Follow the Money

Cotton Comes to Harlem got me thinking about the trajectory of money. Think about the Greenleaf money. It starts with an old-time bourgeois who actually builds things and has a hands-on involvement with his business. Then it goes toward a cheerful idler with no interest in such things. Then it ends up in the hands of a psychopath who has better tastes than the cheerful idler and whose remunerative labor is basically personality-work: he runs on charisma and performances. Do any aspects of this trajectory remind you of other texts?

The "Irony" Article

Get a load of this! Christy Wampole, part of whose article on irony we dissected in class, has a band! Also, a Drexel professor gave a big wtf to her article too.

Cotton Comes to Harlem

I must admit, this was my least favorite book that we've read so far.  I felt like it wasn't so much about the mystery, but more about racial differences.  There were also too many sexual undertones for my liking.  In fact, some of the novel had blatantly sexual comments from the women, which led me to feel disgusted.  I'm not sure if Chester Himes was purposely playing this up to exaggerate the differences between the races or social classes, but I found it tasteless.  From the start of the novel, I figured that the stolen money had been stashed in the bale of cotton, so it didn't seem like much of a mystery.  In the other noir novels we've read, the characters haven't been as in your face with their sexuality.  In general, this was a difficult novel for me to get through.  Did anyone else have that same reaction?  I felt as if Himes were shoving racial inequality and class differences down my throat.  I understand that during the time period there was racial unrest, but in my opinion, this was a poorly concealed race plot hidden within a somewhat noir plot.

Also, on another note.  I found an amusing article about Patricia Highsmith http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jesse-kornbluth/the-talented-miss-highsmi_b_382551.html

What's the Deal Aunt Dot?!

In The Talented Mr. Ripley, I believe Highsmith was very effective in constructing fascinating characters, in addition to Tom Ripley, that one feels compelled to psychoanalyze. While reading the novel and writing my paper, I found myself really trying to understand what Aunt Dottie's deal was.  Is she really just some cold-hearted, bitter woman who targets her anger on her innocent, young nephew? Consequently, does she resent having to care for Tom? Is the portrayal of Aunt Dottie biased, given that you only really learn about her during Tom's reflections upon the past?

It could very well be possible that Tom only ruminates on the times when Aunt Dottie was cruel to him, and does not give her credit for the good that she has done for him. Tom has such a passionate hatred for Aunt Dottie, but it can also be argued that has a completely unjustified hatred for Dickie as well. Are these two different kinds of hatred? One might even conclude that Highsmith doesn't provide enough information concerning Aunt Dottie to make any solid inferences. Regardless, I feel as though it is worthwhile to put some thought into the mentality of not only Tom, but also Aunt Dottie, given that she played a significant role in Tom's upbringing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k29jna3p1gE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k29jna3p1gE

"Trying to Get It Funny": Humor in Chester Himes

I've suggested that Himes conveys a grim worldview, one in which oppression messes people up all around. But if the Harlem novels work as satirical, it's gotta be in part 'cause they're funny. What did you find memorably amusing in Cotton Comes to Harlem?

Tom is the creepiest

I find that out of all the characters we have encountered that Tom Ripley is by far the weirdest. Like he is the strangest. I can understand every other character's motive for committing the crimes that they did, even though they were irrational they make sense. What adds to his mysteriousness is that fact that he is sexually ambiguous, and is strangely attracted to Dickie in a nonsexual kind of way. I think Patricia Highsmith was able to create such a peculiar character because she is a woman. In The Postman Always Rings Twice Cora said something to Frank about Nick that made me come to this conclusion. She stated that a man can never really know what it feels like to be in the presence of someone who is greasy, because a man could never understand the awkward feeling of someone making your skin crawl and stomach turn. I feel like female writers would be better at creating creepy characters because they know exactly what makes a man's personality and mannerisms particularly queer and unattractive. A guy writer can't really capture a creep in all his creepiness because he might not be able to capture and describe a disposition that turns people completely off.

Importance of Materialistic Drive

After class discussion on Friday, I was really struck by the importance of materialistic wants.  I understood that Ripley was a psychopath and enjoyed material possessions but I guess I had never completely comprehended that his want for the material possessions may have been the driving factor for Dickie's murder. I always believed that Ripley had enjoyed the social status change, but that the money and materials came second to being treated much differently.  Instead, class clarified that his desire to have better things, his materialistic desire, was what drove his actions.  His impression of the rich and their belongings was what drove him to act.

I found this surprising since I had believed that he had murdered Dickie because he felt rejected, but the materialistic reasoning also made sense.  Even without reading Strangers on a Train, Dr. Lukin's article was very informative and I found many similarities between Tom and Guy in terms of their material wants.  Who knew that envy of material possessions could drive someone to murder?

Drag Queens Vs. Tom Ripley

I honestly was super excited to see Professor Lukin's connection of Paris is Burning to Tom Ripley. I did read Linden's post and do agree that in the case of transgenders it is not the same. As Linden said, transgendered folks do identify as the opposite sex. Tom Ripley was not identifying as another person he was choosing to impersonate them.
In that sense,  I think that drag is very similar. I think for many of the queens in Paris is Burning drag is an escape from their reality. The reality of their lives can be extremely difficult. As said by Dorian Corey, they do not have the opportunity to be an executive in real life, so they choose to do so at the balls. I think this is similar to Tom because in his real life he cannot be the charismatic, exciting person that Dickie is. He is unable to change who he is to fit this ideal. By impersonating Dickie, he is able to get the thrill of being someone everyone loves.
A big difference I see between the drag culture and Tom is that the imitation stops after the queens go home. They have their own lives that they go back to after the balls. Tom is living the life of someone else. There is no stopping it until he has to go back to being Tom Ripley. 

"Identity Shopping" article/Strangers on a Train AND Talented Mr.Ripley

Although I haven't read Strangers on a Train, it's clear there's some obvious connections and similarities with the two books that allow critique on one to applied to the other. So, while reading Lukin's article, I tried to think of ways I could connect The Talented Mr. Ripley with what he says about Highsmith's other novel.

A couple things popped out:
How Guy is "kept from being satisfied in the 'neither here nor there' position" (32); that reminded me of how Tom is kinda in the "neither here nor there" position of identity. He isn't Tom anymore, but he isn't Dickie either. Although he truly is Tom, he doesn't recognize/accept that- but at the same time when he takes on Dickie's identity, he'll never fully be Dickie because that's just impossible. He's stuck in an place void of identity, 'Neither Tom nor Dickie'.

 Bruno seems to have homosexual thoughts; "'If he could strangle Anne, too, then Guy and he could really be together'" (Lukin 34).
That drew me back to Tom, and how he wanted to get Marge out of the picture so that he and Dickie could be together. He does try to keep Dickie to himself and cut Marge out of plans, so I feel like Bruno and Tom have similar feelings regarding this.

"'The patient wants, by knowing and looking, to conquer and merge with the partner into an all powerful, autarchic union, and thus to incorporate the other person's strength and value'. Bruno, bring a suppurating mass of narcissistic wounds, needs that strength and virtue to compensate for his own felt emptiness. He craves the loss of ego through drinking, the focused activity or arranging murders or the introjection of someone whom he believes to be authentic" (Lukin 34).
-This seemed like he was describing Tom. I feel like Tom wants to merge his qualities with Dickie's qualities. It's pretty self-explanatory.

Those are just a few that I noticed right away while scanning over the article again. What other things did people find in Lukin's article that can be applied to both of the novels?

Minghella's "The Talented Mr. Ripley"

Out of curiosity, I decided to watch Anthony Minghella's adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley. I think Professor Lukin's assessment of it was quite spot on.  Visually it was wonderful and the acting was superb, however it was definitely lacking the depth of of the novel.  Minghella changed the characters in ways that took away the ambiguity of the novel.

 More specifically, he took the psychopath out of Tom Ripley.  For example, when he killed Dickie, I didn't care at all.  In the novel, I was rather affected by the murder of Dickie because of Tom's sort of nihilistic attitude toward it.  However in the film, Minghella made Dickie such a mean, unlikable character, I was happy to see him die.  I mean this guy was simply an asshole (pardon my crudeness).  He was so mean to Marge, cheated on her, got another woman pregnant who then killed herself, and then insulted Tom to his core.  I couldn't blame Tom for whacking him with that oar.  However, in Highsmith's novel, I didn't see Tom having a reason for killing Dickie other than his own insanity, which made the murder much more powerful.  Same goes with Freddie.  Philip Seymour Hoffman was brilliant in the role, but Freddie was similar to Dickie in his un-likability, I thought "good for you" when Tom smashed him in the back of the head.

Minghella made a valiant effort in adapting this classic, however I do think he missed the key components that made the novel so great.  Like I said, he took the psychopath out of Tom, in my opinion, that takes the life out of the story.  As a stand alone movie, however, I would say it is pretty solid.

Is Tom's Portrayal of Dickie Accurate?

Our discussion today about impersonation made me think about what exactly drives Tom to kill Dickie and assume his identity. I was trying to decide whether I thought that Tom killed Dickie in order to achieve Dickie’s social status, or because Tom is gay and lashes out against Dickie because he is in love with him. Initially, I had assumed that Tom killed Dickie simply because he is gay, and Dickie dies as a result of the shame Tom feels due to his homosexuality, but after today’s class, I think that Tom killed Dickie in order to assume Dickie’s status.

Tom assumes Dickie’s identity for the purpose of convincing others that he is Dickie Greenleaf. He wears Dickie’s clothes, Dickie’s rings, and even has his luggage marked with Dickie’s initials. Just as we saw in the clip of Paris is Burning, success in a portrayal comes when the individual is able to convince others on the street that he or she is a man, woman, businessman, or in this case, Dickie Greenleaf. Tom is able to convince many people that he is, in fact, Dickie Greenleaf due to the careful attention he places on the details of Dickie’s style, clothes and mannerisms.

I think it’s interesting that Tom is never fully able to embody Dickie’s real identity since he must remove his created persona of Dickie away from Rome so that Tom will not be recognized and found out as an imposter. Since Tom removes “Dickie” from his life in Rome and takes him away from Marge and the rest of Dickie’s friends, Tom is only able to become a caricature of how he would like Dickie to be perceived by others. Tom is never able to fully become Dickie since he removes certain elements from Dickie’s life, and Dickie becomes Tom’s own creation. 

Authenticity in Ball Culture

To use the ideas of Authenticity-and its importance to social and emotion health-as a critique on Ball Culture is a bit of a mistake. I agree whole-heartily that remaining true to your authentic self is paramount to your psychological well being. When you try to hide your true identity by taking on the attributes of a specific person or society you deny your own wants and needs, and create self-esteem and identity issues (as you may realize that you are unable to really conform to this ideal). You see this often in Middle and High School when kids are trying desperately to fit in, and to figure who they are.

For the transgender individuals found in drag culture, the female impersonation IS their true identity. They are making their outward appearance match the gender identity they experience on the inside, and not denying their identity in the least. What is damaging to these individuals isn't the time they spend at the Ball, its in Normative-Straight society when they play at "being a man." You must ask yourself, what defines who a person truly is? Is it their outward appearance or their heart and minds? If you (like me) define a person by what's inside, you must not deny a transgender person his/her true identity.

As for the men that identify as a drag queen, the female impersonation also doesn't compromise their authenticity, as they still feel like a man. Drag for them is an art, and even while they may look incredibly "real," if you would ask, they still feel like a man in a dress. It would be like questioning the authenticity of an actor because they enjoy portraying people different from their own personality. They make no claim of "becoming" a woman, they simply enjoy playing like one.

This is why I believe these critiques aren't really applicable to Ball culture, while they are quite relevant to the social-emotional issues faced by Tom Ripley.

Self-awareness in "In A Lonely Place"

One aspect I really enjoyed with In a Lonely Place was it's self-awareness as a film.  It was sort of like a meta film, much like the Scream franchise.  Employing Dix Steele as a screenwriter gave him the ability to make comments on how the film works and even comments on the film industry at the time.  For example, there was one scene where Mildred said she always thought actors made up their own lines and Dix responds, "When they get to be big stars, usually they do."  This line could be read as a stab at the stars of the time and how difficult they could be to the actual creators of a film. Or when Mildred comments on how wonderful it must be to be a writer and Dix responds with sarcasm.  

But this self-awareness could be a comment on how the average Hollywood film was structured at the time and how the noir style wants to break it.  One of the great meta-instances of the film is when Dix and Laurel are discussing the love scene in the new script he is writing.  Dix says, "Well that's because they're not always telling each other how much in love they are. A good love scene should be about something else besides love. For instance, this one. Me fixing grapefruit. You sitting over there, dopey, half-asleep. Anyone looking at us could tell we're in love."  Dix is describing exactly what is occurring in the film by talking about how this his script works, a very meta moment.  He is taking the common scene structure of films and twisting it in a fresh, new way.

That all being said, I'm not quite sure if the use of self-awareness is common in all film noir.  I suppose the argument could be made that a highly stylized film is always a self-aware film.  This applies to noir in the way that the lighting always looks as if its a painting and the dialogue is so snappy it seems impossible anyone would speak that way in reality, therefore it is aware that it is a film.  I don't know if that holds much water, but when watching In a Lonely Place I was struck by how aware it was.  Any thoughts?

NoirCon Article and Its Connection to Tom Ripley

Hey everyone,

There was an article about NoirCon on philly.com today. The article discusses how the noir style has expanded from movies like Out of the Past or Double Indemnity, and still currently exists in art, TV shows and music. It further explains that because of the current pessimism in society due to the disillusionment brought about by 9/11 and other contributing factors, the noir style will probably continue to exist in pop culture.

One particular quote in the article caught my attention as a way to understand the fate of Tom in The Talented Mr. Ripley. In discussing noir, the author of the article, Tirdad Derakhshani, interviews Otto Penzler, a noir author. Penzler says noir characters, “may not die in the end … but they sentence themselves to a life of imprisonment or abject sadness." This quote helped me categorize exactly how to feel about Tom Ripley. Although Tom doesn't die or get caught by the police, he becomes imprisoned as Tom Ripley at the end of the novel. In the novel, there is an underlying sense that Tom wishes to be Dickie because he does not like himself. Since Tom’s wish to become Dickie is rooted in his desire to take on a new identity to achieve the social and financial status of Dickie, his “life of imprisonment"  comes when he must stop being Dickie and become Tom again. Although Tom does not get arrested, he actually does get his comeuppance for his misdeeds since he must give up pretending to be Dickie.

Tom Resents Dickie, or Dickie resents Tom?

We talked in class Wednesday about how Tom wanted to morph into Dickie, so I was thinking about how Tom resented Dickie for being well-off and having his own income, home, and career in Rome. Originally, Dickie and Marge are welcoming of Tom, but once Tom overstays his welcome, Marge and Dickie start to become annoyed by Tom. Tom had no real motive behind his resentment of Marge and Dickie, except for the fact that they had it better off than him. Tom feels a sense of jealousy towards Dickie for having so much expendable money and having a father who is loaded with cash.
Honestly, I think Dickie begins to resent Tom once Marge accuses Tom of being in love with Dickie. Tom begins mimicing Dickie's mannerisms and trying on his clothing, which really makes Dickie mad. Tom resents Marge for petty things, such as her appearance, which is "unsophisticated," her clingy nature, and just the fact that she is a blockade Tom has in spending all his time with Dickie. Marge and Dickie had a weird relationship, which made assessing both her and Dickie hard. Was she in love with Dickie, which is why she was so mad at Tom for taking Dickie away from her?

The Talented Mr. Ripley, Marge, and Sexuality

I found The Talented Mr. Ripley to be a disturbing novel.  However, I thought that Ms. Highsmith did a good job with getting me to feel Tom's annoyance and hatred towards Marge.  Her character was very unappealing and seemed to me to represent the negative aspects and stereotypes about women.  Marge was excessively clingy and how she was described made me resent her.  I didn't think that she was a likable character, and maybe that was Ms. Highsmith's intention.  From today's class discussion about Ms. Highsmith's personal life, we learned that she was a very open lesbian.  I wonder if that had anything to do with her characterization of Marge.  Maybe in the past she had an annoyingly clingy girlfriend or was just upset by how some women acted and decided to vent through this character.  Did anyone like Marge?

In terms of Tom's sexuality, I don't think that he was necessarily gay.  I think that he was more disgusted by Marge as a person than by the whole female population.  He doesn't describe his friend Cleo with disgust, only Marge.  I felt that there were more hints that Dickie was gay and didn't want to acknowledge this fact, and since he was in denial, decided to pin it onto Tom.  I thought that Tom was a psychopath that couldn't form attachments, more than a gay man coming to terms with his sexuality.  What does everyone else think?

The "incompetency" of noir police

I find that police in all of the novels and movie we have encountered are not really incompetent but rather a nuisance. They are like a thorn in the side whose only accomplishment is to further irritate and creating more paranoia within the protagonist. Not only that, some of them are depicted as kind of corny. For example, in In a Lonely Place, they accuse Dixon of murder, but Dix, being the witty, suave, cynical guy that he is completely plays the police captain and detective. What I mean by "plays them" is that he answers their questions honestly, but does it in a way that is completely condescending. We see the same thing in The Talented Mr. Ripley. Tom completely dupes the detectives in pursuit of him. They are not incompetent because they do manage to attract the attention of the protagonist, and make him change his behavior, but Tom easily shrugs them off with his trickery. This also happened in The Postman Rings Twice. He is not a cop, but it seems like the judge has Chambers cornered, but by luck and a little help he is easily able to evade him. To me, I get the feeling that the law enforcement in noir are bitches. Like when they are presented in any of the movies and stories, I kind of can already predict they won't do shit. Even though some protagonist commit some pretty heinous crimes, I still root for them against the police. They may scratch the surface of a crime, but the protagonist is easily able to out clever them. In light of all this, I found this video would describe the protagonists' attitudes towards police:

Is Dix Different?

I was thinking about the characters that we've been exposed to in the various types of noir fiction that we've consumed, and I have to say, I think Dixon Steele, despite having the most impressive name of the lot and being played my Bogart himself, was much, much different than how I imagined a noir protagonist to be. I don't think it can be argued that he's not a noir guy, but I do think that he is different in some fairly key ways. He's hardly hard-boiled at all! He's just a talented guy with some anger issues. He's the only noir protagonist that we've come across that I think wasn't the agent of his own destruction - at first, at least. He definitely had some hand in his eventual unraveling later, mostly due to the aforementioned anger issues. But I feel that if the police hadn't decided to single him out, everything would have worked out for him. He was in a relationship, he had a really good script going on, it doesn't seem like there's anything stopping him until he starts to come under suspicion by the police. Even his personality is different, it seems. He's obviously intelligent, but he doesn't sling around one-liners and stays mostly away from "baby." His affections towards Laurel seem more genuine than the other relationships we've explored, especially when contrasted with Walter Neff, whose relationship with Phyllis was always tenuous at best. He definitely elicits some pity from me. I'm not sure that he deserved what he got, anger issues or no anger issues.

Dix: Victim?

In Friday's discussion, everyone seemed quick to condemn Dix for his short temper, as well his apparent lack of sympathy after Mildred's death. Sure his near-strangling of Laurel near the end is worthy of condemnation, but I also can't help feeling that Dix is, to some extent, a victim here. For one thing, nearly all of the characters present in the restaurant scenes are sycophantic leeches intent on feeding off of Dix. Mel, who is Dix's agent and claims to be his friend, is caught spying through his window shades and brazenly steals an unfinished script. Mildred's interest in Dix was wholly superficial, obviously arising from her star-struck desire to rub shoulders with a Hollywood screenwriter. When asked, Laurel merely stated that she “liked his face.” Even the (kids?) outside looking for autographs outside the restaurant accused Dix of being “nobody.” Perhaps the only character who comes across as genuine is the drunk actor, Charlie. It just seems like Dix's anger stems more from being fed up with greed and Hollywood superficiality than war induced post-traumatic stress disorder.

Masculinity in "In a Lonely Place"

Since this was brought up toward the end of class on Friday, there wasn't much time to talk about. After seeing the film and reading the article on shame it seems like we could connect Dix to a type of person talked about in the article..maybe the best fit would be Dix as someone trying to exert their masculinity..? Or other ways he could be seen as someone 'shamed'? (reminds me of the Ressentiment article)

Here's just some things I noticed in "In a Lonely Place" that could be tied to Dix trying to fulfill the masculine role.
- obviously his anger/aggressiveness-especially the scene when he almost hits the guy in the car. His first response to situations is anger.
- The part when he wants breakfast, and just yells to Laurel what he wants without even thinking twice about it
- He attempts to make breakfast one morning- but he's so awkward at it; bending the grapefruit knife back to the shape of a normal knife- shows his lack of domesticity. But, he's trying to change it seems-

What other things did anyone notice about Dix and masculinity?

The Talented Mr. Ripley is UNSETTLING

After completing this novel, I sat on my couch thinking about what exactly made this novel so different from the ones studied previously in the course, and why I was unhappy with the ending...it came down to two main differences: one, that I wasn't rooting for Tom after the murder of Dickie, and two, that he never learns his lesson!

During the last half of the book Tom was literally a half step in front of the police, and I was just WAITING for it to all come undone. Tom had this keen sense of entitlement that really turned me off to him, and when he discussed his past concerning his Aunt and his feeble attempts to make an honest living, I knew that he felt that the world owed him something (specifically the part about stealing a loaf of bread after he gets fired from his job).

And let's be honest, his obsession with Dickie is beyond intense. Right from the start, it was as if his whole purpose in life would be shattered, if he didn't get himself well-liked by Dickie. He was also resentful and jealous of the time he spend with Marge, which raises the question of homosexuality. I'm unsure if his obsession was based on love, sexual attraction, or just an unsound mind, but it also made me unable to empathize with Tom's plight.

So all of this is going on, and I'm expecting that at any point, Tom is finally gonna get what he deserves....but it doesn't happen! For almost all of our other Noir characters, the mistakes they've made lead to their eventual destruction, but not for Tom. He's able to get away scot-free and rich, and it leaves you wondering....is it really that easy?