LIGHTS... CAMERA... ACTION!

Camera angle, lighting, music, color pallet, and character placement are all things that are very interesting to me. Some people overlook these elements in a film or a play but these "insignificant" features are what really emphasizes the point of a particular scene. To me, being a director seems like it could be so much fun! Being in that authoritative position where you can decide how you want a scene to be portrayed to the audience is really an awesome thing entailing so many decisions. In a way, it could be considered brainwashing because YOUR vision of a particular scene is what is being shown to thousands of people. Reading and viewing Othello are two completely different experiences, but I was definitely glad that I read it first. By reading Shakespeare's work first I was able to visualize how the various scenes were played out rather than be shown/ told how another person interpreted that same scene. Though I did enjoy watching different interpretations of the same text, if I were a director, things would have been different.... but I am not... yet, at least.

Manipulation

Doesn't it just make you cringe when you (as an audience or a reader) can see the horrors that are going on while the characters are completely oblivious as to how they are being manipulated? If someone was observing my facial expressions while I was reading Othello, I am sure they would have had a good laugh! Each time Iago so smoothly used his words to set up his whole master plan, my hatred grew for his character. Iago created mass amounts of suspicion and havoc to almost everyone he came in contact with. This was not the first time I had similar feeling for a character, and I am sure it will not be my last. Let's take for example the character of Galinda in Wicked, this "sweet, innocent girl" manipulates those around her in an attempt to land the man of her dreams. In my mythology course last semester, I read Medea by Euripides. The character of Medea had similar devious manorisms as Iago. Both took total advantage of those around them in an attempt to attain personal satisfaction. For Medea that personal satisfaction was revenge and Iago longed for revenge but also to move up in the rankings. How can someone be so selfish to literally destroy and end the lives of those they are trying to get "one up on?" Medea ends up fleeing in a chariot with her dead children and no place to call "home," all with a smile and no glimpse of remorse. As Iago is taken away in Act 5 to become a tortured slave, he too shows no sign of remorse... how is this possible? Euripides, Winnie Holzman, and Shakespeare do a wonderful job of evolving characters with a good "reputation" to be villains and manipulators!
Here are the facial expressions of boldface, backstabbing, liars.... would you fall for their games?


Galinda, Iago, Medea

Girl... INTERRUPTED

"Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? Maybe I was just crazy. Maybe it was the 60's. Or maybe I was just a girl...interrupted."

Susanna (Winona Ryder) is a typical teenager displaying confusion and insecurity while struggling with making sense of the ever-changing world around her. During the two years she spent at Claymoore, she was able to create a real sense of self but not until after much strife. Boundaries were tested and questioned. The difference between friendship and betrayal was learned but more importantly the distinction between sanity and mental illness was defined, or was it? After watching the movie, did you feel you better understood a mental illness? Or did you even feel like you may have a mental illness? Or did you negate the real presence of mental illness in our society?

As the title implies, "Girl, Interrupted," many young girls and women are interrupted by societal expectations. If somehow we do not fit the "norms" there must be something wrong with us, maybe even a mental illness. These diagnoses are quickly placed on people, rather than considering the immense amount of stress and pressure they feel from the world around them. Girls, in my opinion, are especially interrupted from living ordinary lives. For Susanna, the pressures from home and school brought about a sense of insanity and even a suicide attempt. Her life was put on hold for two years until she was able to step back from society and redefine herself. In my opinion, everyone needs to take some time to themselves in order to escape insanity. Maybe even in a room of one's own...

When I finished reading Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" many thoughts were going through my head. Initially though, I was very disturbed by the narrator and her obsession with the yellow wallpaper. How could someones entire life be controlled by something so simple as wallpaper? Her every minute and thought was centralized around the wallpaper and its hideous pattern. As the story progresses, Gilman begins to personify the paper and she even envisions a woman trapped behind the paper. With additional reading, I attained a better grasp of what was going on with Gilman herself as well as the historical context in which Gilman was subject to while writing this work. Historically women, as a whole, were still considered to be inferior. I saw this shown by the secrecy of the narrators writing as well as how she was totally controlled by her husband. When I learned about the severe nervous condition that Gilman was suffering, I began to think that the troubled narrator is a reflection of Gilman herself. Is this really a piece of fiction, or is this a medium in which Gilman could share her story? By the end of the text, I really felt that the feelings the narrator struggles with are also fears of Gilman.