Problem: Hackett was born in Brooklyn, New York to Anna (nee Geller) and Philip Hacker, an upholsterer and part-time inventor. He grew up on 54th and 14th Ave in Borough Park, Brooklyn, across from Public School 103 (now a yeshiva). He graduated from New Utrecht High School in 1942.

Hackett starred as the title character on NBC-TV's Stanley, a 1956-57 situation comedy which ran for 19 weeks on Monday evenings at 8:30 pm EST. The half-hour series also featured a young Carol Burnett and the voice of Paul Lynde. The Max Liebman produced program aired live before a studio audience and was one of the last sitcoms from New York to do so. Stanley revolved around the adventures of the titular character (Hackett) as the operator of a newsstand in a posh New York City hotel. On September 30, 1960, he appeared as himself in an episode of NBC's short-lived crime drama Dan Raven, starring Skip Homeier, set on the Sunset Strip of West Hollywood.  After starring on Broadway in I Had a Ball, Hackett appeared opposite Robert Preston in the film adaptation of The Music Man (1962). In It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Hackett was paired with Mickey Rooney, with whom he had also recently made Everything's Ducky (1961), in which they played two sailors who smuggle a talking duck aboard a Navy ship. Children became familiar with him as lovable hippie auto mechanic Tennessee Steinmetz in Disney's The Love Bug (1969).  He appeared many times on the game show Hollywood Squares in the late 1960s. In one episode, Hackett was asked which was the country with the highest ratio of doctors to populace; he answered Israel, or in his words, "The country with the most Jews." Despite the audience roaring with laughter (and Hackett's own belief that the actual answer was Sweden), the answer turned out to be correct. Hackett's regular guest shots on Jack Paar's Tonight Show in the early 1960s were rewarded with a coveted appearance on Paar's final Tonight program on March 29, 1962.

Was Stanley a comedy?

Answer with quotes: Stanley, a 1956-57 situation comedy


Problem: Sylvia Jane Hutton (nee Kirby, born December 9, 1956), known simply by her first name Sylvia during the 1980s, is an American country music and country pop singer and songwriter. Some original source books have her birth name as Sylvia Kirby Allen; however, Allen was her first husband's last name. She consequently used only her first name. There was also a point in time that she used Sylvia Rutledge.

In 1982, from her Just Sylvia studio album, the singer released the single "Nobody", which reached No. 1 on the country music charts, hit No. 15 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, and sold more than a million copies. The song was also an Adult Contemporary hit, making the Top 5. "Nobody" became Sylvia's signature song and made her a success on both the Country and Pop music charts, which was what many of her contemporaries, such as Barbara Mandrell, Juice Newton, Dolly Parton, Anne Murray, Ronnie Milsap and Kenny Rogers were doing at the time.  "Nobody" and the album Just Sylvia were certified gold in the United States and Canada. "Nobody" was the 1982 BMI Song of the Year, awarded for receiving more radio airplay than any other single that year. Sylvia's bouncy and sly style made her popular among teenagers, making her a teen idol briefly, which foreshadowed the female pop teen idols of the late 1980s, such as Debbie Gibson and Tiffany. In 1982, Sylvia was the Academy of Country Music's "Female Vocalist of the Year" and a Grammy nominee for "Best Female Vocalist".  In 1983 Sylvia's album Snapshot was released; its title song climbed to No. 5 on the Country charts and became her second-highest selling single release. She had two other songs in the Top 20 that year, "I Never Quite Got Back" and "The Boy Gets Around" (which she described in the notes of her 1998 anthology album as being "pretty forgettable").  In 1985, the momentum continued with the hits "Fallin' in Love" and "Cry Just a Little Bit."). By 1986 though, Sylvia's chart success was fading as more traditionally styled country singers, such as Randy Travis, dominated the charts.  Sylvia continued to record for RCA until the end of 1987, charting 11 Top Ten and No. 1 songs, and sold more than four million records.

who did she work with

Answer with quotes: Barbara Mandrell, Juice Newton, Dolly Parton, Anne Murray, Ronnie Milsap and Kenny Rogers were doing at the time.


Problem: Judith Butler FBA (born February 24, 1956) is an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics and the fields of third-wave feminist, queer and literary theory. Since 1993, she has taught at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is now Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory. She is also the Hannah Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School. Butler is best known for her books Gender Trouble:

In this essay, Judith Butler proposes her theory of gender performativity, which would be later taken up in 1990 throughout her work, Gender Trouble. She begins by basing her theory of gender performativity on a feminist phenomenological point of view. She suggests that both phenomenology and feminism ground their theories in "lived experience". Further, in comparing phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty and feminist Simone de Beauvoir, Butler argues that both theories view the sexual body as a historical idea or situation; she accepts this notion of a "distinction between sex, as biological facticity, and gender, as the cultural interpretation or signification of that facticity". This combination of theories is essential for founding Butler's view of "theatrical" or performative genders in society.  Butler argues that it is more valid to perceive gender as a performance in which an individual agent acts. The performative element of her theory suggests a social audience. For Butler, the "script" of gender performance is effortlessly transmitted generation to generation in the form of socially established "meanings": She states, "gender is not a radical choice... [nor is it] imposed or inscribed upon the individual". Given the social nature of human beings, most actions are witnessed, reproduced, and internalized and thus take on a performative or theatric quality. With Butler's theory, gender is essentially a performative repetition of acts associated with the male or female. Currently, the actions appropriate for men and women have been transmitted to produce a social atmosphere that both maintains and legitimizes a seemingly natural gender binary. Consistently with her acceptance of the body as a historical idea, she suggests that our concept of gender is seen as natural or innate because the body "becomes its gender through a series of acts which are renewed, revised, and consolidated through time".  Butler argues that the performance of gender itself creates gender. Additionally, she compares the performativity of gender to the performance of the theater. She brings many similarities, including the idea of each individual functioning as an actor of their gender. However, she also brings into light a critical difference between gender performance in reality and theater performances. She explains how the theater is much less threatening and does not produce the same fear that gender performances often encounter because of the fact that there is a clear distinction from reality within the theater.  Butler uses Sigmund Freud's notion of how a person's identity is modeled in terms of the normal. She revises Freud's notion of this concept's applicability to lesbianism, where Freud says that lesbians are modeling their behavior on men, the perceived normal or ideal. She instead says that all gender works in this way of performativity and a representing of an internalized notion of gender norms.

What were the Performative Acts?

Answer with quotes:
Butler argues that it is more valid to perceive gender as a performance in which an individual agent acts. The performative element of her theory suggests a social audience.