How do Americans think of Chinese

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhp0qZWqrlM&feature=youtu.be

A Speech From a Feminist

A Speech From a Feminist

            Today, I went to audit a communication class of Professor Coker. A student Kyle had a speech about sexism in advertisement. I found that it was similar to what our classes were talking about----feminist.

            Although sexism in advertisement and sexism in films seems different, they sometimes they have many similarities. After all they both belong to mass communication.

            In Kyle’s speech, he pointed out some forms of sexism in advertisements: some adverts reflect elements of violence against women; insulting women’ body; degrading women’s dignity and personality; causing audiences to misunderstand the significances of women; discriminating the social status of women. Some forms are so similar to what I have read in my text book Introduction to Film Criticism. “The use of masculine reinforcing the notion that males are more important to society than females.” This is similar to “discriminating the social status of women.” When Kyle explained this form, he said, “When women appear in advertisement, they often act as housewives, and when men are the subject of advertisements, the adverts often show how successful, how mature, and how confident they are. It’s like that women are the appendant of men.”

            I also can find some connections between sexism in advertisement and sexism in films that our text book does not point out obviously. When Kyle talked about “causing audiences to misunderstand the significances of women”, he mentioned that adverts often used beautiful women and showed their perfect body and perfect body, so the more important part inner beauty was ignored. Nowadays, most films choose beauties to enact female characters. And sometimes they use women’s naked body to catch audiences’ eyes. So I think it’s little like what Kyle said--- “insulting women’ body; degrading women’s dignity and personality”.

Food Inc

     It is no doubt that the Food Inc may cause people get anorexia. I feel what we eat every day is not food but industrial productions after watching the Food Inc. And what we saw is just the current situation in America. In fact food problem is a complicated, worldwide problem.

I think there are roughly three levels of food problem in the world. And what we saw in the Food Inc is not bad compare to other two levels.

The worst level is not enough food. In many poor countries like most countries in Africa, a lot of people have not enough food to support their lives. A lot of people starve to death. They have no chance to choose the types of food. What they want is just something to eat or they will die. So this level is the worst level of food problem in the world.

The second worst level is no guarantee of food safety. I come from China, where the food safety is a huge problem. So I feel extremely sensitive about this problem. For example, some restaurants in China may use the same   oil many times to cook food. They may change oil once a week. And when the oil is dumped some  people will collect the oil from drains. Can you imagine how disgusting it is? This is a hot issue in China recently. There are still many other famous events about food safety in China. The Sanlu milk powder with melamine make infants' heads huge; the China's KFC put Sudan red in their fried wings to make it look good; the hugest pastry company in China called Guanshengyuan used expired meat to process moon cakes...... Some places in the world can not guarantee the safety of food yet, let alone the healthy problem about food.

Compare to previous levels, what the Food Inc reflects is not so bad. What Americans consider is what food is healthy. At least they have enough food to eat and their food is safety. I believe the current situation of America food is the reasonable result of the development pf industrial society and capitalism. The efficiency and profit are the most important values. Organic food is good. But the production of organic food is inefficient, which cause it expensive. So only the people rich enough can enjoy organic food. 

  

After Watching A Single Man

              After Watching A Single Man

            A Single Man is a really great art house movie. It is a movie shows the gay's love. And it tells us what love is, what destiny is and what life is. I like the way that A Single Man shows gays' love like the so called normal love. It also can be affecting and beautiful.

“I can never make this moment last, I clench them, but like everything they fade.” Just like the whole film show, his love passed away and left him forever, those precious moments and memories never come back, when he recognize the reality and find the beauty of life, the death just knock the door. The usage of slow motion fits in with the film perfectly. Just like George says at the end of the film, he cannot clench everything. Those slow motions just show us he wants to retain some moments, but he cannot.

The expression of death in A Single Man is also beautiful. Even if he does not fear the death, he cannot leave the world which gave him some beautiful moments without hesitation. I think every man who decides to suicide must find more beauties of life. And they are always more beautiful than usual. Just like the gradual changing of color in some scenes of A Single Man---the world is more colorful than before. So A Single Man just push us to think from the homosexuals' point of view. They have their lives; they are eager to beauties in life.

            A Single Man also shows the irresistible destiny. “And I realize everything is exactly the way it was meant to be.”   When he gives up sacrificing, he still cannot run away from death. This is the best expression of destiny. I think it tells us that the homosexuals who insist their true love normally have a harder life and a more painful destiny.

            The love in A Sing Man is the main topic. The reason why George wants to sacrifice is because he lost his love. His neighbor despises him because he is a homosexual, but his neighbor does not seem to have good love. Some people own the love that people around the world accept, but they don’t know how to cherish. Some people have to suffering from the mundane and moral pressure when they choose their real love, but they still choose to insist. Sometimes I want to say some words for brave homosexuals but the pressure from the world is huge. So I appreciate what A Single Man did. 

Advertising to Children

Should We Advertise to Children?(After reading the story about Kwedit)

            Kwedit.com, a website that helps people to purchase virtual goods online without using credit or debit cards. People can buy what they want online by promising to pay for the items later. Some critics blame it for targeting young kids as audiences. However, some people think it is normal for the capitalistic society according to the capitalistic values. In fact, not only Kwedit face this problem, and many advertisements may involve this critical problem. It urges us to think about some questions. How may advertisements influence children? What kind of products can target children as their audiences in their advertisements? And as the book Media Ethics pointed out, “Should we advertise to children at all?”

This issue is a little like the tobacco issue. It is no doubt that tobacco is totally bad for health. However raising and sale of tobacco can make money.  The Federal Trade Commission does not prohibit raising and sale of tobacco but forbid the advertisements of it and requires cigarette companies to put warning labels on packages. So I believe advertising to children should not be prohibited completely but we should make some restrictions and rules for it. Why advertising to children should not be prohibited? It indeed has some good influences. First, it contributed to the development of economy. We live in the capitalistic society and the development of economy is a crucial part of development of society. Advertising to children is the requirement of the rule of market economy. Second, some advertisements are good for children and can help to cultivate children’s personalities. For example, if the Kwedit.com has a serious system requires parents involved it may really teach children and help them to grow up. Another example, some Disney advertisements teach children to be brave, virtuous, honesty, and upright， although the enterpriser’s original intention is to make profit. Why advertising to children should be restricted? Children are inexperienced, immature and susceptible, so they are easy to be misled. For example, Dr. Paddock’s research Ads Influence Children’s Food Choices suggests “watching advertisements influences children's food choices.” And “parental influence is not as strong as the researchers expected” . So the advertisements of some junk food like fries, fried chicken can easily have bad effects on children’s health. However advertisements also can influence children positively if they promote healthy food like fruits and vegetables. The Kwedit.com also can have good effects on children. The problem is that it does not have a sound system to ensuring parents are involved. Complete rules may help to solve these problems. Rules can forbid junk food advertisements and promote advertisements of healthy food instead of forbidding advertising to children at all.  Rules can require companies like Kwedit.com to complete their system to protect children instead of prohibiting them thoroughly. It gives us a win-win result: the capitalists make profits, the economy is promoted; at the same time children are protected and even get some help from the advertisements.

Video about Distraction Caused by Cellphone

The cellphone has become a necessity for most people. It is a important part of pop culture. This is a video made by me to show how cellphones influence our daily life badly, more specifically, how to cause distraction.(I cannot upload my video here, so I  upload it to youtube and put the link here.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps6seIpKBUA&feature=youtu.be

Woman in Movies

                                              Woman in Movies (Feminist Perspective)

      In movies, directors usually use different scenes to show male characters and female characters from different perspectives. When a man and a woman stay in a room and they are half-naked, the camera may aim at the woman’s body above the waist. However, when the camera aims at man, it shows us a whole person. There are many scenes like this one. It’s like the film critic Tim Bywater  says, “is to the general notion in the world outside the theater, that men are ‘lookers’ at women----they look at women with a sexual gaze, taking pleasure in the physical appearance of the female.”
            And I saw another scene in a movie that shows a man carrying a woman crossing a river. Films usually show the masculine of men and the weak side of women. It also may give audiences an illusion that women are appending.
      Yesterday, I watched a film called Enough . It tells a story that a woman strive with his husband who has a tendency to family violence. At the beginning, words from the main male character shows serious sexism, also shows issues we can see in reality: “Why? I can’t hit you? I am a man honey, it’s no contest. I make money here, so I set the rules right? It’s my rules!” I think these words show many people’s opinions especially a few decades ago. Enough shows us how a woman runs away from her husband and at last kills her husband. The last words of the main female character impressed me much: “I want to fight you. Woman and Man.” This film calls on people to notice the women’s rights. The more important, it shows us a very strong woman and tell us women are not the weak! I think this is a proof of the progress about human status in films. In more and more movies, we can see women fight with men and win at last. All of these are challenging the stereotype of women in films.