CULTURE SHOCK EVENT

On behalf of the Union of African American Students, I would like to invite you all to our Culture Shock event on Thursday, February 26th at 7 pm in the Center for Diversity (upstairs in the MUC, where Student Services used to be). We will be sampling soul food (prepared by Lamont) and watching Do The Right Thing, a film by Spike Lee that demonstrates racial tension and the divide between peoples.. Please come out and join us, we would love you see you there!

This is quite random, BUT....

LITERALLY I just looked at Facebook and saw that the Powerpuff Girls cartoon series is being rebooted for 2015-2016

http://www.tv.com/news/powerpuff-girls-reboot-2016-adventure-time-steven-universe-renewed--142445551409/

With the newfound perspective this class has given me, my first thought was the fact that this show is about female superheroes. Of course, there are many a movies where there are indeed female superheroes, but they're always super sexualized (Catwoman anyone?). Whereas in Powerpuff Girls, these characters are literally girls in boxy dresses, and the sexualization is slim to none (unless I need to rematch and analyze it more). My question to the class is: What do you think about this reboot? Why do you think Powerpuff Girls, out of all the popular 90's cartoons people beg to come back on TV, was chosen? If you had little girls, would you want them watching this show? Do you think the show does a good job at depicting feminine power?

I personally never LOVED this show....but now that I'm older, I can appreciate what it stands for. Three little girls kicking bad guy booty, without the help of a boyfriend. PLUS! They're being raised by a single male parent!

Birth of Nation

                While watching the films today I was particularly struck by the second question on Dr. Lampert’s response sheet, the one about why Birth of a Nation and other narratives of its type were so popular, and I thought especially about the film in its particular historical context and the context of our class. The film is set during the Reconstruction (mostly) and focuses on the new freedoms that emancipated people were now going to have not just in the South, but in the whole United States. With the Reconstruction comes the birth of the “white terror” movement, where whites were forced to adjust to these new freedoms and policies given to blacks. This resulted in the formation of leagues like the Klan. The film was released in 1915, which is significant because this is when the Dunning School began operating, a school of thought in Columbia University that criticized the Reconstruction and the freedoms it gave to blacks.

                But this is a sexuality class. To what degree were the white terror and Dunning School movements hat no doubt inspired Birth of a Nation really brought about by sexual problems?

                From what I remember from school, the North enforced very harsh penalties against the South after the Civil War, forcing them to pay reparations, barring southerners from Congress, and other things. The Dunning School, too, had more political issues with the Reconstruction, mostly against the powerful Republican Party. Combine these issues with the fact that the South was in an economic crisis after the war, rich landowners now had their lands stripped, and the burgeoning working class now had to compete with the emancipated people for work, and blacks could be hired much more cheaply. Where in these policies is there something specifically sexual that whites feared?

                I think Birth of a Nation and other works like it use sexual acts like the rape of a white girl to help send a particular message to the people, for let’s face it, sex is something people pay attention to. But in history, was the fear and hatred of blacks really perpetuated by sexual fears? Or did pop culture pieces like Birth of a Nation play them up to mean much more than they really did historically?

Preparing to watch Birth of a Nation

I remember watching bits of Birth of a Nation in high school. Then, it didn't affect me as much as I know it will now. I was naive in high school, and I didn't care about real world issues. Of course I still thought racism was terrible, but now I know I will be able to read more into Birth of a Nation than my first time viewing it. I am more aware of cultural differences that still exist today, even in small communities like Vermillion. Sadly, the movie being entitled "Birth of a Nation" is exactly what is it, although not in the way that the creators intended it. The movie was intended to be a birthing of a nation of white supremacy, but really it birthed a nation that is messed up. Our country's history is embarrassing. Racism, sadly, can still be found prevalent today, whether or not people like to admit it. Birth of a Nation should be analyzed in a way that reveals the ignorance a society can have. Skin color is such a stupid difference to focus on. Even among my white friends, they want to be tan and criticize me, asking if I had ever heard of a tanning bed. Why is beauty and intelligence based off of skin color?

Bothered by Birth of a Nation

After reading through the assigned Birth of a Nation readings, I am extremely bothered by the content, but I do appreciate Leon Litwack's take on the controversial text. He seemed to make clear his disagreement of the film's focus on the ""...South's "final solution" to the "race problem""" (pg. 140). As I'm unsure of this text's actual publication date, Litwack seems to definitely take a more progressive, less bigoted point of view than one in the time period of the original release of the film, in my opinion. To be honest, I see it as a stronger grasp on reality as well as a stronger sense of equality and humanization of blacks. Perhaps I am interpreting it wrong still, but I would much rather be friends with Litwack than with Dixon...

 I am extremely appreciative of Litwack for his description of the film being “misleading” to Americans, emphasizing only the negative stereotypes and beliefs of any non-Caucasian race, specifically African Americans in this film. In my opinion, the film is a definite piece of propaganda, as Litwack describes in the first sentence of his article, for the South to promote their mission that had recently been discouraged.

As a biracial American, I guess I could consider myself a "mulatto", only doing my part to "mulatto the whole Republic" (pg. 136), which is obviously my biggest aspiration in life! I am literally only here to ruin the white race- thanks for taking the words right out of my mouth, Dixon. As anyone would be in our society today, I think, I am extremely offended by the content in the film The Birth of a Nation. I myself have never watched the film, knowing that it would be a remarkably difficult experience, but as I am older (and more opinionated), I look forward to viewing it in class tomorrow. I hope that we can identify the comparisons and contrasting ideals between the film and the world we live in today...I am sure there will be plenty of both.

I know this is our history; people were uneducated and fearful, and for those reasons, easily manipulated into thinking that this information was this information was true. Even despite of that though, I am honestly astonished that this occurred at all, that a film this derogatory and misleading could be presented to a public that ate it up without a second thought. I don’t think that I will ever get over that, and I am hopeful that will future generations will never fully comprehend it, either.


UPDATE**
Well, the film turned out to be absolutely everything that I thought it'd be, which I WOULD NOT consider to be a good thing. I think I speak for most of my classmates when I say the content of the movie was disgusting and ridiculously wrong/bigoted/propagandist..but it was interesting to watch. The whole time I was asking myself, "How in the world could people accept and BELIEVE this to be true?! It is so inaccurate and biased!", as you can see above though, I knew that I would question that aspect of the film.
 I really enjoyed our discussions in class afterward, comparing the film's ideals to that of Tarzan and even those of our own society today.

Perception not Intent

I actually found this reading quite interesting and could not help connecting the story of Tarzan to what we have been discussing during the semester so far. I know towards the end of the article, it states that Edgar Rice Burroughs only intended Tarzan to serve as a romantic adventure story and not as some sort of metaphor of society. However, I think that’s what made this story so popular during its time.

On Tuesday, we discussed Juilianne Hough and her choice of Halloween costume. We discussed how it is not the intent of racism that makes an act racist, but how the audience will perceive the act. Although Burroughs did not have the intention of the story Tarzan having a direct correlation with the culture at that time, people did make the connection with the restrictions and frustrations they endure.

Dime novels had a certain focus on adventure and triumph within America. However, civilization took the stance of natural selection, that successful people were innately born and there was not much hope for you succeeding, no matter how hard you tried. However, the story of Tarzan gave some hope for society. Tarzan supposedly came from the lowest and most uncivilized culture and was able to in the end succeed. He represented a new life and a new birth and a new chance.

Everyone understands that there are certain rankings within society and that the higher classes or rankings sequentially have more power over the other rankings. One thing I could not help but think about is rankings within a certain minority. For example, the society in which Tarzan lived in symbolized the most primitive and uncivilized kinds of people--apes. However, there were also certain rankings within this civilization. It would be interesting to look at these kinds of rankings and how they may interact or view the certain rankings of another group. For example, what about power and ranking within the “weak”?

How big a man are you?

The ads for men in this reading were striking to me.  All over the internet, especially on sites like BuzzFeed, I have seen many vintage ads that are considered sexist towards women, encouraging them to stay in the kitchen, and advertise cooking and cleaning products.  I’ve always found these ads to be a little ridiculous and offensive but I didn’t know there were ads for men encouraging them to do the opposite.  These ads call out the men who aren’t in college or out getting jobs and telling them they’re not “real men” without these things.  The pressures of finding jobs and getting educated were real for them during this time period but today we only focus on what was holding the women back. 

I think this pressure is still real for men today.  Many universities and graduate programs are becoming dominantly female indicating that soon we will have a more female workforce in many fields.  I took PSYC 366: Understanding the Sexes last year and the professor (Dr. Struckman-Johnson) lectured about how there is a new trend where young men are dropping out of high school at much higher rates than usual and they’re not coming to college.  These uneducated men of today will face a similar struggle to what the ads in the reading depict.  Men are still defined by their occupations and how much money they make and many of the future men of America aren’t taking the steps to be successful under that definition.   Today, we are surrounded by movements to better the young women, like the Always ad from the Super Bowl, but young men don’t get this encouragement that they might also need.