love according to Jerry

       Last year I did a group project about love.  We wanted the project to cover both scientific and biological aspects as well as emotional.  It was fun interviewing people, collecting, and reviewing the surveys and seeing what college attending people had to say about love.  Mostly people thought of it was a controlled emotion, you either feel for someone or you don't, you fall in love, you fall out of love... few thought of it as being biological or chemical.  Without going deep into the research we found, we did discover that love is both a emotional feeling that we develop as well as chemical reactions involving oxytocin, dopamine, and hormones acting as neurotransmitters giving us the biological part of love.

        In the movie Jerry Maguire, it covers a lot of life and personal choices between the relationships that Jerry has with his clients, girlfriends, fiances, wife, and ultimately himself the audience can see almost every type of love there is.  So if we ask ourselves what makes love possible in any of the relationships Jerry has in this movie, we see that there are multiple factors some of which we could find in our own love life’s.  First there is the selfish love that we see in Jerry.  At the beginning of this film we see how in love Jerry is with himself.  He loves his job, getting what he wants, himself, and his material things.  Jerry doesn’t care what lie he has to tell or who he has to backstab to get what he wants... he loves himself enough that he would do anything for himself.  By the end of the film, we see a change in Jerry where he starts to put others before himself, becoming more selfless then selfish.

        We see motherly love as Dorothy Boyd protects and cares for her young son thinking about his safety and health in the decisions she makes both in her career and personal life, and along with that, we see family love from Rod Tidwell as he strives to provide for his family and when he is injured we see the concern from his wife and family.  Another love that we see (and the main one of the movie) is the romantic love between Jerry and Dorothy.  Dorothy, again, displays selfless love that that both emotional and chemical as she take a leap and supports Jerry when he is fired and stays with him as he tries to continue his career as a sports agent.  Jerry however, seems to first feel chemical love for Dorothy, before it become emotional and he allows himself to fall in love with both Dorothy and her son.

       Today, I think that it’s rare to find a movie like Jerry Maguire with a subtle undertone and not overdone theme of love.  I feel like most movies are either about love specifically or have nothing to do with the emotional and chemical aspects or love.  But here’s the thing; I believe that pop culture has transformed love into any sort of relationship we have.  Work, personal, friend, family, sexual... pop culture often implies that love is a guaranteed thing in each one of those relationships.  Movies, music, clothes, food, and other material things are sold in a sex advertising way which I believe has now morphed with being the same thing as love.  Pop culture today takes the word love and uses it as a way to sell material goods rather then try to define or display its actual meaning.  Sadly, I think that because of this newer definition of love, many have lost sight and appreciation for the meaning of love, hopefully love will be re-redefined so once again the emotional, biological understanding of love will be popular.

cat thoughts...

        So, can you believe that this was my first time ever reading or learning the story plot of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”? (rhetorical)...  As soon as I finished the text, I thought I had it all figured out.  It was a story of favoritism, jealousy, and selfishness.  While it does include all of that, after reading “The Cat Has Nine Lives” article I totally understand it as a story about the cycles of life and how they were all animals just trying to make it.  However,  I want to bring up my thoughts/opinion on a question that the group that presented closed with: if Maggie was a woman in today’s time, would she still be wasting her time trying to make her (somewhat obvious failed) marriage with Brick work, and still be trying to have a baby with him having the resources that women have to date (i.e. being able to be a single woman with a job and support herself).

        It seemed as though most people in class said she would not be waiting around for Brick, considering she was still young, had no children to hold her back, and of course was a beautiful woman.  But, one gentleman shared that he did think Maggie would be trying to stick around for the money/estate.  I couldn’t agree more.  Even though today’s society offers women much more independence then the past ever did, I think that the core concepts of Maggie sticking around and staying with Brick are still alive today.  Money and greed can make people endurer a lot just so they can get their hands on some cash, and feeling outdone can make one want to outdo.  Maggie feels pressure to have a baby, yes, but she also knows that if she can become pregnant then husband Brick (and family) is forever tied to her.  Even to this day when a woman has a baby, the father of that child is almost always tied to her and the child in some sort of way...mostly finically.

        I think that there are plenty (no, not all) of women who would try and get something out of their marriage before they left it empty handed.  Yes, these days I do think that a lot of marriages take place because of money in the first place, but in comparing myself to Maggie, if I were a young attractive woman who fell in love with a young handsome man who came from money and married him, then our relationship went south and I thought that it might end, I can say that I honestly would deeply consider having a baby by him to ensure either  some of his family’s money or better yet, in hopes that he would clean up his act and step up as a man.  There is no way I would let myself walk away empty handed regardless of the fact that I could go get a job and make it on my own and possibly even remarry.   I say this not to sound selfish or like I’m a thief, but because if i had the chance to get money out of what I felt was partly mine, I would.

post-class thoughts

         okay, so because we don’t have a specific subject or reflection for this week’s blog entry, i want to talk a little more about feminism and women equality (or lack there of).  it was very interesting to do the in-class logo and picture analysis for a couple reasons... first off, i am the only female in my presentation group, not to say that the rest of the group was on a completely different page but it was really fascinating to note either what they totally overlooked or how they interpreted something from a different angle.  second, i never in a million years would have analyzed the pictures the way i did if i had not read the chapters assigned.  however, having said that i feel like the three different insights were totally different take on how i view women inequality.  

        another thing that is different for me when i think in terms of saussure, derrida, and beauvoir and how they view feminism... i do feel like all their input is so deep with theory and i am use to taking a much more current take on feminism.  i would never think that men’s past (early 19th century) is still a way to frame why there still is all this inequality.  i feel like society still has these deep rooted views that are slyly taught to younger generations, and we need to push and keep exposing this unfairness.

        as for the short video clip that we watched in class, i thought it was really interesting to discuss in simone de beauvoir terms because i could have analyzed it without  ever reading “woman as other”.  i think that using simone de beauvoir points and theories to analyze that clip extracted from the bigger picture.  yes, women are used for viewing pleasure, and yes they are often viewed as almost non-human and just an object that is to satisfy, but no matter what, there is going to be the other side to that.  part of that clip to me was viewing the women holding the power, i think that part of me viewed that video in today’s times... nowadays it’s thought to be a power if you can sell yourself as entertainment and it is easy to get caught up in believing that selling yourself for attention is power.

       sadly, i don’t think that this is true or a well rounded way to view empowered women, but it’s something that is so common that i forget what kind of power women really do hold.  hopefully there will continue to be the awareness that women still don’t have equality and that this will not only help males understand, but females as well.  wanting to sell yourself for another’s enjoyable entertainment is the same disrespect as buying for your entertainment.  i think that it will be very interesting and fun to tie in a few of these feminist views into my research presentation and see what the rest of my team thinks as well as the class. until then.... 

"other" doesn't fly by me...or others :}

        Okay... I’m not going to lie, I was totally set on writing about "The Second Sex" as soon as I finished it.  Don’t get me wrong, I spent some time thinking about the other ones, and in fact, “Differance” got a good intellectual discussion going between my sister and I, but due to the fact that my backbone was raised on third wave feminism, publicly offering my thoughts on “The Second Sex” was the only one that really seemed right.   I guess I would like to take just a quick moment and say that personally, I am a feminist.  Not to ridiculously extreme levels or anything, but rub me the wrong way with trash or down talking women and I promise you, you’ll hear my thoughts.  It’s funny actually because I typically stay so quiet about things to avoid confrontation you’d never even guess I felt differently on a matter than what someone is going on and on about, but bring my sex into it and I get surged with passion to explain why I think referring to women as “Other” is wrong.

        Yes, I  understand that over half of the first part of “The Second Sex” was information and opinions that was not pulled from people just yesterday.  And yes, I do think that society is on a grand stride to the equalization of women, but here are my thoughts on a few things in the reading that really stuck with me and got my wheels turning:  women make up half of the human race and as Dorothy Parker was credited for writing “men as well as women should be regarded as human beings.”  To me, that is most simple and easy to understand way of putting it...that info alone makes the point that women are not others and says ‘get over it, stop acting like men are better/more capable of things’.

        The next thing that got me thinking throughout the reading was the points made about the physical differences.  Yes, most everyone learns early on in life that females have uterus’, ovaries, and the majority of women were born with smaller frames but that doesn’t mean they don’t know, or can’t learn how to use their fists.  Simone de Beauvoir also brings in woman as “man’s dependent” and is bold enough to use the word “slave” in his point making that women have never achieved 100% equality.  Even though woman as her man’s slave is not as big of a problem as it once was, I think that the idea of it still lies within some of the misconceptions of what women should be.
        The clip that I have attached is a commercial saying that a soda (which up until now has never been gender oriented) is only for men, because only men like action, or what worse, only men are allowed to like action movies...it then goes on to say that the Dr. Pepper drink is also only for men to like, and 10 calories becomes man only thing as well.  Why is it okay to have a drink that is made only for men? I also thought of other things that took a food, drink, or program that is for both men and women, but then singele gender it and make an "only man" product out of it.  

        To sum up the rest of the reading (along with my opinion) Beauvoir addresses the multiple factors that contribute roadblocks keeping women from being equals with the other half of humanity.  Economically today, women still make less doing the exact same thing men do.  Lacking a certain level of physical strength always seems like a plausible excuse used to stop a female from something that she may be completely capable of, but I think that the biggest ‘in between the lines’ message that not only shows in this reading, but others as well is that men still hold more credibility and until that changes neither can the inequality.