Homosexuality and Literature

Hanna's lecture, be it interesting, was also a little disconcerting. At least, to me. She spoke about homosexuality in literature, primarily written by women. Although male writers were discussed, it was minimal and their take on gay relationships differed greatly than the "norm" coming from female authors.

First of all, one thing I noticed was that lesbian relationships weren't even discussed at all. The second thing I noticed was that these homosexual relationships were highly romanticized to the point of almost being fetishized. Based on both of these points, it looks like make homosexuality is praised bit that female homosexuality is forgotten about. This can be because it's seen as more "acceptable" for men to express their sexuality where women take the back burner. The fact that more women are writing these novels in a very romantic way also may be due to them attempting to express their sexuality through other men. It's a stereotypical thought that men don't devote enough time/energy/commitment to a relationship than women. So, by women writing two men in a relationship, it turns into somewhat of a fantasy. Not for the author or women in general, per se, but for what they hope men to be.

Marriage is Hard Work

While this film was tastefully done and well constructed--as it had to have been for how long Mack spent on it, Yard Work Is Hard Work kind of made me angry. Even within half an hour, I felt as though the short musical summed up everything that was wrong with how the world views marriage and relationships.

Nowadays, people are so focused on proving that they love each other and what they have is real, that they get married quickly without realizing the consequences. Marriage is hard. Living with someone else, day after day, is hard. Even with a great relationship, and a lot of love and respect for your partner, it's still something you have to work on every day, and that's something a lot of people fail to realize.

The time in the movie, while condensed, I believe, still  attempted to highlight the quickness of a lot of relationships. This worked, and parallelled a lot with what we see all over the place from media, to books, to our own relationships.

Love Igniting

Poet Garren Small so thankfully shared some pieces relating, in his ways, to love and desire. Walking into the lecture, I was expecting the forced, overly-flowery poetry about sappy love. The weak, fleeting romances that everyone swears will last forever. Infatuation, I guess. Or, worse, "heart-wrenching" poems about love lost, the guy who couldn't get over it, the girl who hated the boy who broke her heart--that sort of thing.

I was, as it is, pleasantly surprised that these poems did not end up like this. They were about love, yes, but if you were really looked. Throughout class, we've looked at love as though we were the ones experiencing it. Or, at least, in abstract terms. Small offered us a different way of looking at things. By observing others in the context of their relationship. The father and daughter in the subway. The couple sharing a salad with plastic forks. If it's not our own relationships, if it's not in our face, we're judgmental. This came through in Small's work, perhaps on purpose. But it's good. Because it's real and raw and something happens all the time. We need to see relationships outside of just ourselves because while learning from experience is great, learning through observation is also necessary. That could tell us that we either want something or not, without having to go through it ourselves.

The Brain and Love

I'm currently taking a motivation and emotion class for my psychology credits. I'm honestly not fond of it, but some of the things we discuss have some sort of relevance and are interesting. In Dr. Brown's lecture, I noticed, it was eluded to that love isn't really a feeling but more of a motivational drive. Internally, I sighed, remembering a lecture just last week on different emotions and how they all have some sort of motivation going on, biologically. One of these, of course, is love.

There's different types of love, even though Dr. Brown mainly focused on romantic. Yet, they all have the same purpose. A close, intimate relationship with someone that most psychologists would argue is essential to a healthy and long life. It's weird to think of it like that. That we all sort of need love to survive. All this year, we've looked at love and how it could potentially destroy someone--make them go insane, lose their lives, ruin them. But when we delve deeper, it's more than that. It can hurt, yeah, especially romantic love but it's all so essential. We have a biological motivation to love, something that's literally part of our brain, close to the same parts that control our heartbeat, our breathing, our movement. All these vitals and then our capacity to build and maintain relationships with others. So it's not a fleeting thing or something that's casual. It's absolutely necessary and engraved in us from the most basic biological concept.

Slavery Portrayed

I was surprised at Dr. Anthony Reed's lecture, considering it was something we weren't used to in this lecture series. Besides side comments about the plot of Django Unchained, there wasn't a lot of mention about love and the topic was readily skimmed over.

Something I did connect, however, was how slavery related more to desire and less about love. Ironically, I wrote about something similar for this second opinion piece and I feel as though this was reiterated in a different light about slavery. People don't always have pure intentions with desire, and that's partly why desire exists in the first place. Some are wired to want "healthy" things, or at the least, things in moderation. Everyone desires a little bit of power. That's how we're autonomous, that's how things get done and that's how we lead our lives. Yet, for some, this desire for power goes further to the point of no longer controlling your own life but the life of someone else, which is how we get to slavery.

Before Sunset

The sequel to Before Sunrise was almost the same as the first. Both Celine and Jesse are infatuated with each other and this is glaringly obvious. I don't believe what they feel for each other is love or anything else but an intense, romantic lust. This is made apparent by the way that they have moved on with other people. Jesse, even, is married with a son. Even though this isn't a happy marriage, I believe that if he was really in love with Celine half as much as he claims he is, he would've waited until a time that he thought they could be together again.

What this movie says about love is that it's a fleeting feeling. Celine and Jesse both feel the same way, but they've only met twice. Both claim that they're in love, but they both live their own separate lives outside of each other and can go years and years without actually being around. This idea contradicts almost everything we've talked about in regards to love and changes it to ultimately be a feeling instead of a state of mind.

Sex and Writing

If there's anything I hate, it's popular romance novels. Not to out any authors (Nicholas Sparks, Stephenie Meyer, and Nora Roberts...) but love, sex, all of that is never like it is in those novels. Anymore, it's so hard to find a relationship how it actually is, confusing, messy and a little uneasy, to be honest. No wonder high school girls just entering relationships, growing up with The Notebook, Twilight and Lifetime movies, have unrealistically high ideals and standards for falling in love with--and eventually having sex with--another human being that's just as confused, messed up and uneasy as them.

Steve Almond's work is more something that I tend to look for in novels if they so happen to focus around a relationship. Instead of seeing your significant other through rose-tinted glasses, you should be with them for who they are, much like we've talked about all semester. The idea of sex and sexuality that was present in Almond's work was surprising, but only in that it was real. It wasn't all flowers and romance, candlelight and rose petals because sex is never like that.

At the same time, it's never meaningless, no matter how many people try to say otherwise. Raw and vulnerable, it's mental and emotional way more than it could ever be physical. For a story to portray the darkest parts of characters and not just the lovely parts of them during an intimate scene, we see the whole relationship for what it really is: whole, passionate and maybe a tad awkward.

"Halfaouine", The Police State and Sexuality

Watching the movie Halfaouine didn't sit well with me at certain parts. The story, centered around an adolescent boy and his budding sexuality as a metaphor for the changing Tunisian country, was very much patriarchal. While this makes sense as most of the world is indeed patriarchal, the way that women's bodies were objectified were a little bit too much.

This theme pops up a lot, in movies, television shows, books. A man's "coming-of-age" story, much like Halfaouine, revolves around his sexuality and often, the loss of virginity. For a woman, however, their "coming-of-age" story is more about heartbreak and loss and moving on from that, or worse, about the first time a man finds them sexually desirable. Women, it seems, have no say in their own sexuality and just patiently wait around for a man to tell them when it's time, with her consent or not. Towards the end of the movie, we see this happening. Noura convinces the girl he deems attractive to strip naked, with only a sheet or a blanket to cover her. He then attempts to pull this down, even though she's saying "No, stop, don't do that."

It's clear that the objectification of women was a plot device to show the connection between Noura and Tunisia being the Police State, but it seems that it could imply more than that. Instead, that patriarchy is something that will most likely never change, since that's the one thing that's constant from a boy's life and then to a nation.

Love And The Penny Press

The penny press offered a new idea on love, or more often, gossip as it relates to love. Dr. Burt described that with the invention of a newer, cheaper way to gather information on a local and then on a national and finally a global level, it changed the way we love and how we think about love. Headlines about young girls running away to elope with a lover may have swayed those reading it to pull the reigns in tighter with their teenage daughters, or may have encouraged these girls one way or another. One may read this article and think of the public shame and embarrassment that may surround her decision once everyone had found out what she'd done, and not run away with her boyfriend. Another, liking the attention that was devoted to the subject of the article, may decide to follow in her footsteps, fueled with the need to have this attention or courage through what she did.

This idea of gaining attention through the media may have changed love in a different way. Now, since it was popularized and the "new thing to do," people may be "falling in love" just because it would draw some focus to them. Scandals sold well, it was the thing that everyone was talking about. Love affairs with married individuals, large age differences, many partners, pregnancy, divorce, all those things sell and that's why it happened. None of it was real, much like reality shows today, it's just the fights, the drama and the repercussions of watching it. And the feeling that the viewer might have by thinking, "Well, at least my life didn't turn out like his/hers." It's a sort of voyeurism that we like in seeing people use love as a commodity instead of an actual relationship taking place with merit and value. When we commercialize love, it stops being real.

Mythology, Zeus and Ancient Love

Love predates pretty much everything, it seems. At least, that's what I took away from Dr. Richard Freund's lecture. When he discussed Greek mythology, especially Zeus and his many forms, I felt his point was clear. Greek mythology had always been interesting to me, although I never really perused it in an academic setting.

There are a lot of implications about love in those myths, and Dr. Freund talked about some of those, especially pertaining to Zeus, who is arguably the most known god according to mythology. One that I remember in particular was something about how humans initially were created with four arms, four legs, and a head with two faces. Zeus feared their power and split the humans, so they would wander around searching for their other half. We hear this expression a lot, especially with the term "soul mate." Even love that we wouldn't conventionally think of, like how religions seem to have a slightly erotic connotation with their icons and images. This is important because without these stories and ideas of different kinds of attraction, desire and love, we wouldn't have the complex theories we've discussed so far in our lecture series or in class.

Love After Divorce

Dr. Miller-Ott's lecture was quite interesting. But honestly speaking, one of my biggest fears is of divorce. Most likely because I haven't really been exposed to it. My parents aren't divorced, neither is really anyone in my family. At least, not after I came along. This is probably because I'm still trying to hold onto that idea of "true love." The thought of divorce means that obviously, people aren't finding that true love. Which makes me wonder if it's even possible to achieve at all.

Even though there are many reasons for divorce than just getting bored of or falling out of love with a spouse. Cheating, abuse, a whole host of problems. I suppose none of those things really mean that they haven't found that fairy tale "one true love." At the same time, I never really thought that anyone could come back from that. But it's obviously possible since many people do it. The statistics on it, as presented, are numerous and vast. That just goes to show that divorce must shape our idea about love and that love shapes our ideas about divorce.

We always talk about, at least, in class, about falling in love. We never really talk about what happens when you fall out of love. After the commitment, after the ceremony and all these years together with history and kids. It's weird to think that two people who once thought so highly of each other could suddenly have nothing left, but it seems to happen a lot. But at the same time, it's important to talk about and to recognize and to discuss. That people fall in love and then they can fall out of it. But then that they can find someone else. Maybe our ideal of what we want in a spouse changes over the years and the one you have doesn't end up being the one you want anymore. Maybe that's okay, maybe that's not.

Politics and Love

A lot of what Dr. Borck said was difficult to understand, at least at first. In part, I think it was because Plato's philosophy and politics in general seem to be daunting. And also, because someone wouldn't typically think that love relates to politics. Or, at least, not directly.

Studying history in high school, I remembered reading about allies, especially when it came to World Wars 1 and 2. The countries that were on the same side of the issues being fought over would collaborate. Now, I wasn't there or anything, but I'm pretty sure these leaders didn't have little tea parties or lunch dates. Instead, it was more about working together for a common goal, or greater good. There's a saying I kept thinking about during her lecture. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

That's what I mostly took from Dr. Borck. It's not commonality or friendship that binds people, and it's certainly not love in the traditional aspect, but more of Us vs. Them. The other, or your allies, in a sense. Everyone who wasn't your enemy is your ally. We see this being repeated, in some sort of variance, throughout this course with the books and the movies. If someone isn't on their side, they're most likely an enemy, or something of the sort. This applies to every day life in the same way. The people you work with especially are the people that you have to trust and get along with and love, at least politically.

Before Sunrise

I'm not exactly sure if Jesse and Celine will meet again in six months. I obviously know they'll meet again, considering there's a sequel. But if there wasn't, I don't think they would meet up again. This could just be because I'm pretty cynical when it comes to people promising they're going to do something, like meet up later. And six months is a pretty long time to go without communication, as they've agreed to.

If they don't meet again, which I'm not banking on (at least not when they had initially agreed on) their time together wasn't wasted. There doesn't necessarily have to be a "point" to being with someone, even if it's a short amount of time. At the end of their 24 hours, it's not like they're strangers, like they had started off as. Considering they've burned through many different topics--relatively quickly considering how long they had for everything discussed--I wouldn't consider them to be foreign to each other. Even though sex was involved, as some would say that was too soon, they seemed to know more about each other in the span of a day than some couples do after months.

So, it doesn't really seem like there was a "point" to their time together except for the fact that they both met and enjoyed the company of what had started off as a perfect stranger. They both took a break from their lives and whatever problems they were facing to do something out-of-the-ordinary. Maybe nothing was gained except for just the knowledge that they could do it in the first place. After all, it must've taken a lot of courage to run around Vienna with a complete and total stranger.

Annie Hall

It's probably the feminist in me that took issue with the way gender stereotypes were portrayed in this movie. The one that stuck out the most to me, and one that seems more and more common, is when Annie was in a rather "bad mood" towards the beginning of the movie. Alvy pestered her on if something was wrong to which she told him there wasn't. He asked if she was on her period and a part of me groaned. By perpetuating this stereotype, we're essentially disregarding a woman's feelings to "Oh, well, she's probably just on her period." instead of addressing something that could potentially be wrong. I felt like this highlighted the communication problem in their relationship and ultimately, why they ended up falling apart. Neither one of them really understood the other, but at the same time, it's clear that at least Alvy didn't bother enough to try to understand how she was feeling.

Something else that jumped out at me that further endorsed this negative connotation women hold in general society was when Annie called Alvy over to get rid of a spider in her apartment. He tries to rationalize this by saying that it was just a spider and that she could've killed it herself. Yet, when he actually saw the spider, he was at least a little frightened of it to. This plays into the idea that women need a man to take care of them and further says that this is the reason why relationships continue to happen in the first place.

In fact, throughout the movie, there was numerous instances of how these traditional roles were upheld. The only one that I can think of that disregarded these roles a bit was the fact that Annie, towards the beginning as well, wore what is typically thought of as "men's clothing." This was brought to the viewer's attention by Alvy, actually. Even though she was in a shirt and tie, the clothing still looked feminine in a way. Yet, throughout the movie, she wore progressively more and more "feminine" clothing which leads us to believe that she was changing while in the relationship.