“Wabi sabi. It had found it during those bad times when Rea had been only getting worse, and it had come to mean a lot [to] me. The thought that everything that we were going through, the things that time was doing to her and she was doing to me, that they weren’t bad, but that they were beautiful in their own way.

I looked at the scars on Rea, and now on myself, and I was comfortable with them. No, I like them. They were natural, the result of the choices we made, and I don’t regret a single choice that left one on me. We were breaking down, bit by bit. We were dying slowly.

But everyone is dying slowly.”

–gabriel blessing, Wabi Sabi (Part Nine)

In “A Desire for Death,” Lau analyses the sleeping beauties of fairytale stories, concluding that there’s an eroticisation of the deathlike state of women within. A necrophiliac appeal. I agree that there is an eroticism to these women. But I argue that it is not a necrophiliac desire.

All things which are ‘alive’ in any sense of the word eventually decay. But it is that very decay that draws the necrophiliac. It is not the pristine, timeless beauty of Briar Rose, unchanging as she was when she first closed her eyes. The eternal beauty of the sleeping beauties is the draw of vampires and their ilk.

As Wabi Sabi expresses, the beautiful part of the dead and dying, the draw of necrophilia, is a sense of universality. The main character—a necrophiliac himself—expresses the appeal to be the  “scars on Rea, and. . .on [him]self. . . .everyone is dying slowly.” That is to say, the imperfections and decay of men, women, and anything else (crows, for instance) are natural, “beautiful in their own way.”

Through the lens of Gender Studies, the universal sameness of gender to the necrophiliac gaze can be understood, Formalism giving us the tools to extract meaning from the text.

This 1930s Chrysler ad is the perfect example of reinforcing gender roles through media, and advertising. The ad uses highly gendered language for advertising the car to both “she” and “he”. Beginning with the woman-centered approach, the ad states “For the first time in my life, I feel at home behind the wheel”. The generalization that women aren’t good drivers is used to subjugate women and justify their subordination based on the fact that they are not as capable as men. The excerpt titled “She” also calls the car “gorgeous looking”. These two quotes are also based on patriarchal ideas of women’s obsession with personal appearance and beauty. Beauty is essential to the patriarchal standard of a woman. Enforcing very strict beauty standards has always been a tactic used to subjugate and demean used by the patriarchy.

Contrarily the “He” section of the ad is an ode to masculine strength and power. It reads “that swift, silent getaway… that never-say-die power… that romping. eager, mounting speed… were put there for the sterner sex.” This quote is attempting to appeal to men’s sense of masculine dominance. The ad uses physical language such as “swift” “romping” and “speed” to affirm the patriarchal idea of men’s physical superiority.

Advertising particularly aimed toward men and women preys on people’s endless strive to fulfill their prescribed gender role, in order to sell them material goods.

Since I first watched it with my family, Arrested Development has defined my sense of humor and my worldview.

The thesis of the show is this: Wealth has the potential to arrest the emotional development of a family.

The show premises a family coming from immense capital wealth, once on top of the world, now forced into the middle class by a series of criminal investigations against the patriarch, George Bluth. Much of the humor – and much of the message – comes from the family’s shocking ineptitude as they learn the world doesn’t revolve around them anymore.

Freud would love Tobias Funke. After marrying into the Bluth family shortly after college, Tobias’ needs are all met by his wife’s family wealth. Now that it is gone, Tobias is forced to become a breadwinner. Though in episode one, he declares that he wants to act, despite having an unused degree in psychology.

Tobias’ desire to be an actor is set on by an incidental boat ride, which he attends only after a ridiculous set of unlikely circumstances. He mistakes a gay protest group for a Bluth party and feels a ‘bond’ with his new companions. Following popular stereotypes of 2003, the unnamed gay characters are members of various theaters. Tobias displaces his desire to be with these men with a desire to be an actor.

His wife sees better than he can. As Tobias attempts to confess his desire, Lindsay completes the thought for him. “You’re gay.”