Save the Last Dance-Race Again

Save The Last Dance

OOOOOHHHH BOY, this movie is crazy good. Julie is a dancer that is forced to move to the ghetto after her mother dies. She finds a very good looking black man at her new school who teachers her to dance and much more. This movie is perfect for Race because it deals with societies issue of mixed racial couples. In another class at school my boyfriend and I did a survey about this exact subject asking people how excepting people really are of mixed gender races. We found that people were more excepting of others more so than for themselves.
but back to the movie...
Julie is your typical movie white girl. She is a classically trained ballet artist that doesn't have much ryhtem. Eric the boy she meet is an ex gang member who just wants to help her out with her dance moves. In some ways this movies moves to break the stereotype of black males because the main character whats to go to bed school. The women in this movie are not shown in a good light because some are getting pregnant and getting in fights with their babies daddies.

Smoke Signals- RACE

Victor Joseph is a young Native American in his late teens who lives on a reservation. His father drank, beat him occasionally, and left home when Victor Joseph was eight. As the film begins, word comes that the father has died. With another boy from the reservation, Victor Joseph journeys to Phoenix to retrieve his father's ashes and his truck. On the trip, Victor Joseph learns about the life his father led and comes to terms with his own identity. Smoke Signals is said to be the first film that was written, directed, and co-produced by Native Americans.
-Brought to you via Teach With Movies
Although I have grown up here in the United states of America and even here in Utah I still do not know much about Native Americans or even their traditions. This movie opened up my eyes in many ways. The movie touched on the different ways that we as people create stigmas towards Native American Tribes. We believe that they are great story tells and eat lots of Fry Bread. Watching the movie you may see this first had as the travel to phoenix to pick up Josephs fathers ashes. This movie may have poked some fun at their own traditions but it helped me to understand the racism behind it.

Gender

What is Gender?

Gender is a range of characteristics of femininity and masculinity. Depending on the context, the term may refer to such concepts as sex (i.e. the state of being male or female), social roles (as in gender roles) or gender identity.

Miss Congeniality: Gender

I choose to talk about the movie Miss Congeniality in terms of gender and gender roles. Although we did not watch this movie in class, I feel as though it fits the topic well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8emJD-rR9Cs

The Movie Miss Congeniality is about a female cop that goes undercover as a beauty pageant contestant in order to find a terrorist that threatens the safety of the other girls competing in the competition. It is easy to compare the character and her undercover counter part together. As a cop she feels as though she is not being taken seriously because she is a female. Because of that she stays away from anything feminine related. She acts like a boy, walks like a boy, talks like a boy and even eats like a boy. It is easy to estimate that she beliefs the more like a women she is the less of a cop she will be and the less people will take her serious. Her opinion of beauty pageants is not a good one. She believes that the women who compete in pageants are dramatic and uneducated. That is the opinion of most people I would say. In the end of the movie she ends of saving the day and realizes that by embracing her womanhood people will still take her serious.
I could only imagine how hard is would be to work in a field that is full of mostly men and is known for as a males job. As a women we are always thought of as less than men, we cannot do the same jobs as them or even be as strong. Even if the movie is funny and has a great ending it still leaves the lesson that in order to be successful you but dress up like a girl in your normal girl ways and than people will take you seriously. She had to conform in order to get the job down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8emJD-rR9Cs

CLASS

What is Class?

Social class (or simply "class") is a set of concepts in the social sciences and political theory centered on models of social stratification in which people are grouped into a set of hierarchical social categories

Above is a map of social classes in our society. What would you consider yourself? The say in life that the upper class have more opportunities the the lower class. I believe this to be very true. The more money you have the less struggles you have in life. You can pay for a great education as well as use money to support your family and always have medical support.

RACE

What is Race?

Race is a classification system used to categorize humans into large and distinct populations or groups by heritable phenotypic characteristics, geographic ancestry, culture, history, language, physical appearance, ethnicity, and social status. In the early twentieth century the term was often used, in a taxonomic sense, to denote genetically differentiated human populations defined by phenotype.

What do you think of when you think of Race? I think of Black people, White people, Asian people, Mexican, Indian and brown people.

They say if you arent white, male, and rich in the country you have a harder time being successful. This power stuggle is visible in everyday life, including movies. In this blog I will discribe and give my opinion on different movies in regards to Race, Class, and Gender.