"The idea of glamour as tightly bound up with modernity and particularly with Hollywood"

I should really learn shouldn't I? drinking and student life do tend to go hand in hand and so therefore I did end up quite drunk on Friday evening!!. I won't bore you to tears with my drunken antics though as I am never that interesting when I'm drunk apart from getting a little bit louder and thinking that I am much funnier than I really am! (if anyone has ever been drunk and not thought that then something must be up!!).

Anyway to depart away from my tales of drunken immaturity and back to what is happening at the moment. I don't know whether I have mentioned at all in previous posts, but I'll say it again just in case: Monday's and Fridays will be my blog days. In essence Monday will be a kind of overview of where I currently am and what is planned for the week ahead and Friday will in essence be a reflection / evaluation of what has happened during the week.

I keep a file of interesting bits of paper, newspaper articles and any other interesting things that might be interesting stimuli in a folder in my room. Its interesting to keep these things together so that you have a collection of sources in which to keep referring back to! Yesterday I came across a really interesting article from the Observer which I pulled out months ago called "Why glamour has been good for women - and feminism" by Carol Dyhouse (here's the link if you would like to read it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/21/glamour-feminism-cinema-carol-dyhouse). A fascinating article about how glamour has gone in out of fashion in society, the link between Hollywood glamour post war and the associations of modernity. This got me thinking about the impact of technology in this case the cinematic impact because of its dominance in the cultural arena in the latter half of the 20th Century and early 21st Century. The cinematic presence is something which is at the centre point of our society I would argue. The way the media (i.e. newspapers and magazines) hold film stars in such a high regard, we want to know everything about them, every minor personal detail. The allure of the film star is now something which is fading. Look at films from the 1940s and 1950's (Classical Hollywood's heyday) and you see 'glamour' presented in such a way that it is almost impossible to replicate. Films were a special occasion because of the fact it took people away from everyday consequently earning the nickname "dream factory", dreams and aspirations were played out on the screen in front of the audiences. Where as with film today, the realistic presentations of the world in which the films are set, mirror our lives and so therefore we have greater opportunities to look like our film idols of today, the look and the glamour is so more unattainable. Surely the look of glamour is something you aspire to and work for not something you copy. Carol Dyhouse makes an interesting point in the final paragraph of her article "Glamour can represent self assertion, sexual confidence, playfulness, pleasure and delight. But in the end, nothing empowers women so much as a good education and a well - paid job". A really interesting counter argument presented to juxtapose the idea of glamour. The women in films of film noir, which have always been a filmic style which interests me since I studied it at A - Level, are an endorsement of how glamour is presented on screen: sexually confident, educated and fully rounded characters. The allure of these glamorous actresses made them immensely popular and sought after, but what is the idea of glamour today? Glamour models? Lady Gaga?.

Moving away from theory for a moment, this idea of glamour is an interesting one and I am really interested in possibly developing a short performance (upto about 5 minutes) which could possibly include cinematic projections as well as live performers in the space. The idea is a very sketchy one at the moment and will need to be tried out to have any idea whether there is any grounding but I am interested in it none the less!. It is doable, just how interesting and incentiful to my audience is another one!, but I want to try it out and see what comes of it!. I will update you on Friday with progress.