Romance - an altered state of reality? FARMER WANTS A WIFE

So, The Farmer Wants a Wife is back on our screens again.  What joy!

But what does this have to do with Whose Reality I hear you ask?

Well, perhaps a lot.  What is this tv show but reality television meets a competition meets every woman's secret dream of being swept off their feet by a handsome prince/Mr Darcy/knight on a white horse...ahem...sheep farmer from South Australia?

Is it just me or are you also struck by how many of these 'contestants' are educated, intelligent, articulate women? Lawyers, geologists, veterinarians, HR specialists.  Not the sort of women who'd be short of a bloke in the city you would think.

So why is the dream of the farmer so alluring?

Dare I say it, but is it the romance of it all?

Are we as women still willing to suspend our collective realities to embrace the dream of being swept off our feet by a handsome farmer? A strong, capable man who could whisk us away from our city lives and provide us with an idyllic, simpler life, of farming and child rearing? To hell with that law degree, be gone those hard earned thesis credit points.

It seems we are, at least as viewers, as this show rates its socks off. 

Read Katherine Feeney's article in which she claims romance is women's addiction, or our one last gasp of reality avoidance.

Spies - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

According to the American Psychiatric Association (1994), post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)develops after someone is exposed to an extremely traumatic event and they reacted to the event with intense fear, horror or helplessness.

Such traumatic events include:

• war
  
• torture
  
• rape
  
• child sexual or physical assault
  
• physical assault
  
• being kidnapped
  
• terrorism
  
• a natural disaster (e.g. a bushfire, flood or cyclone)
  
• a major car accident
  
• being diagnosed with a potentially fatal illness e.g. cancer
  
• finding the body of someone who has committed suicide or been murdered

The Intrusive Symptoms include:

• Distressing thoughts or images
  
• Nightmares about the event
  
• Feeling or acting as if the traumatic event were recurring
  
• intense psychological distress when exposed to something that triggers memories of the traumatic event.
  
• Physical symptoms such as sweating, muscle tension and rapid heartbeat when exposed to things that trigger memories of the traumatic event.

PTSD can provide useful material for your Whose Reality SAC and Examination responses, particularly in relation to Spies.

In class, we reviewed a past episode of Dr Phil in which United States war veterans discussed their experiences of PTSD, and in particular, referred to experiencing an altered state of reality after enduring the trauma of wartime.  This episode, Heroes At War, was devoted to the topic and explored brain changes that occur as a result of PTSD.

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FANTASTIC WHOSE REALITY FILM FOR YOU TO WATCH

Dear Whose Reality Students,

There is a wonderful documentary airing on ABC 2 this Sunday evening the 22nd July.  Capturing the Friedmans regularly appears in best documentary lists, and is 'a non-fiction feature film that explores the elusive nature of truth through the prism of one of the strangest criminal cases in American history'.

More details about this moving film can be found here.

Don't forget to tune in and enjoy this thought provoking account of truth, illusion, perception, memory and family life.

Kind regards,

Ms Hanlon

Writing on Whose Reality

This article, written by Karen Ford, provides students with some excellent strategies for incorporating texts into the prompt.

The Wolf and the Watchman - Whose Reality?

The Wolf and the Watchman: A CIA Childhood is the tale of a man who lead a double life, told through the eye's of his son. 


This tale is told via audio on ABC's Life Matters; an excerpt from The Wolf and the Watchman was also published in The Age's 'Good Weekend' magazine and in Fairfax's Daily Life.

HOLIDAY HOMEWORK:

Please listen and read the above materials and take notes of any items of interest - anything that you may be able to use in your Whose Reality essay.  PLEASE ADD YOUR QUOTES, THOUGHTS, IDEASE to the comments section of this blog.

Kind regards,

Ms Hanlon

TANIA HEAD - what was her reality?

The fascinating story of Tania Head, a woman who falsely claimed to be a survivor of the September 11 attacks on New York's World Trade Centre, has now been documented in the newly released The Woman Who Wasn't There. 


The following articles appeared in The Age; was the focus of a Dr Phil show (now you know how I spend my holidays!); and is also covered on YouTube.

HOLIDAY HOMEWORK:

Please read and watch these clips and take notes of any aspects of this story that you could use in a Whose Reality essay.

Please add any interesting quotes or your own thoughts to the blog comments.

Thank you,  Ms Hanlon (on behalf of all of your hard working and dedicated teachers).

The End of the Affair

Today we watched Neil Jordan's The End of the Affair, the 1999 Academy Award winning film adaptation of Graham Greene's novel of the same title.  For those of you who need a refresher, detail of the plot are available here.

You may also wish to incorporate quotes from the script in your Whose Reality context response.

The most poignant (and helpful for VCE students!) lines are:

Sarah Miles (an extract from her diary): Sometimes I get tired of trying to convince him that I love him and shall love him forever. He pounces on my words like a barrister, and twists them.

Maurice Bendrix: So what will you do when it ends?

Sarah: You think love ends when you don’t see me?

Maurice: To be, is to be perceived.