The Theater Life

When reading a short article about The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman, I felt there was some similarity towards the Codes on Gender video we watched. One piece that stood out was the roles for characters vs people in the everyday life.

Theater Life

One example is the military man; he is supposed to be the strong and show no weakness towards others. Then in another case a veteran can be diagnosed with chronic disease and shows emotions and a sense of hopelessness. The first example is something we expect that the young man is strong and independent but the veteran is a different manner with more emotions. What if we switched the situation and made the young man weak and veteran strong. Would we put them in different groups and be harsh on them saying they are not living the role they should be. In the theaters, the actors portray what everyday life is, our roles for different people either male or female or age. I get a sense that sometimes we can relate to actors or actresses, thinking that could be us in that situation. I wonder if we try to push these roles on society too much or we just accept them.

This article does show resemblance to the Codes of Gender, but I feel that the times are changing. The old phrase of  “sex sells” is still working, but I feel that we trying to move away slowly from it. Even this past weekend in the Super Bowl, I watched the commercials and a majority of them had more humor. There were a few sex appeals commercials but not many. I feel that a change is coming and coming soon….