SIFF: Winter's Bone

I also went to see the movie Winter’s Bone at SIFF. This movie was very interesting and different at the same time. This movie was about a girl name Ree who has to find her father before their family’s house is taken away because her father put the house on his bail from jail. However, she soons finds out that her father has been murdered, and so she now has to prove that he missed court because he is dead. But she needs to find his body in order to prove this.

Class was shown through this movie by showing that the family was suffering for food, and not able to feed their horses. Portraying that they were in the lower class. One of the horses had not eaten for 4 days, so she asked her neighbor if she took acre for her horse. Class was also shown through the cars. Ree stated something about the bounty hunter not being from her “neck of the woods” because he had a nice car. Her neighbors also offered to raise up her little brother and sister since she was the only one there to raise them since her father was gone and her mother never spoke. Class was also shown in the way they talked. Lower class was shown through their incorrect English throughout the movie. For example they said “ain’t” instead of do not or don’t.

Sexism was shown through the movie when Ree was looking for her father and the lady that she asked if she knew where he was said, “Ain’t you got a man to do this for you.” Showing that Ree looking for her father was not something that they believed a woman should be doing.



Throughout this movie, I noticed an issue about race. I noticed that there were only white people involved. Not once was there a person of a different race other than white shown. Therefore, this movie would not pass the race bechdel tect. It does pass the regular bechdel test though.

I would recommend going to see this movie. Even though there are only white people involved, I thought that, overall, the movie had a good message, and showed how perseverance can help you succeed. It also shows that even though they did not have a lot, due to their class status, they were not willing to lose it, and that Ree was willing to fight for what she had.

SIFF: The Bakal Boys

I went to go see the Bakal Boys at SIFF. This movie was about a group of boys who would get money for their family by collecting scraps of metal from boats and from the ocean. One day, they were searching for an anchor and one of the boys did not return home. They spent days looking for him, but could never find him.

During this movie, I could not help but notice the way in which the boys’ class was portrayed throughout the film. They showed that the boys were low class in many ways. One way that stuck out in the very beginning of the movie was that the boys would wear the same clothing every day. One of the boys ripped a rather large hole in his pants, but still wore them the next day. This portrayed that they were too poor to own more than one pair of pants. Another way in which they showed their class was through their house. Their house was ultimately outdoors, with the sand that they walked on outside as the floor. They used drapes, sheets, and woven twine and bamboo as their walls. This was very sad, considering that they did not have appropriate housing, especially since their family was pretty large.



The movie did not show very many issues about gender, except for that all of the children were boys, and I never say one little girl throughout the film. Also, that this movie did not pass the bechdel test. Another issue on gender was that the boy who went missing only had a grandma, whop they never showed going to look for him, but showed other people telling her that they would look for him for her. They only showed her mourning the lost of her grandson.

This movie may have shown a little bit of some race issues since all of the people in the movie were Phillipino, a minority in the U.S., and that they were living in poverty.

Overall, this movie would not be one that I would recommend to go see. I thought that it could use more female characters, more diversity in class (since the lower class was all that they showed in the film), and maybe have some other races involved in different aspects of the movie (To show maybe some more privileged Phillipinos so that there is not a stereotype that all phillipinos are poor).

"Big Daddy" and Marriage

This week we talked about many different aspects of sexual orientation. This week, I happened to watch the movie "Big Daddy." I noticed that two male characters in the film were gay and were in a relationship with each other. In the earlier part of the film, they kiss, and one of the other characters says something about, "not being used to seeing them do that," because this man and the two kissing had been friends their whole lives and just they just recently both came out about being gay. After he said this, Adam Sandler's character said, "Well that's what gay people do, it's not that big of a deal." I thought it was interesting how the movie put in two different perspectives that straight people have towards gays or lesbians. I thought that the man who was not "used" to seeing them kissing might have a little bit of homophobia in accompaniment with his stereotypes, because he stereotypes his whole life that these men were not gay because of the gender roles that they followed most of their lives.

Talking about the conflict between same-sex marriage and the legal system in class was very interesting. I do not think that same-sex marriage is acceptable, however, I do not feel that I have the right to tell anyone else who they can or cannot love, or that they can or cannot get married for any reason. I have no right to judge anyone for loving someone that I may not approve of. For people to vote "no" on issues like same-sex marriage being legalized is very saddening to me, because none of those people have the right to tell anyone else how to live his or her life. And they certainly do not have the right to tell them that they cannot get married. Regardless if someone is heterosexual or homosexual, that does not mean that their rights of marriage should be taken away.
The movie we watched in class, "But I'm a Cheerleader", I think made a good example of how ridiculous it is to treat people who are homosexual like they have a emotional problem that can be fixed with therapy. It shed a comedic light on an issue that many people do not find funny at all, especially if they are dealing with a family or friends who do not support them when they "come out of the closet."
Overall, there are many issues with homosexuality that still need to be address, especially in the legal system. People are being deprived of their rights for personal reasons.

MEDIA PORTRAYAL IN MUSIC VIDEOS

After learning about disability this week, and learning how it is stereotyped in the media, I started to think about music videos, and how disability is portrayed in that form of media if it is at all. At first I could not think of any music videos that showed any form of disability at all. I tried to find music videos on youtube with a disabled person in it, but the closest I could come to were music videos about people with cancer. An example was Rascal Flatts- Sarah Beth. However, I did come across a video of a girl who is deaf, but can sing with songs through sign language. I found this to be very interesting and pretty cool that someone could do that.
(The video would not upload for some reason, so here is the URL)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1EcmvdVnUI
Although I was a little upset that there were no videos that I could find that did not feature an able-bodied person, it got me to thinking about other aspects of our class that are portrayed in videos. The first one that came to mind is sexuality and gender. In Christina Aguilera’s video for Beautiful, there is a gay couple and a transgendered man among other issues. This was the only video that I could find that really dealt with any issues of race and gender. I did find some from Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Christina Aguilera’s new video that contain some gay and lesbian content, but not dealing with issues to help gays and lesbians, just about people at the clubs and at parties. If it is so difficult to find a video like this for the able-bodied, I doubt that there is a music video that deals with homosexuality and disability in one. After trying to find videos for both of these issues, I definitely noticed that there is a huge lack of portrayal for both of these issues in the media, and especially in music and their videos. It makes you think how are disabled people supposed to break free of their stereotypes of the sweet innocent, noble warrior, saintly sage, tragic victim, and the obsessive avenger if they are not given examples of anything else, and not given examples of being what is considered "normal"?

I also typed in disability in images on google, and the first picture that showed up was of a person in a wheel chair that was blurred out so that you could not see who the person was. This makes it seem like people with disability do not have identities and that they do not have personalities. The picture gives off the impression and feeling that being in a wheelchair is depressing.
After this disturbing picture, I also saw one that can make people with disability feel like they are still capable of anything and are still just as much a part of life as they would be if they were not disabled. The boy in the wheelchair in the picture is holding a basketball and standing with other able-bodied kids. Obviously portraying that being in a wheelchair cannot slow him down.

Hopefully there will be a much more broad portrayal of sexuality and disability in media in the near future.

Crash Stereotypes

"Crash" has been one of my favorite movies ever since it was released in 2004. However, after learning about stereotypes, and how hard it is for people to beak out of their stereotypes, I see the movie much differently than I had before. I noticed that a lot of the stereotypes that we talked about in class, read about in our readings, and watched in class are in "Crash." On eexample is how a latina is expected to be sexy all the time.... Well in the movie, the latina character does sleep with her police partner, reinforcing that this negative stereotype is true. Another example would be in the beginning of the movie where Sandra Bullock's character cuddles to her husband as they were walking to their car because she saw a black man, played be Ludacris. Ludacris' character points out what she did and says that white people are scared of black people, even though there are more white people than black people around where they were. This reinforces the stereotype that all black men are scary. Another example of stereotypes in this movie was when the Persian family was mistaken for being middle eastern, and someone burglarized their store because they thought that they were idle eastern. Also, the man whose store was burglarized accused the hispanic man, who was fixing the lock on the back door of the store, that he was cheating him out of money when he tried to tell the store owner that he needed a new door. Also, he fixed the locks on Sandra Bullock's character's home doors. He overheard her saying that she was scared that he would sell one of his "homies" their new house key, and that she wanted the locks changed again by someone else in the morning. This says that hispanics are expected not to be trusted for some reason. Another example is when the Police Officer played by Matt Dillon saves the woman from the car, portraying him as a white messiah, even though earlier in the movie, he boarderline molested the same woman that he saved. Another stereotype in the movie is when the younger police officer in the film, gives a black man a ride. When the man was reaching or something out of his pocket, the off duty officer assumed that he was grabbing a gun, probably because of his race, and shot him. When all he was grabbing was a statue of mary that the police officer also had on the dash of his car.
Some people i the film, like Ludacris' character, wanted to break free from his stereotype, but was having a difficult time doing so. He almost was stereotypical of other black men, and assumed that they were ll doing something bad. Another example of a character in this film trying to break free from his stereotype was the black police officer played by Don Cheadle. His character was trying to break free from his mothers' stereotype of him. She believed that he was the bad son, and that her other son was the good son. Cheadle's character filled his mother's refrigerator up with fresh food, and when she saw it, she assumed that it was her other son, who had not been home for years. Terrence Howard's character tried to be his stereotype. He was a successful black man in the entertainment industry. He was tired of being pushed around by the police, and instead of trying to conform, he yelled at the police, and would not listen to them.
There are so many stereotypes in this movie that it is difficult to remember all of them. However, thinking about it now, I do not think that stereotyping people was the intention of the movie. I think that the film was trying to portray how we all use stereotypes all the time with races different from our own, no matter who are what we are. We all are stereotypical of each other, and probably of our own race also.

STEREOTYPES IN MUSIC

After learning about stereotypes this week, it made me think about music, and how strong stereotypes are in music. For every genre of music, there is a stereotype that is attached. For example, A country singer is a white, blonde, thin girl from the mid-west. A rapper is an African American gangster male who wears baggy clothing. A pop singer is a not-so-bright white girl. The list goes on for a while.

Why do all genres of music have to have a stereotype attached? Like for some reason a black male cannot be a country singer, or a white female cannot be a rapper. It seems to me that if that person either wants to rap or sing country, it shouldn't matter about their race or their gender.

There are a few acceptions to these stereotypes, however. These people include Eminem; a white male rapper, Nikki minaj; a black female rapper, N'Sync; a white male pop group, etc.




However, just as stereotypes of women are used in everyday life; they are also used the same way in music through music videos. These include using women sexually in videos. "Video vixens" dance in an extremely provacative manner on the sets made to look like clubs in barely there clothing. After learning about stereotypes this week, I notices that Latinas are treated in a similar manner through their stereotypes. With the stereotpes that they are "lovers" and "sensual and sexy" all the time.

Overall, there are many stereotypes in music that say that an artist has to look a certain way in order to sing a certain genre, with only a few exceptions. Even in music videos there are stereotypes of women that are used. Luckily, he music industry is changing, and different genders ans races are being able to adapt and breakthrough the different stereotypes.

BOYZ IN THE INEQUALITY HOOD

Watching "Boys in the Hood" in class brought up a lot of issues about race and gender. One of the first things that I noticed about the film was that equality of treatment was not the same for their community as other communities. The police officers assumed that because of where they lived that they were up-to-no-good and treated the people in that neighborhood differently than they would treat the people of a more expensive neighborhood. The police are supposed to be the eyes of the law, but they were not being just in any way, and they were abusing their power to discriminate. The police are supposed to be there to protect EVERYONE. Not just the rich people, or some people. The policemen showed up an hour after Trey's father had called the police about a burglar and they pulled over Ricky and Trey for no reason, and pointed a gun at Trey's face. I doubt that those police officers would do that to people who lived in a more expensive community.

Another point that I noticed in the movie that shows the lack of equality of treatment was the way that the men treated the women. They called them extremely demeaning names and said something like,"You'll never learn anything listening to a bitch." Portraying that women are stupid, so don't bother talking to them.

When Trey was younger and in school when he lived at his mom's house, I noticed that all of the students were black, and the teacher was white. This shows a little bit of the white messiah. That supposedly the white teacher has to save the black children by teaching them as if a black teacher could not?




I have seen movies where there is no white messiah. These include "Remember the Titans", where the main coach brings the team together as a family, "Waste Deep", where the father has to save his son from being held hostage, and "Notorious", the true story of how Notorious B.I.G. became a successful rapper.

However, overall, there is just too much race and gender discrimination in movies when there should be none. "Boyz in the Hood" did pass the bechdel test.