Slumdog Millionaire - Weekly Blog

A couple of weeks ago, the class was presented with a small clip from the movie 'Slumdog Millionaire'. At first, I did not know what to expect from the movie, but looked forward to watching it after hearing so many positive stories and reviews, and watching it win so many Oscars.
After seeing a short clip in class, I am now very eager to watch the entire movie. A young boy grows up in the slums of India and is a contestant on the 'Who wants to be a millionaire' show and ends up winning big. This leads people to become suspicious as to why the young boy knew the answers to such questions, and is targeted as having cheated his way through the game. I believe that this movie was such a big hit because this young boys life does a complete 360 from growing up in the slums of India to winning big and becoming rich.
After the clip, the class shared their thoughts on the movie and discussed questions related to the film. One thing that was mentioned in class was the stereotypes that were potentially represented in the movie. All the men were portrayed as being extremely mean, always shown yelling and being very violent, while the women were shown to always be very hard at work. Furthermore, the children in the movie were always screaming and being brats to one another in the street, and India itself was shown to be an extremely dirty and poverty stricken country. Although these stereotypes are clearly identified in the movie, individuals in class were discussing the reality to some of these stereotypes, and how many areas in India are just that - living in extreme poverty. It was interesting to hear different people's thoughts about the movie, and felt that it was a great class discussion.

DISNEY - Weekly Blog

Disney...friend or foe?

Last week during class we discussed Chapter 35 of our Media Literacy textbook. I was extremely interested in this Chapter’s topics and actually chose to do my PowerPoint project on it.
As much as I am a very big fan of Disney, and have watched Disney movies since I was a little girl, after reading Chapter 35 and researching the topic further, I could not help but think about the stereotypical images that are portrayed in a lot of these movies and the impact it has on children. Although Disney movies continue to evolve as years go on, most main character women in these movies remain white, middle/upper class princesses (Eg: Cinderella, Snow White, Little Mermaid, etc). With this said, children from different cultural/ethnic backgrounds may grow up thinking they are atypical and different. The Aladdin movie illustrates an Arab princess named Jasmine, but it is interesting to note that Jasmine is portrayed in the movie with paler skin and has no accent compared to the “bad guy” Arabs who wear turbans, have strong accents, and are given very large noses. Furthermore, while looking through the Disney movies and observing different stereotypes, I was shocked to see some of the lyrics. In Aladdin, the movie begins with a song that illustrates an extremely negative portrayal of Arabs and the Arab culture. Some of the lyrics are the following: “Oh I come from a land, from a far away place, where the caravan camels roam, where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face, its barbaric, but hey, it’s home.” Although I have never paid attention to these lyrics before, it made me realize that although Disney seems so innocent and fairytale-like for children; stereotypes are represented in these movies as well. For these reasons, it is important for parents and teachers to understand media, and to help children learn the meaning behind these types of messages as it relates to race, class and gender.

Cover Girl Commercial - Weekly Blog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL-C58XlHPc

What do you see?

I have never been a ‘big’ fan of TV talk shows; however I do like the Ellen Degeneres Show and believe she brings something comical, fun and different to the table. However, a couple of days ago I found myself wondering about her true intentions on her new, believe it or not, Cover Girl commercial. Known to be hilarious on her TV talk show, wearing little makeup and shown to care less about her outer appearance than most television stars, demonstrated a somewhat different side of her in the Cover Girl commercial.
I quickly turned to my mom who was also watching the commercial for the first time, and we both agreed that we didn’t see Ellen being up for doing a commercial like this. Ellen’s first words in the commercial are “inner beauty is important, but not nearly as important as outer beauty”, and although highly known as a comedian, and no doubt wanting viewers to recognize her deliberate ‘funny’ twist to the commercial, I could not help but think about the thousands of teen women who watch the Ellen Show that may view this commercial on a more negative level. Any thoughts?