"Dear Lemon Lima..."

Yesterday I went and saw the movie "Dear Lemon Lima," and I loved it. The description in the SIFF Guide states that it is about Vanessa, who is a Yup'ik Indian, who expresses her heartbreak and her life to her "imaginary friend," Lemon Lima through her diary. When I saw the trailer for the film in class, it never really actually showed anything that had to do with her being part Yup'ik Indian, so I was a little uncertain of how it was going to tie into the movie.


I have to say that I was really surprised and thrilled to see Native culture expressed and embraced in this film. It does it in almost a light and cute way.


At the beginning of the film Vanessa is dumped by her boyfriend Philip, who is sporting the Buddy Holly glasses, and looks very dorky. He is going away to Paris with his family for the summer. Once summer is over the, the film takes off with Vanessa going to a private school that Philip and his parents helped her get into. It is a private school for the rich, white, suburban families. Vanessa is allowed to go because his parents helped her get the Molly Hootch Scholarship, which is granted to a Native student. Beth Grant, whom plays the principal in this film, does a great job with getting the students involved with many diverse native cultures in Alaska (the setting of the movie). Vanessa (Savanah Wiltfong) claims from the very beginning that she does not identify with her Yup'ik background. On her first day of school her mom comes out with two backpacks: one her grandmother made her, which is covered in fur, and the other is a gift from Philip's parents, that is from L.L. Bean. She chooses the one his parents gave her stating that the other one is just "too ethnic."

During her time at school, she learns how the school embraces Native cultures by having tribes come in and share their tribal dances with the students. As well as in P.E., they learn to train and prepare for the Snowstorm Survival Competition. The tasks include lifting two people on each side of you and carrying them down this runway, kicking a ball that is hanging in the air while leaning on one leg and arm, placing a stick between two people who are pulling at it in opposing forces, and whoever is the strongest pulls the stick from the other person, pulling a string that is attached around the ear of each person and pulling it off of the other person's ear, and lastly participating in a tribal dance that each student picks.

It is when Vanessa is forced to go to the weight room with the other "FUBARS," that she develops friendships with them. At first she has her sights set on winning Philip back, and in doing so, she dyes her hair blonde to assimilate to the pretty, white, blonde girl image. She does this because she see's Philip giving his attention to a girl at school named Megan who is the typical pretty, white blonde girl. In one of her classes her instructor asks her about her Yup'ik heritage, and she says that she does not know about it, because she really does not see herself as Yup'ik, she sees herself as white. Her teacher then goes into an explanation of how that is called "assimilation."

Throughout the film, and more so during the Snowstorm Survival Competition, she really learns to/begins to embrace her heritage.

Another thing that came up in this movie was how masculine men are supposed to behave, and this is very apparent with the character of Hercules (pronounced Her-cule). In one of the beginning scenes where he is introduced, he is sitting in front of a cage that has a bunny rabbit in it. His mother and father are sitting in their car, and his father is commenting on the fact that it is stupid that Hercules has an attachment to a stupid animal. His mother then gets out of the car, and tells Hercule that it is for his own good, and she frees the bunny. He then is forced to get into the car, and his mother hands him a big bag of G.I. Joe soldier toys. Telling him that this is what he should be playing with, not animals. It is just a little too sissy for men to love animals. His father has guns everywhere, and thinks that Hercules is apart of the Rifle Club at school. In another scene, Hercules is with his father learning how to shoot his rifle at a plastic deer. It is odd because his family shelters him, yet on the other hand they want him to grow up and be a man.

How the film represented femininity in the film was through the pastel colors and dresses. While I was watching the film, and at the very end, all of the girls are wearing pastel, girly-girl dresses. This got me thinking, "did the girls wear dresses the entire time, except when they were in their very tiny short-short gym shorts." I have to say that I do not remember one girl wearing pants or longer than mid-thigh shorts. Hercules in the movie is seen wearing plaid a lot. I liked the art direction that they went with in the movie, but it would have been nice to see the girls wear jeans instead of dresses part of the time, especially since it is supposed to take place in Alaska.


Hercules is also the only boy in the group of "FUBARS," which I also thought was interesting. He is red-haired, with freckles and he is a lot smaller than some of the other boys his age. He claims that he is allergic to everything and that is why he is in the weight room. There are a ton of girls but only one boy. In one way it is showing that he is not as strong as the other boys, and that is why he is in the weight room. Also, it shows that since all of the people that are in the weight room are girls, excluding Hercules, it shows that girls are not as strong as boys, or the white, blonde haired, privileged girls. You could see it in that way. However, they show their strength in the end. There was something else that I noticed with Hercules since he can be considered as more effeminate, and bonds well with girls instead of other boys, but i would be giving away the movie for those who have not seen it and wish to see it.

I overall loved the movie. It truly made me feel like I was thirteen again, writing notes with my milky-way (pastel colored) pens, and the stickers I put on notes to my friends. It was a really cute movie with a good positive message, and they really represented Native Culture in a positive light which was great.

All images courtesy of Google Images

John Lennon the Rebel, His Mom and Mimi

The first film that I went to see at SIFF was "Nowhere Boy," which was a narrative about John Lennon's life before "The Beatles." I really enjoyed the film, it was a mixture of good music, insight, drama and humor. I do have to admit though that the entire time I was watching the movie, I was thinking how I could tie it into the course concepts that we learned, and after the movie, I still really did not have a clear concept on what I would write about.

After discussing the film with my boyfriend, who had come with me to see it, we both had come to the same idea that it was weird seeing John Lennon portrayed as this young, buff, trouble-maker/rebel. I had always thought of John Lennon as this "Imagine," counterculture, peace, and make love not war activist. I had made all of these assumptions off of the way I heard people in media or other celebrities talk about him, or the images I saw of him, particularly the famous images of him and Yoko Ono naked. So lesson learned on this one, don't assume things, it just makes an ass out of you. However, it was that assumption that helped me realize what I could write about.

Since I had never really thought of John Lennon as this masculine (i.e., buff, prankster, fighter who loved the school girls) character, it was interesting to watch on film. He was ditching school and riding on the top of buses. He based his physical image off of Elvis and was introduced to rock n' roll by his mom. It was when she told him that rock n' roll music also represented sex, that the film showed him or eluded to him having sex with school girls his age. I guess the macho thing for men to do is sleep around with girls/women.

The film also showed not just physically how strong he looked by casting a buff actor (Aaron Johnson), but how strong he was by fighting. There was one scene right after his mother died, and the family is holding a service at his mother and stepfathers house when one of his friends picks up her banjo and starts to play it. With all of his rage in hearing the music from her banjo, he storms into the room and grabs it from his friends hands. When his friend stands up and says he is sorry but he did nothing wrong, he headbutts the kids face, and I believe he even broke his nose. When Paul brings him outside he grants John permission to hit him if that is what he needed to do, so what did he do? He punched Paul and knocked him to the ground. I felt that they always showed him getting aggressive and physical when he would get upset and cry. To me it was a way of making up for the fact that he was being more effeminate and crying.

Another thing I noticed was the way he would treat his mom and aunt. At times he was very unsympathetic to them. And he felt it was ok to treat them disrespectfully. There was one scene at his birthday party and he is outside with his mom who is smoking, and they begin to talk. Further into their conversation she begins to cry, when he says something along the lines of "here you go turning on the water works again." This leads me into next my next discussion: how the women were portrayed in the film. The two main female characters in this film was his Aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas), and his mother Julia (Ann Marie Duff).



His Aunt was portrayed as this silent, almost mean lady who was out to get him, but when you think about it, she was just trying to protect him and do right by him, since she was the one raising him after his mother gave him up. At first his mom is seen as the outgoing funny one who loves her son, and makes Mimi out to be the horrible Aunt. The film showed this in the style of clothes that they wore. Aunt Mimi was always wearing dark, form-fitting, suit like clothes that covered almost every inch of her. She looked uptight, uncomfortable and too serious. Mimi's house also showed this. It was presented in this very colorless, classic look. Everything was very tidy and clean.


His mother on the other hand was always in bright, colorful clothes that showed skin. She was shown as a free-spirit. Even her house had clutter everywhere in it. The wall paper had a busy print all over it, as well as lots of colors everywhere. So this really helped to show the difference between the two women and their personalities. His mother was shown as the unstable one. They never really said what her problem was, or "illness," but I got the hint that she was bi-polar. There were several scenes where she was super happy, making cupcakes, and dancing and singing to music. In a scene after this, he goes to his mothers house after he is upset with Mimi about something, and she is inside of the house with the blinds shut. She looks like she is crying, and as he is knocking she says silently, "Just go away." So when she is happy she is super happy, when she is sad, she is depressed. In the one scene where she begins to cry, and John makes that statement about her crying, his half-sister comes out and asks if Julia is really sad again. Julia then puts on a fake smile and says she is happy. Once her daughter is inside, she tells John that she is sick, that she has an illness, but the doctors do not know what it is. His step-father was also very controlling of Julia. He made her decisions for her. When John goes to stay with his mom for a while, his step-father soon convinces Julia that it is not a good idea, and in the morning his mom cannot even look at John as he is leaving.

This really shows how independent women who are emotionless are mean, and not fun, compared to women who are colorful and fun tend to be unstable mentally and dependent on a man to tell them what to do.

I have to say that I really loved the movie besides these facts. If you are a "Beatles" fan or love their music, it is a fun movie to watch. It had some serious and unexpected moments, but it had a good amount of humor in it. I also felt it was hard to write about this in terms of the way they portrayed these real-life people, since the film is based off of a book written by John Lennon's half-sister Julia Baird.

All Images courtesy of Google Images

Why Does It Matter?

I had a friend once whom everyone thought was gay. I think it had to do with the fact that he was very metrosexual. He was very well dressed all of the time. He loved his Louis Vuitton bag, and his Abercrombie and Fitch apparel. He even had a more feminine way of talking. For those reasons, I had people coming up to me all the time asking if he was gay, hoping that I would know, since we were close and hung out often. To be honest, I too at the beginning of our friendship had wondered about his sexuality, but I thought more about how I enjoyed spending time with him, and how that was more important. Because of that, I eventually stopped wondering about his sexuality, because it didn't matter.

I had someone I could talk about movies with, and sit next to in class. I had someone that I could laugh with and have inside jokes with regarding the Space Needle story we created in English. He was one of my best friends and I accepted him as he was. Because of this I also noticed how I also become very protective of him. Anytime that someone would say something to me, or ask me if he was gay, I would defensively state "No!"

He would date girls. He dated one of my friends in middle school. He would from time to time talk about his future, getting married (to a woman) and becoming a doctor. However, none of that mattered to the kids in Carson City, Nevada.

It was a small enough town, that most of the kids you went to middle school and high school with, were also the same kids you went to elementary school with. It was these same kids that he had grown up with who also sent him to the school counselor crying because something that they had said or done to him regarding his sexuality.

One day during lunch in Senator Square, my friend and I were having a conversation and laughing when this one kid came up to him, grabbed his butt, then put his hand on my friends face and said, "Hey baby, how much for a blow?" The kid then turned and walked away towards his friends who were keeled over with laughter. He was greeted with high fives. It took everything in my friends power to not cry in front of them. As we walked to the counselors office together he had to keep wiping away his tears. I went with him numerous times to the counselor, and they would just advise that next time that it happens to let them know, and that they could hold a counselor meeting with the people involved in the mistreatment. They then would say if that did not help then the next thing that they would do is put a restraining order on the person/people.

He was very sensitive about his sexuality, and even I had to watch what I said to him. I had heard on the radio once that the Volkswagen Jetta was the most popular car to be bought by Gay men. I thought that it was interesting that a car company knows that, and I wondered if they were just stereotyping or if they actually did a poll to obtain the information. Anyways, one day we were talking about cars that we wanted to have or would like to have, and he had said, "I want a Volkswagen Jetta." Of course I was not thinking about how this would affect him, it was a total "open mouth, insert foot moment," and I told him of the study I had heard about the Jetta being a popular car amongst Gay men. Maybe it was because I didn't think of him in regards to his sexuality, so I was not thinking abut hurting his feelings. But he instantly asked me "what are you trying to say?" I had to tell him that I did not mean it in the context he was taking it. However, that did not help, and he did not talk to me for three days. I even had to talk to his mom who called me and asked me what had happened. We got over it, and we were back to the way we were before the incident.

Of course, as High School goes, some people fall apart due to other interests. He fell into the partying crowd and people, where as I stayed more involved in my learning. We continued to have classes together, and we still talked, but I didn't have the same outside of school interests as he did. Just because we were not hanging out all of the time, does not mean that I still did not hear people comment on his sexuality. They would make derogatory comments behind his back, and say things about how he just needs to come out of the closet. It got really bad when he was at a party that was being thrown by a kid in our school who was popular as well as very vocal about his sexuality towards the same sex. The monday after the party, everyone kept talking about how my friend and this other kid were seen talking a lot at the party, and that instantly made people assume that for sure my friend was Gay, and that he just needs to admit it.

It is sad, because his sexuality followed him until we graduated. I am sure that it still does, and I am sure that he still deals with issues regarding his sexual preference. The sad thing is is that these things still happen, and to an even worse extent that my friend had to deal with. In one of the readings "Lesbian Sues School District Over Harassment," by Judy Peet, it talked about how Nancy Wadington was pushed down the stairs and had people urinate on her bag. She dealt with torment on a daily basis. Another kid had been "slapped, punched and taunted by classmates who thought he was gay." "Thought" is the key word there. It makes me so angry that there has to be hate crimes regarding someone's homosexuality. When I see movies like Boys Don't Cry, Brokeback Mountain, and The Laramie Project, it just upsets me that hate crimes have to be a unresolved issue, and in some states even tolerated. What is people's fascination with knowing if someone is Gay or a Lesbian? No one cares if they are heterosexual, so why does it matter if they homosexual? After "Juno" came out Ellen Page was and is constantly nailed in the press over her sexuality. She even poked fun of it on SNL doing a skit where she goes to a Melissa Etheridge concert with her boyfriend Andy Samberg, and she feels awakened now with "sisterfire." She even says "Why does everything have to have a frickin' label? Why can't I just hug a woman with my legs in friendship?" She even did a magazine shoot with Drew Barrymore, and in one of the pictures they are kissing. This again brought many people to question the sexuality of both actresses and Ellen's again. Also just recently, in Hollywood, Jeremy Renner, who was nominated for an Oscar for his role in "The Hurt Locker," had his sexuality questioned when the day after the Oscars, his old acting coach claims that Jeremy is gay.


This brings me to my question, why does it matter? Does it take away from either of their acting abilities? Why does it matter what someone's sexual desires are? No one is normal. People are all different, even "heterosexuals" have weird and odd fetishes that can take them out of the normal category, so why does it matter to call someone out on their homosexuality? Why do hate crimes have to happen and be tolerated? Until something is done, there are going to be other actors questioned, and other kids in school who will be victims of hate crimes and torment like Nancy and my friend. I think that everyone should read the "Heterosexual Questionnaire," adapted from ©1972, Martin Rochlin, Ph.D. Because when I read it, it put me into the shoes of someone who is constantly questioned about something that should not matter to anyone but myself and the person I am involved with. It made me feel like I was not in the "normal" category, which I think everyone needs to feel once, especially heterosexual, because it might make some people think differently. Either way, heterosexual or homosexual it is all normal to me, so it should not matter.

IT KILLS

Images courtesy of Google Images
"Lesbian Sues School District," by Judy Peet

How Shall We Communicate?

I read the reading/movie review for this week by Roger Ebert for the movie "Children of a Lesser God," before I sat down and watched the movie. Since I read the review first, I made it apparent to pay attention to the things that Ebert mentioned in the review, to see if I too noticed what he was talking about and how I felt about it.

I do have to agree with Roger Ebert on this one, it would have been nice if part of the movie was put into the perspective of the character Sarah (Marlee Matlin). There were only two little scenes in the whole movie that went without actual actor's making the sound, and there was very music being played, which was hardly audible, and those two scenes were when Sarah was swimming naked. I do have to say that this did make me a little aggravated, and I did have to role my eyes, because I felt that the only two scenes where they actually (sort of) put the audience in her inaudible world is when she is swimming around naked in a very sensual way. Why not the scene when she is watching James' (William Hurt) class perform at the school talent show? I felt that I would have been able to relate better, and understand her point of view better in that scene if it did in fact alternate from sound to no sound. I felt that this would have truly helped the audience, or at least myself, sympathize with Sarah more in the scene. Even perhaps the scene when she is at the poker table with everyone. I felt that that would have been a good scene as well, since she looked confused about what was going on. James also felt so inclined to take credit for her being who she is as a person. James did not teach her how to play poker, he even admits it; yet, when Dr. Franklin (Philip Bosco) congratulates him on the fine job he is doing with Sarah, which to me is nothing because he is not teaching her anything, he takes the credit and says thank you. But this scene also lead me to believe that she could to some degree understand a little bit of lip reading, hence the confused, unsure look on her face. At least that is the impression that I got.


I also have to add that because those are the only two scenes in the whole movie that are without major sound, it really displays Sarah as a physical object. Really? The only way they could get the audience to relate to her character and experience her silent world was to show her swimming nude? To experience being deaf I guess we all just have to swim around naked. A ha! In fact, I can recall that there is indeed a scene after Sarah leaves James, where he is emerged in the water, naked. Who knows maybe he is half-naked. You really can't tell because they did not objectify James as a sex object like they did with Sarah. So he is in the water trying to emerge himself in her world of silence: he is trying to see what it is like being deaf. Like I said, swimming in water naked is key to knowing what being deaf is like!


In Roger Ebert's review he states that "the true subject of this movie... is communication between two people who speak differently." He outlined well in the review how the character of James is really set on trying to get Sarah to learn how to pronounce words/speak as well as read lips. Why? Well, to make speaking to Sarah more convenient for him obviously. This really bothered me in the movie the way he just assumed she could read lips. The part that bothered me the most was when she got up to get more tea or coffee, and he asked her to get him some more as well, but realized that she could not hear him. He seemed almost annoyed, which was what bothered me. I understand that being in any sort of relationship, whether it is with friends, family, partner, etc.. it is all about communication, so I can see why maybe the annoyance on his part. He wants to feel special too, and have her meet him half way. However, he needed to realize that he has the ability to be able to communicate with her in any way he chooses. She does not have that luxury. I feel as if he wants her to be more "normal" in getting her talk and read lips. If she were blind would he force her to try and see? If she were in a wheelchair and unable to walk would he try and convince her that she may be able to walk if she just try hard enough? I don't think so. So why should he force her to try and communicate in a convenient way for him?


All this communication talk leads me to my last point of the movie, and that is sexual communication. Besides the fact that there was a lot of sexuality in the movie, I felt that it was put in there because these two were both too stubborn to really take the time to communicate in any other way. During one scene, they start to get into a fight, and instead of working it out and communicating audibly/visually, they battled it out on the floor communicating sexually. Which the audience can see that it did nothing to solve their problem. I just truly felt that every scene had to lead to, talk about, and show sex in some way. He hardly even knows her, and they start talking about her sex life. I believe they even get into a little argument about it. Which also helps me prove my point that sex is the main issue for both of them. Honestly, you are trying really hard to get to know someone and you really can only bring up and talk about their sex life? That's a good relationship with strong communication.

I also felt that he was more supportive and understanding of his students then he was of Sarah. That is one positive thing about this movie though, is his support and acceptance of his students. I just wish he was more like that with Sarah, and showed his communication with her in a non-sexual way. To sum it up, I thought that the movie was mediocre. I was hoping that it was a more positive movie for people with hearing impairments, and a more positive movie for people to see about people who have hearing impairments. If they did put the audience in her silent world and cut out some of the sound in the movie, it would have probably have been more effective. I also didn't like how, as Ebert puts it, Sarah is a "stubborn object," which I agree with, because instead of making the audience reach out to Sarah and understand her, her stubbornness makes the audience side with James. I mean really lady, how hard is it for you to learn to read lips?


It really just shows how he is not accepting of her disability, which can make the audience feel the same way. It teaches people that people who are deaf should be able to learn how to communicate with the "TAB", instead of the other way around. I also feel that if the roles were reversed and James' character were deaf, Sarah would bend over backwards to communicate with James through signing. She would not have ever tried to force him to speak or read lips. She may have encouraged him, but once he showed that he only wanted to sign, she would have accepted it.


Like I said, the movie was mediocre, and not as positive as I would have hoped. I feel like the movie, "The Family Stone," did a better job showing how a family, and people in relationships with deaf people learn to communicate with them in a loving, positive, accepting way that makes the audience see that it is not that hard or challenging/aggravating to truly communicate by signing.

All Images Courtesy of Google Images
Movie Clip Courtesy of YouTube

Are Unions really Valuable?

While watching the film/documentary "Harlan County U.S.A.," Directed by Barbara Kopple, it really got me thinking if unions are really valuable, especially when dealing with big business corporations. For starters, whenever anyone thinks of unions, i.e. someone who is not in a union and or someone who has never been in one, they can usually get the assumption that they are for the poor, minimum wage, working class people in the country. It is easy to see, especially when workers go on strike. The workers are seen as radical, annoying, whiny or someone who complains all the time, and people who are asking for to much. After all of the strikes that happen, with the picket lines, and publicity the workers are trying to get out there, in the end does it really do anything? From what I saw in the film, it was made pretty clear that no matter what workers ask for, the big business never has to give up much, if at all very little, and the workers fighting give up pretty much everything for a paid day off on your birthday and a $0.25 raise.


The problem is that big corporations have all the power. It disgusts me to think that those hard working miners in the film work so hard everyday, and they obtain health problems, and for what? To keep the CEO of Duke Power Co., and all the other men who get to wear suits and ties to work living comfortably. It allows the rich to get richer, and the poor to get poorer. I think I am getting ahead of my self here, and that I should start from the beginning of the film, to help solidify my points and get back on topic.



At the very beginning, you as the viewer, are put into the perspective of a miner. You show up at work in the morning, hop on the conveyor belt, and get whisked away into the deep, dark earth. I personally could never send myself head first down into the earth, in such a tight passage. They have to lay so low to the ground because if they lifted their heads any higher, they would hit the ceiling of rocky earth above them, and hurt themselves. They are then shown working in an area so dark, that even their lights on their helmets produce very little light that they are pretty much pointless to use. You see them re-stabilizing the ground above them so it doesn't collapse on them, and blowing up more areas of the ground to search for more coal to keep the owner of the company richer. At the end of their shifts they come out of the mine looking as black as the darkness they work in. They are covered in coal dust. Among working in a setting like this, they are also slowly acquiring major respiratory problems that will effect them later on: the most common is Black Lung, which you can only get by breathing in coal dust, and it can kill you.


So would the CEO or owner of Duke Power work a day in the mine with its workers? Probably not. However, if they did, or if they too were miners before becoming the person in charge of the company, I am sure that there would be no need for a union. The miners would be making (at least in the 70's when this was filmed) $10 an hour if not more. They would be working in safer conditions, as well as having the right equipment provided for them to prevent respiratory diseases later on. They would have all major holidays off, and paid for. They would have full benefits for themselves and their families, and lastly they would not be living in shacks that lack running water, and that could topple over at any minute. They probably also would not be living in the upgraded trailer. They would probably be living in really modest homes that have heat and running hot water. It is the 70's after all, I mean really, who wants to live in a barn? But what CEO or wants that? That would lower his bank account 20% (this figure I am just assuming makes the most sense to what is stated above), and all the men in suits and ties would have to have pay cuts.

This is where the unions step in and why they were created. All the miners that are union workers in the film, identify themselves as UMWA, United Mine Workers of America. The union employs people who can be the spokesperson for the miners, and they then go in and negotiate contracts based on what the miners want to do their job happily. If all of them feel they are underpaid, work in poor, unsafe conditions, or want specific benefits, they go to the union, and it is the unions job to speak up for the miners, especially since they are receiving part of their pay from each pay check. Since all big corporations hate unions, because they are there to take more of their money to give to the workers, they will fight their hardest to not give anything if little at all to the workers. When the contract is being negotiated, and not running as smoothly as expected, workers are encouraged to strike on the picket line. This helps draw in publicity in hopes of compromising a deal with the corporations. Here it seems as if unions really are valuable. They seem to have the miners best interests at heart.


While strikes are occurring, the company is losing money, because their business is not being run as productively as before. This helps create a speedier contract compromise. However, in the case of the Harlan County Miners in the movie, that was not the case. All of the miners, including wives who stood proudly behind their husbands, and sisters, and anyone else who was for the miners went on strike for 13 months. They were told by the union representatives to stand on the picket line and defend your rights, and they continually did so, even after they were being shot at and beaten by "gun thugs." They were seen as radicals, and were constantly pushed around by the law for trying to stop "scabs" going to work in the mines while striking. It is easy to see that their intentions are harmless. They just want to educate people on their situation. But no one really seemed to care especially the cops. It took 13 months for a contract to finally be negotiated, but that was only because Lawrence Jones had to be shot and killed to put an end to the on-going strikes. At that point in the film is when I started wondering if the union was really doing anything to really protect the miners it housed a voice for, and if they really were valuable? Especially when their cost of living goes up 7%, their wages go up 4%, and the production of coal, which they all work to produce, goes up 170%.


It is a debatable topic. I am still going back and forth in deciding. I think that in the case of the movie, their union did the best that they could. I think that all unions do the best that they can. Unfortunately, because they have to fight with big corporations who are trying to save all the money they can (for themselves), by hiring workers at a low pay, giving them little benefits, and working them in poor conditions for as long as they can. I wish that unions were more public with the treatment of all workers working for them, instead of only when strikes occur. If they educated the public more with how workers are treated inside companies, maybe there would be more sympathy for all the hard workers of the world. If this happened maybe miners would finally get the respect and treatment they deserve.

All pictures courtesy of Google Images

If Whale Rider Was Made by Hollywood

My out of class screening last week was the movie "Whale Rider." I absolutely love this film as well as the positive message it sends to young girls and women. The film takes place in New Zealand and it is a narrative about the Indigenous people in the country, the Maori tribe, and their culture. Paikea, or Pai (Keisha Castle-Hughes) is the main character of the story, and through out the whole movie she fights to show her grandfather Koro (Rawiri Paratene), the Maori Chief, that she can take his place as Chief, even though she is not male. When she was born, she was born with a twin brother, and he was seen to be the future Chief, but he died with their mother during birth. Her grandfather saw her as a curse to their tribe. He wished that she had died instead of her brother, and he lost hope of there being a Chief to take his place in honor of their ancestor Paikea. Her father on the other hand decided to name her after their ancestor, despite her grandfather's wishes.

In the very next scene though, Pai is older, and she is riding a bike with her grandfather, and you can tell that he loves her very much. She in turn loves him just the same, and it is easy to see the admiration she has for him. However, he only changes his mind in loving her as his granddaughter, not as a future Chief. It is from this point on that you really see that he sees her as a girl, who cannot do the things that boys and men can do. In one scene she gets a motor on a boat to work, and she calls to her grandfather to come and see. He walks over very upset, turns off the motor and very aggressively tells her to never do that again, because she could get hurt. It is when her grandfather believes that she is going to live in Germany with her father, that he decides to create a school where he can teach young boys how to be Chief, in hopes of finding a new leader, since Pai is a girl, she could never be their leader.

In the scenes where he is teaching the boys what it takes to be a Chief, you really see the Maori culture, and how they really embrace it. It is never a joke to them, and they do not take it for granted. The movie showcases Maori songs, chants, stick fighting, traditional canoe riding, and war dance. I couldn't help but think how culturally rich this movie was. It felt very authentic and powerful because it was completely made by and starred Maori people. I also loved how strong Pai's female character was. She stood up for herself, and found her own voice, even when her grandfather told her she couldn't be their leader. She is not the typical actress you would find in a movie made in the U.S. by Hollywood. Tracy Rector from Longhouse Media, also came in last week and talked to us about Native Americans in cinema, and how out of the 4,000 movies that had been made, (i.e. written, directed, produced and starring) by Native Americans only 1 has been theatrically released and seen major credit.

This really got me thinking... What if Whale Rider was bought out by a major Hollywood production company, and it was made and released in America? How would it have been different, and how would it have been the same? Well, this is what I came up with...

Hollywood bought the rights to a script and made a movie called "Whale Rider," written by Niki Caro, based off of the book "The Whale Rider," by Witi Ihimaera. The story is about a twelve year old girl named Pai, who tries to gain acceptance from her grandfather, who does not believe she can be their tribal leader. The movie was originally going to be made by all Maori people, but a major production company in Hollywood loved the story so much, they were able to pay a price and buy the rights. They filmed the movie in New Zealand, as well as cast Maori people in minor and major roles, as well as extras. However, the role of Pai has been debated over, and the company decided to cast a young Hollywood starlet. Whom you ask? The oh so talented Vanessa Hudgens. Producers really wanted someone who was sexy, beautiful, not afraid to show some skin, and who looked "ethnic" enough to be Maori. Since Hollywood really had their sights set on this young Disney star to play the role of Pai, they had to change the age from 12 to 17, to make it more believable. They also distanced her more from her father in the film, and his role is to be hardly showcased. The producers also had a problem with the fact that there was not any love interest in the film. To solve that, they got rid of her uncle's character completely, and they created the character of Jude, who will be played by the very sexy Robert Pattinson. He will be a foreign exchange student from England. He is there to be the "White Messiah" for Pai. As much as the producers loved Pai's strong, independent voice, they felt it would be more believable to audiences in America if there was a man to do all of that for her. He is going to be her voice and tell her her worth. He will tell her how important she is and to never give up on her dream as a future Maori leader. He will also be battling it out with her grandfather to win his respect, and to show him that he loves, respects and truly cares for Pai. All of these new changes to the movie will make the movie a huge Hollywood success when it is released next month, and to hopefully make it more "white friendly" for movie-goers. So sit back, relax, grab some popcorn, soda, and I will see you at the movies! Hopefully the movie will sweep the Oscars this year! So to tide all of you who are eager to see the movie, here are some stills the production company released!






Photos were photoshopped by Me; however, I obtained all of the original photos courtesy of Google Images by typing in Whale Rider, Vanessa Hudgens, and Robert Pattinson

Side note to the blog below

For some reason when I posted a picture and a video, for my most recent blog, it does not show the whole image, only part of them; however, if you click on the images and the video it will show the full image/screen. Thanks!

Equality and Hate Within Race

This week in class we watched “Boyz In The Hood,” Written and Directed by John Singleton. I had never seen the movie before, and I was a little uncertain of how I would like it, but I have to say that I really loved the movie, and the messages that I got from it. It was a movie that was written in a perspective that made you like all of the main characters in it for something, even if they did not do the greatest good in the film.

One of my favorite things about the movie was the friendship that Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and his friends shared. I loved the way that they looked out for each other, and even though they may have had different lives, or saw things differently, they were still there for each other. They did not pass hateful judgement on one another for trivial things. One thing that I also found endearing was the way Doughboy (Ice Cube) always looked out for his brother Ricky (Morris Chestnut). Even towards the very end of the movie, when they get in a fight and Ricky and Tre leave to go to the store, Doughboy knows instantly when Ricky is in trouble. The audience is reminded throughout the film that they are half brothers, and their mom treats them differently because of it, but they do not let that get in the way of how they feel for each other.

What I am trying to say with all of this is that, all of the men in their circle of friends, see each other as equals. There is no prejudice towards one another. Tre is obviously better off than all of his friends in the film with his education, and the fact that he has a strong father figure to be a role model for him; however, he never acts like he is superior to them, or better than them. This also works in the reverse: Tre is never made to feel like he is not good enough to hang out with his friends because he is not like them (respectively). Doughboy and his brother are not treated equally when it comes to their mother. She favors Ricky over Doughboy, but all of their friends treat him equally.

One of my favorite scenes in the whole movie though, the one that truly got me thinking about all of this equality and prejudice, is the scene where Tre’s father Furious (Laurence Fishburne) brings Tre and Ricky to Compton to look at a sign. As he starts talking to them, a small crowd joins with them to listen to Furious talk about why there are gun stores and liquor stores on every street corner in the neighborhood, and Furious says they put them there because, “they want us to kill ourselves.” One of the young men listening to Furious talk says, in so many words, that if some guy drives by and comes at him to kill him, he is going to kill him as long as he doesn’t get killed first. Furious then says to the young man “that is what they want us to do. You have to think young brother, about your future.” The statistics were put on the screen at the very beginning of the movie that said most black men will be killed by each other, but the way Furious talks about it, it really moved me.


What it really got me thinking about was how a movie that is so full of equality amongst friends, and there is no prejudices against each other, and they do not let the little things get in the way of their relationship; yet, when it comes to their own race, there is a prejudice. It is evident from one of the very first scenes in the movie. Furious and Tre are waiting for the cops to show up at their house in the middle of the night, after they almost had a break in. When the two cops finally do show up, Officer Coffey, who is also African-American, acts superior to Furious and Tre. He is in a prejudice mind set that they are the stereotypical, no good people from Crenshaw. You can really see in this scene and near the end, when Officer Coffey pulls a gun on Tre, that he truly feels hatred towards his own race. At the beginning of the movie as well, when Tre goes up to teach the class and he comments on how everyone has originated from Africa, and the other little African-American boy refuses to be put in the same category as Tre. He does not want to acknowledge that they are the same race, and that they do come from the same place like everyone else in the world.


When Tre is older, and he goes to take some of the bar-b-que over to his dad, a car full of African-American men pull up and pull a gun on Tre for no reason at all. To scare him? Because he just happened to be in the street when they were driving by? It is this very hatred and prejudice that they have towards their own race that kills Ricky at the end of the movie, and two weeks later kills Doughboy as well. The thing that bothered me the most, is the group of men that killed Ricky. They felt so natural about killing someone of their own race, they were not bothered by it at all. In fact, they were out eating burgers and joking around with each other. They did not feel any sense of guilt for killing someone, or like Furious tells Tre at the beginning, “just would’ve contributed to the killing of another brother,” someone who is no different than a “brother” to them. Would Tre have killed Doughboy? Someone he considers is just like a brother to him? I don’t think so. So why, even though these two groups do not associate with one another, do they have to kill each other? That is the one thing that upset me the most about the movie: the violence and the hate toward towards people of the same race.

Tre and his girlfriend are the only ones in the movie, that we are told, go to Universities and become greater than the surroundings that they came from. The sad thing is that, Doughboy himself could have gone to college, and did something with his life as well, if he did not let his surroundings mold him and generate hate against his own race. He did not allow himself to “think about his future.” He allowed himself to follow into the stereotype that Officer Coffey thought of everyone in that whole community.

So how is it that these boys who have so much respect and equality for one another, yet when it comes to other people from their own race, they feel so much hatred and prejudice? Is it because they don’t know each other, or because they are from another area of the city? For so many years, when African-Americans were slaves, did they hate and murder each other? Maybe they did; however, I could not find anything in my research to prove that there were hate crimes towards each other or acts of "internal oppression," (as Ruth mentioned today) during that time. So why now? Why, after African-Americans fought so long for equality and to banish prejudice, do they turn on their own race with hatred and violence?


It was a wonderful movie that really got me thinking about prejudice and hate in a different way. I wish that they, the actors, filmmakers, and John Singleton would have addressed this idea in the film in a way to try and change what is happening, because it was the one thing that pained me to see. Especially knowing that their lives were depicted as true as possible. If there is to be any fresh start to ending racism and prejudice in the world today, with any race, nationality, and ethnicity, we all need to end the hate and prejudice towards our own race first before we can end it with others. However, I know that it will never happen, and I am just wishful thinking.

Sources:
All quotes are from the movie "Boyz N The Hood," Written and Directed by John Singleton

All images obtained from Google Images: http://images.themoviedb.org/backdrops/926/tt0101507_poster.jpg, http://hulkhatetimetravel.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/red-cay-boyznthehood.jpg, http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51uEfetmBCL.jpg

Video is from YouTube

Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist: Reward and Punishment

This week in class we began to talk about masculinity in the media, and the rewards and punishments that come with expressing or not expressing it. During the discussion, I could not help but think about the movie “Brokeback Mountain,” and the two main characters in it. In every aspect of masculinity that we talked about, the name and image of Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) kept appearing in my head. Was it because the cover of my text book has a scene from the movie on it, and the book just happened to be sitting right in front of me? Well, maybe; however, it really made me re-think the movie again in terms of masculinity. I set out to watch the film again, not as an endearing love story between two men, and the complexity of their "unsatisfactory situation," as Jack says, but as a movie with a masculine message behind it, and to see what that message could be.

The general plot of “Brokeback Mountain,” is that it's a Western about two gay men, or two gay cowboys to be exact, and the twenty years of their relationship. My textbook “America On Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality At The Movies,” by Harry M. Benshoff and Sean Griffin, defines the Western genre as promoting “a masculine ideal of a strong, unemotional, aggressive hero closely tied to nature and hard manual labor.” (pg. 261). This movie really showcases how these two men accept or don't accept who they are as gay men. It is interesting to me that they picked this type of genre to showcase a movie about two gay men, because they go about breaking typical stereotypes of gay men, and put them in what is typically a more masculine genre. Since Ennis is the hero in this movie, he is more unemotional and strong. He keeps his relationship with Jack private and his status “in the closet.” Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) on the other hand, is more effeminate. He shows his emotions and he steps outside of the masculine role a little bit, which enables him to be more free and not live in fear. Jack wants to spend the rest of his life with Ennis. He spends pretty much the whole movie waiting for Ennis to step outside of his masculine role of living in fear of being found out, so that they can finally spend their lives together. “Brokeback Mountain,” really broke a lot of the typical stereotypes placed on gay men by the media. If you look at each of the two characters and break down what makes them masculine, or not as masculine, you can see how they present a masculinity message through reward and punishment.


Ennis Del Mar is the main character and or hero in this western. He epitomizes the western hero perfectly. When he is first introduced into the movie, he is leaned up against a wall, hiding his face with his cowboy hat. My first thoughts were, “Oh my gosh he looks like the manly “Marlboro Man.” I want to expand on the masculine image he represents from this point of the movie on. He is a “real man” a “man’s man” by Hollywood standards. He is unemotional, and he hardly talks throughout the movie. Jack as well as Ennis’ “little gal from Riverton,” Cassie, whom he briefly dates later on in the movie, even comment on his lack of words. When he is telling Jack about his parent’s death, he does so in a casual manner, and with very few words. He gets straight to the point, and he never shows that he is deeply saddened by the fact that his parents had died leaving him all alone to be raised by his siblings. “Real Men,” are strong and do not cry. When he and Jack are up on the mountain working they really start to get to know each other, and at the beginning of their bonding, which is initiated by Jack, Ennis can hardly even look at Jack, let alone smile at any of his jokes. You can tell that he wants to laugh or smile, but forces it back. “Real Men,” are unemotional, they can’t smile or show happiness.

Ennis is also a very physical, aggressive character. Every time that he does get upset or emotional he becomes violent. He shows his masculine role with his aggression. Right before he and Jack are about to leave the mountain, he is so upset that they have to leave each other that he and Jack’s playful brawl turns into a fight of masculinity. Ennis gets hurt and ends up punching Jack back when he goes to comfort him. He does this almost in a sense of reminding Jack that he is a “real man,” or that he is “the man” in the situation. He doesn’t need Jack to comfort him. “Real Men” can handle themselves without help. When they actually do part in the road and go on their separate ways, he starts to cry and physically get sick in an alley way. In response to his emotional breakdown, he yells at a passer-by, and punches the wall. In another scene where him and Jack are together for the last time and Jack says that famous romantic line, “I wish I knew how to quit you,” Ennis becomes his most emotional in the whole movie, and he tells Jack to go on and quit him and to leave him be. The entire time, he is crying and wiping away tears. When Jack goes over to comfort him, he starts to fight him off, and push him away. Ennis Del Mar is a “real man,” in this film, and Hollywood cinema does a good job of showing that.


What does Ennis’ masculine role in society cost him in his personal life? He lived his life with the idea of the traditional masculine role men are supposed to play. He lives his life in fear because he doesn't want the secret of his sexuality to be known: he will be punished for it . His need to always be a “real man,” also strained his relationships with Jack, Alma his wife/ex-wife, his daughters, and his brief relationship with Cassie. His relationship with his wife Alma starts out well. I always felt that Ennis really did love Alma in his own way. However, he made sure to assert his masculinity through aggression with her. In one scene he shows up at her work with their two little girls in tote, and he wants to drop them off with her, while she is on the clock, so that he can go to his job. She refuses to take them at first, since she is on the clock, and she does not want to lose her job because of it. She tries to get him to work at another time, but he gives her a threatening, almost violent look of male dominance and she gives in, and she does so in a way that says, “I am sorry to question you, I am in the wrong.” In a later scene, Alma actually takes a blow at his masculinity, instead of backing down to him. They are in the middle of making love, when she suggests that he stops because they don't need anymore kids, and the first words out of his mouth are, “If you don’t want no more o’ my kids, I’ll be happy to just leave you alone” and she responds with, “ I’d have ‘em if you’d support ‘em.” This is a good example of how media has brought men up to believe they need to be the masculine supporters of their family. However, she tested his masculinity here, and made him feel like less of a man because he could not support his kids. The very next scene they are in the divorce court. From that point on you really see how his relationships with everyone become strained. He goes on to be the “lonely cowboy,” who does not need anyone. He has to be a man, and just put up with what life hands him. His “real man” unemotional self, gets in the way and destroys the relationships he has with everyone in the movie. Ennis is not completely devoid of emotion, and towards the end of the film, he shows a little more emotion. However, he still ends up alone, and cut off from everyone in his life because of his masculinity.


Jack, on the other hand shows plenty of emotions. He does not live in fear like Ennis does, and he even has these ideas for them to spend the rest of their lives together. Jack is a manly character, but he is not as much of a “real man” as Ennis is. He has manly jobs, he rides bulls in the rodeo, and he is a cowboy. So Jack is a masculine guy. However, he is a little more free to step outside of the masculine role a little bit, and be himself. Jack allows himself to show his emotions more. Jack has his masculinity tested a lot in the film. When it comes to him stepping up and being more of a man, he tends to back down just like Alma does to Ennis in the grocery store. His masculinity is really tested by his wife Lureen’s father. I figured her father had a problem with Jack for two reasons. One, was that he was threatened by Jack for marrying his only daughter, so he had to stress the fact that he was the more masculine one between the two. In one scene, right after Jack and Lureen have their son, her father walks into the room and tosses his keyes at Jack so he can go get something out of the car for him, instead of doing it himself. He then goes on to gloat to Jack that his grandson “is the spitting image of his grandpa.” I took it that he was jealous of Jack because, he was able to produce a son, which is something that a masculine man does. His father in-law never had a son of his own to talk about like that, or to be able to turn a boy into a man. So he is taking all of the credit away from Jack, who backs down from the situation.


The second reason is that her father could sense that Jack was a more effeminate and he ridiculed Jack because he knew he was not man enough to stand up to him. In a scene, Lureen is with her father and some guy in the office, and the man asks her father if Jack used to ride bulls, and he chirps back with, “ he used to try,” with an emphasis on the “try.” Bull riding is a masculine thing to do in my book. Not every man can ride a real bull and handle being thrown off. He emasculates Jack buy saying that he was not that good at bull riding. He pretty much says with his emphasis on "try" that, “Jack is not masculine enough to ride a bull. Real men can ride bulls, he just tried.”

There is one specific scene though where Jack finally stands up to his father in-law, and it is when the family is getting ready to eat Thanksgiving dinner at Jack and Lureen’s house. Lureen spends “three hours” making a beautiful family dinner, and Jack is about to start carving the turkey for everyone. Because it is the man’s job to carve the turkey, his father in-law grabs the knife from him, and takes over. Again, showing that Jack is not man enough to carve a turkey in his own house and dominates Jack. Jack backs down like he always does, however, it is obvious that he is aggravated that his masculinity is being tested. He get’s up and turns the football game off, after Lureen tells their son that he can watch it after dinner. Well, Grandpa takes over the situation and turns the game back on while saying something along the lines of, “if you want your son to grow up and be a man, he should watch the football game.” Jack reaches a boiling point, because not only is Grandpa disrespecting Jack by asserting his male dominance over him, he is also showing their son that it is okay to disrespect the women in your life, including your mother who spent “three hours” making your dinner, because “real men” watch football at the table, and do what they want. In a struggle of male dominance, Jack finally yells at the man, emasculating him by telling him, "This is my house! This is my child! And you are my guest! Now sit the hell down before I knock your ignorant ass into next week." Jack stands up and takes over the manly duty of carving the turkey. Jack finally stood up to his father in-law and showed his masculinity.

Jack steps outside of the traditional masculine role. He is shown to be more effeminate than Ennis, but this allows him to connect with people more, and have relationships with the people around him. He is more free to be himself, and he does not live in fear like Ennis does. However, (Spoiler, if you have never seen the movie), his stepping outside of the masculine role, ends up costing him his life. Ennis warned Jack that this could happen, but Jack was not as “real” a man as Ennis. He could not hide his desires and live in fear, so he was murdered or punished. He dies a very sad, brutal death by some homophobic men that find out about his sexuality.


Although the story that most people see, which is what I always saw, is a love story between two men, I can clearly see another underlying message that the Hollywood media is getting across to gay men about their masculinity. It delivers the message in a reward and punishment way that says, "it is ok to be gay as long as you are unemotional, aggressive, strong, tough and “keep it in the closet”. You may end up alone, living in fear, and emotionally detaching yourself from every relationship you are in, but that is ok because you will be alive and not punished in some way. Ennis is rewarded for showing his strong "real man" masculinity, and Jack is punished for not being masculine enough or more of a “real man.” This is the masculine message I interpreted or noticed came through by the end of watching this movie over again.

Book Source: America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality at the Movies
by Harry M. Benshoff and Sean Griffin
Movie Quotes from "Brokeback Mountain."
Directed by Ang Lee, and based off of the short story by Annie Proulx