Ethnography

Brittani Crawford
ENGL 313 HON
Popular Culture
September 12th, 2009

Ethnography

I sat at a Starbucks in the rich area of Valencia, people watching, while I waited for my work shift at Six Flags to near. The first interaction I noticed was between an older couple, male and female in their late fifties. The woman wore a tight jogging outfit and was still slender. The man wore flip-flops and loose clothing. The man and woman sat comfortably, but not intimately, close together, drinking coffee and talking. The man has brought his dog along, which is named “Albus” I noticed with a smile. He is gentle and attentive to his dog, and brought it water in a plastic bowl.
The second interaction was between two mothers, each with two children sitting next to them around a table. One mother is quiet and reserved, and her children are similar in behavior. The other mother is an animated speaker, and does most of the talking in this female friendship. The louder mother yells and threatens her children with punishment if they continue being uncooperative. She is embarrassed by them, and tries not to cause a scene. Her children ignore her and she, in turn, ignores them. The youngest child is content to occupy herself. The two older boys chatter endlessly together while the older girl stares off, neither participating in, nor listening to anyone else while she stares at her own reflection in the window.
A third interaction was between two male friends. They both came laden with laptops and text books. They choose a table outside, and one leaves to buy the coffee. They sit somewhat far from each other, but talk and laugh easily. They are obviously studying, and look to be of college age. Each buys their own coffee. They don’t seem intimate at all, except in a friendly way.
I briefly see a young mother, led by a hand holding her adventurous three year old. She shares her drink with her toddler, and is very content with spending time with him. She is patient and loving.
I see a family leave Starbucks. The father and mother are attempting to keep hyperactive children (a boy and girl, about five or six) close to them. The daughter is loud and playful with the other children she sees outside. Her father, embarrassed by his child’s innocent interest in others, apologizes to other parents for her behavior and attempts to load them into the car without further incident.
Watching all of these people carry on with their normal relationships was an eye opening experience. It became quite evident that, within any relationship, there must be one person that is the aggressor and one that is passive. This balance is not always distinct from the first moment, but it becomes clear as conversation and interaction between two people occurs. Further, in every relationship there was a struggle for power. Not only between males and females, but between a pair of the same sex, between parents and children, between man and dog. As Barker states: "Gender is an organizing principle of social life thoroughly saturated with power relations" (Pg. 377, Barker). Typically between the male and female relationships, the male was dominant and would be the one to go get coffee, or would ask the female to get napkins or a lid. Between the mothers and children, the mother would appear to be giving the child power over a situation (i.e. 'You can go buy another muffin for you and your sister, if you want to?'), though she was the one controlling the situation, in reality. Between same sex relationships with two men, they would each fend for themselves, which showed that neither would accept subjugation from the other, while in same sex relationships between two women, the more masculine or outspoken of the two would impose dominance over the other and buy the coffee for the two of them.
Between some parents and children, as much as a parent might attempt to hide the fact that they have no real control over their children, it is quite apparent. The child seems to know that a parent will not discipline them openly in public because they have shown weakness or embarrassment in a similar situation previously.
It was interesting to see that Tamar McDonald’s statement that, basically, money buys love appears to be true. The idea that the romantic comedy influences us in our daily lives and relationships is quite interesting: “…even now in the twenty-first century, women are still supposed to be more interested in gossip, relationships and clothes than important topics…the romantic comedy possibly encourages the men in the audience to remake themselves as fitter, more glamorous and possessing more and better consumer durables…the ideology with underpins [romantic comedy] seeks to sell love, and products, to everyone.” Pages 16-17, Romantic Comedy, McDonald). While watching the dynamics of the relationships of the people, it became evident that simple rituals, such as having coffee at Starbucks, seem to support this claim that money can buy love. We pay for coffee so that we can enjoy something common together. Coffee, in this situation, is the catalyst of conversation, and somewhat dictates the length of a conversation (I.e. you run out of coffee and the conversation tends to end soon after). While the two mothers were attempting to have a conversation together, their children continued to interrupt, so the louder mother ended up giving the child money to go buy pastries inside, which might give the children a distraction and make them happy.
As Barker notes in Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice, "subjectivity and identity are contingent, culturally specific productions...identities are wholly social constructions and cannot 'exist' outside of cultural representations...personhood is inseparable from a network of kinship relations and social obligations" (Page 216, Barker). It seemed that some of the interactions of relationships that I witnessed were rather forced, perhaps out of habit or even social obligation rather than actual interest in the relationship. Perhaps, in the parts of society where there are no deeper worries than getting the car washed and taking the kids to soccer practice, the people of these relationships have the luxury of being fake and maintaining appearances, thereby improving their reputation as being a nice person. This reminds me of a moment in Ellis' The Rules of Attraction, where Victor goes to an REM concert and smiles at a girl with her boyfriend, who 'made a gagging look and turned back to the band'. Victor then comments, "And I got really disgusted and started thinking, what was this gir's problem? Why couldn't she have been nice and smiled back? Was she worrying about imminent war? Was she feeling real terror? Or inspiration? Or passion? That girl, like all the others, I had come to believe, was terminally numb. The Talking Heads record was scratched maybe or perhaps Dad hadn't sent the check yet. That was all this girl was worried about...Why did she have to act so fucking cool? And that's what it all came down to: cool: I wasn't being cynical about that bitch and her asshole boyfriend. I really believed that the extent of their pitiful problems didn't exceed too far from what I thought. They didn't have to worry about keeping warm or being fed or bombs or lasers or gunfire...but then I came to understand sitting there that these problems and the pain they felt were genuine...Other people might not sympathize with this couple's problems and maybe they didn't really matter in the larger realm of things--but they mattered to Jeff and Susie; these problems hurt them, these things stung...Now that's what struck me as really pathetic." (Pages 273-274, Ellis). As Ellis critiques in this passage of his novel, the superficial members of privileged societies tend to live in a world completely free from actual problems. Many of their relationships are built on nothing more than beneficial social connections, and no actual warmth and affection.