okay, come on
talking to myself isn’t helping
just relax
music? no, it would be distracting
maybe it would be calming
i don’t need to calm down, i need to work
no, i will not write about my frustration about finding an idea
that’s so corny
i need to sit somewhere else
get my mind off of this blank screen
no time
why did i keep blocking my ideas?
because they were stupid
i could have made any idea work, i just needed to stick with it
that’s not true. i would have gone halfway there and decided to change
just make a decision!
i need sleep…
you can’t!
i’ll be ill. i’ll die
you’ll just feel like shit for a couple of days
but I have an interview tomorrow…
you can squeeze a nap in right before
i won’t even have time to review it in the morning
this isn’t helping!
i need to take a walk…
people will hear you. it’ll be awkward. just relax!
i’ll just start typing. anything.
“this sentence is improper”
three directions!
okay, focus
capture them
spelling, something in a classroom. revolt. inquisition. battle with rulers.
don’t get carried away, capture the others
some episode of star trek. paradoxes. that scene in austin powers with the exploding fembots feminism? no, that’s irrelevant.
shit, what was the third one?
whatever
i like the first one
but what was that other one? dammit, if i had just captured it. . .
it doesn’t matter. go with the first one

finally, the process begins
no more barriers
there was just that one hump.

Not seeing
complete introspection
I notice this state
and i’m still able to move in and out of it
“in the zone.”

3:00pm
under the covers
blinds shut
dark
just pretend it’s night
fall asleep

nobody should have to feel unsafe
in her own home
nobody

mom and dad are still screaming downstairs

clutching the covers
just close my eyes
it’ll be fine in the morning
well, it won’t
but i’ll pretend it is
i’ll just go to school
and it’ll be fine

“dammit George, you always fucking do this!”
“leave me alone, Martha. I can do whatever the fuck I want”

I need to get out of here
I can’t just lie here
my stomach hurts
there’s a pen and paper by the side of my bed. math homework
I start sketching
writing brief statements, quasi-poetic
this is so cliché
and emo

but it’s necessary
i feel better already
It’s literally bursting from my fingers
I can’t hold it in.

Shower
everything comes so easily
ideas bursting forth
like the water projecting from the shower head
the frustration is at the end
when I can’t remember any of my brilliant ideas

My son is sitting across from me
crayon in hand
drawing

I fiddle with my tie
realize how cramped my legs are
underneath the small table
my butt barely fits in the chair

“I have a blue dog.
his name is Ronald”
scribbling away
no attention to all of the accidental stray marks.
the errors

I just got a promotion.
I can process email twice as fast as my associates.
and I’m good with people. really good.
he’s so shy
sitting at his little table and drawing pictures
making up bullshit stories all day
he needs to wake up
get his goddamned head out of the clouds

“daddy, you’re a big, green bear.
you protect the family from the monsters in the back yard”

I eye my watch
I have to be back at the office in 45 minutes
it’s rush hour
I have to spell-check a proposal
then address some memos
then I have a conference call
but I won’t speak
only the people in management are supposed to speak
I might put the phone on mute and play solitaire

but at least I’d be getting shit done
unlike this lazy shit
but this is ridiculous
I shouldn’t have to convince myself that I’m better than a four-year-old

“son, why does that horse have three eyes?
horses only have two eyes”
“he has an extra
so he can see really far”

I had been so childish
all through high school
I wanted to be an author

Write medieval epics
with dragons and knights
and honor and strife and victory
childish
all the money is in stocks

I earned all this
my wife, my three kids
we agreed that we would have three
the other two are in honors algebra
they study every night
but this one just can’t stop drawing
page after page
always a new story

“you’ll just have to do something creative”
my boss’s obnoxious, passive- aggressive tone
I had even dipped into my own pockets to buy the fancy card stock
“it still needs a little something. some pizazz”
so I dipped even further into my own pockets
hired a “creative consultant”
he just added some colored rectangles
my boss fucking loved it
childish
I could have done that shit by myself

“daddy, can I have another piece of paper?
this one’s full.”

I shouldn’t have to defend myself
I’m obviously more accomplished than he’ll ever be.

It’s raining
lightly
it’s more like mist
the trees are covered in moss
so green
this patch of grass makes a comfortable seat
no other signs of life
besides the inescapable _spirit_ of the nature
the sound of the many drips of water gently sliding down the tree branches
and of a nearby creek

I close my eyes.
it’s a bit cold. also a bit wet.
I breathe deeply. notice my shirt soaking through
allow my body temperature to drop to meet the outsides.
not shivering to protect my insides
but relaxing, allowing myself to become one with the rain
completely open
this is how to talk to god

I’m outside of my body. outside of this world
I’m making music
I see animals that don’t exist
they will go in my sketchbook tonight
deep, powerful emotions
I’ll capture them with words in my journal

but these aren’t my ideas
they weren’t created by my body
they came to me after leaving it
I allowed them to penetrate me, like the rain

Can I have a word please?
“recipe”
thank you

a little of this, a little of that
structure, measurement
communism

“The Recipe for Efficiency and Success!”
the text was bright red on black paper
these posters had become more common around the city
the college had begun teaching new courses on the hive mentality
“knowing your surroundings and properly reacting”
“seeing the group as one”
didn’t anyone read the history books?
I decided I had to get out.

Like a lightning bolt
Entire vision at once
Unforeseen insight

Where does it come from?
like dreams
bits and pieces
conversations
books
TV shows
movies
especially movies
also a little pinch of my own thoughts. my reflections
mine

it’s a subconscious piracy
creating a mixed tape of my life

items that, when combined
outside of their respective contexts
“create” something new. something different.
but it’s not “creating.”
it’s “borrowing.”
an amalgamation.
a melting pot
with a little personal bias thrown in.

Sitting in the library
physics homework
no time
stress
seeing words without reading them
the same sentence over and over
nothing is sticking
there’s no urge

Can’t take it anymore
step outside
pen and paper
the cool air
a mindless, gestural sketch of the tree outside
refreshing
calming
it was necessary.

Evaluation

I chose to write poetry because it allows more freedom with syntax. My decision to manipulate form in order to find new ways to communicate imagery and sensations without being verbose is, of course, germane to my topic of creativity and inspiration. These “windows” are intended to mimic the human thought process, including a fluid movement from inner dialog to outside sensory observations. I chose to use as little punctuation and capitalization as possible because the mind doesn’t think with punctuation. The lack of punctuation, coupled with the numerous line breaks also help to increase “flow,” giving the poetry a “stream of consciousness” feel. The line breaks are not intended to be read as pauses. They simply mark the movement from one thought to another, a process which, in the mind, takes zero time.

In exploring the psychology of creativity and inspiration, some of my most valuable insights came from reflecting on my own experiences. The first and last pieces are mostly autobiographical. The first describes the way that, to me, inspiration often comes all at once, seemingly out of nowhere. It seems that I’m not alone in this thinking. The word “inspiration” means “breathed upon,” and many cultures, from ancient Greece to renaissance Christians, have seen inspiration as a gift from the divine. “It’s raining” is an exploration of the similar Romance era view of inspiration, where it was seen as divine, though the receiver had to actively open herself up to receive inspiration (in this case through nature). Graham Wallas, conversely, suggested that creativity is a five-step process, step three of which is “intimation”- the feeling that inspiration is coming.

Freud saw creativity as a result of unresolved psychological childhood trauma. There is debate among other modern psychologists as to whether creativity is an internal or an external process. It may be an aggregation of outside observations, or it may be a release of internal sentiments, as Freud suggests. In a number of my “windows,” I’ve taken the Freudian idea a step further and suggested that creativity can also be catalyzed by present stresses. This has been true to my experience, and also to what I’ve observed. A great number of famous authors and other artists suffered from depression or other mental illness. Also, it seems that great artistic movements often take place during times of hardship (war, depression, etc).

Marshall Dimock offers a synthesis of five different theories for the origin of creativity (one of which is Freudian), arguing that all five approaches to creativity—intuition, synthesis, imagination, levels of attention, and conflict—contribute to the creative process. She argues that it’s difficult to meaningfully distinguish between “internal” thoughts and “external” observations. “Where does it come from?” explores all of these ideas for the root of creativity.

“My son is sitting across from me” illustrates my personal observation that adults are often less creative than kids, and people are often most creative when they are youngest. J.P. Guilford described the difference between convergent thinking, which deals in mathematical absolutes (questions with single, concrete answers), and divergent thinking, which involves creativity and dynamic thinking. It seems to me that adults, through education and professional work, become more convergent thinkers, whereas young children are more divergent thinkers. Keith Johnstone, the inventor of the Theatresports improv format, discusses this same idea, describing how education is a “destructive process” (19) in that it impairs creativity. “Can I have word please” is an exploration of my own creative process. I began with a word, followed it with some quick word association, and then crafted a short scene around that idea.

Works Cited

• *Dimock, Marshall. “Creativity.” Public Administration Review 46.1 (Jan.-Feb.  1986): 3-7. JSTOR. 28 Apr. 2008 .
• *Johnstone, Keith. Impro. 1981. London: Methuen Drama, 1992.
• *(crowdsourced). “Artistic inspiration.” Wikipedia. 28 Apr. 2008 .
• *(crowdsourced). “Creativity.” Wikipedia. 28 Apr. 2008 .

Final Project for AP English 12 at Chadwick School.

Pink uses satire to critique the portrayal of women as sexual objects in popular music videos, saying, in the first verse, “What happened to the dream of a girl president? She’s dancing in the video next to 50 cent.” This sets up a stark contrast between the image of a woman of power and the image of a woman as a sexy extra in a rap music video. We’re all familiar with the female extras in rap videos who are often present in huge numbers, with their slim figures and ample breasts, dancing provocatively and wearing next to nothing. They are there as symbols of the success and power of the male rappers. Their huge numbers help cement their place as expendable extras. They have no independence and their definition of self is dependent upon the man’s. Firestone calls this “surrogate identity” (147). De Beauvoir describes this same phenomenon, saying, “She is defined and differentiated with reference to man”(4).

Of course, male rap videos are the most extreme example of objectification of women in modern popular music, but even when a woman’s role in a music video isn’t just to dance in the background and look sexy, there are noticeable differences between representation of the sexes. Men sing about how rich they are and how many girls are chasing after them. Women sing about how in love they are, how depressed they are that they’ve broken up with their boyfriends, and how beautiful they are. Here again we see surrogate identity—all these topics have to do with women relating to men. Of course there is complexity and overlap here, especially recently. Also, in a way, it makes sense that a woman would take a secondary role in the narrative of a male artist’s music video because, after all, he is the main character.

And yet, the music video that tells the story of the male artist being swept off of his feet by a woman who approaches him and makes all of the right moves is conspicuously absent. Instead, we tend to see the same power structure as is present in our fairy tales: man actively seeks woman, woman is swept off of her feet. The man’s narrative about romance with the opposite sex is often more about a macho display of an ability to “pick up chicks” than it is about finding “the one,” and here again the simple numbers devalue the individual woman, who is a “sweet hookup” for the night, but ultimately expendable. Notice the visual that the idiomatic expressions “pick up chicks” and “to be swept off one’s feet” create—the woman is physically raised by the man, but she is put on a pedestal, like a trophy, intended to sit there and look pretty. The man acts, and the woman receives. The woman’s narrative about romance is much more monogamous and focuses on emotional attachment, rather than skill with “picking up a guy.” Female monogamy and female objectification are not unrelated. As Firestone argues, “Women’s ‘clinging’ behavior is necessitated by their objective social position”(152). Women’s “surrogate identity” and “need for approval” (Firestone, 147), which both contribute to “clinging,” can be thought of as products of a system that, to a certain extent, paints women as objects to be possessed by men.

If a female musical artist brags about anything, it’s her body, which is not empowering in the same way that a male artist’s song about his wealth or his female groupies is. This emphasis on physical sexual appeal strengthens the image of woman as sexual object. Two scenes in Pink’s music video reference Paris Hilton, who became famous by modeling and being in a sex tape. Appropriately enough, Pink’s references to Paris include the sex tape and a popular TV ad for Carl’s Junior that features Paris seductively washing a car. In these cases, the body is used to appeal to male viewers, which can send the message to women that this is the way to communicate with men. And yet, some artists are able to take this fact and spin it in a way that is empowering. For example, Fergie in “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas, talks about her romantic life in a traditionally more masculine way, bragging about how many men chase after her and buy her gifts because of her “humps.” Though Fergie certainly enjoys a certain power over the men in this video, it’s important to note that it’s a power that involves exploiting her sexual appeal, which, as we see in other media, especially film, is the only type of power that it is really acceptable for women to have, and furthermore, it’s limiting. Think of the femme fatale and the female CEO. Notice first that the former is far more prevalent, and the latter is almost completely absent in popular media. Also, notice how the former involves an empowerment that is inseparable from femininity, while the latter doesn’t—the femme fatale is thought of as a powerful woman while the female CEO is just a powerful person. The female CEO (or, perhaps, the CEO who happens to be a woman) does more to combat the dominant paradigm of woman as “Other” (de Beauvoir, 4).

So what is significant about all of this? Representation of women in popular media plays an integral role in the behavior or women in our society. We get our image of femininity and female beauty from popular media. It gives us a goal to strive for. Of course, there is more complexity to this relationship—society must influence media in the same way that media influences society. However, what can be said for certain is that images in media and actions, behaviors, and ideals in society perpetuate each-other, increasing the influential power of social norms. Similarly, because this strong relationship between society and media exists, an effective way to create change in society is to change media.

Pink’s “Stupid Girls” speaks directly to these ideas. The narrative of the music video is framed around a young girl watching television, with a good angel on one shoulder and a bad angel on the other. The imagery on the TV starts with a classroom where a teacher is showing students how to act “ladylike,” instructing them on how to flip their hair back and reprimanding one girl for picking at her teeth. The little girl watching TV immediately imitates the girls on TV by flipping her own hair. This is a clear statement about the fact that girls, especially young ones, take their definition of feminine behavior from the images that they see on television. I described earlier how music videos perpetuate the same imbalanced power structure that we see in fairy tales. We’ve discussed in class the way that these fairy tales have a large impact on peoples’ characters because they’re heard during the early, formative years of peoples’ lives. I’d argue that images of women in popular media are just as impactful, and perhaps even more so because they are so much more culturally relevant, making them more real to the people viewing them. Also, let’s not underestimate the number of young girls who watch MTV over the shoulders of their big sisters, who want desperately to be older and are searching for what it means to be a mature woman.

The image of woman as passive sexual object places an emphasis on physical appearance. This is especially problematic because popular media presents a very limited view of feminine beauty; only skinny women with big boobs are seen as sexy. A huge burden is placed on women when the message is sent that success involves being physically attractive (and worse, attractive according to a very limiting definition), especially because physical appearance is largely genetic and difficult to change significantly. Most women end up feeling like they have“failed,” which is incredibly psychologically damaging.

Pink’s music video describes how this burden is incredibly destructive for women. The character undergoing cosmetic surgery and the one getting a spray-on tan both show the desperate (and expensive) lengths that women go to in order to be like the women they see in music videos and on magazine covers. Also, the scene with the bulimic girl throwing up in the bathroom speaks to issues of negative body image and eating disorders. There is a sense that women need to compete to have the skinniest body or the biggest boobs in order to get the attention of men. Both the character on the treadmill and the character in the bowling alley experience a lack of attention because other girls around them have more prominent breasts, and they have to be more showy in order to compete. These characters are obviously impacted by popular media’s image of beauty. These are characters that we have all met. The girl who runs over a guy with her expensive car and looks into the rear view mirror to see if he’s okay and ends up getting distracted in adjusting her lip gloss very accurately depicts several women that I grew up around, especially as a person who grew up in the affluent suburbs of Los Angeles. The same goes for the very last character that is shown on the TV—the trophy mom standing outside of her expensive house with her fancy car, Juicy Couture sweats, and her lifted face framed by long, blond hair. These are people that we have all met in our lives, and the fact that these characters are so real and relevant to us makes the viewer much more able to relate the absurdity of the “stupid girls” on screen to the absurdity of the women around them, and perhaps even themselves.

Here Pink gives us some hope for the future. The noticeably different character in the music video is the female president. She represents the opposite of the “stupid girl”—a woman with ambition and power that is unrelated to appearance and sexuality. There is also a brief image of a woman playing football. When the music ends, the little girl watching TV is presented with a choice between playing with a football or playing with Barbie dolls. Barbie represents an obsession with female appearance and an unattainable image of beauty. The girl listens to the good angel and chooses the football, showing the viewer that there are “smart people” out there.

In “Stupid Girls,” Pink not only illustrates the issue of objectification of women in media and its impact on women and girls around the country, but also to propose a solution. As mentioned before, the relationship between media and culture means that the two perpetuate each-other, but it also means that they have the power to change each-other. By getting this music video on MTV, Pink has taken affirmative action in questioning and changing the imagery of women as objects with which we are bombarded daily. With some luck, this change in the media that we consume may help our society form a new image of femininity that involves personal empowerment and is not dependent upon sexual appeal.

Works Referenced
Jhally, Sut: Dreamworlds II: Desire, Sex, Power in Music Video
Pink (Alecia Beth Moore): “Stupid Girls”
Firestone, Shulamith: The Dialectic of Sex
de Beauvoir, Simone: The Second Sex (introduction)*

* page numbers taken from printout of this electronic version:

http://marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/2nd-sex/introduction.htm

Originally written Oct 30th, 2008, for Bronski’s WGST10 at Dartmouth College