Lee Mun Wah is a documentary filmmaker, educator, author, therapist, and diversity trainer. He is also the founder of Stirfry seminars and Consulting which is a diversity training company. On January 31, 2017, Lee Mun Wah came to Iowa State University to host an interactive session on diversity in the Sun Room located in the Memorial Union. In the beginning of this lecture, Lee walked around the room in silent for about five minutes. Everybody in the sun room was quiet because we all thought he was going to speak in front of the room, but instead he was walking around everybody to see their faces and welcome them silently by making eye contacts with most of us including myself. Then he randomly picked on a couple people in the audience. For
Almost instantly when a person interacts with another they judge each other and may form an opinion on the person, without any actual conversation flowing between them. The reason outsiders never fit in anywhere is usually because in those ten seconds they reveal a quirk that others are immediately wary of, or note mentally. Similarly in the short narrative, “Go Carolina,” about a young boy’s struggle with hiding his true self to fit in and to endure speech therapy, the boy - named David mentions how it seems like all the people in therapy were outsiders, and how it seemed they all had trouble with speech because of their outsider statuses. An excerpt from the narrative is, “None of the speech therapy students were girls. They were all boys like me who kept movie star scrapbooks and made their own curtains.” (Sedaris 9). There are some who blend in with the crowd, and some who are picked on for a quirkiness in them that draws them apart while feeling like an outsider. To add to, society is like a hungry lion waiting to pounce on the next innocent who dares disrupt the perfect disaster. A victim of the lion may be Amy Chua who writes with brashness and complete honesty, “For their part, many Chinese secretly believe that they care more about their children and are willing to sacrifice much more than Westerners, who seem perfectly content with
In the films Paradise Bent, Muxes–Authentic, Intrepid Seekers of Danger and the Gender and Sexuality section of Explorations in Cultural Anthropology explore the identification of gender and sexuality (Croall and Altmann 2000)(Islas 2006)(Boyd and Lassiter 2011). The introduction to gender and sexuaity in the book Explorations in Cultural Anthropology, Boyd and Lassiter (2011) discuss how once a baby is born, they are being socialized “into one of the two ‘appropriate’ roles- male or female” (Boyd and Lassiter 2011: 218). The baby is expected to meet the expectations he/she is born into (Boyd and Lassiter 2011). For example, in the films, it is greatly commented by the muxes and fa’afafines that they didn’t follow the gender ideologies, the
The movie Dope, written and directed by Rick Famuyiwa, follows the story of Malcolm through his senior year of high school in the Inglewood California. He lives in a poor neighborhood, with only his mom, yet he still strives for greatness. He has a couple of friends, and they all love 90’s hip hop culture. They try to do their best to stay out of trouble and away from bullies. Malcolm sees a girl he likes and ends up following her to a drug dealer’s birthday party. When the cops bust the birthday party, he unknowingly goes home with all the drugs and the gun that the drug dealer owns. This sets off a wild chain reaction, as he now has to sell these drugs to payoff the supplier, who happens to be the Harvard Alumni that Malcolm’s needs approval
I want to conclude by saying that there are lots of leaders in real life an in To Kill A Mockingbird. on the other hand you have to ignore people who make wrong decision to change society like Bob Well not teelin truth in the court. He said,” I'm real sorry they picked you to defend that nigger that raped my Mayella. I don't know why I didn't kill him myself instead of going' to the sheriff. That would have saved you and the sheriff and the taxpayers lots of trouble...” this shows that a man can change society in both way but mostly in good reasons.Lee proves that a man can change society and we have to learn from it and not be lazy.
J. Edgar, a 2011 film staring Leonardo DiCaprio, is biographical drama that is, obviously, about J. Edgar Hoover. It was written by Dustin Lance Black, a LGBT rights activist as well as a gay man himself. It focuses on both the public political life and the private life of J. Edgar Hoover, the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The film jumps around in time, as the main premise is that J. Edgar is retelling the story of the FBI to a writer so that the public can know the truth.
The narrator was introduced as “the smartest boy in Greenwood” (274), but as he made his way up to the stage the white citizens gave him an applause and also was laughing at the narrator. His appearance was not the best for making an important speech to some important white citizens, his eye was swollen and throbbing and the cut from his mouth made it difficult for him to speak. Trying to make his speech the crowd was in no interest of hearing what the narrator had to say and at times they would yell out “Louder” just to interrupt his speech. A man from the front row was helpful to the narrator while making his speech, the man told him “we do mean to do right by you, but you’ve got to know your place at all times.” (276). The man making that statement made the narrator realize that he’s not the same as the white citizens because of the color of his skin. After giving his speech, he got an amazing applause from the audience even if they ignore him, but the narrator was given a gift while walking off the stage. The gift was a real leathered brief case with a scholarship to the state college for
"Fed Up (Soechtig, 2014)." narrated by Katie Couric, focuses on the growing link between sugar consumption and the obesity epidemic. The film aggressively attacks the food industry, advertising, and the government who, it claims, all contribute to the U.S. sugar-dependent, obesity problem. The film sets out to prove the government, and food industry is knowingly causing an increase in the amount of obese children. It reserves its most critical comments for government advisory panels who make and enforce food and health policy, and its failure to properly regulate the food industry. They claim lobbyists for the sugar board have been instrumental in the removal of negative statistics from research papers worldwide. Instead
A little before 2000 a mysterious virus spreads rapidly at creates chaos in Taipei. The authorities order the evacuation of the city and warn that the supply of water will soon stop. The massive exit leaves the city almost completely abandoned apart from but some decide to stay.
Reel Injun is a compelling, thought-provoking documentary that shows how movies have stereotyped Native Americans, and has shaped how society in general viewed Natives. The film seeks to show how Natives really are, and ultimately seeks to correct the Native stereotypes created through the Hollywood Native films. Neil Diamond discusses why films about Natives were originally created and how Natives were portrayed in the early years of film. Through the documentary he continues to show how Natives and their culture changed in the eyes of society.
In the documentary “Fed Up,” sugar is responsible for Americas rising obesity rate, which is happening even with the great stress that is set on exercise and portion control for those who are overweight. Fed Up is a film directed by Stephanie Soechtig, with Executive Producers Katie Couric and Laurie David. The filmmaker’s intent is mainly to inform people of the dangers of too much sugar, but it also talks about the fat’s in our diets and the food corporation shadiness. The filmmaker wants to educate the country on the effects of a poor diet and to open eyes to the obesity catastrophe in the United States. The main debate used is that sugar is the direct matter of obesity. Overall, I don’t believe the filmmaker’s debate was successful.
Even today Lee still produces films that directly address modern society's most significant historical movements and episodes. His productions analyze themes of race and discrimination. His work can be analyzed in academic
I chose to analyze Despicable Me, an animated film geared towards a younger audience, because I was interested in examining underlying theories and messages that this film would be relaying to its viewers. Often times, when watching animated films, children are not aware of these messages, as they are absorbed by the characters, special effects, and humor. But as we have learned throughout this semester, our brains are subconsciously primed by the various surroundings we are exposed to. Since we also studied the impacts of entertainment, such as television and video games, on children, I wanted to see how a popular children’s film might also affect them.
Have you ever watched an animated movie, which has a power-packed cast, plus has the best graphics, and above all, it has Kung Fu? if not, Kung Fu Panda is the name. The movie Kung Fu Panda comes with a complete talent box with all the star-studded actors including Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, James Hong, and much more, doing the voice over of some great characters, you name it Kung Fu Panda has it.
Wings of Desire (1987), by Wim Wenders is a fantastical Franco-German romantic film that depicts the lives of those who populated Berlin during the time of Franco and the Berlin Wall that separated West and East Germany. In the film, reality is separated into two dimensions in which humans and angels are isolated from each other and exist on separate planes of existence. The angels gaze over the inhabitance of Berlin and attempt to comfort people in distress; however, because of their separate existences, the angels cannot influence the actions of the human world. Wenders noticeably relates the separation of existence between the angels and humans in Wings of Desire with the isolation felt by the people of West and East Berlin with his use of acting style, color grading, symbolism.
"Baraka" exemplifies everything Emile Durkheim referred to as sociological functionalism. This is the perspective that various parts of a society or social system affect other parts within that system, and how they function in the overall continuity of that system. Durkheim showed that all the aspects of human society work together much like the parts of a machine. The concept of social solidarity - ties that bind people to one another and to society as a whole- play a major role in the lives of humans. This film reflects these ideas.