Caralyn

Suburbs from the City

2007-04-24T11:35:35Z

Note: before I start writing, I am from a small city, and had no idea what defined the "suburbs"
In the suburbs all of the houses look the same. There are no businesses to work at near by. If people need to shop, go to work, or go to school they have to drive for a descent amount of time to get to them. The suburbs are really quiet and separated from everything. They are very well kept up, everyone likes their yards and houses clean, and proper. Since it isn't a big city area there's not a lot of driving here, unless leaving the area altogether. It is very pedestrian friendly, narrow streets, wide sidewalks ( I realize now that this is not true, but this is what I wrote). People are usually getting around on foot or bike.
Since the main idea of the suburban area is separation from the city, it is not technically a neighborhood on it's own. Neighborhoods consist of anchoring institions (school, library), streets, niches (gas stations, grocery store), public gardens (parks), and private gardens (Prof. B. Agee, Arch. 1401).

After analyzing the areas in class discussion I realize now that I was wrong, and the suburbs do not favor pedestrians over vehicles and that infact most do not even have sidewalks. I guess I felt like I did an okay job of describing them otherwise from what I heard people say. That the niches are away from the houses, and if people do walk around they just get to more houses. I know now that people in the suburbs drive everywhere for the most part because walking will only get you to more houses. However, you don't necessarily have to go to the cities for supplies, boarding the suburbs are convient stores, grocery stores, malls, etc.

Advertising and People of Color

2007-04-10T10:55:50Z

This article is interesting in how it discusses the different views of racial advertising. Stating that "racial integration" does not substantially affect the sales in advertisment. In my opinion, I see that there is an argument that things tend to be stereotypical of races, but how can they not be in one way or another?
The features of Aunt Jemima are offensive in that she is representing black servants as "bandana wearing," chubby people. This is definitely offensive when critiqued and torn apart in that it is something that is served to us, representing a server, and that typically this is what they look like. The only way I see this as not being able to be racist somehow, is that it could be racist in other ways?? I guess I am changing my theme midway here...advertising is usually stereotypical of races, but if they are not stereotypical of one certain race it is going to be stereotypical of another. What I am saying is that there is no way to advertise something without it representing a larger group of people, and in someway being stereotypical!
The China doll example was also interesting. The model refused to cut her hair to have bangs, and wear it straight, in a stereotypical way to say that this is how chinese women look! I think this is a pretty harsh awakening to the world of advertising. For this women this is especially hard because this is not how she looks, but this is how people stereotype her, and it's just not her at all. See, with this I feel like even if the advertising company said it would be okay for her to leave her hair, straight, no bangs for example, it would still stereotype them. She thinks one way is stereotypical, but no matter how she would have been portrayed she would have represented the general background.
Advertising will always be stereotypically racist. The only advertising that I can think of, which is perhaps the most interesting, is when people are abstracted! If people are made up so unique, their hair, and dress so far from the norm that they couldn't possibly represent their entire background, only then is it not stereotypical. This would target people who want to be unique, and stand out! The only thing is, when everyone wants to be unique and stand out, then everyone is, and no one is then these things.

Construction of the Female Self

2007-04-03T10:20:23Z

I feel that the interpretations of the Disney movie characters as representing upon womens behalf is way too in depth. By this I mean that no child, who is the target audience, views Cinderella, and takes in the idea that she had "sure signs of both external and internalized oppression." (p. 437) Also the idea that she can only, ever dream is not what I thought when I saw it as a child. I saw that this average girl, just like me, became a beautiful princess! I certainly never thought that Cinderella never thought for herself, or that her dreams were just dreams, and she was mentally unstable because she kept in her feelings. It's obvious to me now that these things are true, but nobody critiques these movies like this, and they shouldn't because they're for "entertainment".
The ideas critiqued of The Little Mermaid, were again true, and again ridiculous. The movie was not made for people to pick out the facts that Ariel was always controlled by her father, or that she gave up her curiousity for a boy. It was for small children to see and think I oh, I want to be like that, she's happy, she has someone, whatever. "Ariel chooses to leave her own people for life with Eric, it is still not her power but her father's power which enables her..." this is taken way out of context. Ariel is put in a hard decision, she wants true love in order to be happy. The act of her father having the power to do this could relate to marriage in a sense, an everday normal situation where the father gives her daughter away. The movie portrays real life, ideal situations in a much more down to child level sort of way.
Disney movies are not meant to be picked apart and analyzed, and hated. If children acted in those ways, they would be sitting around watching the news, reading news papers, things that normal children do not do.
Also, I wanted to add, in our discussion the question was put out 'does every disney movie have the girl is only happy after she's with her true love?' I thought of a good one that is not the 'prince/true-love idea'...one of my favorites as well, "Lilo and Stitch". In this movie, Lilo, the little girl (main character) does not grow up to become some beautiful woman and meet her true love. This one illustrates the bond between a child and her pet. I feel this is the best one as well, because guys are never perfect :) , and a girl can always count on her pet to be there for her! This is actually something that kids can live up to, haha!

Crossing Invisible Line

2007-03-27T10:56:47Z

How does pop. culture teach race/ethnicity?
It was a struggle for my group to come up with examples of how invisible lines are crossed through pop. culture We did, however, come up with a few, pretty obvious examples: dance, sports, and intelligence.
First, the example of dance is an example as the typical idea taught, is that black people can dance, white people cannot dance. Which the same goes for music, black people are thought to be very well tuned rhythmically, while white people are not. Somebody in the group commented, "Yeah, but everybody can dance!...When they're drunk." (haha) This concept is somewhat blurred, although most people become professional dancers when they are intoxicated, the sterotype still stands that white people are lacking in musical, and dance skilled areas.
Second, sports also are most clearly stereotyped with white people being less athletic than black people. To quote our text, it also stated that black people have been proven factually to be better swimmers because of their build. Our ideas were in more opinionated, obvious examples. Such as the fact that most professional basketball players, and in some cases football players are black. Perhaps, not intentionally, but in some ways proving that this is for a reason, and that reason being that black people are more highly skilled athletes. This isn't to say that the stereotype is that NO white people are good athletes, this is just the general idea.
The last example is of how intelligence is taught, in that the Chinese culture is generally thought of as the smartest. Think of in movies, and just growing up, they are always thought of as being steps ahead of other countries, and often play the highly intelligent role in life. Again, this isn't to say that other people are dumb, but that generally we were taught that Chinese people are smarter than others.
This discussion was interesting, and very hard to actually discuss in that, we were not brought up to think like this. This is the first time I have had to purposely notice these things.

People Like Us

2007-03-08T17:32:32Z

There are so many instances where I've been "outcasted"/haven't belonged, funnier ones are better to share...
I have recently just moved down to Minneapolis, this is my first semester here, I transferred from UW-Superior. I live with my brother's girlfriend and 3 other roommates, 5 people total. I am the youngest, they have all got about 5 or more years on me.
The story begins with drinking related challenges, everyone can probably relate. Anyways, I had two small drinks and was feeling just fine. I was torn apart for not fitting in, being the person who can't "drink alot". They made comments like "aren't you supposed to be a college student?", and "I can't believe you're Craig's sister, he'd be ashamed of you!" So being the idiot I am, I tried to act like, wait a minute I can be just like you guys if you want to, trying to make a good impression on my roommates.
The night ended with a several more drinks, and 4/5 shots, the 5th one I dumped into my empty glass, as I left for the bathroom. I was puking all night and the next morning the outcast label continued. They then criticized me by "I can't believe you were even sick, you didn't even drink anything!" I had to convince them that I did by naming in order everything that we had all had, and then I was STILL not justified.
All in all, I am now permanently questionable to whether or not I am actually a "college student" in their minds.
COMMENT FROM MOVIE:
The scene with the teacher speaking of students having nicer cars than the faculty...
I can totally relate to this instance as well. In highschool my parents purchased a cutlass that was as old as I am, my brother drove it, when he graduated I drove it. The front seat wasn't locked in, so when I hit the brakes, the seat would slide forward, then back again when I accelerated. The windows were not automatic, the ashtray council part would randomly fall out from time to time, haha, it's funny to think of this car now. The driver side handle was also broken so the door wouldn't lock and to open it I'd have to reattach it first.
To get to the point, I gave my boyfriends sister a ride home and her first comment was, "you ACTUALLY drive this thing?!" See, I didn't care, it drove! Their parents ofcourse bought them brand new nice cars, automatic everything, cd players, etc. Needless to say, the Cutlass has been retired now, so I was driving a hand me down from my grandparents, to my parents to me, that got totalled my first weekend down here, now I "technically" have no vehicle :).
I can totally relate to how the teacher felt in the movie.

Challenging Parenti

2007-02-27T11:59:00Z

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.

Society's Need for a Queer Solution

2007-02-14T05:43:11Z

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.

cop out

2007-02-07T05:14:11Z

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!

"Shitty First Drafts"

2007-01-31T04:42:57Z

"Shitty First Drafts" made for a much more comfortable entry to this course. I personally feel 10 times, if not more, comfortable about what I've interpreted about the painting I chose, and about other people reading my "shitty first draft."
With the reading in particular there were some passages that definitely stood out. "We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes or can even stand her" the priest replies with, "you can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do." This is referring to the one person who gets a perfect paper out of his/her first draft. I felt like this just really put into perspective that nobody gets "it" the first time. It is not the norm to be perfect, and it is certainly the exception to do "perfect" just like that. Even if someone does do an "A+" paper the first time, that does not mean that in their heads while they were writing they weren't editing, taking time to go back, and fixing things the whole time.
Another passage that grabbed my attention was , "It's not like you don't have a choice, because you do--you can either type or kill yourself." Sometimes...it almost feels like you seriously just want to die, because putting your thoughts into words is hard!
Note: I'm not someone who likes reading about "hate" and "death". Hopefully, whoever reads this thought those passages in particular where hilarious too. :)

"Reading and Writing About Art"-Caralyn S

2007-01-24T19:41:07Z

Many things were interesting throughout this reading. A portion that caught my eye, was the entry on isolating a part of the whole is transforming it as something different from the original idea. One's perception might see that idea, however there are many ways of viewing the idea of isolating. I personally think that, for example "Venus and Mars" page 480 to portrait of a girl on page 481, is a completely innacurate interpretation. In my mind "Venus and Mars" is a portrait of a girl, and a portrait of a guy, and the half goat, half human figures (satars, I believe they're called). In other words, taking the reproducted isolated form does not entirely change the whole concept of the picture. The portrait of the girl is still the portrait of the girl that it was in the original "Venus and Mars".
The reading states that the isolating reproduced process transforms, "An allegorical figure becomes a portrait of a girl". I feel this a huge understatement, the portrait still portrays a portrait of an allegorical figure.