| Thursday, October 13, 2005 |
| why i am a sociology major |
i had the most fun today writing a few 500 word responses to questions for our first bi g assignment in my sociology of art and culture class. Allow me to justify this statement first before u subject me to your slander and nerdbashing. With most sociology courses, the aim, espeically if taught from a feminist perspective, which this class is, is to be able to sniff out sex, gender, and ethnic biases among seemingly normal pieces of work, be it a movie or a magazine. For some of these cases, you have to reallllly stretch your imagination to try to find any kind of subliminal message, subliminal something to make any sort of case.
In one essay response, i chose to write about how the manufacture of GI JOEs reflect racist attitudes of our society. Enough has been said about GI JOEs already and how they have muscles on top of their muscles presenting a seemingly unattainable male body image for developing boys, so I didn't see any point in beating a dead horse. Racially speaking though, my point was that Asian Americans were more often represented as COBRA terrorists than as the real American heroes. Now I'm not saying that there were no Asian American GI JOEs cause they had characters like Quick Kick and samurai Budo but you've probably never heard of them cause they sucked. They weren't main players in the GI JOE line cause they weren't cool enuf. When you look at Cobra tho, you've got frikken storm shadow who's this really cool looking evil ninja who was also pretty up there in sales among the other leading edge GI JOEs. So let's bring everything back now. If you're an Asian kid looking to buy urself a GI JOE and u see that the only Asian ones like you are terrorist assassin (since most toy stores probably didn't carry Quick Kick and Budo cause they sucked), to what extent are u going to think that you've got a messed up cultural heritage. Not only that, all the Asian GI JOEs and Cobras alike are all martial artsy or ninjas. Yep the Blacks and Whites can choose to be sailors, pilots, and field commanders but all them Asians are good for is their kungfu.
Storm Shadow's the one jumping out... my hero. One day i'm going to train to become a ninja so I can kill good guys just like you.
 
annnnd here we have quick kick (what kinda name is that?) and budo....see what i mean?
Another second essay response I chose to write about is how Mario from Super Mario Bros. fame measures up to criticisms of him being sexist. Oh that was a fun one =)
youuu pixelated but sexist beast you!
and that my friends is why I love sociology. They tell you in first year that what they want you to develop is a critical and sociological imagination. But what happens when this imagination runs rampant? I have been trained to think that everything is sexist and racist at the same time. I think you're sexist and racist. Yes you. Shame on you. Tsk Tsk. |
posted by DarrenGene @ 1:29 AM  |
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| 7 Comments: |
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dude, that storm shadow artwork is awesome
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Weird....that's EXACTLY how i feel! haa! I also found an article on how Mario Bros are communist because in the original one - he kinda looks like Stalin, he wears red (color of communist) and he raises flags!
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hahahah, darren gene, u make the wongs that much better
j tran
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who's the guy in the black fighting storm shadow?
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yah socio!!! Im missing those classes..although sometimes, my profs will throw out marx's name...and in my head, i'll groan...
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hey dare!! first time i read you blog... Have to say, that's a pretty cool topic for those essays.. I wish classics had super mario... haha.. we have..... alexander the great ?? hahahh
cheers, v
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darren! i took sociology of art in culture when i was in second year. and all i did in that course was watch movies and write ONE essay! i think. :) it was awesome! but the prof got fired. :)
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dude, that storm shadow artwork is awesome