Fannie Flagg
When faced with the prospect of writing a research paper on an important female artist for English 224, I mentally seesawed from name to another. I narrowed it down to an author immediately but then I was stumped. This one I didn't like, that one I liked but couldn't find enough material on, and finally, the one I neither liked nor understood! So, like the good student I am, I promptly moved on to an easier assignment - a movie assignment. It was when I got a hankering to watch Fried Green Tomatoes that inspiration struck. I was reminded that Fannie Flagg wrote the book of the same name. I had recently read and enjoyed Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! and I knew this was someone that I wanted to learn more about.Fannie Flagg is an author that I both enjoy and admire. She has succeeded as an actress, a comedienne, a screenwriter, and an author. The tenacity and vitality she has shown in her careers and her personal life sends us the message that women are strong and capable people. She also uses her humor and storytelling ability to create characters that further that image and encourage women to be independent. She sends the message that if you want to accomplish something you must keep trying to ov
Flagg, Fannie. Coming Attractions. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1981. Although she always wanted to write, Flagg found that acting came more easily to her. When she was 14 she joined a theater group in Birmingham where friends in the group called her "Baby Girl" because she was the youngest. She competed in the Miss Alabama pageant where she acted out some comedy sketches she had written and modeled a dress she had designed made entirely out of old menus. While not winning the pageant, she won a scholarship to the Pittsburgh Playhouse, an acting school, where she went for one year. She left after being told that she should go home, get married, and forget acting because her southern accent was too bad (ReadersOnly.com). When joining Actors' Equity at 18, she learned she'd have to change her name because her real name was Patricia Neal, the name of a famous movie star. As she was doing comedy, her father suggested a silly name to set the mood, and her grandfather remembered vaudeville and that Fannie was a name that a lot of comediennes took. She has been reinventing herself ever since. 15 April 2001 .All of Flagg's books feature women as the central characters. These women are either strong or in the process of becoming strong. Coming Attractions begins with the journal entries of an eleven-year-old and ends when she becomes the self-confident and free-spirited winner of the Miss Mississippi Contest. The young Daisy Fay writes, "I can do anything a boy can do. I can even beat up Michael. It must be terrible to be born a girl and know that your daddy really wanted a little boy" (76). When she is older, Daisy Fay attends a Catholic boarding school where she resents the fact that women are not allowed on the altar except to clean. After watching her favorite nun "nearly genuflect herself to death at the altar," Daisy Fay says, "The next day I went in and walked all over that altar and didn't genuflect once. Who says that priests are better than nuns?" (191). Reynolds, Susan Salter. "Fannie Flagg: Voice of Middle America" Publishers Weekly Little, Pam. "Fried Green Tomatoes and a Smorgasbord of Other Things We Like to Read and ReadersOnly.com. Readers Digest 15 April 2001. Talk About" Online. Literacy Update Vol. 8 No. 8 (September, 1999). Literacy Assistance Center. 15 April 2001 .
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2688
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)
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