Hollywood is the city where big lights and fame roam the streets. People travel from all over the world to Hollywood in hopes of making it and getting a glimpse of fame. Hollywood has always been portrayed positively through the media using glamour, riches, and power. The novel Play It As It Lays is about a woman, Maria Wyeth, who struggles every day with Hollywood society. The film Singin’ In The Rain is a movie about the filmmaking industry in Hollywood. Play it As it Lays, by Joan Didion, and Singin’ in the Rain, directed by Stanley Donen, both portray the iconic Hollywood negatively. Events such as abuse, trust issues, faking it, divorce, etc. occur in the novel or the film showing the audience the struggles that famous people encounter in Hollywood. Both novel and film portray Hollywood in a similar environment but different perspective. …show more content…
In the novel, Play it As it Lays, the main character Maria Wyeth goes through enormous obstacles in her career and life in Hollywood.
In the novel when Maria was having a discussion with her husband Carter about BZ and Helene’s (BZ’s wife) marriage arrangement with BZ’s mother, she said, “I’m sick of everybody’s sick arrangements” (Didion 48). The contexts taken from the novel about how Maria feels can give the audience the perspective that people in the Hollywood industry are always making arrangements whether it is one that they could agree with or not. In Maria’s case she became pregnant with another man’s child. Since the child was not Carters she was forced to get an abortion because it would jeopardize Carter’s career. “Everything’s arranged. Everything is perfectly taken care of” (Didion 62). Maria had nothing to do with the process of her abortion because Carter took care of it. She had no choice in when or where the abortion was to be done. Maria thought to herself, “She would do this one last thing and then they would never be able to touch her again” (Didion
74). Arrangements made in Singin’ In The Rain put characters in an awkward position. Lina Lamont and Don Lockwood were viewed by the audience as a couple who loved and cherished one another when it reality Don hated Lina. They pretended to be a couple so that their movies would sell and receive good reviews. This puts Don in an awkward position because even though Don was pretending to be Lina’s boyfriend, Lina though he actually was. Continually throughout the movie Don had to explain to Lina that nothing was going on between them. This situation gives Hollywood a negative perspective because it shows how Don was put into an arrangement that he hand no opinion over. If Don said no to the arrangement of faking a relationship with his co-star the production company would probably fire him or tell him to bad you’re going to do it anyways. From the example in Play It As It Lays and Singin’ In The Rain the audience can get a sense that actors and actresses have no opinion on what goes on in their lives in Hollywood. The big named companies dictate actors and actress telling them what they can or cannot do therefore make decisions for them without their consent.
I will begin my essay by looking closely at the narrative of Sunset Boulevard to see where and how the film represents the Hollywood Studio System. At the beginning of the film the audience is introduced to Joe Gillis, a script writer who is struggling to pay his rent as he in unable to sell his scripts to the ‘majors’ of Hollywood. The film follows Joe to ‘Paramount Pictures’ one of the major studios in Hollywood, which the film pays a large self reference to as the producers of Sunset Boulevard as well as representing the studio system.
Hollywood is not simply a point on a map; it is a representation of the human experience. As with any other location, though, Hollywood’s history can be traced and analyzed up to present day. In 1887, Harvey Henderson Wilcox established a 120-acre ranch in an area northwest of Los Angeles, naming it “Hollywood” (Basinger 15). From then on, Hollywood grew from one man’s family to over 5,000 people in 1910. By then, residents around the ranch incorporated it as a municipality, using the name Hollywood for their village. While they voted to become part of the Los Angeles district, their village was also attracting motion-picture companies drawn in by the diverse geography of the mountains and oceanside (15). The Los Angeles area continues to flourish, now containing over nine million people, an overwhelming statistic compared to Wilcox’s original, family unit (U.S. Census Bureau 1). However, these facts only s...
Maria Full of Grace portrays a young Colombian teenage girl who seeks out a better life in the worst way possible. Maria, being 17, impregnated, and in a loveless relationship, causes her to be desperate for change. For Maria to scrape by in the unstable economy of Colombia, she works in a monotonous job at a labor intensive flower processing plant, cutting thorns off of roses. Yet, being pregnant makes these working conditions difficult. Maria continues to see she needs change, especially after her boss rejected her request to use the restroom. Resulting in her vomiting on the flowers, and then being yelled at by him to clean it up.
The events of Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart and the film Sugar Cane Alley detail the lives of a fictionalized Nigerian village and sugar cane harvesters in remote Martinique, respectively, during similar time periods of the 1900s. Both works contain explicit references to Christianity, and how the imposition of religion and white culture have negatively affected the African characters. European religious practice was used as a means of pacifying as well as terrifying the Umuofian people and the inhabitants of Sugar Cane Valley.
Cleofilas grew up in a male dominant household of six brother and father, and without a mother, she no woman figure to guide her, give advice on life, or how to love a man. Cleofilas turned to telenovelas for a woman’s guidance on love and appearance, and she began to imagine her ideal life through the television series. Once Cleofilas was married she moved away into a home with her husband, were she pictured everything to be like the couples on the telenovelas, but she soon starts to realize life isn 't exactly like how they view it in the telenovelas. In the story Sandra make the statement ‘From what see can tell, from the times during her first year when still a newlywed she is invited and accompanies her husband, sits mute besides their conversations, waits and sips a beer until it grows warm, twists a paper napkin into a knot, then another into a fan, one into a rose, nods her head, smiles, yawns, politely grins, laughs at the appropriate moments, leans against her husband’s sleeve, tugs at his elbow, and finally becomes good at predicting where the talk will lead, from this Cleofilas
The man disagrees for whatever reason he has and wants an abortion, whether or not this is the best option is unclear, but ultimately it is not his choice. This is with direct correlation to postlapsarianism. The man has gone through the innocence stage, learned about sex and death, and now no longer has complete control over his life. Although “Hills Like White Elephants” does not show how the world deals with postlapsarianism directly, it shows an amazing depiction on how it effects human beings in the real world. Without the knowledge of Aros and Thanatos these types of situations could never take
One of the issues that was raised is the idea of the relationship between femininty, technology and sexuality. The relationship between all of these qualities converse in one character, Maria. The real Maria has many roles thoughout the movie, including one who cares for the workers children, a preacher of peace for the workers, and one who loves Freder. The machi...
... matron’s obscene offers. Maria realizes though that she must go with the matron because it is the only way she can talk to her husband. The story says “Maria realized there was nothing in the world she would not do to escape that hell.” (Marquez 86). She has to reduce her self to the least to gain anything. These ironic situations are both clearly used to show the basic nature of humans to do anything to survive, even if it means destroying themselves.
Throughout the story it is evident that the woman is not sure if she wants to have the abortion—shown in her hesitation to agree. The woman feels that people gain freedom through experiences. "And we could have all of this, and every day we make it more impossible" (466).
Chicago is a must see film for anyone who likes to spoil themselves with an outstanding award-winning musical composed of a catchy plot, truly superb acting, commendable direction, and a clever soundtrack. Bob Fosse’s dazzling adaptation of the plot is a key element that contributed greatly in making Chicago achieve the success it did. Set in the 1920’s, Chicago is based on the real-life murders of two women who were eventually exonerated for their alleged crimes. The film’s main characters are Roxie Hart, a housewife who often fantasizes about becoming a Vaudeville star, and Velma Kelly, a vaudeville queen who desires far more fame than she already has. They both find themselves in the Cook County Jail on “murderous charges”.
The hit musical "Singin' in the Rain" may possibly be one of if not the greatest musicals of all time. With it's tale of the film world of the mid 1920's and its creative underlining love story between Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), it provokes the interest of someone who would not generally be attracted to a musical. It is a classic masterpiece that set the standards that musical films of today will be judged by. It is a classic performance by the great Gene Kelly and displays outstanding performances by Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor. As well as starring in this brilliant movie, Gene Kelly teams up with Stanley Donen to make their mark in film history.
In the movie Singin in the Rain there are many parodies of Hollywood. The film depicts how this ¨glamorous¨ society is filled with conceited and odd people. The first scene shows Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont walking on to the red carpet. Around them, there are screaming fans and cameras flashing. This is how we see the stars of Hollywood. We swoon over them because they are like gods to us. They even ask Don about his journey to stardom, and he lies about the entire thing. He does not want his fans to know that he was some poor boy that luckily made his way to the big screen. This shows how these famous people lie to the public and are not at all what we think they are. There is also a scene that portrays a big Hollywood party. The film makes fun of the extravagants of it and how strange the people who attend it are. They do this by showing there over the top outfits and odd conversations. The whole movie is just one big parody to Hollywood life and the stars living in it.
And that’s just the start of her troubles! It seems like literally everything she says or does lands her in deeper trouble. You’ll find yourself rooting for her because she’s the only nice person in the film, but she’s a bit too passive in her acceptance of all the nasty stuff that happens to her. Franco was a big fan of the Marquis de Sade, and Maria resembles the heroine of De Sade’s novel Justine, the virtuous girl on whom all manner of evils are heaped (Franco also adapted that novel, more than
“I got the eye of the tiger” what she means is she is the last time he's picking on her because the eye of a tiger is what the tigers prey sees last before death so she means she's the tiger now and he's her prey she's going to show him never to pick on her again.
In the beginning of “I Only Came to Use the Phone,” Maria sets herself up to be trapped after her car breaks down, and she gets on the bus. “Maria looked over her shoulder and saw that the bus was full of women of uncertain ages and varying conditions who were sleeping in blankets just like hers.” (72) this should foreshadow that something is not right to Maria, but she just goes with it. Maria is the only women that talks on the bus, she is not acting like the other women at all. “She was less certain when she saw several women in uniform who received them at the door of the bus, pulled the blankets over their heads to keep them dry, and lined them up single file, directing them not by speaking but with rhythmic, peremptory clapping.” (73) Maria realizes once again that she is out of place and that she should get out of here as soon as possible. The first line of the poem Exile, “The night we fled the country,” (1) this family is taking a risk as they are leaving their country illegally. The family is setting themselves up to be trapped if they get i...