Monday, April 25, 2011

Social Justice Event

        The social justice event I attended was the Lesley Grinner's speech on Twilight and SCWAMP. This speech was very interesting to me even though I have not seen the movie I was able to follow along and understand her points. She explained challenges in women studies classrooms. how it is hard to have a straight forward conversation because males think they might say the wrong things. or women will get offended off little things. there is fear of the man, fear of reverse racism, fear of left wing agenda. i never realized people could be afraid of so many things beyond their limits of control.
      First an obvious connection, we discussed, in depth,is the idea of SCWAMP. this stands for Straight, Christian, White[ness], Able-bodied, Male, Property owners. i feel she picked the right characteristics to focus on, she was very smart in her studies, i agree with all six categories, unfortunately. these large aspects of our culture were cleverly broken down into understandable terms that i know everyone can understand. she then continued to open everyones eyes and ears as she related all this to a very popular movie Twilight. in this film the directors created a very multicultural cast. but SCWAMP is visible. we see the wealthy white family with obvious power and the darker skinned family who is clearly living on the other side of life. 
        People should be able to discuss race, class, gender and sexuality without worrying if they will offend the person sitting next to them. this entitles them knowing which words are the right words to be using to discuss these matters. Grinner's talk relates to this idea and this idea was taken from an author of a piece we read, Johnson. He said efforts need to be made to talk about these things in classes, with teachers and students, without judgement.
        Because her talk revolved around a movie, i feel it is appropriate to relate her to Christensen. movies today and in the past touch on subjects about race, culture, gender and sexuality. children learn from TV shows, movies and computers. my parents were always cautious of what my sisters and i watched when we were growing up. there was a time my mom didn't want us to watch 3 stooges because she was afraid we wouldn't catch on to the fact they are "professionals" and that we would start hitting each other. children model their idols after actors and athletes, anyone who gets publicity and they see this publicity on the TV. many young children have seen the movie Twilight and have therefore been exposed to issues of diversity, maybe without even recognizing it. 
        There is a little bit of Deplit in her presentation and some McIntosh. The movie Twilight has the code of power in it, the white family has power and money. the other main family is a different ethnicity and they are less powerful. i have not seen the movie to have taken note on the way the different families speak but i think that would be interesting to do, to see if they speak in the Delpit voice. do they ask questions or give direct orders? The McIntosh aspect comes out of the same things. the white family having power over the other families. even though the vampire family is having affairs within its own house hold that seems to be overlooked by all because they have money.
        the men in this film [Twilight] are strong powerful, muscular, smart men. they seem all powerful. a goal they share is to protect Bella's pure body. this is also showing men are more powerful and have more self control. although i feel this can be debated in real life. women can be powerful, controlling and strong but men always feel they have the upper hand.

4 comments:

  1. It was great to get to read your account of this event because today during our activity my group started "talking" about this event. I didn't get to go, but both you and my group said it was understandable even if you hadn't seen the movies.

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  2. I though this event was interesting as well. Leslie Grinner did a great job explaining everything that she did. I have to say, I quickly thought about if Allan Johnson was there he would be so proud that she said everything how it was. And the way she handled the gentleman's question about people with accents not being "powerful" (I forget his exact question) was great. She got right to the point. It's crazy how everything we learned this semester went hand in hand with this event!

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  3. This sounded like a good event! wish i could have went

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  4. i never really thought how media plays such a big part in scwamp

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