...will have her revenge on Seattle...

The phrase that I was researching was Frances Farmer. Obviously, it is a name and not a phrase, but it is one that was somewhat familiar to me before I begun my research, but I could not remember where from. As soon as I started to look for it, it was clear to me where I had heard it before. It was the name taken for a song title by the band Nirvana in the early 1990s. I had always wondered where they decided to title their song from, and this was the perfect way for me to find out, but I would soon hit many speed bumps in trying to determine exactly who Frances Farmer was.

It was easy enough to find out what her claim to fame was: Farmer was an actress in the 1930s and 40s who became quite a controversial character by being abrasive with Hollywood actors and producers. She also tended to rub anyone the wrong way that she disagreed with. After several years of behaving in this manner she was legally put in the care of her mother and committed to a mental health institution where she underwent hydro and shock therapy and eventually received a partial labotomy before being released (Walter and McDonald). Almost every source I encountered highlighted this facet of her life, so I find it very believable as well as the supposition that this is the main reason her story remains famous. However, beyond these basic facts, it was hard to find information on her. Typically, people simply refer to her in order to make a different point about another subject. So, I had managed to explain her in the context of the piece, “Hey Girl, Is Your Daddy Home?” but I felt I needed to learn more about who she was to complete my research.

Eventually, I came across an article, from Literature Film Quarterly, that noted that there was a movie released in 1982 that covered the story of Frances Farmer's life. The article approached the movie critically, but compared it to accounts of Farmer's life through her own autobiography as well as another one of the sources I had found, Shadowland, a biography of her life written by William Arnold. Reading through the article I was interested to learn that much of the movie was sensationalized, but that Farmer's life had actually been difficult as a result of her mother's exploitive treatment of her. Her mother had conspired with Hollywood producers to star Farmer in highly profitable motion pictures at any cost to Farmer herself. The result was Farmer lashing out against the public, as well as significant figures in her life. This left no one to support her when she got into trouble with the law and was turned over to her mother's care. Her mother subsequently had her committed, in a final act of exploitive behavior and service to her own self-interests (Waite).

It was interesting to learn so much about someone who has become the pop culture reference when referring to the injustices and loss of personality that seem to occur around institutionalization, but it certainly took a large amount of time. I was surprised to find so little information present on such an icon. I think the best way to obtain information would be to read the entirety of Shadowland and analyze the information in there. I would also like to find her autobiography, but it seems to have disappeared with time and cannot be found in the Georgia State Library. An interesting character, to say the least, and now, whenever I'm trying to refer to the injustices of harsh institutional treatment, I can point to the example of Frances Farmer, and know what I'm talking about.

Because I chose the movie, CB4, as my project, I decided to focus my research efforts on the main creator of the movie rather than the director. Chris Rock undoubtedly has more to do with the movie than the director. I ended up researching both just in case, and I found my assumption to be true. The director of the movie generally directed TV shows, and other movies that are not in dire need of great direction. I researched Chris Rock since I felt that his story would have much more correlation to the movie, and my researching proved correct. As the writer, producer, and main actor of the movie, it was obvious that the film belonged to Rock.

The first place I knew to look when researching about anyone who has any part in film is the Internet movie database, or IMBD for short. Imbd.com was a great resource in researching both the movie and Rock himself. It contains a lot of information about movie components in a specific detailed manner, such as who was in the movie, what other movies they've been in, when the movie was made, etc. It also contains short biographies of individual actors, but not in too much detail. The site is a great starting point when trying to discover anything in this area, but unfortunately, it is a lot like wikipedia in that it is user edited. It pointed me in one great direction indicating that Rock had written a book. I'll get back to the book later, but first I wanted to cross-reference some of the material with a more reliable source, so I next checked yahoo movies.

Yahoo movies is a bit more reliable because it isn't a composite piece made by many users, but rather a database composed by some group whose job it is to ensure accurate information. Sometimes they can be a bit lacking since not everyone is a superstar worth writing tons about, but with Chris Rock's super-stardom, it was full of information about him. Many of the facts lined up between these two sites. The only problem is that there is a good chance that some IMBD facts could have come from yahoo movies. So I googled his book to see what I could find from that.

Unfortunately, the book seemed to be nothing more than stand up by Rock in written form. I didn't actually find a print copy of the book, but all the reviews indicated that it was funny, but that it was simply a collection of comedic routines rather than a serious biography. I then realized that maybe the best source about Rock's life would be his stand up routines.

Of course, every comedian embellishes in order to enhance the comedy of their stories, but Rock's routines often times involve factoids about his life that don't seem to be overblown. In the end, I realized that there aren't too many sources of information on Chris Rock that aren't from a short interview, or a comedy sketch, or a quick biography on a website designated to movies. I guess that might be one of the problems of being an actor that performs comedy – no one takes you seriously enough to write much of an honest biography.

Teenage Wasteland

Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia's Dead End Kids was a book written by Donna Gaines about youth culture in America. Specifically, the book targets troubled youth in the form of rock 'n' roll kids in the 80s and 90s. I read the introduction to this book and gathered both the basis for the writers decision to write the book as well as her own credibility in writing it. Gaines starts by pointing out that her decision to write the book is based on her journalistic investigation of a teenage suicide pact in 1987. Four teenagers committed suicide together and she was dispatched by her newspaper, The Voice, to write a story on the subject. She then realizes upon investigating the incident that she had lost touch with youth culture. She explains that she has always felt that she was in touch with youth because she describes how her own youth was troubled. She grew up as an outcast rocker who had problems common among youths such as drugs, sexual deviance, and other teenage vice. However, she goes on to explain that she had eventually grown out of such habits and focused more on family and professional life. As a result she felt like she had eventually lost her grasp on what modern teens were experiencing. When she began investigating the suicide pact, she began to question what it was about modern teens that drove them to behave in the way that they did. She also found that the boundaries of social status did not affect how teens felt or behaved. She noticed that poor urban youth seemed to display traits similar to wealthy suburban youths.
Gaines' book obviously targets youth in a time that may not touch on hip hop culture directly, but the book seems to target youth aggression and its impact on society. Although her focus is on rock 'n' roll youths, the subject may be applicable to hip hop as well, especially when considering how one of the largest demographics of listeners to gangster rap is suburban youth. I think this book would be a fascinating read because it would address the issue of why youth need such heavy outlets for aggression. It may provide insight into why youth feel such aggression and what possible solutions might be available. It could also say that the sharing of aggressive music is a way to safely vent such frustrations. I would certainly need other sources if I wanted to tie this into a paper that addressed hip hop impact on youth culture, but this book could prove to be a huge resource when analyzing modern teens.

MC Solaar

MC Solaar is a hip hop artist whose cultural surroundings contribute greatly to what makes up his unique sound. Solaar was born in Senegal. His parents had Chadian origin. Later they immigrated to France. Solaar's large African as well as French background shape much of his sound. The decision by Solaar to take elements of French culture and incorporate them into his music has given him an edge on other hip hop artists. While Solaar doesn't necessarily take samples for all of his songs, many of the songs that he does sample are French in their origin. One famous sample that he took was from another prominent musician, Serge Gainsbourg. Gainsbourg gained international recognition for his music decades earlier. By sampling one of Gainsbourg's hits, Solaar was able to establish his own reputation internationally. Later, Solaar would collaborate with well known American performers gaining success in America as well as France. This is quite an accomplishment for anyone since hip hop seems to be so language dependent, and Solaar speaks French. Much of the credit for his success is how he conveys much of his message through tone as well as language. Solaar is also widely revered in Africa for his French hip hop. Due to his origins and use of a language that many Africans recognize helped contribute to his success. One of the things that makes Solaar's music different as a result of his culture is possibly that his music appeals to such a broad age spectrum. It is arguable that catering to a more age diverse group is something that one might have to consider when producing music in France. Solaar is credited with having created music that isn't limited to a young generation of listeners, but rather that his music appeals to a large age demographic and is enjoyed by people of varying ages. In the U.S., hip hop is rarely credited with appealing to any of the older demographics of Americans. Another contribution that French society has had on Solaar's music is that he tackles problems that affect French culture. While these problems are certainly not unique to France, they are the root of the reason that Solaar chooses to focus on them.

Peer review

For me the peer review session on Monday went far better than I expected it to. I was a bit skeptical based on the performance of my English 1101 class. In that class most people who read my papers just told me that it was good. This time I actually got some productive feedback. I don't think I was that great last semester, or that bad this one, but I do think that I had better reviewers and I also think I benefited greatly from the question sheet that we worked off of. It might have been a bit demanding to find 3 good and 3 bad from both prospectives, given the amount of time and length of essays, but having a format to follow really seemed to help. I know it helped me analyze the papers I read. I was guilty of sometimes getting lost during review sessions without a guide, so I enjoyed the fact that I had something to give some order to the process. I think it might be better to have the guide as an optional thing. Some of the questions weren't really relevant to what I had to critique about. Other questions seemed to be a bit more like a reading quiz that a critique sheet (ie. The point of the essay question). Overall, I thought it went really well and hopefully I'll be able to use the criticism I got well and revise my own essay to a higher standard.