I remember distinctly the first time I realized that girls were attractive. All of a sudden, this girl that I had known for years, looked different. I just had this unexplainable attraction to her face. I just "liked" it. It was the weirdest thing, and also the most awkward thing. I found out a few hours later that one of my male childhood friends was "going out" with another one of my female childhood friends since the day before, and I told myself that it was OK to feel that way. With this in mind, I "manned up" and told the girl I had a crush on her and she admitted that the feelings were mutual. (Awww.) The next day she told me she didn't like me anymore because she told her mom about how she was feeling and her mom said, "Why?He's got a big butt."
Middle School and High School, at least to me, are the cruelest and toughest years of people's lives. In these stages, you are so impressionable, so vulnerable, especially since they're crucial time periods in which people are figuring out who they are internally, as well as who they are socially. I can not think of anything worse than a mixture of hormones and insecurities to fuel your interactions with others as well as how you feel about yourself. It's just so brutal, especially in the earlier middle school years where kids don't really have a sense of throttling back the intensity of their opinions of others, or how they say it. It isn't their fault, they just haven't learned how to speak to people in eloquent, gentle, "nice" ways.

What Kindlon and Thompson discuss in the article, I can agree with. This notion of competition and survival of the fittest can still, in a lot of senses, be applied to boys as they get older. There are still those unspoken rules of not feeling, or at least not revealing, emotions, especially of pain and weakness. There is still that desire/necessity to perpetually prove yourself in the endless pissing contest (I was going to use a much cruder metaphor but it would have been too punny). I can get on moral high ground and say I am immune to these expectations placed upon me, but that would be severely hypocritical. When I think about it, in this "race to impress," who exactly are you trying to impress anyway? And for what reason?

I think it's safe to assert that the majority of "men" these days are really just older, bigger boys from preschool, middle school, and high school. On the flip side, the same is true for the female perspective. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure that there is this "race to impress" for women as well. When I first read the article, it reminded me of that scene in "Mean Girls" where the main character is at the mall and they all turn into animals that are savagely hunting and killing each other. Survival of the fittest.

Let's switch gears a little bit as I'd like to take this opportunity close with another "coming of age" story that was utterly humiliating. Sure, during those moments of humiliation, and the short period of time following it, were pretty painful. I personally don't have a problem sharing them now. In fact, I think those are some of my best stories and I love laughing at myself and realizing how ridiculous, although legitimate, my thought process and what I thought was most important was at that age. I hope in the future, I can say the same about myself today. Anyway, back to the story. How I managed to come out of it relatively unscathed by my classmates at the time is still a mystery to me.

So imagine this: seventh grade,  Valentine's day, a version of me that is so much more awkward (think bowl cut, "hip" 90s clothing, and my voice at the peak of breaking, so I squeaked a lot.) The internet was a relatively new thing, and computers were still on the rise. I had a great idea of personalizing a Valentine's card on the computer, printing it out, and giving it to one of the hottest girls in my grade. If I pulled it off and gotten her to go out with me, it would have vaulted me to the apex of social standing. (Kindlon and Thompson would have had a field day analyzing me.) Mind you, I had never really talked to her outside of class, so obviously I had no idea how she felt about me. It never occurred to me that my bold admission, in size 52 cursive font, that "I love you Nina" may have been a bit much, exaggerated, borderline inappropriate even.
Now let's go back to me being awkward. I liked her, and I definitely did enough innocent stalking (and this was prefacebook, so I did it the old fashioned way) that I knew where her locker was and that I got to school before her. I thought the perfect way to surprise her was to slip the note into her locker so that when she got to school to put her backpack away, she'd get the note. The way classes were scheduled that day, I knew I wouldn't see her until third period because we were in different home rooms. However, I knew we would be in the same classes until the end of the day. Third period happens. It starts, it ends. Nothing. I am confused, maybe she's just playing hard to get. Fourth period, the same thing. Fifth period, I am racking my brain confused, but I do give her a bag of Hershey's Kisses which she seemed to appreciate. Lunch. Recess. Sixth and Seventh period. Nothing. At the end of the day, I went to her locker as she was getting her stuff out and was like "well? any response?" and she goes "about what?" and I said, "well I like you, will you go out with me?" and she just looked at me confused and said "sorry, but I'm kind of with this other guy, I thought everyone knew that" and she closed her locker and walked away. I stood there for a second, baffled. To add insult to injury, the girl whose locker was next to hers goes "Leo, I think this was meant for someone else" as she handed me the card I had made.

To what extent is an artist responsible for being a role model for children?  Whose responsiblity is it?

My initial reaction is to say that an artist holds no responsibility for being a role model for children. Immediately after, I think no, the artist has a lot of responsibility because they are looked up to by their fans, and ultimately what they express in their art represents who they are. But then doesn’t that constrict or “stifle” what they can or cannot say, whether literally or metaphorically? Yes. But then what about the liberties associated with artistic expression i.e. personal truths and ideas/ideals if they are limited by responsibility?

Before the above gets even more incoherent and inconclusive, I need to define, or at least distinguish, between what is art, and what is I consider to be consumer/mass media. I realize that the distinction between art and mainstream pop culture/mass media is debatable. That’s fine. However, within each genre of art (i.e. music, theatre, movies, paintings, poetry etc.) there is a pretty obvious distinction between the classics and masterpieces displayed in museums, immortalized by awards and prestige, against the amateur work replicated by the thousands to be sold at Target, Walmart, Ikea etc.

The following distinctions are all personal, but feel free to disagree.

Movies:

American Beauty, Casablanca, Pulp Fiction, Schindler’s List, Requiem for a Dream, Aliens, Up, Revolutionary Road etc. vs. Son of the Mask, You Got Served, Ninja Turtles, Robocop, Mr. Bean, Mean Girls etc.

Poetry:

“Where the Sidewalk Ends,” “If You Forget Me,” “The Road Not Taken,” “Life is Fine,” “The Raven,” “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” etc. vs. 90% of what you find on myspace, or personal sites.

Music (I could potentially get a lot of heat from this):

Bach, Chopin, Mozart, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Queen, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Lil’ Wayne etc. vs. Lil’ Wayne, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Queen, Bob Marley, Michael Jackson etc.

(My intent is not to step onto some pretentious moral/artistic high ground. I will be the first to admit I enjoy the award winning “stuff” as much as its “inferior” counterpart.)

So what was the point of that? Well simple. Artists, no matter what form or what genre, are capable of producing jewels that help define/redefine their art just as well as contributing to the amount of “garbage” already present. In today’s society, at least in the Western World, when art and artists are mentioned, more often than not, music is the association. However, the music and the artists that come to mind most likely come from the billboard top 100 singles, or some local radio station’s top 10. What is unfortunate, but is just the way today’s society, is that these artists are looking to sell singles, records, and albums for money. So what is the easiest way to succeed in a capitalistic culture? Sell sex, drugs, and alcohol. Talk about how “hard” you are and what you have done (read “hustle”) to achieve what you have now i.e. sex, drugs, and alcohol.

So back to the question. Who is responsible? I don’t think any one party can be solely held responsible for how or what a child’s role model does. I think that if anything, it is more so the duty of the parent to guide/filter against what they believe to be offensive and a bad example. However, the artist shouldn’t just promote a “rock star lifestyle” because that perpetuates an unrealistic and unproductive lifestyle. Overall, it really should be a balance between the artist and the parent/guardian.

Everything in moderation, even moderation.

So although the movie's copyright is 1993(?) the images in the film are more representative of the late 70s early 80s. So in the span of 20 years, has there been significant change in the dominant portrayals of women and men? No... but there have definitely been changes nonetheless.

The film states that men are perceived, in Western society, as fearless, tough, decisive and that he knows what he wants, and that he wont let anything get in his way of achieving that desired goal. He does this mainly to impress the ladies, and to impress others with his "manliness." On the other hand, women are perceived as beautiful bodies, no brains, and are there to please men. They are shown as willing and eager to serve men, and are willing to be manipulative to the point where she can "trap" the man that she desires. Also, she is perceived as clumsy, helpless, panic stricken, especially when things go wrong.

When I was watching the video, it reminded me of the first or second day of class where we blurted out descriptors of males/masculine and females/feminine. In summary, the adjectives we used pretty much echoed what was said in the video so those senses, nothing has changed. What I did find interesting about the video was during the "musical" description of males and females with the male's segment being very punctuated, terse, and staccato, almost "efficient" and the female's song being very melodious, sensual, and legato. The overall impression that I received from the video is that males are more objective, "get it done," scientific, with females being more creative and subjective.

However, I really do think there is a change significant enough in today's Western world that at least challenges the established norms. This is evident in a lot of media today, music, movies, in that males are looking for Ms. Independent who has accomplished and gotten everything herself, and females are looking for a man who does more than just provide a shelter and food, someone who perceives her as an equal and is not threatened by that status. In terms of nontraditional gender roles, i.e. homosexuality, intersexuality etc. these images and relationships are now present in popular medias as well.

If you love someone, set them free... just kidding. I can appreciate a good happy ending just like the next guy, or gal (let's avoid being heteronormative,) but I appreciate "realistic" endings more. Now this statement may raise flags for psychologists/psychiatrists but personally, I think that there are too many "happily ever afters" so much so that everyone believes that that's what they will get. I am not trying to sound pessimistic, and sorry to burst your bubble, but in the grand scheme of things, by definition, you will only have ONE happy ever after, but a multitude of disappointment. It is kind of ironic because, I too am in search for my own fairytale ending.

In any case, is Louise dead, alive, or an apparition at the end of the story? I don't think it matters. I think the importance of Louise in the second half of the novel is not whether she is dead or alive. Instead, I think Louise in many ways becomes the green light in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s "The Great Gatsby:"

"I didn't call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone - he stretched out his arms towards the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward - and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness." (16)

Specifically the green light, and Louise, symbolizes both characters' dreams and hopes for the future. If I had to answer the question, Louise would be an apparition, except not in a spiritual/supernatural sense, but that she has transformed into an idea. If she were ever found, dead or alive, the discovery would sort of "cop out" the intensity and passion of the narrator's love. Louise's lack of autonomy or voice only strengthens the novel because she becomes an unattainable dream. Had Louise been found, the reader would not be able to appreciate, or measure, the capacity and depth of the narrator's love ("Why is the measure of love loss?" (1)). Also, the tone and diction of the novel would most probably have been vastly different if the narrator had found her, assuming that they reconciled.

I think it’s interesting that Winterson chose to end her novel with a “cliffhanger” and say that” that is where the story starts.” Although there are only three feasible “next steps” after his/her failed search, i.e. move on, keep searching, cut off all ties and live as a “widow” until death, his/her stating that “this is where the story starts” implies that time has passed and that he/she is much older/wiser and that he/she has somewhat formed a detachment and has achieved some form of closure to the relationship, hence why the narrator suggests that it is a “happy ending.”