Driving home tonight I heard a local radio station doing an advertisement for the USD theater group’s production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. A little spark went off in my head and I immediately began pondering what deranged character I would portray while attending the production, but in the middle of a Janet/Magenta tossup I had a spark of brilliance. At least I thought it was brilliance, after reading this you might think otherwise, but for now we can classify it as sheer brilliance. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (RHPS) is a phenomenal representation of identity in crisis dealing with issues of gender, orientation, assimilation, and general culture shock. RHPS is infamous for its openly sexual, often perverse, strangely irresistible musical ballads and fishnet clad characters, but within the boundaries of purely scholarly review, it does seem to show merit for this class.
The main character, Dr. Frankenfurter, is an alien from another planet somewhat trying to assimilate with the humans he encounters. He adapts to sex very quickly, though with a few spins into gender and orientation confusion along the way. He is a self proclaimed ‘sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania’ and spends most of the play dressed in full drag luring unsuspecting men and women into bed. Within his character alone one can see evidence of an immigrant struggling with assimilation and a man struggling with his identity as a bisexual transvestite. Then you take into consideration the frightened squares, Janet and Brad who act as the ‘others’ within the madhouse that is Dr. Frankfurter’s castle. Brad even goes so far as to mention that they must assimilate with the customs of these people if they wish to make it through the experience alive. Even though they are witness to the madness within the castle for a brief span of time (one evening presumably) they quickly begin to transform as they adapt to these strange people’s folk dancing and mating customs.
Yes, I may be reaching a bit in a few of my definitions, but I feel that one of the main goals of a class should be to take away the ability to observe the contents of said class in the real world. Granted, RHPS has very little to do with the real world itself, it is an observable relic of pop culture that litters the real world and a significant enough contribution to the arts that the esteemed theater group at USD decided to use it as their spring musical. For these reasons, I feel that viewing the production of RHPS Saturday night should be a grand finale to this class and encourage anyone who can to show up in full drag to appreciate the solid learning experience and diverse cultural…there will be vulgar dancing and men in fishnets, really, do I need to butter you up more? That's what I thought--I’ll see you there.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Powerbook
The PowerBook
Terrible thing to do to a flower, indeed. I will never be able to look at a tulip or an artichoke the same again. Over the course of this semester I have been disgusted, disgruntled, and delighted over the course reading material and this novel was no exception. (Btw, how does one get added on to the Roripaugh summer reading list? Haha) This novel brings up several key issues such as gender roles, orientation, and the anonymity of the Internet. Gender roles have fascinated me since taking psych 101 my freshmen year. What makes a girl a girl other than the obvious anatomical bits? Why do little girls reach for dolls and little boys for toy guns? Are the roles of maternal care giver and protector imbedded into out genetic makeup at birth? If so, how do you explain tomboys and sissies? There are some fascinating documents written about this topic by people with a much more impressive list of credentials than myself, but I’ve always had a feeling that the whole genetic assignment of gender roles was a load. When I was a little girl, had I been given the choice, I would have run around in the summer without a shirt on just like my brothers, but because my mother insisted that little girls wore dresses and these abominations they called slips, I was forced to parade around in the summertime heat, a prisoner to my gender. I was taught how to be a girl, I didn’t have a clue what the difference was between a girl and a boy when I was born. I was just like my brothers, had my mother not been around to paint my cheeks and adorn my stubborn little body with frills and lace, I would have been content to continue the delusion until puberty began making more noticeable distinctions.
I think the book made some interesting statements about the power that lies within the anonymity of the Internet. This is a phenomena that our generation can most keenly feel the enormity of. Without persecution, we can slip seamlessly from one identity into another and back again into our own well worn shoes in the breadth of a single night. Fire up the transmogufier (yes, I’m stealing from Calvin and Hobbes now) also known as the computer and within a matter of seconds you are a 9th level Jedi priestess with a huge talent and a set that would make Dolly Drool. An endless free pass into a schizophrenics wet dream. Endless opportunities to remake yourself, endless chances to try on different personas and explore who you would be if you could be anybody but yourself. Aside from the feint anchor of an IP address to link you to your location, the chances of being discovered for your shape shifting ways are fairly slim. Anonymous, consequence free, environments tend to lead to unfortunate consequences-we need only look at the 60’s for verification of this. What will the anonymity of the Internet mean for our generation?
Terrible thing to do to a flower, indeed. I will never be able to look at a tulip or an artichoke the same again. Over the course of this semester I have been disgusted, disgruntled, and delighted over the course reading material and this novel was no exception. (Btw, how does one get added on to the Roripaugh summer reading list? Haha) This novel brings up several key issues such as gender roles, orientation, and the anonymity of the Internet. Gender roles have fascinated me since taking psych 101 my freshmen year. What makes a girl a girl other than the obvious anatomical bits? Why do little girls reach for dolls and little boys for toy guns? Are the roles of maternal care giver and protector imbedded into out genetic makeup at birth? If so, how do you explain tomboys and sissies? There are some fascinating documents written about this topic by people with a much more impressive list of credentials than myself, but I’ve always had a feeling that the whole genetic assignment of gender roles was a load. When I was a little girl, had I been given the choice, I would have run around in the summer without a shirt on just like my brothers, but because my mother insisted that little girls wore dresses and these abominations they called slips, I was forced to parade around in the summertime heat, a prisoner to my gender. I was taught how to be a girl, I didn’t have a clue what the difference was between a girl and a boy when I was born. I was just like my brothers, had my mother not been around to paint my cheeks and adorn my stubborn little body with frills and lace, I would have been content to continue the delusion until puberty began making more noticeable distinctions.
I think the book made some interesting statements about the power that lies within the anonymity of the Internet. This is a phenomena that our generation can most keenly feel the enormity of. Without persecution, we can slip seamlessly from one identity into another and back again into our own well worn shoes in the breadth of a single night. Fire up the transmogufier (yes, I’m stealing from Calvin and Hobbes now) also known as the computer and within a matter of seconds you are a 9th level Jedi priestess with a huge talent and a set that would make Dolly Drool. An endless free pass into a schizophrenics wet dream. Endless opportunities to remake yourself, endless chances to try on different personas and explore who you would be if you could be anybody but yourself. Aside from the feint anchor of an IP address to link you to your location, the chances of being discovered for your shape shifting ways are fairly slim. Anonymous, consequence free, environments tend to lead to unfortunate consequences-we need only look at the 60’s for verification of this. What will the anonymity of the Internet mean for our generation?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)