In class on Tuesday, Celia chose several students without warning them what they were getting into. This resulted in cross-acting. This could have gone very wrong. Good thing we set the ground rules about respect last week. The first skit was two females attempting to behave like men watching a football game. The second consisted of two males going shopping as females. The final was a male trying to pick up a female--roles swapped of course.
So, amongst all the laughter, it was interesting to disect these mico-interactions. In skit number one, it was very apparent that neither of these volunteers knew much about football--big discrepency there. Now, I am not criticizing, in fact I give these girls props. There are several opinionated "men" in our class that could have possibly tore their acting skills apart. But for all intents and purposes of the class, I hope these people forgive me for my analysis. These girls picked up on the very masculine social ques. They seemed to focus on the yelling and the beer-drinking. Other things we picked on when they were finished were things like posture, lack of cursing, phsycial contact, etc. It was interesting that the commentary for this skit was from the males and females of the class, both being dead on. The guys were proud of the stigmas assessed in this particular skit.
Compared to the pride with the male-male skit, the girls shopping didn't go down as smoothly. The two boys were hilarious, with their cute little lisps that apparently all imitations of girls come with. They even did the whole modeling purses and asking each other advice, it was a great attempt. The things that were criticized in this skit were in a very different light from the first skit. In the first skit, the girls were not "manly" enough; however for this one, the problem was the over exagerated lisps, the fact that only one purse was tried on instead of different ones, the posture, the politeness in criticizing, and the lack of touching. Something that occurred in this break down which did not in skit number one was that some of the critique was positive, but it was mostly negative. I wouldn't say all of the girls were pleased with the fact that some said all like shopping. I for one try to avoid it, and I know there are other in our class less enthuiastic than I am. Good job boys.
The third and final skit was the reverse roles. This is where it gets a little foggy as to who was who. The male acting as a female was too coersive and forward with the interaction, including the immediate eye contact. Most would say that while a women is getting hit on, she is shy, doesn't make eye contact, uncomfortable in her stance, and unsure. The guy is supposed to be assertive, chivilrous, blah blah. It almost seemed like the roles were reversed unintentionally. As soon as an individual doesn't portray themselves with those core qualities all men/women should have, gender is questioned immediately.
So, when we were analyizing these micro-interactions, we were basing them off of the social norms. After class, this remained on my mind for the rest of the day. Who decides what the social norms are? Yeah, yeah the media controls every single thought that enters our brain--thanks big brother--no but really... As this was on my mind, I observed a lot of social deviance against the social constructs we have. But honestly, is Juniata college a good sample group? After contemplating this for a while, I say no. There is definitely a mold that most Juniatians fit and I wouldn't say we follow a cookie cutter perfect norm here. Contrary to the statement that those who do not follow social norms are ostracized, most people here are not alone. But then you look at who we are with, and you can see why this is so. People here are not afraid to be themselves even it means crossing the social norm lines a little. I just hope they are aware when they enter the real world, that it is not as friendly as JC.
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