{"id":3900,"date":"2013-10-31T16:49:28","date_gmt":"2013-10-31T20:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arts.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=3900"},"modified":"2013-10-31T16:49:28","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T20:49:28","slug":"10-reasons-why-fitzgerald-not-the-president-knows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2013\/10\/31\/10-reasons-why-fitzgerald-not-the-president-knows\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Reasons why Fitzgerald (not the president) Knows"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

So I read \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Great Gatsby\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in 10th grade. I was 15, living in suburbia and confused about the major topics in the novel–racism and eugenics, gangster\/mob culture, and perceiving reality (alcohol).
\n<\/span>I loved it then. And I love it now. Rereading the book for my Visual Cultures of the Modern Novel class has been such a treat. I now get things that are going on in the novel that weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t talked about in my high school class (everything is homoerotic). And I feel that Fitzgerald, in describing the 20\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, describes college and he KNOWS my interactions with the world.
\n<\/span>1. Friday, Friday, Gotta Get Down on Friday:<\/span><\/p>\n

Daisy: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (16). Friday should be the longest day of the week–a day I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have class, a day where I wake up and cope from watching Scandal with a workout, a day where I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t leave my apartment until 9pm. But all of a sudden I wake up in a haze with the sun attacking my eyes and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Saturday. Boo hiss. Friday over.
\n<\/span>2. Everyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stupid and everything hurts:<\/span><\/p>\n

Tom: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so dumb he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s alive\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (30). Tom gets few things besides racism, classism, sexism, ableism, and ageism. But the other thing he knows is that most people I interact with don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re alive. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Woah, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m white–what does that mean? I have privilege?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d My response: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153oh, another one of you non-alive folks.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Or those people who ask me if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m dressed up in costume on Halloween (today!) and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m in regular clothes (peacock earrings, harem pants, tie-dye shirt, neon coat, stilettos). \u00c2\u00a0These non-alive people are worse than zombies and at least Tom (and I) call them out.
\n<\/span>3. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all gonna die:<\/span><\/p>\n

Myrtle: \u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t live forever, you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t live forever\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (40). She gets this whole mortal thing (and this being-unto-death thing). As the first(?) character to die, she gets the #yolo life. While I will hopefully live more than once, more than 5 is a bit much–Myrtle understands. I refuse to JUST #yolo, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m ok with dying after one too many.
\n<\/span>4 . To be a freshman is to thirsty:<\/span><\/p>\n

Nick: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (45). Everyone at Gatsby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s party just shows up. WHAT. Its like all those nasty freshman that appear out of nowhere, all wearing AP Government shirts or their greek life paraphernalia, that drink the whole keg and then flirt with literally everyone. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the best when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re at a small house party and the freshman flock to show up, finding 15 people discussing cultural appropriation and some good speakers. Come at me, freshman!
\n<\/span>5. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to leave this gem hear:<\/span><\/p>\n

Owl Eyes: \u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (50).
\n<\/span>6. And this:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcAnyhow he gives large parties,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 said Jordan, changing the subject with an urban distaste for the concrete. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcAnd I like large parties. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re so intimate. At small parties there isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t any privacy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (54).
\n<\/span>7. OH, AND THIS:<\/span><\/p>\n

Young Lady: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u02dc[R]each me a rose, honey, and pour me a last drop into that there crystal glass\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (65).
\n<\/span>8. Everyone is reckless:<\/span><\/p>\n

Gatsby: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI tried very hard to die but I seemed to bear an enchanted life\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (70). Sometimes you are out until 5am, sometimes you are awake in the library until 5am with marker smudges all over your face, sometimes you drink 2 pots of coffee a day, sometimes you sleep 12 hours to cope, sometimes you eat only hummus, sometimes you j-walk like life isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t real and its raining and you jump into a bush to avoid a car (unlike Myrtle). Everyone is so intense but if the world likes us, we live to see tomorrow.
\n<\/span>9. People troll and derail pretty much everything.<\/span><\/p>\n

Narrator: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The automatic quality of Gatsby’s answer set us all back at least another minute\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (92).
\n<\/span>10. Aesthetics are real. Everything is Campy. <\/span><\/p>\n

Daisy: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re such beautiful shirts,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcIt makes me sad because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never seen such–such beautiful shirts before\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (98).
\n<\/span>The Great Gatsby might infuriate you. It might inspire you. It might make you nostalgic or make you happy that this century is not a teenager. But, either way, it gets some things. Gets them well.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I read \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Great Gatsby\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in 10th grade. I was 15, living in suburbia and confused about the major topics in the novel–racism and eugenics, gangster\/mob culture, and perceiving reality (alcohol). I loved it then. And I love it now. Rereading the book for my Visual Cultures of the Modern Novel class has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[428,429,245,434,432,430,431,433,265,427],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3900"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3900"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3903,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3900\/revisions\/3903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}