A Thousand Words

The old saying, as over-used and cliché as it may be, is undeniably true: pictures really are worth a thousand words. Looking at a single picture can tell you more about a person or place than any written description ever could. However, this is not to say that a photograph is always meant to serve the purpose of providing accurate and non-biased information. In reality, the thousand words that a picture tells you are completely up to the photographer.

For example, if I were a travel agent and a family walked in and asked me about a vacation in the Dominican Republic, I would likely show them something like this:

This picture is of beautiful Punta Cana, a tropical paradise with resorts lined with luscious palm trees and bright sandy beaches. After seeing this picture alone, this hypothetical family may want to pack their bags and start their extensive tour of the Dominican Republic as soon as possible. From what this picture tells them, this country is flawless and there is no better place to be on earth.

Now say I am commissioned by a history textbook to send in a picture that gives an accurate depiction of what a typical town in the Dominican Republic looks like. That picture would look more like this:

Even though this is the same country, this picture says a completely different set of words.  As Susan Sontag states, "One never understands anything from a photograph." A person can think they understand something but really they're only thinking what the photographer is allowing them to think. 

The Waitron 5000

In The Word Police, Michiko Kakutani pokes fun at political correctness by going completely overboard in suggesting more appropriate substitutes for things that aren't even offensive in the first place. She alternates between criticizing PC advocates and suggesting outlandish things like replacing the word, "testimony" with "ovarimony" when talking about a woman and replacing "Pet Semetary" with "Animal Companion Graves." Seeing those suggestions by themselves make it clear that Kakutani is intentionally exaggerating these fictional examples, however the examples of real ideas by PC advocates seem almost just as ridiculous.

For example, when Kakutani suggests the use of "ovarimony," I found it quite humorous as I saw the way that it made the overly sensitive people look foolish, even though I was convinced they would never dare suggest something this extreme. However, in the next paragraph she uses real examples found in the Random House Webster's College Dictionary that instantly proved me wrong. She states that the book has an appendix titled, "Avoiding Sexist Language," in which the author suggests using the alternative spelling "womyn" because it is demeaning to those of the female sex to include the word "men" inside of it. The author of this appendix also suggests using the word "waitron" to address both male and female restaurant workers, even though the words waiter and waitress are already inclusive and are not derogatory or oppressive in any way.  Calling someone a waitron would do nothing to get rid of gender stereotypes, but instead would degrade those who work in restaurants, reducing them to lifeless food service robots who have no purpose but serve their master, the customer. I originally found humor in the tongue-in-cheek examples Kakutani was using, but after seeing what kind of over-the-top things that actual PC advocates were in support of, and seeing how similar these two really were, my enjoyment instantly turned into deep concern.

Why Not Save the Shrimp?

Though Joy Williams makes some very compelling points throughout her piece, Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp, the part that I found most profound and thought-provoking was the title.  One of the main reasons that this title is so intriguing to me is because of it's ambiguity. What is so unique about it is that the more I think about it, the more I find possible meanings manifesting in my head.

One who looks at this title more literally might say that it is making a statement on how society treats animals based on their usefulness to us. People have always been sympathetic towards whales and very eager to save them, not for any particular reason other that the fact that we really have no practical use for them. We just figured we might as well save them since there's no reason to kill them, and it really wouldn't be a hassle to save them because we aren't hunting them in the first place. Shrimp on the other hand are "more common on menus than chicken." People don't think twice about killing large quantities of shrimp at a time because they are such an integral part of our food culture. It would be way too big of an inconvenience to start trying to save the shrimp, so people would be much more comfortable "saving" something that American people aren't even hunting in the first place.

A figurative interpretation of this title would be that the "whales" mentioned here represent the government and big businesses that are destroying the environment, while the "shrimp" represent the environmentalists and activists who have become powerless in the fight to preserve nature.  In this interpretation, the title is thought to be sarcastic, and could essentially be restated as: Help the government destroy the environment while the ones who are trying to save it should be forced to helplessly watch from the sidelines.

There Most Definitely Is An Unmarked Woman

In a year where we have studied various sensitive topics such as rape, and racial injustice, surprisingly our most heated in-class discussion to date was about women's fashion. To be fair it was a rather in-depth conversation about women's fashion, as it was more of a discussion on the way that woman are pressured by society to look beautiful while men do not ever feel this pressure. The reason I think that this was such a hotly debated topic was because Deborah Tannen's argument in "There is no Unmarked Woman" seems somewhat incomplete. 

One part of her argument that seems flawed is the part that discusses how men have the ability to choose whether or not they are marked. Admittedly this is true to an extent, as women do seem to have more choices to make when it comes to formal wear while men almost exclusively wear suits.
However, Tannen goes a little too far when she tries to elaborate, saying that at a formal event a man could wear a "cowboy shirt with string tie or a three-piece suit," or dress as a "necklaced hippie in jeans." This point does not make any rational sense because if any person, regardless of gender, were to wear this attire to a formal event, they would certainly be marked.  I would even argue that a woman is not marked at all if they show up in any sort of attire as long as it fits the formality of the occasion.  Therefore women have just as much freedom when it comes to choosing to be marked because choosing to be marked in this situation would really just be choosing something that is inappropriate for the occasion.

Even if the setting is not as formal, it still seems that woman are given more of a choice to be unmarked than Tannen seems to think. Tannen along with many people in class on Friday were arguing that women are looked at much more closely when it comes to what they wear from day to day.  They argued that guys can wear sweatpants whenever they please, but if a girl were to come to school in sweatpants one day, everyone would be questioning if everything is okay with that person. I fully disagree with this statement because I believe that being "marked" really comes down to a break in consistency with what either a male or female wears.  A girl who chooses to wear sweatpants one day would only be marked if she normally comes to school wearing dresses and skirts.  This rule goes both ways and applies to men just as much.  If a man who normally would come to school in a well-fitting collared shirt and dress khakis came in wearing a tee shirt and baggy sweatpants, I would be just as confused as if a girl did the same thing.  A male or female is only marked if they break the consistency of their normal attire.  Because in the end, everyone is so caught up in their own things that no one really is going to care what you are wearing unless it's outrageously different from anything you have worn in the past.

Take it Like a Man

"Cowboys are just like a pile of rocks- everything happens to them.  They get climbed on, kicked, rained and snowed on, scuffed up by the wind.  Their job is 'just to take it'."
                                                                                                              -Gretel Ehrlich, About Men

As a male, my role in society has been made very clear to me: I am meant to stay steady as rock, bottling up all of my emotions and letting the women in my life do the crying. Any emotion that I feel should not be expressed, but instead locked up in the deep dark cavern that exists where my heart should be. When men hang out in groups they are supposed to relax and play manly games like pool or ping pong.  For the typical group of women, a conversation is more of an emotional ping pong, where feelings are traded back and forth endlessly in a game that no one loses. Women are often seen having deep and intellectual conversations over tea as they nibble on crumpets and address each other as "Your Majesty." The last deep conversation a group of men ever had ended in them drunkenly deciding to get misspelled "Ghandi" quotes tattooed their forearms.

This is the way society says it has to be; however, I think it's only fair to question why it has to be this way. Some may argue that the media is to blame for way that men have to be so emotionally guarded.  Others might argue that traditional gender roles and family values are to blame. Though the list of reasons for these stereotypes may be as vast and endless as outer space, it seems more important to focus on ignoring them, and focus on a creating a world where both men and women can feel it is acceptable to express themselves in whatever way they choose.

In Defense of Vegas Weddings

In "Marrying Absurd," Joan Didion criticizes Las Vegas Weddings for their tackiness and insincerity. She admittedly does an excellent job of painting a vivid picture of the brides in "orange minidress[es]" and the "stained-glass paper windows" that represent how truly cheap and meaningless these marriages can be. However, she fails to consider the positive sides to the Vegas Wedding, of which I think there are many, depending on the circumstances.

First off, I must clarify that those who spontaneously decide to get married after a night of drinking really are not the ones I'm defending.  While these marriages may sometimes end up working out, I must admit that these are almost never a good idea and under these specific circumstances, I would have to mostly agree with Didion.

However, there are other situations where the Vegas Quickie Wedding may be the perfect choice.  For a couple that is sure that they want to spend the rest of their lives together, but don't have the money for a big wedding, the Las Vegas Wedding is a cheap and easy way to make it official without breaking the bank.  For a couple that is madly in love and feels that the love they have is special enough without having to deal with all of the extra wedding hoopla, Vegas is the perfect place to have a nice, private wedding and then go enjoy some quality vacation time with the one you love. And lastly, for a couple that is entering their Golden Years and maybe is on their 2nd or 3rd marriage, they would want nothing more than to just hop in their car and hit the drive thru marriage stand on their way home so they could just get the formality over with and get on to spending all the years they have left with the one they truly love. 

The Want of Money

In the very first line of his essay, "On the Want of Money," William Hazlitt makes the bold statement that "Literally and truly, one cannot get on well in the world without money." As soon as I read this line I was taken aback.  It was hard for me to focus on the rest of the essay because I couldn't help but let my mind wander thinking about that very first line.

What impacted me most about this statement was how it summarized everything that life could possibly ever be about: the need for money.  Although it's kind of a sad realization, the truth is that no one could possibly ever be happy without money.  Even if someone were to say that they don't need a fancy house or a nice car to be happy, they still need at least some money in order to just stay alive. Someone who showers the with themselves with material things most likely does it because they feel empty inside but, on the other side of the coin, being starving, broke, and homeless is an even worse way to live out your life.

When I think I about the future, I constantly worry about how I'm going to balance going to a good college, starting a family, and having a career I actually care about while still making enough money to survive. I would love more than anything to become a professional musician and tour around the world but I know that even if that dream did somehow come true I wouldn't have the time to start a family and I probably wouldn't even make that much money.  The harsh reality of becoming a musician is that I will probably never make enough money to be happy if do nothing else but that. The only way to make a sufficient amount of money is to compromise in some way, most likely by getting a job I don't really like just stay afloat and support my family. In reality, money doesn't create happiness, but rather the need for money limits it.

Consider the Sausage

While reading the article "Consider the Lobster," I was reminded of a movie I saw recently: Seth Rogan's Sausage Party. Sausage Party tells the story of a hot dog named Frank who has been told all of his life that his purpose in life is to leave the grocery store he lives in and enter "The Great Beyond," where food can go to live out the rest of their lives in happiness.  However, he eventually discovers the truth of what happens in "The Great Beyond" as he hears accounts of the brutal mutilation of some of his friends. Like the lobster piece, Sausage Party tackles the idea of how grotesque the cooking and preparation of food can be. Even though this movie mainly deals with the "lives" of processed and non-living foods, the message of both is the same: that there are many moral considerations when it comes to consuming living things. 

Similar to the graphic images in Sausage Party (seen above), David Foster Wallace uses rather haunting descriptions of how a lobster reacts when it is being boiled.  He describes how they "sometimes try to cling to the container's sides... like a person trying to keep from going over the edge of a roof," and how "you can usually hear the cover rattling and clanking as the lobster tries to push it off."  Both of these accounts left me mortified and got me to see the idea of cooking and eating animals in a whole new light. While I don't think I could give up eating meat all together, I know I'll never be able to cook a lobster without Wallace's haunting words running through my mind.

Clifford The Poor Disabled Dog

So the other day someone asked me, "Hey Caelan, that's a pretty cool blog title, but when are you gonna actually write a blog about Clifford the Big Red Dog?" Originally, I thought, "Why would I that? All my other blogs haven't had anything to do with him so why start now?" But then I thought a little more about Clifford and his stature and realized that there was no better way to discuss disabilities in the media than with this freakishly large dog.

When a child is first introduced to Clifford they see him as a giant but lovable pet who goes on adventures and helps out the people in his neighborhood.  But really, being this large is a major disability for Clifford. Poor little Emily Elizabeth, who is essentially more of an aid than a friend, has to make him a custom dog house, struggle to find enough food to fill him up, and try to discipline him, which is extremely difficult, considering that he's five times as tall as she is.

However, Clifford's struggles go beyond the fact that his size is often overlooked as a disability. In fact, the very name "Clifford The Big Red Dog," represents everything that is wrong with the way that disabled people are portrayed in the media.  In the piece we read this week, Nancy Mairs stated that the worst thing about films and TV shows that portray the disabled, is that they "[take] disability as its major premise," and "[exclude] the complexities that round out a character and make [him or her] whole." Even through the title, Clifford is defined by his disability. Before even reading anything more about Clifford the audience already knows two things about him: he's big and red, two traits that automatically isolate him and make him stand out from every other dog. No matter what he does with his "normal-sized" friends, he will always be limited by his disability and will never be able to do that same things that they can do.  Instead of teaching children a lesson of including everyone regardless of their appearance or physical limitations, Clifford teaches them to isolate those who are different and allow their disabilities to define them forever.