Remember the Titians

Works Cited:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210945/

Eyes on the Prize :1954-1956

Richard Wright. "The Ethnics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Stech"

I did my media item on a scene from the hit Disney movie Remember the Titians. The movie came out in September of 2000. It stared Denzel Washington as a black coach in the south that coached the first integrated football team in the schools history. There is a scene in the movie where a white person from the football team tries to take some of the black player out to eat after the game. First, we have to notice that the movie takes place in the south during the 1970’s. Their school is one of the first one to desegregate in the South, and the biracial football team wasn’t like that much around town at first, at least the black players were liked. Also the white player that tried to take them out was from California and thought to be homosexual throughout the town. So when the group of guys walked in the restaurant, it was a homosexual and a couple of African Americans. The owners them refused to serve them. The white boy didn’t understand and then the owner threw them all out of his place. The black kids were then pissed at the white kid because they knew that something like that was going to happen. So there were two groups of people mad at the white guy because he wasn’t aware of the rules in the South.
This movie can easily be related to another movie we watched in class called Eyes on the Prize: 1954-1956. In this movie it shows how schools in the South were integrated and the white people that tried to stop it from happening. It showed ordinary black people doing extraordinary things in a movement against black prejudice. Black people used to sit at white counters in cafes and not leave until they were served. They were forced to leave most of the time and even beaten and arrested. The guys in Remember the Titians weren’t beaten or arrested but were forced to leave the restaurant because the owner wouldn’t serve them. Eyes on the Prize also told its viewers about how schools became integrated through Brown versus Board of Education. That law showed that segregated schools were unconstitutional. And in the movie Remember the Titians, it took place right after that trial, so everyone was mad that white and black people were going to the same school now. The scene at the diner just shows that white people still tried to force their Jim Crow laws towards African Americans. This also relates to Richard Wright’s “The Ethnics of Living Jim Crow,” because in that article, the aurthor tells his story of how he learned the Jim Crow Laws. And in the movie Remember the Titians, the white guy from California had to learn his first Jim Crow law by living it in a restaurant.
I feel that Remember the Titians does a good job at portraying how things were back in the 1970’s. The movie shows the struggles African Americans had to deal with, even though they were free and segregation was over with. I liked how it also showed that a white person could also not be accepted in their society because he was different. It just surprised me because I knew that it happened to African Americans but it never occurred to me that it happened to white people as well. Overall I suggest watching the movie; it is a good family movie that anyone could watch.

Raciam Cartoon

Works Cited: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20060602/cartoon20060602.gif

Allan G. Johnson. "What it all Has to Do With Us."

For my media item, I chose a witting cartoon I found over the internet. The cartoon has three people standing next to each other, one is a white male, the other a white female, and the last person is a black female. The cartoon tells its readers based on a new study that was done, a new definition was made for racism. The white man says “a racist is anyone,” the white women then ads “who disagrees,” and then the black lady’s follows it up “with us.” So the whole new definition is “A racist is anyone who disagrees with us (black people).” The cartoon is in black and white and shows all three of the people having exaggerated facial expressions. The white man has an expression on his face that points out to the readers a sign of boredom and looking like it was already a well know fact. The white woman’s expression looks to be disgusted at the new found discovery. And the black women’s face looks to be angry, looking like she was disagreed with proving that she just saw a racist. Her look is very angry and makes the reader think about the many years people have disagreed with African Americans.
This picture relates to one big thing in my mind that we talked about in class. According to Allan G. Johnson and the chapter out of his book named “What It All Has to Do with Us” pointing people out isn’t the right thing to do. He talks about following the path of least resistance and how that it is taking the easy way out of situations. This picture deals with the same thing, racist aren’t people that just don’t agree with the African American race. There are so many other forms of racism out in the world, and it isn’t right to just say it about disagreeing with blacks. Allan Johnson says “everything bad in the world is seen as somebody’s fault,” which means in this case, black people are blaming the rest of the world as being racist if they don’t agree with them.
I personally don’t like this cartoon. It can be taken two different ways in my mind. First, it could be written from a person that wasn’t black, meaning he was fed up with always having to deal with black people thinking he or she was racist because he disagreed with them. Second, it could have been written by a person of a minority. It could be describing their feeling towards white people and the rest of the world. They might feel that all the people that disagree with them are racist. They could have a chip on their shoulder thinking that most of the events happening around them are because they are a minority and on purpose. I can only think of those two situations of why this cartoon was drawn up. The cartoon struck me to be very racist itself and I still don’t like its underlined meaning.

Whites Portray African Americans

Works cited:
Frank Wu. Yellow
Ethnic Notions Dir. Marlon Riggs
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/B/htmlB/blackandwhim/blackandwhimIMAGE/black&whim.jpg

I am doing my media item on a picture taken of a white man, I found on the internet. The only thing that is wrong with this picture, and it is a big problem, the white man is painted as an African American. It is a black and white photo and the man is wearing white gloves, white sports coat with stripes, and a straw knitted hat. His whole face is painted darker but his eyes and mouth have an outline of white around them. He is looking at the camera very jolly with a big smile and his arms high in the air.
This picture and relate to two pieces of work that we’ve talked about in class. The first is the informational video Ethnic Notions directed by Marlon Riggs. During this film, they go into detail about how white men dressed up and played the roles of African Americans early in the film industry. This man in the picture obviously had to be playing a black person in an early movie or theatre production. Ethnic Notions goes on to tell its viewers that the few black people in the film industry had to paint their faces too, just like a white person did. They had to do this because the stereotypical black person on stage or on the screen didn’t look very much like an actual African American.
The other piece of work that this picture relates to is Frank Wu’s article name Yellow. Frank Wu tells his readers about stereotypes and how people can fall into them and it is hard to fight not to be judged stereotypically. He tells his readers that “one cannot overcome the stereotype of group identity” (Wu 415). That is exactly what African American actors had to go through in the early film business. They had to put on make-up just to play the role of the race they already were. For that reason, Frank Wu tells us that “the inability to define one’s self is the greatest loss of liberty possible” (451). This picture just resembles the lost freedom of personal expression African Americans had.
I couldn’t believe the fact that people used to dress up like that years ago. It was of great shock to me when I saw an old movie with white people portraying black people. I was confused and never knew that it ever happened; then I read Frank Wu and saw Ethnic Notions and it opened my eyes to some very surprising information. I still can’t get over that black people had to put on make-up just like white people. The picture itself is very awkward to me because I know the man is trying to act like something he isn’t and that bothers me. I personally don’t like the picture and still can’t get over the fact that people did this.

Women and Capitalism

Image from: http://theothersideofthelake.blogspot.com/2007/09/its-1043.html
Johnson, Allan G. Power, Privilege, and Difference. Capitalism, Class, and the Matrix of Domination. McGraw Hill, New York. 2006.

The media item I choose is another picture I found on the Internet. It was actually found off another blog site, but there blog had nothing to do about the discussions we’ve had in class. The picture is of a lady standing in here with a counter full of ingredients for something she is about to make. There is a various amount of things bought from the store in her very nice kitchen such as the ingredients, appliances, cookie jars, and dinner sets hanging up in the background. The women herself is wearing an outfit that would have been from either the fifties or sixties and is holding a cook book wondering what she might make. The picture is overall very clean looking.
This picture can closely be related to Allan G. Johnson’s chapter Capitalism, Class, and the Matrix of Domination from his book called Power, Privilege and Difference: Second Ed. In that chapter, Allan Johnson talk about how “capitalism [. . .] shapes and makes use of gender inequality” (Johnson 49). He tells his readers that capitalism uses women and exploits them as a “source of cheap labor.” He points out that most of the work women do isn’t considered worthy or atleast wasn’t thought to be worthy back in that day, when the picture is trying to capture. He tells his readers that without women, much of capitalism couldn’t take place, because in American households women spend a majority of the money; “capitalism couldn’t function without the army of women who do the shopping for households and do the labor through which those goods are consumed—cooking meals, making the bed with the new set of sheets, and so on” (Johnson 49). So this picture is just portraying the capitalist kind of women, so that people can make money. Because the main point of capitalism is to make money, so if women don’t do their part and be this kind of women, capitalism wouldn’t work. These same women build families and provide for the new generations thus providing nutriments for the same people that will be carrying on the capitalism views. So this picture show the person that Allan G. Johnson thinks provides the backbone of capitalism.
I personally can see where Allan Johnson is coming from when he says that women have a great deal in common with how capitalism functions. I just don’t like how whoever made this picture, made it to look like the normal/stereotypical house mom should be. What about the women that don’t have flawless clean skin, not enough money to provide that nice of food for there families, and not enough money to have all that wonderful stuff to prepare meals with. I just feel it is right to put a picture to a group of people; it’s like a standard that every woman must live for. Even though every women wants to be the best mother for her family, they don’t have to always to it the same way everyone else does it. This picture only shows one source which can affect capitalism; women are very powerful and need to be treated with respect and not exploited by the capitalist companies in today’s society. The picture overall is a symbol that shows how women play an important rule in capitalism.

Segragation photo

www.historicaldocuments.com/BloodRedRecord.jpg

The Media item I am doing is a picture found on the internet showing segregation. The photo was taken in 1901 and it shows a little boy at a water fountain. This fountain looks to be in a nice neighbor hood, but there is a big tree next to the boy and fountain that has a big sign on it that reads, colored. The picture looks to be taken from a street and the boy is looking up from his drink as it is taken. There is a huge white house in the background, along with a corner of a brick building on the other side of the boy. The boy is an African American but looks to be a little lighter colored. He is dressed pretty nicely with a white shirt on, long pants, and a belt that is some what shiny. So that shows that this boy’s family has money and can live in that kind of neighborhood.
This photo is closely related to the chapter we read for class called The Ethnics of Living Jim Crow written by Richard Wright. His article tells a story of him growing up and learning the laws of Jim Crow. He learned his first one at an early age. And from the looks of this picture, this small boy has already started learning the Jim Crow laws on what he can an can’t do because he is African American. He at least knows that he has to drink from the colored water fountain, just like Richard Wright knew that he wasn’t allowed to fight the little white boys, or else he would be punished by either his mother or even worse, white people (Wright 23). Wright also learned that anything he did, white people could say he did different because their word at the time was more powerful; so this boy at such a small age has been taught all of this (Wright 25). Just like Richard Wright told his readers that all the symbols that he could relate to white people became dangerous and he became afraid; “Through the years they grew into an overreaching symbol of fear” (Wright 23). That has to be the same feeling this little boy has to be going through has he drinks from a water fountain which looks like to be in a white neighborhood, or at least at the border of one. The fact that this little boy as to grow up to fear another person is what this picture best shows its viewers.
I feel that this is a very powerful picture. There were tons of Jim Crow laws that African Americans were forced to follow for hundreds of years. White people grew into a symbol of fear for many African Americans and I think that it is horrible. People should never have to fear someone else. And I know people that are black and they still in some ways fear white people, it’s turned a feared that has been passed down through the generations, and that is horrible that it has. And this picture reminds me of all the black people that were forced to follow some stupid and unimportant laws. This picture ultimately makes me sad to look at it, because it reminds me that he was held back by much more than just drinking at a different water fountain throughout his life.

Boogie Nights

The media item I am doing is from the movie Boogie Nights. The movie came out October 10, 1997. It starred such big names as Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, John C. Reilly, Julianne Moore, Heather Graham, Don Cheadle, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. It was written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. The story’s plot outline is “a young man's adventures in the Californian pornography industry of the 1970s and 1980s” (IMDB). But the plot isn’t what caught my attention in this blockbuster hit. There was a scene in this movie that popped into my mind when I was reading Frank Wu’s article called Yellow. The scene deals with a black man named Buck while he is at work; a stereo store in California’s Hollywood valley. Buck is a stereo salesman and is having a hard time selling stereos to people that come into the store.

The scene goes as read: A semi-high end stereo store in the valley. Buck, dressed in his usualcowboy-digs, is talking to a CUSTOMER about a stereo unit. The manager, askinny-white guy with a mustache and mustard suit, JERRY (30s) is standingnearby. BUCK -- so basically you're gettin'twice the base, cause of the TK421 modification we got in this system here.

CUSTOMER I don't know - do I need that much bass?

BUCK If you want a system to handle what you want -- yes you do. See this system here. This is Hi-Fi. "High Fidelity." What that means is that it's the highest quality fidelity.

CUSTOMER It's the price --

BUCK I have this unit at home.

CUSTOMER . . . really . . . ?

BUCK Yes. But -- I've got it modified with the TK421, which is a bass unit that basically kicks in another two, maybe three quads when you really crank -- lemme put another eight track in so you can get a better idea what I'm talkin about --Buck ejects the Eight Track that was playing and puts in his own of acountry western song. Hear that bass? It kicks and turns and curls up in your belly, makes you wanna freaky-deaky, right? If you get this unit as it is -- it won't sound like this without the modification --and we do that for a small price.The Customer listens another moment, then;

CUSTOMER Thank you for your time.

BUCK No problem.The Customer exits and Jerry approaches Buck.

JERRY . . . the fuck was that?

BUCK Wha?

JERRY Have I told you? Huh? Have I?

BUCK What? I don't --

JERRY Alright: A.) You play that country western-crap and no one's gonna buy a stereo. You throw on some KC and the Sunshine Band, a guy looks a particular way -- and you've seen the profile sheet --you throw on some Led Zeppelin. No. Instead, you play this twingy-twangy, yappy-dappy music. What kinda brother are you anyway, listening to that shit?

This scene relates to Frank Wu’s article Yellow in one specific reason. The boss (Jerry) gets angry at Buck because he puts in country music in the stereos instead of the popular music at the time. Jerry says to Buck “what kinda brother are you anyway, listening to that shit?” (IMSDB). Frank Wu talks about this same kind of occurrence happening to him. Frank gives meaning to the fact that stereotypes can control others views of you and makes it so people can’t live there own lives, but rather the ones that other people perceive they should be lived; “others cannot invent themselves by sheer will, because no matter how idiosyncratic one’s individual identity, one cannot overcome the stereotype of group identity” (Wu 415). Frank tells his readers, “I am who others perceive me to be rather than how I perceive myself to be” (Wu 415). This is the same thing that is happening to Buck in the movie Boogie Nights. His boss is stereotyping him thinking that he is an African American who likes all the new popular music and into the beat and bass. When really Buck is into country music, but can’t express himself like he wants to because his boss is making him act like the stereotypical African American.

I believe what Frank Wu said in his article is very true. I see people stereotyping people of different races all the time. And when I read his article, it automatically reminded me of Boogie Nights and how Bucks’ boss stereotypes him and hates that Buck like country music. The rest of the movie is pretty vulgar and I wouldn’t suggest it if you don’t like that kind of things. But the movie also has a great soundtrack; it’s a cult classic and has some very good humor in it too. But Wu put it into words, to what the director and the writer were probably trying to hint at in their movie. They were trying to show that people aren’t always what they look like to be and not to judge at first glance.

Works Cited:
http://www.imsdb.com/Movie%20Scripts/Boogie%20Nights%20Script.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118749/

Wu, Frank. Some Consequences of Race, Class, and Gender Inequality. "Yellow." 2001.

Cartoon media item (Bugs Bunny)

http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/cartoons/41.jpg

I did my media item on a still framed image of Bugs Bunny and a barber shop quartette. Bugs Bunny is wearing a green bow tie and playing the banjo and what looks like a fast pace to the rhythm of the quartette. The Quartette is wearing white pants, green bow tie, black and gray shoes, and matching red jackets. But the outfits everyone is wearing, isn’t the only thing that they have in common. All of them, even the lovable Bugs Bunny, have their heads either panted brown or this is was just a skit off of the main show. But never the less, all members in the picture are drawn to portray an African American. They are also standing on what could easily be portrayed as a plantation of some degree.
This cartoon is closely related to what we learned from the video called Ethnic Notions. Throughout history, people have not just the African race but many others that they are very different. This cartoon depicts how the African Americans were back in the days of slavery and on plantations. It teaches the youth of America a false way to think about things that happened. Slaves didn’t enjoy being slaves and didn’t sing for the sole joy of it, they sung because they were going through tough times and needed a way to express themselves without breaking a law over it. This still image can say a thousand words about all the bad imagery the United States has made to portray black people, and it was found in a children’s cartoon. The cartoon has created racial hysteria which means, the many racial ideas that are shown in movies, advertisements, and cartoons. The movie Ethnic Notions also tells us that the newer generations will judge just the same or even harsher towards the minority because of the media they have grown up with.
I personally can’t believe that this cartoon was ever aired. I must have been a much different time back in the 80’s when this cartoon was made. Because I know now, that if this cartoon was aired and created in today’s standards, well it wouldn’t be even aired for being so racist. Networks and many newspapers get sued for having racism. I just can’t get the thought out of my head that I have probably seen this cartoon before. And unfortunately, I probably laughed along with it, and in doing so, feeding the fire that made it right to create it in the first place. I just hope this cartoon doesn’t play anymore on television. It would just show that America hasn’t done much to help clear up or fix any racist things they’ve done in the past.