Proposing a Hero!

I was just thinking I had all my homework done for tomorrow when I reread the critical analysis project assignment and realized that the proposal is due tomorrow, too.  Waah.  Here goes:

My critical analysis paper will be on Guardians of the Galaxy, and I will be applying a myth criticism approach.  I am interested in Peter Quill/Star Lord as a hero and how he measures up against the many hero archetypes.  He's not exactly what might be expected as a hero:  he's sarcastic, self-absorbed, and prone to bragging, and he is a criminal, on top of all that.  The scene I have chosen to focus on is the prologue, which gives information about the birth stage of his hero's journey.  My concerns about these choices center around material.  At this point, I'm not sure that there will be enough.

It only needed to be 100 words, so I hope this will work. 

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"CinderBella": Sara Buttsworth's Take on Twilight

The Vampire Deutsch: Der Vampir
 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rather than a stand-alone essay, this is excerpted from a book, and it covers first the male vampires of the "saga" in relation to the myth of the American Dream before turning to the females, mostly just Bella.  According to Buttsworth, Cinderella is the version of the American Dream that applies to women.  A lot of what she says rings true, but I decided to go to an expert for another opinion. 

My expert is my sister Rebbie, who is kind of a vampire scholar/hobbyist (last year, she spent what I thought was an outrageous amount of money on the complete DVD set of Dark Shadows.  It came in a coffin.  Need I say more?).  She once told me that "Bella is me-- when I was twelve years old!"  Now (ten years later) she says that she agrees that Stephanie Meyer is working the Cinderella story in the Twilight books, but she says that's a problem, because what Bella wants are all childish things:  "She wants to stay young and beautiful (which I don't think she is.  Definitely not in the movies), marry a rich guy, and get her own way.  She is unbelievably selfish, and doesn't have any interest in anything but herself."  (my response:  "Don't hold back.  Tell me what you really think.)

Rebbie did grow out of her vampire fantasies by the time she was about sixteen, when, she says, "I began to realize that there were a lot of important things I should be worrying about, and the last thing I wanted to do was depend on someone else to give my life meaning."  I should point out that she doesn't usually talk like this.  I think she was trying to be the big sister when she said it.  My take on her Goth years is that the black eyeliner kept irritating her eyes, which sort of took the romance out of it all. 

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Paglia on Mitchell's "Woodstock"

Blue (Joni Mitchell album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I've just been reading Camille Paglia's analysis of Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock."  I have an uncle who's a big fan of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, so I've heard the song lots of times and remembered most of the lyrics, but Paglia points out that their performance of the song is very different from Joni Mitchell's recording, which I don't think I've ever heard. 

I had some friends in high school who liked to analyze songs, but after reading Paglia's  . . . well, call it a dissection, I have to say that their efforts and probably the songs they picked were pretty half- (uh) baked (yeah, that's the word) compared to this essay.  

And, even though I don't think I could analyze anywhere near as well as Camille Paglia, I do feel better about my own writing after reading hers.  I've been worrying a bit about how I'm going to get 2100 words out of one scene in a film, when she managed to write (just an estimate!) 5000 or so about a short poem. 

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Readings update

Charlie Brown pumpkin patch (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I forgot to mention that I read all of the narratives in How to Write about Anything.  The one that made the biggest impression was the one about Peanuts (the comic strip), and that was because I've actually read the collection mentioned in the essay.  My dad has a copy -- he's a big fan, although he doesn't seem to be interested in the cartoon shows.  My favorite is It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  I love when Sally gets hysterical over missing trick or treating.  And, of course, when Charlie Brown keeps getting a rock at every house.  I know just how he feels, even though that never happened to me.
I'm moving on to the next set of readings.  I should have something about them soon.

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I Propose . . . Something -- I'm not sure what

Star-Lord (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yes, I know I'm behind.  My narrative turned out okay, so I guess I'm done talking about that.  Right now, I'm working on the proposal for my big paper, the critical analysis.  I'm going to do a myth criticism analysis of Guardians of the Galaxy.  I know that I'm going to focus on Peter Quill/Star Lord, but I haven't settled on a scene yet, and I'm not sure that I know enough about myth crit.  I think I'll be looking at him in terms of a hero archetype, but which one is he?  More later.

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