Sure Thing by David Ives and Los Vendidos by Luis Valdez

Sure Thing by: David Ives
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Los Vendidos by: Luis Valdez

        A preprogrammed person, set to always people please and conditioned to make others happy. A robot created for someone else’s purposes and satisfaction. What would it mean if each person’s life was not their own, but had been bought for someone else’s fancy? The lives of people today have become technology-oriented. Technology has taken unique human qualities and molded them into shapes that fit what others want and need. Sure Thing by: David Ives and Los Vendidos by Luis Valdez have grasped several great ways to show that this is what people have become.
        Human behavior is a rather strange and unique concept both today and in the past. In both reading and watching Sure Thing, the author uses bells to signal a new beginning for each character as a symbol for a clean slate, a fresh chance (Sure Thing). The dialogue goes from one persona to another to see if it will please the other person, hoping for a better first impression. Likewise, sometimes people say things before thinking and the impressions they leave can be either lovely or awful. After all, a person only gets to have that first impression once. It is up to each person in each individual situation to either lie or tell the truth, according to which will be perceived better. That’s why this play is so interesting. It allows for an infinite number of first impressions until the characters get it right.
        In Sure Thing, it seems that Bill and Betty have different personalities every time the bell rings. For example, at one point Bill changes the college he attended three times before Betty accepts his answer.  All the negative traits and potential differences that make them uniquely themselves go out the window. Similarly, truth gets blurred with lies in this modern age, and relationships tend to start happening before a couple has even stopped to think things through. It seems like people base their relationships off of first encounters, like in Sure Thing. Most relationships, whether found online where people can be anything they want, or in a chance meeting at a coffee shop, are started simply because of a physical attraction without regard to common interests. Bill expresses this when he says, “Well sure. I mean, what's a good-looking woman like you doing out alone on a Friday night?”, but moments before he had to change how he felt about Faulkner to keep her attention.
        Using gender neutral comments and words Bill is allowed to continue talking to Betty without the bell dinging and resetting the conversation. “BILL: I believe that a man is what he is (Bell.) A person is what he is. (Bell.)A person is. . . what they are.” They continue until everything they say is just right and a cookie cutter perfect match for the other until they have agreed to cherish and love each other. How is that a good relationship though? Agreeing to all that could be said to be simply settling, because they are changing themselves. However, when one looks at one’s own life, is it apparent when one does that to others? Does one refuse to listen to the words leaving others mouths if it doesn’t suit one’s agendas and aspirations? During a first impression, one can get the feeling that the other person has reacted in an unexpected way to what one said. Was it mean or rude? Inappropriate? Or was it sweet and kind?
        What one says to another can change that outcome, and while in real life people can’t ring a bell and start over until they have the positive outcome they want, people can try to be honest with themselves and others about their own behaviors and mannerisms. Because if someone isn’t honest and true to their own nature, then how is it possible for someone to tell whether or not that stranger in the coffee shop is being honest with them? How is someone supposed to know if others are being honest with them, if they can’t even be honest with themselves? Maybe that stranger is wearing a mask and has a dangerous past. Maybe they are sweet and caring but appear to be haggard and worn down. Stereotyping is a very large human flaw everyone is guilty of at one point or another. The single parent must be horrible because they live far from the other parent. The older man quietly sitting on his porch must be a cranky paranoid person. The old woman buying cat food must be the crazy old cat lady. The girl with a bruise on her arm and he gentleman walking next to her must be in an abusive relationship. The woman in line at Starbucks with a screaming toddler must not have good parenting skills for that kind of misbehavior in public. The man on his cell phone in a suit must be completely absorbed by his job.
        For all a passerby could know that parent had to escape an abusive relationship or had a job transfer and struggles to make ends meet due to the other parent not caring to help or being able to help provide for the children. The older man on his porch may not be visited by his family so watching neighborhood kids play and have fun brings his day a fleeting glance of joy. The older woman buying cat food is helping her neighbor feed her cat while she’s been in the hospital. The girl at the grocery store is diabetic and had a low blood sugar where her boyfriend had to deliver a lifesaving glucagon shot to her arm and the bruise is the result of her life being saved just hours before. The mother of the screaming child may be wishing for 5 minutes’ peace because she knows after the next doctor appointment the screaming will only get louder as her child with special needs doesn’t understand all the needles he has to get stuck with. The man absorbed by his phone may be job hunting while his partner is in the hospital again for being beaten up for being different.
        In Los Vendidos stereotyping is the main theme of the play. Stereotyping is the idea that people of certain origins and from certain genetic backgrounds must talk dress and act a certain way. In order to fit into society, acting differently is not accepted or allowed. You must fit into a mold of a predestined stereotype, whether that means you look a certain way dress or talk a certain way. How often are people judged for how they look before saying something? As Eric shouts “Long live the people! Long live the strike! Long live the revolution!” one has to wonder what is going through the mind of Miss Jiménez. Is he just fitting into the stereotype that she wants, or is this an unfavorable characteristic? Both women and men have ideals for themselves as far as who they want to be with whether it is during work, as their boss, or who they are romantically involved with. People also tend to try to shape their children into people they want them to be despite if that is truly who they are or not, sometimes to the detriment of the child.
        Los Vendidos takes it another step further and touches on heritage. In Sure Thing, the judgement is based on words alone. Valdez wrote Los Vendidos to point out the judgements made due to ethnicity and the judgements passed by Americans on to Mexicans or Mexican Americans (Hubpages). The judgements passed on by people based on how they look in that moment can be numerous. People judge others on a daily basis, but of course one of the attributes that is getting the most attention lately is skin color. It’s common for people to judge others based on melanin content, but people also judge on ethnicity. As Miss Jiménez is looking at the “robots” she refuses to accept the Farmworker model because he doesn’t speak English (he’s not American enough), immediately moving to one that is Mexican-American (better), though its more expensive. Why is it more expensive? As Sancho states, “Mexican? What are you talking about? This is a Mexican-American! We had to melt down two pachucos, a farmworker and three gabachos to make this model! You want quality, but you gotta pay for it! This is no cheap run- about. He’s got class” ( ). Pointing out that this model is better, because it is more americanized. It is less Mexican, but still brown enough to pass. The secretary hesitates to buy, which begs the question, do we do things reluctantly because its expected of us, or because we have our own internal struggle about doing the right thing.
        Both of these plays show that personal behaviors can change due to environments and to the people that enter personal space as well as work environments. One should apply these scenarios to their own life.  Everyone should take into consideration that judging others is a part of human behavior, but it is easily modified. That screaming child and exhausted mother may have a different explanation than the one that first comes to mind. The man glued to his phone may be diligently job searching to try to make ends meet, rather than being married to his job, or maybe he left work early to meet his fiancée. Assumptions save time, but is that always a good thing? Assumptions can also be wrong, especially if they are a snap decision made based on the smallest of glimpses into a person's life. Imagine what the world would be like if everyone took the time to think about who they really are, who they want to be, instead of trying to fill a mold that the world has created for them, or that stranger in the coffee shop has created for them. Imagine what the day to day lives of people would be like if they took the time to think about why and how they judge others, and if they tried to do so a little less. Maybe everyone wouldn’t feel the need to be who others expect them to be.