A Woman's Worth: According to Disney

When I was younger I used to love watching Disney movies like Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, Aladdin etc. I didn't really pay attention to the underlying messages behind these cartoons because I was often too busy paying attention to the magical and happy endings of the stories to focus on the message they send out to young kids. As I was surfing through the net, I came across this image about the fairy-tale princesses of Disney. After reading the text about each princess I was taken aback by how true the text was. It is very amusing to think that most classic Disney movies with a female as the lead character role are about the pursuit of a man. Although children like young girls do not necessarily think this way about females, and marriage when watching the cartoons. They subconsciously take in the messages and play it out in their lives

Speaking of young girls playing out these messages given by the characters, I think there could be somewhat of a similarity with modern day weddings. Usually weddings are supposed to be about two people who are joined together to legally wed in front of friends and family. Nowadays it is about the woman having a lavish and expensive fairy-tale ending. Which is not at all a reality.

If you do not get the text because you have never watched the movies or you forgot here is the explanation:

-Snow White is wanted to be killed by the Queen(her stepmother) who is jealous of her beauty, but she is saved by a kiss from Prince Charming.

-Cinderella is a maid for her stepmother and stepsisters, Her dreams come true as she goes to a ball and meets the Prince( who is a wealthy man). Later they are married.

-Jasmine must marry a man suggested by her wealthy father because of the law, she runs away and falls in love with Aladdin.

-Ariel is willing to give up everything for Prince Eric, even her voice(strongest talent) to become human.

-Belle is a girl who falls in love with a beast, he falls in love with her because of her beauty and kindness. she doesn't care about his appearance, instead his civil manners

-Aurora is the sleeping beauty. she is put on a curse to die, instead she receives a gift to sleep instead of death. She is also saved by the Prince with a kiss.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWhjoRLgNOQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yAqgatzuT0&feature=related

Questions

1) Did you ever pay attention to the underlying messages of Disney movies?

2) Do you think these messages affect young viewers when they grow up? or they just forget about it

3) Do you believe that Disney movies can shape the way young kids think at a young age and give them false ideas of reality?

Men^2 - a QuickFire

We have come pretty close to the conclusion of the blog assignment (yay!). So I was wondering how to wrap up the blog. I realized how most of us (in fact, I think all of us) only talked about homo/heterosexuality and the power dynamics between men and women.

I want to conclude by raising some questions about the power dynamics between men and men. In professional industries such as pharmaceutical manufacturing companies or automobile-manufacturing companies (these are just two examples of many), I am confident to say that your skin colour plays a bigger role than your abilities. What I mean is men who are immigrants in a particular country are inferior to those people who originate from the country the immigrants moved to. I have personal experience.

Adding to what I said there in the last paragraph, skin colour is not the only thing, but there are lots of other factors, which determine who your colleagues are. I believe the socioeconomic class is one factor that has a role to play, as well.

What do you think about this issue?

Do you think that class, skin colour matter in an industry and not just your capability?

Where's The Equality?

Back in the day, men were portrayed as strong, independent and in control in the media. On the other hand women were portrayed as someone who cleans the house and cooks for her family. Now, in today's media men are seen as dumb and careless, whereas the women are seen as smart and put together. The media constantly portrays men and women in either superior or inferior roles. They are rarely seen as equals on television and advertisment.

Such as these adverstisments:

Recent Roomba advert

Mr.Clean/Mr. "Has It All"

Banned Commercial-Verizon(stupid dad)

Questions:

Is it fair that the media portrays men and women in this way?

Why do you think the media doesn't portray men and women equally?/Do you think men and women will ever portraymen and women equally in the media?

Do you think these stereotypes effect the way you think about men and women?

Kick a Ginger, Why dont I

For many years any person with red hair had a lingering fear that they would be kicked on "Kick a Ginger Day". You may ask, who started or how did it start? The only thing to blame is media. Not only television but social networking sites. The big one being Facebook, which almost everyone reading this probably has an account to.You ask how? Here is an episode of South Park that will give you an idea of how this all started.

South Park : Ginger Kids episode

In the South Park episode Cartman delivers something that could be considered a hate speech, arguing that "Gingers"—people with red hair, freckles, and pale skin—are disgusting, inhuman, unable to survive in sunlight, and have no souls; all because of a condition called "Gingervitis". When Kyle points out that he too has red hair, Cartman says that there is a second class of redheads, the "daywalkers", who have red hair but not pale skin and freckles, and concludes that "If you think that the Ginger problem is not a serious one, think again!" while he clicks through a clip, and stops on a picture of Carrot Top . (Wikipedia). This episode is encouraging the hate of people with red hair and freckles, generally called ginger, but this wasn't the end of it. They also encouraged people to kick a ginger on November 20th.

After millions of people watched the episode- it was a considerably popular show in 2005 when the episode first aired - a group of people decided to create a "National Kick a Ginger Day" facebook page. It asked for people to get their shoes ready and on November 20th find a ginger and kick them.The Facebook group quickly grew to over 5,000 members and the day turned into a big even. Many people were kicked and injured and it lead to many arrests. One sad case of a ginger being kicked was the story of Aaron Mishkin. During the 13 year old's 7 minute break between classes he was kicked many times, not knowing what Kick a Ginger Day was. By the end of the day Mishkin was kicked/hit over 80 times leaving him with bruises.

Media played a big role in the creation of this day. It was encouraging the hate of a specific group and allowed the message to spread very quickly and become more effective. Television was not the only culprit but Facebook as well

Do you think it was okay for South Park to even air this episode on tv

Do you believe that the creators knew that it would lead to what has happened now

and What do you think Facebook could be doing more to help stop bullying, and creation of hate pages.

The Hispanic Trailer

Media is the means of communication which distributes information worldwide throughout radios, T.V., advertisements and magazines. Media is influential and contributes to the way we see people and their culture. However, does the way the media portrays the Hispanic culture beneficial for the Hispanic community? Media has constructed a dominant discourse towards Hispanic society, characterizing them as inferior people. In film and advertisements they are often labeled as low class, most of the time playing roles of servants, who do not speak English, gang members who have very little education, and Latina women who use their sexuality to obtain things. What consumers are lead to believe is that all the members of the Hispanic community are the same, as those portrayed in the media.

For instance, the Oscar award winning film “Crash” (2004) brought to light many issues on discrimination and racism. In the movie there is a character named Jean Cabot who comes across a locksmith named Daniel, who is fixing the locks at her house. In a discussion with her husband, she furiously, describes him as a ‘Mexican gang member’ because of his appearance. She assumed he would make copies of her house keys and come back to rob her house. Little did she know that he was a hard working family man who was simply doing his job. This shows how quickly people can come to an assumption based on appearance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-Umf_chNHw

The media also portrays Hispanic women as being sexual. An example of this is seen in the movie “2 Fast 2 Furious”. The character Monica Fuentes is an undercover FBI agent who plays a mobsters girlfriend and a cop’s lover. Her only purpose was to capture the antagonist using her sexuality.

In conclusion, there are many Latino countries, that although they share the same language they are also very different. They are each unique and rich in their own cultures with diverse characters from many different social classes. Therefore the media should stop portraying an image of a Hispanic person ‘should be’ and let people make their own conclusions.

NOT What Nature Intended

Homophobia, the fear or dislike of homosexual people in simple terms, is a persistent problem in our world. There are many homophobic people who spread hate messages against homosexuals to make their lives worse. A video on YouTube (showing the propaganda against homosexuality) basically outlines the ten reasons why gay marriage is wrong:

1) Being gay is not natural.
2) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay.
3) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behaviour. People may even wish to marry their pets.
4) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all.
5) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed.
6) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children.
7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children.
8) Gay marriage is not supported by religion.
9) Children can never succeed without a male and female role model at home.
10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society.

The maker of this video expresses his homophobia and is outrageous to say the least. Such videos must be prohibited and I do not understand why it is not, yet. I am heterosexual, but I do not make such videos because I realize the fact that people need to have the freedom to choose what they want to be. If some people want to identify themselves as homosexual out in the public, the media and the society should just let them be the way they are.

Although there are many shows on television, which have homosexuals in it such as Ellen, Jim Parsons in The Big Bang Theory, Steven and Chris (on CBC or CTV) to name a few, homosexuality is still taboo in many countries across the world. Gay marriages have been legislated as well in some countries, but many homosexuals still marry a person of the opposite biological sex just to satisfy their families and society. I find the pressure that the society (more than a family) puts on homosexuals is ridiculous. It is only because of this pressure more so than anything else that some "straight" marriages are founded upon.

It is good to see movies such as Milk and J.Edgar coming out to present people (political leader and FBI director) who are homosexuals. Movies are something that everyone resorts to for entertainment purposes. Therefore, cinema is a medium that can be utilized in order to bring a state of normalcy for homosexuals (make them feel better).

Moving on, whenever we talk about homosexuality, we mostly talk about gays and not lesbians. What is their plight compared to gays?
What do you think about such images, websites, and videos (homophobic ones)?
The media is clearly not doing much to help homosexuals, so what methods do you think we can adopt to help out homosexuals?

What is your overall opinion?