Meta Post!

After a full year of blogging, I am happy to report that my blog post, "Old Money... New Money?", is not only my favorite blog post of fourth quarter, but also of the year. While many of my other blog posts were just about random topics I found interesting, in "Old Money... New Money?" I actually drew connections between The Great Gatsby and my personal life. This post is my strongest because of how well I analyzed a theme in piece of literature, related it to modern America,and took specific examples from my own life.

In this post, I analyzed a quote from The Great Gatsby and concluded that one reason Nick Carraway felt resentment towards Jay Gatsby was because Jay was considered new money, unlike Nick. I then dove deeper into the difference between "new" and "old" money, the main difference being how someone earned their money and the number of connections they have in the upper class. I started analyzing how my community and my family fit the definition of "old money".

In my post, I say, "My father, like many New Trier parents, grew up in this district". The fact that my father grew up on the north shore and then returned is just one indicator that Winnetka has "old money". This continues the "old money" cycle. I then used that personal connection to my father to explore how money and connections makes the class system in America more rigid. It is hard to move up with out connections so "old money" communities keep their connections strong.
I have loved blogging this year and I can see how much stronger of blogger I have become. I see the world in a new way and continue to ask myself:"Why do Americans do this?" "Has it always been that way?" and "Will it ever change?"

Citizen Kane Transcript!

Some people mentioned in class today that the movie transcript to Citizen Kane may be of use to them so I thought I'd post it here for anyone who wants to use it!

The full Citizen Kane transcript can be found here.
Happy writing!

Hush Hush

If there is one thing that fascinates me, it is how sex and sexuality is treated in the United States today. So how 'bout it? Let us talk about sex.

Hush Hush Playbill

What really sparked this post was Hush Hush, a short played performed by a class of senior New Trier theatre students during the Spring Plays Festival on Saturday, May 19th. Hush Hush is an original devised work, a "documentary-style" type of theatre, and is a compilation of stories and interviews all concerning sex and sexuality; the underlying question being: What does sex mean to you? 

Although this production contained powerful stories about first love, homosexuality, virginity, and even sexual assault, I found the title of the play the most interesting. "Hush Hush" connotes an unspoken quality about sex, and suggests that the action is too vulgar to openly address. In reality, sex is one of the most natural and instinctual things humans do, but for some reason, our society has seemingly pegged it as something inappropriate and indecent. The image presented on the poster and the playbill (right) depicts a woman with a finger over her mouth and, again, suggests the shushed attitude toward sex.
So why is sex almost always hushed? Why do we, as Americans, feel compelled to keep it secretive?

Some might argue sex is quieted because it is a private, personal, and intimate action done between two people, and although I agree with all of those things, talking about sex is still avoided even in necessary situations because it is so often thought of as "naughty".
In one of the stories incorporated in Hush Hush, a girl shared her story about sexual assault, but confessed that she did not tell anyone about the incident because she did not want to be labeled a "slut". She kept it a secret because she feared others would find her indecent, and silenced her pain because sex is something a young girl does not talk about, nonetheless do,  openly.

So when does it become okay to talk about sex? Why is it censored in the first place?

Butch or Beautiful

Picture taken from The Great Gatsby, the film

"At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower" (111), says Nick Carraway in F. Scoot Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Nick describes Daisy's behavior as Jay Gatsby romantically kisses her one cool autumn night, and describes her dainty actions as being "like a flower". Upper class women of this era (1920s), such as Daisy Buchanan, were often expected to be proper, pretty, and lady-like nearly 100% of the time, and these established gender roles are often referenced throughout the novel. Though the expectations for women seem to be very different today, gender roles have by no means vanished in today's world.

Believe it or not, the idea for this post came to me after reading blog post by fellow American Studies student, Nate Goss. Goss wrote an interesting post about women athletes competing on men's sports teams and questioned whether or not that practice should be allowed. Although I could delve into that argument, I am more interested in the gender roles female athletes face today.
As a female athlete myself, I receive a lot of comments about how I look or act because I am athletic. To give you some more context, I play softball, and any softball player knows (and probably most of you), we often get associated with words like "butch" or "buff" because surprise, surprise-- softball players have muscles (gasp!).
Despite the fact that it is extremely common for girls to compete in sports in today's society, we still get ridiculed for being strong or muscular--  as if those things make us less womanly. Are gender roles more embedded into our society than we previously thought? Or is possible to be a beautiful flower and a buff softball player?