TOW #10- High-School Confidential: Notes on Teen Movies

In David Denby's essay "High School Confidential: Notes on Teen Movies," he questions whether teen movies "reflect reality" or follow a "set of conventions that refer to other films." Using hyperbole and film references, he explores the similar patterns between teen movies.

Denby begins by describing the stereotype of the “most hated young woman in America.” In a majority of modern teen movies, this is the popular, tall, blond girl who is not liked. Although this exaggeration is not always true, it is a recognizable description of the antagonist in many teen movies. By starting the essay with these familiar stereotypes, Denby appeals to teenage readers. He then introduces the overlying question: Do these stereotypes truly reflect actual high school life?

The references throughout the essay connect Denby’s ideas to numerous movies. He alludes to movies that portray the typical high school life such as Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, Never Been Kissed, She’s All That, and Disturbing Behavior. By describing different characters and different plotlines, he connects repeating story lines and the similar characters. The movies become Cinderella stories as the nerdy girl attracts the most handsome and popular boy in the school and the movie “turns into a myth of social reversal.” These references help the audience understand Denby’s ideas through popular movies that they’ve most likely seen before.

Denby concludes that most teen movies have both the elements of reality and references to other films. They attack the status quo of teenage society, but usually end up conforming to it in the end. He also explores the idea of teen movies being the writers' way of obtaining vengeance for their own years of pain in high school. Regardless where teen movies come from, many remain classics that capture the essence of high school. 

TOW #9- Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Author Elizabeth Gilbert is well-known for her bestselling book, Eat, Pray, Love. The travel memoir sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, spent more than three years on “The New York Times Best Sellers List”, and became a film in 2010. Gilbert’s new book, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, offers insights on how to live creatively. Using anecdotes to express her unique perspective, Gilbert inspires readers to uncover the “strange jewels” that are hidden within each of us. By exploring our own curiosity and creativity, we can live with more mindfulness, passion, and joy.

She shares an anecdote about her friend, Susan, who flipped her life around by doing exactly that. When she was in her forties, Susan was feeling "plain" and "bored." Pondering the last time she had felt "free" and "lively," she remembered her pastime of figure skating, which she had quit because she simply wasn't "the best." But after twenty-years, Susan “didn't win medals, wasn't the top but gave back permission to herself to live in a way that made her feel like she was unfolding and becoming more than just an accumulation of her daily obligations.” Gilbert also shares her own generative process and experiences as a writer. Being rejected too many times to count, she encourages readers to do what we love and to face down what we most fear.

Whether we long to write a book, make art, embark on a dream, or figure skate, Gilbert displays the magic in creativity that can bring more joy into our lives. She encourages us to overcome fear and let go of the things holding us back from acting on our ambitions and desires. 

IRB Intro Post #2

My next IRB will be Elizabeth Gilbert’s latest release, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. My mom had previously read her bestselling memoir, Eat, Pray, Love and recommended Big Magic for me. Using her own generative process and perspective, Gilbert shares her insights about creativity. I hope that through reading this, I can better understand my own creative process and be inspired to overcome the fears behind it. 

TOW #8- Slouching Towards Bethlehem

The second half of Slouching Towards Bethlehem continues Joan Didion’s theme of California in the 1960s and overlapping a wide range of topics. In the last two sections, “Personals” and “Seven Places of the Mind”, Didion’s tone becomes more personal and includes essays relative to her own life. She writes about her habit of keeping notebooks, self-respect, Hollywood, morality, and ending with an essay about leaving New York and returning to California. Aside from the scattered plotlines, Didion’s unique perspective and elements of narrative and realism display her personal search for herself.

Beginning the second section with “On Keeping a Notebook”, Didion writes about her habit of keeping notebooks in order to remember certain situations. But the reality is, she cannot always remember what the notes mean. Didion explains that keeping a notebook is not keeping a record or a diary of events in her life, but to remember the way that she feels. Through this interpretation of her own habit, she shows how a notebook is essentially personal and unique to yourself.

The final essay in the book, “Goodbye to All That”, is about her reasons for leaving New York. Beginning, “It is easy to see the beginning of things, and harder to see the ends”, Didion describes her life falling apart in front of her. She had first moved to New York as a young woman looking for adventure. Through time and maturity, she becomes depressed from living so far from everyone she knows and loves. Finally, she gives in to homesickness and returns to California to make a new life with her husband.

Her essays resemble a journal; detailed, personal, thoughtful, with a deeper meaning to be found by Didion herself. Although many of these essays were publicly published, it is likely that many of her works were written for herself more than anyone else. Through her personal descriptions of California and writing, Didion reveals this search for herself during a time of confusion.