Gregory's Girl - lesson 1

This lesson you were introduced to the play "Gregory's Girl" - the drama text that you will be studying over the next 4 weeks.

We discussed the importance of not judging a book by its cover and came to an understanding on the definition of the term "stereotype":

" A fixed idea that people have about what someone or something is like – especially an idea that is wrong."

We watched the Scottish Governement campaign video for "See the person not the age" and discussed how this related to stereotyping with regards to age.

You then split into small groups and discussed other ways in which people are stereotyped in modern society. Some of your suggestions included: nationality, social group (Neds/Emos/Goths), social class (rich/poor) and disability.

I then introduced some other ways in which people are stereotyped:

Race: Black rappers are often stereotyped as being involved in violent crime and promoting the use of guns.

Religion: Members of certain religious faiths are often stereotyped - most notably the stereotype of Muslims being terrorists.

Gender: Gender stereotyping has been a prevalent part of human culture for thousands of years. Women are often portaryed as being the weaker sex, while men are portrayed as tougher and more "macho".

I then hinted at the fact that stereotyping would be a major issue that we encountered within "Gregory's Girl".

Gregory's Girl

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We then proceeded to read the play. At the end of each scene you wrote a brief summary of the events of that scene and noted down anything you found interesting about the characters.

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Scene 1: A football match was being played (badly) with Gregory's team losing. On the sidelines the spectators included Gregory's little sister Madeline and her boyfriend Richard, who seemed to be having a rather mature discussion about Gregory and his "adolescence". The PE teacher was disappointed in the team's performance and demoted Gregory from the position of striker to goalkeeper.

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Scene 2: A group of 4th year boys were spying on a young nurse getting undressed through a window of the nurses' hostel. They were desperate to see her topless and even resorted to trying to use mental powers to persuade her to take off her bra. When the nurse finally removed her bra one of the boys almost fainted from excitement. After these young voyeurs* had departed 11 year old Richard and his friend appeared on the scene and were witness to the nurse removing her knickers as well - however, unlike the 4th year boys before them, these two boys were not noticeably excited about the sight of a naked women. The playwright made good use of ellipsis (...) throughout this scene to convey the excitement of the 4th year boys.

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* voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviour (or to put it more bluntly: being a Peeping Tom!)

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We then engaged in a piece of experiental learning whereby the class viewed the first 2 scenes as they were portrayed in the original film version of Gregory's Girl.