1. You know I love This American Life, and no better topic than .... PROM! Such an eclectic mix of stories from disaster to interesting. What are you thoughts on the many different ways people relive and experience prom. Listen to the entire podcast, and this counts as TWO posts.
2. Reluctant Role Model: This is the story of Chaz Bono. He is the son, formerly a daughter, of Sonny and Cher. It's a great profile piece, and it ran on the cover of the Sunday Styles section this past weekend. What are your thoughts on the topic? On giving this topic such prominent coverage? Is there an MA angle in this piece?
3 comments:
This podcast had a strong variety in the type of stories about prom, what prom is, and what it means for different people. The first story, about the tornado hitting a small Kansas town on prom night, was my favorite. The story itself is really cool and pretty crazy, but the way they went about reporting it made it even better. Walking us through the story, step by step, and capturing the emotions of the high school students so well, it all added up to create a really powerful story. I especially enjoyed the part where many of the students talked about how they felt like they asked the tornado, or that it was somehow like fate. Prom night is often referred to something like “the best night of their life” or “the perfect night.” Those sayings connected with fate and expectation, contrast greatly with the “tornado prom” in Kansas. The other stories were also very interesting, and they all provided completely different viewpoints on prom. The second story, about the writer who has written hundreds of books about prom, fascinated me. How could one lady write so much about one little night? She seemed sort of crazy. The third story provided a good contrast from all the crazy stories of tornadoes and hundreds of prom books with a basic prom experience. However, the last one, which seemed to be the focus of the whole podcast, was the craziest of all. For one high school dance, it seems insane to have it be televised and idolized so much in one tiny town. The stereotypical prom experience is disappointment, as was mentioned in the podcast. I think building prom up to be something so much more than it is really leads to that disappointment.
What a crazy good podcast! I’ve always thought of prom as a stepping stone of the American Dream--the fame, the money, the stress, the contrast between the imaginary vision and the reality of it all—and therefore the American lifestyle, but I never would have predicted the ways in which prom is experienced throughout the nation. In my opinion, the perspectives portrayed on TAL treated prom like a rite of passage, but for me prom was just another upgraded school dance for me (I had a great time at prom, don’t get me wrong!). I am happy I was able to find the time to listen to this podcast and contextualize my recent prom experience with those of other teens around the country:
The story that interested me far and beyond the others (though I found them all to be entertaining) was the last story about Racine, Wisconsin’s televised prom. The idea of televising prom at first made total sense to me: the “prama” that comes with organizing the “pre-prom” and “post-prom” festivities is a huge part of the ordeal, and televising the post-prom celebrates the trials and tribulations of such stress. It would, in my eyes, rationalize why we commit to such festivities while we can. At the same time, I feel like a televised prom wouldn’t contribute anything new to my own prom experience, but rather add to the expectations and idealism that are already created within the school hallways. To fuel such desires even more than they already would be sounds like an idea that could do some real damage to a person’s self-worth and create more harm than good for a small town.
Though I was fascinated by the many ways in which prom was endorsed throughout the podcast (at a couple points people compared prom to marriage), I was also interested by the ways in which prom was criticized. I agree with what the woman who worked at the tuxedo said about how prom feeds our already overblown egos, and that there is no need to celebrate such narcissism in high school students: I wish that the geniuses behind TAL had balanced out the podcast with some negative opinions of prom and its drawbacks, such as the fact that money plays a big role into a person’s prom experience, or how heterosexism influences proms.
Prom:
This was a lot of fun to listen to. I think "eclectic" is the perfect word to describe the spectrum that these stories cover. Like Matthew, my favorite story was the one involving the tornado. In an odd way, it was the one that I found I could relate to the most, not because a tornado hit, but because I have found myself at some parties wishing that a natural disaster would happen to interrupt said party. In this case, ironically, the tornado didn't stop the party, but it did provide a rather dramatic backdrop for all of the drama that always seems to accompany prom.
One of my other favorite parts about the piece was the interview with Francine Pascal, the author of the Sweet Valley High books. I really liked the fact that she had her characters go to prom multiple times, but she herself had never been to prom and was therefore basing all of her characters' actions on stereotypes and stories that she has heard from other people.
I'm not sure what to think about prom. I haven't experienced it yet, so I can't comment from personal expererience, but it seems like a lot of hype about something that, in the grand scheme of things, isn't all that big of a deal.
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