"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.