Vivien Leigh: The “Southern belle” British actress

Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara

Vivien Leigh is a British actress, considered one of the greatest female movie star of all times according the American Film Institute. She won twice the Best Actress Academy Awards; the first one for her performance in Gone with the Wind as Scarlett O’Hara in (1939), and the second one for her performance in A Streetcar Named Desire as Blanche Dubois in (1951).

The fact that she had won twice the Academy award maybe is not too important; there are actress that had won the award more than twice, but what is important here is that she won for her performances as “Southern belles”.

The first time she performed a Southern Belle girl was in Gone with the Wind. The movie is based in a book written by Margaret Mitchell. She performed the role of Scarlett O’Hara, a young woman who lives in the Southern estate of Tara during the Civil War. In the film we see who Scarlett represent characteristic of Southern belles such as the social grace or her position in society. Furthermore, we can see how she tries to manage her personal problems such as the man she loves marrying her cousin and the consequences of the War.

Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando.

In 1951 she won again the Academy award for her performance of Blanche Dubois in the Tennessee Williams’s play A Streetcar Named Desire. In the film, we see her interpretation of a Southern Belle who has to deal with a society that is not what used to be anymore. Blanche is the representation of the values of the past in a society that don’t have those values, but at the same time she has some characterteristics and values of the present she rejects.

At that time, many people believe that she wouldn't be able to perform Scarlet O'Hara as she was British actress who had no idea about America's Southern values and lifestyle. However, she represents very well a Southern Belle girl; she won an Oscar and years later interpret another Southern Belle girl, Blanche. Moreover, I think that both movies illustrates the reality that we have been studying because Gone with the Wind shows some antebellum features as well as during the War and A Streetcar Named Desire shows the lost values of the Antebellum reality and the conflict of identity in society.

The website Biography.com has an interesting video about her life and her leading roles in those movies, I couldn't add the video in the post, but here is the link Vivien's biography. There are also some overviews of those movies in the New York Times: Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire.

More about Faulkner

Born in 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi, William Faulker was the son of a family proud of their prominent role in the shitory of the south. He grew up in Oxford, Mississippi, and left high school at fifteen to work in his grandfather's bank

William Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949 and the Pulitzer Prize for The Reivers just before his death in July 1962. 

Lana del Rey and Tennessee Williams

When our dear teacher was talking about Blanche Dubois, inevitably a song from one of my favorite singers came to my mind; "Young and Beautiful" by Lana del Rey. 

A part of the chorus actually reminded me Blache, because it says "...Will you still love when I'm no longer young and beautiful?..." That part is about an insecure and superficial woman, just as Blanche, who is a person that lives in fear because of the decadence of her beauty and someone who is afraid of accepting reality.

After this thought, I wanted to find out if Lana uses some references form Tennessee Williams and...she does! 

While I was reading about it, I discovered that another song of her called  "Ride" refers to a Blanche Dubois' phrase: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers..." The the song is called "Carmen" and is about a beautiful girl who will always be helped by others, in this case strangers, because of her beauty and probably for some free action later (something that inmediately evokes sex)

Finally, the last song that I will present is "Ride", in which the main character  makes referene to Blanche. In the video a girl (again), looks for safety in other people, relying in the kind of strangers. The video shows a woman who hides behind promiscuity, alcohol and lies; showing two opposites sides of her personality. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py_-3di1yx0&feature=kp

Alcohol, the muggle´s veritaserum

As I grew up watching and reading J.K.Rowling´s saga Harry Potter, it is impossible for me to feel like a muggle all the time. During one escene from the fifth movie, professor Umbridge gives her students o magic potion which unveils the most deep feelings and thoughts of any person. This potion is veritaserum, for most of the muggles here we commonly know it as alcohol. I trully believe many of us ( including myself) have had more than one embarrasing moment which involved alcohol. We are more conscious than ever but those periods of time last just a bit and then we try to forget everything we did because we feel ashamed of what we have done or said. The same happens on the play A Streetcar Named Desire, the moments of anger and the moments of truth appear whem alcohol is present, not only with Stanley, who by nature is a very violent person, but also with Mike and Blanche. She carries a glass of alcohol everywhere, even to the bathroom, and I firmly believe is to form a bubble around and protect herself from the real world and live in her fantasy world of perfection. Alcohol brings to this novel the space to face reality and the truth of all the lies Blanche have said. During those moments we also face the truth of the outside. The real world and the problems around it seem more real than ever and we have two possibilities there, to face them or to completely avoid them and create a shield to protect ourselves from reality. Blanche in this case adopts the second option, se creates an imaginary world and tries to protect herself from the real world that carries the truth; she is too old to get married and too selfish the let other be happy ( Stanley and Stella). It´s time for you to make your own judgement and think about it. What happens to me when I´m under the influence of alcohol? or if you don´t drink you may ask yourself what are the things that make you vulnerable? In my case it´s not something but someone. Now it´s your turn. 

Ps: Don´t accept any kind of drink from strangers, maybe you´ll end doing or saying something you will regret.

Fear of Changes.

One of the stories that Faulkner wrote  was "A rose for Emily". In this story we can see a lot of the classic south, with slaves and aristocratics, but  we can also realize that Industrialism arrived  with all its power. The world was changing, and it  will continiu to do so. However, as human as we are, we avoid changes, we like the present to be as the past was, "Todo tiempo pasado fue mejor", we like the way things were; things were easier, simpler, everyone was happier. 

This story is a truthful reflexion of who we are in real life, we are so afraid of how life can be if it changes that we refuses to go with the flow as some say. And in the end those how did not embraced the new world, died with their old one. Nevertheless the past has different ways to be present in our lives, an example of these are the museums, or in this case, Emily´s house. The town worship her and what she represented, all the glory of old times, we appreciate the past onces it has already past, not before.

Maybe someday humans will learn how to appreciate things while they still have the opportunity and not after when the time has pass.  

Anti-heroes characters in modernist fiction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8GgyNlw8MA

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom

Remember us-if at all-not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed me.

-T.S.Eliot, "The Hollow Men."

I remember that once I read The Hollow Men by T.S. Elliot and something that called my attention (in literature classes) was the fact that both Prufrock and The Hollow Men have anti-heroes characters.

To begin with, the hollow men speaking in the epigraph are not much different from Eliot's famous Prufrock; the inadequate modern was whose introspection, self-deprecation, and hesitation are all emblematic of a new heroism. The Hollow Men are spiritually and culturally lacking in the substance of traditional heroes. This lack of traditional heroism, what we can call "anti-heroism," is not modern. As an example we can found in the  seventeenth and eighteenth century literature. However, I was reading some articles and essays about this issue saying that modern anti-heroism in the early twentieth century is a response to the uncertainties of people about traditional values; it is a feature of modernism and its zeitgeist. With rapidly changing times and cultural upheavals, the human race questioned moral values. Coherent meanings were lost, and essences were devalued within atmosphere of cultural decline. Hence, people tried to find meaning in a confusing life, to construct a pattern, or to impose some order in a world they could neither control nor understand. When they could not heroically thrive in a mechanized age, they tried to live minimally and internally within the enclaves of art and the subjective mind.

So, guys, thus is my question for you: Do you think that modernity could affect men and women and, to some extend, affect a change in gender roles and expectation?

10 things I hate about you as the new sun also rises

Many of us have watched this 1999 movie in which the main roles are played by Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles. Well, let me tell you this movie was based on the novel writen by Hemingway called "The Sun Also Rises". In the movie you can clearly see the change of roles between the characters such as the masculinity of the female lead role and the heroe that comes to rescue her from her missery in the case of Ledger´s role. Appart from those characters there is one that really called my attention because it was clearly representing Robert Cohn. Jason Gordon Levitt´s characters embodies Cohn´s perception of love perfectly and tries to do anything to make money worth with his beloved one. At the same time there is an antagonist in the movie, Stiles´s sister in the movie represents purity and femeninity while Stiles represents rudeness and modernity. Sorry to tell you spoilers if you haven´t seen it yet, but at the end of the movie all the characters have a "happy ending" because it is a romantic comedyand everything needs to end up well. It is the traditonal happily ever after but that´s what most of the people want and avoid the tragedies of love as presented in the novel. Let´s be realistic, what would you prefer, a tragedy in which you know that any character would be happy or an almost perfect romance in which people live together forever and ever? I´m not trying to make up your minds, but lets be realistics, we like illusions and for tragedies and sad moments we already have real life, so at the end it doesn´t matter if we have the perfect utopia with the perfect love, we all know it´s just an imagery but we totally buy that lie because it makes us feel better with ourselves. 

STEPFORD WIVES AND THE SOUTHERN BELLE SYNDROME

As we already read for the second test, the southern belle was a typical woman from the Southern America, concept that appeared in the antebellum period and that represents everything related to this perfect lady, obedient, beautiful, devoted to her house, her husband and her children.

one of their main characteristics was this "grace under pressure" attitude, featured also in the Hemingway's book, as this southern belle was always a graceful, flirtatious and beautiful, just like the women in the movie, which looks almost unrealistically perfect.

But has this perfection a price as the movie states?

Even though these ladies were always apparently perfect and graceful, they had to always hide their reals felling in order to maintain this grace. And, as seen on the movie and also on Faulkner's stories, the southern belle concept might give space for the Southern Gothic, which, even though describes mentally unstable women, relates also to the plot of the movie, depicting grotesque robot women and their leader, a woman capable to do anything to maintain this false idea of the perfect southern belle lady.

To wrap up, this movie embraces everything related to the Southern Belle and Southern Gothic concepts in a very modern and attractive presentation so I strongly suggest you all to watch it.

Faulkner and the Southern Gothic

Southern Gothic is a particular genre of American literature, which takes place in the American South that has become popular in the 19^th Century.

In A Rose for Emily Faulkner uses this style of writing, since it presents shocking events that no one could ever believe possible from a person as Miss Emily, which is the fact of her sleeping with the corpse of her lover, or even the thought of her being the kind of person that would actually have sexual intercourse with a dead body, it is just repugnant and shows a dark image of society. But, that is the essence of this genre, having these kinds of unbearable events which are groundbreaking which demonstrate that this genre belongs to modern literature.

Through Southern Gothic socio-cultural problems of the times are also depicted, in regards to Faulkner's story, Miss Emily denies to be living at present time, at a society that has changed and demands her to adjust to it, such as to pay taxes. However, she was raised to be a southern belle that would always be protected by society, since she once belonged to a great southern family that made her believe she still is untouchable.

The characters of Southern Gothic literature tend to be mentally unstable who would represent an outsider of a society that gives foot for thought in relation to the values of that particular southern American society.

For further explanation you can watch the following video:

After reading A Rose for Emily and getting to know the background of Southern Gothic, Don't you think our current society does not fall to far from this obscure image? Aren't we always trying to keep inappropriate events in the dark as a way to make them dissapear or to not deal with them? Even though we deeply know they are still there.

Black Disney Princess ... A Cultural Triumph?

I once read that there are two things about the anglo-saxon culture which we will never fully understand : the British respect towards Royal Family and the African-American cultural struggle. The past classes analyzing Faulkner's work have made me think about many aspect that the current African-American community consider a "Cultural Triumph"

About a week ago a stumbled upon the Glozell's video above. For those who do not know her, Glozell, is an American youtuber (yes, youtuber is a real job)  who has become famous for doing random things such as the Cinnamon Challenge. When she is not busy choking on powder cinnamon, she talks about the everyday struggles a a black female, such as how hard it is to get her hair done at a saloon or how hard is to find make up for people darker than Beyonce.

Many of her videos are extremely entertaining, but the one showed above might be her most honest video yet. In only 30 seconds she lets her self open and shows how important is to her to see Princess Tiana (Disney´s first black princess) at the Disney Parade.

"When I went to Disney as a child, there were not  black people even  on the Parade and now there is a Princess"

Maybe for us, the fact that there is a black Princess on the Disney Parade does not mean anything; but for the black community is of paramount importance, is s cultural triumph. Just compare it to what we have been studying in class and with the current state of the black community. Some people would have not even imagined a black Disney Princess.

Hopefully, Faulkner´s work will make us more aware of those little things or gestures that we overlook, but that the black community thanks.

Tired of pretending, let the fun begin!

Historically, the south has been most likely conservative. They bragged about being righteous and Christian-like. They had the truth and they had the right to judge.
Living under this pressing context, everyone had to be good, and do good. be an exemplary citizen, raise the most wonderful children, have the best slaves. Women had to be very "lady-like"to find the best husband,  to be the best moms, best wives, best Christians. Men had to have a wide net of contacts, be very influential, provide for the family.Their life was driven by perfection. Perfect life, perfect family, perfect house.If someone did not meet those expectations, that someone would be "kindly" segregated.   I would say, it was a very legalistic community. The reign of the values of the South was as an "Age of Absolutism", you either obey and live under its rules, or you leave or rebel against it and stay to suffer the consequences.
After the civil war, loss after loss, little by little, the strong personality of the South has been tendering itself. Maybe they realized they had lost the fight, maybe the young generations are not as strong believers as the preceding ones, or maybe they realize pride is taking them anywhere but to ruin. The fact is that as Emily´s life is revealed to the public, real intentions start coming out. The truth that all that pretending was hiding finally comes to light.
Now a days, even though the South is still the most conservative section of the United States, the separation between the church and the state becomes more clear. Driven by pride of their ancient beliefs they publicly state what is still morally correct and what is acceptable; but as a whole they are breaking the patron. As an example we can talk about gay life, which as in any conservative party, was socially strongly punished. The South is now divided in their favor to same-sex marriage. There is not a majority anymore, we do not have a "conservative South, driven by the "southern values."What we have is a population evenly divided in opinions: there are those who freely live not wanting to hide anymore and respecting everyone who wants to do the same, and there are those who keep on pretending with their perfect life as if they had bought their place on heaven.
I think we could use the South as a metaphor for our life. We live under the pressure of reaching certain standards that people around us sets for us: a career, a lifestyle, a status. We hide our real identity underground. We are afraid to show what we love in secret. But as has happened in the South, sooner or later,  every real intention comes to light, every secret is revealed and all the doors will be teared down.
We may believe we are safe now but sooner or later our real identities and our dear beliefs will come to light.
As that 50% of southerns who decided to step up and live freely just under their own expectations, let´s stop pretending and live our life proud of what we are, what we believe and follow who we decide to follow, before we regret it. After all, hiding only hurts ourselves and honesty leads to joy.

Poor Emily

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSxnjty4Q6s

In the capital of Yoknapatawpha is where A Rose for Emily took place. Emily Grierson and her father were members of a family in the antebellum Southern aristocracy. After the Civil War, they only had each other. Emily was a lonely woman, she was her father’s daughter; she only shared her loneliness with her father who controlled her completely when he was alive, and continued to control her after he died.

Emily’s father separated her from the rest of the town. He made sure she didn´t have any friends or lovers because anyone was enough for him. He forced her to love only him. Moreover, she was so immerged in such a way of life she became a mysterious woman, dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse as described by the narrator. Her father had brought her up in a so closed life that was impossible for her to escape and, of course, made her show progressively insane and weird behavior.

When her father died, she refused to accept it for three days probably because she had been under his control over thirty years and this time was, in a way, the first decision she made over him.

After her father’s death, she seemed to get her own life control back. Then, she found hope on Homer Barron, a Northern laborer who came to the town as a contractor to pave the sidewalks. Nevertheless, he declared he had no intention of getting married. In despair, she bought arsenic and gave it to her lover as it was the only way to fulfill her desire to posses him.

She finally gave up continuing living her tragedy, got older, and it’s not after her death that Homer’s decomposed corpse was found in her house. Furthermore, beside his head was found a long strand of iron-gray hair.

 That was the way she learned to love, the only way her father taught her.

“Poor Emily”, people bemoaned...

William Faulkner speaks on “A Rose for Emily” in 1955:

I feel sorry for Emily's tragedy; her tragedy was, she was an only child, an only daughter. At first when she could have found a husband, could have had a life of her own, there was probably some one, her father, who said, "No, you must stay here and take care of me." And then when she found a man, she had had no experience in people. She picked out probably a bad one, who was about to desert her. And when she lost him she could see that for her that was the end of life, there was nothing left, except to grow older, alone, solitary; she had had something and she wanted to keep it, which is bad—to go to any length to keep something; but I pity Emily. I don't know whether I would have liked her or not, I might have been afraid of her. Not of her, but of anyone who had suffered, had been warped, as her life had been probably warped by a selfish father . . .

[The title] was an allegorical title; the meaning was, here was a woman who had had a tragedy, an irrevocable tragedy and nothing could be done about it, and I pitied her and this was a salute . . . to a woman you would hand a rose.  

 From Faulkner at Nagano, ed. Robert Jelliffe (Tokyo: Kenkyusha Ltd., 1956), pp. 70–71

Some jazz music in our life ... let's dance !

Classmates, let me introduce my topic with this song called What a wonderful world   by one the most famous singers of jazz, Louis Armstrong. I’m completely sure that you have heard this song once in your life!  enjoy it! 

Well, maybe you have an idea of what I’m going to talk about … right?  Sure! This post is about a striking and popular musical genre that we talked on classes, which is JAZZ.  

Jazz, is a musical genre born in the late nineteenth century, which was developed in New Orleans, Louisiana from the African traditions. Maybe you remember what we saw on classes that, this was because of the big influences of people of color communities in the city, due to the fact that In this city a vast majority of black people (slaves) arrived there.

Moving on, you should be wondering how this started? And Why ? . Well, mainly, the first manifestations of Afro-Americans were a combination of several rhythms though the use of drums. In addition, started because of improvisation, which was an important characteristic that differentiated them from the other styles of music. Furthermore, they started creating music  for  several  reasons as well as the need to express their daily life as slaves, entertaining,  spent time while they were working and so on .Can you come up with more reasons?  J

To continue with, while I was looking up for information, I thought about something  said on classes in relation to that jazz has came from the suffering and misery of color people and that was something real , but…  why ? ?, I believe that is  because it was  the only instance for them to express their feelings without  the master oppression . Though this musical genre, those melodies, dances, lyrics and so on, showed the world what they were living and how they felt about it.

In a nutshell, I decided to write down about this topic with the intention to show you how people have used music as an instrument to express their feelings even until these days. Moreover, it is interesting to think about the contradictions of that society , for instance as Faulkner said, for him The South was far of became a paradise , in  view of the fact that they based on horror, therefore they contradicted, because they abused and punished the only thing that was pure and real in tat society : jazz !!

                         So tell me , Do you like jazz music? 

New Ways of Slavery

Can we say that  slavery has already been  abolished? Most people would agree, moreover, they would state that slavery disappeared by the end of the Civil War in USA. After four years of bloody battles, the result was that the North won the war and the South joined the Confederate States of America, nowadays United States of America. From then on, this new America started by creating a new beginning in the United State’s history. Now they call themselves the “land of freedom”. But the big questions is: Was it the end of slavery? or from that moment on, did they just re-name the term and adjust it to new ways of slavery in the 21th century?

If we take a look at the ways that enterprises structure their business, we may find some similarities of what it was the 19th century structure like in terms of hiring people, working conditions and age limits of the “employees”. Of course, to make this comparison, we must take out the fact that in 19th century the working force was kidnapped and abducted from Africa. But, if we take that point aside and we compare it to how the world of business is constructed  today, we may still find that not many things have changed.

During the 19th century, every slave must work extremely long working shifts, no matter whether they were women, or men, or children. No difference was made among them, they were just workers, and above all this; they were not get  paid, not even a penny. While, today we have that enterprises use outsourcing rather than kidnapping people. They have created these international companies  that are in charge of finding women and youth (this youth could be any children above 11-years-old) from third world countries. They offer  jobs based on small tasks, not too complex so, this new working force can effectively fulfill those tasks. But the question is: Is it fear that an 11-year-old child is working rather than being at school, learning?

Finally, If we accept this new  working method: the outsourcing, aren’t we just accepting a modern way of slavery?

More information in this video: Human Traffic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tQDYvPrE6k

Faulkner and slavery

After reviewing Faulkner’s ideas about slavery I couldn’t help thinking about a TV series I watched last year called “American Horror Story”, in which a character named Madame LaLaurie was portrayed. I found this Madame interesting, so I did a little research in that time and I discovered an awful lot of information about her.

First of all, Madame Marie Delphine LaLaurie was born in 1775, she lived in New Orleans and was an aristocratic woman, high born, who was deeply influential in New Orleans’ social circles maintaining an important position throughout the years. One important detail we need to bear in mind is that as a rich woman belonging to the upper class, she was the owner of several black slaves. If you think about it, as a rich Southern family, there’s nothing strange about having black servants, the thing is that LaLaurie tortured, mutilated and killed most of her own staff. She even built a special room to fit her mad purposes. 

 

Not only is this situation outrageous, but also denigrating in every possible way. If Faulkner stated that the original sin was slavery, what would torturing slaves be? Is there a worst concept or faith than the utmost of sins? Furthermore, by analyzing the ideologies and lifestyle of the conservative people in the South of USA in that time, I started wondering what happened with slavery in Chile, if there happened anything like this in our own country.

The answer is yes. One example I encountered is about a woman that most Chileans have heard of, someone as mad as LaLaurie, Catalina de los Ríos y Lisperguer, also known as “La Quintrala”. She was born in 1604, over a century before Madame Delphine, descendant of a rich Spaniard -German family that came to Chile in the time of the conquer,   along with Pedro de Valdivia. Catalina had abundant red hair, which originated her nickname that refers to a tree named “Quintral/Quitral” commonly known as “Mistletoe”, which produces a red fruit. She was the owner of several indigenous slaves, as well as black slaves, which proves that they were indeed brought to Chile. 

 

La Quintrala was known for being an extremely evil woman since her childhood, who enjoyed torturing not only slaves and servants, but also family members, priests, and lovers. She is believed to be the responsible for countless murders in her property.  In addition, the resemblance with Faulkner’s description of the South of USA is that although she possessed slaves she was a religious and pious person who attended church and had strong biblical beliefs.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6oRUfmigXg

Finally, what I find most ironic is the paradox between the religious and conservative view of this people and the fact that they fall into barbaric actions and contradictions by owning other people, restricting their rights and freedom, even going to the extreme of torturing them. Up to what point power corrupts people?