The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter is the next unit I’ll be teaching and it has been a while since I did a thorough read through. It also seemed fitting given the time of year in relation to the setting of the book.

I tend to feel the same way about The Scarlet Letter as I do about Thanksgiving and that is that while I love the overall message of each, neither is by any means my favorite in their respective categories.  With The Scarlet Letter the symbolism and character development is genius, but the writing itself is a cure for insomina.  And Thanksgiving is a great time to reflect on all we have, but too often it feels more like a dress rehersal for Christmas.  Thanksgiving has never been my favorite holiday.  In fact I’d probably like it even less if I wasn’t a teacher, seeing that I currently get more days off then the average person.

My biggest qualm with Thanksgiving is the meal. Overall, I’m not a fan. However, I do like the separate dishes that typically make up the meal. I enjoy turkey, love stuffing, and can do nasty things to a pumpkin pie, but throw all those things together and the whole meal seems tired and overdone. It’s too 1950’s June Cleaver.

But the meal is a tradition and when something is part of a tradition it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s great but rather there is a meaning far beyond the actual ritual. Another thing about traditions is that over time they are often taken for granted. And to some degree we’re all guilty of seeing Thanksgiving as just a day of food, football, & family. We take the day for granted which is sort of ironic since the purpose of Thanksgiving is to pause and remember all the things in our lives we’ve been taking for granted like our health, family, etc.

So while I won’t enjoy eating green bean casserole I guess I need to remind myself to be thankful for the luxury of never being without it, even if it is as uncreative as the Puritans’ color palette.

Twilight

Yes I actually read this book. The whole thing. And while during the read I rolled my eyes so often they nearly fell out of my head, it's easy to see why this book has become all the rage within, & even outside, the tween crowd. What girl hasn't at one time dreamed about starting over in a new town where boys are suddenly fighting over her and the richest, most mysterious, most attractive guy falls instantly in love with her.

But Twilight is really no different than books with a shirtless Fabio on the cover, it's similar to reality shows like The Bachelor, and the same as romantic comedies starting actresses named Jennifer. All are in the business of selling the love fantasy. Essentially this fantasy involves an everyday girl meeting the perfect guy and they instantly have a connection. The outside world tries to tear them apart but the couple's love is so strong that they are able to overcome it all. The End.

Romantic entertainment is big business and some girls can't get enough of the stuff much in the same way there are guys who can't get enough adult entertainment. In fact the two genres are very much alike. The main different between Twilight and men's magazine is that one has pictures. Yes, I suppose there are other differences as well but the main thing they share is that they both objectify the very thing they are supposed to be portraying. Just as adult entertainment presents an unrealistic fantasy of sex, romantic entertainment presents an unrealistic fantasy of a platonic relationship.

Romantic entertainment teaches that love, true love, is something that once we obtain it we can treat it like a house plant, put it in the sun, give it some water, and watch it grow. Love is made into this object that's hidden from us, but once we find it we have it forever in flawless condition. Too often romantic entertainment shows people in love with love and not the work it takes to love another person. Real love takes work. Real love is about struggling through tough times and learning to abandon your pride for the betterment of the relationship.

Love isn't a Celine Dion song. It's not a rose ceremony, the use of the word loins, or a music montage. Love is finding someone you can fart in front of. It's morning breath. It's things that wouldn't make a very appealing romance novel and thus we see very little of true love in romantic entertainment.

So adult entertainment is a false representation of sex, and all a person needs in order to dive into a sea of this misrepresentation in today's day & age is a computer. But it's still taboo; it's not socially acceptable to look at during a lunch break at work or on a bench in the park. You won't find it on prime-time network television or in the racks of the supermarket. But romantic entertainment, this false representation of love, is everywhere and it's seen as no big deal. There aren't many conservative groups getting worked up over a Meg Ryan movie. And maybe that makes romance entertainment more dangerous. Maybe we've seen so many lies we forget what the truth is; we are searching for the fantasy instead of working with reality.

By no means will we be seeing people walking out of stores with Twilight books wrapped in brown paper bags any time soon. Nor will many high school girls be grounded after DVDs of Maid In Manhattan are found under their mattresses. But it's important to keep in mind that just as it is ridiculous for guys to assume every intimate moment will be pornographic paradise, it is foolish for girls to be disappointed when their lives fail to be fairy tales.

Long Day's Journey Into Night

My first teaching job was as a long term sub, meaning I was substitute for a teacher who would be out for an extended period of time. The position was as the theater teacher. Now there were many glaring problems with this:

First, my theater experience, beyond childhood Christmas plays at church, was once working stage crew on a high school musical and an introduction to acting course, with a course difficulty in the vein of basket-weaving, I took solely to fulfill a creative arts requirement.

Second, acting classes weren't really within my comfort zone. Sure, I had studied to be a teacher and in theory should be able to walk into any classroom and mold young minds, but teaching theater takes more than a class roster and a lesson plan. It takes someone with acting talent, something I lack, and thus I was not equipped to lead by example in the finer points of acting.

Third, I was hired a week before the start of school. There were no textbooks. No materials. The teacher I was a sub for created the course from scratch. She was an acting coach in her spare time,making her a walking textbook. Where as I didn't know my stage right from my stage left.

My greatest performance may have been acting like I knew what I was doing each period. Too many times I was deciding what to do in class as students were walking in the door. Needless to say if any of those kids become movie stars they should receive an instant Oscar just for overcoming the huge setback that was my instruction.

So while I'll never direct a play I enjoy reading them. They're often a welcomed break from novels where the author feels the need to describe everything in unimaginative detail. Plays, even ones written by the the most detail oriented writers, are concise, the meat of the story with all the side dishes intended to be served once it reaches the stage.

I read a lot of Eugene O'Neill's plays in college. I can't say I'm a huge fan of his, but what drew me to his supposed masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night, was the topic of dangerous drugs, like heroin, once being used for common cures. It's beyond frighting that drugs that would now get you jail time used to be given to children to help them sleep. Although I sure for some of my theater students a similar remedy would have been a welcome relief from the pain I put them through.