Hurlyburly Play Character Analysis

If Hollywood were a large stone in the middle of a swamp, then David Rabe’s Hurlyburly represents all of the creepy crawlers and slimy disgusting gunk you find underneath the rock. This darkly comic drama is set in the Hollywood Hills. It tells the story of four miserable, self-destructive bachelors, each of whom is pursuing careers in the film industry. They don’t seem the ambitious types, however. The bachelors (Eddie, Phil, Mickey, and Artie) spend their time drinking, womanizing, and ingesting a shocking amount of cocaine. All the while, Eddie — the central character — wonders why his life is slowly rotting away to nothing. The Male Characters Eddie:It is debatable whether or not Eddie and his cohorts learn anything by the conclusion. But the audience gets the picture: Don’t be like Eddie. During the play’s beginning Eddies spends his morning snorting cocaine and eating slightly molded Hostess Snowballs. Eddie desires a steady romance with Darlene (who sometimes dates his roommate). However, once he establishes a committed relationship, he subconsciously dismantles it with his paranoia. Eddie’s life is a ping-pong match, going from meaningless one-night-stand and drug binges to a â€Å"grown-up† life as an up-and-coming casting director. Ultimately, he is unhappy with both sides and takes solace in the belief that his friends are more pathetic than he is. But as he loses his friends, he begins losing the desire to live. Phil:Eddie’s best friend Phil is a fledgling actor and complete loser. During Act One, Phil can’t understand his own aggressive behavior. He verbally and physically abuses women, including the woman he marries and has a child with. As the play continues, Phil’s violence escalates. He picks fights with strangers, bullies his friends, and shoves a blind date out of a moving car! There are few redeeming qualities about Phil, yet he does achieve one sympathetic moment. In Act Two, he holds his baby daughter. As he shows her to his friends he wonders dreamily about her gaze and her smile. He says of children, â€Å"Yes. They are very honest.† It’s a touching moment — one that seems to hint that perhaps Phil will not continue down his dangerous path. Sadly, the hint deceives the audience. In Act Three, Phil’s character embraces oblivion, driving his car off Mulholland Drive. Artie:Artie feels slighted that he isn’t very close to Eddie. Every time he tells Eddie about his latest Hollywood pitch, Eddie is openly pessimistic about Artie’s chances. Yet Artie proves him wrong by finally getting a production deal. Artie’s personality also develops for the better. During Act One, he is as chauvinistic as Eddie and Phil. He finds a homeless teenager living in a hotel elevator. He takes her in, uses her for about a week, and then leaves her at Eddie’s house as a â€Å"present.† despite this disgusting behavior, Artie changes during Act Two after Phil treats his blind date, Bonnie, with such cruelty. Artie gains respect for Bonnie and, instead of using her as an object, he wants to spend time with Bonnie and her child at Disneyland. Mickey:Mickey is the most cold-hearted of the four men. He is also the most level-headed. He doesn’t share Eddie’s addictive behavior, nor does he rampage like the testosterone-driven Phil. Rather, he steals girlfriends from his so-called buddies only to break-up with the women days later. Nothing is terribly important to Mickey. When Eddie is desperately grief-stricken, Mickey tells him to simply get over it. When Eddie is faced with the death of a loved one, Mickey tries to convince him that it wasn’t such a loss. And when Eddie asks, â€Å"What kind of friendship is this?† Mickey replies, â€Å"An adequate one.† The Female Characters All the men treat the women characters so harshly it might be easy to mistake Hurlyburly as misogynistic. After all, the females are portrayed as drug addicts and willing objects of easily-won sexuality. (Which is a fancy way of saying they sleep with a guy five minutes after meeting him). However, despite their obvious flaws, the females in Hurlyburly are the savior characters. Bonnie offers insight and advice to the degenerative Eddie. She also gives Artie a glimpse of a â€Å"normal† sort of relationship, inspiring hope for a more balanced life. Darlene, Eddie’s somewhat serious girlfriend, is the least interesting character, but perhaps that’s simply because she has the most self-respect. All of the other characters are so demented, It’s easy not to notice the quirk-less Darlene, but she plays an important role as Eddie’s prime motive for a less destructive lifestyle. Ultimately, however, she has enough self-esteem to walk away from Eddie, thereby evaporating his motivation. Donna, the homeless teenager, accidentally makes the biggest positive impact. After wandering across California for a year, she returns to Eddie’s house. She arrives on the night Eddie is incredibly high and contemplating suicide. The girl has no idea that Eddie is experiencing these dark thoughts. Nonetheless, thanks to Donna’s philosophical speech about how she thinks the universe works, Eddie realizes that everything in the cosmos pertains to him, that he connected to all things, but it is up to him to decide what those things represent. Donna’s words calm him down, and the drug-crazed, less-than-zero Eddie can finally get some sleep. The question is: What kind of life will he wake up to in the morning? Note to Drama Departments As the character descriptions indicate, Hurlyburly is an intense drama featuring several challenging characters. Although high-school drama departments and family-oriented theaters should stay away from David Rabe’s play due to its language and subject matter, college departments and daring regional theaters should certainly check out this edgy play.

The Effects Of Global Warming On The World - 1267 Words

Over the course of the years global warming has become a threatening issue that scientists and the government have been cognizant about. Global warming is the term used to describe a gradual increase in the average temperature of the Earth s atmosphere and its oceans, a change that is believed to be permanently changing the Earth’s climate. The earth periodically warms up and cools down. The Earth is currently going through a warming trend that coincides with the industrial revolution. This threat has cause several negative influx in our world. For instance, higher temperatures, which are worsening many types of disasters, including storms, heat waves, floods, and droughts. This creates a warmer climate creates an atmosphere that can collect, retain, and drop more water, changing weather patterns in such a way that wet areas become wetter and dry areas drier. The polar regions are particularly vulnerable to a warming atmosphere. Average temperatures in the Arctic are elevating twice as fast as they are elsewhere on earth, and the world s ice sheets are melting velociously. This does not only has grave consequences for the region s people, wildlife, and plants; its most serious impact may be on rising sea levels. As humans, we face a host of challenges, but we re certainly not the only ones catching heat. As land and sea undergo rapid changes, the animals that inhabit them are in danger of evanesesting if they don t adapt quickly enough. The earth s marineShow MoreRelatedThe Effects Of Global Warming On The World1235 Words   |  5 PagesThey may not be feeling the effects of global warming at the moment, but in time it will become a more widespread issue. The effects of global warming are hard to refute, and there is endless evidence of this growing problem in our world today. The continuation of global warming is a serious threat to everyone and everything on Earth. 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Gender-Stereotyped Cartoon - the Flintstones free essay sample

What cartoons did you watch or books did you read? I had chosen to assess whether childrens media is gender-stereotyped by watching various episodes of The Flintstones from the ABC televison station. 2. Are male and female characters portrayed in gender-stereotypic roles? Flintstones. Meet the Flintstones. As the song entails, the Flintstones were in fact your modern Stone Age family. This 1960s American sitcom had placed an emphasis on four leading characters each of which are portrayed in gender-stereotypic roles. Starting ith the main character, Fred Flintstone is an accident-prone quarry worker and head of the Flintstone clan. He is quick to anger, but a very loving husband and father. Wilma Flintstone, who is Freds fiery, red-haired wife, is portrayed as being the more intelligent of the two as well as more level headed than her husband. The Flintstones best friends and next door neighbors are The Rubbles, Barney and Betty. Both the men and women in The Flintstones were drawn with the same body shape and type of clothing. The two main female characters, Wilma and Betty are both drawn very thin, with tiny waists, thin legs and medium busts. The two women are always dressed in short fitted dresses and accessorized each with a large necklace. The women always wear their hair in the same style and it never appears to be unwashed or disheveled in any way. Being that both the women along with men are emphasized as modern day cave people, they are never shown wearing shoes. This shows that both of the women are drawn with very tiny feet suiting well to the ideal body type of any woman. The two main male characters, Fred and Barney are both seen as somewhat stout, with an insignificant amount of muscle in their chest and upper body areas. Fred and Barney are each characterized by having minimally pronounced waists, in what could be termed a slight beer belly. Both have the same short, conservative haircut which appears to be shaggy and un- groomed. They are dressed in a primitive cloth which is relatively unflattering to their bulky body type. 3. Are males and females equally represented in exciting plot I do not believe that males and females are equally represented in The activities? Flintstones. Unlike Wilma and Betty, whose sole occupation was raising their two children Pebbles, and the later adopted Bamm Bamm as well as being domesticated ousewives, Fred and Barney were employed at the Slate Rock/Gravel Quarry. It is here, where they performed everyday masculine tasks serving as dinosaur operators which entailed them to the lifting and transporting of heavy materials, a Job deemed as unsuitable (at the time) for any woman. The two men are also members of the Rock Quarrys men-only bowling team known as the Flintstone Flyer. On a regular basis, Fred and Barney arrive home after a hard day of work in a stone-age vehicle with stone wheels and a fringe on top. The two women are rarely seen driving he vehicle which puts emphasis on the gender stereotype that women rely on men for transportation amongst many other things at that present time. Barney and Fred men-only club paralleling real-life fraternities such as the Freemasons. Organizations which allowed women only memberships were minimal and not really emphasized at this time. Both married couples are often depicted as sleeping in separate beds from their spouses which was a popular trend for the majority of television sitcoms during the mid 1960s. 4. Do the male characters outnumber the female characters? After viewing several episodes of The Flintstones, my results have indicated a definite discrepancy between the numbers of male to female characters portrayed. As with most other 1960s television sitcoms, men were deemed as more active in society and the women were more passive. An individual with a more minor role, such as Mr. Slate whose was Fred and Barneys employer, was played by a male along with the rest of their Slate Rock/Stone Quarry coworkers. Organizations in which the men were members such as the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes and The Flintstone Flyer (Freds bowling team) also consisted of men only which is yet another indication that male characters outnumber the females by a fairly large amount. Based on my observation of male to female characters, it appears that there is a ratio of about 4 to 1 with men being more favorable. 5. Are the behaviors, attitudes, and characteristics of male and female characters strongly gender stereotyped? Yes. Starting with the attitudes of both the men and woman characters, it appears that Fred tends to be loud-mouthed, aggressive, and constantly scheming ways to improve his familys orking class lot in life, often with unintended results. The women of this cartoon are rarely seen raising their voices to their spouse, or promoting physical or verbal abuse of any kind. Due to his impulsive and short-tempered behavior and stubborn and naive nature, Fred Flintstone seems to be accident-prone. He is able to create the biggest confusion, even with the most innocent and mundane action. Despite his apparently anti-social character, Freds actions are shown to be usually free of any malice. And, although he almost constantly shouts and aggravates the people around imself, Fred proves to be a friendly person; often going out of his way to help Although Fred often annoys Wilma with his immaturity, he proves to be someone. a very caring and loving husband and father. Fred Flintstone is even known to go to great lengths to please his family or apologize when he goes too far. Barney tended to be much more Jovial-minded and easygoing than his friend Fred. He would go along with Freds get rich quick schemes along with many other absent minded ideas rarely losing his patience because the two were best friends. This is evidence that ale characters are portrayed as having a more aggressive role than the women who were more quiet and reserved. Also, it was clear that based on both the attitudes and behaviors of the men, that they were the head of the household and had the overall say in the relationship which is still remains evident in some marriages today. Based on behaviors and attitudes alike, many episodes also depict characteristics which are shown only by the women. Household chores such as vacuuming, cooking, and being the dominant caregiver for the children, were roles in which only the women portrayed. The women also were also known for their love for shopping, and (occasionally) getting to meet the celebrities of their world, including Stony Curtis and Cary Granite as well. 6. Are recent books and cartoons less gender-stereotyped than ones from a decade or more ago?

Jerri Delgado Essays - Music Industry, Music, Sound,

Jerri Delgado Jessica Wedemeyer First Year- Composition I 26 June 2018 Essay 2 Rough Draft They Don't Care About Us It seems that every day there is another issue between people based on the color of your skin and your race. With our current president the hatred has come out to the public eye. In Michael Jackson's music video, They Don't Care About Us, he shows footage and talks about the way the system treats people of color. There is an insane amount of controversy on not only the music video but the song as well. They Don't Care About Us is the fifth single on Michael Jackson's album HIStory: pAst, Present and Future, Book 1. It was released on March 31, 1996. The music video was later directed by Spike Lee who directed two different versions of the video and created both for audiences to view. Spike Lee as a director is very fitting because Spike Lee is all about stuff that has to deal with public awareness and protests. However this song faced a lot of controversy and backlash as many, including the New York Times, published and said that Michael Jackson is being anti-semitic and stirring up violence in communities to which Michael Jackson released a statement saying, " The idea that these lyrics could be deemed objectionable is extremely hurtful to me, and misleading. The song in fact is about the pain of prejudice and hate and is a way to draw attention to social and political problems. I am the voice of the accused and the attacked. I am the voice of everyone. I am the skinhead, I am the Jew, I am the black man, I am the white man. I am not the one who was attacking. It is about the injustices to young people and how the system can wrongfully accuse them. I am angry and outraged that I could be so misinterpreted.". Due to all the conflicts and different view points about the song it never made it big in the US. It was played so few that it only made it to the 30th spot on the BIllboards. Where most people believe it would spark violence is through the second music video made for this song. The music video begins with a group of colored kids singing the chorus, All I wanna say is that they don't really care about us. In between the chorus lines, one kid says, Don't worry what people say, we know the truth." while another child says, Enough is enough of this garbage!. The prison version is completely dedicated to showing graphic images of violence against authoritative figures that are harsh to even watch. Michael used real life footage of the student rebellion on the Tiananmen Square in China, brutal police beatings of African Americans in Los Angeles, and footage from the Vietnam war. These send a very powerful message across of the cost it costs to fight for basic human rights. The phrase he repeats the most is obviously "They Don't Really Care About Us", but there are many more that come across strong. This song speaks on people who suffer discrimination, including Michael himself, and how uneccesary it all is. Michael uses short hard phrases that allows you to think in depth on them and apply them to many different situations. A very intelligent set of lyrics from MJ. It shows his anger at people being judgemental and highlights some clear issues about segregation from the lyrics, "Throw the brother/In jail", and "if Martin Luther was livin'/He wouldn't let this be". He addresses the issues that are clearly about him through saying "Don't you Black or White me". Michael Jackson's song, "They Don't Care About Us" speaks volume on racism both as just a song and as just a video. Put together they send a very strong message on what is wrong with not questioning power and being submissive. I also need to make a bibliography just learning how to. I want to go more in depth on the whole prison aspect of the music video I also want to talk about the other video for this song that Spike Lee directed but I