Lovely descriptive response to the experience of ingesting Sexton's poems

This is the kind of associative, close reading that I hope poetry can let us all express. Enjoy!

Women's Body Image Based More On Others' Opinions Than Their Own Weight

Women's Body Image Based More On Others' Opinions Than Their Own Weight

yet another black swan article

...this one regarding recent doubt about how much of Natalie Portman's dancing was actually her own performance.

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2011/03/28/natalie_portman_sarah_lane_black_swan/index.html

The piece asks, appropriately, "why do we care?" I think this is especially fascinating in conjunction with some of the other theories that we have posted and discussed- part of what makes Black Swan "appealing" is the tremendous suffering that Natalie Portman very publicly went through. Why is it assumed that/do we lose respect for her in proportion with presumed pain?

P.S. Love the ballet dancer quoted in this article, basically saying she still respects her because either way she lost "a lot of weight." Yep, there's healthy praise.

Youtube links featuring Naomi Klein and the Beauty Myth

Because of today's technology-fail in class, I am posting here, for those interested, the links I wanted to show in class:
1) Interview addressing  how Naomi Wolf looks and presents herself (5 minutes):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjKx_p5KwEk&feature=related

I am specifically interested in her rebuttal that her book doesn’t argue that looks don’t matter, it argues that women shouldn’t be coerced. I am skeptical about how much agency one has in resisting this "pressure", given the high social costs (ie: becoming an "Iron Maiden" if one resists).

2)  Naomi Wolf's appearance on The Ali G Show (3 minutes):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyLSstqMvH8&feature=related

How does this "mockumentary" satire illustrate the problems with her argument and her position as a feminist?

3) Lastly, the clip from her DVD The Beauty Myth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJh8GEU2qik
(especially 15 seconds in and around minute 2). Is her message getting to those who need to hear and engage with it?

Aimee Mullins and her 12 Pairs of Legs

This is random, yet inspiring. This is about a woman who wears her many prosthetic legs as she models for countless cover shoots - and redefines what is a disability, and what is beautiful.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/aimee_mullins_prosthetic_aesthetics.html

Bias on looks exist regardless

"'It's about becoming what I want to become. Not what some surgical committee thinks I should.'" -p93

Shay implies that she cannot be herself if her looks are determined by someone else but aren't her looks already determined by some greater force? At first glance it seems she is being noble in denying the surgery but, in fact, she is part of a bigotry towards the pretties, just as they harbor bias against the uglies. Is it possible for there to exist a state where looks are not a category of judgment?

The Number Phi - The Perfect Body Ratio

Hi Everyone,

Dr. Gillespie was mentioning the "Golden Ratio" in class - I looked it up, and it is called Phi and can be found in art, nature, architecture, etc. This ratio is constantly found in the human body, and applies to the "ideal human form" - I posted a link to a YouTube video that introduces the number, how it is derived mathematically (it's actually quite simple) and also shows just how frequent it is found in our own body - it pretty much creates our body! - all the way down to DNA! I think it's really cool, and may apply to the beauty standard discussed in "Fair Enough" :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNQk_GJuZQo

Jimmy Kimmel Link and Uglies Quote

Here's my quote from The Uglies: "Tally walked along the riverbank, searching for a good place to leap in, slowly gathering her courage. She realized she'd never been naked outside before. In the city, everywhere outdoors was public, but she hadn't seen another human face for days. The world seemed to belong to her. Even in the cool air, the sun felt wonderful on her skin" (162).


I think it brings up ideas about mental transformations, and the ability to see your own situation more clearly when in a different environment. When a person is removed from a familiar situation, I think he or she learns more about him or herself. It brings up this idea of personal journeys similar to Paama's and the Indigo Lord's in Redemption in Indigo.


Here's the clip of Jimmy Kimmel's "Miracle diet":  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YoKoKI_2NlQ

"Tally's eyes widened as Shay turned the pages, pointing and giggling. She'd never seen so many wildly different faces before. Mouths and eyes and noses of every imaginable shape, all combined insanely on people of every age. And the bodies. Some were grotesquely fat, or weirdly overmuscled, or uncomfortably thin, and almost all of them had wrong, ugly proportions."

--p. 198 from Uglies

Melissa Elbert Uglies quote

"You are all brainwashed into thinking you are ugly" pg 276

"'Becoming pretty doesn't just change the way you look,' she said. 'No,' David said. 'It changes the way you think'" (268).

...but what if it didn't?

Uglies Quote

"Did you ever think that when you're pretty you might not need to play tricks and mess things up? Maybe just being ugly is why uglies always fight and pick on one another because they aren't happy with who they are. Well, I want to be happy, and looking like a person is the first step." Page 84

"The big eyes and lips said: I'm young and vulnerable, I can't hurt you, and you want to protect me. And the rest said: I'm healthy, I won't make you sick. And no matter how you felt about a pretty, there was a part of you that thought: If we had kids, they'd be healthy too. I want this pretty person..." (p. 16-17)

"Pretties really did get whatever they wanted." page 127

appearance vs. essence...

SO appropriate for our class discussion today (and every day) about using appearance as a judge of who people "really" are:

http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/21/from-sumo-wrestling-to-running-400-pound-man-completes-l-a-marathon/

mostly, this is awesome, and it'd be great if people could stop conflating obesity with a sedentary and generally unhealthy lifestyle and thinness with healthiness; it's just more evidence that you can be heavy and healthy or thin and unhealthy (as one commenter pointed out, how many sub-400 pound people didn't finish or even enter?). but my hope is that ultimately people will understand that idea so well that the fact of his weight wasn't even IN the headline. :)

Body Wars: The Cost of Perfection - The Hoya - News

Body Wars: The Cost of Perfection - The Hoya - News

Whhaaaattttt???????

Post your comments and responses, please!

2 things!

Is ten year old Willow Smith running with wolves?! (They could be huskies, but they looked like wolves to me!)...It's not a major part of this video (the song/video could be talked about in general, but the wolves struck me due to recent conversation).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfuHSJqqgAo

Also, check out the Disney Dream Photos taken by Annie Leibovitz....different celebs dressed/posing as different Disney villains...!!!

Villains!!!

Oh hey, Ken Carson!

Barbie and Ken update: it's Ken's 50th birthday...just thought this was interesting. What piercing blue eyes he has....

http://www.oddpedia.com/ken-doll-50th-birthday/

2 interesting reviews of Red Riding Hood

One that compiles reviews from a handful of top national newspapers:
"The reviews are in for "Little Red Riding Hood," a movie that is not exactly a literary adaptation but more like a mash-up of the fairy tale and Twilight. Cute girl gets mixed up with werewolf -- where have I seen this before? But the scenery and other cinematic touches make it an intriguing film. Here are some excerpts from reviews."

The other from Andrew O'Hehir on Salon.com:

"Red Riding Hood: The Showgirls of fairy-tale movies. Catherine Hardwicke's loopy, sexy, 90210-style Red Riding Hood is a curious attack on the Twilight franchise. it's strange and stupid and half-compelling and sometimes beautiful, with its big, bad talking wolf and Amanda Seyfried's big, blue, startled eyes and a Christmas-card medieval village inhabited by escapees from a mid-'90s prime-time soap."

Enjoy! Can't wait to hear from you all on your reactions to this film. 

Shiver Discussion

Great discussion today! Here are the questions we talked about in class, plus the two we didn’t have time for:

1. When asked what inspired her to write Shiver, Stiefvater responded “I’m a terrible person. I like to watch people cry. I like to make people cry, preferable while wearing mascara, contact lenses, or at their place of business.” She also dedicated the novel “For Kate, because she cried.” What do you think is significant about this? What do you think it means? How can we relate it to the regulation of the body, or lack thereof, that we have been discussing in class, and is rampant in this book? Support your ideas with examples from the text.
2. When asked why she writes about werewolves, Stiefvater responded “I prefer human impaired. Sorry girls, I do not find werewolves sexy. They have fleas, they slobber, they smell like wet dog…It was a metaphor for losing your humanity in a homogeneous suburban society! Then I woke up and realized I wrote a trilogy about werewolves.” Where in the novel do you see this metaphor? How do you think it could relate to our discussion of appetites? Support your ideas with examples from the text.
   
3. When asked what she hopes readers will take away from Shiver and Linger, Stiefvater responded “The idea that you choose the person you turn into. A fondness for German poetry. An undying craving for hot chocolate or chicken parmesan.” Did you come away with any of this? How can these ideas relate to our class discussions of appetites? How could one argue that appetites are what drive the plot of the novel? Support your ideas with examples from the text.
4. One of the discussion questions Stiefvater has on her website says “Beck changed three teens into werewolves to continue the care of the pack after he and Sam became wolves for good. Sam is horrified by his decision; Grace slightly less so, especially once she finds out that he had their consent. Do you think Beck was justified in taking such drastic steps to ensure caretakers for the wolves? What other options did he have?” How can we relate these questions to the trend in Angela Carter’s work of regretful, self-aware monsters? The countess in “The lady of the House of Love” “would like to be human” (197), and “Everything abou this beautiful and ghastly lady is as it should be, queen of night, queen of terror—except her horrible reluctance for the role” (197). In “The Company of Wolves,” Carter says “That long-drawn, wavering howl has, for all its fearful resonance, some inherent sadness in it, as if the beasts would love to be less beastly if only they knew how and never cease to mourn their own condition” (213). Where do we see similar ideas in Shiver? What is their significance?

If you want to check it out, Maggie Stiefvater’s website is http://www.maggiestiefvater.com/

Translating our concern and discussion about wolves in our class to the world around us

Please consider taking action on the following concern: Politicians are risking the future of wolves, salmon, polar bears and more. Like any self-respecting member of the digital age, these animals are standing up for themselves by channeling the power of the Internet. The Endangered Species Act is under attack. From Congress. Join in sending 37,000 letters to Congress, telling them that we oppose these attacks on the ESA. Act now!

Follow-up on reference to study about dogs picking up on human facial cues

In this study from 2010 (and in others similar, some of which are referenced in the works cited at the end of the article), "dogs, like infants but unlike wolves, make perseverative search errors that can be explained by the use of ostensive cues from the experimenter." In other words, dogs read human faces.

Another interesting Black Swan article from Ms Magazine Blog.

http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/01/22/precious-swan/

Such interesting insights into Black Swan - brings sexuality, body hatred, and abuse to the forefront.

Hunger and Obesity

Continuing our discussion Thursday on the dualism of hunger/gluttony and how to understand the so-called obesity epidemic along with the concurrent epidemic of eating disorders, please take the time to see this 10 minute long TED talk by Ellen Gustafson, the Co-creator of the philanthropic FEED bags.

Gustafson argues that hunger and obesity are two sides of the same coin. At TEDxEast, she launches The 30 Project --a way to change how we eat. If interested further, you can also read a blog in which she answers some questions about her efforts to combat hunger:

http://blog.ted.com/2010/07/07/qa_with_ellen_g/

p.s. I think I have finally found someone who speaks faster than I do while lecturing!

Blade Runner!

blade runner update!

http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/03/new-blade-runner-movies-on-the-way/

Beyond Bluebeard

Hello Everyone!

I thought I'd post a link to the hospice website - it has a ton of information regarding how children cope with death. At the very bottom of the page you will find a guide that explains how children of certain age brackets perceive death. It is interesting to compare the 3-6 year old category (narrators) to the adolescent age group (story-line characters). I also included a link to a NYT article that compares the film to Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber". Enjoy!