Subbing for High School Students

Each and every day I stand in front of Middle and High School Students,

and watch them. Yes it seems like an easy job; after all you mostly hand

out papers take roll and make sure none of them stab each other. My job

is to maintain the safety of students, and if they happen to get any

work done, then I did an ok job.  Some days if they aren’t asking you a

billion times if they can go to the bathroom, or go to their lockers so

they can roam the campus in efforts to pass the time, it can be.

Depending on the teacher and the overall class mood the day can go one

of two ways, wonderfully quiet and smooth, or disastrously chaotic. Most

days their teachers assign busy work because they know their students

won’t really attempt to do much when a sub is there. They sit around and

chatter and try to impress each other, they throw notes, and giggle,

they flirt, eat,  tag and well usually do anything but their work. The

rowdy classes can fry your nerves with the ever common outlandish

overdramatic behavior. Tempers flaring and cuss words spewing out of

these temperamental beasts can be enough to make one have a nervous

breakdown. It is any wonder why teachers choose their profession because

after all it isn’t for the money. And as stressful as high school

students can be, middle school is worse. These poor kids don’t know how

to sit in a chair for over 6 minute intervals and they constantly roam

the room like lost sheep.  Your voice is lost after telling them to sit

down 500 million times throughout each period. 

The typical student usually gets to school just barely on time, early in

the mornings they sit quietly as they are still awake, and for this

reason most teachers enjoy the first period of the day. As they wake up,

they begin to gossip, and talk about everything from their mean teachers

and loads of homework to how to get pregnant. When a substitute walks to

one of their rooms a whisper is always heard as a sigh of relief, or

most commonly “free-day.” Teenagers are very social beings and when they

aren’t making out with each other they are thinking about their crushes

or relationships. Mostly they sit and talk hoping to feel apart of a

group. This can mostly be seen at lunch. The jocks sit on the yellow

benches, next to the cheer girls. The guitar kids sit under the tree,

and everyone else sits with their little groups in order to feel like

they belong.

The Manipulation of Signs

In Baudrillard’s long article “The System of Objects,” he states that we
as a people and a culture consume products not because we are a passive
species hoping to absorb and assimilate into one giant uniform mass
audience; but we actively consume objects because they are a
manipulations of signs that our culture finds meaningful. If this is
true then the Romantic Comedy is just one manipulation that our culture
finds to be meaningful as applied to how our society should mate with
the opposite sex. Through McDonald's reasoning the romantic comedy genre
has been classified as a lighthearted expression of a couple falling in
love with each other, while battling or competing with one another in
order to successfully find their perfect mate. The Sex comedy like the
romantic comedy does place emphasis on competition for specific mates
but also expresses the former attitudes of society and how women were to
be the celestial virgins while men were allowed to be promiscuous with
their sexuality. One thing I found disturbing was the blatant shock
towards the Doctors studies of Women’s sexuality. How is it that in the
1950’s it was acceptable for men to sleep around, while all the women
were to be seen as virgins. They must have known that if the men were
loosing their virginity it was not amongst themselves, but with the
opposite sex. So why was it so shocking to them to find out that 50% of
women were not virgins. How else did they think men were getting
experienced? Another thing I found interesting is that if we as a mass
audience consumes the romcoms and the sex comedies are we actively
hoping our relationships are going to mirror what is seen on the screen?
If this is to be true we must wake up and realize life and relationships
are not meant to be lighthearted. I believe that the mass consumption of
romcoms is an escape from actually having to talk to one another while
in the courting phase of a relationship and is passive way to use the
romcom as a device or means to defer the situation at hand. We as a mass
audience watch these movies to feel better about our own relationships
or find comfort in the message the movie is trying to give us

Brick's Sexual Ambiguity in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"

"

William’s use of ambiguity is seen through every aspect in this play. It is most notably seen in the big question looming over Brick’s sexuality. It is stated through arguments between Brick and Maggie, that the reason why they are married and living together is because of a previous arrangement. The story behind the arrangement is never told, nor why Brick refused to sleep in the same bed with her. While he states he can not stand her, the truth of about he and his friend/possible lover Skipper remains a mystery to all throughout the play, especially in their final conversation. Another element of ambiguity is why Brick has started to drink, is it because he can’t stand living with Maggie, because he is sad over Big Daddy’s looming disease, or because everyone thinks he may have had relations with his “best friend” Skipper. Will he actually have sex with his wife and get her pregnant.

Big Daddy also seems to be even more ambiguous than his son. His accrued amount of fortune is never quite revealed, along with his choice over who will take over the estate. The truth of his disease is on and off again, as with his feelings about life and death. His relations with his sons is also never fully disclosed, does he love Brick more than Gooper, and why? And at the end of the play no one is quite sure what will become of Big Daddy, is he going to die, and if so, when will it happen. Will he create a will, or will the brothers need to go to court.

Culturally, it seems extremely important to try and move up in society as shown by Mae and Maggie. Though both women are virtually the same, their plight with trying not to remain in the poor house seems ridiculous. They’re efforts to have children and show big daddy who has more affection towards him seems hypocritical, especially since their husbands will inherit the money and not them. Overall the entire play never gives true answers to any of the questions posed, and leaves the audience/reader wondering what the characters might do.

Fatal Attraction

Being that I have not seen Fatal Attraction in its

entirety, I can only go on what I saw. I thought that the clips

expressed a powerful commentary on the struggle for power within the

husband and wife’s marriage. In the first clip when he is apologizing

for the affair, he is shown standing over his sobbing wife as to show

that he had the power to not only ruin the marriage, but also to try and

decide to make things work. Though it seems like the man has the most

power in the beginning through the few clips shown it seems like the

women are more in control of the man than anything else. While Anne

Archer’s character emphasizes the role of the victim and the wrongfully

betrayed wife, she is still able to manipulate how the entire situation

will go. His wife after all throws him out, and later decides to let him

come back.  As seen, her quiet demeanor not only makes her husband feel

guilty for the entire situation, but also on edge. With one scream she

is able to throw her husband into an extreme panic, enabling him to come

to the rescue, while she goes off to find a means to Glen Close’s demise. 

Glen Close’s character also seems to be in the struggle for control due

to the fact that she is unwilling to let her one time affair go. She

becomes pregnant and with that believes that removing Archer’s character

is the only way she and Douglas’s character will have a chance. By

breaking into the house and attacking the wife she not only displays

clear signs on insanity, but also signs of control through intimidation.

She not only appears to be insane, but goes a step further to cut her

own leg to show that she is willing to mutilate herself and destroy his

wife to get what she wants.  As for her attacking Archer’s character,

and being diverted into fighting her former lover, she is as the cliché

goes “in it to win it.” She fights back against Douglas’s character

until he has no other option that to strangle the life out of her, or

until he thinks he has saved the day. Once Douglas’s character thinks he

is in the clear and has successfully saved his wife, Close shoots up

with one last breath of air to maim her former lover, only to terrify

him and to be shot dead by her nemesis and lovers wife.

For the second Movie Anchor Man, I thought it was such a hilarious

commentary on how men and women reacted and sometimes still do when

trying to mate with each other. The “power of the flute” scene shows him

almost performing solely for his anchor associate as she calls herself.

 Burgundy expresses himself as a peacock trying to gain the attention of

his mate, while making a mockery of the entire first date situation. She

on the other hand tries not to be wooed by her male counterpart, but is

unsuccessful due to the fact that he is liked by the entire club. Her

demeanor shows that while she is trying to resist his charm she is

falling victim to the crowds reaction and doubts her first intentions.