Progression comes with hard work!

  For my capstone course in black feminism and sexual politics I have begun writing a paper discussing my knowledge gained from the materials so far examined in the course. I have to explain how I can relate these concepts into everyday life and examine how feminists' beliefs can help liberate any kind of oppressed peoples. So far I have not had an issue understanding the course material and even find myself inspired by some of the readings. Where I run into any issue, is having to write the material and have the paper have a sense of "flow". The materials I have reviewed are from varying books, articles, essays, pod casts, and videos. It becomes challenging when having to keep up with these readings and on top of that write a paper that brings together all these ideas.
  I have written just about 5 pages of my paper so far and have submitted it as my rough draft. So far I have had no response, but am anticipating much work to be done on editing and correcting the paper. The advantage of having started the paper early has given me the opportunity to spend more time on corrections. Hopefully there wont be too many!! Sometimes I do tend to write/speak/think on a tangent from my original idea. I think that this is a direct effect of my ADHD.....but I digress!
  I have still not watched all of the videos that were assigned for us to watch, but I don't think that this should impeded my papers advancement too much as I already have a plethora of materials to work with. I keep coming across a similar theme between the readings and thats equality, social hegemony, and mass media portrayal! Mass media effects how people portray other people and ideas....This in turn produces a society with similar hegemonic ideologies, even though we may not actively practice in this way we may submissively and not reluctantly do so. This type of belief pushes people into corners and boxes and those outside are left hopeless and helpless allowing for easier ruling or domination. This type of practice, a type very common in US values, openly allows segregation and oppression.
  Writing this paper is forcing me to see the myriad amount of problems that oppressed people must overcome. It becomes apparent that oppression and hegemonic dominating societies creates loops of entrapment for underprivileged! It almost appears that these people are hopeless. It's very saddening when you see people struggle for something that you may already have! Either way writing this paper has opened my eyes even further and has made me more of an advocate for any kind of liberation from oppression.

Identifying your sexuality!

  In Pomosexuals, Carrol Queen talks of a man who struggles with being able to identify his sexuality. I say identify, because in her previous chapter Queen talks of loaded words, and the narrator of the essay labels his self as being a gay man: Gay being the loaded word, because he doesn't want to conform himself to the ways of other gay men, nor does he want to be like other straight men.

The narrator is torn between his sexuality and his desires for....well..... being desired!

  His first sexual encounter is with a man so he decides, for the sake of having a label, that he is gay. And for the next decade he lives as though he is interested in only men, never allowing himself to experience what it's like to be with a women. He also makes a claim about gay people complaining that homosexuality is not a choice and instead  an "orientation", further insinuating that being gay is something undesirable. It's clear that this individual, I'm sure along with many others, has issues coming to terms ,with who it is ok to be! This is one of the main problems affecting many individuals today and many of the issues stem from our distorted viewpoints due to mass media and white patriarchal christian domination! Mass media is controlled mainly by white christian males. Therefore they can portray their beliefs of race, class, gender, and sexuality onto society as the way they, themselves practice. Any other beliefs deriving from a tangent pushes the envelope and thus disrupts our conformed society. Media and entertainment allows young adults to feel the fear of being gay, lesbian, transgendered or bisexual. It shows society how "most of the people" at least portrayed in movies, are not gay, therefore gay being not-normal and thus striking fear of young people to come out and express who they truly are.
  The narrator in Queens book goes on to later explore his first female sexual encounter with a black, female prostitute. His earlier attempts at flirting with women left him feeling hopeless. He later finds that he isn't lost from not exploring his sexuality with females but finds that he yearns for something more than just a physical relationship. He wants to connect, and those connections were best met or at least understood by other men, or at least the ones who seemed like they wanted him. The feminist in him needed to make the connection. The animal in him needed to make those connections physical and the human in him just needed to for it all to come together and mean something. 

  Being able to identify oneself is important. Most importantly is being able to freely express oneself! Not having to conform to others comfort levels and being able to explore both sides or create a new path helps liberate our selfs!

SCWAMPing the movies...

After starting what seems to be a non-traditional capstone course at UDC this semester and diving right into the reading materials on black female sexuality and ideology, I've quickly realized that this course is going to be more than your standard take notes and listen to a lecture class.  I certainly agree with many of the view points raised in the first couple of readings assigned to us, especially in Leslie Grinner's piece "Bella's Choice: Deconstructing Ideology and Power in the Twilight Series".

 So in the same manner, I would like to attempt using her same philosophy in deconstructing another movie while using the same frame work that Grinner uses in deconstructing the Twilight series. 

  The movie I decided to use, was literally the very next movie I watched after reading Grinners article, Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. 

  Now for the elements that will coincide with my movie and Grinners movie, the same concept that she brought to the forefront, is the acronym SCWAMP! SCWAMP stands for Straight, Christian, White, Able-bodied, Male,Property owner. This concept points out that these are the adjectives/abilities that allow for one to get ahead in life. We also like to convey these characteristics in everyday media and onto inanimate objects to help with advancing the probability of those objects, movies, jobs, etc to become more  "successful" or "liked".

 Lets begin with the deconstruction.

Straight- The Hobbit is a widely known fantasy book turned into blockbuster. Now the idea that this is a fantasy, could have one thinking that there may be a small chance, that just maybe, one or some of the characters may exist as something other than straight men/female/dwarf/ork or whatever. If you thought that then your fantasy of seeing these types of characters in a surreal world is in and of itself...surreal! Every character in the 2 part trilogy (the 3rd hasn't been prodded into a movie yet) so far are straight. Even the elves who appear somewhat androgynous with their long hair and celestial movements are all straight. 

Christian- The themes of Christianity here are woven with fine thread through out the movie. It doesn't take a devout christian to see the underlying religious sentiments in this movie, but you do have to be aware, as we are blinded to these everyday ideas because we live in a christian society. The movie is biblical in a sense with the prophetic storyline, the fighting of demons, and the overcoming of the huge monster by the little hobbit akin to a story of David and Goliath. 

White- This one is easily seen when watching this movie along with many other main streamed movies or blockbusters. Through out the whole movie there was only one black female actress and she did not even have a line in the movie. She may have been on screen for a total of 1 minute in the whole 166 minutes of the film. 

Able-Bodied- Here we see the inflation of power to super human or super powers with many of the characters. All of the elves have amazing fighting abilities, almost never losing a battle with the Ork's that they fight through out the movie. The Dwarfs also fight with superhuman strength, even though they are smaller than average. Here the disability of being a "short person" is nothing but a personification and the disability is washed away because of the manner of the movie and it being a fantasy. Anyone in the movie that becomes disabled is left behind. Shunning aside a person who is no longer adequate and making room for those who are.

Male- Most of the characters in the movie are male. At least the major roles. This movie makes way for one female elf named Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly). She is placed in the movie simply to create a love dynamic between herself and one of the dwarfs, which of course is male. 

Property- The entire movies plot is depicted loosely upon GREED!! The whole storyline is of the dwarfs trying to get to the mountain, which is filled with gold, to be able to take back there kingdom and have power over the land they once ruled. The idea that we must obtain the most amount of riches or the best of "something" wether it is a castle or home, weapons/armor or clothes is a trending philosophy or ideology which continues to grow because we as a people allow it.  We get sucked into buying things and owing money for the things we buy. To support our spending habits we need jobs and must compete for the best jobs to be able to get the best paycheck to pay off the worst debt! Its a cyclical phenomenon that many don't question because its so mundane and habitual that there's no reason to question it until you can no longer swim above the debt pool you've made for yourself and are drowning in your inability to support yourself.