Zootopia

Have you seen Zootopia? No? Go see it now! Drop all responsibilities and just go watch it in the nearest theater. It is wonderful. The storyline is great, the characters are funny, but more than anything, the movie sends a great message.

In case you haven’t seen it, it is about a bunny who wants to be a cop in a world where animals coexist and predators and prey live in harmony. Don’t worry, no spoiler alerts here, but throughout the movie there is a play between predators and prey and how they are perceived by the other side. What is so amazing about this movie is that there is no underdog. Clearly, the animals who are conventionally animals who are preyed upon have different struggles that predators and it could be argued that they have a more difficult time breaking from their characterizations, but it is also shown in the movie that predators are stereotyped and have the same problem.

This allegory may be lost on the 6 year old children who sat next to me in the theater, but I got the message and I hope all the other adults who saw it did too. Everyone has their own struggle. Every group has their own stereotypes and prejudices. Whether you are a fox, a rabbit, a jaguar, a mouse, or a man, everyone faces hardship and we all have to work together to break those by recognizing that they are wrong. Just because one fox is sly doesn’t mean all are and just because one black man committed a crime doesn’t mean they all will. This also means that not all southern white people are racist and not all Indians smell bad. These seem like obvious stereotypes that people understand are wrong but we have to truly believe them for anything to happen.

One of the most pivotal moments in the movie (for me at least) was when the fox called out the bunny for saying stereotypical things about predators when just moments before she had told the fox she knew those things weren’t true about him. Even though she knew not all predators were dangerous, she said it because she fell into the mainstream of thinking and didn’t fight against it. Of course she later fixed her mistake but that’s the point. It is easy for me (a white woman) to sit with one of my black guy friends and say I know not all black men are violent and scary, but until I perpetuate that understanding it does no good. I have to then speak up when I’m somewhere else and I hear people talking about how violent and crazy black men are. We have to act. 

The Bent Leg

A few weeks ago we watched a video in class that discussed how women are depicted in the media and more specifically how they are sexually depicted as powerless, submissive, and dependent on their male counterparts. While I do agree with the general idea and recognize these qualities in many advertisements, I have to disagree with some of the arguments.

In the video, the narrator suggests that this single pose that is so commonly used by models (women models) is a sign of their lack of control. This pose he references focuses largely on the bending of on of their legs and them seeming to lean on it and leaning in. From an art standpoint, that stance is called contrapposto and it is the most natural stance that people stand in. It is the very first thing we learned about in my figure drawing class and it, alone, does not take away power from women. There were some examples where this bending of the leg is exaggerated and seems to really send the message more, but for the most part I see it as benign.

Modeling is a form of art. Models don’t just stand there, they have to angle their bodies to create dynamism in the photograph and create in eye-catching image. It is true that the poses they end up in are often sexualized and possibly submissive but they have to do something with their bodies. If every model stood up straight, with straight legs, all the pictures in the world would look the same and be bland. If every model stood in a “power stance” that men are often seen in, there would be no modeling industry. 

I struggle with both sides because I know that the modeling industry is huge and has to be creative in their images. The idea of art is to create different shapes whether it be with someone’s body or a paintbrush. But I also understand that that means they have to power to perpetuate that idea of a woman’s stance versus a man’s stance. I agree with the narrator on that point, men and women are treated differently. But his initial argument that a woman having a bent leg is a sign of weakness is ludicrous. That is how people stand.

Change Your Words

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K2kfgW7708

We watched this video in a business class I am taking this semester about leadership and as soon as I saw it I thought of our class. I think its weird that they are attempting to sell shampoo with it but I like the overall message so whatever.

This video, with just a few different scenes and some nice background music, brings up a very big issue. Some people call it the glass ceiling; some just call it unfair but it is one of the big issues that women face everyday: labels. No matter what we do, we are almost always face descriptors that hold negative connotation. If I am enthusiastic about something I am pushy and if I am dressing up for party I am either a prude or a slut, there really isn’t an in-between. Men (white men) on the other hand fear no evil. Their actions are almost always described with positive connotations. They are powerful and confident and handsome.

While this video doesn’t give a real course of action or solution to the problem, it brings up the issue itself, which is possibly the most important step. If no one is made to realize that there is a problem, we cant being to attempt fixing it. Then the question is how do we fix it but that’s a pretty big question.

I think it is all in the verbiage. If nothing else, this video shows that certain words hold certain connotations and those words are usually assigned to one group rather than another. But the tricky thing is that connotations aren’t all on the surface; the subtext of those words doesn’t jump off the page in all situations.

Another video I saw recently also brings up this issue of how people speak to women. Although I haven’t made it to the age of every woman in the video I can honestly say that they are all true. And it is also true that a man would never hear.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/48-subtly-sexist-things-women-hear-in-a-lifetime_us_566595d2e4b08e945feff668

The problem with this also is that it isn’t just one single persons fault. Our whole culture is responsible for it, even the women! Every single person in this country who does not speak out against it when it happens to him or her perpetuates it. Similarly to being anti-racists and non-racist, silence does no good; it does not improve the situation. It only allows it to continue.

As I think about both videos together, it all just made me think back to “Killing Us Softly 4” when she read the hair product advertisement that says: “Your breast may be too big, too saggy, too pert, too flat, too full, too far apart, too close together, too a cup, too lopsided, too jiggly, too pale, too padded, too pointy, too pendulous, or just two mosquito bites. But with dep styling products, at least you can have your hair the way you want it.”

I am still baffled by this advertisement but what Jean Kilbourn says still holds true. This content could never and would never be used to sell something to a man because that is just how the world is right now. The words that we deem appropriate for women aren’t good enough for men because our society lacks that equality and as soon as we edit how we talk to each other and about each other we might be able to achieve some progress.

Dear Hearing People

As I procrastinated writing another blog post and looked through facebook I actually found the inspiration for it. I came across this video called “ Dear Hearing People” and it really made my day and made me think about how we treat people and are taught to treat people by society and how that is perpetuated by the media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY4uof7vvZk

This video is a montage of different hearing impaired people who are young, old, white, black, female, male, etc. in which they try to explain how “normal” people often make them feel. What truly set this video apart from the billions of other ones out there that raise awareness about issues was that this gave a solution, and a simple one at theat. The people featured in the video simply ask that people who do not understand them: just say hello.

They ask that “you simply ask us questions and be open”

“Don’t be scared. Don’t run away.”

Because “running away only means that you will continue to not understand us”

“That lack of understanding will only hurt us more”

I think this is a beautiful sentiment.

Every time we talk about race issues or gender issues or whatever issues in class, I feel like my answer is always that we all just need to be more open. We need to understand that life is a learning process and nothing will change over night. I am a white woman so I feel like when I say things like this people get mad and say “well so what, we’re just supposed to have to wait for people to be ok with what makes us different? That’s not fair.” No it isn’t fair. Nothing about discrimination is fair. But people don’t work any other way. People need time to readjust to new ways of thinking. Some are better at it than others, but it just takes one person to “start the trend.”

It also takes the group who is asking for change to be open with the group they are asking this of. That is what this video does. The deaf people (is it still ok to say deaf?) in this video are not raising hell or yelling or blaming others for this injustice. They are simply presenting things as they see and feel them and encouraging others to be open to them.

Most importantly they are inviting people to ask questions. We cannot expect anyone to change without a learning process. That’s what most change is. People learning something new and doing something with that knowledge.

I love to learn. I love to understand new things, new cultures, and new people but honestly I am often scared to ask the important questions that will truly lead to understanding. I don’t feel like I discriminate against anyone but how can I truly know if I don’t understand what other groups are thinking? How can I feel comfortable if no one is opening that door?  

I am grateful to the people in this video for opening that door.

The Illegal Immigrant

Over spring break I had the misfortune of watching Fox News and the snippet of The O’Reilly Factor. I was mostly paying attention to the book in front of me while my boyfriend’s father watched the show but I couldn’t block it out completely. The one clip that really affected me was Bill O’Reilly’s coverage of the news story of a 20-ish year old girl who had been killed. The headline for this story was something along the lines of “Illegal Immigrant Kills Woman.”

Three things bothered me about this and the coverage of the story.

1 – If there had been no picture accompanying the headline of the illegal immigrant, I wouldn’t know a single other fact about him. The five times they referred to him he was only called the illegal immigrant.

2 – He did not murder her. She died in a car accident that was his fault but he did not seek her out and kill her, it was an accident.

3 – There was hardly any coverage on the victim. I was sitting there waiting for him to give an account of her life and all the things they typically say about white women who are killed but he shared almost no details about her.

Then I realized that these things are true because all that mattered in his broadcast of this story was that an illegal immigrant had done something awful.

This got me thinking about titles. Going back to my first problem with this story, I wondered what other aspects there were to this illegal immigrants life. From his picture I could tell he was a man in his mid-twenties but that’s it. O’Reilly framed his story in a way that left me no other possible choice but to associate this illegal immigrants and all illegal immigrants with crime and bad things that we don’t want in America. While I believe that people should not come into this country illegally I know that most do because they have no other choice and that just because on of them does something wrong doesn’t mean they should all be executed (or hidden behind a wall, Trump).

I also started thinking about intersectionality. This illegal immigrant undoubtedly belongs to many other groups and titles but was denied all of them except man and criminal. Not only was he denied his own titles but so was his victim in an attempt to give her the only 3 titles she needed (white, woman, victim) to condemn the illegal immigrant even further. While I realize they only have so many minutes to spend on each story, it seems that to be denied your different group titles, especially the positive ones, is unethical.

As I continued thinking about this I tried to think of all the titles I hold from my in-groups…

White

Female

American

Texan

Southern

Educated

Twenty-year-old

College student

Art student

Travler

Driver

Reader

Soccer player

Scrapbooker

Sister

Daughter

Child of divorce

Cousin

Niece

Granddaughter

Friend

Sorority woman

Zeta Tau Alpha

Brunet

Short

Busty

I was a little shocked as my list continued to grow in my head and realized that if any single one of these was taken away, my entire being would change. Every aspect of who I have become in 20 years was built on the foundation of these groups interacting together through me. Which ones on this list would I be willing to have taken from me for the sake of a shitty, politically framed news story?

Minorities in Media *EDITED*

Someone did their project over twilight and we got into a conversation about how different people are underrepresented in the film. While I agree that a lot of movies are mostly white, I wonder what conversation we would be having about a story of a black family written by a white person…

Again I find myself thinking back to this Macklemore rapping about black culture. Does it then become cultural appropriation and a bad thing? Would the movie then be chastised because a white producer is making money off a “black” movie?

Also what about your “token black friend” in many movies? Where is the line between being criticized for including people and including the right number of people? The fact that the “token black friend” is even a widely understood role proves there is an issue at hand but how do we fix it?

To further this question I wonder: are we arguing that producers and movie companies should be producing more movies and books written by black people or that just in general there needs to be more of a mix? Are we criticizing this media for symbolically annihilating minorities or are we mad because of how everyone is represented in whole?  Are we criticizing people for writing about their culture or the culture that they know or are we criticizing the industry?

Who are we blaming and why?

To me it seems like no one can do anything correctly. No matter what we do, we are always criticized for something. So where do we draw the line? When is it enough?

Then we run in to the issue of racial segregation again in media. If the black community is unhappy with the number of white people in most American movies, it could be argued that they should go make their own predominantly black movies. This is clearly not a viable solution since the black community does not have the same means or opportunities as the white community to produce blockbuster films and this also brings back the idea of separate but equal.

So what is the solution?

In major films should the industry impose a requirement of each race? Or should movies be cast blind where production crews can’t see the people auditioning and the color of their skin? But then what if the movie is about the history of slaves and white actors get cast as slaves? Or if a biography of George Bush and his family (who are clearly all white) is being made, how should other races be incorporated into that? I know these are slightly extreme examples but the idea holds: when is it good enough and where is the line drawn?

I do think there is a large importance in equally representing different races in media becase that is how our society becomes more comfortable with “others.” For example, the Cosby show was the first real show about an affluent black family who lived like “regular” (aka white people). Or the TV show Modern Family, which has helped normalize gay relationships in many places. These shows included groups that are not regularly represented and helped society feel more comfortable with them. While I don’t think it is right to say that rich affluent white men need time to help them feel comfortable with these minority groups, I know that everything takes time and adjustment and depends on the education of the next generation.