cultural experiences 2 & 3

#2

For my second cultural experience, i went out and rented Shakespeare In Love. While I have never been a huge fan of Mr. Shakespeare's literature, it was one of the few movies on the list that I had actually heard of so I thought I'd give it a shot. After watching it, I must say that it was actually rather interesting. Perhaps it was the fact that listening to Victorian English is a bit easier than reading it.

One of the things that I found to be interesting was the overall plot of the movie. The movie is about Shakespeare writing Romeo and Juliet, and the events of the actual movie unfold along very similar bases to Romeo and Juliet. If anything, this helps explain the actual play to those who couldn't quite comprehend it in 6th grade, which most kids probably couldn't. The way the creator of the movie intertwined the plot within the plot was very well done.

Another more cultural aspect of the film was the role of women back in Shakespeare's day. Back then, women were not even allowed to act in a woman's role in plays. Instead, boys with high voices played the part. Other than the Queen, women really had little to no significance in society. In the film, the princess, or whatever type of royalty she was, was forced with the task of getting married to better relations with a royal family from another country. Roles such as this were basically the only major contribution women had back in the day. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but that's how it was.


#3

Last weekend I went to see the play Pygmalion performed at Eureka College. I went with my two buddies because their sister was the lead female role and I needed another cultural experience. First off let me say the play was very good and all the actors performed amazingly. Pygmalion is the story of a psychologist who bets his fellow colleague that he can take an ordinary girl living on the streets and turn her into a proper woman in six months. However, he comes to find this is no ordinary girl. She is crazy and talks with sort of a hill billy British accent. One would think there is no way she could be turned into a proper woman. In the end, he ends up winning his bet, but gains more than the stakes. He discovers how his psychological "experiments" can affect the other person.

The aspect that struck me most about this play was the undermining moral of the story. Even though the professor made the girl into a proper lady, he took away the one thing she had. Happiness. Even though she was living on the streets and poor, at least she knew who she was and was happy. After being changed, she was gorgeous and wore only the finest garments, but that wasn't who she was. What I took away from this play was that a person should never try to change who they are or another person, simply to fit in with society. To find true happiness, you only have to look inside yourself.