Essay 2

I'm having a really hard time finding a direction with this paper, which is why I wrote the outline in the previous blog.
Last night I tried writing an intro, for example, and it was all over the place:

The concept of normality is tied to culture and personal experience. What is considered normal in one society may be considered incredibly unusual in another. For example, American culture has a different concept of what is normal in terms of beauty than the culture of the Kayan people in Thailand. American concepts of beauty rely on thinness, body structure, and often material enhancements to beauty such as make up. Kayan women, on the other hand, use neck rings to enhance their beauty. In their culture, long necks are considered desirable, so brass rings are placed around their necks at a young age and the number of rings increases with development. The end result is a woman with a stretched neck coiled in brass. While the necks of these women may appear freakish to us, to the Kayan people it is an ultimate sign of beauty and prestige.
There is an increasing press towards “normalizing” in our culture, where we suppress individual differences to strive to fit the standard for beauty.

I don't like it where it is now, but I think parts of it can be reworked into the essay later, so I'm saving the text here.

"Normalizing" in American Culture

Normal is cultural concept
Push to normalize in different cultures
- in ideas
- in appearances
- in acceptable standards
In American culture, focus on body image, especially in women
Concept of what it is to be beautiful
Can force change due to new medical procedures – mutilation?
Often portrayed in media

- American standard of beauty = culture of thinness (Tyranny of the Normal) (diet obsession) (portrayal of actresses) (Mean Girls) (Saved!)
- American standard of beauty = related to presentation, make-up, products, clothes link it to industry (Those Unnerving Ads Using Real Women) industry benefiting (Welcome to Cancerland) tight clothes and style industry (Aliens in America) (media – best/worst dressed)
- Can force change to “normalize” with medical procedures – similar to mutilation? (Bones) (advertising for laser surgery, liposuction, even tanning)
- Can normalize with clothes, diets, etc
- Not only media, even every day life (grocery stores, gymnasiums, infomercials for pilates)
- Push to target women specifically (Unnerving Ads Using Real Women – cure of realness) (gyms like Curves – target a woman’s body)
- American concept completely different from other concepts (example – Kayan neck rings, similar to mutilation found in cosmetic surgery)
- Culture of thinness – where do we draw the line? (Cultural Fixations of the Freak Body – fat lady and skeletor = freaks)
- Refreshing push to fight “normalizing” (Bones, Love Actually, America’s Next Top Model – “ugly beautiful” girls, media picking out anorexia as negative thing in actresses)

Horror?

In response to Ellen's blog, I agree with a final point she made.
When we were discussing the film in class and how the final scene related to the traditional horror movie, with the rain and the crawling through the mud and the sense of helplessness to escape the "monster," I didn't find that frightening.
I think the most psychologically disturbing part was that one of the children was crawling along with a knife as well.
It is rather scary that these adults decided to take matters into their own hands and mutilate another human being, yes.
But what's even scarier is that they had a child help them do it.
In addition, Ellen raises a good point about consent and understanding.
If this individual has a mental handicap, how do we know we have their consent to display them like this?
Also, how do we know they fully understand that this is just acting, it's not real, and it's not okay to run around with knives?
I'm going to assume the filmmakers took the time to explain this to their actors, but still, it makes you think.

What is normal?

In response to Danielle's blog, the definition of normal isn't really a definition at all, it's a changing cultural continuum.
Danielle talks about what makes the circus people originally fit into the stereotypical category of "freaks," their physical attributes or unusual skills.
Then she talks about Cleo, the typical beauty, who becomes a "freak" to the viewer when she tries to poison a man for his money.
If Cleo were a normal woman who hadn't done such socially unacceptable things in the film, I believe we'd still consider the circus people as freakish, even after seeing them interact in their daily lives.
What forces the transfer of the title "freak" is when one person takes on a less socially acceptable attribute than those around them.
The circus people are freaks, but wait, Cleo is worse, so she's the real freak.
It all has to do with bias and social circumstances, cultural norms and levels of tolerance.
Physically, the circus people for the most part are abnormal. They do not statistically fit into the norm of body forms.
However, whether this makes them a "freak" or not relates to the associations society has with these abnormalities.
Freak is a negative term.
So where do we draw the line where a person is no longer simply different from us, but rather a freak?
I has to do with acceptance.
"One of us one of us we accept her we accept her," they chant at the wedding feast.
They no longer think of Cleo so negatively, they accept her.
This is a prime example of the transition from outgroup to a member of a particular community.
She is now one of them, she is no longer "other," she is more socially acceptable, and therefore less of a "freak" to the circus people, whose norm is to be abnormal.

Welcome to Cancerland

I loved this piece.
Her writing has its own flair; she definitely has a distinct voice.
She gives us insight into her struggle with cancer, but rather than the usual focus on physical struggles, she shows how she struggled with "cult" of breast cancer.
Is it bad that something like breast cancer can be used to amuse?
I felt like I could connect with this article, because I personally hate ribbons.
Of any sort.
I don't know why, but when I see a yellow ribbon or a pink ribbon or a red ribbon on the back of someone's car, I wonder why they have -that particular ribbon- without including all the other ribbons. Is one cause greater than another? Does putting stickers everywhere really help anything? And how ironic that it is placed on your car, which runs off of fuel from oil that we get from the countries we are fighting, fuel that is burned to form pollutants that could contribute to breast cancer.
Maybe I'm just particularly cynical, I'm not really sure why I don't buy into the happy manufactured world of supporting causes (as she explained it).
I love the little details she includes to describe her doctors, etc.
I love her focusing on the cause for cancer, not the detection of it once it's already there.
In a way, I consider her more of a "fighter" than the "survivors" she typically describes, because she wants to fight the very origin of existence of the cancer itself, not just a battle to win her individual body back.
I realize a lot of what I am saying can sound controversial, or like I am denying the respect that is due for women who survive breast cancer. I'm not.
I just found a lot of her information interesting and useful, while simultaneously unnerving. All of the corporation involvement is kind of scary, especially considering the small amount of profits that actually go to research.
She makes you think about things you normally wouldn't think about. And isn't that what great writing is?
When you see the breast cancer culture, you don't really wonder where it comes from. You don't question it. To question it makes it sound like you don't support those with cancer. And clearly if you are not an established enemy of cancer, you might as well be a supporter.
She makes us question it, she makes us ask why all of these things are happening.
I don't have much inside experience with "breast cancer culture" like she does, but I do question her accuracy on the motivations of the women who "participate in the cult." I don't find them naive or fooled, like she seems to. I think they're just women in a bad situation, trying to do the best they can.
What strikes me as odd as how I reacted to the ending. She admits there are huge problems, and people are blind to see them. She admits she is going to die before they ever get fixed. And yet somehow the piece leaves me with a sense of empowerment rather than depression. I think it has something to do with the idea of her taking this pink ribbon which she hates and represents all of the things she stands against, and strangling the people who cause cancer or benefit from it.
In reality, this image would be very frightening and not at all comical.
However, as an idea it is quite effective in summing up her sentiments about her trip to "Cancerland."

The Masculine Mystique

I know the second part of the title is "An Interview of Sylvester Stallone,"
but I still feel like publishing the interview as the predominant text of the article is a total cop out.
When I was in high school, doing journalism, there were tons of times where it would be easier to just publish the interview rather than actually writing.
We weren't allowed to. We were told it wasn't real writing.
I can kind of see why now.
When you do an interview, you find it dynamic and interesting because you're with the other person, having a conversation. You're tempted to publish it so you can get in as many of the personal sentences said by the speaker, without getting quote happy, because you find what they say and the particular way in which they say it so intriguing.
After all, what better way to understand a person than by the predominant form in which they express themselves: words.
However, when reading this interview, I became confused.
I think the text of what Stallone is saying would be much easier to understand if you were in person, registering body movements and tones of voice.
I feel like something gets lost when you just put the words, and without the narration of the writer, you don't get the full effect. Part of confusion may simply come from the way Stallone expresses himself, I will admit.
I find a lot of his answers vague or metaphorical, but not the kind of metaphor that clears up a picture, rather the kind that muddies it up because there can be so many interpretations and you don't know which one is the "correct" one the speaker was trying to get across.
Overall, I liked the idea of this piece. It was thinking outside the box. It had an interesting message in relation to stereotypes, gender roles, and the male identity.
However, I don't like the piece itself, because I don't like its execution.