Homework #58: Prom Interviews

For this assignment, I interviewed my friend, C, my teacher, M, and my aunt B. When I completed all interviews, I realized that I only interviewed females which made me think about the gender roles and how I subconsciously went to women for an interview about prom. I was also recently talking to my friend about what I wanted my wedding to be like and I remember saying "It's my wedding. The groom doesn't really have an opinion," which I think is more or less how teenage girls think about prom. But back to my interviews, I started with simple questions, like, "Did you go?" "Did you bring a date?" "Was there an after prom?" These questions were directed towards M and B since they'd already been to a prom. For C, I put the questions in future tense asking what she thought was going to happen, etc.

My interview with C started as such: "Why do you want to go to prom?" Her answer was a simple "you know, you have to. If you don't go, it's bad." This statement made me think about how we as a society spend so much time preparing and "dolling" ourselves up for prom because of mob mentality when really, everyone thinks they have to because everyone else is. It's a catch 22. The interview went on to discuss the style options and planning the ideal event. She described it to be a lot like a ball in which there is nothing but dancing and she said "I just want to have a really good time." Which is something I think we all want no matter what. So why is there a stereotype that most proms end up sucking? Is it because we make such high expectations that we can't possibly live up to it? Or is it because we realize as the event unfolds, that it's really not fun to put oneself through so much prep for a couple lousy dances? Either way, we shared the same outlook on our ideal proms and we are both very exited when it's finally our turn (no matter how this unit affects my opinion).