Blog 11

Recently, Spike Lee visited the University of North Texas to speak to the students and motivate them to do whatever they want to do. I have yet to watch any Spike Lee movie, but by the way Spike Lee was speaking at this event, I could tell he had a lot of respect for African Americans and their education.

Honestly though, it might have benefited me to have seen one of his films prior to his speech to understand more of how he feels about the African American population. Besides being a motivational towards African American’s, he was also disrespectful towards head figure George Bush and the television writer Tyler Perry.

At the end of the speech, he took questions and responded to many of his fans who adore his work. He must have portrayed African American’s right, or else he wouldn’t have such a large fan base.

I believe he seemed like an interesting man with plenty to say.

Blog 10

In the movie that we watched in my Race, Gender, and the Media class, it discussed Disney movie characters and the Disney Corporation. The class discussion was based on whether or not we believed that Disney characters were innocent or not.

            When I was a child, I obsessed over Disney movies and still do to this day, only now they are Pixar motion pictures instead of the original Disney movies. While watching the video last week, I was surprised by all of the subtle imagery that Disney had created that was not innocent, but when I was a child I did not notice any of the harmful imagery discussed in the film.

            Now that I am older, I can see that Beauty and the Beast was not a fairy tale at all, but I do not think it is okay to think that Disney purposefully made their movies to be indecent for children.

            Another topic that came up in the discussion was the lack of black people in the film Tarzan. When I was a child, I was unaware that the first movie was so racist towards the people who lived in the jungle. I do believe that Tarzan was a wholesome children’s movie, but I am disappointed that they did not represent a whole minority in the film.

            Throughout the discussion and the movie, I was terrified by what Disney has displayed for children to watch, but because children are so innocent they are unaware of the terrible misrepresentation of race and gender in the Disney films. I do believe that something should be done to the original movies, but only to please parents and family members who do not approve of the movies in their entirety. 

Blog 9

In the recent movie that we watched in my Race, Gender, and the Media class we discussed how women are portrayed in video games. The verdict that was decided was that women are depicted as being abused by men.

The video game that was being dissected was Grand Theft Auto. In the game, the male character is allowed to sleep with a hooker and then beat her to death to steal the money back that he gave her. In my opinion, a man beating a woman is wrong, but I must speak the truth here: Whores on the streets do experience battery, do I think it should be depicted in a video game? No, not particularly, but it is, unfortunately.

The thing is, this is an option in the video game. The player does not have to use this option. I have played this video game on multiple occasions, and I have yet to use a whore, beat her to death, and steal the money back. Yes, I am aware, it is the concept of the option being available that is the problem here, but everyone who plays the game has the option to either do it or not. Just because someone plays this option in the video game, doesn’t mean that they are going to go out on the streets and beat a hooker.

Although women are portrayed as being abused throughout video games, this does not mean that the player will choose these options to do so. But I must add that if parents have a problem with their children learning about abuse through video games, such as Grand Theft Auto, they are the gate keepers and have the decision to either allow their children to play the game or not.

I do believe that abuse is prevalent throughout America and that something needs to be changed in order to make it go away, but we can’t just take it out of video games if we don’t take it out of the other parts of the media first.