The Arts in NYC

I agree that individuals will not change unless society changes. Stereotypical gender roles attest to the dominant social values of our society. These representations of gender serve to promote a polarization of gender roles in movies and in literature. To an extent, good women are still presented as docile and domesticated, while bad women are defiant and independent. A standard male hero could still be represented as physically strong, ambitious, and dogmatic; he represents power, control, and capability.

These stereotypes are easily accessible, and have thus become natural in a sense. Conventional representations of gender tend to reflect on patriarchal notions of sexual characteristics in our society. A person’s gender role is composed of several elements and can be expressed through clothing, behavior, choice of work, and personal relationships among other factors. These elements attest to a possible reversal of stereotypical gender roles, as they have evolved over time and are not concrete

Truman Capote definitely chose to modify accepted gender roles with the character of Holly Golightly. Part of the reason why the story has such an impact is because the protagonist is a beautiful female with an uninhibited lifestyle, as opposed to the narrator.

-Jamie Edindjiklian

It is true that individuals will not change unless the society they live in changes, but for it to be possible for a change in society an individual has to take the first stand.
No matter what, I believe that it is almost impossible for someone to not be sexiest. Many people claim they aren’t sexiest but there are positive and negative ones I guess. For example, some people are sexiest to the point they treat the other gender badly and like objects of their own pleasure. But there are the positive ones that don’t want to harm the other gender to the point they are overly kind to them. So, to be sexiest isn’t always something of the negative sense.

-Andrew

Andrew must be applauded for taking up the dangerous task of defending sexy people. Not only that, he has stood up for the “sexiest” people, a group-in which I like to include myself—which has a very hard time functioning in current society because its members are just too damn cute.

I would also like to know Andrew’s take on SEXIST folk. I’m sure he’d be brilliant on that topic, too.

As for whether Holly was a prostitute or not—that’s a gray area. She was certainly having her bills paid and she was looking for a very rich man to marry, but that’s a bit different from our conception of a working prostitute. But was she in a sense prostituting herself or her integrity? That might have to receive a postive shake of the head.

Sexism has existed since the beginning of humanity. It even exists in other species. Certain genders have certain roles. I don’t think that will ever change. What Andrew brought up is interesting also. I’m sure many of us have things that we only tell our guy friends and don’t tell our girl friends and vice versa. This is also being sexist.

Looking at Holly’s situation logically, she is actually a very smart girl. She is using her “assets” to get the easy way out of life, living off of rich men. We see this a lot in real life also, where old rich guys marry these young girls. The girl just waits for him to kaputt. While he’s alive, she still lives in luxury and when he’s dead, she can do what she wants. If she can already force herself to like these men, then she’s living a pretty good life.

-Steven