Rants...

I am feeling kind of weird today. I came home feeling a bit cheated by life's circumstances.

Disney Princesses...and they lived happily ever after.

I never realized that there are actually a lot of things to talk about the Disney Princesses. Interestingly, the reporters about the Disney Characters discussed about different issues but they all touched on the issue of the princesses being weak and helpless. They are always the damsel in distress rescued by a vigorous and handsome prince. Disney fairytales always portray the female characters as the villains of the story (E.g. stepmothers or the stepsisters). The main character, who is the princess, is always much fairer than the rest of the characters. They portray how society almost always gives preference to beautiful women over the ugly ones. As a reaction to this preference, Cinderella’s stepsisters and Snow White’s stepmother felt jealous and insecure about themselves. During the 90s, Disney’s Princess Jasmine tried to set apart herself from the rest of the princesses. First, she is black and then she is wearing a more liberated type of outfit, showing off her curves. It was also mentioned that Aladdin was produced in the height of racism that is why Princess Jasmine is different among all the stereotyped princesses because she is somewhat rebellious. The objects of humor in all Disney fairytales are the small, fat and ugly people. Sidekicks are always the funny Black characters who are always very clumsy.

One of the reporters mentioned that the 7 dwarves could possibly be homosexuals. It was kind of vague when he gave his arguments such as why are they miners and why did they allow snow white to stay in their house. I do not think that there is enough reason to typify them as homosexuals.

Disney Princesses are somehow very idealistic and it tries to promote gender stereotypes. Although I have really nothing against these fims, I think that it’s good to know that movies such Shrek are now being produced to break away from the stereotypes that these Disney Movies have established.

image source: http://www.carnivalpromotions.com/images/Moonwalks/Standard/Disney%20Princess/Disney%20Princess.jpg

Filipino Archetypes

Archetypes are beginning pattern that recurs throughout time to be considered as universal. The proponent for this concept is the famous psychologist Carl Jung, who is behind the theory of “collective unconscious.” Examples of universal archetypes for male and female are the sky and the earth, light and darkness, odd and even, square and round, blue and pink, and roses and thorns. Guns are also used to symbolize male organ whereas peanuts are for female’s clitoris. I am really not quite sure about Filipino Archetypes but I think that “Bituin” or stars are used to associate with female whereas Bahaghari or rainbow and Habagat or the Southwest monsoon are used to associate with male. The spoon is also associated with female whereas fork is with male. (Example: Nahulog ang kuchara habang kumakain ng hapunan: ibig sabihin may darating na babaeng bisita.)

image source:
http://www.clipartpoint.com/_Thumbnail%5CAnimated%20Gifs%5CObjects%5CFork%20And%20Spoon%5Cfork_spoon_090.GIF

Some famous novelty songs also have representations of male and female such as the song “Bulaklak” (flower) and “ Basketball” by the Viva Hotbabes. The “Bulaklak” is used as a representation of the female genital. In the song “Basketball,” The ball represents the male organ and the basket represents the female organ during sexual intercourse. I am not sure if this is still an archetype but some other representations may include vegetables such as talong, patola, upo, ampalaya (for male) and fruits like banana (male) and pinya (female). The bird is also a representation for a male’s genital (sometimes, either maya or eagle.) Seafoods like tahong, talaba are also associated with female. The bibinkga and puto bongbong also represent female and male organs respectively.

Gender Roles and Biases

1.) When Meg becomes Rod and Rod becomes Meg.


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2.) Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.


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3.) Toilet Etiqutte


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4.) Women in the corporate world.




image sources:
www.cartoonstock.com
http://bifsniff.com/images/cartoons/womencars_cartoon.gif

Difference Between Erotica Pornography

"Erotica portrays nonaggressive sexual activity between willing, sensitive, caring partners. The partners share in the initiation and choice of activities, erlatively free from the stereotype pattern of male dominance and female subservience that characterizes much pornography"
--Margaret Jean Intons-Peterson and Beverly Roskos-Ewoldsen "Mitigating the Effects of Violent Pornography pg 219

In pornography women are objects. Men act on women who aren't even women, merely bodies. Recepticles of male lust.
Erotica celebrates sexuality, while pornography reduces it to domination and submission. Pornography is harmful because it dehumanizes both men and women.

http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/Garden/1073/porn2.html


Pornography and Erotica both depict sex and intend to stimulate sexually. However, pornography is more transparent wherein one person is a subject while the other is the object. In pornography, only one person enjoys the act of sexual activity. In most porn movies, there isn't really much story but rather more on the act of fore playing and sexual intercourse. Pornography is more visual in a sense that they may expose the sexual organs of the characters. Pornography is classified into two classifications which are soft porn and hard porn. Soft porn is when there is no exposure of genitalia during the sexual intercourse whereas hard porn has lots of genitalia exposure (in fact sometimes, in porn movies they even focus the camera on the genitals). Some argue that it is already to be considered as porn once the nipple of the female boob is exposed while others say only if two nipples are shown can it be considered as porn.
In Erotica, there is a subject-subject relationship in which both (or all of them in cases like threesome activities) are enjoying. Examples of Erotica are romance novels which are actually more detailed in describing the mood and setting of the scenes. In Erotica, even the smallest detail such as the color of the lingerie the characters are wearing, are described. It is very descriptive and I think that it stimulates the audience more than pornography since the audience can use their wildest imagination to interpret the message.

Curses and Labeling of Men and Women

I’ve noticed that I haven’t been using much labeling terms in my way of speaking and writing, except for the word “gaga” to connote the female counterpart of “gago.”

It’s kind of unfair that most of the curses we use tend to degrade women in general. Like the mother-fucker, son of a bitch, whore, among others. Even in translation of language, biases are so evident, as they tend to favor masculinity. Say for instance the word master which means boss, when translated to its female counterpart, is mistress which means a “querida.” Host (as in emcee) and its female counterpart, hostess (as in g.r.o.). Governor (as in administrator) to governess (as in maid or yaya).


image source|: http://getweird.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/curses3.jpg

Eating Out With Maximo Oliveros

“Eating out” is more of like a “coming out” movie while “Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros” focused more on the environment and its effect on the main characters’ values. The latter is not really a movie about homosexuality and it only mirrors how a typical Filipino family thrives for a living. Some of the Filipino traits that were shown in this movie include being happy-go-lucky and having close family ties. Maximo Oliveros cannot be considered as a gay since he did not actually come out of the closet. He was portrayed to be like a “little housewife slash mother” of their family because he tries to fill up the roles of their mother. He is responsible of doing household chores like cooking, cleaning, washing among others.

In the movie “Eating Out”, they try to show us not just the challenges of being a gay but also their worth as part of our society. One of the characters said something like “being gay is more than eating low fat food…” This is like saying there is more to being a gay than what people actually think. In another scene, one of the characters raised the question, “Why change to the path of oppression when happiness is right here?” This is telling us that although gay people and homosexuality have already gained acceptance in our society, there is still oppression to the third sex and it will be hard for us to erase it.
It’s funny how they try to use each other in the movie just to get who they really wanted. Kyle used Caleb to have Marc while Caleb used Marc to have Gwen. Caleb pretends to like Marc since Gwen is attracted to gay people while Kyle hopes to be Marc’s “rebound” when he eventually finds out that Caleb is just after his best friend, Gwen.
What is nice about this movie is that they are able to show us that gay people are also human beings who have emotions. It’s also good that they were able to exemplify the artistic skills of Kyle and Marc in music to show us that even the third sex can also excel in our society.

image sources:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/48/Eating_out.jpg/200px-Eating_out.jpg
http://tambayansalondon.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/maximooliverosposter.jpg