Journal #21

Journal 21 - Some Like It Hot and The Great Gatsby Comparison/Contrast Although Some Like It Hot is a comedy and The Great Gatsby is a tragedy, both works use popular culture to portray life in 1920s America. Focusing on the following elements (characterization, conflict, and theme), discuss how the two works are similar and different and what each is saying about American life. Joe and Gatsby are very similar. To win over Sugar who is ‘Daisy’, Joe pretends he has money and pretends to be who she wants. To know what she wants, Joe pretended to be Josephine and found out certain qualities that Sugar wanted in a guy like glasses and a millionaire. Both Gatsby and Joe pretended to be other people to please the girl they wanted. Jerry is Nick in the movie. He is the secondary supportive friend. At first they are competing for her, but after things play out he supports Joe in his endeavor to get Sugar. Osgood is similar to Tom. He is rich and goes around chasing women. They both played polo and went to Ivy League schools. Tom is the villain though in Gatsby while Osgood is just a harmless man. Spats is like Wolfsheim. Spats has a speakeasy similar to how Wolfsheim got his money. In Some Like It Hot, the good guys end up living and the bad guys die, but in Gatsby the good guy (Gatsby) is the one who died. Both stories center on love and marriage. There are secret romances in both. Another theme is deception. The characters are trying to hide something whether it’s an affair or a relationship. These two works are saying that the society was a lot about having fun and drinking in the speakeasies. They didn’t really think much of officials and the police. They just broke the rules.