Ethnography
Location: Arena Sports Bar, Simi Valley, Ca.
Time: 8:00pm, Friday night
The bar is practically empty, a few men are scattered around the large main room watching football on various screens. After about five minutes a group enters, three men, one woman. They stand off to the side in a circle. The men stand with their hands in their pockets, talking. The one female stands slightly further back but still in the circle, arms crossed over her chest. She looks around the room and glances toward the door frequently. After about three minutes, she gets on her cell phone and steps out of the circle. She asks the person on the other line where they are. A fourth man joins the group. He glances over at the woman but does not say hello. When he looks away from her she looks over at him. The woman sits down at a table alone, still on phone. The men in the group break their circle to head over to the bar. The later arrival man stops at the table and grabs her arm; she looks up at him, frowning. He says, “What do you want?” She puts down phone, tells him she is thinking about going, looks down. He says he is getting her a gin and tonic and walks away. She sits at the table alone, fiddling with her phone. He returns to her table with the drink. The girl sits up taller when she sees him, and she accepts her drink with a smile. They converse for awhile and then he sits down at the table across from her. They cross their legs toward one another. As they talk, the woman smiles wide and laughs loudly. He leans in toward her. She touches her chest and her hair as she speaks. Their drinks get placed on the table closer to each other; they brush hands when they grab them at the same time. She begins to dominate the conversation, talking about work and people at work. He begins to look around the room. Another woman arrives; she greets every member of the group, heads over to their table. The two women begin to talk, after a few minutes the man gets up and begins to talk to another woman up by the bar. The woman at the table watches him as she talks to the other woman with her. After awhile others come over and the first woman stops conversing, pulls out her phone and begins texting. She stays and fiddles with her phone and watches the man she had been talking to for awhile while she finishes her drink. She exits the bar around 10:00pm without saying goodbye to the man. He watches her walk out of the bar and then turns back to his conversation.
Analysis:
The exchange between the woman and man I focused my observation on was quite interesting. Though their conversation was bland and impersonal, a lot was communicated by both of them via body language. But this communication was ambiguous; their signs did not appear to be picked up by one another. This immediately reminded me of the Saussure chapter we read in class. As Saussure stated, “language is a system of signs that express ideas,” and I think this definition can be applied to body language. Like any other language, the message is in danger of being lost or misconstrued. As an outsider, I could see the interest that the woman had in the man. She seemed bored and disinterested in the bar until he showed up. Once he was there, she focused on nothing but him. And I believe that her interest in him is what she intended to signify to him. Unfortunately for her, the signifiers she chose to express her original concept, attraction, did not clearly translate to the man. She did a lot of hair flipping, smiling and touching, but these signals did not seem to translate. As far as the man’s signaling goes, he seemed to also be interested. He brought her a drink and sat with her instead of staying with their main group. He leaned in close to her when he spoke and used his body to close them off from the rest of the room physically. He too seemed to be attempting to signify an interest. So why were they unable to translate each other’s signals? This is where I think ideology comes into play.
Gramsci saw ideology as “ideas, meanings and practices which, while they purport to be universal truths, are maps of meaning that sustain powerful social groups.” If we look at men and women and two very different social groups, with very different expectations of one another, it becomes easier to see why communication between this pair went sour. They both believed that the actions they were using to convey interest in one another were “universal” and believed that common sense would dictate that their messages were received loud and clear. But although hair flipping may be seen as a universal signal by women, men as a social group do not necessarily identify it as such. But because she was so caught up in her ideology, she stopped paying attention to his signs, such as his growing disinterest when she began to dictate the conversation or when she ignored him to talk to a friend. She failed to realize that he had his own set of “common sense” ideals that were dictating how he interpreted her communications. He seemed to think she had lost interest in him, and moved on to other potential women.
Finally, as I watched the woman’s mood visibly swing in accordance to how much attention she was receiving from this man, I was reminded of what Gidden said about self-identity as a project. Her confidence appeared to soar when he was around, but plummet when he was directing his attention elsewhere. Gidden said that an identity project built on “What we think we are now, in light of our past and present circumstances” as well as “what we think we would like to be, the trajectory of our hoped for future.” From the moment this man entered the bar, the woman was tuned in to his every move. Once she had his attention, she sat taller, smiled larger, she seemed to relax into the environment. His presence seemed to increase her self-confidence. And conversely, when he retreated, she seemed to shrink down into herself. She identified herself as attractive and confident when she was receiving his attention, but this self-assurance definitely wavered once he cut the attention off. She became insecure once more, retreated to her “crutch,” the phone, and eventually retreated from the scene altogether. Because she had drawn her self-confidant identity directly from his affections, when he withdrew them she became completely insecure. A lack of clear communication, expectations and ideals seemed to mow down this love affair before it could begin.
