The Celebrity Fraternity

[Abishai100]

The fraternity-themed films Animal House, The Skulls, and Sorority Boys (a mix of comedy and drama) present perspectives on the free-choice experiences associated with college fraternity life in the USA.

I attended Dartmouth College (Hanover, New Hampshire), the prestigious Ivy League school, and was a member (and one-time Rush Chairman) of Bones Gate (BG) Fraternity, a localized chapter of Delta Tau Delta (DTD), the fraternity Animal House was based on (according to rumors!).

I enjoyed my time at BG and still consider myself a 'brother/alum,' and I hold dear my memory of the physical house of the fraternity itself, a greatly-designed and beer-basement equipped establishment welcoming seniors looking to revel in their legal drinking age.

College fraternities are social-networking organizations that provide students with an outlet for brotherly and festive extra-curricular activities, but they've been criticized in the national press because of management/civics problems (i.e., alcoholism, misogynistic treatment of women, race-based exclusionary policies, etc.). Dartmouth College, a school with a very rich fraternity-sorority history, tried to eradicate all fraternities/sororities and replace them with non-alcoholic 'cafe-house social experiences' (an initiative which faced strong challenges from fraternity/sorority members/alumni who valued the school's traditions).

There may be no 'permanent' solution to social problems such as misogyny, alcoholism, and racism, but college fraternities/sororities (like other non-school formal gender-based social groups or 'clubs') such as the Masons and the Big Sisters symbolize a community attempt to use membership processes to create general 'teamwork dialogue.'

So this short-story I cooked up is meant to ask the question, "If the U.S. Presidents are part of some secret 'club,' will the last two Presidents (Barack Obama and Donald Trump) be considered 'token diplomats'?" After all, Obama was the first African-American toe be elected as president, and Trump is the first capitalism-baron to be elected as President.

This short-story also made me think about why Woody Allen crafted the 'fame-governance' film Celebrity.



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BG, the respected Ivy League fraternity, was considering expanding its borders to invite social figures and celebrities to join its ranks. Its alumni included prominent figures in history such as Ulysses S. Grant, Bill Gates, and Bo Jackson. Since the recent BG alum, Tom Hardy, had become a prominent Hollywood (USA) movie star, BG decided to use Hardy's networks to extend special invitations to American celebrities/figures who would complement the fraternity's composition and help members retort to the criticism that fraternities/sororities are myopic and closed off from the 'real world.' Hardy and another alum (Ajay Satan) decided to extend secret membership invitations to Tom Cruise (the movie-superstar), Stephen King (the horror-fiction writer), and Donald Trump (the U.S. President!).

When Cruise, King and Trump all accepted their membership-bids, Hardy called a special meeting at his lavish apartment in Switzerland (flying BG members in from around the world with his newfound Hollywood wealth) to christen BG's successful first-time foray into the 'real world.' There was revelry, billiards, readings from past-member testimonies, politics-activism/outreach suggestions, and a screening of Animal House on Hardy's giant projector-screen. Cruise told everyone that he told the SNL and movie-actor John Belushi (before he died) that he would one day join a 'culture-fraternity' with him to commemorate the cultural significance of democracy-pensive folk stories/films such as Animal House. However, President Trump broke up the honorable festivities with the bizarre confession that prior to being elected, he was engaged in an extra-marital love affair with sexy American actress Cameron Diaz at his Trump Taj Mahal casino. Cruise replied to the confession, "It's good to be the king!"

Hardy and Ajay were discussing the problem of misogyny in fraternities and were cooking up ways to retort to the criticism that fraternities/sororities were 'cut-off' from real-world social problems. Hardy proposed that BG make its official *national* drink Mike's Hard Lemonade, a lighter alcoholic beverage which would represent BG's attempt to temper festive revelry with cultural/social 'diplomacy' in the real world. Ajay loved the idea, and soon it was sanctioned by the BG 'elders.' When Mike's Hard Lemonade became BG's official drink, wild rumors flew across the USA, and soon Cameron Diaz discovered that President Trump was a possible member of the symbolic fraternity. Because she still felt slighted by Trump dumping her, she decided to start blogging on the Internet (using the Marvel Comics identity-masking alias/avatar 'Black Cat') about how both Trump and Obama were 'token gentlemen' and should therefore be considered 'hypocrisy diplomats' of the 'couture-obsessed BG fraternity'!

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Bones Gate Fraternity (Dartmouth College)

 

[Abishai100]

Sorority


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Cameron Diaz started dropping sketches of her silly doodle of Squirrel-Girl (Marvel Comics) all over the floor of the Lincoln Memorial on Halloween Eve. She was dressed as Black Cat and continued her crusade against BG Fraternity. When she was in college, Diaz was an alternate-identity U.S. non-citizen permanent resident from Hungary named Inga Seles. It was her acting 'identity' that brought her to stardom and gave her a special bootstraps-ethic inspiration-work for political activism, and she despised both the capitalism-subjective Trump Administration and the populism-biased BG Fraternity (Dartmouth College). BG was the official 'Animal House' of Dartmouth and its most iconic (if not most popular) fraternity, and it was under-fire for challenging the pro-liberal causes/initiatives of the LGBT community entrenched in the College Administration. BG was about to continue its little 'metaphysical adventure' into the offbeat world of 'pedestrianism politics.'

Diaz decided to form a 'celebrity sorority' of her own titled Alpha Omega Delta at Brown University, a really unusual but beautifully idyllic campus in America. Brown, like Dartmouth, was part of the prestigious 'Ivy League' of schools (including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, and UPenn). Diaz recruited a handful of socially engaged and imaginative young female students at Brown through a savvy identity-masking pro-celebrity PR-related charity blogging-gathering 'event.' Alpha Omega Delta (AOD) soon became a hallmark of social activity and non-destructive revelry. AOD sponsored an annual billiards tournament which got the gender-politics inquirer former U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton interested and involved, a tournament raising money for awareness of AIDS programs and research. AOD members from the celebrity/society sector successfully recruited by Diaz included Madonna, Sarah Palin, and Elizabeth Hurley.

After Diaz's AOD was a flourishing success, she devoted her attention to donning the Halloween costume of Black Cat (Marvel Comics) and go on a pretend celebrity-stalking maneuver on American movie-superstar (and new President of the BG Fraternity Geo-Network) Tom Cruise. Cruise could not believe his eyes! He saw the figure of an agile woman dressed as Black Cat (Marvel Comics) running towards her with metallic claws! He realized she was a 'celebrity-stalker' but she took off her mask and revealed herself to be her Hollywood 'peer' Cameron Diaz and wanted to show him her doodles of Squirrel-Girl (Marvel Comics). When she handed it to him, he asked her, "Why are you showing me this obviously cute but highly-personal expression of the Earth-oriented Marvel superheroine?" Diaz explained, "Mr. Cruise, on behalf of AOD and women everywhere, we urge 'super-celebrities' such as yourself to use your media pulpit to promote not only capitalism-debating groups/fraternities but also eco-activism think-tanks/sororities!"

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Black Cat (Marvel.com)

 

[Abishai100]

The Co-Eds

Here's a spirituality-cynicism tale about an emerging socially-symbolic co-ed house called The Know-Nothings.

Anyone see the film The Stepford Wives?

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Down the street from the AOD house at Brown, a new inspired co-ed house was forming and called itself The Know-Nothings (TKN). TKN was led by the grand-daughter of a Danish king and scholar-student of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Her name was Alanis, and she was intrigued by America's preoccupation with 'ornamenting' culture and pedestrian activity (e.g., culture-centric consumer brand-name products, Halloween merchandise, etc.). Alanis wanted TKN to be a rival of both AOD and BG. She agreed with Cruise's assessment that social life at colleges and universities (and the nation too!) represents a human investment in free-choice based contract-deification, but she also agreed with Diaz's assessment that women have an important role to play in 'new age rhetorics/poetics.' Alanis decided to recruit Winona Ryder (noir-film actress), Jude Law (cerebral-film actor), and Melania Trump (First Lady) for TKN, and they accepted her bid.

Alanis realized that Jude Law's friend at Brown (a sophomore student who also pledged the co-ed TKN) was working on a special metaphysics-economics project involving the evaluation of the Irish leprechaun (a mythological/folkloric imp-avatar signifying a deep fascination with treasure and fortune) Lucky for the American breakfast cereal Lucky Charms (mass-marketed and found in virtually every super-market across the USA and the world). Law's friend's name was Kurt, and he believed that Lucky Charms was a sign that 'consumerism-culture' had seeped into spiritualism and folklore in our capitalism-subjective world. Kurt mistrusted Melania but was happy she was part of TKN. Kurt met a beautiful TKN sophomore female pledge named Hanna who evoked in him images of a lucky-green 'muse-cheerleader' (especially since she dressed in colorful witch-costumes every Halloween). Kurt realized how 'progressive' TKN was in comparison to AOD and BG.

Cruise and Diaz decided to join forces to help BG and AOD challenge the emerging campus influence of Alanis's house TKN. Alanis even arranged for a movie-deal to begin being processed through Hollywood studios after TKN recruit Jude Law arranged for a special meeting with renowned and offbeat film-maker Wes Anderson. Cruise and Diaz decided to co-host a joint AOD/BG party on Halloween on the Brown campus to rival the now very-popular TKN Halloween Masquerade Ball. There were rumors that this year Tim Burton would be the guest visitor to the Ball. Cruise and Diaz hired the popular American female pop-rock musician Sheryl Crow to play a conspicuous concert right outside AOD house, and BG members (including Cruise) were present and in pirate costumes. Cruise arranged for President Trump to have K2 (a legal alternative to marijuana) delivered to the 'AOD/BG Halloween Party.' Alanis's party at TKN was still festive, but attention went to the AOD/BG affair, and Alanis remarked to herself, "At the very least...in this typhoon of 'consumerism-culture traffic,' Kurt and Hanna are now engaged to be married (Kurt proposed to her on this Halloween Eve!)."

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