The Portrayal of the Contemporary Society in Talking Heads
We have been studying three different monologues written by Alan
Bennett. They are 'Her Big Chance' involving Lesley an actress, 'Bed
Among the Lentils' with Susan, a vicars wife and 'A Chip in the Sugar'
including Graham who still lives with his mother. In this essay I am
going to discuss how contemporary society is portrayed in all three.
There are many different issues in our society which are raised in
talking heads, for example: religion, ageism and sexuality.
Sexuality
Sexuality is involved in all three monologues, but more in Graham's.
All throughout 'A Chip in the Sugar' there is suspicion that Graham is
gay. An example of this is in the clothes he wears. "Plastic Mac",
"and flares are anathema even in Bradford", and "grey socks and
sandals." Mr Turnbull suggests that these clothes are not suitable for
a young man of today. Also at the very end of the monologue our
suspicions appear to be correct when Graham's mother says, "I know the
kind of magazines you read" I said, "Chess. You'll catch a cold" She
said, "They never are chess. Chess with no clothes on. Chess in their
birthday suits. That kind of chess. Chess men." I said, "Go to bed.
And turn your blanket off". Here Graham's mother has finally gained
power after Graham's secret is revealed. We can see that he tries to
regain the power as he tries to remind her again to knock her blanket
off. Graham uses his mother's problem with remembering things quite
often when he feels he is losing power.
In 'Her Big Chance' there is only one occasion when sexuality is
involved. Lesley does not like what Scott had j...
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...iews to the different monologues. I
found it very hard to find anything to do with racism, religion or
sexuality in Lesley's monologue. I think this is because Bennet is
trying to get across that some people's lives include just one issue
in society, whereas others can contain a combination of all different
issues like Graham. I also think Bennet has helped us to learn from
our reactions and opinions, as we have seen how selfish we are with
opinions and need time to consider them more and change them.
But do we choose what we want to dismiss and only have what we think
in our heads or do we just say and think what the rest of society is
thinking, and have we just been brainwashed with ideas? Deep down I
think we all do not truly believe with the majority but are afraid to
be singled out for having different opinions.
Do we control the judgments and decisions that we make every day? In the book,
The first movie ever created was made by Louis Le Prince on October 14 in 1888, back then all movies were silent and the movie theatre was consider a simpler, cheaper way to entertain the masses. Since 1888 millions of movies have been made in every language and in every part of the world. Many of those movies have a connection with psychology and its theories, my favorite movie is The Breakfast Club which has a connection with the contact hypothesis of Gordon Allport. The Breakfast Club was made in 1985 and since then it has been used by various psychologist to explain psychology theories in a simple way.
Blue meth? This is what the TV series Breaking Bad is shaped around. First, I will be discussing why I chose Breaking Bad to analyze. Secondly, I will discuss the topic of communicating verbally with Walter and Jesse. Thirdly, I will see how they managed conflict and power. Fourthly, I will look at Walter White's relationship with his friends. Fifthly, I will see how listing actively played a role in Breaking Bad. Next, I will dissect Walter and Jesse's relationship in the workplace. Lastly, I will see what this means for communication as a whole.
depend on the kind of society we live in and the parents and the friends we
On television today you will see stereyotypes of male and female roles in society. These stereyotyps are exemplified in many tv shows and even childrens cartoons. Some shows which stereyotype sex roles include, the flintstones, the jetsons, and almost every sitcom on television.
... information, it is clear that cognitive dissonance is a common occurrence to all individuals and no one has control over it. All individuals strive towards reducing the effects it may have on their activities and on their mind. The environment that children are brought up should be controlled because as seen here it plays a role in shaping the beliefs they hold on.
1. The movie, Radio, is based at Hanna High School in Anderson, South Carolina. It is about this young, colored, mentally disabled man that stumbles across his local town’s football teams ball. He picks up the ball, and it catches the eye of the teams coach, who later befriends him. The next day, the coach, Harold Jones, comes to find his players mistreating the man, who they had tied up and put in a school supply shed. This leads to lots of running of the team. Radio becomes a part of the team, which upsets some people, and early on, Radio isn 't treated well.
You’ve seen the shows, nearly everyone has. You know, the one’s with “dumb blonde“, “pant- sagging gangster” or the “goth girl“? TV personnel and other forms of media have always used stereotyping and body image in their publicized works, easy tools in their fairly capable hands. Stereotyping, by Merriam-Webster’s definition is “to develop a mental stereotype about”. In my own words, it is to pre-judge someone or a group of people before meeting or interacting with them. Stereotypes also create and endorse the idea that if you don’t look and act a certain way your going to be an outcast or you’ll just be tossed to the side, and never paid attention to. Making it sensible that stereotypes and body image go fit together like pieces in a puzzle. Stereotypes are often added to television shows and movies to add drama or comedy. But, contrary wise, they actually add a sour taste in your mouth after watching every “nerd” or “girly gay guy” get pushed around and picked on, sometimes even physically punished, all for the sake of drama or even distorted comedy. Then, the “skinny, make-up cove...
in the way we talk and act, and what we believe is right and wrong.
The knowledge question being pursued in this essay is: what role does what we expect to see- or are used to seeing- play in what we observe? What we expect to see greatly influences the observations that we make, as confirmation bias is created therefore we are more likely to accept something as true. It is difficult to make observations with neutrality once bias is formed.
Our behavior usually is controlled and decided by us, but that is not always the
Accepting that where you are or will be is the result of our own decision-making is hard because the opportunity to blame someone else is eliminated.
‘Like it or not … one cannot be gender-neutral in this culture ' (Bordo 2003: 242). With reference to your own examples, discuss the construction of gendered identities and differences in popular culture.
don’t even sing it. They are just the face on an album cover or the
Stereotyping is evolving everyday into a normality in most societies in the entire world. The everyday person can see it occur on a daily basis, and probably cannot point it out sometimes now, because of how sensitized they have become to stereotyping. It is usually targeted towards many audiences and many take it very offensively. Others love to take it as a joke and joke around with stereotyping. Such harassment, or fun, can be seen in humanities everyday movies, books, music, news, and overall pop culture. In some way or form, everyone feels stereotyping. The big question here is whether or not stereotyping really does determine who a person can be or if it simply a negative intake of the person being too sensitive? With stereotyping being