Comparing Two Themes

The White Uniform - The theme of The "White Uniform" is that people only judge based on what they see, not what they know. The Lady says that people will be able to distinguish her from everyone else because she has "class", but when she decides to switch clothes with the Maid no one can tell that she is the actual Lady. The people who come up to stop them from fighting only see a woman wearing a maid's uniform and one wearing a terry cloth. They don't see the people, they see what they are wearing. Most people only look at the surface and see only what they want to see. If they happen to wear a maid's uniform, then they must be a maid, no doubt about it. No matter what we think of people, they will most likely base all of our actions on how we look instead of the logical choice of waiting to see how we act. The reason people dress fancy (suits mostly) is because they know that first impressions are everything, and first impressions are born from what we wear.

Trifles - The theme of "Trifles" is to not assume what we do not know and not to overlook anything. In "Trifles" the Sheriff and County Attorney both assume that Mrs. Wright killed her husband, and so does Mr. Hale. The women, on the other hand, both think that she is innocent, and they unwittingly search for clues to prove that their thoughts are correct. When they do happen to find something that the men fail to notice, they look for a way to link it to Mrs. Wright's innocence. In most cases this works, but sometimes they inadvertently find a possibility that proves that she is guilty, such as the dead bird they find stashed in the box, which holds many possibilities for both sides. On one end, John could have killed the bird and she just wanted to bury it out of sadness. Or, she could have killed it out of anger at the way John has been bringing her down all these years, and then after, she could have snapped and killed John outright. Or perhaps there is a third or fourth reason that I haven't listed.

The difference between "The White Uniform" and "Trifles" is that one story deals with the phrase "judging a book by its cover", and the other story deals more with the differences between men and women. The two stories aren't very similar, with two very diverse themes.

Stream of Consciousness

There's not much on my mind. I saw the title "Stream of Consciousness" and immediately thought of the song "Stream of Consciousness" by my favorite band of all time, Dream Theater. It's a very good song, even if it is an instrumental. But other than that, there's not much else making residence in my head. Just the usual stuff, like school and whatnot.

Actually, I do have movies on my mind. This Sunday is the Oscars. In and of itself, there's not much to be ecstatic about, but this year is different than all of the others because this year: 10 movies are battling it out for Best Picture. That's about 6 more movies than any other year that have been nominated for the prestigious award. It's also the first time that an animated movie has been nominated for Best Picture (Pixar's UP, of course) since Beauty and the Beast back in 1991. Even though I really want UP to win, it might be difficult seeing as how so many other great movies were nominated as well. I'm not going to worry about Avatar, The Blind Side, Inglorious Basterds, and Precious, but The Hurt Locker, An Education, Up in the Air, A Serious Man, and District 9 are all serious contenders. UP will of course win Best Animated Picture (it is Pixar after all), but to me that's not enough.

While this year's Oscars will be certainly be entertaining, there are some nominations that leave me wondering: why? Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen already became the secong highest grossing film of the year (right after Avatar), but from what I've heard, it is also one the worst. And yet, it has been nominated for an Academy Award. Even though it is just Sound Mixing, it still pisses me off that such a horrible movie is even getting a nomination. Also, the recent Harry Potter film, The Half-Blood Prince, received a nomination for Best Cinematography, which I think is going a little overboard. While I do enjoy the movies (the books on the other hand, I absolutely love), I don't think this year's iteration was deserving of any awards. But I bet the MTV Movie Awards will say differently. I don't know how I feel about the 4 nominations for Star Trek though. I haven't seen the movie, but from what I've heard, it's actually pretty damn good. But I have to see it to believe it.

From what I've seen, this year's Oscars look to be a fight between Up in the Air, UP, Inglorious Basterds, Avatar, Precious, and The Hurt Locker for most nominations. I can't wait until this Sunday.

Movies are the thing mostly on my mind. With that said, I guess my opening sentence is a lie. There are many a things on my mind, and most of that involve that long American fixation on cinema.