#jour4250

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JOUR 4250

Week 13, November 19, 2019

This week’s discussion was probably the most fun I’ve had while linking what we’ve learned to media I was very familiar with. We compared the Twilight Saga to SCWAMP, which is a theory on what is considered most valued in our society. SCWAMP stands for, Straight, Christian, White, Able-bodied, Male, and Property-holding.

The parallels between this concept and the twilight movies was very apparent. Even off the top of my head now I can recall how all of these characteristics are portrayed in the movies. For example, all of the vampires (and all of the characters to my knowledge) are heterosexual, when it is widely accepted that most vampires are considered bisexual (probably because they’ve lived longer and don’t really care about their sexuality when they’re immortal). The women in the film are all at the mercy of the men in the movie as well. Most notably, Bella falls into a deep depression after Edward leaves her and is always being protected in some way by him or Jacob.Victoria, who is the villain for 3 of the 5 movies, becomes the villain after her mate James is killed in the first movie.  The movie favors men a lot more than women. It is a common fact that the werewolf pack leader, Sam, has anger issues and physically attacked his girlfriend who stayed with him throughout the movie. There are also only 5 vampires who are people of color and two of them don’t have any speaking lines as far as I know. Four of them are only brought in to help the Cullens and the other, Laurent, is a villian and killed in the second movie. The movies also reinforce Christian ideals that a girl’s virginity is sacred. Edward will only turn her into a vampire, ultimately taking her soul (virginity), after they get married.

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JOUR 4250

Week 12, November 12, 2019

In this week’s discussion we talked about the portrayal of LGBTQ+ members in the media. We spent half the time talking about Jason Collins, who was the active male athlete to come out as gay, and Michael Sam, a football player who just a year later. I found these cases very interesting because, I personally don’t see how someone’s sexuality could affect their ability to play basketball or football, but apparently some people do. I am also aware that there is still rampant homophobia in the sports industry and a lot of teams work as companies who hold “traditional family values” and I guess being gay doesn’t really go with that.

One of the students said something really interesting because they said that a lot of athletes’ sexuality is an open secret or a sort of “oh we just don’t talk about it” sort of situation. That makes sense to me but it also makes me sad because even though society is getting more progressive there can still be major consequences for an athlete who comes out at part of the LGBTQ+ community.

The second half of class we talked about portrayal of LGBTQ+ members in fictional media, specifically movies and television. I think it’s very important to have that representation in mainstream media because it helps educate people who haven’t come in contact with a gay man or a trans woman for example. As we were going through the presentation I started to think about the different queer characters in the media I consumed as a kid. The main character that sticks out in my memory was Adam from Degrassi: The Next Generation. Adam was a transgender male and he was the first person I ever saw that was part of the LGBTQ+ community. I remember watching the character go through their transition and being confused by it in the beginning because he would dress as a girl in front of his parents but would bind his breasts and dress like a boy before going to school. After I fully understood what was happening after a few episodes I was just sort of like, “oh, he’s a boy.” and nothing much after that, and I think that’s a testament to the writers for creating a character that was more than transgender.

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JOUR 4250

Week 10, October 29, 2019

I was very excited about this week’s discussion on masculinity. As a woman, masculinity was never something I understood and I was always interested in understanding the differences between how men are brought up versus women. Throughout the documentary we watched, I was surprised at how much of masculinity I already understood, but before I just thought it was my own opinion as a woman. It is common knowledge that young men are trained from a very young to be a perfect man. Be the alpha, be dominant, do not show any kind of emotion, women are less than you. And a lot of that is reinforced in high school. Something that really interested me was how sports have such a big impact on young men, especially the coaches. It is very easy for the environment surrounding the sport to become toxic or violent, and it is up to the coaches to set a good example for the players. One of the coaches said something I really like, “Sports doesn’t build character unless the coach emphasizes and models it.”

After this discussion I had a talk about masculinity with one of best friends who is a guy. It was the first time we had ever talked about something like this is any form in the 16 years we’ve known each other. He told me that there was definitely a toxic locker room talk that was degrading and dismissive of women. It was kind of hard hearing something like that from someone I am close to, especially when he admitted to participating in some of this toxic speech. He said that sometimes it was the “good guys” saying something about a girl and that even he was surprised by what some of his teammates said. I think it’s just a reminder that there is a large bystander culture that is linked to masculinity and hidden by the title, “the bro code”.

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JOUR 4250

Week 9, October 22, 2019

I really enjoyed this week’s discussion about women in politics. I personally have always been interested in how women are portrayed in the media and I think there is a specific light that shines on women if they enter into politics and the media always has a field day with every decision or comment they make.

Dr. Dustin Harp came and explained the differences between men and women in politics and I think she hit on certain points that many people already knew but had never really seen it explained to them in a way that shows just how different politics can be for women. She focused mainly on gender roles and norms and how the American gender roles help perpetuate the idea that women cannot be in positions of power, because they “just can’t handle it.” A lot of the traits that align with what is considered to be a good leader are all traditionally masculine traits. Strong, independent, objective, assertive, not emotional. This normalizes the expectations that men are better leaders than women.

A story that Dr. Harp pointed out was when Hillary Clinton had pneumonia and when she tripped while walking to her car, the media blew everything out of proportion. This was the one piece of evidence that right winged media used to say that she wasn’t fit to be a leader, and that she was too weak. An interesting point was brought up that if this were a man who tripped because they were tired and sick, they would be praised and people would say, “oh he’s so committed to this and he’s so strong coming up here even though he was sick.” This also reminded me of the backlash Hillary Clinton got after crying during an interview about the struggles of running for office in 2008. Women are at risk of being pushed out of the circle of politics whenever they show any kind of  vulnerability or emotion, but if they remain assertive and stoic they are called a bitch or too manly and will lose anyway.

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JOUR 4250

Week 8, October 15, 2019

In this week’s discussion we talked about the normalization of violence against women and female representation in hip hop and rap music.

The video we based our first discussion on was Love The Way You Lie by Eminem feat. Rihanna. I remember when this song first came out and loving it and dancing to the beat and trying to rap all of eminem’s parts. Even as a child certain lyrics still caught me off guard, like “next time I’ll aim my fist at the drywall” or “If she ever tries to leave imma tie to the bed and set this house on fire.” As a kid, those lyrics sort of scared me, but it wasn’t enough for me to stop listening to the song because I don’t think I truly understood the meaning behind those words at the age of 10. As we watched the music video in class I kept switching back from enjoying the song and mouthing the lyrics to watching the video and criticising how it romanticize the idea of an abusive relationship. Overall, we learned, or more so, were reminded of how misogynistic this music is, and how women are objectified in a lot of the music as well. I really enjoyed learning about how black women are taking back the rap/hip hop genre for themselves and are becoming more popular than other male artists. I think with the rise of artists like Lizzo and Meg the Stallion, there is more female empowerment associated with that genre, at least from my perspective. With those artists coming more into mainstream music as well, I think there is a better chance of breaking the stereotype that ALL rap/hip hip music is degrading and not safe for children like it was when I was a kid. Today I think more people are becoming aware of the meaning behind the lyrics and how some of them can be problematic, so once they become aware, they are less likely to continue following that artist.

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JOUR 4250

WEEK 7 October 8, 2019

This week was different but very interesting because we got to hear about people’s content and historial analysis projects. Not only did I find new tv shows and movies to watch, but I definitely learned more, and started looking at what I loved watching more critically.

I really enjoyed the presentation on the show “Living Single”. I remember watching parts of episodes of that show with my mom when I was younger and I now appreciate how the show explored the lives of four different black women. I think it was a good example of intersectionality, or the several identities that everyone has that makes them a person. Each character had different things that made them different people, even though they were all black wmen, they still went through different struggles.

Another thing we talked about in class was the portrayal of people with disabilities in the media. I think this group of people could be the most marginalized group of people in media. A lot of movies and shows do try to have representation but the characters never seem to be that fleshed out or well-rounded characters. A specific example would be the representation of those on the autism spectrum. For a long time we didn’t even know how to explain it, let alone portray it in film. Now that more research is coming out writers are more willing to create characters with autism, so we get shows like the Good Doctor or the Big Bang Theory.

I would like to see more people on the autism spectrum casted in roles in major movies and tv though. Having autism has so many different layers to it and sometimes people forget that there is a person behind the disability who would very much like to act or perform in other ways.  I have a cousin who is on the spectrum and he also has ADHD and he is getting into theatre and choir at school, so I would really like to see more people like him on screen for him to look up so he can maybe one day star in a big blockbuster movie.

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JOUR 4250

WEEK 6 October 1, 2019

This week we discussed Islamophobia in America, specifically how the news media outlets portray the Muslim community. We also had former UNT student Saad Yousuf give a presentation with his own experience as well. 

I think everyone knows that there is Islamophobia all around the world, ESPECIALLY in America. I my opinion, Muslims are one of the largest communities that are subject to symbolic annihilation. Symbolic annihilation is when marginalized groups of people are not portrayed to the same degree as the dominant group in society (straight white christian men). This means that they are more likely to get stereotyped. Of course, a main reason for the racism and islamophobia today is because of the attacks on 9/11. Islamophobia didn’t start in 2001 but another generation was taught to fear and/or hate Muslims. 

I spoke about it a little in class, but every year in elementary school, we would take the day to remember what happened. I think this was the first exposure I had to those who were called, “Muslim terrorists”. For a long time I didn’t know there were any other kind of person who practiced Islam. I wasn’t even properly educated on Islam as a religion until high school and even that was through a Catholic school lens. One thing Saad Yousuf said that seems really obvious but not a lot of people seem to understand is, ‘Terrorism is not a religious group.”

I also really enjoyed our discussion about Muslim women who wear a hijab. There has always been the stereotype that any woman who wears any variation of the hijab is oppressed and abused, or has no power. I think that mindset is changing slowly because wearing a hijab doesn’t seem to be limiting a Muslim woman’s choice to dress or act how she wants. I am not Muslim so I don’t know everything, but from my outsider point of view, wearing a hijab and being a modern woman in the 21st century isn’t such a give and take process anymore.

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JOUR 4250

WEEK 4 September 17, 2019

In this week’s discussion we talked about the historical impact of racism in the media and how it is displayed today. A lot of what Group 15′s discussion was about was how racism didn’t end with the Civil Rights Act in 1964. The example they gave was, “If we told you to stop speaking english tomorrow, you wouldn’t be able to stop speaking english.” Just because someone was told it’s not okay to be racist anymore doesn’t mean they’re going to magically stop being racist. Hasan Minhaj said it best in one of his episodes of Patriot Act. I’m paraphrasing but it was something along the lines of, you shouldn’t accept when someone says, ‘hey at least it’s not as bad as it used to be’, you wouldn’t accept that about your WiFi so why should you accept it about racism. 

Another main topic we discussed was “colorblindness”. I think many people (mostly older generations) see colorblindness as a good thing, and I guess at first thought it does seem like a step in the right direction. In our discussion we talked about how damaging it actually id. If you’re “colorblind” you are refusing to acknowledge someone’s race, which is very key to their identity as  a person and they could be very proud of their race/ethnicity because it’s a sign of what makes them different and a link to a culture they come from. 

I am Hispanic and white (weda as my dad would call it) while my mother is a lot darker than I am, so growing up the color of someone’s skin had no meaning to the significance of that person in my life. It didn’t matter if the grocery store lady asked if my mom was the babysitter (which is a whole story that I might discuss later) because I knew that she was my mom and I was her daughter. As I got older though I did have to come to terms with the fact that I had the privilege to be colorblind. The color of my skin didn’t outwardly or negatively affect me so I didn’t think it affected others that much either. 

I think it’s careless and borderline arrogant to be colorblind. As progressive as someone says they are, there are always going to be those who DO see color, and they’ll see it as a issue rather than something that brings everyone together.