The Social Construction of Place

I Heart NY



The clip of Sex and the City that I chose was one called “I Heart NY”. In this scene the main character Carrie is having her last moments with her boyfriend Big. Big is at the time getting ready to move to Nappa in California while Carrie will be remaining in New York. The move is actually a surprise to Carrie and she is upset that Big wasn’t even going to tell her that he was moving.
I believe that this scene is a great representation of “The Social construction of place” that Chris Barker talks about in his book “Cultural Studies”. When the scene starts out Carrie has just arrived at Big’s apartment, only to see that all of his stuff is either gone or in boxes. According to Barker’s idea of Gendered Space, the home is what is known as the feminine domain. The fact that almost all of Big’s things are out of the apartment symbolizes that a man has no place within the construction of the home. Figures like Martha Stewart and Nina Campbell only further demonstrate that in today’s society a woman is constructer in the home.
Another demonstration of Gender Construction in this scene is when Carrie and Big are taking the carriage ride at night. Barker says that “attempts by some women to ‘reclaim the night’ are essentially spatial practices”(377). This carriage ride is an attempt to make the evening more romantic, and therefore feminine. This is demonstrated when Carrie is called to help a friend in labor, Big says “I can’t believe you are leaving me alone with a horse and buggy”, he clearly doesn’t find the ride an ideal means of transportation. Especially since the guy usually takes a girl on a carriage ride to please her not himself.
I found this scene quite interesting in how it shows that social construction of place really does exist in the world. It is just an unconscious habit that we have to make the woman chose how the house is going to be decorated while the guy goes to work, or how we limit the places that a woman is allowed to go at certain times in the day.

Dating:The Concept of Male and Female

Jessica Rodriguez
English 313H
Professor Wexler
13 October 2009
Dating: The Concept of Male and Female
From the time we are children we are taught what is feminine and what is masculine. We take these concepts and apply it to our own identity. Girls are taught to be proper and polite. While boys, generally tend to be on the rowdy side. However, one thing that I really stood out to me as a little girl was the concept of if a boy is mean to you, it means he likes you. The movie “He’s Just Not That into You,” takes this concept applies it into today’s world of dating. It also shows the use of distancing oneself through technology, and the influence of Feminism in a relationship.
The main character in this movie, Gigi, claims that little girls are brainwashed into believing this concept. Therefore, women will try to rationalize that the guy is being a jerk because he likes you too much, or he is intimidated, or that you are too good for him. So throughout the movie she is obsessed with the current guy that she is with just to that she can have a relationship. This reminds me of the relationship between Brick and Maggie in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”. Maggie is willing to work at the relationship no matter how bad Brick treats her. According to Chris Barkers book “Cultural Studies”, Gigi is playing into the typical female character, she is completely dependent on, and anxious to please the current guy that shows the slightest interest in her that she doesn’t take the time to evaluate and see if he is truly into her. This in itself is radical because she is willing to be in a bad relationship rather than being alone, or looking harder for someone better.
On the reverse perspective of gender is between the characters Anna and Connor. Connor is in love with Anna but she just uses him whenever she doesn’t have a date. Anna takes on the role of a male within the relationship because she is the one who as Barker states is “Dominant, self-centered, decisive, rational, and conniving”. She is the one who ends the dates, or when they are going on a date. While Connor, is dependent, sacrificing, and anxious to please Anna. One major demonstration of Connors anxiousness to please Anna is the fact that he is about to buy a house for her if she likes it. Buying a house is something that is a really big step in a relationship and at the time they had just started to date again, so I saw this as being extremely radical.
Another concept of Barker’s that I saw in the movie that all of the female characters play into is defining the world through family relations. Every time a situation with the opposite sex doesn’t go as planed or the boyfriends are acting like jerks the friends tell a story about a friend who had a friend that was in a similar situation and how it worked out in the end. The main male character in this movie Alec, who is helping Gigi is very harsh when helping her understand guys, he falls into the typical macho guy role that Barker establishes for masculinity, he is self centered, self-confident, decisive, and rational. Barker states that “identification of oneself as male or female is a foundation stone of a self-identity”. I found this and interesting concept because with his advise he gives Gigi a male perspective when choosing how to go about dating. Gigi takes on a radical change in that aspect of being able to interpret the guy’s rejection allows her to not get hurt. She is in a sense distancing herself from rejection and taking on a male attitude when it comes to getting close to guys.
A different radical concept that I saw was how the character Mary see’s dating. She talks with her gay co-workers about this guy that she is interested in and how he myspaced her for a date. She says that she misses the organic way of dating and how now if she wants to attract a guy she has to update her profile rather than get a haircut. I thought this was radical because dating in today’s society has really become cyber based. Barker states that “electronics are the basis of modern information technologies. They are at the heart of global wealth production, communications networks and personalized information and entertainment systems”. With all of these E-Harmony, and Match-Maker.com’s it is easy to associate dating with the internet. At one point Mary even has a date over video chat. Using technology so much allows us to distance ourselves from others and romance isn’t a part of starting a relationship anymore, it’s more of let’s get right to the sex. This is demonstrated in Bret Easton Ellis’ “The Rules of Attraction”, none of the characters seemed to be in love with those they are obsessing over. Even when Sean claims to love Lauren he lets her go and then at the end of the book it is implied that he is about to have sex with a hitchhiker he just picked up.
The last demonstration of radical romance is between the characters Neil and Beth. Neil doesn’t want to get married. He states that “Married people are not to be trusted”, and “they do it because they are insecure”. I believe this is a radical idea because within our culture men are considered to be whipped when they get married. In television today the wife is portrayed as domineering while the man is subordinate, such as in Desperate Housewives. I believe this has to do with the raise of Feminism within our culture. Barker gives examples of different kinds of Feminism such as liberal, difference, socialist, poststructuralist, black, postcolonial, and postfeminism. According to Barker the Poststructuralist Feminism is the most influential, “Given its stress on culture, representation, language, power and conflict, poststructuralist feminism has become a major influence within cultural studies”. I also believe the fact that Neil who is friends with Mark, who has a domineering wife, has something to do with his opinion on marriage.
To conclude, “He’s Just Not That In To You” is a great movie to study the concept of radical romance. I really liked how the main characters fell into the typical male and female roles, and then at the end changed roles. Then there was the portrayal of characters that were opposite from their natural gender characteristics. It made me really think about the typical role that a woman plays and how we have changed that role with the ideas of Feminism. We have become more independent rather than being dependent on men. I also liked the fact that it showed how we as a culture tend to distance ourselves by using technology, as well as simply using the opposite sex for sex and enjoyment rather than having a relationship.
Works Cited
Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies
Great Britain: TJ International Ltd,Padstow,Cornwal, 2008

Ethnography

For my observation I used the quad in front of Sierra Hall. It was a bright and sunny day on Monday September 21, 2009 as a found my spot under a shaded tree and began my conquest of observing my fellow peers. At the time there were a bunch of people rushing off to class as well as standing around talking to friends or significant others. I saw plenty of couples walking by and holding hands, as well as friends greeting friends.

It was very interesting to see all the different interactions that went by as I sat and took pictures to later remember all that I had seen. I took notice that there were specific gestures that the guys had when greeting their guy friends, usually a man hug with a slap on the back or a hand to hand gesture, as well as greeting female friends, usually a hug or a smile and an enthusiastic nod of the head. I also observed the different ways the girls would greet other girls, normally with a hug and a side kiss to the cheek, as well as with guys, also a hug but no kiss. There were many guys riding skate boards and bikes. There were plenty of people on the phone or listening to their Mp3 players. Girls were mostly chatting with their friends as they were walking by, and the guys were usually occupied as if in another place.

At the time there was a go cart in the shape of a brain that was run on Red Bull. For a brief moment people stopped their busy schedules and took a glanced at the funny looking contraption. However, once the amazement was gone they carried on with their conversations or hurried strides to get to that class that they are about to be late for. Another thing I observed was how many people were actually using their phones. Guys and girls alike were either texting, or talking on the phone.

Some guys were actually riding their skate boards and texting at the same time. Now who says guys can’t multitask? However it was the girls that would actually talk to the people they were walking with. Using hand gestures to emphasize their point, while the guys would either be looking to the side or appear as if they weren’t even participating in the conversations.

This reminded me of how Brick reacted to conversations in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Brick would usually give short to the point answers while Maggie would go on and on about whatever she was talking about. This was very interesting because it showed that we have fallen into this Ideology that men and women act in certain ways. Just like in “The Second Sex” by Simone de Beauvoir, the guys treated the girls like what they were saying wasn’t important. Guys wouldn’t even talk to the guy friends they were with most of the time; rather they would look ahead and then say a farewell upon departure.

Tennessee Williams play was so over the top with the characters reactions that it actually reflected how we tend to interact with one another. Brick didn’t want to talk to Big Daddy because nothing really gets said in the conversations so he would rather skip the whole conversation all together.

We still have that need to fall into certain categories of Feminine and Masculine. All of this is portrayed within one little greeting with a certain sex. Women tend to be more “affectionate” and men tend to only be “affectionate” when it comes to women, and not to other males. It’s funny how women can be affectionate towards other women and not cross the border of sexuality but when it comes to guys it is almost always questioned. Also like in the play, between Brick and Skipper, men can’t have a close relationship without it seeming “impure”. I believe this is why the guys would rather do the hand gesture greeting or a slap on the back rather than give a hug to their male friends. It also shows that because women are seen as “others”, guys feel more comfortable with being affectionate towards them when greeting, and yet when it comes to an actual conversations women get ignored.

However, there were instances where I did observe guys actually participating in conversations with females. So this proves that even though we tend to have this ideology of men and women we can still break out of our comfort zones of feminine and masculine. Another example of this was the guys that were riding their bikes or skateboards and talking or texting at the same time.

Men aren’t normally seen multitasking because they are biologically wired to focus on one thing at a time. It’s why they are so much better at sports, especially baseball, because they can focus on the ball rather than what is around it like females usually do. I really enjoyed what I observed of my fellow peers because it showed that even though we put ourselves in categories of masculine and feminine, there are those that have evolved passed the ideology and feel comfortable taking on traits of the opposite sex.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

My Group worked on Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The play was so interesting that we had to come up with a way to give a presentation that would be as equally interesting. I was the first person to send emails to the group and I got the ball rolling. I suggested that we do a skit on a television show like Jerry Springer. My idea was to make Cat on a Hot Tin Roof more relevant to today’s society. However, we were having trouble actually getting together so Jacqui came up with the Jeopardy idea. We all came up with a plan instantly. I did most of the organizing with Hannah. The two of us met up at the Library and came up with our categories and then I passed the idea onto Doug and Charles when they joined us since Hannah had to leave. Jacqui and Oswaldo we unable to make it that day, I sent them what we had done that day. We each came up with our own categories based on what we were interested in with the book. My topic was quotes. I wanted to choose quotes that would have the class talking and thinking, why would they say that? Since we were playing Jeopardy I didn’t want to make the quotes too long so I took some short yet thought provoking quotes. These quotes as I read them again really made me think, why would they say that, or use those specific words. All and all this project was very fun because it allowed us to work together without having to be together throughout the whole process. Our constant email communication allowed us to share ideas and send each other what we had done.