Fifth Essay: ET 20

 

Having a ball...wish you were here

Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, Anji Xtravaganza, Willi Ninja...

Before watching Paris Is Burning, if I saw these names i might think of: are those really names? After watching it, i thought: these were just a group of people who gathered and shared the same interests. They were Drag Queens.

 

I had never heard of ball cultures, drag queens, voguing, or even black-gay-culture? I'm still a freshman in this area. I never really met a gay guy in my lifetime, maybe i will in the future; but till now, gay men were just a term for me. These black-gay-men were a marginalized culture somewhere in America, best known were in New York City. They gathered, having balls, voguing, houses that actually meant something to them; semiotically speaking, those things were just signifiers, they actually signified the identities, genders, families of these gay people.

In this film, most of the gay guys were transvestites, meaning a guy who enjoyed wearing women clothes, and they even want to be prettier than women. Women clothes were signifiers, when they put on those women outfits, it signified their gender, women. This was what they want, they want to be a woman, at least be like a woman, and loved by men, marry with men. One of the gay man named Venus in the movie, i found he had an interesting idea: he didn't think of himself as a guy, he was just a girl with a penis. That was very true for him, he looked more feminine than most girls. Moreover, they talked a lot about sex change in the movie. Sex changing was a sign of being a REAL women for them, some of them thought it doesn't worth it; whereas some of them would die for it. Those who had their breast implanted or had their sex changed, they were so satisfied and happy and rejoiced for it; those who thought sex change weren't their thing at first, and time goes on they were still gratified by their decision that not having a sex change. Like Pepper Labeija said: what for? Things didn't seem getting well, women still got beaten up, robbed and mugged. These unfortunate things were a sign of being a transgender woman for him.

Moving on, these people gathered weren't doing nothing, they vogued, having competitions, having balls. Balls signified identities for them in a way, they were the ball-goers. In the balls, they had competition, they could be whoever and whatever they want. In those competition, they won trophies. Trophy was a signifier of status for them. They got status, they got fame. Besides, competitions were separated into categories, like realness, voguing, high fashion coats, outfits for different occupations, etc. They even have trends too, like in earlier days they tended to dress like exotic Las Vegas showgirls with those beats and feathers; then they wanted to look like those gorgeous movie stars; later they thought of being trim and elegant supermodels.

from to then

Looking like these beautiful women signified fulfillments for them, and being one of these supermodels was some of the drag queens ultimate dream. So they invented Voguing, a kind of dance which using the poses inside the magazine, Vogue. Dancing with those poses made them feel like one of the Vogue models, an accomplishment for them, to show off their perfect body line. Voguing signified their attitude, style, theatricalism, and talents.

On the other hand, a lot of them got kicked out of the family because of being gays, drag queens. Some of them just ran away from home because they didn't want to embarrass their family. Some normal families just disowned their son when they found out they were gay. Houses like Labeija, Xtravaganza, Pendavis, Saint Laurent signified home for those homeless black gay guys. And every home has a mother as the leader, these leaders have great responsible for the children in their house. The Mother did every real mother does, when the 'children' were to perform, mother helped them in choosing their shoes and outfits. In addition, they shared their problems, 'children' looked up to their mothers. The houses were signifiers for home, it gave you warmth, shelters, helps, it represented the lost homes of those 'children'.

As the situation of Mohd Ashraf, he was having a much tougher circumstances. First he is a malay muslim, malays are considered more religious, his parent's decision to disown him is unavoidable. Even the laws of country couldn't bear with it, causing him to have difficulties in changing his name. It was just changing a name, why make it a big fuss? We can't blame Mohd Ashraf for wanting to change his name, names are printed in MYKAD; MYKAD signifies our identities, all information related to us can be found in MYKAD, if the data in it isn't right, then it doesn't mean anything to us. I think Mohd Ashraf thought this way too.

To conclude, Mohd Ashraf was having the same issues with those 'children' in New York City, no matter what race, or what nationality you are, transgender people shared the common problems. Paris is Burning made me realized that there was something like this happened around us, around the world, and we have to admit that. Paris is Burning now.

 

 

Fourth Essay: ET 19

 

Some Like It HOT!!

Some Like It Hot was a film far beyond your wildest imagination. What can you expect from a screwball comedy? Funny characters, hilarious events, humorous chases, interesting dialogues, glamorous costumes, etc. You can find them all in this film. Indeed, this film were rich with semiotic meaning. Look at the ‘three’ bombshells in the movie poster, what would you think of? It must be an amusing, sexy, and comical film. In the film, Sugar Kane(Marilyn Monroe) was a vocalist and a ukulele player in an all-girl musical band. Joe(Tony Curtis) and Jerry(Jack Lemmon) the saxophone and the bass player witnessed a gangster’s massacre, in order to run away from the mafias, they dressed as women, named themselves Josephine and Daphne, and playing in an all-girl band headed to Florida, which they met Sugar.

 

There was a sequence that Marilyn Monroe’s sang ‘I Wanna Be Loved By You’; Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Osgood, and a bellhop were appearing in this sequence as well. In the opening of this sequence showed an establishing shot of the sumptuous round-ceiling ballroom, with a huge sparkling chandelier hanging in the middle of it. The grand decoration of the ballroom signified a social class, the upper class, men and women wearing tuxedos and dresses, drinking cocktails and champagne, which was Sugar's dream about being one of them.

When singing ‘I wanna be loved by you’, Sugar signified a performer, an entertainer, she tended to be flirty and seductive. Every gaze, every smile, every dances, every little movements like pointing her small finger, the way she sang, it associated with seduction and she made your heart pumped. The lyrics of the song gave you a pleasure of hearing, like she was whispering beside your ear, and the sound ‘Boo boo bee doo!’ was like blowing airs into your ear, naughty and tickling. From a feminist point of view, she embodied the visual pleasure of the audience. Look at that dress, how could you not aware of her wonderful figure with that dress on. This fulfilled the male gaze theory according to Laura Mulvey, ‘that women role are simultaneously looked at and displayed with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness.’ (Mulvey, 1975). As we know, Marilyn Monroe was one of the famous sex symbols in the 50s, so she was absolutely up to the role.

Moving on, Josephine realized Osgood was waving at Daphne. ‘She’ encouraged Daphne to react nicely and be with Osgood that night.

And we look at Daphne, Jack Lemmon had well-portrayed Daphne with his movements in their musical performance, Daphne was standing real straight like a girl, and the way ‘she’ gazed, just like any other confident girl who played bass in a music band. Daphne waved back, with an awkward straight-palm gesture. It was like a ‘stop’ sign, asking him to stop showing affection for ‘her’ because at that moment Daphne really doesn’t like Osgood. Josephine was the encourager, ‘she’ encouraged Daphne to spend the night with Osgood and keep him ashore, so ‘she’ could sort of steal Osgood yacht and be with Sugar. Josephine was like a conspiracist here, making her own plans and forced Daphne to collaborate, no matter how unwilling Daphne was. ‘She’ even asked Daphne to wave nicer, this showed how eager Josephine was to date with Sugar. Daphne signified the ‘victim’, being controlled by Josephine. Although Daphne ended up happily engaged to Osgood, which was hilarious.

Josephine was quite a pretty ‘lady’ after disguised, ‘she’ caught a bellhop’s attention, the bellhop kept seducing ‘her’ after they first met. Look at the way he leaned towards Josephine, that bellhop actually acted as a dominant male in a feminist point of view, he was being arbitrary that he won’t stop chasing Josephine until ‘she’ says yes.

The bellhop was sending a basket of flowers to Daphne from Osgood, later he picked one of the flowers and gave it to Josephine and ‘threaten’ her, then Josephine put a card on the flowers and gave it to Sugar as it was a gift from him to her. Flowers are a sign of courtship-romances, normally a guy would send flowers to a girl he adores. Like this whole flower-sending scene, Osgood gave them to Daphne; the bellhop gave one to Josephine; and Josephine(Joe) gave them to Sugar. One basket of flowers had been sent to three ‘girls’ from three ‘guys’ within minutes. What a lovely scene.

Back to Marilyn Monroe, she played Sugar, Sugar was a ukulele player. As we know, ukulele was a small guitar-violin-like instrument, it seemed quite easy to play. It was like a symbol for Sugar that she was an easy and vulnerable blonde. For instance, she was so easily believed in Joe who acted like one of the millionaires, Junior. Joe was acting quite illogically but still Sugar buy it. However, Marilyn Monroe usually signifies dumb blonde in most of her movies, they were all so beautiful, fragile, naive, sweet, blond hair, etc. Daphne and Josephine were quite alike from a feminist point of view, they were a couple of nice sweet girls with nice ‘sweet’ voices; Joe and Jerry tended to disguised themselves as one of those blondes like Sugar/Marilyn Monroe, and they named themselves Daphne and Josephine, some very girlish names. These were how men thought of women.

This was an amazing sequence, there were still a lot of other sequences with semiotics and feminist theory, but this was the most significant and representative one in the movie. Well, some like it Hot!

 

Final Comparison Essay

 

Tootsie, Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman

When I decided to write about Dustin Hoffman, I was a little shocked by myself for making such decision. I never specifically liked him, just that i have watched a couple of movies of him, and I thought he was great for taking a wide range of different personas, like The Graduate, Rain Man, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Tootsie, Meet the Fockers, etc. Well it wasn’t much but it’s quite a lot for watching the same actor. Actually, it was the trailer of Tootsie that confirmed me in writing Dustin Hoffman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For someone like me that hadn’t heard of Tootsie, looking at the woman in red dress and Dustin Hoffman was top billing in the posters, I was confused, thinking of who was that old woman? and where was Dustin Hoffman? How did he look like in the movie? So I looked up the trailer of the movie. No. Way. That woman was Dustin Hoffman?! I was so shocked. It surprised me, like I said in one of my earlier ETs, I love surprises in movies. So Tootsie definitely got picked.

The next movie, I watched it a year ago, another Dustin Hoffman’s significant movie, Rain Man, immediately popped into my mind. No more women, no more red dresses, but an autistic savant. Dustin Hoffman was famed for his multiple personas in acting; in Rain Man, he was autistic; in Tootsie, he was a woman. You can never imagine the flexibilities of his acting.

First of all, in Tootsie, there was three aspects in his persona, the Michael Dorsey-before being Dorothy, Dorothy Michaels, and Michael Dorsey-after being Dorothy. All three has different personalities, all well-played by Dustin Hoffman. At first in the movie, Michael Dorsey was an unemployed, he’s been a jobbing actor for 20 years, and there was a reason for it. While he was auditioning, or shooting a commercial, he argued with everybody. He tries to be reasonable, but his ‘reasonable’ seemed very unreasonable to others. I could tell how desperate he was for money, but still insisted his own way of working. Besides, he was a tutor, acting tutor, always sharing and teaching others about his philosophical thoughts in acting. And here’s an important question, how did he become Dorothy Michaels? It was a role his friend, Sandy (Teri Garr) wanted, so as a friend and a tutor, Michael Dorsey coached her for the audition. That was the first time Michael Dorsey in touch with the character of Emily Kimberly. After hearing the provoking assumption from his agent (Sydney Pollack) that he could never earn a dime, he made up his mind…

Then, Dorothy appeared. I have to say, Dustin Hoffman once became a real woman in this movie. Did you see the way ‘she’ walked, stared, it was exactly how a woman walk on a busy street: walk fast, eyes were looking around, kept tidying up her hair, a bouncing feel of walking - most feminine thing ever happened to guy. Next, i LOVE the way she revealed to Sydney Pollack that she’s Michael Dorsey, talking with a sweet voice and suddenly a deep nasal voice came out, I laughed so hard at that part. I think that was an amazing way to reveal yourself to someone you knew when you are in disguise.

Before, Michael Dorsey was a person who would fight for himself under any circumstances, but as Dorothy Michaels, when the director Ron blamed Dorothy for not discussing with him first for changing the plot of her first kissing scene, she just apologized. Well I think Michael Dorsey would never ever do that, he will just throw the script and walk away. But look at ‘her’ now, ‘she’ just apologize gently, without any attitude. Was Michael changing into a better man? Yes, i think, from then onwards, and the following made the famous line of Michael Dorsey in the end of the movie, ‘I was a better man with you, as a woman than I ever was with a woman, as a man.’

The Michael Dorsey–after being Dorothy, he started to think like a woman, he wanted to buy Dorothy jewels, he started to think from a woman’s point of view, which hadn’t happen to him before, and Michael was so care about how others thought of Dorothy, when Sandy says Dorothy was fat, he seemed so upset about it; Sandy says again that Dorothy wasn’t acting tough enough for the character of Emily Kimberly, he later on work even harder and even changed more of her lines in order to make Dorothy look more tough and better.

Dorothy Michaels was the America’s hottest new actress, so Michael Dorsey seemed like having a trouble getting rid of the whole Dorothy thing. Michael Dorsey grabbed the chance to spill the beans in front of the nationwide audiences, how so? By faking a ridiculous story that he was Emily Kimberly’s twin brother, took off his wig in front of everyone, talk with his deep nasal voice and immediately became Michael Dorsey, a feminine woman to a jerky middle-aged guy within seconds, I laughed so hard at the moment he took off his wig and I have to remind myself to inhale. That part, a moment ago Dustin Hoffman still playing a feminine administrator, and the next second the wig’s off and she turned into a guy, showed how desperately he wanted to get rid of this character, Dorothy. Because he was so madly in love with Julie (Jessica Lange) and doesn’t want to hurt her anymore. In this scene, before the wig’s off, Dustin Hoffman was like playing Dorothy more delicate and sensitive, in order to make a contrast with the masculine Edward Kimberly, that surprised us.

Overall, Tootsie was a film about Dustin Hoffman playing Michael Dorsey playing Dorothy Michaels playing Emily Kimberly but turned out to be Edward Kimberly, and became Michael Dorsey again. I think no one in this universe could play such a role except for Dustin Hoffman. Bravo.

Now, we are leaving Dorothy Michaels, moving on to Raymond Babbitt, the rain man. Raymond Babbitt was an autistic, Charlie Babbitt was played by Tom Cruise as Raymond’s younger brother. I've separated the performance of Dustin Hoffman into two aspects, the autistic savant, and the brother of Charlie Babbitt. At the beginning of the movie, Raymond and Charlie were just strangers, but because Ray knew very well of his father’s car, Charlie felt strange and he was told by Dr. Bruner that Raymond was his brother.

Raymond Babbitt, as an autistic person with photographic memory. Meaning that you can memorize things and never easily forget about them. Like statistics, stories, time schedules. And rituals, routines are the ways he protects himself, anything emergency will freak him out. Raymond had this stern look and a fragile heart.

Here is a fact that Dustin Hoffman had been working a year with autistics men in order to understand the feelings and relationships of them, which made him successfully portrayed autistics, and this movie won him an Oscar too.

When people forced Raymond to do something he’s unwilling to, he would begin to scream hysterically, and hit himself on the head. The airport scene, Raymond’s screaming and hitting did leave a deep impression on me, when I'm watching i thought: wow, that was some kind of madness, was he having a mental problem or what? When Raymond doesn’t want to do something, no one could forced him to do it. Raymond did use a lot of body languages to represent his emotional and thoughts. When he doesn’t want to hear, he closed his ears, he reacted the same either to Charlie or to strangers. Raymond never sees people in their eyes when having a conversation with them. He was always looking somewhere else.

On the other hand, as Charlie’s big brother, Raymond never told Charlie that he was the rain man, he just recalled from single little things, like in the Big 8 Motel, Raymond’s brushing teeth, he remembered Charlie once called him ‘funny teeth, funny rain man’, and when Charlie open the hot water, Raymond became hysterical again, kept yelling ‘hot water’s hurting the baby!’. Charlie finally recognized Raymond was his childhood imaginary friend, Rain Man. Raymond didn’t do that on purpose, he was just showing us how he used to be with his little brother, Charlie in the most natural way. At the moment, audiences would feel the emotional coming out from a brother who loved his little brother so much, but they just couldn’t be with each other, which made people feel sad for them. That scene was really touching, it was one of my favorite scenes in the movie. And the amazing part was, they just took 1 shot on that scene. The right feelings lead to the right moments.

The best way for me to describe the performances of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man was, when you watch Charlie Babbitt, you will see Tom Cruise; but when you watch Raymond Babbitt, you will see Raymond Babbitt, you’ll never see Dustin Hoffman. Dustin Hoffman became the character in the movie, which made his movies so mesmerizing.

There were similarities of the acting of Dustin Hoffman in these two movies. Dustin Hoffman was playing a role that utterly different from himself either in Tootsie or in Rain Man. He was neither unemployed nor a woman, and he’s never autistic in reality, but he played it so well, so real, and so touching. And the second thing was, his body movement in each film was so coordinated to each persona. In Tootsie, he moved with the most feminine way; whereas in Rain Man, he moved with those uncoordinated movements, which matches with the persona so perfectly.

The differences between them were the genres, Tootsie was a comedy, Rain Man was a drama. The first time i watch Tootsie i thought it was an amusing comedy, so hilarious and humorous. But the second time i watched it on the TV, i suddenly felt Tootsie wasn’t a comedy anymore, it was a biographical film about the life of an actor named Michael Dorsey. I could feel the message brought out by Dustin Hoffman’s performance, feeling lost, unemployment made him realized how cruel the reality is, at the end he still need to dressed as a woman to finally found a job, in 20 years. In one of the Dustin Hoffman’s interview, he said ‘Tootsie’s never a comedy for me’.

Moreover, Rain Man showed me how the connection of brothers can make a difference, Raymond had changed the whole life perspective of Charlie, he showed Charlie that there’s still something else in this world besides money. To conclude, although Dustin Hoffman is no longer young now, but i believe his following work/movies will still be inspiring. Great actor.