In The Bluest Eye, the author Toni Morrison structures a story around the concept of
racial self-loathing, or hatred about ones self, and how it comes to
live in the mind of a young child and how it makes her think about her
self. Racial Self-Loathing is a big theme that is carried out throughout
the whole book. Racial self-loathing can lead to many dangerous things
and it can damage a person for life and ruin a persons life.
The
king of pop music, Michael Jackson is a prime example of racial
self-loathing. in Michael's early life he was a young black boy with
dark skin and black nappy, puffy hair.
Throughout young Michael's childhood he
was constantly getting made fun of or bullied by kids or his own family
about his black boy features, like his nose and hair. Michael eventually
gave in to society saying he was ugly and he tried to conform to be a
white person and have all white features. Michael, when he became old
enough and sick of the torture from society, got multiple plastic
surgeries and he deformed himself and and ruined his body that was
perfectly fine in the original form. These surgeries and self-loathing
made Michael Jackson go crazy.
In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye,
Pecola, one of the main characters, wishes with all her heart to be
white and have white features, blonde hair, blue eyes, white skin, socks
that don't slide down, etc. The self-loathing that Pecola has gets
worse and worse as the novel goes on. Pecola first gets knowledge of her
blackness and how she wants to wash it away when she goes to the store
to buy three Mary Jane's and the store clerk completely ignores her.
Then, towards the end of the book, the new girl in the school that
everyone adores tells Pecola that shes ugly and black. After Pecola
heard that she broke down with her head in her hands and cried. At the
end of the novel Pecola begins to go crazy. She hears voices in her head
saying that she has the bluest eyes, but the voices in her head was
really just her talking to her self.
Michael Jackson and Pecola are similar in a way because they both want the same thing, and that thing is to change who they were originally were and conform to society to be accepted.
The Zero Sum Game is a situation in which a gain by one person or
side must be matched by a loss by another person or side. In other words, a
person’s loss must be equal to another person’s gain in order to be a Zero Sum
Game.
Rudo Y Cursi
Trailer from the film
“Rudo y Cursi” is a movie about two half-brothers,
Tato who plays striker & Beto who plays goalkeeper, from the same town whom,
after being spotted by a scout, have to compete for a professional football contract because the scout can only take one player. Apart from being a football player, Tato’s
biggest dream was to become a musician, and Beto’s has always been to
lift the world cup, deciding by a penalty shoot-out, Tato scored and got
the opportunity with one of the best teams of the nation while later on Beto
joined the rival team. After starting their career, each of them gained their
own nickname, Tato earned “Cursi” (“corny”) and Bet earned “Rudo” (“rude.”)
After both gained fame as the superstars of their teams, things started to go
wrong for both, Cursi lost his woman, doesn’t have the same goal scoring touch
and his musical career didn’t end up well while Rudo gets into the world of
gambling and drugs. After one year of football season they both finally face
each other in a game. Cursi is afraid that if he loses his team is going to
second division while his brother Rudo needs to win in order to pay all his
debts to the drug cartel or he’s going to get killed. The match ended on a
penalty shootout and Rudo ended up saving Cursi’s shot. After that, Cursi
decided to quit football and went back home, while Rudo got shot in the leg and
had to quit football, they both ended going back home and decided that home was
the place where they actually belonged since the beginning.
Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet is an example of the Zero Sum
Game, there are many competitions that can only have one winner throughout the book, some of them leave the loser without any reward.
The Cadillac
In order to win the Cadillac, someone needs to get out.
When Ross was talking to Aaronow about how bad the leads were and all the pressure they had under them in order to sell the leads, as he mentions:
.
Moss: The whole fuckin' thing . . . The pressure's just too great. You're ab . . . you're absolu . . . they're too important. All of them. You go in the door. I . . . ''I got to close this fucker, or I don't eat lunch,'' ''or I don't win the Cadillac . . . '' We fuckin' work too hard. You work too hard. We all, I remember when we were at Platt . . . huh? GlenRoss Farms . . . didn't we sell a bunch of that . . . ?
Just like in the movie ''Rudo y Cursi'' only one of them could get the professional opportunity and the other one was going to stay with nothing at their hometown with nothing and working as farmer just like every other person it the town.
1983 Cadillac
Roma's Case
(For Roma to close his case, Lingk has to get screwed.)
After Roma made his long speech to Lingk to sell the lead as they were mention to ''Always be Closing,'' it all work out until Lingk's wife wanted him to close Roma's case.
Roma: And I don't want any fucking shit and I don't give a shit, Lingk puts me over the top, you flied it, that's fine, any other shit kicks out you go back. You . . . You reclose it, 'cause I closed it and you . . . you owe me the car.
Roma's point of closing the leads was over since he had nothing to worry about and he had won the prize but Lingk came over and mentions that he had to close the deal because of his wife.
In ''Rudo y Cursi'' the scout promised Cursi to help him with his professional musical career if he kept scoring goals for the team, but after the scout couldn't help him since his scoring touch vanished.
The Good and the Bad leads
For someone to have the bad leads, someone needs to be on top selling the good ones.
Aaronow: How many leads have we got?
Moss: The Glengarry . . . The premium leads . . .? I'd say we got five thousand. Five. Five thousand leads.
In the play, all of the characters have what they call the bad leads which are much harder to sell than the good leads, Moss and Aaronow plan on stealing the good leads, also called ''premium leads,'' in order to be able to sell more than Roma and be on top of the board.
Aaronow: You're going to steal the leads and sell the leads to him? (Pause.)
Moss: Yes
When Roma gets the leads after the real estate offica was robbed, he agrily argues with Williamson because he gave him a Patel case.
Roma: Patel? Fuck you. Fuckin' Shiva handed him a millon dollars, told him ''sign the deal,'' he wouldn't sign.
Since Levene struggled to sell the bad leads, he ended up stealing the premium leads and selling them to Jerry Graff because he wanted to be on top of the board.
In the film, Rudo didn't want Cursi to have all the fame and the big amount of money so he got into the gambling and drug world to earn more money but instead he ended up losing almost everything. He still payed the drug cartel all the money he owned them but since it took him so long the drug cartel decided to shoot his leg and end his football career for being a liar.
"Gossip Girl" as a Modern Six Degrees of Separation
“Gossip Girl” is an American drama
based on a series of books that fictitiously takes place in New York and is
centred on the lives of a group of interconnected Upper East side teens and
their families. The most crucial and representative characters of the wealthy
and luxurious lifestyle these teens lead are Serena van der Woodsen, Blair
Waldorf, Chuck Bass, and Nate Archibald. All drama circulates and
originates from the lives of these four characters.
In relation to John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation, the most
crucial characters in “Gossip Girl” are those who resemble the character types
of Paul, Tess and Trent, Flan, and Ouisa, which are Jenny Humphrey, Nate Archibald, Carter Baizen, William van der
Bilt, Ivy Dickens, and Lilly van der Woodsen.
As the lives of the Upper East Siders in Six Degrees of Separation
revolve around business, material possessions, and social status, the lives of
the Upper East Siders in “Gossip Girl” revolve around the same superficiality.
The similarities between the two works suggest that certain aspects of high
society are shallow, defective, and falsely construed. Gaining acceptance from
high society is based solely on connections, and the empires built by single
families that are meant to be passed on through generations do not always carry
on as expected.
How to Get "In" with High Society
Six Degrees of Separation
In Six Degrees of Separation, Guare writes:
Ouisa (To us)
He named the greatest black star in the movies. Sidney--
Flan
Don't say it. We're trying to keep this abstract. Plus libel laws.
Ouisa
Sidney Poitier! There. I don't care. We have to have truth. (To us) He started out as a lawyer and is terrified of libel. I'm not. (Guare 22)
In an upper class world made up of business investments,
greed, and luxury, Flan constantly sees possibilities of lawsuits, even in his
personal life, which he demonstrates when he stops Ouisa because of “libel laws”.
As Ouisa points out the connections Paul seems to have in saying “he named the
greatest black star in the movies,” she suggests that a key way to integrate
and find acceptance from this upper class world is to know people who would be
considered of the same social status as these wealthy New Yorkers. If Ouisa and
Flan could consider themselves equals with Sidney Poitier, then they could also
transitively accept Paul by association.
"Gossip Girl"
Similarly, to get “in” with the wealthy Upper East Siders of New York,
the social-climbing character Jenny Humphrey, from Brooklyn, tries to employ
the same tactics as Paul by knowing designers, participating in the same
activities, and acting like the Upper East Siders. Jenny constantly seeks social upwards mobility, but a defining moment in
her willingness to transform into a stereotypical Upper East Sider in order to be
accepted by Blair Waldorf is when she attends one of Blair’s annual, luxurious,
and infamous sleepover parties.
Jenny Humphrey constantly struggles with fitting in with Blair and her friends because she does not come from as affluent a family and therefore sees dissimilarities between herself and the other girls, creating feelings of separation, inadequacy, and desperation. Much like Paul uses connections, education, and clothes in Six Degrees of Separation, Jenny creates similarities between herself and the Upper East side girls in order to gain acceptance from Blair and high society.
Expectations of Children in High Society
Six Degrees of Separation
John Guare writes:
Tess
That's why I'm going to Afghanistan. To climb mountains.
Ouisa
You are not climbing mountains.
Flan
We have not invested all this money in you to scale the face of K-2.
Tess
Is that all I am? An investment? (Guare 71)
Guare illustrates two perspectives in Tess' parents' objection to her wanting to climb mountains rather than seek a lucrative career or marry. Ouisa responds to her daughter in an outright and blatant rejection of what she says while Flan more clearly points out that Tess is his and his wife's "investment". As an affluent family, Ouisa and Flan have sent their children to Groton and Harvard, giving them a very highbrow education, and they therefore expect their children to utilize that education in which they invested to go forth into the world with that advantage and continue the family's social class and opulent lifestyle. Flan, who is always concerned with business and even stops his wife from speaking because of "libel laws," sees Tess as a continuation of the family's empire of social class and wealth, so there is no time or room in her life, which he expects to control, for "[scaling] the face of a K-2". However, Tess seeks authenticity, substance, and real experiences in her life, which she suggests in saying, "Is that all I am to you?" In this sense, Guare creates two contrasting perspectives of how Tess' life should continue and thus shows that parents in high society often expect their children to follow a path in life the children may not agree with.
"Gossip Girl"
The parent-child relationship in "Gossip Girl" that most resembles Tess' relationship with her parent is Nate Archibald's relationship with his grandfather.
As his mother is a van der Bilt and comes from a politically active family, Nate is expected to go to Dartmouth, a prestigious Ivy League school traditionally a part of his family's education, and join his grandfather in becoming a politician. Already as an adolescent his life's path is planned out for him because he is expected to not only want the affluence that comes with his family's profession, but also to be at his grandfather's command. Nate in a sense owes his mother's family for his wealth, social status, and material items, and it is because of this indebtedness that his grandfather expects him to be a part of the next generation of van der Bilt politicians if he wants access to the family's wealth and status.
Another character in "Gossip Girl" who acts like Tess in rejecting his parents' chosen path for him, is Carter Baizen, a minimal but indicative character. Carter graduated from the same preparatory school as both the main characters of Chuck and Nate did, St. Jude's, and left the Upper East side of New York without a trust fund to travel and pursue a lifestyle different from that of his parents. About Carter, the socialite, playboy character Chuck Bass says to his best friend Nate, "Are you high? He looks like Matthew McConaughey between movies. The guy's a loser. Look, anyone who trades their trust fund for a fanny pack flies in the face of all that is holy to Chuck Bass." He was forced to support himself without access to his parents' bank accounts, and he therefore offers an extreme example of deserting wealth despite its advantages for meaningfulness in life.
Both John Guare's play and "Gossip Girl" suggest that in high society, parents see children as investments in the future of the family's wealth and class, and children can simultaneously reject their parents' choices for their paths in life in search of substance and authenticity rather than the superficial materialism of their parents' wealthy world.
Constructions of High Society
Six Degrees of Separation
Guare writes:
Ouisa (To us)
Can you believe it? Paul learned all that in three months. Three months...Paul looked at those names and said I am Columbus, I am Magellan. I will sail into this new world.
I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation. Between us and everybody else on this planet...It's anyone. A native in a rain forest. A Tierra del Fuegan. An Eskimo. I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people. (Guare 81)
Ouisa's speech begins in complete disbelief of the absurdity of how easily Paul was able to connect himself to her world. She sees Paul as a representation of the "six degrees of separation" she later discusses because he "sail[ed] into this new world" successfully from the lower social status of being homosexual and poor in the twentieth century. Ouisa's perception of her social class's exclusivity based on education, connections, and dress is completely shattered when she realizes that she can be connect to "anyone" by "only six other people" and that those people could be "native[s] in a rain forest" or "Eskimo[s]". Ouisa's realization contains a certain level of incredulity, but she also suggests a negative tone toward the idea that she is "bound to everyone on this planet". When Ouisa first says that there are only six degrees of separation between "us and everybody else," she suggests that the "us" is the wealthy class of people of the Upper East side of New York and that their social circle is no longer limited to those who have attended schools like Groton or Harvard or who are familiar with Kandinsky--but now extended to everybody in the entire world, linking them to people with whom they would not want to be associated. Although Ouisa ultimately helps Paul, she remains in astonishment about the fact that Paul's ability to come into her world after only three month of learning about schools, clothes, and people--disintegrated the misconstrued idea of high society that their wealthy and luxurious world is somehow separate from the rest of the world.
"Gossip Girl"
Similar to Ouisa's realization that she is in fact connected to everybody on the planet, the socialite mother of main character Serena van der Woodsen, Lilly van der Woodsen, faces a similar realization about a girl who pretends to be her niece:
Ivy Dickens acts as a sort of Paul of the Upper East side in "Gossip Girl". Lilly's sister, who, like Carter Baizen rejects her family's lifestyle, pays Ivy to pretend to be her daughter Lola to sieze access to the trust fund that Lola was supposed to receive. Lilly takes Ivy into her home, as Ouisa and Flan do with Paul, because she is supposedly a family member. However, as soon as the truth comes out about who Ivy really is, Lilly is not the same welcoming mother figure she once was. Lilly essentially disowns Ivy after she knows that she is not a family member and is in fact a poor, struggling actress.
Lilly's reaction to Ivy, although much more negative, is similar to Ouisa's reaction to revealing the truth about Paul. As soon as Ivy is not a part of the inner circle of Upper East siders by blood, she is no longer of importance to Lilly, nor is she allowed into the social circle.
Lilly's rejection of Ivy and Ouisa's less negative realization that she is connected to "anyone" suggests that many people in high society consider their worlds to be separate and untouched by outsiders such as Paul or Ivy, when in reality becoming an insider into this elite Upper East side type of world can be easily faked by learning how to dress and drop names such as "Sidney Poitier," Harvard and Groton, implying that the assumed separateness of high society is in fact a fallacy of those within that high society.
Wiz Khalifa is a rapper whose from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He became as an popular rapper after his hit song "Black and Yellow". I chose Wiz Khalifa's song and The Great Gatsby because both Gatsby and Wiz has common life style which is live young, wild & free(I do whatever I want to do).
In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby is the main-character who has big house, loves to party, got lots of money, and also popular guy so always girls following around him and these stuff reminds me of WizKhalifa's song.
[Verse 1]
Soon as I hit the club, look at them hoes' face Hit the pedal once make the floor shake Suede inside,my engine roaring ... Got you n****s checking game, I’m balling out on every level Hear them haters talk but there’s nothing you can tell 'em Just made a million, got another million on my schedule
A song "Black and Yellow" tell us that when Wiz step in to the club every girls looking at him because everybody knows who he is, and when he hit the pedal once, his car engine (bigger engine = fast,$$$) is too big and loud it makes the floor shake. Also Gatsby's big hater Tom always tell people about how Gatsby is a bad guy and how he gets all that money illegally,but he can tell anything about it because Gatsby got everything and he's on another level so nobody listens to Tom.
There was music from my neighbor's house...to know one from another (39-40)
Earlier I said Gatsby loves to party and drink. So he invites lots of people to his house every week and drink until they passed out. He does this every week because for him, this is what he loves to do and he doesn't really care about other people's viewby opening this kind of party.
[Hook]
So what we get drunk? So what we smoke weed? We’re just having fun We don’t care who sees So what we go out? That’s how its supposed to be
Living young and wild and free
Just like Gatsby, another song from Wiz Khalifa call "Young, Wild& Free" shows how Wiz doesn't care about people who watches and say 'he's not a good guy to hang out' when he smokes and get drunk because he's just having fun with his friends just and he thinks that is the way living young and wild and freejust like Gatsby does.
(They're such a beautiful shirts p.92)
This video shows one of the scenes from the Great Gatsby when Gatsby brought Daisy and Nick to his house to show how much money he got, Tom showed his clothes to Daisy and she cried because those shirts were so beautiful, so he throw his nice shirts to down stair like it's nothing even though it's from England.
What I'm rocking, Armani, Gianni, Versace, huh F*** around and I'll buy one of you broke n****s
...
It's nothing, It's nothing It's nothing, It's nothing Stackin' cheese till my bread right ... Did it all on my own so, I'mma spend all my bread like...
Wiz Khalifa's new song "it's nothing" explains how much money he got by naming expensive clothes that he wears, and by saying he will buy those for the people who doesn't have money to afford expansive clothes. Furthermore, Wiz says it's nothing because for him its just one of a tool that makes him fancy and there's lots of stuff that will make him fancier like Gatsby's clothes from England. Lastly, like Gatsby spend his own money on Daisy to get an attention from her, WIz spends his money on whatever he wants because it makes him happy when he sees he spending money on anything that he couldn't thought before he got popular.
Fancy By Drake connects to The Bluest Eye by the way Drake uses language in his lyrics to rap about how people dress and what they have because its arbitrary . Drake shows use what people think is beautiful when they thing its beautiful just because someone said it was. People will endear great pain just to look beautiful for someone who said it was.
Whats Beautiful?
Beautiful. In The Bluest Eye beautiful is considered to be white with blond hair and blue eyes. The stories of Dick and Jane in The Bluest Eye illustrates that for us. In drakes flow in Fancy "heels" relate to the bluest eye or the most beautiful eye.
"Time heals all and heels hurt to walk in
But they go with the clutch that you carry your lip-gloss in" (Drake)
In this quote Drake is saying the only reason she wears the heels completely because they match perfectly to her outfit. She will go through the pain for an arbitrary statement for fashion just because its beautiful.
PecolaThe heels in Drakes flow represent the blue eyes. Pecola wanted to have blue eyes so bad that she hurt her self because of social conformity. Pecola wishes she was beautiful and she wants to be excepted into society so bad she becomes crazy. (skitsofrantic) She has fallen into social conformity just because she's black and doesn't have blue eyes she is lead to think she isn't beautiful.
"The damage done was total"(The Bluest Eye 204).
Pecola went to great extremes for social conformity like women do all the time in society to fit an arbitrary statement. She is so lost in whats thought to be the most beautiful that she loses sight of what she has that is beautiful. She then has to tell herself that she has the bluest eyes.
"Her eyes sure were blue. But no. Not bluer then yours"(202)
Geraldine
Geraldine is a model for sugar brown girls who try and be as white as possible by only using name brand stuff and trying to fit in the world around them. The list of the names of brands in the writing of The Bluest Eye are smilier to the meanings in Fancy about having all the name brand clothes.
"They wash themselves with orange-colored Lifebuoy soap, dust themselves with Cashmere Bouquet talc, clean their teeth with salt on a piece of rag, soften their skin with Jergens Lotion.They smell like wood, newspapers, and vanilla. They straighten their hair with Dixie Peach, and part it on the side "(82)
The 3 Comfortable Women
In The Bluest Eye the 3 whores are women who don't conform to societies pressure to meet the arbitrary beauty statement. The whores connect to Drakes quote by being independent.
"And you don’t do it for the man, men never notice You just do it for yourself "(Drake)
The whores do it because its not painful connecting back to the pain full heels of society. In other words they are free body souls, they are happy comfortable and don't give a crap about what anyone else has to say about them. You don't have to be a whore to be happy in life just be who you are, comfortable and have no pain. Just because someone said its beautiful doesn't mean its beautiful.
