Caralyn

In thinking of ways that films and shows challenge the assumptions that Parenti makes, I have come up with a lot of examples. To begin, “North Country� challenges the idea that usually the male, from an upper class background is more likely to succeed, and is an all around better person. The “Wayne’s World� movies challenge Parenti, in that Wayne and Garth were definitely not well spoken individuals, however they were successful, and were ‘the good guys’. Television show “Passions� illustrates Teresa’s rise to wealth, from a poor, Hispanic family, in America. Parenti’s assumptions were general, not taking into consideration every aspect, only the general idea.
“North Country� illustrates a poor woman trying to make a living working in the mining industry. Going by Parenti’s assumptions, to succeed in this position, she would have to be a wealthy, well spoken, individual to make any kind of impact. Charlize Theron proves this theory wrong in that she makes a difference on her own through fighting for all women’s rights. In turn, she ends the gender issues on the minds, and she keeps her position. All the while, being that same, not very well spoken, poor, woman in a male dominated society.
“Wayne’s World� also challenges this idea of class rank being limited to only being as successful as one’s own money allows. Wayne and Garth are poor teenagers, starting out filming the most random things from Wayne’s parent’s basement. In proving Parenti’s assumptions false, Wayne and Garth end up making it on there own, they do their show “Wayne’s World� for a living. Similarly to North Country, Wayne and Garth are the ‘good’ people in this movie, the wealthy people are the ‘mean/bad’ characters which also goes against what Parenti assumes.
Teresa’s character in “Passions� proves Parenti’s assumptions wrong on several levels. The fact that she is a poor woman of Hispanic descent in the running for a higher up position at a white, male dominated company. Teresa breaks away from her families generalized lower class ranking, she fights her way to the top of Crane industries. She’s now CEO of Crane industries. Not that she did all of the right things to get to the top, but she made it on her own, even though she is not the from the general “class� that Parenti would associate with this character. To further disprove Parenti, Teresa is the protagonist of the show, and the wealthy people on the show are in fact the ill-mannered characters.
All in all, Parenti’s assumptions can easily be disproved, these are just a few of the examples that I came up with, and am familiar with, among many others.

Posted by Caralyn Stevens at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Archana Mehta's paper expressed a lot of what we discussed in class within the ideas of stereotypes of homosexuals. In my opinion I feel like Mehta could have got her message across in a lot less writing. Nevertheless, the author gets a quite clear point across, and I agree.
Television has a kind of homophobic way of illustrating gay/lesbian relationships. As the author talked about with the show friends, Susan and Carol were not typical lesbians, they were made to be comedic. This show being as popular as it was, and is with re-runs, shows how society has a homophobic approach to excepting gays/lesbians. If our society did except these relationships, maybe we would be more interested in the direct portrayal of them.
On the other hand, I feel like maybe this is exactly why alot of our society does find these issues entertaining. We know that this is not the actual way that lesbians live their lives, this is exaggerated to make their relationship comedic. I think this could be for some people the reason why it is funny, but also for some people why it is comfortable to watch. Some people are just not comfortable with the ever changing ways of society.

Posted by Caralyn Stevens at 5:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

WIth this article I feel like it gets pretty personal on many aspects. Was it fair that Ice-T was judged the way he was? Was it fair for him to even write, and rap what he rapped? Would he have anything to write, and rap about if it wasn't a problem?
I think that from my understanding, racial problems were very evident in this situation. The original problem was of white authority discriminating against the black population. When Ice-T expressed this issue in his own way, the white authority turned it around saying that the black population was raging out against them as if the white people had done nothing wrong and they, themselves were the victims.
On the other hand, I personally feel like, this type of public advertising of ideas to kill the authority, puts ideas in peoples heads. It's like being a follower is easier than being a leader, alot of crazy, scary, rebellious people could have been waiting for someone higher up to state the obvious! Similarly, nowadays, those creepy, horror films, like hostel, and saw I, II, and III, about torture, can you imagine what kind of sick people are just sitting around getting ideas for this sort of stuff.
Maybe, I'm way off base with that! In which case, if you think I was, I have another aspect on the Ice-T issue. Ice-T is an artist, right? If this is his artistic style, which had quite honestly been done many times before him, why argue it. People can interpret it in their own ways, and it does have a lot of factual evidence! The best professor I've had so far played my class a song called "strange fruit" by Billie Holiday, along with a video of Black lynchings, and hangings by the white authority. History repeating, I don't think the song was a bad song, I think it's a reality check, somethings wrong!

Posted by Caralyn Stevens at 5:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)