#response 3

yay for director loki. i’m applauding you you just can’t hear it bc i’m far away. :)))

i bet we could amigo. it is so frustrating literally all the pieces look the same tis painful. oh well.

ahhhh i love the life you described and yeahhh from what i’ve seen especially the theatre community is quite welcoming. just knowing there are other people out there that like the same things you do and would support you if they knew is so comforting.

Yeah it’s definitely easier like this. Clearly I’m still a fool but it is easier mentally to go into it u know. Lmao

Awww thanks I’m excited for it I’m really enjoying the power and also the influence over the project I really get to feel like I’m doing something. Rn I’m stage managing but I get an assistant title in practice because I’m technically also directing. It’s fun :)))

Rip did u ever finish the puzzle kiddo I hope you did

Yeah I am alive because of theater for damn sure it’s very comforting. I can know I’ll fit in wherever I go because of it :)))

seThe critically acclaimed 2016 film, Moonlight, is a story of black sexuality following Chiron, a black, gay man. The film is broken into three parts, each following a significant period in Chiron’s life: “Little,” a section examining Chiron’s young childhood as a boy who is bullied for being a “f-----t,” which he does not understand; “Chiron,” exploring Chiron’s high school experience as a budding young man facing his sexuality head-on; and “Black,” a look at Chiron’s adulthood. Each of these sections reveal something new about Chiron and his exploration of his sexuality.

In “Little,” Chiron is a young boy who is physically smaller and perceived weaker than the other boys, hence the nickname “Little.” While running from boys who are trying to beat him up, he meets Juan, a younger adult who wants to protect him. Juan takes Chiron under his wing, allowing him to stay over his house whenever he wants and taking care of him with his girlfriend, Theresa. Chiron is very quiet and will not speak to Juan about his home address, and when he does and they return to his apartment, it seems that Chiron’s mother is afraid that he had been kidnapped.

Chiron keeps appearing at Juan and Theresa’s home, though, which raises red flags about his home life. It is soon discovered that Paula, Chiron’s mother, is not-so-successfully hiding hard drug use, which is supplied by her dealer, Juan. Juan clearly does not want to sell drugs, but it is how he makes his living. Paula lords this over him, though, claiming he could never be a good parental figure to Chiron because he is a dealer. Juan then gives Chiron some “man to man” advice on the beach while teaching him how to swim, opening his role as a father figure, showing what path he’s choosing to take. 

This section ends with Chiron asking Juan and Theresa what a “f----t” is and whether he is one. Despite both being taken aback by the question, Juan answered with grace, telling him that “’f-----t’ is a word used to make gay people feel bad,” but that it is okay to be gay, even if he doesn’t know at that moment.

“Chiron” opens with a silhouetted image of Paula standing in the doorway intimidating Chiron, calling him “f-----t,” then cuts to Theresa teaching Chiron how to make a bed. Juan has since died, and Paula has become entirely dependent on crack, going so far as to harass Chiron until he gives her the small bit of allowance Theresa had given him so that she could fund her addiction. 

At school, Chiron feels as lost and unloved as he does at home, getting along with only one real friend, Kevin, who is a real “ladies’ man.” Chiron is relentlessly bullied by another boy in his classes, who makes lewd comments at him, presumably because he believes Chiron is gay. Chiron seeks solace with Kevin on the beachfront, smoking together and talking about life. They slowly begin to kiss and engage in sexual acts, which solidifies Chiron’s homosexuality, while exploring the idea that Kevin may be bisexual or sexually fluid. 

The boys who bully Chiron manipulate Kevin into punching him in the vein of a “game” they played as kids. Chiron is left bleeding on the ground, carried off by a security officer who helps him get to the Principal’s office. She warns him that if he doesn’t press charges, they will continue to harass him for being gay. She makes it seem as though Chiron is responsible for his own abuse, a tactic often used against LGBTQ+ who do not fit the “norm.” 

Chiron seeks the “eye for an eye” route, walking briskly but silently back into the classroom, only to pick up his chair and beat it over the head of the lead bully. This section ends with Chiron being handcuffed and ushered into a police car.

The final section, “Black,” reveals Chiron’s adulthood as a buffed-out drug dealer, following in the ways of Juan. His physical image is intimidating to say the least, likely because he has sworn to himself never to take punches from anyone again. 

He visits Paula, who is being treated in a rehab facility, and forgives her for not being there when he needed her the most. Later, he gets a call from Kevin, who he hasn’t seen in a decade. Kevin invites him to take a trip down to Miami to visit him, as he’s become a chef at a diner and can make him dinner. Chiron hops in the car and goes, desperate to see his childhood friend. 

When he sits at the counter, Kevin hardly recognizes him. Once he does, though, it’s all smiles. Kevin makes him a “Chef’s Special” and catches him up on his life, including his young daughter by an ex-girlfriend. After they catch up, Chiron stays at Kevin’s house, where they reveal their broken and attained dreams. Chiron reveals that he had not had a sexual encounter since his time with Kevin at the beach. After revealing this, he and Kevin cuddle as the movie fades out. 

Relating to the reading, Kevin’s sexuality rings true to Lisa Diamond’s idea of “sexual fluidity” versus bisexuality, as sexual fluidity seems to be more contingent on circumstances rather than all-encompassing sexuality. She uses the phrase “situation-dependent change in one’s sexual attractions,” which seems to fit Kevin, as he seems to only have had relationships with women with the exception of Chiron, yet his relationship with Chiron is one of the most intimate relationships he has had, based on inference (Location 4942).

In another vein, as C.J. Pascoe denotes, young boys like Chiron may have trouble coming out due to societal expectations placed on them by other boys and the culture itself. The cultural standard, as Pascoe points out, “For contemporary American boys, the definition of masculinity entails displaying power, competence, a lack of emotions, heterosexuality, and dominance” (Location 3730). From the time he was a boy, Chiron was perceived as weak and a crybaby, therefore he was seen as submissive and un-masculine. Pascoe points out that this is not an uncommon phenomenon, as, “For many contemporary American boys masculinity must be repeatedly proven, as one’s identity as masculine is never fully secured” (Location 3730). When young Kevin tries to teach Chiron how to fight, he is imparting some of his knowledge on Chiron, giving him tools to “secure” his masculinity around the other boys. 

By: Czarina Ramos

Adolescence is the most difficult stage of life, especially in western society. When youths start to undergo puberty, it becomes a very complicated and confusing time for them. At this stage of life, children begin to develop into young adults and may become increasingly self-conscious about their image.

I remember when I was just starting high school in grade 9. At this point Facebook and Twitter were becoming popular and everyone had an account. Back then, people didn’t care who they were Facebook friends with. People would always just accept requests and send them out to everyone, the more friends you had the more popular people thought you were.

In high school I was a very shy person. I wouldn’t say I was “unpopular” or a “loser” but I had my own small group of friends and wasn’t the party type of person. Whenever I was alone or with a couple of my friends, we would log onto Facebook, and our Newfeed would be filled with pictures and pictures from a party that happened the night before. Of course, the people posting these pictures were from the more “popular” group of kids. The girls were thin, blonde, and beautiful, while the guys were tall, muscular, and handsome. Perfect is the only word to describe their lives. Every time I logged onto Facebook I thought to myself, “why can’t I be more like them?”

It’s not hard to believe that teens can actually become depressed from using social media sites. Click Here to find out more information about "social media depression" and why experts believe it's a growing concern. These days, no one seems to be content with what they have. Everyone is so busy thinking about the things that they don’t have, that they forget to appreciate the things that they do have. Teens and other social media users need to get a reality check and realize that there’s always more to a person than what they decide to share online.   

Reference: 

By: Rachel Simon

I agree with many of the points made in this post. Many girls, especially young teens and tweens, are looking to find their place in society. In this "photoshop age" we live in, many girls seem to have a hard time fitting in and it doesn't help that people using social media websites mainly post their positive moments of their lives. It makes it hard for young girls to live up to the unreasonable expectations that have been laid out for them. Expectations meaning how to look, how to act and how to feel. Eventually, they become dull and everyone begins to express the same type of personality. As humans, we need to express individuality so this can be detrimental to society, as it has been proven to be in recent years. Because of this struggle for young girls to portray false personalities, it can bring severe depression along with it. I know that for me, whenever I have to alter my personality to suit certain environments, it becomes very stressful and I find myself bottling up anger and depression. I can't even imagine how young girls feel doing this on a daily basis. Many studies have even proven that just reading magazines and looking at the pictures of the photoshopped models make us depressed. 

I found Wolff’s article on the Ideological State Apparatus to be very compelling, mostly because it pinpointed one of the large holes in capitalism, that being the lack of defined and/or delineated economic structure. Wolff pointed out the capability for each new generation to “reinvent” the system, which would not be the case in a communist society. Further, the definitions of Althusser’s ISA helped shed insight on how class structures were formed, or how analysis is conducted on specific subsets of the population. Groups such as churches, schools, and even basic structures such as the family serve to instill specific, subjective ideologies in participating individuals. A capitalist society is, in Althusser’s eyes, willingly subject to these “subjective interpellations.”  

Wolff claims, “What distinguishes such a Marxist approach from other tendencies of cultural studies is the focus on linking cultural values, institutions, and contradictions to the capitalist class structures of society with each side of the link serving simultaneously as cause and effect of the other.” He is wary, however, of the possibility of “overdeterminating” these causes and effects, or what factors lead to people’s behavior in such and such a context. To believe that every cause, however minute or otherwise insignificant, as leading to a determinate effect, would be rather presumptuous and perhaps altogether false. Overdetermination could thus lead to inaccurate or overly-exaggerated sources for action. This is like saying, because a person is from Utah and is a Mormon, he or she will support Mitt Romney, also Mormon, in his candidacy for president. However, this assumption would be on the basis of the fact that there is a large subset population of Mormons in Utah, and would ignore entirely that one, Mitt Romney is not from (nor does he live in) Utah, and two, that he was the former governor of Massachusetts, a largely Democratic state. Presumptions based on one’s geographic location, religion, etc. do not always shed light on the choices they make or the class they fit into. The theories discussed here in the article seem to suggest that every communal group one is a part of provides them with a predictable outcome, when at times being a part of or participating in such a group can cause an adverse, unexpected effect in individuals; for example, a teenager who has been forced to go to church since childhood may end up feeling more atheist in their beliefs than their family would intend or hope.  

Gee wiz!

The original language of The Wife of Bath was difficult for me to get past so I can just imagine the amount of torture the students would endure. I found an Interlinear Translation  that I believe would provide to be of great assistance to the reading. http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/teachslf/wbt-par.htm#PROLOGUE

I would make copies of the translation and give them to the students. There should be no reason why students should struggle with literature. We should teach that literature should be appreciated in all forms and there is no “right or wrong”. Creative style, time period, themes and dialogue are what makes this piece special, beautiful as it is, but in no way does that mean it should be a struggle to understand.

Another thought is to get the students into an exercise of writing a few of their own silly sentences spelling them out phonetically. Turning off the switch in the brain that regulates our arrogance with correct spelling and grammar may also help understand the text in its original form. When I tried to think of it phonetically it did help me read it before I found the Interlinear Translation.