1 a. The Unruly Woman: Gender and the Genres of Laughter Chapter 1: Pig Ladies, Big Ladies, and Ladies with Big Mouths. Feminism and the Carnivalesque.
b. In this chapter Rowe brings up several pop culture icons from Shakespeare to contemporary forms to explain how fat women are portrayed in their representations as disruptive, loud, excessive, outrageous, etc. in physical (space) and verbal (language, laughter) actions. A definition of topos is given as women who disrupt norms of femininity and the social hierarchies that are in place (male>female) through their excess and outrageousness. Rowe provides a list of what characteristics make up the unruly woman as one or many of the following:
Rowe continues by explaining how the definition of grotesque functions as an exaggeration of incompleteness, process, and change; the grotesque body exaggerates its bulges, processes, etc.
Fat grotesque woman is:
**huge
**eats and drinks in excess
**has voracious sex
**an obscene joke maker
c. Are there any fat woman in pop culture that are not portrayed as the woman on top or in a grotesque manner? Are these fat women seen in a positive light only when they are nearing the end of their liminal space and have become "normal" and no longer seen as a fat body?
d. Sara provided this chapter in PDF form to me via an email.
e. Rowe, Kathleen. The Unruly Woman: Gender and the Genres of Laughter. United
States: University of Texas Press, 1995. Print.
2 a. Rosanne: Let them eat junk part two AKA "The Oreo Scene: you're the Or ee ooest"
b.
c. I specifically looked at the first two minutes of this clip from Roseanne. The scene is set up with the largely overweight Roseanne sitting at the Kitchen table. Her sister Jackie who is very thin comes to pick up her son Andy who has been with Roseanne all day. Roseanne in this particular scene completely embodies what has been deemed as the grotesque body.
Roseanne Grotesque Body
huge huge
eats (in excess) eats (in excess)
joke maker (obscene) joke maker (obscene)
The dialogue between the "normal" body Jackie represents and the "excessive, outrageous" body Roseanne represents is important. Jackie picks up her baby and proclaims, "My child has oreo breath". Roseanne replies, with obscene humor, "well, relax, that's just because we were drinking an oreo flavored liqueur". Jackie brings up a list that she made explaining not to give Andy junk food. To which Roseanne replies, "You can spit and you can swear, but you will NOT come into my house and refer to oreos as junk food"! The next exchange is what I found particularly interesting. Roseanne asks Jackie to calm down by explaining that she used to give that stuff to her kids all the time. Jackie prods back my saying, "that maybe that's the reason why you kids tuned out the way they did". The grotesque body, Roseanne, has pushed her grotesqueness onto her children by allowing them her excessive, fat habits.
d. I think it would be interesting to look into other grotesque bodies in pop culture to examine how their lifestyles either do or do not affect (they become grotesque as well) those around them.
e.. I found this youtube clip after I read Rowe's chapter one from Unruly Woman, which mentioned Roseanne. I went to youtube and typed in "Roseanne eating".
3 a. In Solidarity With Those Who Have Been Called "Too Much"
b. Bevin Branlandingham
c. Too much: too fat, too loud, too feminine, too slutty.......and the list of toos can go on and on. Bevin uses this specific post to address the deemed excessive physicalities and/or actions she has faced or her friends have faced to find productivity within these spaces. The opposite of this identity is what she calls "beige" people; people who lack color in life. Are these people the opposites to the excessive? Bevin continues by explaining people's uncomfortability with her excessive being in the dating scene. She explains the excessive as loving hard, caring and giving large amounts of love and attention, and making lover's feel as though they were the only other person in a room full of people. Bevin continues by explaining that this excessive way of living via flamboyance, glitter, nurturing, love...takes a specific kind of patience to deal with. This is interesting to me because it seems to be emphasizing the fact of difference or uncomfortability with one's excessive behaviors and/or bodies. Does this mean that excessive/flamboyant bodies can only share space comfortably with other excessive/flamboyant bodies??
d. How does this idea of excess/flamboyancy function with other marginalized groups/people? What Bevin describes as "beige" individuals, are these dominant, hegemonic bodies within society?
e. Sara recommended the blog to me. I went to the blog and began reading different entries and this one seemed to fit in the best with my other sources.
f. Branlandingham, Bevin. The Queer Fat Femme Guide to Life. Cutline by Chris Pearson, 2006. Web. 20 Dec. 2011.
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