The Power of "Chick Flicks"

The other day, was not so good. I was bummed out and in a bad mood so when I got home I decided to put on a couple movies that I already knew I loved and just relax, but in the process I discovered something really great about chick flicks.

It's no secret that anything that girls, particularly teenage girls like or do, will be attacked and deemed ridiculous and unworthy for anyone besides teenage girls, which is ridiculous. The music they like, the T.V. shows they watch, the way they speak, or dress themselves, and the movies they watch are always under attack, and this criticism of entertainment preferences stays with women as they grow into adults too. Romance novels are constantly snickered at and discounted from the category of "real literature" and any movie with a female lead and romantic plot is labeled a "chick flick". Personally, I don't think any male would die from watching a movie or reading a book with a female protagonist but I digress.

I started with Clueless as I had just finished an Emma by Jane Austen retelling and was in the mood to watch Clueless. I loved the movie even more than the last five times I watched it. I laughed constantly at the wit and satire and enjoyed Cher's journey from self-centered teen to a little bit less of a self-centered teen.

But behind the satire and humorous exaggeration is the common experiences and anxieties of a teenage girl. Whose cool and what's cool to wear, what group do I fit in with, how does this group rank, and even failing your driving test are HUGE issues to young girls, even though they are commonly mocked. Being a teenage girl is hard, particularly in a culture that always has something to say about everything you watch, read, eat, wear, or tweet.

The second movie I watched was Legally Blonde which has empowered me more than anything has in a very long time. I had seen the movie a long time ago but hardly even remembered it, so it was like watching it for the first time. I love Elle Woods and the message the movie stands for; women are capable of anything professionally regardless of their interests or appearance. Elle is beautiful and loves pink, shoes, and getting her nails done, and for some reason people seem to think this means she is incapable of being a lawyer. 

I love that Elle is motivated by a boy to go to law school at first but then discovers a real passion and talent for the subject on her own. Elle is so sweet and true to herself, and neither of these things stops her from being successful which is usually not the case with successful women in movies or on T.V. A woman of power is usually portrayed as mean and ruthless and it is implied or explicitly stated that this is how she got her power. Elle's compassion and beauty are seen by others as a disadvantage and a reason to not take her seriously, but she sees it as an advantage and never looses that compassion, even when others mistreat her. I think the message of this movie can best be summed up by Elle herself:

Although "chick flicks" are often discounted by critics and watchers as junk entertainment, that's just not true. A movie with a female lead is always empowering and worth equal merit as a film with a male lead. Really, what more could you ask for than a film that provides humor, romance, female empowerment, and a great wardrobe? 

1: A.M. Post: Do You Feel Library Guilt? Reading My Books vs. Library Books

I'm home for the summer, which means I am six minutes away from my local library again and I have more time to read. This is great and also stressful. Let me explain; I love my library and I especially love to get graphic novels from my library as they are so expensive to own, but I also own a stack of unread books that is at least twice as tall as I am. Therefore, when I go to the library and check out a book or get an ebook from my library's catalog and read it, I am not reading one of the books belonging to the aforementioned stack.

Because of this, I can feel guilty and stressed while reading books from the library, particularly if I take a while to read them, because that means I'm not reducing my TBR pile of books that I paid for. Now, I buy a lot of my books used or discounted, but I still spent money on them and they still take up physical space in my room and are a physical reminder that I'm not reading them every time I look at them (which is quite often.)

I love my library and really like to take advantage of being so close to it while I'm staying at my parents house, but I also really want to reduce the number of unread books I own. I think part of the problem is that as a college student, summer is the only time I can really read material of my own choosing, so I try to cram in as much reading as I can which also causes stress and probably causes me to read less.

Basically, my overthinking brain is making something fun and recreational into a chore and a stressful event, which is not what I want. This summer, I'm going to just read freely from my own shelves and my libraries shelves. A good book is a blessing no matter where it came from, and I love supporting my local library.

Me reading everything and not caring where it came from

Do you guys feel this way about borrowing from the library? Do you ever feel guilty about not reading books you already own? Help me out here and tell me I'm not alone.

1 A.M. Post-- When Reading is Fun (And When it's Not)

It's currently the third day of the new semester for me and I have spent all day (from noon-four) reading for the two history classes I have this semester. Now, I love reading. I have a blog and a couple hundred books to prove it, but I did not love spending four hours reading from history textbooks. (Just a little bit of info for those about to start college: all of my history classes have required about four times more reading than any literature class I have ever taken). So this got me thinking about when reading is fun and when it's not, and how it can be both to someone whom normally loves doing it. Do you find this to be true in your life? Does this happen with other hobbies and interests in your life besides reading? I would love to hear your thoughts.

For me, reading is fun when I am choosing when and what I am reading, and when what I'm reading has a voice, or maybe even a personality. Therefore, text books are not fun. I would gladly read twenty well-written nonfiction novels over one chapter of a history textbook. I can't stand the information overload, and I feel like I come away from the chapter with no new knowledge because I was zoned out for half of that chapter, or there was too much information so I didn't retain any of it. Do I find all times and subjects in history absolutely riveting? Absolutely not! Would I love to pick a few era or events in history and dig into them really deeply instead of mashing together 1,00 years of world history into fifteen weeks? You betcha.

Of course I can still enjoy a required piece of reading just as much as I would enjoy one that I picked out myself, but these are of course always novels or short stories of some sort. Some of my favorite pieces of literature were introduced to me by the beast that is required reading.

So even though I love both history and reading, reading history textbooks and in some cases primary sources is absolutely tortuous at times, and I totally understand why some people absolutely hate the subject of history. If I ever get the chance to teach a history class, I would love to add an independent study element to my class where students pick a time period and subject within that time period and just go to town researching and reading non-fiction about it.

I would love to hear your thoughts and your experiences with history classes, and fun and not fun reading. I'd also love to hear some tips you have for getting through tortuous required reading and retaining information from it.

A list of Rejected Thesis Sentences

No one will ever be able to write about Ralph Waldo Emerson or Walt Whitman because no one can understand the scholarly articles on them.

It doesn't matter how good this paper is because it is about a female author, so you will give me a B. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne is a jerkface and is only loved by other jerkfaces. 

(See his comment on "These damned scribbling women" for proof.)    

I have two days to write this eight page paper, and I will never get it done in time because I am stress crying too hard to type. 

Happy Paper Writing and Exam season everyone! 

1 A.M. Post-- What's in a Name?

So, a long time ago (as in a couple of months) I read Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman which I loved, and a particular quote from that novel really got me thinking, Here's the quote:

" "To name her is to sink her" he told me. "That which we name takes greater weight than the sea it displaces. Ask any Shipwreck" "

Now, if you don't know, this book is about mental illness and the main character Caden has created a sort of alternate world/extended metaphor that he is the passenger on a ship in the middle of the ocean and here he is speaking to the Captain about the ship they are on. But, what this quote really got me thinking about the idea it introduces separate from the novel.

The Captain is telling us that words have power but particularly when they are used as names. We, the human race, name things that we have a strong reaction to, either positive or negative. Think of the things we name, and I don't mean saying an apple is an apple, I mean the things that we ourselves assign a separate name other than their label.
We name:
children,
pets,
paintings,
songs,
books,
hurricanes.
groups we fear,
our first car or other prized possession,
etc.

All of these things generally create some kind of reaction from us and so we give them a tittle. I have always found it interesting that we give hurricanes and other natural storms human names. We spend hours laboring over a piece of art, of any kind, and then we name it, just as we would a child or pet.

Another interesting connection I made with this quote and something that immediately came to my mind was, "He-who-must-not-be-named." People fear Voldemort so much, they cannot say his name, because to say his name is to acknowledge his power. Harry and co. begin to say his name in the series when they begin to fear him less-and-less, and therefore, some of his power is taken away because the saying of his name, his real name and not his second name that fear has given him, lessens the fear.

Just a quick little post on some thoughts that have been rolling around in my head recently! Let me know your thoughts on names, and please check out Challenger Deep it was really great. 
  

Reflections Upon My Twenty-First Birthday-- 1 A.M. Post

On Saturday, I tuned twenty-one years old. Which if you aren't from America, you might not know that this is meant to be your best, and "most fun", birthday because you can legally drink. Parties and bars aren't really my thing, so I just wanted to go home for a long weekend to see my family and have some dessert. As the week before my birthday progressed I started to feel more and more blahhhh (great and poignant adjective use, I know) about things in my life (I know, I hate when people are so vague about this stuff too, but we don't have time for long stories).

So, instead of getting hammered on my twenty-first birthday, I made a pretty important decision. Right now I don't have time to really worry about anyone else but myself. I've done that for a lot of years and now I'm over it.

I like me, I like spending time by myself and I'm not in the mood to worry about what other people think or feel about me or if they see me as desirable, smart, blah blah, you name it. I had just gotten to feel this way and then something happened that put me back to square one; I just needed to write this as a reminder to myself.  

This line from Plath's poem Lesbos captures my thoughts perfectly:

"Every day you fill him with soul-stuff, like a pitcher.

You are so exhausted." 

And as a reminder to you, don't let anyone else define you, and don't feel like you have to put all of your energy into someone else. You don't. Put your "Soul stuff" into yourself; it's where it belongs.

Previous 1 A.M. Post-- What Does Literature Mean to Me?

What Does Literature Mean to Me?-- 1 A.M. Post

I didn't plan on having a post up today because it was already midnight when I realized I hadn't scheduled anything, and I didn't have any quick posts in mind. After a rather stressful day, I decided to just get in bed and start next week's readings for my American Literature class. I was just flipping through my anthology when I happened upon 'pity this busy monster, manunkind' by e.e. Cummings, and something in me just clicked.

In the two minutes it took me to read this poem one time, I was a different person. I read someone else's words and got inside their head and out of my own. I felt something very huge, from just a fifteen line poem. I was calmed, and confused, intrigued and enlightened, I saw both the beauty of the world and the ugliness of the world- all in two minutes.
And as I read the poem again, these feelings shifted and intensified.

That's why I love literature. Because it makes me feel and it makes me think. It makes me get out of bed at one o'clock in the morning to write a post dedicated to it, and it helps me fall asleep at three o'clock in the morning when something is running through my brain over and over. It makes me nod my head in agreement to the thoughts someone had a hundred years before I was born, and it gives me the ability to emphasize with situations I have never been in and never will be in.

Literature is such a huge part of my identity, and who would I be without the words and thoughts of all of these other men and women floating around in my head? Who would any of us be without the words and thoughts of others running through our heads? Who would we be if there was no one to tell our story, or no one who understood our story?

Literature is so powerful- in all forms. Story telling is essential to human existence, and we sure have found beautiful ways of doing it.

"--listen: there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go"

- e.e. Cummings