Ethan is not a fit the boxes kind of guy
Feb. 12th, 2006 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabeththe orange highlighter will not stay on its own side of the page. stick with yellow I will have to. but the new pen makes these little dots at the end of words that are beginning to irritate me.
I highlighted back at the beginning of the textbook.
Norms, values, statuses and roles.
It being the simplified definition bit it has a lot about how its all necessary for everyone to agree and fit the boxes in order to get everything working smoothly.
Ethan is not a fit the boxes kind of guy.
In class we heard about how if people break role, or deliberately act in a role that is inappropriate or unusual for them, it tends to really wind people up. Roles are about being predictable, and unpredicatable bugs people.
I have a fic bunny about how Ethan and Giles broke up - and not because of Eyghon. Because of Chaos. Because there's this bit in the Chaos magic book about understanding different ways of seeing the world by becoming that kind of person for a while - like understanding Christians by going to church and all that for a while. So in my head Ethan decided that would be cool and useful, and went and tried on different places for size. Or different roles, in textbook language. And it would drive anyone nuts who was living with him, because he wouldn't be the same him one day to the next. Unpredictable, and not just in a 'what crazy thing will he do next?' fun times way, but in a 'will he act like my boyfriend today or not?' way. No putting up with that.
Also, it really annoys people if they think you are *playing* a role. Faking it, I mean. If you are imitating or acting like someone you aren't, that really winds people up. Like its a big systematic lie about who you are. And also, it kind of undermines the system, if people can fake parts of it.
Book said that gender is an ascribed status. Born that way and cannot change. Obviously this is the simplified bit of the book (it says so at the end of the definitions section). Because some people do change. But, other people tend to get wound up by the idea. Because they're messing with things other people think of as solid maybe? Or like with roles, not liking when people 'fake' them?
But you can change roles and status and stuff too. Like, occupational status. You can change jobs. And once you've learned the new job you aren't considered to be faking it and 'really' a whatever-you-were-before, right?
Except now I've said that I'm sure it isn't always true.
The book used clothing as a specific example of norms. There are lots of norms about clothing. And of course I went and started thinking about Halloween again, because I always do. Changing everyone into their clothes.
Clothes go with roles, right? Like, business suit, business role. Or doctor coat and doctor role. If you try being a patient in a doctor coat, much confusion.
So in that way, all the rest of the time, people assume a lot about how you are going to act by how you dress. Norms about clothes connect up with roles, and people think predictable behaviour goes with particular clothes.
Only on Halloween it isn't so much the clothes as the *time*, the role on Halloween is all about it being that day of the year, not any other markers.
Halloween clothes on other days of the year, very different reaction.
So Ethan spell made everyone be acting like the role they looked like, ignoring what the day was.
There was a bit in the cut bits of the script that made it clear Giles dressed tweedy because he was being teacher-role. Which is clear from later changes in clothes when he isn't in school any more, too. But Giles chose the role and then the clothes to go with it. Costume people chose the clothes and spell squished them into roles.
Okay, I'm not sure I'm using words right or making any sense. I go do something else.
Everything in my head connects to Buffy. That doesn't mean its all good connections.
I highlighted back at the beginning of the textbook.
Norms, values, statuses and roles.
It being the simplified definition bit it has a lot about how its all necessary for everyone to agree and fit the boxes in order to get everything working smoothly.
Ethan is not a fit the boxes kind of guy.
In class we heard about how if people break role, or deliberately act in a role that is inappropriate or unusual for them, it tends to really wind people up. Roles are about being predictable, and unpredicatable bugs people.
I have a fic bunny about how Ethan and Giles broke up - and not because of Eyghon. Because of Chaos. Because there's this bit in the Chaos magic book about understanding different ways of seeing the world by becoming that kind of person for a while - like understanding Christians by going to church and all that for a while. So in my head Ethan decided that would be cool and useful, and went and tried on different places for size. Or different roles, in textbook language. And it would drive anyone nuts who was living with him, because he wouldn't be the same him one day to the next. Unpredictable, and not just in a 'what crazy thing will he do next?' fun times way, but in a 'will he act like my boyfriend today or not?' way. No putting up with that.
Also, it really annoys people if they think you are *playing* a role. Faking it, I mean. If you are imitating or acting like someone you aren't, that really winds people up. Like its a big systematic lie about who you are. And also, it kind of undermines the system, if people can fake parts of it.
Book said that gender is an ascribed status. Born that way and cannot change. Obviously this is the simplified bit of the book (it says so at the end of the definitions section). Because some people do change. But, other people tend to get wound up by the idea. Because they're messing with things other people think of as solid maybe? Or like with roles, not liking when people 'fake' them?
But you can change roles and status and stuff too. Like, occupational status. You can change jobs. And once you've learned the new job you aren't considered to be faking it and 'really' a whatever-you-were-before, right?
Except now I've said that I'm sure it isn't always true.
The book used clothing as a specific example of norms. There are lots of norms about clothing. And of course I went and started thinking about Halloween again, because I always do. Changing everyone into their clothes.
Clothes go with roles, right? Like, business suit, business role. Or doctor coat and doctor role. If you try being a patient in a doctor coat, much confusion.
So in that way, all the rest of the time, people assume a lot about how you are going to act by how you dress. Norms about clothes connect up with roles, and people think predictable behaviour goes with particular clothes.
Only on Halloween it isn't so much the clothes as the *time*, the role on Halloween is all about it being that day of the year, not any other markers.
Halloween clothes on other days of the year, very different reaction.
So Ethan spell made everyone be acting like the role they looked like, ignoring what the day was.
There was a bit in the cut bits of the script that made it clear Giles dressed tweedy because he was being teacher-role. Which is clear from later changes in clothes when he isn't in school any more, too. But Giles chose the role and then the clothes to go with it. Costume people chose the clothes and spell squished them into roles.
Okay, I'm not sure I'm using words right or making any sense. I go do something else.
Everything in my head connects to Buffy. That doesn't mean its all good connections.