Disney's Mulan

I am kind of driven in two opposing directions when it comes to this movie. I love it because it does give the sense that Mulan defies her stereotypical roles yet she doesn't. Okay, if you remember watching the part where she is trying so hard to fit in and be lady-like to find a suitor because her family tells her to. This illustrates my point when she gives in. Yet again the whole movie she spends trying to fit into a male dominated place, that I am convinced she makes a positive impact on young girls. In the beginning she is awkward because she hasn't found her place but in the end she seems centered yet is still this girly-girl who is just important now. For some of the movie she is sort of conforming and being this helpless woman who does what she is told. For this blog though, I am leaning more towards the side of me that says this movie breaks down the gender roles. There are many examples but I have many examples to counter my own arguments. I will begin with the way Mulan is very defiant throughout the beginning. It is not on purpose most of the time but she just has better things to fill her mind with, than the normal things her society expects of her. Next is how Mulan makes this very brave decision to take her fathers place in the army because she knows he would not fare well in it. She is no better qualified than her father according to her society yet she still is willing to take the risk. It shows her love and dedication to her family and also this is her way of defying her parents wishes because they want her to stay an marry a rich man. By pretending to be a man in the army she is doing much more than fooling people. This was something that could get her killed. I can't agree that she completely holds an image of independence but for young girls her actions must mean something. The last piece of evidence for my argument is that she spends this entire movie kicking butt! She is able to beat her own trainer Shang when she is learning to fight. She is able to defeat the Huns. Saves Shang a few times too. And all of this is done almost all by herself (might I add) and she is even given the respect of even the emperor. That is saying something! I know that watching that movie and thinking of Mulan I do not get the same image in my head of the other princesses that need help to be saved. She is definitely one that can hold her own and stand up for what she believes is right and I think that is important in breaking down those gender roles that the Youtube video says it portrays. As we discussed in class too the video does not include the opposites that these movies portray too. In this one the balance of the men who are all looking for one girl who looks a certain way is taken down by the role of Mulan when she does those things that no one expects of her. I think this is what makes her role so important and influential to others.

Presentation Week: Influenced by The Wide Sargasso Sea

Before I get angry readers here I would like to say that every presentation had its charms and I was actually interested in all of them. Yet there is always just that one book that gets your attention and you want to know as much as you can about it. The presentation on a book that interested me the most had to be "The Wide Sargasso Sea". I loved reading Jane Eyre in class, it was my favorite novel we read. Yet I always had that unfilled space in my mind about what really happened to Bertha Mason in the story and her past. I firmly believe in the saying that there are two sides to one story and knowing that Jane could not provide this information to us in some way really frustrated me. This is currently on my wish-list for Amazon and I plan on getting it as soon as I am done with all my Christmas shopping. I am angered/ amazed/ and feel slightly "rubbed the wrong way" with the fact that so little was mentioned about the Bertha Mason character in the first place. I think it would have added to the readers understanding of Mr. Rochester and how he really should be portrayed. From the book I kind of had a sense that Mr. Rochester was not so innocent as he might have seemed and that the reason he was hiding Bertha was to maintain that status he always hoped while not feeling guilty about it. I am glad that in this book the author does portray him that way because I felt all along that is what he deserved. And another part that was my frustration that Bertha was almost never recognized as being normal in her society. She did follow the rules in the beginning but the prediction that she was going to be crazy followed her and it gave readers the impression that she was crazy from the start. Almost like there was no need to pay her any attention because she was already crazy, she just didn't show it yet. I did not particularly like that because as I said, there is always another side of the story. I think this book would clarify my thoughts about Bertha and how things were for her at this time. Of course no one knows exactly how Charlotte Bronte meant to portray her but I don't think she meant harm by placing her as that crazy attic lady. I am so sorry I do not remember the presenter's name (Kristi maybe?)[I'm sorry!] but I enjoyed the presentation as well knowing that the author had as much background similarities as Bertha also known as(Antoinette).Knowing only what I saw in the presentation I would think that the author of The Wide Sargasso Sea was kind of irritated with Bronte. And wanted to do some justice for the Bertha Mason character and judging by the presentation it must have been a great point of view story. I think that the book had to be just as intriguing as Jane Eyre was and I think I can finally fill in that space that always wanted to know more about her.

Cruelty in our culture?

This article really caught my attention because it brought up my doubts about it in general. I confided in a male friend who told me that these things really do happen, much more often than we tend to think they do. He had similar experiences that he wasn't exactly too eager to share with me but I could understand easily after reading this material. I was just as oblivious as many others to the fact that this type of cruelty and mental as well as physical abuse is present among young males in our society. I agree that there are certain stories that really do make your childhood out and have a vital role in forming who you are when you are older. Just as the author points out those stories aren't always the greatest to remember or even tell to others. For boys in our society they are faced with a much greater challenge of the taunting that comes from the social roles that they are forced to play. Naturally in a young boys eyes he might think that the others are going to tease him more or that by revealing the truth he might make things worse on himself. Boys are raised by parents and other family to be tough and macho and brave of all things. By telling someone else this purpose is defeated and they become "feminine". (Although we know that this is not the case, in any situation.) Any revealing of their true feelings would be a dangerous move for all involved, and he would become the target of harassment in the future.
My point is that the fear of this harassment and treatment from others ultimately convinces them that they are doing a greater good by not making things public. It is this fear that they all have within them that drives the cycle in which it continues. The fact that I did not know much about it and how much it actually does still happen is just more proof of how much boys keep this under wraps.
This also ties in to the fact that they are just regular human beings trying to feel like they belong to a certain group. Everyone has felt that type of emotion at one point in their life. Boys are convinced that by not following what everyone else is doing that they will no longer be included to join the group or a certain crowd. It is a natural human emotion of course but it is also being driven by the endless cycle of boys constantly teasing and hurting each others feelings with no way of releasing that stress to anyone. I think that the author has a very valid point on this because they are just like any one else when they need to release emotions, but they are not expected to do so on the level of comfort-ability that women have. It is ridiculous to think that as adults the world is constantly trying to get men to share these feelings and be more open and yet as children they learn that they are the ones who are supposed to be tough little men and never fail or show weakness. At least I think it is ridiculous, don't you?

Sharing the Responsibility: Child role models in nedia

Artists of any kind are public figures just as we think of a president of a country or a famous actor/ actress. Musicians, rock stars, and famous celebrities are held at a higher statue than most people. Their actions are public and scrutinized within seconds after they make them. Everything and anything they do should be considered publicly known and not without knowledge of others. Knowing this I think actors, actresses, celebrities etc. should be slightly more conscious of the messages they send out to children and just the general audience they intend to affect or not affect too. Because whether they like it, they are going to influence people who they never intend to reach. Having said that I think it is true that they need to control the image they project to the world. This seems like something that is fine and amazing until you realize that not every celebrity or influential person does this. They do not feel that it is their responsibility for the types of people that a child is looking up to in the media and world. The problem lies with taking the responsibility because no one will own up to the job and just take care of it. I am not blaming celebrities because parents alike share the responsibility of restricting the access to the media that children have. It is true that some people don't have that type of censorship but I think that if a parent or a child care provider does not care enough to change a channel, or take away the media they are viewing and receiving this image from, that they don't have the right to complain. I can't completely defend this idea to the core because not every child out there has parents or guardians to guide them in these directions but this is where the artist has to take their own responsibility because they should know that the things they do can influence anyone whether they have a parent or not. There really can't be any distinct set of boundaries that these artist can and cannot cross. I say that because it only makes sense for the artists to know that if there are people who later on come to dress like them and act like them that they indeed are the responsible ones. It does not entirely depend on other people to shelter children from behavior that is inappropriate, or offensive in some way. Each and every person is sensitive to different things and I think as an artist you should try to be understanding. Of course, you will always have people who hate or dislike what you do but that doesn't mean you can't continue doing it. An artist has a right to think and dress the way they feel is appropriate.They also should have it in mind that they are held to a higher standard than the rest of the world. They are two conflicting ideas yet they need to be balanced. An artists options on how to behave really do have an impact on others so they need to keep that in mind when doing anything. Parents need to be mindful of both these positions that artists face and be sensitive to the fact that they can't control how things are portrayed in the media. They can't turn a blind eye and hope that their child chooses the best outcome. They need to guide their thinking and help them choose something that best suits the ideas they are trying to instill in their children. It's definitely up to both parties to do whats right; it falls into everyone's' hands.

Week 12: "Superman and the Bride"

As the video, Sexual Stereotypes in Media: Superman and the Bride, stated we have tons of messages that come from our newspapers, radios, and magazines that all influence the decisions we make. One sentence that stood out to me from the film was that it was MASS produced. This should be shocking to us because we don't think much of television, radio, or newspaper ads. Most of the time they influence what type of person we want to be and how we should make our relationships work. It also stated: ".. you get what you want, you want what you get," and I believe this is such a true statement for our culture today and I have seen it myself, I will even share my own recent experience and example.
We go thorough our day to day lives seeing the things around us thinking we are no person to change what we see because it is what society wants. The only reality to this is that we don't change things because we don't care to see them changed. People who complain about something but don't take a stand against it are just passive and indifferent about it. Men are portrayed in media as strong, driven, decisive, and fearless while women are shown as weak, inferior, useless unless given direction, and usually wanting to please men. In my eyes these stereotypes are not as existent as they were in the video but for the most part stereotypes have not changed. We as individuals begin to question this and ask, why this is so. And it is just as I have stated above. People are INDIFFERENT about these types of stereotypes because they never challenge them and accepted them their whole life. I am not passing judgment because I am guilty of this also but it doesn't makes sense to accept the things we are spoon fed our whole lives. Not only are we not acting out against it but we begin to believe this as a true statement or type of way things should be. Only because it is being told to us. Not because we have our own reasoning for it. This is what is the scary part. The movie tells it like it is because we do not act out to change things we see on television or advertisements we don't like, or that are stereotypical.
My experience with this was this new commercial passed by the Axe hair/body products advertised on television and radio. The link is at the bottom of this post but it was a shocking commercial that I did not expect. Although the meaning is slightly covered up I just was shocked at the way that society is now including this type of vulgarity into live television that is accessible to millions of children worldwide. I only say this because I work with children and it is very offensive to hear the term "balls" from a 6 year old's mouth. Not to mention when they are using it in the appropriate offensive context. Maybe the sexual context is too much for me because I have not been exposed to it as much as other people. It's not so much vulgarity as it is the use of terms like this in a way that is meant to be funny or entertaining for people. I know that male testicles are natural in every way but this commercial I thought went slightly overboard. Any comments about it? I know I laughed at the commercial but for children who are exposed to this type of language and behavior is kind of a shock that they would even allow it to air. This relates back to the class because of the image of men that it portrays as well, did you notice the guy in the row with so called "blue balls". Or the way that this is supposed to help you get in better with the "ladies". I know it is probably trying to reach and older audience but it just gave me a bit of shock and how this is probably affecting much more than its intended audience. The media is very powerful indeed. We also see what we want because apparently this is accepted by "society".. I just thought that was interesting.




Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bevJr3Ra84Q

Reading Gender

"Even though most reviewers agree that the narrator is female, the only evidence that they marshal is highly contestable and merely exposes the often stereotypical and hetero-normative biases in their own reading practices." I think that this statement from Rubinson's article is in many ways exactly the point of the book. Everyone who has read the book or is still reading will at some point try to search for clues about gender. We as humans using language and imagery have invented this stereotype about each gender. We assign certain characteristics to a person based only on that knowledge. It is not something that we should be ashamed of because it is the only way we've ever learned to read. The clues are usually put in the book for us to determine and give us an image of what character we read about. Now when these elements are gone, we have so much trouble identifying with a character. In this story the author wrote the narrator as a completely genderless person and I can safely assume that almost everyone read the book looking for clues. I can acknowledge the fact that I did this as well. No matter how hard I tried to avoid this idea of gender I still took each clue as a hint and tried to pick what I thought it was. Even if you didn't want to look for those key words and points, your mind still did the searching. With books like this we can realize the way that we've been taught all along and how it makes us conform to the roles our society places for men and women. It really helped me see just how far this has taken me, because I can't even read the book without some small part of my mind wandering and trying to pin a gender to the main character. This is just one of the ways in which we are conditioned to think differently about sexes and not for how much they are the same. Throughout the novel the descriptions that are given about the narrator are things that can not be specifically designated to one sex or the other. In Rubinsons article it states, "And that is exactly the point: it implies that such information is or should be useless." A reader will always have the desire to know who it is they are relating to. Reviewers of the book also took parts of text and use those clues to determine what gender they were reading. It is not something important so why was there such a need to find this piece of information out? Only because we are trained that way. I also think another safe thing to assume that if the audience did find out this information it would change their perspective of the narrator completely. A reader will assign certain characteristics like being the more assertive male or female. Even though these traits are things that they can assign to each gender it just makes them feel comfortable reading when they can fit into these prescribed roles that society has conformed them to. I don't think there is anything wrong with us because we never knew about it until this book came along. I do think that now it should be changed. This book allowed me to experience and understand just how far it is implanted and we didn't even know it. I came to realize that I myself am biased much more than I thought I was. I found it difficult to read and understand without generalizing somethings to a certain character.

Book vs. Movie: Battle to End All

The intriguing novel, The Hours written by Michael Cunningham was turned into a movie in 2002 and as with most novels-turned-Hollywood there is criticism from both ends that argue over which was better. In my recollection of the book and movie I will try to give my own review here. I don't quite know myself which is better; they both have very admirable qualities and suspenseful action that sincerely captures the moment. First is the novel, it really allows for details that are not quite available in the movie. Where the novel can interpret thoughts and be all knowing, the movie is not one in which the ideas that people are having are voiced over while the action is happening. This is especially important in the portrayal of the themes that it is sending out. In the movie I saw several different scenes where I would have been completely lost had I not already read the book. I don't think the movie was intended for audiences that had not read the book exactly so I can understand what my knowledge already added to it. In that respect, the book is much better than the movie because of its ability to go into details with the thoughts that most do not speak. I feel that the roles of women in the society were portrayed better in the movie than in the book. I could see the behavior of the women and men instead of reading something and thinking about it in my own way. The movie allows for those images of restrictiveness, pain, and internal conflict to show that they are really a part of what a woman had to go through in certain times. Yet, without the novel I would not have known most of those internal thoughts, like in some of the scenes with Julianne Moore as Mrs. Brown, I could see how she was emotionally distraught. The acting was done so well that I could recall certain phrases from the book that were describing what she was feeling at the time and it made sense. The next idea or theme of having a single day in a persons' life tell so much about a person was clearly evident through both the novel and movie. There were shots in the film that allowed me to see that each moment was crucial and still reflective of time. The book also had the same effect and it was what still reminded the reader of the "hours" in which everything is taking place. There was also the parts in which the novel where they all contemplated or thought about suicide in some way. The book gave so much intensity and thought into those things where as in the movie you could not really get much detail about it. In watching Clarissa throughout the movie I could see how she was concerned about Richard and his health and even how she felt after his death but not to the extent in which I understood her exact feelings; it had a largely vague feeling. The movie had a tough job in being able to portray all of these things but overall it truly was a great performance that was moving. I can say for sure which one was better because they had some amazing parts but I guess if I was forced to choose it would be the book. There is just so much more intimacy within the book itself that allows for a deeper understanding. I think most people would agree too. Comment if you disagree. :]