Alex Merced: Necrophillia

Brief: This is a essay I wrote about Necrophilia in film undertones, more specifically The Corpse Bride. I also wrote this essay for POPC 480 with Jeremy Wallach in the fall of 05. I also mention other films Clerks, and weekend at bernies.

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Necrophilia/Structuralism

Alex Merced

POPC 480

1. What is Structuralism?

Structuralism is a model of thought that is unique in its analytical and non-evaluative approach to paraphrase a quote by Terry Eagleton quoted in John Storeys book, Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. (Storey pg58) This is important to my studies cause it gives me the tools to ask questions beyond aesthetics, and let’s me analyze the implications of the text in an academic manner instead of just me trying to argue my taste.

Structuralism is a method I find particularly interesting and will be applying in this text later on, but first we must explain what structuralism actually is and its many evolutions. All forms of structuralism at their roots are influenced by the work of Ferdinand de Saussure. Saussure introduces the idea of the signifier and the signified in his studies of linguistics. This idea of the meaning of words and things they describe being a relationship of convention is probably one of the most important ideas that went on to evolve into the later incarnations of structuralism, the other being the syntagmatic axis of language. One last idea by Saussure is the idea of langue and parole. Langue equals the structure of a language and parole refers to actual use of the language and how without one the other does not manifest itself. Claude Levi-Strauss is the next big thinker in the world of structuralism. He applies the idea of langue and parole to a new context other than language, culture. The most important part of Levis-Strauss use of Saussure’s idea is his application of it to myths. Levis-Strauss said that myths are the parole of a culture, describing the langue of a culture. (Storey Pg.61) In what is probably the most important idea to be used in this essay, Levis-Strauss states that myths tend to follow binary oppositions such as bad/good and life/death in their articulation of a cultures langue. Many other important minds have added to what is structuralism such as Will Wright and Roland Barthes, but in the contexts of this essay we’ll be focusing on the ideas of Saussure and Levis-Strauss.

2. Necrophilia in Film

Last week I went to the film theater and saw the film The Corpse Bride, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Although, for a film marketed towards kids something kind of troubled me about the film. The plot of the film is about when a young man named Victor who's to be wed accidentally proposes to a corpse and is accidentally wed to the corpse. Now while one may assume that the actual theme of necrophilia is downplayed in the film it’s pretty up front in scenes where his living fiancée visits the priest in town to question him on the sanctity of love between man and a corpse. It even gets even more prominent towards the end of the film when the dead rise for a marriage ceremony and many of them are reunited with their loved ones left behind, many of them spouses. I initially brushed all of this off till I noticed the plot of another film seemed to have a similar theme of the living falling in love with the dead wrapped in a light-hearted family film. This film, Just Like Heaven, is a about Reese Witherspoons character who is involved in a car accident and whose ghost haunts her old apartment. A guy then moves into her old apartment and the magic begins as he can see her ghost. Later on in the film, she is found to be in a coma (flashbacks of Ghostdad anyone?).

Now, while I found this to be a new phenomenon, after asking around I found that it’s not the first time necrophilia is dealt with in a film in humorous or lighthearted tones. A few classic examples are the films “Weekend at Bernie’s” and “Clerks” which both have actual fornication with the corpses in question during the films. Although there is one key difference between these films and the ones I brought up before: both of these films where marketed to a much older crowd. So why is that nowadays it’s perfectly ok for the kids to love the dead?

3. A Structuralist Analysis of the Corpse bride

Well, now that we’re all acquainted with methods of thought and the texts I’ll be referring to, let’s apply the work of Saussure and Levis-Strauss to understand where a film like the Corpse Bride comes from. The film is sum of two very important parts, the directing of Tim Burton, and it’s basis in Russian folklore.

On one hand Tim Burton, who is known for his very dark yet innocent films, directs the film. This brings us to our very first pair of binary oppositions: innocent/guilty and light/dark, which, I believe, share a very interesting bond. The bond I’m referring to is how light is automatically associated with innocent and dark with guilty. Strauss talks about how the binary oppositions help explain life, make it logical if you will. This is where I feel Tim Burton earns his success from being able to take these binaries and take what makes them logical and shatter them. In so many of Burton’s films he features very dark yet innocent central characters such as Edward Scissorshands, Jack Skeleton, and Victor from The Corpse Bride. It’s this ability to make them Dark and Innocent that makes these characters and films so endearing. So already one can argue when Tim Burton takes upon a dark subject like necrophilia, he can add a very innocent twist, which makes it much easier to swallow. This is very apparent in the film, especially with everyone’s reactions to a lot of the events in the film, such as Emily the Corpse Bride’s very child-like demeanor and denial (or delusion) that her new marriage was an accident. So I feel that Tim Burton’s involvement is a strong part of what made the Corpse Bride’s controversial themes so accessible to the youngest of audiences.

The other half of the formula that became this film is its basis in Russian folklore. I first read about this base in folklore in a preview to the film written by Jim Slotek of Tribute.ca. (Slotek) Slotek mentions that the Corpse Bride is based on a 19^th century Russian folktale about rampant anti-Semitism and how because of it Jewish brides would often get killed after their wedding ceremonies. Once again returning to Levis-Strauss application of the ideas of langue and parole to myths, Levis-Strauss said that myths are the parole to a culture’s langue. In other words, the myth of corpse bride can help explain the system of culture of 19^th century Russia through binary oppositions. Now the most obvious opposition you can pick up on from the mention of anti-Semitism is the Jewish/non-Jewish opposition. So while this folktale was more of a ghost story told to keep Jewish brides wary of their fates, Tim Burton’s portrayal of the myth could be seen as more pro-Jewish since the bride returns to act revenge on her murderer. Now this difference between the original myth and its current retelling can really show the difference in the langue of 19^th century Russia and present day America.

So with our Structuralist monocles we’ve analyzed the producer and a text from which the producer developed the filmic text. We still have a pair of important things to analyze to really get at this from all sides. We must analyze the text itself and the consumption of the text and hopefully at the end of this analytical journey we will be closer to understanding the Necrophilia undertones in films like The Corpse Bride and Just Like Heaven.

Now you might assume that in a film like The Corpse Bride the reoccurring themes would be something along the lines of love survives death, but this is definitely not the case. What does appear to be the theme of the film is a continual insecurity about commitment, mainly in the form of marriage. This is what is constantly Victor’s dilemma in the film, not so much that he’s in the netherworld or that he is married to a corpse. So actually looking at the film the focus isn’t on anti-Semitism, darkness, necrophilia, the film is about the pre-marriage jitters. From Victor’s initial jitters to meeting his fiancée Victoria to his shock when he learns that he is married to Emily the Corpse the film keeps finding way to keep Victor insecure until the end when he matures and gladly marries Victoria. This insecurity/security opposition persistent in the film is easily applicable to the langue of today’s America. This is a common theme in films of all types, such as “The Runaway bride” or “The Sweetest Thing”. Plus it’s apparent in today’s society when people are getting married older and older, and divorce has become more accepted in our society, people are just afraid of commitment. On top of this what commitment could be scarier than an eternal commitment to a corpse?

Although while those were the themes that ran through the text itself, it’s not quite exactly how I as the consumer consumed the text. While Structuralism focuses mainly on the underlying structures of a text, I feel it’s important to understand and analyze the reactions of the consumer. By analyzing reactions from a consumer, I feel it only helps reflect cause and effect of the underlying structures of the text. Going back to an idea by Saussure that I briefly touched upon, the Syntagmatic axis of language. To elaborate on this idea, Saussure is saying that meaning is only a sum of its signifiers. (Storey pg.60) So in a linguistic example, the phrase “I am” has a different meaning than “I am tall” does due to the addition of its parts, and what it ends up signifying. To apply this idea to reading a text, the producer and the texts are just the parts, and the consumption of this is the period at the end of phrase to signify a compounding of signifiers present in both. So what I’m saying is my decoding of the Corpse Bride is result of sum of its parts, based on the idea of syntagmatic axis of language, which I am now applying to culture. Now that we establish that, what did I think of the film?

I mentioned before that I thought the film had strong Necrophiliac undertones. Given this is what I got from the film, what does this say about me, what does this say about society? When I picked up on these undertones, I felt it was something to inappropriate for a young crowd. There were many things in the film that could have been seen as inappropriate such as murder, or the lack of autonomy from forced marriage but these ideas didn’t strike the same chord with me. It could be argued that such things are apparently not as taboo in our culture as Necrophilia, which I think is a conclusion most people would agree with. So going back to binary oppositions, one could say the binary opposition being violated here is the opposition of life/death. This opposition could explain all sorts of fears and taboos such as our fears of death, the fear we get from ghost stories, or the taboo of necrophilia. Akop Nazaretyan put this pretty interestingly in an article for the Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. (Nazaretyan) Akop talks about how the death returning is the most ancient of irrational fears, and the fear of the dead returning for revenge still is feared in today’s society. This fear manifests itself in many manners, but in the end it’s part of the fabric of our culture, so when someone violates this fear of death of course it’s going to turn some heads. This film does break this binary wall, with its revenge by the dead being portrayed as a good thing. This could arguably be what made “Ghost” such an interesting film, a film that also had bizarre lesbian and necrophiliac undertones, but again that film was targeted to a much older audience. So despite everything that is going on in the film I focus on the parts of the film that most severely challenge the binary oppositions with which I was socialized.

So we’ve torn this move apart from all angles. We’ve applied the ideas of Saussure and Levis-Strauss to four very important parts of a text. The Pre-Consumption of the text, which includes the producer and former works of the producer, this also includes any outside texts from which the producer might have derived material. By analyzing the producer and the derived texts you can understand the structure of old cultures and understand the implications put in the text by the producer. Then we analyzed the aspects of consumption, which are the text and the audience reaction. Analyzing the texts helps understand what life the text took on its own, and the audience reaction tells about current cultures and societies by studying the signifier (the text) and the signified (what the text signifies i.e. “Mans Best friend” signifies a ”Dog”) and what it said about a culture’s structure. So we’ve done all this and while The Corpse Bride proved to be an interesting and complex film, can we tell why films like The Corpse Bride and Just Like Heaven are being marketed towards younger children? While I am able to determine why I would feel these films might be inappropriate for kids I don’t feel the Structuralist point of view gives me the adequate information for the marketing of a film, and without getting a kids reaction to run a model of syntagmatic axis on language I can’t really determine what it is that kids get from the film and what that could say about today’s children. What I have been able to get at is the binary opposition that makes our structure of culture by analyzing the film, which is a invaluable tool in going the next step with ethnographic research to further explore the implications of this film.
Works Cited

Story, John. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An introduction.

Great Britain: Pearson Education Limited, 2001.

Nazaretyan, Akop P. "Fear of the Dead as a Factor in Social Self-

Organization." Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour Vol. 35

Issue 2 (Jun2005): p155-169.

Slotek, Jim. "Preview: Tim Burtons Corpse Bride – A Life and Death

Situation." Tribute.ca. Uknown. Tribute.ca. Wednesday, August 24,

2005 1:33:23 PM

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Alex Merced: Emo Masculinity

Brief: This is an essay I wrote for the Pop Culture senior seminar I took with Jeremy Wallach in the fall of 05. In this essay I talk about masculine identity in the Emo Music scene using a variety of resources, but stemming from the documentary Tough Guise w/ Jackson Kats.

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Alex Merced

Emo Masculinity

POPC 480

I’m what I guess people would call, a musicphile. I love music in all its facets and spend a large amount of my time listening to as much of it as I possibly can. Believe it or not, I’m listening to music as I write this. Although as a Pop Culture Scholar I feel also inclined to step away from aesthetics and dive into a more analytical focus of even the things I hold dearest. On this note, my scholarly duties have brought me to emo music, and while I feel in an Arnoldian sense that my tastes have evolved, emo music has broken into the mainstream and it signifies several things. Emo masculinity is a reaction to the hyper masculinity increasingly present in today’s popular culture, and I hope to clarify this argument through use of Structuralist, Marxist, and Feminist theory. Notice how I said Emo Masculinity instead of Emo Identity. Most people argue that Emo Identity is a reaction Masculine identity. I believe that Emo Identity is a new form of Masculinity. This new Masculinity is not a reaction to traditional masculinity but to the hyper masculinity present in todays culture as presented in the documentary, Tough Guise, with Jackson Katz (Jhully). Using a Structuralist approach we will take a look at the binary opposites of able/not able in the sense of an ability achieve this hyper masculinity and how that could create a reaction such as emo masculinity. After that I will take a Marxist view on class and oppressive structures in relation to the ability to be hyper masculine. Essentially saying that being a middle/upper class male negates your ability to be hyper masculine. In the end I will use feminist theory to compare both identities to show the similarities of how it oppresses women by creating images of violence and objectifying women and being filled with traditional male exploits such as the pursuits for power and narcissism.

As I mentioned before, this essay centers very strongly around the idea of hyper masculinity that is the subject of the documentary, Tough Guise. (Jhully) In this documentary Jackson Katz, anti violence educator, explores the construction of masculinity and how its escalated partly due to pop culture. Here is portion of a review of the documentary in the California Newsreel (California Newsreel);

“Tough Guise focuses attention on the overwhelming, but largely overlooked statistical correlation between violent crime and gender in our society –usually over 90% male – and argues that as a result “masculinity should be designated as a public health hazard.” Katz identifies several disturbing cultural developments over the last 30 years he thinks are responsible for the current alarming epidemics of date rape, domestic violence and high school massacres as in Littleton, Colorado.”

As you can see, Katz argues about the increase in violence in our society is a result of hyper masculinity. This is another issue I plan on exploring, whether a lot of these same issues are prevalent in this new form of masculinity. I hope to determine whether how progressive this reactionary identity is and if masculinity or gender identity at all can become something that resembles progress. The film is also quite well summarized by the notes of Professor L.R. Shade from the University of Ottawa. (Shade) Some key concepts to be used in this essay are exemplified by quotes from Shades notes such as, “Invulnerability - media portrays men as the rugged individual. Look at the Marlboro Man.”, and the idea that, “Media constructs violence as a cultural norm.” (Shade)

First we must understand why any males would want to react to an identity that seeks to give them power. After all, if someone can be in charge, why wouldn’t you want to be? I feel we can understand this through a structural analysis of the binary opposition able/not able in reference to the ability to achieve this hyper-masculinity. I remember as a child being entranced by this idea of masculinity, not consciously of course. I did love pro wrestling, the Terminator and anything that revolved around violence. I was a bit of an outcast growing up, searching for a way to be embraced by society of course I looked to the images that surrounded me on how to be what society wants. I wore leather jackets and would act thick headed and stubborn around my friends. Although physically I was never intimidating, and being raised by a single mom who avoided enforcing gender roles on her children I had a very skewed ability to claim this masculinity. No matter how hard I tried I never did leave the ambiguous limbo of my gender performances. This puts me on the side of the binary of not able, so I can’t achieve the identity and the privilege that comes with it. Then there are those who are able to portray this hyper masculinity without problems; we all remember the jocks, the bullies, and others who antagonized the not able geeks, drama club kids, etc. We also remember all the privileges that came with masculinity such as social prestige, and the ability to attract women. At least that’s how it looked like to the young boy I was. So cause of this opposition, a resentment for the denial of privilege mustered up and these not ables created a new masculinity and reclaimed these privileges. If anyone takes a look at the typical “Scene Kid” they are frail, dress outside of social norm, and particularly are not what you remember as the “cool kids”, yet now your average “Scene” male seems to have the same privileges of social prestige and female attraction as the jocks of the past. So now this divide of able/not able has created a new masculinity, but what else makes someone not able.

I feel that someone’s economic class can affect their ability to achieve hyper masculinity or not. This is where I think Marxist theory comes in. Marxist theory centers around the idea of base and superstructure in the idea that the base, which is the economic base of society, effects all our institutions or superstructures. So basically ideas of identity by the base are reinforced through the superstructure of the culture industries. So while Marxism usually focuses on how the lower classes are oppressed by the upper class through oppressive images, I feel this is a great example of opposite. Peter Hitchcock, professor of literary and cultural studies at the City University of New York said, “Rather than turn one's back on the work of representation in the slide from labor as concept to labor as masculine it would be more productive to interrogate the grounds of representation within the concept that, for my purposes, complicate our historical sense of the relationship between labor and capital.”(Hitchcock) This idea that labor being masculinity I feel is a big part of why Emo is popular mainly among middle class teens. Since hyper masculinity is mainly attainable by lower class and working class people since masculinity is a function of labor, middle class kids react to claim masculine privilege by creating emo masculinity. I feel the media has reinforced this economic labor as masculine identity a lot, especially in things like pro wrestling. I used to be a big fan of Pro Wrestling as a child and it always seemed the way it always appealed to the masses was with its tale of the underdog. Having working class characters like Stone Cold Steve Austin triumph over well to do people like Vince McMahon is very prevalent. This idea of the economic underdog I feel is a big part of what it takes to be hyper masculine. This is very apparent in many of the examples Jackson Katz uses in the documentary, Tough Guise, such as John Wayne, Rocky Balboa, and others. All could be seen as lower class characters beating the odds. (Jhully) This is how the middle class is stripped of masculinity; since its economically no longer the underdog there is no underdog identity to create this hyper masculinity with. So this would create this idea of an unattainable Masculinity, which would lead to this backlash I feel the mainstreaming of Emo Music is signaling.

A lot of people might disagree with me that this backlash is the creation of a new version of masculinity, and argue that it is the creation of a new progressive identity altogether. I feel by using feminist theory and comparing both forms of identity you’ll see that despite the difference in demographics, they are very similar and lot of the problems Jackson Katz finds troubling with hyper masculinity can be found in emo masculinity. Feminist theory is very similar to Marxist theories in its study of oppressive structures with a focus on gender instead of economic class. So first let’s take a look at Jackson Katz chief complaint that hyper masculinity creates social norms of violence against women and see if this is also prominent in the world emo Masculinity. I feel emo compensates for its physical frailty and lack of tough guyness to achieve masculinity through dark and violent imagery, which usually ends up focusing on violence towards women. Look at lyrics from popular emo band, Boys Night Out, as an example of this rash of compensatory violence towards women.(Boys Night Out)

“The first time I saw a body bend that way
I realized that we're more beautiful dead than alive
Then, with bloodied flesh removed, your rib cage ripped away
And I saw why they say beauty comes from the inside”

Boys Night Out – A Torrid Love Affair

As you can see the lyrics can get quite graphic and seem to add to the appeal of the music. Although I feel Emo Masculinity shares the same oppressive violent imagery that hyper masculinity has, there are some progressive elements to it from creating acceptance for men to adopt feminine characteristics and homosexuality. On the other hand, the community ideals seems to coincide with many ideas of brotherhood which makes Emo Masculinity similar to traditional male identity. Many also associate narcissism with masculinity as well, take a look at themes of competitiveness among men in film, many can see competition as a function of narcissism. Men clearly trying to prove their dominancy are a common theme in any masculine identity. Although this idea of competition is lacking in emo identity, which is demonstrated by the community ethic of the emo scene demonstrated by its ability to network like none other and dominate community based sites like Myspace and facebook. Despite this lack of competition there is still strong sense narcissism that keeps emo identity very much masculine and misogynist. Take a look at this excerpt from Rachael Elder from the online blog, The Black Table, describing this new breed of man she calls, “The Wimpster”. (Eldar)

“The cruel irony here is that the only people whimpsters are "emo" or particularly passionate about, are themselves -- although they're known to tote around some pretty decent-sized messenger bags full of resentment and hatred toward women. But these women are the litany of ex-girlfriends who made broken promises. Assuredly, you are different. You are special.”

Not only does this touch upon the idea of narcissism but also demonstrates a lot of misogynist tones of emo identity that still make it an issue of violence against women that the hyper masculinity that Jackson Katz talked about did. One can see the prevalence of the new norm of adopting a feminine identity to be masculine in the emo scene by the popularity of wearing form fitting women’s attire and wearing make-up which you can see by looking at an image of any emo band. This can be seen as the identity blurring the lines of gender, which I feel, leads to the phenomenon that Rachael Elder also talks about in her post on The Black Table. (Eldar) She talks about how many women are suckered in by the “Wimpster” due to his feminine traits that make him seem different from other guys, yet in the end still proves to be like the rest just with a new set of issues. This illusion that they actually have feminine traits instead of performing feminine traits creates the illusion of a sensitive man. Although, if looking at it still as masculinity, you can say this masquerade is actually a play for power, another traditionally male eccentricity. This masculine play for power can seen in the first paragraph of Rachael Elders article on “The Wimpster”. (Elder)

“Initially, these guys can seem super sensitive, super "deep." You'll probably receive a mix tape or quoted song lyrics during the initial courting session. He'll spend a lot of time talking about how he relates to some sort of super-sensitive movie character or musician, or mention how much he enjoys those reruns of My So Called Life. And he's done his research. He knows chicks die for the characters in John Hughes' movies, and whimpsters bank on these characters' worst traits: The hang-ups over small, inconsequential things; the chronic need for reassurance; the grade school hints that he might just "like you like you." “

This idea of a man constructing himself to get women isn’t new, many films and shows feature plots where characters attempt to become jocks to get women, but this is a bit of a new twist. This is exactly the point made in a small comedic documentary made on how to be emo that was posted in a blog entry by Daniel Belton in his blog. (Belton) This documentary follows a kid named Billy as he tries to emulate the emo kid in school, Kyle, in an effort to get women. A very good point made by them when it states that the purpose of being emo isn’t how your image of yourself is, but how others image of you are. This demonstrates how emo masculinity isn’t a new sensitive man, but the construction of a sensitive man in order to have power over women. One thing I felt the film understated was the importance of emo aesthetic of poor quality, which it demonstrated by the emo kids enjoyment of vinyl and poorly taken pictures. I feel this is also prominent part of how masculinity gains power over women and steals power from traditional masculinity. The reason I feel this way cause it demonstrates how emo masculinity attempts to reverse the idea of aesthetics in its favor. If an emo kid is typically an outcast, if he can convince everyone there is beauty in materialist outcasts like bad photos and the pops and clicks on a vinyl, then why can’t we find beauty in him? By reversing this idea of aesthetics there is much to gain for the emo guy. First, bye making what the prior ruling party considered cultural capital culturally valuless, he now becomes culturally dominant. So now the jocks and bullies who tormented him become purveyors of bad music, taking them down a notch on the cultural ladder. By making the “Ugly” girls the new “hot” girls they can now strut around with girls who’s insecurities make it easy for this new identity construction to convince that the emo guy is a good sensitive guy. Then the guy will strut the girl around as a trophy since the girl is now beautiful by this new idea of what beauty is. So from a feminist point of view, Emo masculinity still perpetuates violence against women and is structured in a way to subvert women as trophies by making them think they are empowered by the changing aesthetics. All these ideas are all very prevalent in traditional masculinity and still now in emo masculinity. An oppressive structure? I think so.

So hopefully throughout the body of this essay I have demonstrated how Emo Identity is a reaction the escalation of traditional masculinity into hyper masculinity, yet still masculinity nonetheless. We’ve taken a Structuralist approach about how kids become emo kids cause of being on the wrong side of the binary able/not able pertaining to their ability to achieve masculinity. Then, With a Marxist analysis I have described how by being part of different social classes you are stripped of your ability to reach hyper masculinity to explain why prominently middle class kids are part of the emo scene. Finally, we took an feminist approach to find the gender oppressive structures within emo that are very similar to hyper masculinity such as images of violence towards women, narcissism, and a play for power by reversing aesthetics.

What makes emo so interesting is its ability to appear progressive and empowering in the contested terrain of gender relations. With its openness about being sensitive and frail, and embracing of homosexuals, one would see this as a step forward. In the end though Masculinity as the idea of a structure of identity that men use to attain power and oppress women still rears its ugly head and reveals a very startling realization. Masculinity is a smart beast willing to adapt to the feminist battle against oppression though clever negotiations and false empowerment. Feminist will continue to march on in this battle, but if anything is to be learned it is that we must be careful how to view future retaliations and take masculinities ability to adapt more seriously.

Works Cites

Schuster, Eli. "Barnyard droppings." Report / Newsmagazine (Alberta Edition)  05/14/2001: 

p64.

Tough Guise. Dir. Sut Jhaley. Perf. Jackson Katz. Media Education Foundation., 1999.

California Newsreal. "Tough Guise Review." California Newsreel. California Newreel. Unknown 

   date. California Newsreel. Dec. 1, 2005 <http://www.newsreel.org/films/toughguise.htm>.

Shade, L.R. "Women and Media: Notes on Tough Guise and Reviving Ophelia." University of 

               Ottowa. University of Ottowa. Unknown. February 3, 2000. California Newsreel. Dec. 1, 

               2005 <http://www.newsreel.org/films/toughguise.htm>.

Hitchcock, Peter. "What is Prior: Working Class Masculinity in Pat Bakers Trilogy." Gender.org. 

               Genders.org. 2002. Genders.org. Dec. 1, 

               2005 <http://www.genders.org/g35/g35_hitchcock.html>.

Elder, Rachael. "Meet the Wimpster." The Black Table. The Black Table. Feb 12th, 2004. The 

               Black Table. Dec. 1, 2005 < http://www.blacktable.com/elder040212.htm>.

Belton, Daniel. "Fake Famous: How to be Emo." Bakersfield.com. 

               Bakersfield.com. Jul 11th, 2005. Bakersfield.com. Dec. 1, 2005 

               < http://blogs.bakersfield.com/dbelton/2005/07/fake-famous-how-to-be-emo.html>.

Boys Night Out. "A Torrid Love Affair."Broken Bones and Bloody Kisses. One Day Savior, 2002.