Monday, February 7, 2011

Pride and Society

To me most of the reading went into the superficial things that we use to make judgements of people. The issues of gender, race, and social class were expounded upon. I am glad that the readings made it clear about the differences between sex and gender since those words are falsely used interchangeably.
Racism is an issue that I wish would receive more attention here in Utah. It is not uncommon for my roommates to wipe out racial jokes. They upset me so much because I was raised in the Bay Area and was taught to have no real tolerance of racism. The Story of My Body by Judith Cofer was hard for me to read. It was so hard because of how people made judgements about this girl without even getting to know her.
In each of the issues of race, gender, body image, and social class one of the things that seems to be a part of the problem is pride. Some group of people bond together and praise themselves for their similarity and put down others who are different. This is seen by the Satrapi's The Viel (forcing the women to adhere to rigid standards of Islam), Never Just Pictures (the media deciding collectively to attack people overweight), A Touchy Subject (the various ways people react to the discussion of whether there are classes in America's social structure). The plain truth is that people are different, and a lot of the beauty that can be found in this life is because of the variability in each person and their life.
I think a point of having us read about differences is for us to be sensitive to these differences in a respectful way. Film is a powerful way of expression and the greatest of care should be done with how we depict people. We do not want to perpetuate harmful stereotypes that our culture has nourished.
-Jeremy Ashworth

1 comment:

  1. I enjoyed reading your post, you always seem to have good insights into the readings. I agree that film is a powerful form of expression. I find that it is important to be aware of the dangers of Film and how it depicts people, and also of the beauty film can show and how it can portray things in a meaningful way.

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