District 9

These days whenever I watched the movie, I feel like I should find the information or hidden source of the movie. I realized that I could earn much knowledge from the content when I pay slight more attention to the meanings of both theme and the characters. Out of many things that I could focus on, I try to pay closest attention to the issues of racism and sexism.
I watched the movie, District 9 last night with such topics in my mind. The movie gave me a chance to learn about South Africa in general and specifically about racism in the area. The movie did a great job at closely depicting current status of the nation, and those scenes led me to think carefully about the stereotypical portrayal of non-Caucasian population. For example, the main character who used English with African pronunciation throughout the whole movie becomes the victim of chaos. It indirectly suggests that non-Caucasian population is more gullible and easily harmed than invincible whites. The movie continues to portray similar stereotypes. The “District 9”, itself is pictured as a place for a non-Caucasian habitants. To me, it felt like a duplicate of “Harlem”.
The depiction of negative image on minorities were not limited to the poor living conditions, but also extended to social problems caused by socioeconomic stands of the poor. In the movie, Nigerian man was an illegal dealer for weapons and “special” food source, which has a strong links to the drug dealing in real life. In fact, this movie was interesting enough to get me to do some research on rate of drug dealing and trickster in Nigeria. According to the blog of this man who lived in South Africa for over 20 years, about 90% of Nigerians working population are involved with some kind of drug dealing or tricksters.
It is very hard for me to believe, and saddens me a little to think that such injustice is happening in 21st century. It was difficult to accept especially because South Africa was a nation that is qualified as the nation to hold a huge international event like World Cup, but yet to be treated equally.

boyz in the Hood!

In the class, I watched the movie, “boyz in the hood.” The movie was very old fashioned, and thus was very unique in style from other movies that I have watched. For that reason, I did not quite understand the key point of the movie at first. However, as I continued to watch the movie, I realized that the movie was about how colored people were treated differently from Caucasians.
There were two very important points I have learned from the movie. First, it taught me how the discrimination against colored people was mainly just due to the fact that they are colored, thus different and poor. Even when they behave well, they were often viewed as criminals or lower class people. Thus, they were not accepted to the society as well as Caucasians with same behaviors. Such theory is well shown in the movie. The main characters, who are colored people, were caught by the police. During the investigation process, the cop points gun at the head of the colored people, and verbally demoralize them. I highly doubt that the cop treats Caucasians in the same way.
The second point I learned from the movie was that the physical violence is not the only form of violence. When they were communicating with women, they used sexually abusive languages as jokes. For example, words like “bitch” or “ho” were used. This kind of verbal abuse is also a form of serious violence, as it demoralizes women and look down on them. If these actions are allowed in the society, it will effect young children and bring up repetitive negative cycle.
There are many other aspects of the movie that we could focus on, but for me, the topic of racism and sexism was one that left me with the strongest impression. Everyone has a right to be treated equally. No matter what their social classes, races, or sex are.

In many movies coming that are coming out these days, I started to notice broader masculinity spectrum. Furthermore, it led me to an interesting idea about fused ‘masculinity’! so today, I would like to dedicate this post on the change that has been slowly taken place; how the society have been subconsciously accepting metrosexuality.

The term ‘metrosexuality’ originated in the article by Mark Simpson, published on November, 15th, 1994, in The Independent. He wrote:
Metrosexual man, the single young man with a high disposable income, living or working in the city, (because that’s where all the best shops are), is perhaps the most promising consumer market of the decade. In the Eighties He was only to be found inside fashion magazines such as GO, in television advertisements for Levis jeans or in gay bars. In the Nineties, he’s everywhere and he’s going shopping.

Before we go on to talk about the changes that occurred, let’s first set up a clear understanding on what masculinity actually means. Masculinity, by definition is a characteristic that specifically describes personal that has male identity. Unlike, the term ‘male’ which can be also used to describe animals, the word ‘masculine’ has the degrees of comparison.( For example- more masculine or most masculine). In the past, masculinity was considered to be the one quality that was required for favorable males. The fans of terminator, 007, superman, Spiderman, Rocky Balboa,(you name it) proves the phenomenon.

Recently, there has been an interesting shift in the representation of characters in cinema. More movies include male characters that are not afraid show their unique styles. One of the notable examples would be Johnny Depp in Alice in Wonderland, and the reason should be very straight forward. (He had very vivid make-up on!) Putting a powder on a face was thought to be a privilege for women only. Now, here is a famous actor, having an obvious painting on his face, and even proudly exhibiting it!

When we are talking about changes, we are not only talking about dramatic shift like previous example. Along with these very apparent changes, comparably subtle metrosexual characters are being planted into different male characters in past decades. The male characters that show tears, share emotions, talk or act more gently are all results of broaden masculinity spectrum.

In a bigger picture, the media is influencing the world in a good way by having a better representation of diversity in this world. It does not make any sense to expect billions of people to fit into very limited categories of “masculinity” or “femininity”. I am very glad to see positive changes in people as they have opened up for various qualities through media. The characteristics that were once thought to be different are now special!

BLogggggggggggggggggggggggggg!

This my is my first blog ever.

I do not know what to do but it might be interesting

Wow!!!