Finals!

The time has come for this class to come to an end. This year has been quite a struggle for me, but I can defiantly say that this was one of my favorite classes. I have learned so much about the society I leave in a the difference in gender and sex. Now when I am watching TV or a movie I pay close attention to the audience they are trying to get to. I love to watch cartoons and when it comes time for commercials they always have toys and movies for younger kids. This class was such a great experience to further my knowledge on everything since you can't go anywhere without recognizing race, class and gender!

Thank you for everything I had a great time in your class.

What I missed

I unfortunately could not make it to class last week, but one of my class mates filled me in on what we went over. She told me that we watched the movie Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. This movie is about getting high and what happens on their high. I would like to just express how I feel about Marijuana. It is a naturally grown substance that I think should be legal. If it were legal I do not think people would make as much of a deal about it. They would also put a tax on it which would make it expensive like tobacco now. I personally do not agree with "getting high" or smoking this substance, but I know people that feel like it calms their nerves when they smoke. Just make it legal so everyone can stop making a big deal about it. People now get jail time if they are caught with it. There are robbers getting away and other criminals getting out of jail time. I feel that they are making a bigger deal out of having this drug than breaking into peoples houses.

Bamboozled

This movie is a big eye opener. At first I did not know what to think of the film, but once I figured out the message that the director was trying to prove to the audience I understood it a lot better. The follow up question helped me give my opinion a little better, but I will still say what I think. The audience of this film was not only the white culture, but the black culture as well. I will start with the black culture. African-American culture, like white, and even Hispanic culture, have stereotypes. Some African- Americans took this film offensively, which I do not blame them, but I think it also opened the eyes to the African-Americans who do follow along with the stereotypes. No one says that the black culture has to be bullies like the gangsters we saw in the movie, and no body says that the African-American culture has to sit on the porch and play music with shackles on. These are some of the stereotypes that I think Spike Lee was trying to give to the audience. Spike Lee wanted to inspire the African-American culture to step out of there comfort zone and be who they can be.
As for the white audience, I think it did the same for them. They got to see that the black culture has many stereotypes by exaggerating many points during the film. An example of this exaggeration would be the make-up the actors were during the minstrel show.

Soul Plane

This is the first time I have ever heard of the movie Soul Plane. I can grantee that over my Thanksgiving break I will be renting this movie and watching it. It is like the prefect movie for this race, class and gender class. Race in the movie is represented by all of the characters. On the new updated plane you do not see one white person in the Class 1 area. The white people that are in the low class are scared and confused about what is going on because it is like a new atmosphere for them. The classes are divided on how much money each person paid to get on the plane. Even though the white family seemed very high maintenance, they were placed in the low class flight area. I saw gender being represented by the flight attendants. There was one guy and two girls that we were introduced to once they started the scenes on the plane. They all had the gender performance of girls. The guy in the group acted more feminine than masculine even though his appearance was masculine.

Masculinity in Media

I will start this blog by saying Bruce Willis protrays masculine in every movie that he is in. When I think of actors and masculinity, Bruce is the word that pops into my head. I have never seen the Live Free or Die Hard movies, but from the clips that I did see he is the "it" factor for masculinity in media. I was watching a movie this weekend called Transportor. I believe it was the second transport, but if you have seen this movie you know that it is a 100% movie that protrays masuclinity. The guy has a job that involves transporting people or things to certain places. He has no clue why he is doing this and most of the time he does not find the job, but it just kind of finds him. In this secong Transportor movie his job is to transport a woman to a certain spot. The woman appears to be feminine, but when she sees the guy fighting bad guys she does not scream or act like a female would in that situation. I know in class we kind of talked about partners that are different sex but both have the same authority rights and gender performance, in Law & Order SUV case would be the "badass" performance.

Midterm

For our midterm we watched the pilot of Leverage. This is the first time I have seen and even heard of this show. In the episode I did see examples of gender performance and a difference in classes. The girl Parker had actions that resembled a man. She was sitting bombs, being sneaky, and stealing useful information. All of those characteristics we would normally place on a male. It seemed like she wanted to get back at the bad guy. Parker appears to be a beautiful woman, but she is a hard ass. Elloit is the opposite. He has long hair, like what a woman would have, but he is masculine about his job. Even though he has triat about him that make him appear on the feminine side, his actions make him appear very masculine.

Ms. Marz

I must say that Veronica is probably one of my idols now that I was introduced to the show. She may look like the sterotype of a "blond" but she is way opposite. She is so strong, smart, and demanding. The way no one stood up to her when she was cutting the guy off the flag pole really said that she was "bad ass". When I got home from class i got right on the internet to look up more episodes of Veronica Marz to learn more about the show. I week later I am still looking up to her as a role model and wishing that I could have been more like her in my high school.

Trading Places...Classes

In class we started watching the movie "Trading Places". I have never seen or even heard of this movie before, but from the start of it, it seems very interesting. Eddie Murphy's character is by far my favorite. I liked when he was first given the house and the way he reacted was to steal anything that he could make money off of. He just could not figure out why the rich men were giving him all those nice things. It like he was expecting them to call the cops on him again.

In the time of the movie it seemed like there was only a high class and a low class. The is another thing we talked about and one thing i found weird was that the high class and the low class did not list any jobs. Once I thought about it a little I realized that the middle class is sometimes the only ones working. Most of the high class does not have to work because they either inherit their money, or do the smallest thing and make millions. The man who invented the plastic piece on the end of a shoe string made so much money off that piece of plastic. All he had to do was think of the simplest thing and now he doesn't really have to do anything.

The middle class on the other hand get the dirty jobs such as teaching, nursing, or managing businesses. I would have to say though, it feels good to know that the money was earned by teaching the youth, helping to heal the sick, or operating a business and possible offering other jobs.

Brain Fart

I want to start off this blog by saying that I realized while we were discussing assignment two during class that I interpreted the whole reading wrong. I did not read over the questions carefully and comprehend what they were asking. It was brought up in class that "Legally Blonde"was a good example for a dominant ideology. At first I felt like I fit in with the stereotype that most blondes are dumb, but once I figured out what I did wrong I realized that their are other examples of dominant ideology. I agree one hundred percent. Not only do I love that movie, but they way that she stands strong in her beliefs and never gives up shows us that "Go woman" attitude. At first I felt like I fit in with the stereotype that most blondes are dumb, but once I figured out what I did wrong I realized that their are other examples of dominant ideology. Another example that I thought of after our discussion in class was the movie "Coach Carter". I think "Coach Carter" portrays to the dominant effect of racism. In the movie the athletes do not do their homework or classwork and expect to get whatever they want since they are athletes. They live in the bad part of town and none of the whites have any respect for them. Their coach teaches them lessons about life and they learn from him how to handle the racists comments and acts that people are doing to them. By the end of the movie the athletes have grown into young men, and prove to white people that even though their skin is different, they are still human.

Now to the social acceptance video. It was probably the dumbest thing I have ever seen. Okay so it wasn't that bad, but i just can't believe that they use to show that to parents at PTA meetings. I felt so bad for the girl that was not invited to the party, especially because her mom didn't even have any hope that she would ever fit in. Times have changed so much that if someone was not invited to a party, he or she would find something else to do with someone else that was most likely not invited either.

The Big Bang

In class I experienced the first episode of The Big Bang Theory. I do not really watch television that much so I would have to say it was a pretty entertaining show. One question that I have is why are nerds considered nerds? Seeing how in the end they were the ones with the typical reflection of a "popular" person. When they went to confront her ex-boyfriend about her TV, they came out with no pants. They should have just laughed in Kurt's face and say "at least we have the girl". Another question I have is Why do the blonds always get stuck being the popular dumb girls? Being a blond myself it is kind of offensive, but I'm use to it. "Most blonde's are dumb" is a stereotype that this society has come up with, and I do not see it ever going away. Hopefully I will get to experience more episodes of The Big Bang Theory so that I can get a better understanding out of their humor.

Class 8-25-2010

In class we discussed popular culture and where it is found. Popular culture is found in various places, and most of the time people will look at the "famous" celebrities to determine what is in and what is not. We also discussed mainstream culture and counter culture. Being raised in a Baptist church, it was hard to persuade my family that their mainstream culture was not my cup of tea. To the baptist, tattoos and piercings were not part of the culture. We also had to sing out of Hymn books with a pianist and led by a choir that consisted of the elderly that had to use bifocals to read the songs. Once my bother and I got our first tattoos, and he gaged his ears, we no longer went to that church. I personally did not like being judge. Why couldn't they accept the fact that things were changing and we had a counter culture. A lot of churches today have a dress code policy, or the ones that stand pout and look different aren't as good because they are different. The church I go to today is in with the counter culture that I like. They don't mind if we have tattoos or piercings. They even have a drummer, guitar player, and singer that leads worship every Sunday morning. It really makes church more interesting and fun if I am around people that do not look at me like I am an alien.