Interpretive Example Four
An artist’s craft allows them to express deeply held emotions. Symbolism and metaphors can hide these meanings, but with music the lyrics often express emotions clearly. These lyrics show not only what the artist feels, but also what they think society expects them to feel, and therefor will purchase. I was recently listening to music, and a song called “Locked Away”, by R. City featuring Adam Levine came on. All three performers publicly identify as men, yet this song expresses much more vulnerability and emotion than most popular music performed by male artists today. Throughout the song, the artists express their feelings of insecurity in their current relationship, shown in the chorus with the lines “If I showed you my flaws/If I couldn’t be strong/Tell me honestly/Would you still love me the same?” (Locked Away, 2015). From these lines, one can tell that the singer’s questioning of his strength and self worth cause his insecurity in his relationship. As Pollack discusses in his 1995 piece, society teaches men to hide their emotions and be a “sturdy oak”, and these lines show the artist sees weakness and vulnerability as flaws. Society gives men many unrealistic expectations in
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Pollack argues “men suffer a traumatic abrogation of their early holding environment” (Pollack, 1995, p. 35). He talks about how society expects boys to detach themselves from their mothers at an early age, and how this has a serious effect on their ability to form healthy attachments later in life, especially with women. This song displays the singer’s insecurities about his relationship, which Pollack’s “traumatic abrogation” perspective explains
I think the author of the poem, "leaving the Motel," would approve of the song, "Me and Mrs. Jones," to express his poem in song form. It defines a furtive affair between a man and his lover. In the poem, "Leaving the Motel," the author describes two people are having an affair. The private couple do not want to get caught and ruin their lives outside of the relationship. The author writes, "Too. Keep things straight: don't take --The matches, the wrong keyrings--We've nowhere we could keep a keepsake" This line means the couple is double-check to make sure they have nothing of each others. Snodgrass was implying that there is no room for any mistakes in this relationship. If they had taken something of one another, they would be found out. Their secret would be relived. Now in the song, the composer Billy Paul writes, "We gotta be extra careful -- That do we don't build our
Never cry or show any emotion, when things happen take it like man, do not get mad, get even. These along with many other rules are makeup “the Guy Code” believed to shape what masculinity in American society. “’Bros before Hoes’: The Guy Code” by Michael Kimmel discusses a set of epigrams and analyzes American masculinity. These ideals of what is takes to be a “man” are often portrayed by hip-hop artists in today’s mainstream music industry.
These rules foster a certain type of man. One who takes charge and leads, one whose primary concern is, “Being a Man Among Men,” (Kimmel 464). However, it also creates a person who suppresses his feelings in fear of being labeled as effeminate. The stigma dictates that attributes typically associated with women are unmasculine, so as boys turn to men, “Along the way they suppress all the feelings they associate with the maternal--compassion, nurturance, vulnerability, dependency,” (Kimmel 469). This pattern of suppression has not changed much in recent years. Society still enforces the idea that men should be strong and stoic, when these traits are no longer what are needed to be successful in the workforce.
The concepts of masculinity and machismo are ever changing; however, in Chuck Palahniuk’s book Fight Club the traits that make up a man are expressed as being tough, rugged, unapologetic, and sex-driven. By not expressing those traits in their everyday lives, men are seen as vulnerable, spineless, and weak, and as a result are often seen as less than men. But, why is there such a stigma around both vulnerability and femininity? Why is showing emotion associated with weakness? Keeping one’s emotions bottled up does more harm than good. Linking back to Fight Club, the nameless narrator develops mental health issues as a result of living his life in such an outdated and unhealthy fashion. Could it be that his rejection to the role that society
In ancient times, the Greeks had absolute and undeniable respect for their gods. They demonstrated their admiration by putting in place many rituals and celebrations to reverence the gods that they loved and feared in order to ensure harmony with them. In particular, the focus will be on the religious beliefs of the Greeks and how they affected Homer and his masterpiece The Iliad. This includes prayer and sacrifice, as well as what cultural meanings had to do with history. These aspects of their religion made a significant contribution to their quality of life. Contributions such as those helped men like Homer write his masterpieces which provided a better understand of events for historians like the Trojan War.
Bruno Mars released his second official single “When I Was Your Man,” to mainstream radio stations on January 15th, 2013. The song featured an emotional piano ballad with lyrics describing the heartbreak and regrets that Bruno Mars felt for letting his love get away. As the song progress, he expresses hope that her new man will give her all the love and attention that he failed to give her. The reason that I decided to choose this song for my final paper is that I believe the lyrics has true meaning and values, describing how I have felt with most of my unscrupulous relationships in the past.
The next song I chose is Teenage Jail by the Eagles. I picked this song because I feel that it relates to Philip’s anxiety disorder he develops due to his father’s death. This is shown by the lyrics, “Stare out the window, you can’t make the time go, you don’t even know why you’re here…”, “Wait for the weekend to go off the deep end,” and “you’re not like the others, you’re not quite like anyone else…” I feel that Philip would personally relate to this song, especially after the panic attack he had at his grandmother’s house. He doesn’t know how to handle it, going into a sort of existential crisis, which corresponds with the “you don’t know why you’re here” lyrics. However, he ends up on medication for his anxiety, but he doesn’t take his
As a boy grows into a man he faces the ever-raising mountain of masculinity. In regards to the occurrence, he finally reaches maturity he has no choice but in order to fight to retain his measly sense of manhood. He is not allowed to act feminine or else he’s not man enough, he can’t show his emotions, he has to hide that he can do anything a woman can do sans give birth. Boys grow up being told they are not allowed to cry and that they are supposed to be tough, that they are not able to be like girls and in the event that they are then they are not real boys. This concept is known as toxic masculinity, some people are not aware that men are being forced to suppress their emotions or even that toxic masculinity should be a topic that is
For a long time, men and women have been dealing with the controversy of gender roles. In modern day, the battle for gender equality has been more known. In the story “Guys Suffer from Oppressive Gender Roles Too”, the author Julie Zeilinger explains how males are held to a more macho standard, but do have prevalent emotions. If we were to let go of these rigid rules about what is manly, there would be no standard for any gender. If that was reality, men shouldn’t have to feel humiliated about staying home, and if their companion makes more money than they do. Zeilinger talks about how males detach themselves from some emotions, and live a “life nub to a true range of human emotion” so they can meet this masculinity standard. However if males
One of the top money making movies in 1998 was Saving Private Ryan. This movie earned $216,199,000 and won an Academy Award for Best Director: Steven Speilberg (1998 Movies). In the film, Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, and Tom Sizemore star as soldiers fighting in World War II (Saving Private Ryan). The popular Disney movie Mulan was released in 1998 and earned $120,604,242 (1998 Movies). This movie is an animated movie about a young Chinese woman who takes her father’s place in the army. Ming-Na Wen voices Mulan, BD Wong voices Li Shang, her captain, and Eddie Murphy voices her dragon companion, Mushu. Mulan won an Academy Award for Best Original Music Score (Mulan).
From an early age, our society begins to construct gender identities. Males are pressed to learn “suitable” gender roles in accordance to the masculine expectations our society has created. This means from a very early age boys are taught what it means to be a man. Porter’s way to explain masculine socialization is through what is known as the “man box.” Inside the box is a list of socially valued expectations that compose what manhood is about. The box includes expectations/guidelines such as, “don’t cry or openly express emotions (with the exception of anger), do not show weakness or fear, demonstrate power control especially over women (aggression dominance), be a protector, do not be “like a woman,” be heterosexual, do not be “like a gay man,” be tough, athletic, and strong, do not need help, and view women as property/objects.” This idea of manhood is instilled in young boys head and continues to stay with them for the rest of their lives. A fear
Songs on the radio generally have no deep or thought-provoking meaning to them, but when they deeply relate to society today, it gets interesting. Average songs display lyrics with themes of love and relationships, but “Chained to the Rhythm” by Katy Perry gets political in its hidden meaning. A theme is defined as the main idea of literary work, and in “Chained to the Rhythm” exhibits various interpretations but a certain theme emerges above others. Perry’s lyrics talk about how society functions today and how members intentionally avoid the real problems that are happening in our nation. “Chained to the Rhythm” written by Katy Perry presents the theme of people choose whether to avoid seeing the real problems that need to be solved in the
Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2003), 190 pages.
This project is one of three assigned reports I will complete as part of the strategic analysis of Johnson and Johnson. This firs report focuses on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) and includes the following sections. First, the major concepts related to the SWOT analysis will be defined. Second, those concepts will be applied to the specific case of Johnson and Johnson. Then the evidence from Johnson and Johnson will be evaluated to identify the major problem the company is facing and propose a solution that Johnson and Johnson can adopt to restore its lost competitive advantage.
Adele’s emphasis on this song presents a setting which is heartbroken, hopeless, and sorrow. In the previous relationship with ex-boyfriends, felt disloyal, had struggles in emotional connection with boyfriend 's which have inspired most of the music. During an interview, Adele mentioned, “Most of her relationships has ended in bitterness and negative perception of her lovers”. Adele battled to come out of the bitter situation after breaking up with someone who is really important to her and felt disgusted, ashamed to write lyrics regarding them. The author infuses hyperbole in (Stanza 7, verse 1, 2) which evokes an emotion of what she had done to fix the broken connection between them: “Gave you space so you could breathe, I kept my distance so you could be free”. These verses tell the audience that even though they were on a different path in the relation, but still gave him space to think regarding the missing piece in their affection and kept distance to let him do his business without pressuring him. Using reader-response analogy, as an audience of this song I can also relate to how it feels when someone neglect affection and leaves giving any explanation. It was uncomfortable to