Shattering a glass slipper

Asking me to challenge my love of Disney has been an uncomfortable experience—and really the first such confrontation of the semester. The majority of our topics have been easy to nod along with. Yes, it’s wrong that all black people are represented as criminals. Yes, advertising preys on our insecurities. Yes, gay men are stereotyped on television. Of course, of course. We get it.

But deconstructing the magic and happiness of a Disney movie is quite another perspective. The cognitive dissonance was jarring, and I was not at all surprised when many of my classmates defended the films. I grew up on Disney, as did most children I knew. And, yes, I dressed up as a princess. Though have long since given up on the idea that “someday my prince will come.”

At the same time, it was good to hear the perspectives of non-white students—their not seeing characters they could emulate, the lack of roles for them to take on in playground re-creations, the struggle to find themselves reflected in animated characters. As a white girl, I saw myself in every movie…usually wearing a pretty dress and a crown at the end. It just didn’t occur to me that everyone didn’t see the same.

It’s a good approach for a deeper discussion on analyzing other cultural norms and accepted elements around us, and would serve this course well to have this topic earlier in the semester.

Bamboozled, indeed.

Spike Lee doesn't know how to be subtle. In many of his movies, this works to his credit, blowing away the audience with his insight and perspective. "Do The Right Thing" is one example of this. "Malcolm X" is another. The intensity works to make you think.

In "Bambozzled," the intensity works only to make you pull back. The stereotypes are too extreme, the characters too one-dimensional, the points too many to actually make a real point.

It was as if he just wanted to make a social commentary, not make a movie with a message.

I wasn't engaged, interested, or entertained. I didn't gain any understanding into another culture. I didn't leave thinking anything except "thank goodness that's over....and couldn't we have accomplished just as much watching a 15-minute excerpt?"

If the shock value was the point, mission accomplished. But I won't be sharing this one with my friends.

Pretty is as pretty does

When the Texas A&M women's basketball team won the NCAA tournament--and by extention, the National Championship in the most visible of women's sports--it prompted me to watch the WNBA draft for the first time. Two Aggies were invited, and I was curious to see if they'd get picked.

As each pro team announced their pick, the all-female team of ESPN commentators would discuss why the chosen player was a good fit for the squad. It was, for me, a jarring experience. Not because I wasn't used to ESPN showing women in commentator roles (though that it certainly an anomoly on that station), but because of their choice of words. They admiringly said that the player was a "big girl." Her brawn and toughness was widely praised. She was lauded for being agressive. She "threw her weight around" the court. All the adjectives you might hear in reference to a football player--on the defensive line.

They meant all these things as compliments, of course, and once I got over the initial surprise, I stopped thinking of it as rude. "Finally," I thought, "ESPN is giving balanced coverage to women's sports...even if it is just 1.8% of their on-air time."

Just as that thought crossed my mind, they did a profile on the top draft choice getting ready for Draft Day. Maya Moore was an All-American. She won the 2007 and 2008 Naismith and the 2009 John Wooden Awards. She scored over 2,000 points in her college career and led her UConn team to two National Championships. TWO.

So of course the feature was all about her getting her hair done, having makeup applied, and posing for photos.  And people wonder why we don't, as a culture, take women's sports seriously.

Who cares about white guys

When we talk about gender studies, we rarely include men. When we talk about race, we rarely include whites. When we talk about sexuality, we rarely include straight. All of which leaves straight white men out of the conversation.

Though the media predominantly features this group--more so than any other--and their hegemony is without question in the United States, they are symbolically annhiliated in another way. Their issues and concerns and struggles as individuals somehow matter less. We don't talk about stereotypes or ways that men try to grow against them. We don't talk about what it means to "be a man" in our culture. We don't talk about body image, self-concept, or even the pressures that come with being born into a gender and skin color that is often positioned as a dominant oppressor.

Even in a class that takes a broad and high-level view of race and gender, white guys were relegated to half a class--most of which was taken up by a film that touched upon one narrow and easily accepted "issue." 

And I do care to know. I want to understand who men are...and who they are trying to become. I want to have conversations like the one I had with my classmate on the train ride home, in which he told me about being a white man in our culture. About his character-building influences. About the way white guys are portrayed and often pigeonholed. What he thinks about sports. Even how he feels about the preponderance of television actors always having their shirts off in programming these days.  

It gave me some insights I wish I'd had 20 years ago, when I was dating guys his age. But it also made me realize that I'm missing part of the complete picture--and a pretty big piece at that. If I leave white men out of my understanding of race and gender in the media, can I really claim to know how all the other pieces should fit?

Narrow minds

"We live in a culture where you don't exist if you're not portrayed on television," says one expert in the documentary Further off the Straight and Narrow. But if television portrays a group only marginally--within a specific typecast, as a convenient plotline to boost ratings, or in a vaguereference in an advertisement--does this mean that they only partially exist?

In U.S. media, this seems to be the case. Homosexuals exist in the public eye, and thus in the minds of many Americans, as the commonly held stereotype. Gay men are flamboyant, stylish, upwardly mobile and emotional. Lesbian women have short, spiky hair and play softball. Anything outside this "norm" is causes confusion in a narrow mind. But it also means that any homosexual who falls outside this frame is symbolically annihilated from our culture.

But this is not a worldwide phenomena. European media paints a much broader image, and while this might not change prejudice and persectution, it does create a world in which there is a fuller, broader definition of this cultural group. On BBC America programs, for example, sexual orientation is often just one element of larger character definition--not THE defining trait--and rarely are these individuals painted in the broad brush of the stereotypical gay.

For instance, the leading man on one sci-fi show called "Torchwood" is rugged, handsome and very masculine. He's a tough-guy, dominant leader of the team that investigates alien activity on Earth. And he is equally attracted to men and women...and aliens (multisexual?). A scene might show him kissing another man, and being interrupted by another team member. But the awkwardness that follows is not because he was kissing a man, but more the natural embarrassment of walking in on your boss kissing anyone. An ongoing issue is his promiscuity, but not so much the gender of his partners.

By de-emphasizing the importance of a character's sexual orientation in this way, it serves to make it a more normal and acceptable part of a person's lifestyle--a part of who he is, but not ALL he is--without diminishing that part of the individual in the process. Until the American media reaches that awareness, homosexuals in our society will only partially exist as their true selves.

A bad rap

I don't understand rap music. Literally. When Eminem was on the Grammys this year, I had to turn on closed captioning to decipher his lyrics. It was like watching a foreign film with a really odd plotline.

I don't understand rap music figuratively either. It seems to me that the Black community has embraced it as a cultural possession. Liking rap music is part of "acting Black," as if there is a right way to act a color. And the literature and studies seem to suggest that many Blacks see rap as a reflection and definition of who they are.

But the videos from class depict a world that no one should want to be a part of. The violent and degrading images demean everyone involved. And from the few examples we saw, they seem to perpetuate stereotypes that are neither uplifing or empowering to Blacks. In fact, they seem expressly directed at confirming the worst perceptions of society--that Black men are agressive and unpredictable; that Black women have an attitude; that neither gender is capable of a healthy and mutually satisfying relationship. To me, the lyrics and images seem to support every prejudicial slur you could direct against that racial identity.

The comments from Black students seem to confirm this perception. They made a point to distance themselves from the sentiments expressed and defining their identity as more than social (or even ethnic community) norms dictate. Though many--Black and White--students admitted they listened to rap music, no one agreed with the content or context of the artists. Not one. It remains a mystery to me as to why this genre continues to flourish, especially amongst a group of people it continues to debase.

Diversity

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”-- Friedrich Nietzsche

The most astonishing thing was the diversity. In a class that is primarily white, middle-class, well-educated kids in their 20s, the projects and presentations covered a wide range of topics. From a few lines of direction, we selected media—and found meaning—across the spectrum.

I expected overlap. I thought I’d see a narrow and somewhat less inventive range. A handful of the same kinds of mainstream magazines, all from the same decade or two. Maybe some recent local newspapers. Current and popular television shows.

What I listened to—and learned from—was instead wildly inventive. And the focus and perspective helped me see things I’d never considered. It never occurred to me that Minnie Mouse presented a skewed and extreme portrayal of gender. I knew gays on television weren’t representative of all homosexual men (by far), but it took Kali’s words to help me see that they are the same character, repeated over and over in different actors. Katherine’s video on the “Color of Beauty” showed (yet another) side of the fashion world that warps our reality of real women.

But the most revealing moment of the evening was when Josh came forward to share his project. Because before he even opened his mouth, I stereotyped him as not very smart. He dressed like too many men I’d known in my life—what many in Texas call a “good ol’ boy,” slightly redneck, certainly nice, friend to just about everyone. Probably in a fraternity (and probably Kappa Alpha Order, if I had to guess). But also slightly shallow. Not what anyone would call a brainiac.

When he opened his spreadsheet and started walking us through it, it blew those preconceptions out of the water. I was fascinated by the information, impressed by the breadth of his quantitative research. I nearly asked for a copy of his full report. I nearly apologized for underestimating him. I did chastise myself for ever thinking that his outward appearance should be any indication of his scholarly abilities.

I’m learning that I'm not as open minded as I'd like to think. I'm learning to think about things in new ways. But I am learning. Every day and every new perspective is a revelation.