Thoughts on Wednesday's Class Discussion

This is what we're supposed to blog about, right?

I thought everybody had some really good points about this. Most people basically were in agreement that the article's main idea- that the objectification of women in ads happens and is bad- was true. Not everyone agreed on whether Kilbourne wrote well or not, among other things. It's my opinion that she did write a good article. It's funny, that her essay-thing was like the ads she rails against. Her writing is up on a soapbox, borderline offensive, exaggerated and over-analyzing. However, it has great shock value (especially seeing the pictures, most of which were definitely disturbing), and it made you remember and think about the article. Just like the ads were shocking and made people remember the product. (And those ads do work- otherwise it would be a waste of money to air them, so the producers wouldn't if they didn't work, so since they're there, they work. Did that make sense?) So while the article was good rhetorical writing, I don't agree with all of it and can see why others don't as well. It sort of reminds me of that torture essay earlier this year, which was good writing but in my opinion idiotic.

I also just thought of something. We talked about billboards, signposts and TV. What about the Internet? Popup ads sometimes have weird pictures on them, too. Especially those weird ones for dating services. What would the role of Internet ads be in objectifying people?

Reflections on Class 2

Note: Our assignment is to reflect on anything in the class so far. Since I accidentally wrote the answer to the wrong question last time, I've decided not to waste a good reflection on Fuentes and the Great Gatsby. I've reposted it here. With editing. (My spelling last time was atrocious. I mean, I think I spelled the word 'amazing' wrong.) After all, we did talk about something like this today in class.

Further Note: I really need to learn how to use italics in this thing.

Further further Note: Is over 450 words a bad thing? I just got carried away.
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Fuentes' piece showed the way his experiences influenced his writing and how his heritage influenced it as well. It's amazing just how much something that can be considered ‘obsolete’ in today’s culture can influence someone so much. After all, today everyone is supposed to be a sophisticated, regular, all-American Westerner. Everyone is supposed to be equal and the same. (Which are two different things). The idea that being different [is bad] is supposedly obsolete. People aren't the same though, nor are they equal. When Fuentes spoke of his being looked down on for being Mexican at school, that shows how you are perceived is more apparent than what you really are.

How does this relate to the Great Gatsby? Well, Fuentes was thought of as Mexican and looked Mexican and so he began to feel Mexican. Sort of like Gatsby looked and thought of himself as a mysterious, exotic, fascinating guy, and people began to see him as he thought he was. It's actually the opposite of what Fuentes did. Gatsby's self-opinion caused the change in everyone else's opinion of him. Everyone else's opinions of Fuentes (his father's Mexican stories, his family's nationalism, the teasing at school, the news) influenced his opinion of himself, (which caused him to care more about his Latin American culture and propelled him into a situation where he started to write.)

Also: on the Red Sky in the Morning post, LaMags asked about what I meant by 'a memoir tells a mind, not a story'. That's a quote from Patricia Hampl's essay. What I think she means is that a story conveys something limited. It's like telling you a few things about something, but leaving loads more open for thought. Like the example in class, naming a table is a story. It tells you that the table has a name and its name is table. Stories are usually more complex than that and they can tell you even thousands of things. But they leave out some whys and some hows and questions and things. Stories don't tell everything, just most of something, or a lot of it, or very little of it. A memoir, in contrast, tells everything. Who and what and how and why and where and when and everything like that. A memoir doesn't just set the scene and add a plot and descriptions and ideas. It has to tell something beyond the ordinary facts of who and how and why. It has to tell what the person is like and how they feel, neither of which is rational or logical or definable and is the epitome of the phrase 'I could tell you stories'- you could but you can't because there's too much to tell and no way to explain it. It being your mind, your /self/.

Reflections on Class Thus Far

The class has been very interesting so far. We’ve discussed in depth all sorts of ideas pertaining to The Great Gatsby and its author, Fitzgerald, as well as Nickel and Dimed. Wednesday’s discussion in particular was way more complex than I expected it to be. That wasn’t a bad thing, because it was fascinating to see how other people understood the books differently than I did and what they thought about it.

The discussions also helped me to understand what exactly Fitzgerald was saying in his essay and in The Great Gatsby. All that wordy, semi-poetic language he uses makes it quite difficult to comprehend even some of the descriptions (such as the ash fields, which confused me).

The day that we were shown the Rhetorical Triangle was interesting in a different sort of way. We already knew the basic facts about it- for example, we know that every piece of writing has a purpose and uses logos, pathos, ethos, etc.- but we don’t consciously think about it. It’s surprising the way that we have to analyze things we already know in order to understand them.

One last thing: the vocabulary is finally difficult this year, which makes me happy.

~!~Lizard~!~