Please post your response to Roxane Gay's short essay here. It can be pretty open ended, but some things you may want to address are the overall structure or language of the piece; the way Gay inserts herself into the narrative; the comment on race; the comment on genre (various genres really); the way this essay complicates or engages with ideology/pop culture; etc.
Your response should be no less than 150 words.
“I was Once Miss America” by Roxanne Gay is written in first person speaking about the past. Gay places herself in the center of tis narrative beginning with her young far away dream of becoming miss America after being inspired by Vanessa Williams. Ms. Williams was the first black woman to be crowned as Miss America therefore allowing Roxanne to believe that she too was or could beautiful despite her differences and appearance. This dream later turned into a desire to be like the Wakefield twins in Sweet Valley High. She begins to desire to be popular and accepted by said popular crowd. Gay seems to devalue herself in comparison to a race not of her own by continuing to strive to be someone else rather than becoming a better version of herself. At the end, after placing so much value and importance on these ideals and fiction books, she bashes the latest series and comes up with a new, also not very realistic, dream for herself.
ReplyDeleteIn “I Once Was Miss America” was a pretty standard essay in terms of structure. It starts with her explaining her childhood misfortunes and her love of reading as a getaway. She tells all of this is the first person centered around her actions as well as her thoughts. She comments on race because when she was younger she was one of the very few darker skinned students in elementary school. This was most of the reason why she was bullied and treated as an outsider.
ReplyDeleteGay was also able to compare her life in grade school to one of her novel that she loved to read and how both her life and the fictional characters were complete opposite. She wished she had the life of her fictional character but at the same time she knew it was very rare and almost impossible. She then ends her essay brining up how girls from both sides of the world and of different racial status can be completely different but books can affect everyone in the same way.
The short story “ I Once was Miss America” brought race up as one of the main topics. The author was a black woman herself and she shares how much media influenced her and her opinions about the world and even herself. She mentions how she suffered from bullying in school for being the only black student (other than her own brother), and how she started to believe in herself and even build a fantasy life due to the first black woman to win the Miss America. She used that as an argument at school with her bullies. She also mentions how literature (Summer Valley Girls) also built her confidence up. She seemed to be lost in a fantasy world, and even after growing up and getting a job and maturing, she still had crazy dreams. Some might find it unrealistic and even unhealthy, but in my opinion she got through her hard times by escaping into books and dreams.
ReplyDeleteGay starts the essay talking about Ms. Williams who was the first black Miss America. Gay talks about a book series called "Sweet Valley High" describing the characters with almost a longing tone voicing her dream of someday being crowned Miss America. She compared her life to the characters in the books and noted how opposite their lives were compared to her and the struggles she faced. The sentences are short and fragmented, with a casual tone. She talks about her past, sharing how she was one of the one dark skinned kids during school, causing her to be bullied and singled out a lot. She longed for acceptance like the Wakefield twins received in the novel. She was finally able to stand up to her bullies saying she would one day be Miss America, reminding her classmates of this regularly which only resulted in more torment. She longed to be like the characters in her book, fantasizing different scenarios where she was successful and admired. Reading these books gave her comfort to strive to be who she wanted and helped her realize that just because she was black didn't mean she was any less of a person or any less capable of doing things than anyone else. She tried to become someone else, rather than embrace who she was, because of the way she viewed herself based on what she would read. She concludes her essay by saying that despite how girls all over the world can be completely different but "books are far more than just books".
ReplyDeleteI liked how you talk about how the authors goes into detail about how the books helped her as a child. I also liked you use of quotes.
Delete"I Once Was Miss America" by Roxane Gay is a short essay that describes the characters and the life of Sweet Valley High, her life as a child, and her love of reading. Roxane expresses how much she admires Vanessa Williams, the first African American women to win the Miss America contest. She admires Williams because she was a women of color who had achieved an amazing goal in life, which gave her hope. Later in the essay, Roxane describes how she obsessed over the characters from Sweet Valley High, the high school in a book she read, because she thought they were beautiful and had perfect features. She would always compare the people, behaviors, and situations that occurred in the book to those that occurred in her real life because she desired to live a life like the characters of Sweet Valley High as opposed to her own life.
ReplyDeleteI also saw how she desired to be like the characters of her favorite series by how much she "day dreamed" about it and escaped her reality that might have not always been perfect. She spent the whole story comparing herself to something different than what she was, either that being Miss America, Summer Valley's characters or even at the end her new dream.
DeleteI Once Was Miss America was an interesting article. It begins with talking about how a black women had just won Miss America for the first time. This shows us right from the start of the article that it will have a race element. This being said, the author continues this by saying how it gave black girls everywhere an amazing feeling. As the article moves along she begins to talk about the book series known as Sweet valley. She explains that she was deeply in love with these books and tried to relate to them as much as she could.She loved them so much as a child that her nostalgia drove here o buy the book that came out based of the same series Sweet Valley. When she reads it she realizes that it is not written very well and overall not that good of a book. It shows us how are emotions can lead us to make decisions that are not necessarily the best ones to make. The author also had a habit of putting herself in the story. What I mean by this is that she would use personal stories to help describe her point. I like how she did this because it helped bring credibility to her argument.
ReplyDeleteIn "I was once Miss America" by Roxane Gay is a story about how a woman named Vanessa Williams became the first black woman in history to become Miss America. This was a huge step for black woman because at this time they were still very segregated and her winning Miss America helped them move a few steps forward. The story then goes onto talk about a place called Sweet Valley. This was a quiet town in southern California that is the picture perfect neighborhood. Every lawn is perfectly cut and the people there are flawless and everyone seems to be doing very well for themselves. The author goes into detail about this small town and how there is a book series about this town and the twin gils who live in it. The author talks about how these books helped her through her childhood because she always wanted to be like the twins who had everything. All in all i believe that the way the author talks about how the girl winning Miss America and the books helped shape her life shows that reading can influence peoples lives and how the see life.
ReplyDeleteIn her essay, "I Once Was Miss America", Roxane Gay writes about the Sweet Valley High series and how she wanted a life like the main characters had. Roxane went to an all-white school, and she was not popular. Even though her hope of becoming popular was fragile, she still envisioned herself in the life of Jessica from the Sweet Valley High series. She also hoped to become Miss America, since Vanessa Williams won. Vanessa Williams gave Roxane hope, as she was the first black woman to win. Roxane's essay shows her life through this series. As a Haitian girl, she lived life very differently from the characters in her favorite series, but because of the books she was able to get through every difficulty. The series obviously was not based on reality, but it still affected her life. It affected her life so much so, that she felt nostalgic when a new book for the series came out so many years later.
ReplyDeleteRoxanne Gay’s “I Once Was Miss America” analyzes the authors struggle to fit in with the “popular crowd”. Throughout the story she explains the story of the Sweet Valley High, a series of books about two perfect girls. The two girls are Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield, twins who are: white, blonde, and extremely charismatic. The two girls are the definition of societal perfection. Roxanne examines the series because she wants to be like the Wakefield twins. She explains in her story that she wants to be in the popular group, that she wants to have popular friends and have crushes on the hot guys. However, Roxanne is first generation American and is the first black girl at her school. She is made fun of for being different, and the fact that other kids find her “ugly”. To make her self feel better she compares herself to Vanessa Williams, the first black Miss America. Ms. Gay’s piece explains how everyone wants to fit in and find beauty conventions that they can compare too.
ReplyDelete"I Once Was Miss America" by Roxanne Gray is an interesting piece which holds the main point of showing us how books and other forms of entertainment can be an escape from our problems. Roxanne starts by explaining her life, the life she wanted and how they differed in great descriptive detail. She talks about her strict hatian parents and how she was teased for her hair and the accents of her parents. Roxanne touches on a lot in this piece especially when referring to the “popular girls” who she wanted so badly to like her. She talks about how hard it was being on of the only two black children in a school and how she felt outcasted because of it. Because she felt outcasted, she found solitude in her novels she read about Sweet Valley High which we are introduced to in the very beginning of the piece but do not know why at first.
ReplyDeleteIn "I Once Was Miss America" by Roxanne Gray is a short story about Gray's past. The story is written in the first person and through Gray's own perspective. Race is a major theme in this book as it is used to give a better understanding of Gray's life. The story discusses Gray's childhood in elementary school and describes how she was bullied for being darker skinned and how this affected her. Gray uses reading as an escape and begins longing to conform and fit in with her peers as she grows up. Gray also begins discussing Vanessa Williams, the first black woman to win Miss America, and how she wants to be Miss America due to Vanessa Williams winning. She begins to increasingly want to be like the fictional characters she reads about as she feels like an outcast due to her skin color. The story reflects the overall want of people to look better and to fit in.
ReplyDeleteRoxanne Gay writes this essay to talk about her childhood fantasies the first being how she can one day be accepted and valued like Vanessa Williams the first black Miss America. She next talks about how she wishes she was like the Wakefield twins from a fictional book series Sweet Valley High. She wished to be popular and well liked by everyone in school. She continued to fantasize about being like the Wakefield twins during her youth but always thought of herself as less and not equal to the fictional characters. She goes on to talk about her love for getting lost in fantasies and how she still fantasizes today. In all of her fantasies she is always famous and popular. It is very sad to read about how deep she goes into her fantasies but at the end says she is nothing like the people and will never be equal to her fantasies and can never reach her dreams.
ReplyDeleteIn "I Once Was Miss America", Roxane Gay brings forward a narrative that I feel many women can relate to when looking back at their adolescence. There will always be role models for children growing up, and in society today the qualifications for this title usually entail physical appearance or success. These factors hold a fascination for the younger generation, given that all they have to compare themselves to is the beautiful people on television, movies, or described in books. The author makes it known that as a black woman, minorities are time and time again underrepresented in society. She strikes a chord in her readers when it’s noticed that even at such a young age, she knew the characters in her favorite novels were blonde, white, and perfect - all things entirely unattainable for her. These unrealistics standards of beauty have a huge impact on adolescents who are only try to find themselves, and I really think the notion of a black Miss America is worthy of the title “role model” because she breaks the mold of traditional standards that are put in place to oppress those who feel or look different.
ReplyDeleteRoxane Gay successfully presents a victim of circumstance in regards to a woman whose unique culture acts as a conflicting misfortune within her life style. In "I Once Was Miss America," Gay illustrates a woman who is embarrassed and ashamed by her nationality- this a recurring theme throughout the short essay that forces her to compare herself to what she thinks the idea of conception of popularity, love, beauty, and society should be. This genre portrays a distorted view on the "utopian" society many adolescents strive to live in, however, this short essay essentially allows the woman to come to terms with her qualities that she mistakes as abnormal differences and accept the woman she is with pride and confidence. This essay undeniably reaps a sort of melancholic tone where the author is physically and mentally unhappy with herself because she is constantly comparing her life to an unrealistic, fake society. This essay easily engages with pop culture in the sense that the character and her struggles connect with the audience. The reader automatically feels empathy towards the character because the genre serves itself towards adolescents whose hopes and desires are to be liked by their surroundings- this is a prevalent theme throughout society and pop culture regarding, beauty, wealth, popularity, and materialistic possessions. I liked the way Gay inserts herself into the essay as a character who wants more from the life she has, in specific, her unhappiness with her race.
ReplyDeleteThe story, "I was once Miss America", is a story about a young women who dreams of becoming Miss America. Her dream begins when Vanessa Williams, her idol, becomes the first black women to be crowned winner. She constantly struggles with trying to fit in and be popular and at times too to try and overcome the challenges she believes her race has given her. She struggles with this because she is constantly striving to become somebody she isn't. She tries to fit in with the fake and popular crown which is a very unfulfilling thing. These are all themes of beauty and wealth which where common themes of pop-culture at this time. This story is a prime example of somebody who never truly finds happiness until they work on improving themselves instead of trying to be somebody they aren't.
ReplyDeleteIn the story "I Was Once Miss America" by Roxane Gay, Roxane speaks of her escape to a fantasy world. She tries to relate to two novel characters in a book named "Sweet Valley High". Although she believed she could never really relate to these characters in reality because she was a "cross-eyed Haitian girl with wild hair", it still gave her pleasure in escaping into this fantasy. The fantasy genre of Sweet Valley High allows Roxane to really escape to this fantasy world where she pretends to have the popularity and wealth as the characters in the novel. This is often the case in fantasy novels and books. They give us a chance to escape to a different fantasy that is nothing like reality. Just as Roxane Gay says in her story "Fantasy books are usually more than just books". When she says this she is speaking of the fantasy that fantasy books allow us to escape to.
ReplyDeleteIn the short story, "I Was Once Miss America," by Roxane Gay, the story is told in a first person point of view. Doing this, it helps to make the effect of the story stand out and be stronger. Being a woman during this time most likely had a great affect on her but she did not let that stop her from being the best of her ability. She stood up for what she believed in, being that all women are beautiful, and she shined. Being brave enough to stand up for yourself in the 80's was a big deal. She had the guts and she did it. Being the first black woman to be Miss America was an honor for her.
ReplyDeleteIn Roxanne Gay's Short story, "Once I was Miss America", her cultural identity of a feminist and a black woman beams though every word. By analyzing the implications of a black woman being crowned Miss America, women of other races may attempt to glance in at the way black women may see themselves. Gay describes her own awkward appearance at the time of Vanessa Williams' crowning and how it contrasts to that of the white, fictional "sweethearts of Sweet Valley". The people Gay grew up seeing in these books did not look like her, or have her same background yet she idealized them as the writers of Sweet Valley High anticipated. So, when Williams won her crown it changed the whole perspective. Gay wrote, "I was not the kind of girl who cared much about pageants or being a beauty queen but watching Vanessa Williams and her perfect cheekbones and glittering teeth as she accepted the crown, that moment gave girls like me ideas." A strong and beautiful black women wearing a simple pageant crown was a kind of validation for you black girls. It spread the empowering idea of "yes, I am black and of america and beautiful" among girls who, like Gay, would grow to be strong and change the world.
ReplyDelete