The Outsiders | A Hood Project

The Coquettte By Hannah W. Foster, is a book or also known as a females guide to love. This book has extreme radical views for 18th century America, focusing on women and how they should be able to make their own choices, have their own thoughts and break free from the “traditional” views of society. This book focuses on the main character Eliza Wharton, whom is the radical woman amongst her group of friends and family. She believes that being “free” and having friendships are more important than becoming married, because this is how Eliza acts she gets a bad reputation.

“Marriage is the tomb of friendship.” Eliza says this to her close friend Lucy Freeman when she writes to her about how important friendship is. These feelings she has are radical in her time causing her close friends and family to become worried, they think she is naive. Eliza believes that once you are married you lose who you are as a person, you forget your friends because you are too busy with your new life. It’s interesting to see that someone in the 18th century, being completely unable to vote or have any rights, all she can do is marry a man and reproduce. It’s detrimental to the men in this society, because it puts them in danger, against females. When Eliza calls marriage a tomb, she literally means that it will die, that marriage will not allow for the same type of friendship there once was before it.

I think we can expand on this quote a bit further and say that Eliza or Foster thought that once you are married you can’t have male friends either. Eliza was to be married to a man, but he passed away. Once he passed she was liberated, and with this new freedom she wanted to explore her options and many people labeled her a “coquette.”  She wanted to make sure that these men were worth it, but she also wanted to maintain her freedom and see and do what she pleased whenever she pleased. No one in her time agreed with her actions, thinking she was almost a rebel. If we compare what Eliza did in her time to modern day society, she would be considered an angel, but I digress. Eliza was simply trying to be a free woman for as long as she could before her life had to change, and all of her friendships had to be severed.

In the music video, “Aston Martin Music” by Rick Ross featuring Drake, Ross expresses his contentment about achieving a form of personal success through rap music. In the beginning of the video, there is a small clip of a young boy who wishes to own an expensive car when he grows up. The video and lyrics seamlessly transitions into the artist driving around in a luxurious Aston Martin (car) and singing about his lavish lifestyle. At the 3:06 mark, Ross begins to fill two glasses of Cîroc but ironically never shows the cups again. This minor prop can be looked over carelessly, but its significance plays a huge role.

I believe it indicates his achievement and success from his upbringing and represents a major accomplishment. In the urban/hip hop community, success is frequently showcased through the showing-off of expensive cars, glistening jewelry, fashionable clothing and the consumption of fancy alcoholic beverages. Therefore, the bottle of Cîroc doesn’t just signify another worthless prop in the video in order to make up time for the song to finish, but as a representation of his achievement of “making it.” As Cîroc might not be the most significant prop in the entire video, it indirectly supports the message of the video. You cannot directly correlate liquor to success, unless you understand Ross’ background in regards to his youth and what that specific community looks up too. The bottle of Cîroc has a deeper meaning than what one might initially assume.

Melancholia is a 2011 film by Lars fon Trier, an award winning film-maker, about planet Earth coming in with collision of another planet named Melancholia. Earth is doomed; two sisters struggle through the movie in different ways, coping with the fact of future death. The younger sister, a chaotic disaster, is getting married, but divorces the same day, because she sleeps with a random guest and is absorbed by depression. The older sister is much more mature and tries to take care of her, but still needs to take care of her husband and young son; trying her best to keep everyone on their feet.
Lars fon Trier is known for metaphors and subtle details that point out to larger issues and hint on what will become of the characters. One must have a keen eye to notice the puzzle pieces that bring together the greater picture.
At the start of the film we do not know of the future planets colliding, but fon Trier starts the film with a musical composition that already gets the viewer thinking. The composition is Liebestod (“Love-Death”), a piece from the opera Tristan and Isolde by Richard Wagner. Death is the last extreme for this family to love again, it brings the characters to a maximum catharsis of their emotions, just as in the finale of the opera. The theme of death continues at the wedding reception, when the flower of the wedding is lily of the valley, a biblical symbol for the tears of Eve; adding to that, the new husband gifts his wife an apple orchid, a biblical symbol for the Fall Of Man, which soon happens as the result of worlds colliding, as well as the metaphorical psychological death of the younger sister, causing chaos and disaster due to severe depression, a.k.a. melancholia. The power of melancholia creates the fatality of these peoples’ lives, by dramatically driving them together. The relationship of the sisters are similar to the colliding planets, their lives cannot be driven apart, but they bring disaster, when brought together. The younger sister is driven with cruelty and childish egoism, accepting the death of humanity, but absorbed by the beauty of fate. Not only will the world fall, but humane innocence will too.

P.S. I can talk about this for hours, I haven’t even mentioned that the younger sister only ate blueberry jam, because it was known as a medieval cure for depression(but this of course isn’t explained, a.k.a. the point of close reading). Please watch fon Triers films, he is a very clever director. :)