

A constant pain:

            Dear Eshu’s Audre,

            Please keep on

            Teaching us

            How

To speak,

            To know

            That now

            “our labor is

            More important than

            Our silence.”

Gloria T. Hull for Audre Lorde

            Blogging has given me a way to destroy the fear and silence in me.  I will be forever grateful.

     

responsibility

Assignment # 13

Responsibility

I believe in the old adage, "it takes a village to raise a child".  I really believe that it is true and that many of us would rather be absolved from any responsibility to anyone else including matters that challenge our thoughts and/or our actions.  While viewing the documentary about women in hip hop it was alarming to me that a female felt distance was the best way to handle someone else’s children when it came to responsibility – “if you don’t like what you see and hear turn it off, monitor your children, it is not my responsibility!”  I suppose I was floored because of my traditional thinking, a female should care about children theirs and others; I have since learned that my thinking is obsolete, and women no longer care about a neighbors child as it was back in the 50s and 60s. 

      Because of their own unresolved disgruntlements and disintegrated lifestyles our children suffer the consequences.  Hip-hop music attached to distorted sex has become a heat seeking missile with its target being children.  Why seek children – they are the most vulnerable, most able to soak in a message, our children have Columbine minds – the entertainment industry values that.  There are those of us who care about the fall-out, but often times the ones who are creating the image of this music really do not care, at least not about children who are not theirs.

            There are many different situations where role models unselfishly identify with those it models to.  For instance, during the 1960s Black athletes raised fists at the Olympic Games, an intense surge of power, respect, and representation was witnessed by the world.  We were in turbulent times in this country, times when Blacks were struggling for equal rights and recognition, a place of cultural significance.  So, the athletes carried the burden and the responsibility of the message to white America:  “We are intelligent, we are athletic, we are capable, we are not here to burn your town down or to be offensive, but we are here to exercise our craft.  Furthermore, we’re bearing the responsibility for all of those millions of other black people who will never get a chance to come to your television or be seen on your large screen, or on your local gridiron” (Open Mike – Michael E. Dyson 208.)   Today the higher profile our stars foster, the more demands they face, the more they turn a head towards the sky and move towards the idealism of middle class living (crass materialism) without challenging their ethical mind zones which had moved away from the people they claim to represent.

            This “bling – bling” culture has fallen in love with its own reflection throwing out traditional values and opening doors for glorified violence –the consequences of which are fatal for our children.  However, in all of those who are detrimental in their genre, there are those who are truly gifted poets who are addressing more than sexual prowess, deep pockets and other crass materialism that is leaving our children bleeding to death on both urban and suburban streets.    

As Tupac’s lyrics say, “Somebody help me.  Tell me where to go from here.  Cause even thugs cry.  But do the Lord care?”         

                       

ROCAWEAR

ROCAWEAR

Essence Magazine

            Was I floored, yes I was!  “My grandfather was a professor, my mother is a forensic scientist, I AM NEXT.”  The advertisement in and of itself was wonderful.  I found the advertisement in Essence Magazine, which is a magnet for Black women or women in general.  However, what I found within the advertisement itself was quite disheartening. 

            First, I noticed this ad for Rocawear was a two page advertisement.  The ad was filled with what most readers would associate with men, a desk, a lamp, a computer and keyboard, file drawers, a scientific formula on the board, more filing cabinets and what looks like some sort of carrying case.  There was also a stool for sitting and rolled up scientific plans on the floor (you know the disheveled look).  There was an electric fan (which is used as an emblem of kingship in Africa), and a beautiful little boy with a jacket on, some cute jeans, a shirt, and tennis shoes.  He is standing with his jacket open in a position of authority all of which is wonderful that is if a little girl was not sitting on an ironing table one page away.

            Her ad “My grandmother was a seamstress, my mother is a fashion designer, I AM NEXT.”  Her ad was a one page ad again for Rocawear in comparison to the male ad.  Her room does not have a computer, but it is filled with mannequins, a sewing machine with a small overhead lamp over it, a tape measure, a cutting board, an iron, lots of bolts of material, not even one pattern is shown (I guess that would have been too complicated for a female). 

            Where as the young man had no intention of removing his jacket (position of power), the little girl is seated on an ironing or cutting board, removing her jacket, the idea is very adult, there are women who find themselves in this position often – on a table disrobing. Where did the imagination go when it came to the ad for the little girl?  Or is it the same old clichéd situation between male and female advertisement, women really don’t need much, are not accomplished, and do not aspire to be.  It was pretty amazing that in the little girl’s work environment, there was no computer to be found.  Fashion designers make there own designs, their own patterns, showcase their own creativity, I saw no drawing boards for her, no filing cabinets and nothing to keep records with.  Where were her clients?  Who does she buy and sell to?  We seem not to have a problem with our imagination when it comes to males, but we run short when it comes to females.  Do I know that it is difficult to become a fashion designer, sure I do.  Do I know that there is nothing wrong with that aspiration – yes I know it!  However, Essence is a magazine that is geared to the uplifting of women, and how is that possible when the advertisement being used is male biased?  Does it cost to run a magazine, damned right it does?  Can we do a better job by being more sensitive to the needs of Black women – yes we can!  Do I not want our Black male children to succeed, absolutely I do, but this is a magazine for females.  Not only should we see non-traditional careers for women, but hope for our daughters as well.  The subtlety of it all is quite amazing, “my grandmother was a seamstress”, for what white woman?  I personally don’t want to see a big black iron (an emblem for too many Black women’s pain) plastered big as life on the page.  So, we go from seamstress, to fashion designer why not at least fashion house owner?   I know Rocawear is owned and operated by African Americans, but Rocawear for men shows its power, for women they are sadly lacking.           

Essence.com

            It is true that as technology takes this world into unfathomable places there are other places that are painfully developmentally delayed.  One of those delays is lack of fresh treatment of both women and men in messages from media. 

            Men still have the positive message of strength, roughness, toughness, fearlessness, decisiveness, a man of action.  Women for the most part (unless a special part is written for her as heroine) weak, indecisive, confused, ditzy, a wife, mother, girlfriend, sticks by her man, a toy, an object, sexy, wild, brainless, person who has babies.  She is often times made by men to please men, “Tell me you like me, you don’t have to mean it!” 

            These are still some of the roles we are fighting to outrun today.  If we look at the “hip Hop” generation and their videos, until recently most of them were “girls” dressed provocatively, and scantily, with no more than a role in the DVDs to stand wide legged, with their breasts showing, and behind hanging out.  Oh, don’t forget the gyrating all over everywhere.  So if this is meant to titillate, then who – you guessed right men! 

            There is no envy or flat out jealousy of men and their manhood, it is the privilege they have acquired for themselves at the expense and sometimes on the backs of women that has become such a stench in the 21 Century’s nostrils.  There were women from the 20^th Century who worked tirelessly for women’s rights, thereby gaining a new scale for men to ride upon, but it has met with heavy artillery from Left Wingers who do not believe women should work, or if she does it should only be as a secondary income to her husband’s because “we are still on the make a baby, stay home dribble”.  Women who were and still are by their legacy, Barbara Jordan a U.S. Congresswoman, Pauli Murray who was an attorney, priest and civil rights activist are seldom heard of in our world today, Lilian Welsh and Mary Sherwood both medical doctors and life partners, were instrumentally helpful in the women’s movement.      

     Stubbornly, in 1933 New York Times Magazine article said that “The College Girl Puts Marriage First” and quoted young women who said “most of us would chuck everything for marriage”, in 1980 “Many Young Women Now Say They’d Pick Family over Career,” A poll was taken of over 3,000 college students in which 77% of the women and 84% of men said they believed that mothers should not work with small children.  But in reality by 1998 46% of working age women was employed.  The more success women found in the 1980s and the 1990s the more articles were written about how women really could not have it all and showed women who had joyously given up high powered executive employment.

            Women are often found as objects and their bodies are objectified for TV and movies, even commercials.  If we look at Popeye and Olive Oyl we find Olive being treated as an object by both Pop Eye and Pluto while she is being pulled both ways all she ever does is moan and wail, she never decides who she wants, she always goes with whoever wins in the fight.  I do say the fight is never really about Olive Oyl, but it is about two men who are competing, might as well be a hunting match. 

            Where do we go from here – we should begin to look at our local newspaper and find ways in which women are given a back seat and complain about it.  We need to become much more vocal and air our grievances with media even our schools so that we begin to treat our children fairly.  I believe it is time we grew up and faced whatever consequences may come and run not walk run to the nearest hope and shout!      

Caricatures

Caricatures

Bathsheba

“I had a lover once, her name was Bathsheba.  She was a happily married woman.  I began to feel as though we were crewing a submarine.  We couldn’t tell our friends, at least she couldn’t tell hers because they were his tool.  I couldn’t tell mine because she asked me not to do so.  We sank lower and lower in our love-lined coffin.  Telling the truth, she said, was a luxury we could not afford and so lying became a virtue, an economy we had to practice.  Telling the truth was hurtful and so lying became a good deed.”

Bathsheba – Her names “Daughter of the Oath”.  Bathsheba was seduced by David who was mesmerized by her beauty.  Her personality was distinctly passive in regards to her relationships with her husbands, son and stepson.  Bathsheba was married to a soldier, Uriah the Hittite.  David had an adulterous relationship with Bathsheba in which she became pregnant.  This affair cost Uriah his life when David could not force him to leave his fighting troops and come home to have sex with his wife so the coconspirators could pass the child off as Uriah’s.  After Uriah was murdered, David married Bathsheba and the child from that union died. 

Indicative of Bathsheba’s name in the text she had taken the oath of marriage and was also a happily married woman.  Just as Bathsheba and David had to be co-conspirators in their story, it felt as if the Narrator and Bathsheba were coconspirators in their story.  They had a secret relationship just as Bathsheba and David did.  David tried to abandon his responsibility to Bathsheba, and tried to get Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, to come home from a war and have sex with his wife so they could blame this pregnancy on him.  Uriah’s loyalty to his troops and the code of ethics won out.  David eventually had Uriah murdered.    As David’s and Bathsheba’s relationship sank deeper and deeper into lies until Uriah was murdered, so did the Narrator’s and Bathsheba’s relationship sink until lies became a good deed.  They continued to sink into the lie of the relationship even after Bathsheba’s and David’s baby died.  Perhaps the Narrator’s and Bathsheba feared what would come out of the truth about their relationship, either the husband would find out or perhaps something between them would flare up.  Eros is not love; it is that beautiful erotic thing that we sometimes get confused with Agape.  The coffin is a hiding place, a place of protection for what these two people held priceless, themselves.  I feel that the Narrator has given us a brawl between truth and lies, David lost his child, our Narrator has not yet found ‘self’.   “…’I intended to tell you before we left but I forgot.’ I looked at her, sudden and sharp. I hated that ‘we’.  ‘Yes,’ she went on, ‘Uriah got NSU from a woman he slept with in New York.  He slept with her to punish me of course.  But he didn’t tell me and the doctor thinks I have it too.  I’ve been taking the antibiotics so it’s probably all right.  That is, you’re probably all right. You ought to check though.’”

Girlfriend

            “I had a girlfriend once who was addicted to starlit nights.  She thought beds belonged in hospitals.  Anywhere she could do it that wasn’t pre-sprung was sexy.  Show her a duvet and she switched on the television.  I coped with this on campsites and in canoes, British Rail and Aeroflot.  I bought a futon, eventually a gym mat.  I had to lay extra-thick carpet on the floor.  I took to carrying a tartan rug wherever I went, like a far-out member of the Scottish Nationalist Party. Eventually, back at the doctor’s for the fifth time having a thistle removed, he said to me, ‘You know, love is a very beautiful thing but there are clinics for people like you’  Now, it’s a serious matter to have ‘PERVERT’ written on your NHS file and some indignities are just a romance too far.  We had to say goodbye and although there were some things about her that I missed it was pleasant to walk in the country again without seeing every bush and shrub as a potential assailant.”  

The Narrator seems to need some independence here just as the Scottish Nationalist Party campaigns for an independence from the United Kingdom; and the Narrator desires independence from this relationship.     The other thing that is striking is that this ‘girlfriend’ has no name.  “To pronounce a name is in some sense effectually is to create or present it.”  For this person the Narrator saw no purpose or forgot the young lady’s name, an essential part of the person is missing.  There was nothing to set her apart from the other women except where they had sex, not even that they had sex set them apart.  Like so many women in the Bible who have no names, hence they were deemed unimportant, so should we deem this “girlfriend”?  Or should we just reckon she really did not exist?  After it is all said and done, the only thing we really know about this individual is she loved sex out of doors.  We don’t know anything about what she looked like, her favorite color, what she did for a living – nothing.  I wonder is that because the Narrator is stretching patriarchal family values or is it queer theory assuming again that sexual identities are fluid and the name is not necessary or is not having a name secondary to her sex life?

Inge

“I was in the last spasms of an affair with a Dutch girl called Inge.  She was a committed romantic and an anarcha-feminist.  This was hard for her because it meant she couldn’t blow up beautiful buildings.  She knew the Eiffel Tower was a hideous symbol of phallic oppression but when ordered by her commander to detonate the lift so that no-one should unthinkingly SCALE an erection, her mind filled with young romantics gazing over Paris and opening aerograms that said Je t’aime.…I thought I loved her and then came the pigeons….She forbade me to telephone her.  She said that telephones were for Receptionists, that is, women without status.  I said, fine, I’ll write.  Wrong, she said.  The Postal Service was run by despots who exploited non-union labour.  What were we to do?  I didn’t want to live in Holland.  She didn’t want to live in London.  How could we communicate?  Pigeons, she said.”

This episode in the text was really humorous which I found to be some balance to the more serious women the Narrator writes about.  Inge name means god of Ing, which is associated with the god of fertility, is an anarcha-feminist which is a difficult thing to accomplish alone let alone she is also a hopeless romantic.  But since romance is about a somewhat frustrated psychological quest, or impossible dream or passionate love thrown against a setting of impossible social or economic or psychological odds this seems to be fitting for Inge.  I found it totally hilarious and easily saw the romance in it.  It can be considered romantic to think of  destroying what man has deemed important “scale an erection”, and equally as funny to cancel it because one thinks of young lovers in Paris.  Though Inge is difficult to believe, and obviously has chosen a difficult way to communicate, I think I like her because she is so unbelievable.  I also note that I stated that Inge was unbelievable not the Narrator.  The Narrator is still objectifying women and their bodies.  Inge is a pair of breasts – no more – no less as to why the Narrator did not leave. 

Second Woman – No Name

“I had bought a new flat to start again from a nasty love affair that had given me the clap.  …this was emotional clap.  I had to keep my heart to myself in case I infected somebody. …The clap-giver was still with her husband in their tasteful house but she’d slipped me L 10,000 to help finance my purchase.  Give/Lend was how she put it.  Blood money was how I put it.  She was buying off what conscience she had.  I intended never to see her again.  Unfortunately she was my dentist.”     

This seemed odd to me that our Narrator could and would be bought.  I also find it odd for someone who has had successive lovers to now want a reprieve from sexual activity in particular.  I say sexual activity because that is where the Narrator took it, and then used the street name clap rather than the term gonorrhea.  Of course, if left untreated gonorrhea will affect joints, spreads throughout the body and will even affect the heart valves.  The flat was not  cared for, but neither was the Narrator.  The Narrator’s anger is oozing through the cracks.   Not to mention Bathsheba did come to the Narrator with a case of clap which was a negative for the Narrator.  This makes the Narrator unreliable in one instance it is an emotional clap, later there stands a possibility of real physical clap.

Jacqueline

            “I considered her.  She had no expensive tastes, knew nothing about wine, never wanted to be taken to the opera and had fallen in love with me. I had no money and no morale.  It was a marriage made in heaven.  We agreed that we were good for each other whilst sitting in her Mini eating a Chinese take away.”

May God protect or supplanter that is what Jacqueline means – Jacob.  Change had been discussed and the Narrator thought there was change, but that is not what Jacqueline saw.  “I thought you’d already changed.  You told me you wouldn’t do this again.  You told me you wanted a different life.  It’s easy to hurt me.”  At the very beginning there was simplicity and ordinariness, but not love.  Jacqueline came at the end of a relationship with the clap giver.  They agreed there would be no joy, but somebody forgot to tell Jacqueline to guard her heart.   Somebody forgot to tell the Narrator settling does not work it only prolongs the inevitable.  They forgot to tell that the next woman will be a married woman and maybe even the next.  Perhaps this is where Narrator found comfort with women who could only step into a Phileo love.  Even Jacqueline’s love was Phileo – it had conditions strapped to it - which the Narrator had changed or would change.   Then the Narrator finds agape with Louise, an unconditional love that wanted the best for Louise, there was a committed service kind of love.  Though I believe the competition between Elgin and Louise made the prize more endearing people like to win the hunt you know. 

            I believe the narrator is as reliable as many of us would be when flitting in and out of relationships.  It seems to be easier to live in a fantasy and have relationships fit around that fantasy than to live in truth and have to really transform.  Who did I see when I awakened this morning?  Who was I at mid-day?  When it is time to go to bed is there anything in me that I could have done better or changed, not for the betterment of someone else (though that is important) but what can I change to make life better for me.  If it is an attitude that could stand a change – then change it.  If it is negative thinking that needs to be changed, work on thinking positive a bit at a time.

            I believe the Narrator was definitely in love with Louise.  But how do you do love when you have not known love in that manner.  How frightening it must be to come face to face with the unknown and be helpless against it.  Maybe the Narrator will have more to give away next time around with some one else.  I believe that there are three parts to us humans, a physical side, a spiritual side, and a psychological side.  There are all different, but all in one person.  I also believe those are all shown at different times in our lives.  It does not mean that we are unstable, just that a different side is being shown.  If we really got down nitty and gritty of our thoughts – believe me, no one would recognize most of us!   

 

           

          

Extra Credit

Extra Credit

Extra Credit

            I really believe that both medium of communication are significant and we should value both for what they bring to us.  I think it would be better to create boundaries that are limitless rather than to construct ones that hold either the book or the film at bay.  My attitude towards either is they are both helpful, useful in the proper arena. 

            Mr. Cunningham’s writing is focused, and concrete.  There is risk taking that is offset by the book's originality, it’s grace and its commitment to the one day storyline.  Everything a writer sees, feels, emotionally touches, physical, psychologically and etc. must be there on the page to be seen, felt, heard and etc., whereas in a film one must rely on the actor to convey those things in what is said, or body language, or music, or scenery that will get the same result as the author of the book had intended.   

            I felt that the time order in the film was used well.  It brought each new character forth in a way in which you really could not miss the where of it all.  The way that both the movie and the book dealt with cause and effect was remarkable. 

Mrs. Dalloway’s memory of her kiss from Richard was great in the book, I liked the way the book constructed it like a lovely verdant walkway. 

“You kissed me beside a pond.”  

“Ten thousand years ago.” 

“It’s still happening.” 

“In a sense, yes.”   

“In reality.  it’s happening in that present.  This is happening in this present.”

…”We’re middle-aged and we’re young lovers standing beside a pond.  We’re everything, all at once.  Isn’t it remarkable?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have any regrets, really, except that one.  I wanted to write about you, about us, really.”   

            This was very climactic for me in the book; it allowed me to see Richard’s lovability and his vulnerability, his desire to give himself away to someone completely, wholly even to the memory of a kiss that he regretted not seeing where it could have gone.  The book seemed to maximize the emotional backdrop between the two of them; on the other hand the movie did not bring the vulnerable, desperately soft side of Richard out.  His dementia was more prominent in the book, that too was somewhat played down in the movie.  I think this writing about the past, the kiss, sharing part of their past helps to establish who they are in their own world now and how they might have been together.  Here I think the reflective writing was wonderful.  The personal questions, the purpose of examination, the voice of reflection spoke volumes.  I loved the way the movie along with the nuances made the reflections easy, no work, “here it is, come with me by body language, poses, facial expressions, the stop and think moments, we are all here let’s go further into the character.”   I believe Mrs. Dalloway’s attending Richard was duty, but their reflections upon each other and what they had that day and their questions were individuality.  

            There were other things in the book and movie that were really comparative, but both made me compare to other scenes for instance, all three women are interrupted in that day by two unexpected and one early visitor, all three had interest of death even Mrs. Dalloway was asked by Richard what she would do at his death.  Virginia Woolf lays her head down by the dead bird as if to examine it in death and Mrs. Brown dies a symbolic death with water covering her then awakens with a decision to walk away from the death she was living.  Mrs. Dalloway said, “When I am with Richard I am living, when not everything seems silly.”All three women were surrounded by books and even two of the men were involved with books.  Both the book and the film did well in establishing death and life.  Virginia’s death was her life and her husband’s life, Mrs. Brown walking away gave her life, and Mrs. Dalloway's life came after Richard’s death, Richard’s life would continue in his work.  I believe both the film and the book showed desire that was born and nourished in a deep passion, perhaps an imaginary passion and perhaps that is why it was so difficult to realize.     

            There were memorable places where the conflict of Person vs. Society was prevalent especially with Virginia Woolf and Mrs. Brown.  Fitting into and the responsibilities of a home, raising children, the responsibility of a spouse (whether male or female) can be difficult and can be unfulfilling.  Conflict for Mrs. Dalloway was more Person vs. Self both in the book and on screen seemed more challenging because she was in a lesbian relationship yet in love with a gay man.  First, I had to clear my own prejudices about such a relationship then it was easier to empathize with the characters of the story and understand the irony of it all.  Even the fact that we stick with our sexual identities when perhaps things might turn out better if we dropped the roles and just learned to go with what we really felt on the inside.

     

A Single Day/A Single Work Of Art

            I do believe that it is possible that a single work of art is capable of covering the enormity of human life in one day.  In fact, I believe that a single word can keep a person awaiting a hope, a dream for decades.

            Using Ms. Virginia Woolf’s style of writing, stream of consciousness, allowed Mr. Cunningham to write in depth, to expose the superficial to write the characters in a more intensified way.  The exposure gave the characters room to be natural in processing their thoughts, making some sense of their world.  For instance, on page 192 Mrs. Brown has picked Ritchie up from the sitter and they are on their way home, “Mommy, I love you…I love you too baby, …she can hear the flannelled nervousness lodged now in her throat, the effort she must make to sound natural.”  Most scenes or realities about mothers would never depict a mother making an “effort to sound natural”.  Most mothers are seen as perfect.  I think this was bold and different, but true to Mrs. Brown’s character, it is a peak into the character’s most intimate thoughts into her ill-ease with her child, her lack of nurturing skills, as well as awkwardness in being someone’s “wife”.    Thinking of the psychological level one is able to see past that one moment into Mrs. Brown’s being and understand that this is a part of who she is not just a moment she was caught up in time, but a real glimpse into her agitation with mothering and being a “wife”. 

            Sometimes intimacies are almost too privately valuable to share, but Mr. Cunningham makes this book work sharing loads of intimacies through these three women that otherwise would have died on the say “cutting board floor” had he not used a psychological realm to share them in.  A second intimacy is again Mrs. Brown who kisses Kitty in the sweetest and most intimate way, but then we find out that Kitty is the one who pulls away first.  What an intimate thing to know about Laura, she would take risks, her family, her position as that “wife”,  and that very friendship is on the line here and Laura accepts the “Laura is the odd one, the foreigner, the one who can’t be trusted.  Laura and Kitty agree, silently, that this is true.” 

            Mrs. Brown is currently reading Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway who is in a heterosexual marriage,  “…yet her most passionate memory is of a kiss shared thirty years earlier with a woman.”  It seems that Mrs. Brown is moving towards lessening constraints on herself as a woman, but there are yet anxiety driven intimacies that continue to stress life as one may want to live it.  Because Mrs. Brown has used Mrs. Dalloway as a source of strength to begin to move away from convention and to find some beauty even in her romance with death, she is using her to experience some shavings of life.  

            Mrs. Brown is locked into an asphyxiating marriage; symbols are used such as water, which allows a story to be told without the use of words.  Here we find water, the source of life, cleansing, and the center of regeneration.   In this part of the story Mrs. Brown is immerged in water, from which she awakens and decides to live.    To be immersed in water then to re-emerge without having been dissolved in the water is to return to the well-spring of life, to regain fresh strength, or to die a symbolic death.  Again, this is intimate to peer into a rented room and watch a woman caress her unborn, sit her method of death out (pills), and have her read her way into life at the same time as Mrs. Woolf has written her death out and is walking into a body of water to end her life, it is too intimate to watch.    But I believe this little delicious delicacies of intimacy are what makes the book so astounding.        

            Through the characters speaking to me, the reader, their internal struggles, loves, fears, anger, and confusion, I am allowed to taste (like the base of a good soup) the base of their lives, the things that matter most to them.  The captivation for me has been being a living (be)ing exposed to the deepest intimacy of other people’s lives.  The term (be)ing is important here to me because (be) to exist, to live now means my mind has not been on lock down while reading, but it has absorbed the undercurrent of life and death from my reading.  Therefore, as I am being alive while reading, I am also becoming a part of Mr. Cunningham’s story.  I know weird huh!  So, I find the book is capable of capturing more than the vastness of its characters lives in one day, I find it also capable of captivating me and changing my own life in one day.

Biblican References & Me

Biblical References & Me

            I am blessed that God pursues us, for some of us, pursuit into our secret selves.  I love the fact that God’s curiosity about us allows us as humans the freedom of our will thereby for some the freedom of choice, for others an acceptance of who we are born to be. 

            For instance, from the very beginning of sexuality in the bible, I mean beyond Adam and Eve, we have been taught that Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed because of homosexual behavior.  When studying more closely, I find there is a discrepancy of a people who were without worship and were irreverent towards God and a people who were supposedly destroyed because of homosexual behavior.  How could one anomalous sexual behavior be any different than another?  Or how could a just God treat one sexual peculiarity any differently than another?   In Genesis 19:7-8 Lot is speaking to his friends, “…and said, No, my friends.  Don’t do this wicked thing.  Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man.  Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them.  But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”  In II Peter 2:6 “…if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example what is going to happen to the ungodly.  The word for ungodly in the New Testament Greek is asebes; worship irreverent.  The word could be translated; they were without worship, making Sodom and Gomorrah an example to others.    Herein lies the problem, these people (mortals – gender was never written) Genesis 19:4 “Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom – both young and old – surrounded the house.  The word men does not mean men as in male human, the word is ‘enowsh or (en-oshe’) which means a mortal, a person in general.  As stated above, there was no gender given, so does it mean that the women, girls, young boys and the elderly that were there were all homosexual? And if so, wouldn’t that mean that the women would have wanted other women, since they at that point did not know the gender of the angels?  II Peter 2:6 “…if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men … if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.”     

            A similar situation is found in Judges 19-20:22.  Judges 20:5 states, “During the night the men (Lord, Baal, Master) came after me and surrounded the house, intending to kill me.  They raped my concubine, and she died.”  Then in Judges 19 it states, “While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, ‘Bring out the man who came to your house so we may know him ’.”  “The owner of the house went outside and said to them, don’t do this disgraceful thing.  Look here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish.  But to this man, don’t do such a disgraceful thing.”  They raped and abused his concubine throughout the night and at dawn they let her go.  She bakes it to where her master was staying, and falls down dead at the door.   The man takes his dead wife home then divides her body into 12 parts to the 12 tribes of Israel as a witness against the men of Gibeah then Gibeah is destroyed.  Gibeah is destroyed for idol worship, people who were without worship.  Deut.32:17 says, “They sacrificed to demons, which are not God—gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your fathers did not fear.”    Ezekiel 16:49-50 says,  …”Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.  They were haughty and did detestable things (tow’ebah or commit idol worship) before me.  Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. “

            I believe that my relationship with God is just that MY PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD.  If I were to look at places in scripture where people were treated unfairly, women, I would be up-in-arms constantly.  But there is a place in me who trusts God and God’s integrity.  I must believe that status and gender are not what matters with God, but love and believe in God accordingly, otherwise, I would find too many excuses not to worship God.  I must be authentic as the Word of God has admonished me to be, I must worship God in Spirit and in Truth.  If I fix myself as a Sunday worshipper only and live Monday through Saturday as an intersexed lesbian I would be guilty of the same debauchery as Sodom and Gomorrah – worshipping the idol god status, compliance, condescension, and etc.  Instead I hope to become transformed by the renewing of my mind and trust that God is who God says He/She really is .  I believe scripture is given to us to help us to live decent lives, to give us a hope fresh and new each day.  To set us apart from unlovely things, Scripture is a place to set my dreams on, a place where I am free.                   

Gender Roles and Restrictions

In what ways are gender roles still restricted today?  In what ways have they improved since this drawing was made?  Your response need not be restricted to women.

                In many ways gender roles are as prevalent as they were hundreds of years ago.  I believe we have learned the language of “gendereze” speaking the appropriate language, but not always doing the right thing.  Several years ago, I purchased a book, “A Woman’s Guide to the Language of Success”, Phyllis Mindell, Ed.D.  It never occurred to me that I picked up the book because I felt there was something lacking in my skills professionally.  I knew that in the corporate world there was a language of men, and I wanted to fit in, be respected and understood.  I did not want to appear as a threat, but a colleague.  Upon opening the book to the Table of Contents the first lesson was “The Language of Weakness”.    This explained some of the words women use such as “it feels like… or it is my feeling that ….”  The word “feel” was taught to be psychobabble - women’s words.  Other chapters included, “Orders that no one follows, saying ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry’, writing like a wimp and you’re treated like a wimp, words that make you invisible”.   All of this not because one is not capable of doing a job and doing it well, but simply because one is a female, and her language may be a little different than her counterpart gathers her no respect.  She has to change not him.

                The Today Show, December 14, 1992, Bryant Gumbel interviewed two people who participated in the Clinton economic summit:  Paul Allaire, at the time the CEO of Xerox and Mary Kelley who was a board member of the National Federation of Independent Businesses.  Eight times Mr. Gumbel asked questions or made a statement, each time his question was directed to Mr. Allaire.  Ms. Kelley was never more than introduced.  Ms. Allaire was totally overlooked, how do you scream about gender representation in the middle of someone else’s economic program?  Do I continue to pull out the power tools, the power suit, the power language, the name dropping and etc. to be accepted not as a female or male, but as a person who can do the job and do the job well?  No one would ever know if you are not given an opportunity to speak so you can speak again. 

                The social devaluation of women seeped into the very soul of this country’s being so much so that the crime of rape left women feeling violated by the legal system and process as well as by the perpetrator.  The women were left defending their character as to whether she is sexually permissive,  dresses provocatively, what places she frequents, in a sense she is put on trial as a “fallen woman” before the offender is tried.   There are times I have found it disheartening for a woman who has heard of another’s rape ask, “Why was she there at that time of night, why was she wearing that?”  Women are quick to join the bandwagon in questioning women and their motives rather than being supportive.  Perhaps because this type of questioning is socially sanctioned and women want to secure their place as “virtuous women” they distance themselves from association and thereby being “tainted”. Gender chaos knows no boundaries and has no loyalties.  For instance I speculate if it is true that “all men are dogs or “dead beat dads”.  

Has any of this changed, yes it has a bit unless you are Hispanic or Black. Black women were and have always been alleged to be unchaste with a lack of concern for sexual purity, and expected to be sexually immoral.  Racism definitely plays a huge role in this type of situation.  If your name is Emmitt Teal no one knows who you are, but if your name is O. J. Simpson justice can be swift no matter the outcome.

                Ms. Sojourner Truth was given an opportunity in Akron, Ohio in 182 after a white man spoke against equal rights for women.  He stated that women were too weak to perform her share of manual labor; she was physically inferior to men.  Ms. Truth responded in this way:

“Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter.  I think that ‘twixt de niggers of the south and the women at the North all a talking ‘bout rights, de white men will be in a fix pretty soon.  But what’s all this talk about?  That man over there say that women needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have de best places… and ain’t I a woman?  Look at me!  Look at my arm!  I have plowed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me –and ain’t I a woman?  I could work as much as any man (when I could get it), and bear the lash as well –and ain’t I a woman?  I have borne five children and I seen ‘em most all sold off into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother’s grief, none but Jesus hear—and ain’t I a woman?”         

Ms. Truth became more than an advocate; she had lived as an equal to any man and surely as a slave her truth could not be disputed as to her physical work.  Perhaps we as women are not slaves, but unless we began to address issues of unsettling devaluation whether it be by our own race of men or others we will continue to be treated as a man’s silhouette.  I need more!