Brass Balls Analysis #4

In class we watched a critical scene from the movie Glengarry Glenross. The scene relates closely to the Marxism theory. In this scene Alec Baldwin plays an abusive and authoritarian motivational speaker for a company. He belittles and degrades the three workers in a way that I have never really seen before. One action that surprised me was when his character walked over to his briefcase and pulled out a pair of brass balls and held them at his crotch. He then yelled, “You need brass balls to sell real estate!”. he told them that wouldn’t make it and repeatedly called them degrading names. Alec Baldwin’s character is the voice of the bourgeoisie that we discussed in class. His speech was representative of the superstructure in Marxist theory and the three workers represent the base. The base “the comprehends the relations of production — employer-employee work conditions, the technical division of labour, and property relations — into which people enter to produce the necessities and amenities of life. These relations fundamentally determine society’s other relationships and ideas, constituting the superstructure.” they both relay on each other to work so basically they both need each other to survive.
Alex Baldwin’s character was quick to tell the three men what would happen to them if they did not sell any, “first place is a shiny new Cadillac, second place is a set of steak knives, and third place is you’re fired” (Glengarry). He was blunt and scared these men with losing their jobs over these little note cards. Marx would be “shocked by the examination of capitalism and its costs to the men and women caught in its grasp” (Leitch 647)






works cited

Glengarry Glen Ross. Screenplay by David Mamet. Dir. James Foley. Perf. Alec Baldwin, Al Pacino, and Ed Harris. 1992.

Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print.

"Pay Attention Pulease…I don’t want to call you honey" analysis 3

The founder of psychoanalytic theory was Sigmund Freud. Freud said that there are two parts of the brain, the conscious and unconscious. The conscious is everything that we are aware of. This is the aspect of our mental processing that we can think and talk about rationally. The unconscious is a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that outside of our conscious awareness. In this blog I was being talking about the show called the Real Housewives of New Jersey, specify housewives Theresa and Danielle. They both go against suppressing their unconscious by not reserving their real feelings by lashing out at each other.





The New Jersey Housewives is a drama filled show. There is a new fight every single week. The clip above is one of the most infamous fights that led to the popular saying “Prostitution Whore”. after every fight I have noticed that when the women talk about what happened during that episode they all give different versions of the story. This reminded me of Freud’s Unconscious and Conscious. After this fight happened, Theresa explained that what set her off was three harmless words, “pay attention please” that was said by Danielle. Freud stated that “the aspect of our mental processing that we can think and talk about rationally is our conscious” obviously Theresa was not thinking rationally when Danielle made that silly comment to her. She turned that sentence into something major and said that Danielle was insulting her. She didn’t flip a table when Danielle was cussing at her, only when she told her to pay attention. Danielle’s “slip of the tongue” (15) led to Theresa’s outburst that caused the men at the dinner to hold her back. When Danielle told Theresa to pay attention Theresa said in an interview that “that was totally uncalled for. Who is she God?” in her “fantasy” (15) of what happened Theresa said that was one of the most disrespectful things someone could say. Theresa went against Freud’s, “human reason and put up a precarious defense mechanism struggling against” and was “motivated by the unconscious desires and forces” (807) to flip the table over and try to attack Danielle. This was a fight that happened last season and was continued with a brand new one a few weeks ago.



Again Theresa and Danielle got into it because Danielle didn’t like that Theresa called her “honey”. Theresa’s unconscious side than came blurting out by saying, “I don’t want to call you honey, is bitch better.” that is when things really escalated and Danielle goes running to her Bentley to try to escape Theresa’s crazy rant. In Freud’s, The Interpretation of Dream, he says that “desires and wishes are suppressed through the unconscious.” In this case Theresa’s desires were not suppressed and she went against her conscious by telling Danielle how she really feels about her.

De-familiarizing Lyrics

Glee Cast : (You're) Having My Baby Lyrics

Having my baby
what a lovely way of saying
How much you love me.
Having my baby
what a lovely way of saying
What you're thinking of me.
I can see it your face is glowing

I can see it in your eyes.
I'm happy knowin' that you're having my baby.
You're the woman I love and I love what it's doin' to you.
Having my baby
you're a woman in love and I love
What's goin' through you.
The need inside you
I see it showin'
Oh
the seed inside you
baby
do you feel it growin'
Are you happy in knowin' that you're having my baby?

You're the woman I love and I love
What it's doin' to me.
Having my baby.
You're the woman I love and I love
What's goin' through me.

Didn't have to keep it
wouldn't put you through it.
You could have swept it from your life
But you wouldn't do it
no
you wouldn't do it.
And you're having my baby.

Group Project

my group did Enlightenment Theory, Formalism and Structuralism. since there was only three of us we each picked a theory to talk about. i picked Structuralism. i made an outline and the subject i focused on was Semiotics and one of the founding fathers, Ferdinand de Saussure. i shared with the class one of his famous quotes, "A sign is the basic unit of language (a given language at a given time). Every language is a complete system of signs". then i showed the diagram of the sign, signified and signifier to the class.



i wrapped up my presentation by showing them a baby Einstein video for them to tell me how it relates to Structuralism.




i found it very easy to work with Katie and Ernesta, they were laid back and we all got the work done and gave input to each others presentations through email. overall i thought we did a great job together!!!

Analysis 2- Going against the Norm

Eight teenagers come together for one reason, because they love to sing. Each one of them come from different clicks’ in their high school and they have nothing in common with each other expect for the passion of singing on a stage. Their eyes are exaggerated and filled with their hopes and dreams of one day becoming stars. They work extremely hard to try and win their high school competition but their dreams are shattered because they all look “different”. left to right; Rachael the superstar of the group is not shy about telling the members that they need to step their game up to compete with her. Finn, the football quarterback went against his team to join the group because he loves to sing and gets daily shushes on his head because of it. Quinn the president of the celibacy club joined the group because she thought her boyfriend liked Rachael and needed to put a stop to it. Oh ya and she’s pregnant by Finn’s best friend Puck. Puck the heartthrob and bad boy of the group joined the group so he can meet hot moms. Kurt who considers himself one of the girls has a major crush on Finn and has the best style sense out of everyone and isn’t afraid to tell them. Artie the sweet one in the wheelchair like Tina the Goth in the group. He overcame the odds of being the only one in a wheelchair in a singing group. Tina is the soft spoken Goth who fakes a stutter so she doesn’t have to do public speaking in class. Last is the soulful Mercedes who doesn’t want to become the “Kelly” from Destiny’s child because she’s not a backup singer. All of these extremely different teenagers come together to change stereotypes and fight the odds of being know as the “losers” in school. They are fighting to do what they love when most people are scared to be themselves and go against the norm.


Semiotic Analysis

This photographic has eighth signifiers, the teenagers. They are the focal point of the picture and you are drawn to them automatically. All of the signifiers have a common signified. Meaning that the internal image that comes to mind when we see or hear these words, is the same concept that everyone else sees. My creative narrative based on this photograph above was written by looking at the elements of the picture. The characters are very animated so they stand out even more because of all the color in the picture. Subconsciously I wrote this teenage singing story using the signified concepts I received mentally when I looked at the four signifiers


works cited

Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print.

Analysis 1- "Stay broke then"

One of the most influential classical theorists in Western culture is Aristotle. He states that it is necessary to “understand your interlocutor’s” biases, motivations and personal history. The three main devices that Aristotle uses that applies to my you tube clip is Logos, Pathos and Ethos. Aristotle was always intrigued by poetry and this musical clip reminds me of that because he stated that “poetry describes the characters and action.” The musical In the Heights has catharsis throughout it. The audience is captured by the emotional plot and is left pondering at the end. It creates positive emotion in the people and shows moral purification which is what Aristotle had in mind when discussing poetry.

The audience can see pathos throughout the entire musical. The main character is trying to make a better life for himself and is telling the audience that everyone struggles. Anyone can relate to that so that draws them in and they are engaged the whole time.




This musical has the most important aspect of Aristotle’s literary theory, Tragedy. The characters start out struggling to make ends meet and survive by leaning on one another in their neighborhood and end up happy because they have each other. the main character finds out that his aunt won the lottery and everyone in the town is imagining themselves winning. everyone said that they would leave town and make a better life for themselves but in the end they realize that they do not need money to be happy because they have each other.



The song in the musical they perform is about expressing yourself. All of the characters are struggling to get by and learn to keep their heads up because they have each other. They represent the neighborhood of Washington heights and show where they came from by singing. They are proud of their background but are trying to make a better life for themselves.





works cited

Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print.