Billy Strayhorn

Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevard” and Judy Grahn’s “I Have Come to Claim Marilyn Monroe’s Body” both detail how the intense Hollywood cult of celebrity can lead to dizzying heights of fame, transforming ordinary people into worldwide stars with legions of adoring fans and admirers. Such fame and notoriety, however, does not come without a cost. Both Norma and Marilyn, Hollywood stars of these respective narratives, came to see the fame that once dominated their lives devolve into a destructive…

novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, is about the life of protagonist Billy Pilgrim, and his experiences in World War II and his adventures as a result of being “unstuck in time.” Billy being exposed to the idea of no free will through time travel and an alien species, discovers that “among the things [he] could not change were the past, the present, and the future” (Vonnegut, pg 60). In Slaughterhouse-Five, a lack of belief in free will causes Billy Pilgrim’s passive listlessness and the atrocity of…

In Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Billy Pilgrim follows a non-chronological journey while being “Unstuck in time”. As Billy is captured and held as a prisoner in a POW camp and then taken to Dresden during its bombing, he experiences many atrocities. Once the bombing was over, Billy and the other soldiers are put to work, digging up the diseased bodies of those who did not survive. After the war, Billy has trouble returning to his normal life, as he spends some time in a mental…

Margot Robbie does a fantastic job as the former figure skater Tonya Harding in a comedic biopic directed by Craig Gillespie who, despite the spirited tones engendered to dissect this polemic story, didn’t surpass his 2007 comedy “Lars and the Real Girl”. If the cited Australian actress got our eye through a fine performance, the Ohio-born Allison Janney, who plays her mother, LaVona, is absolutely insuperable. Curiously, Janney aspired to become a champion skater at a younger age, but an…

process of transitioning into new phases of life is both challenging and rewarding for individuals and their communities, this can be seen in the film “Billy Elliot” directed by Stephen Daldry. He repeatedly uses filmic devices such as various camera angles and numerous tones of dialogue to display Billy’s radical transition into his new life. Just as Billy transitions to reach his goals Michaela DePrince overcomes many obstacles that can be seen in the New York Daily News Article titled…

Transitions, influenced by interactions with others, enable a person to overcome obstacles that restrain them to transition. Billy Elliot, the film directed by Stephen Daldry, and Jennifer Niven’s novel Holding Up The Universe both explore transitions through defying social standards and acceptance. Billy Elliot explores transitions of Billy entering a world of ballet in the disapproving society of Durham during the Miners Strike. Holding Up The Universe explores the transition of Libby Strout,…

If a picture says a thousand words, so how many words does a meme equal? Numerous people in today’s society are not in favor of the Obama era, so various jokes and stabs in the form of memes are targeted toward our 44th president. The memes listed above are both categorized as amusing because of several unique factors that we will discuss later, and how these details allow them to be entertaining. This paper shall explore how the fun factor is achieved by the history of the allusions featured,…

Several people use social media every day to keep in touch with out of state family, to look at what is happening in the world, to read, and look at what people post on Facebook. Social media is an electronic communication that people can post anything they want on there, so that their friends and family can see it. Numerous young teenagers and celebrities do careless acts, so that they can get attention from their audiences. There are three sources that will help support my argument and they…

“Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define establish, and achieve equal political, economic, personal, and social rights for women. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment.” Before we begin to answer whether or not Miley Cyrus is a feminist, we need to understand the true meaning of what feminism really is. Meanings range from an array of options, however, it comes down to…

When people turn 18 years old the first thing one can think of is that they are finally a legal adult. They can vote, take part in lottery drawings, and buy cigarettes. However, these are important hurdles to pass for some, but they do not classify people as adults. “Research has highlighted how the degree of endorsement of such and other adulthood-related criteria (e.g., going through legal and biological transitions involving age boundaries and physical growth, respectively) during the…