Dracula Girl Goes Western

A screenshot from Dracula Italiano: Uno screenshot del film Horror Express (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It just occurred to me that I didn't mention my sister when I was writing about my research project, and I should have.  Rebecca is really into movies, and I talked to her a lot about Cowboys & Aliens.  Her favorite films are classic horror (Dracula, etc.), and she's been watching all the episodes of Dark Shadows (Netflix loves her) to get ready for the new movie that's coming out, but she was interested in how I was analyzing my movie.  She had never heard of men's studies before, and she watched the movie with me a couple of weeks ago (I had to watch it all the way through, since I kept forgetting about everything but the three scenes I was working on).  Her take on the genre-mixing was that it made it easier to nail down exactly what makes a western a western, and that is a need to show men with a purpose.  What she meant is that the guys in westerns know who they are and what they are doing -- no whining, no angst (except the drunks).  She said something like, "they show what men can be under the right circumstances."  Like when aliens show up. 

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Gimme the LARGE Popcorn!



Tomorrow begins the last week of spring semester, and I should be getting ready for finals.  But I'm not.  I'm going to the movies.  For fun.  Yay!  I don't have to think about anything if I don't want to, and that's just what I need right now.
My sister and I are going to see The Raven.  She's a big fan of Poe (she used to be kinda goth), so this is a natural for her.  I'm taking Masterpieces of American Literature over the summer, so I can pretend to myself that this will be helpful with that.  Ha!  It's funny how I feel as if I have to justify spending a couple hours away from my homework.
I hope it's better than Roger Ebert thinks.  At the very least, I can write about it later, which is good, because I still need a few more entries in my research journal (due this Friday!).

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Evaluating my Research Paper

Anger (Photo credit: ZORIN DENU)

Yes, this is twice in one day.  I have to make up for not posting while I was in a frenzy over getting my paper finished.  I think it turned out pretty well.  Actually, not to brag, but I really impressed myself (I can't be sure it would impress anyone else). 
My introduction was solid, at least I think it was.  I opened with a description of Doc and his wife, where he is kind of taking out his frustration on her.  The funny thing is that after I switched to looking at anger, Doc suddenly became a lot more important to the project.  One of the scenes I analyzed was after his wife was taken by the aliens -- he has a sort of transformation because of this, and his anger gets channeled into his determination to get her back.  My second scene (which came first in the analysis section of the paper) was Lonergan bringing home the gold and the argument that ends with them being captured.  I decided that it was significant that both of them were interacting with women when they showed their anger, and I think I pulled enough in from my sources to cover it.
The last scene I analyzed was Dolarhyde torturing the guy who got left behind when the aliens killed all the cattle.  I picked this one because he is so businesslike about what he is doing.  The guy doesn't seem to recognize how angry he is, but it seemed obvious to me that when he is truly enraged, he suddenly turns cold and stops his usual irritated behavior.  Here I am sure that I supported my interpretation with evidence from the "text" and my source material.
All in all, I'm happy with the paper.  I could have done more with the lit survey on anger, I guess, but I didn't want to run out of room for the analysis, and you can tell that I don't exactly excel at . . . well, call it terseness for lack of a better word.

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Catching Up

Combination of 20px and rotated version of 20px to form icon for Peer Review process (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, I guess you can tell that I fell behind.  I managed to survive my conference, revise the paper, and hand it in.  I'm still waiting for it to come back, but that's okay.  It seems like the longer it takes, the less I am worried about the grade.  That doesn't make sense, but that's how it feels.
Right now, I'm working on our last project, which is the course portfolio.  After the research paper, this is a piece of cake!  All I have to do is write a short essay evaluating my performance, stick all the stuff in a folder and hand it in.  Writing the draft of this thing took me about half an hour, and I had already done some revision before the peer review session yesterday.  The reviewer liked it.

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I Live in Terror!

The Terror Within (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today is my conference, and I'm really worried that she's going to tell me that I have to do a global revision plus a lot of new research.  I know I shouldn't be worried about that (she okayed the thesis when I asked her last week), but I'm just like that.  The bad things that do happen to me always come as complete surprises -- maybe that's why I worry so much.  It's a preventative measure.

I Discover that Angry Men Are Weak -- in Westerns

Way back at the beginning of the semester, Dr. Toffee said that we should tell people what we were working on, because talking about it would help us think things through, and because the people we talk to might have some ideas that would help.  My draft is finished now (we had the peer review yesterday), and my reviewer wasn't very helpful, so last night I talked to my parents about it.  I know, right?  I was totally surprised when this actually helped.

My dad is a big fan of westerns, and he had a lot to say about anger in westerns and about Cowboys & Aliens.  According to him, heroes in westerns (at least in the ones he thinks are good) tend not to get angry very often, and when they do, it usually leads to the climax of the film.  Then he made my mother laugh when he said that in C&A, Harrison Ford seems to be channeling John Wayne at times; he's always irritated by something, but it's clear that he has power.  Dad said I should watch El Dorado (and maybe I will). 

My mom came up with an example of Daniel Craig being like John Wayne, and this one I had seen, because it's in The Quiet Man, which she watches every St. Patrick's Day.  She reminded me about how John Wayne gets angry with Maureen O'Hara, but doesn't show real anger in front of men until near the end of the film.  This seems like the scene in Cowboys & Aliens that I mentioned in my last post, now that I think about it.

So, what I got out of this discussion is that, for men in westerns at least, showing anger in front of men makes you look weak unless it's a rare occurrence.  And that's helpful.  I wasn't happy with how I wrote about Doc, but from this new viewpoint I think I can do a better job.  Doc does come off as weak, because he is angry all of the time, but he can't do anything about it.  He's powerless, and it's not until he's gone through the experience of going after the aliens to get his wife back that he becomes strong enough to have some self-respect.  

Time to start revising.  

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Back in Class



The Rage of Achilles (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My draft is due Wednesday (yes, the day after tomorrow), and I'm still not happy with it.  My current thesis is:  Cowboys & Aliens presents its hero as a man fully in control of his anger, suggesting that this attribute is key to the filmmakers' concept of masculinity.
I like this one; it's arguable, and it leaves lots of room to talk about all of the male characters, so I don't have to worry about making length.  I hope Dr. Toffee likes it -- I have to have a draft conference with her next week, and she'll have revision instructions for me.
One weird thing about Lonergan's anger:  the only time he shows real anger is when his "girlfriend" (for lack of a better term) tells him that he has to take the stolen money back.  This is kind of disturbing to me, since he seems to be very careful not to show anger in front of men.  He doesn't hurt her, but it is a loud argument before the aliens interrupt it.