"(White) African Queen"

Over the past couple of days in class we have discussed how much, if any, has American society progressed in reaching equality. A majority of the class felt that while there have been signs of progress, such as an African-American becoming our president; we are definitely still not at the state of complete equality. Recently, a CNN video, posted that Numero Magazine contained an add titled “African Queen”, however, instead of an African-American modeling for this add, they hired a white 16-year old girl for the job, and painted her body with brown make up.

As you can imagine, this add received quite a lot of attention for its hypocrisy. However, one surprising comment that this article received was “Why hire a black model, when you can just paint a white one?” The use of the word “just” is very interesting because it is implying that the white model is the better choice, even though you are painting her skin to look exactly like an African-American model!

Another shocking fact is that the overwhelming majority of models are white, about 82%. While, only 6% of models are African-Americans. Models are seen as figures that society wants to copy or imitate. By choosing a white model to act as an African-American model, this magazine company is basically expressing that we should follow or be like white Americans, instead of an African-Americans. Why do you think that is? Or why choose a white model if she will just end up looking exactly like an African-American model? What do you think this add is saying about race in American society?

The lack of equality is truly being expressed within this magazine add, highlighting the fact that American society has still a lot of work ahead to reach a state of equality. 

The Accuracy of Argo

Last week Mr. O'Connor brought up an interesting fact about the movie Lincoln. O'Connor announced that Lincoln knowingly expresses misleading information. In the movie, it supposedly states that Connecticut voted against the 13th Amendment, while in reality Connecticut was in favor for it. Just as Lincoln displayed false information, the movie Argo did as well. 

According to this interview on CNN with Jimmy Carter, Carter states, "that ninety percent of the contributions to the ideas and the consummation of the plan was Canadian, [however] the movie gives almost full credit to the American CIA".

First off, I understand that directors choose to "alter" aspects of history in order to add drama, however, I wonder to what degree is it considered ok for directors to knowingly change facts of history?

To add, I also find it interesting that, as Carter mentioned above, the directors of Argo chose to give credit to the Americans, rather than the rightfully deserved Canadians. Did the directors choose to divert the attention to the American CIA for merely the affect of drama? Or are Americans not inclined to watch a film where they are not shown in the most positive light possible?

This reminds me of another discussion we had in the beginning of the year about how the government chose to only show clips of the Vietnam war that illustrated progress and success, instead of showing that there was very little progress or success actually being made. Just as the U.S. government chose to not tell the whole truth, do you think the film-makers of Argo had the right to stretch the truth in order to appeal to the audience, why? If you were the director of Argo would you have chosen to do the same thing?

The much success of "Downton Abbey"

           Over the weekend I heard about a T.V. show called "Downton Abbey", appparently a very popular show. Anyways, I asked my friends about this show and recieved many positive comments about it. Not only were my friends  hooked onto to this show, but many parents are big fans as well. One of my good friend even mentioned that her dad left a dinner party to come home and watch the finale of "Downton Abbey".  After hearing all of the commotion about this show, I started to wonder why was "Downton Abbey"so well-liked?
          From only watching one episode, I could not tell you a whole lot on what it is about. However, from this article I learned that this show contains "stories [that] are about emotional situations that everyone can understand” and "it deals with timeless themes such as, social rankings, money,  and homosexuals". 
      Many of these "timeless themes" mentioned are big themes practiced in American culture, and as such, I wonder is that why this show has become so accepted, because Americans can just connect with it? Hoever, the show does take place in the 20th century in Britian, so how much can Americans connect with it? 
      In any case, what do you think makes a T.V. show become so popular in America? What must it contain to make it well-liked? Are there any common themes between "Downton Abbey" and other popular shows like "Modern Family" or "Homeland"?

What is the Calvin Kline Commercial Really Saying?

Over the weekend, I went to my cousins house to watch the Superbowl. While I was excited to watch the game, the commercials are something I always look forward to seeing. I find the commercials to be quite amusing, however, in class today we looked at commercials more closely, and not just their entertainment value, specifically the Audi commercial. After this thoughtful discussion, I began to think of other commercials I could further analyze. The one that immediately popped into my head was the Calvin Kline commercial.

In this commercial there is a man, with the "perfect body", modeling Calvin Kline underwear. What struck me most about this commercial was that it was appealing to a woman's audience. During the Superbowl, about every other commercial was directed towards a male audience, such as, the Ram, Bud Light, and M&M commercial. My question, then was, why was Calvin Kline trying to persuade Women, and not men, to purchase Men's underwear?

The only logical explanation that I had was woman are buying the underwear for men.

As such, with this reasoning in mind, I wonder does America view women as the ones who just do the shopping? The ones who take care of all of the domestic needs, like clothing? The ones who's sole function is to take care of their husbands?

Pentagon Ban is Lifted

        Over the weekend I saw the thrilling, action packed movie, Zero Dark Thirty. As most of you know this movie is about Osama Bin Laden and how he was captured. While the whole movie was beyond intriguing, the part that struck me the most was that it was a WOMAN who discovered the locations of Bin Laden.
       While I was thrilled to learn that it was a woman who figured out the 10 year long puzzle of Bin Laden, I was skeptical to the fact on why I did not know this sooner. It could just be because of my lack of attention to the news, however, my mom, a pretty heavy news follower, did not know it was a woman until I recently told her. In that case, was it because of the lack of coverage about her?
     Whatever the case may be it reminds me of the lift of the Pentagon Ban that occurred this past week. The Pentagon Ban, "prohibited woman from serving in special operations, or fighting on the front line".  This ban limited the career options for many woman involved in helping to defend our country. And even when woman did engage in warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan the military, "did not officially count their actions as combat, and their battle field experience went unrecognized". Many woman were left with the feelings of anger, rage, or just pure disappointment.
         Clearly lifting the Pentagon Ban is heading in the right direction towards gender equality. Yet, I still wonder why the ban created in 1994 was lifted now, over 15 years later? Or why it took so long for it to be lifted? What convinced Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta  to lift it in the first place? And lastly, how do you think this change in rules, that allows woman to fight in combat and advance in their careers, will affect the military?
    

The Divide - Final Exam

         This image, titled “On the Edge”, photographed by Alex S. Maclean, an American photographic artist, is an important American contemporary photograph because it connects to the themes of social class, race, and realism and idealism.
         In this image I automatically notice the road that divides the two towns. On the left side, there are large, white houses, surrounded by healthy, good, looking landscape. Each house looks similar to one another, with its equal spacing, shape, color, and size. On the right side of the road, I see the lack of polished looking landscape, and I notice more defined looking houses, with their unique colors and shapes. This made me wonder how such two distinctly contrasting towns could live just right across the street from one another.
          This sharp contrast of towns reminds me of the field trip we took to the south side of Chicago. The left side of the photo, with its pristine and bubbled life, represents us, the North Shore, while the right side of the photo symbolizes urbanized Chicago. During this field trip we were supposed to take note of the different environment we were in. Elisa Hillman made an interesting observation. She noted that, “The people in Chicago are more individual” than the people of the North Shore. The word “individual”, meaning single or separate, is very intriguing considering that the North Shore, I would argue, is the complete opposite of that. The North shore is enclosed within this conformed “bubble”, with its identical looking houses, while Chicago contains a more uncensored town, with its different colored houses, and unusual landscaping, creating a more “individualism” environment.
          As I mentioned above, there is a clear divide between the two towns. As such, the title, “On the Edge” seems very suitable for this photo because each town is at the edge of one another. However, I read the title more as the citizens within each town are at the very edge of crossing it and stepping into new boundaries, but fail to do so.
           This incompletion of a task reminds me of the Emancipation Proclamation. During class, we observed the flaws associated with this document due to its incapability of freeing all slaves. This document, as Foner explains, “did not liberate all slaves- indeed…it applied to very few (494).” Yet, just as the citizens are at the very “edge” of their town, this document was touching the margins of slavery. Here Foner explains that, “despite its limitations [of the Proclamation of Emancipation], …[it] set off scenes of jubilation among free blacks and abolitionist in the North and “contrabands” and slaves in the South (495).” Looking at the word “jubilation”, meaning the feeling of triumph, conveys the idea that these slaves or free blacks thought the U.S. was, again, on the edge of heading in the right direction to abolish slavery.
           Another characteristic I notice in the photograph is the absence of people, however, it may just be because I cannot see people from the angle at which this photo was taken. Nonetheless, I am curious to why there is not heavy crowd of people trying to cross over from town to town. Is it because these people are not able to, or is it because they just choose not to? Ultimately, this observation reminds of Rachel Hoying’s blog post - “Modern Abolitionist”. In her post she describes how people automatically say that if they were alive during the Civil War they would all become strong abolitionist. Even so, as Rachel points out, “…there is a form of slavery going on in our own country right now, and very few people have been doing anything to stop it”. Are very few people becoming modern abolitionist because they are just not aware about modern-day slavery, or is it because they just choose to stay within their town, and not want to face the overwhelming reality.

Tico Time

         Over the break I went on vacation to Costa Rica with my family. Adjusting to the warm weather and nice beaches was not a problem, however, Tico time, an aspect of the Costa Rican lifestyle, was a bit harder of an adjustment. Tico time  basically means one can show up to an event 30 minutes, an hour, or even two hours behind the scheduled time. My family and I would always scramble to try and be ready by the designated time, yet we would always be waiting 20-30 minutes for others to casually arrive. As we got used to this "Tico time" I noticed our overall moods became slightly more relaxed. Tico time is used mainly with social situations rather than business dealings. The idea of Tico time is not just practiced in Costa Rica, but also in many European countries such as Spain and Portugal. 

          This slower paced and more relaxed lifestyle is a sharp contrast to the fast, uptight attitude in America. Americans value time greatly, and don't enjoy wasting it, or in other words, over work themselves. For example, at least 134 countries have laws setting the maximum length of the work week; the U.S. does not. To add, the average American works more than 40 hours per week, while in Germany it is around 35 hours. As well, according to the ILO (International Labor Organization), Americans work 137 more hours per year than Japanese workers, 260 more hours than British workers, and 499 more hours than French workers. With more hours spent at work, it definitely leads to more stress. Stress is the number one cause of health problems in America-mentally and physically. I mean just the other day my mom, a lawyer, did not come home from work until 3 in the morning because she was finishing a brief that was due the next day! As you can imagine, the stress level in our household was quite high that evening.

As such, I wonder what would happen if a thing like Tico time was brought to the U.S.? By that I mean, a relaxation on deadlines, or amount of hours needed for work, etc....Would Americans benefit by decreasing their stress levels, thereby creating a better quality of life? Or would it have the contrasting affect because Americans would feel lazy and undirected if they had this extra time on their hands?