Author: sullivan.1308

Text Review: Princess Protection Program

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Disney Channel played a big role to the person that I was as a child. One of the movies that I watched in 2009 was Princess Protection Program. In this film, Rosalinda is a soon-to-be queen in her country of Costa Luna. When her country in under attack, she must temporarily flee, to avoid any sort of danger. She is taken by the Princess Protection Program (P.P.P.) to live with one of the majors and his daughter, Carter, in Louisiana. With Carter’s help, Rosalinda must learn to fit in with the other kids at school. Because she is coming from an unfamiliar place, Rosalinda would be considered the “Other” as she learns the culture within America. Though she is in America, she stands as a subaltern in this small Louisiana town for the safety of herself. 

Carter Mason is the daughter of the major that rescued Rosalinda. Carter is shy and has a hard time expressing any other emotions besides embarrassment. When Rosalinda becomes part of her world, they are on a bumpy path because Carter does not welcome Rosalinda with open arms. Because Rosalinda is used to a life filled with royalty and class, moving to a town of the complete opposite, makes it easier to see that she is the “Other.” Unlike Carter, Rosalinda holds confidence and is not afraid to be herself among others that she in unfamiliar with. However, this behavior could give away hints that she is not an average girl that grew up in Louisiana. This is when Carter would be the “One” teaching the “Other” how to fit in to a place that she is foreign to.  

Lake Monroe, Louisiana is a good hiding place for Rosalinda because it is a rural area that one would not expect to find a princess in. For many, living in this town was something of choice, but for Rosalinda, this is something for protection and safety as she was the subaltern. Though Costa Luna is a fictional place, it would still stand as something of a third world country. For Rosalinda, she is a subaltern because she belongs to a third world country. She has no choice but to escape, leaving her and her family separated. Regardless of the power her royal family holds, because they have been invaded, Rosalinda is forced to go to another place that makes her the “Other” as she tries to fit in to American culture. 

Allison Liddi-Brown, the creator of this film, wants children to be aware of the differences of cultures all over the world. The relationship shown serves as a lesson showing children to be accepting of all people no matter where they come from. Liddi-Brown inspires identity because she never changes Rosalinda’s initial confident/caring character; power showing people working together to become forceful against the enemy; and injustice because of the way Rosalinda was first treated by Carter. This film had underlying lessons that children will be able to take with them for their years to come. 

Citation:

Princess protection program [Motion picture]. (n.d.). Walt Disney.

Yo, is this Classist?

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Economic Inequality Within Our Systems

Sydney: Bryan Stevenson, lawyer and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, once said, “The opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice.” In class this semester, we have been writing weekly diary entries on systemic injustices. Systemic injustices are much more than individual biases- they are entangled in society and affect large groups of people. Because of society’s immense influence on the way we think, systemic injustices occur regardless of legislation or other actions attempting to fight it. Systemic injustices are deep and complex. For this podcast, Hannah and I decided to make economic inequality our focus. Money is deeply rooted into many of our everyday activities. It determines our opportunities and experiences throughout our lives, thus making it an easy target for injustice and inequality. Today, we are going to discuss systemic economic inequality in the courts and at the voting polls.

 

Hannah: Hi, I’m Hannah Sullivan, a freshman here at OSU. 

 

Sydney: Hi, I’m Sydney VerDow. I am a 4th year here at Ohio State.

 

Hannah: The idea of wealth is something that I would assume most people strive for. Living comfortably is important for many as they need to support their families and themselves. Once people begin to make money, I think that they typically continue to grow within their position and can make more money as they go. However, that may not always be the case for everyone in the workforce, and even if someone is working, it doesn’t necessarily mean that their job is capable of paying for the needs that people could come across in life. In most cases, this allows for the person with more money to access opportunities that people with less money cannot. Unfortunately, this kind of injustice happens in important instances, and because people with money are able to obtain more, they can get away with more.  

An example of a time when wealth would help other people over people with less money would be in places such as court. I had been told a story about a man that was fighting a case in court that was crucial for the society around him. However, he can’t fight back nearly as hard because he does not have the support system that the opposing side does. The money that these people have is able to pay for attorneys and lawyers, while this individual man must spend his time researching and studying for himself the laws, in order to be able to hold himself in a strong manner. He does not have the money to attend school to get a further knowledge of these topics, and because of how important this case is, he spends time away from his job, family, and friends because this has taken over, and become more of a job all on its own. Instead of spending money, now he must spend time, day to day, subscribing to law companies, reading and familiarizing himself with the law, in order to defend himself. Some people might be getting away with their wrong doings because they have a degree from Harvard, which also could indicate the fact that they have money. Judges are human, so it would only make sense that they would see money as an incentive. However, that is why I think this is considered an inequality. This man’s argument is not taken into consideration nearly as strongly as the wealthy people who are able to pay other people or “officials,” to do the work for them.  

The difficult thing with this topic is that so many people across the United States work so hard for the jobs that they have and make far less income than those who have done nothing but been handed down money from those before them. I think that this is inequality because people are not having to do the same kind of work as others, but they are able to possess things that may not be well-deserved. Wealthy people make it harder for middle and lower-class people to stay afloat, when money has so much power over other people.  

 

Sydney: As Hannah just said, money has the power to simultaneously be a form of privilege and oppression for different groups of people. Money can allow people to get away with things in court that may technically be morally and lawfully wrong. 

Hannah’s example goes along with the idea that lack of wealth can prevent people from access to important events, such as voting. With Election Day happening and all of the footage showing people at the polls, there has been a lot of focus on making sure every vote is counted. Although we may not think it, socioeconomic status can either help or challenge people’s ability to vote. Areas where the majority of voters experience low socioeconomic status could have underfunded mail services and election offices. This could make it more difficult for their votes to be counted. People with less money may have more difficulty getting to the polls to vote. Wealthier people may be more willing to vote because they could have more access to the resources and time to participate. An occupation that a person has could determine if they are allowed time off to vote. Additionally, wealthier people also have more access to higher education, which can lead to a better understanding of how the voting process works.

People with a low socioeconomic status may also feel underrepresented or misunderstood by politicians. If people don’t think politicians care, or truly care, about their well-being, they are less likely to vote. If their community already is unreliable with other government-funded programs, they could already be dealing with government distrust- again, making them less likely to vote.

The examples we gave dealing with classism and wealth inequality cannot be understood fully without looking at them from an intersectional perspective. In class, we learned that intersectionality takes into account overlapping identities to better understand the complexity of a person or group of people. When talking about class, for example, you must also take into account one’s gender, race, educational background, etc. With the voting example, class can intersect with race and even the criminal background of a person. In the past, voting in the United States has almost been exclusively reserved for white men. Even though women and Black people later got the right to vote, Black Americans still faced voting disparities. Taxes and literacy tests, among other things, still barred them from exercising the right to vote. Although times have changed, the voting disparities have only evolved, as I started to mention earlier. According to an article published in 2019 by the Washington Post, they found African Americans and Hispanic people typically have to wait longer at the polls. Additionally, some states have restrictions on voting for people holding various criminal convictions. Due to over-policing and other disproportionate factors in Black communities, this is yet another way of barring Black voters.

 

Hannah: Similar to the examples Sydney listed above, the types of intersectionality that might be commonly seen in a court case might have to do with race, gender, and/or the previous history of a person. Let’s say that there is a man and a woman on opposing sides of the court case. In some cases, the woman might be seen as the victim, and the judge would hold a bias against the man. However, some may see the woman of lesser power than the man, so the man would look more intelligent or trustworthy. When there are issues such as the Gender Pay Gap still of relevance, it might make it hard to not believe that there is more power for men in certain situations.  Relating to this would be the race of each person. Although things should be different by now, people still believe that certain races stand superiorly compared to others. Though discrimination ended several years ago, many still feel as though they are being treated unfairly, especially in a setting like court. 

 

Sydney: Another relevant example highlighting wealth inequality can be seen in the COVID-19 pandemic. Areas with low socioeconomic status are disproportionately affected. Limited access to healthcare puts these communities at greater risk of contracting the virus and not having the resources to potentially recover from it. Additionally, essential jobs would be more common, where the act of just being at work puts people in close contact with larger groups of people (thus increasing their risk). This example also needs intersectionality to be better understood. Race in these communities, and gender in these communities, also affects how people are put at risk from the pandemic.

These are all examples of systemic injustice because the impacts have been seen over a span of many years. 

 

Hannah: The system here has caused problems because of what seems like a snowball effect for the middle and low- class citizens of the United States. Within the healthcare system, people are unable to get the care that they need, and when some of these people are unable to get the help that they need, they would not be able to work, and the cycle continues as Sydney described. In a similar manner, the court system seems to cause people with trouble because people with money continue to get away with crimes because money is something that can be used to get them stronger help, or as an influential tool for people like judges. The system is unequal because they look at the person with less money as the person with less power. However, what I don’t think is being taken into consideration is the work being put forth by the people with less money. As I mentioned before, the snowball effect works for this case as well because the person with less money has now been spending time teaching themselves the laws, and taking time away from their job because of how important a case may be, but because they are taking time away from their job, they won’t be making as much money, and with the several books and resources that they might have to pay for, again they continue to lose money and the guilty continue to get away with crime. These are systems that continue to affect the lives of so many Americans from day to day, and because things have been this way for so long, it almost seems impossible for things to change at this point, but with time, I hope that it will. 

The idea of wealth must be put aside when looking at people and the amount of power that they hold. People of less money should not have to worry about whether or not their vote is getting counted. They too are a part of our country, and their vote matters. People should not have to feel belittled in court because they do not have the support system such as attorneys and lawyers or income that their opponent does. I think that facts need to be taken into consideration when dealing with cases, and making sure all voices are heard, especially at a time like this, it is crucial.

 

Sydney: To overcome this inequality, we first must acknowledge these disparities and fight for action. Intersecting factors must also be addressed to fully understand these inequalities and how they might impact groups of people differently. For the voting example, there should be more of a push to equally distribute polling machines, in addition to workers and volunteers. Communities of lower socioeconomic status should be the focus when making sure there are an ample amount of polling locations. Information about other forms of voting, such as the process of mail-in voting, should be easily accessible and understandable for all. As we have seen so far in this year’s election, mail-in ballots do hold power and have the ability to make an impact.

On a much broader scale, there is still clearly a lot of work to be done. Besides changing laws and fighting for more accessibility, we need to start by evaluating our internal biases.Changing the language we use with one another and changing the societal influences hold the key to true action. For our example with economic inequality, there are many identifiable stereotypes we may subconsciously believe, or at least think of as “normal”. One unfair assumption is that those with less money simply need more drive or another job to reach economic success. However, when we look at intersecting factors that could influence or limit people’s opportunities, we see that this issue is a bit more complex. In class this week, we read The Reluctant Fundamentalist. The main character exemplifies another stereotype showcasing economic inequality. He attends Princeton, an Ivy League School. Throughout the entire novel, he hides his economic status from others. This plays into the assumption that all students at Ivy League schools come from financially well-off families. Students there on scholarship may feel like they don’t belong.

By starting a conversation and looking at intersectional factors, we can begin to better understand this systemic injustice.

 

Diary of Systemic Injustice Showcase: Gender Inequality in the Workplace

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Over the weekend, I watched one of my favorite movies, She’s the Man. This movie is about a girl who loves the game of soccer. One day her and her teammates show up to a practice, just to find out that the girls soccer team had been cut. The boys’ coach had no sympathy for the girls and refused to let them try out for the boys team. In despite of her situation, her brother was supposed to attend a new school, but instead of going he travels to London and his sister takes his place at the school. There, she dresses up as her brother simply so she can try out for the boys soccer team. After several days of hard training, she makes the team and gets put in the game against the rivalry school, which happens to be her old school. Finally, they figure out that she was pretending to be her brother the entire time. The opposing school said that she couldn’t play because she was a girl, but the school she was playing for had a coach that said, “Here at Illyria, we don’t discriminate based on gender!” After hearing this part, my mind thought about the several ways in which woman have dealt with this kind of injustice throughout the years. 

One of the first examples of injustice I typically think of is women’s suffrage. From there, I think there was great progression, but the idea of gender inequality is something that I think is still relevant as the gender pay gap is still present, as “In 2020, women make only $0.81 for every dollar a man makes” (Gender Pay Gap Statistics for 2020). I think that this is a topic that is not something that people think about often, but after time would add up to be quite a big difference. I think that the idea that women are still looked down upon in some manners seems to be an underlying issue because it is not something that is often talked about in the workplace. There are parts of a woman’s life that are not only crucial to them, but for every human that is living on earth today.  

Women are often mothers to the people that live in our world today. Without mothers’ care, love, and time, people would not be where they are today. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, “… pregnancy discrimination has long been illegal, [but] workers who are pregnant or breastfeeding are often fired or pushed out of the workplace,” (ACLU). Women are the reason that babies are nourished to grow to be the people that make these businesses operate, yet they are the ones being punished for doing so. The idea that women could potentially lose their job for being the ones to take care of children, is an unfair stigma that should no longer hold a place in society.  

Similar to concepts that we have covered in class such as the “Master-Slave Dialect,” or the “One” and the “Other,” are shown to still exist in today’s world because there is still someone who thinks they are of greater authority of another, therefore taking advantage of their position at work. In this case, women are seen as the “slave” and the “Other,” because they are treated of lesser value, and are being punished for giving life to the people that will someday be the reason businesses are still running.

Citations: 

“Gender Pay Gap Statistics As We Near the End of 2019.” Birmingham-Reyes, C., & Blogger, C. (2019, November 18). Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://whenwomeninspire.com/2019/11/18/gender-pay-gap-statistics/ 

“Gender Pay Gap Statistics for 2020.” PayScale, www.payscale.com/data/gender-pay-gap. 

“Woman Fired after Revealing Pregnancy” – video dailymotion. Glf, C. (2016, July 20). Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4kzh6t 

She’s the Man. Fickman, Andy. 2006 

“Women’s Rights in the Workplace.” American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from 

 https://www.aclu.org/issues/womens-rights/womens-rights-workplace 

 

Context Research Presentation Week 7: Persepolis

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In conjunction to last week’s reading of Persepolis, this week we get a moving image of the pictures in the book to see a further idea of the way in which the story was supposed to be read. After watching this film, you might notice some of the differences between the book and the movie. The book seems to be depicting the story of Marji’s life, while the film seems to be giving the audience a better idea of what life was like in Iran during war. The film seeks being informational to the history, while the book holds a more dramatic approach to telling the story of Marji’s life.  

Throughout the film, people would did not read the book, would still be able to understand the same story, as the film did a good job of bringing the photos in the book to life, with moving images. The film starts in an airport, where unlike the book, it was in color. You see this girl, though we are not quite sure who it is just yet. There is a transition to seeing a little girl in black and white who is running in excitement to see a female figure that was clearly important to her. From a scene like this, viewers can see the juxtaposing attitudes between young Marji, to grown Marji, even if they do not realize it from the start.  

 (Why Persepolis remains one of the century’s greatest animated films) 

 The narration begins, and we can hear the voice of Marjane Satrapi, talking about herself, and telling the story of her as a young girl. Unlike the book, the movie can give insight on the way this story would make her feel because we can hear the tone of her voice. She provides details that were excluded out of the book because they seemed to be a good way of starting the movie. She talked about the normal things that she did, and the film shows that she was just like any other girl at this age. However, as the film progresses, she begins to deal with things most children do not at her age. This includes protests, war, hiding, and being told what to do by strangers while she’s out.  

The reason that Marji had to experience protests, war, hiding, etc., is because during this time the Islamic Revolution and Iran-Iraq war was taking place. Her parents, and other Iranians would fight to end Shah’s rules, but it resulted it more violence, a bigger war, and policies that still stand today. This war lasted several years as it affected cities inside and out of Islam, including the hometown of Marji. 

Two of the experiences that she dealt with were expressed in the book, but not the film. One important element of the story was when Marji’s father explains that the maid and the neighbor could not be together because, “In this country you must stay within your own social class” (page 37). By taking this out of the film, people do not get to see that the father does not want to deal with social conflict. Secondly, in the film, we see the mother get in between the two women fighting at the grocery store, but we do not see her interaction with Mali later that night. From this, viewers miss the discussion they had, and only see the two Iranian women fighting in the grocery store. In the book, Mali says, “To have the Iraqis attack and lose everything… that’s one thing, but to be spat upon by your own kind, it is intolerable” (page 93). Without this element, we don’t really get to see that there can be discomfort between the Iranians regardless of the fact that they all share a common enemy. By taking out two elements of the story that contribute to factors of Marji being the way she is, one can see that the book is telling a story about history through Marji, while the film is telling a story about an event in history and how it affected people like Marji. Instead of Marji telling the story like the book does, the film tells the story of Marji throughout her life. There are no chapters that can break up time in the film, so instead, we see Marji grow throughout the film, and it is one continuous flow of time.  

(Learn the other truth about Persepolis) 

As some of these things continued to happen, a reminder of the things going on in today’s world, seemed apparent. The mother and grandmother are conversing when the mother states, “The one that got shot next to us was just a kid. What is this country?” The grandmother responds by telling her, “Right now honey, this country is a shit hole…” (Satrapi). 

Not that our nation is suffering a harsh war, but there have been protests, violence, and a judgmental atmosphere for most everyone in our country. The debate about political views has been causing controversy throughout America, driving people to protest and participate in other activities such as judging people for their political views. 

(Orange County Register) 

 Although Marji’s situation was much worse than current times, the film was able to give audience members the chance to see all of the different steps that Marji took throughout her life to adapt to the world moving around her, if things were not so clear for the reader reading the book. There were a few details that were either removed or added, nonetheless the story still stood with a strong message being portrayed.  

 

Works Cited 

“Learn the Other Truth about Persepolis.” Exploring Your Mind, 12 Sept. 2020, exploringyourmind.com/persepolis-other-truth/.  

Orange County Register. “’Persepolis’ Is a High Quality, Low-Tech Animated Feature.” Orange County Register, Orange County Register, 24 Dec. 2007, www.ocregister.com/2007/12/24/persepolis-is-a-high-quality-low-tech-animated-feature/.  

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. 2003.  

“Why Persepolis Remains One of the Century’s Greatest Animated Films.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 26 June 2020, www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/culture/indy-film-club-persepolis-marjane-satrapi-director-cast-graphic-novel-iran-a9574931.html.