Social Upheaval and Cultural Mixing

When I first thought of hip, I did not really see those two characteristics defined by Leland as two characteristics that seemed to be at war with one another. In some ways, the two work together. You can't have cultural mixing without social upheaval. The excepted over for the longest time in Western Culture was for the different groups we have created to remain divided, to give little attention to each other. There has always been an understanding that all should submit to those in a social class above one's own. This is the opposite of cultural mixing. Those who are part of the higher classes, or have a more privileged racial identity in society, are always pouring their ideas into the lower status peoples while the same is not true of those who are of less advantaged circles. That leads to rebellion. If the working class is lucky, social upheaval is fully achieved, all groups are pulled closer to the ideal of equality. For awhile, both can last within this cocoon of their idea swapping. It is not perfect, but there is safety in during this development. The privileged often break out early, with the dread that something has been stolen from them. Possibly that someone else take that place if they do not reclaim it. Society reemerges as a half-formed moth. It changes from what it was before, but not what it could have been. The privileged create their own sort of social upheaval, or at least attempt to, by rekindling forgotten flames of the past. Less privileged carry the torches of the future, for the most part. Both exist in the world's largest game of tug o' war. The ropes of upper, lower, upheaval, and mixing create the boiling pot of hip. We aren't very good at perfection. Perhaps that is why the patterns of hip continue to stir up society.

Women in "Red Wind"

To read Red Wind: click here

In Red Wind the two female characters seem to have very limited roles and appear to be the only female characters in this story. For the most part, their roles seem to mostly be defined by their beauty, their relation to male characters, and their need for protection.

Mrs. Barsalay is a critical character in the story. Part of why this started is because of her false pearls, which were a symbol of her past relationship with the dead Mr. Phillips. They are stolen from her, and she intends to buy them back from Waldo which sets the entire chain of events in the story. While she does save Marlow's life there is also this sort of understanding that she is someone who needs protecting. When she is holding a gun to Marlow in his apartment, she does not take the safety off or stand a proper distance from him. It is discussed later in the story that it seemed she mostly meant this as a bluff, though there is a suggestion that she would not be able to properly defend herself and that as a woman must be protected. Much of her life with her current life with her husband is filled with lies about her necklace and the past relationship she had with her dead fiance. She also is running around secretly to try to get this object back without him knowing. It also reveals her as deceptive, despite also coming off as an innocent doe staring in the headlights. At the end of the tale when it is revealed that her necklace was never real, Marlow has another fake made to help cement the falsehood that her necklace was sold and replaced with a fake. In a way, this does save her from knowing that the symbol of her relationship was based on a lie, it also is protecting her from the truth and suggesting that she is too fragile to handle this truth. Perhaps this was just part of Marlow's character as he lies several times throughout his investigation, though he still told the hard truth to the male characters within the tale. There seems to be an understanding that she cannot handle the harsh world.

Miss Kolchenko, or the "White Russian," is a less important character in this tale. She is the mistress of Mr. Barsalay, and seems to have very little respect from him. Her appearance serves as a deception because she looks threatening when in actuality she is not. She is made to serve drinks to Mr. Basalay and Marlow in her scene. She is also completely ignored by Baraslay when she objects to him describing how she looks like a threat but is not. She may also serve as a comparison between Marlow and Barsalay as Marlow is much more respectful of Mrs. Baraslay than Mr. Barasalay is towards Kolchenko. She is also completely shooed away from the situation which could be a form of said protection but mostly seems to work in a way to keep her out of the understanding of what is going on. Of course, that may be a reflection that it is not believed that she could handle what is going on and must be kept away from scary situations in the same way a child is most often shuttled away from family drama and harsh realities.

While Mrs. Barsalay does save Marlow's life, women in this story are not shown in a particularly positive light. They are seen as deceptive, and too weak to look out for themselves. Though this seems to be true of much of the media from this period. This is a part of our cultural history of hip. Despite some of my qualms, it was still an entertaining read. A piece of media can still be entertaining as well as make us think about the depictions we commonly use for different groups of people in our culture.

Westerns, Pulp, and Noir

I know Los Angeles as a city defined by it's consistent patterns, paparazzi mowed down by celebrities out for revenge, the dull grunt of cars grinding down the interstate, trends that will inevitable dry into husks to make room for the new. All sit atop the cracked plates of the earth, waiting for the moment to slip and rattle beneath the city's base. The city waits to be rumbled by the San Andreas Fault. It marks the end of hope through the crumbling of failed Hollywood dreams, the end of westward expansion, a broken pattern. Los Angeles is a collection of crumbled promises. Both sides of Los Angeles run together as the boundary of a fault. Their motion both defining and breaking the city. Western travelers came with a promise of gold, paid with broken backs. The last great expansion ended the promise of man conquering frontier. The dreamers lost and had to settle like everyone else. Chaos erupted within male minds at the lost of definition. If a woman is loving, nurturing, and open. Then what is a man? Polar opposites make for the easiest definition, everything a woman is not. Through the end of the fronteir, America created the pulp hero. He could no longer be defined through taming the land. He is made through separating himself further from his opposite. He becomes the loner, no connections, no family, alone, no ties to hold him down. He is the frontiersman without hope or heart. He became the voice of America when dreams of exploration died with our genocidal tendencies towards American Indians. He expanded into film with Noir to scream through a thousand minds, the death toll of dreams. Dreams act as a Phoenix and move cycles of rebirth to death.  Men recreate their ideal identity. Los Angeles is the city of recreation and death. There is no better place to be reborn. It is also the best place to watch yourself die.