I wanted to talk about a show I have watched called shameless. This show is a bit out of hand at times, but I believe it makes a point in “others” and I can compare them to what we have talked about in class. This family does not have a lot of money and their dad Frank falls off the deep end and gets into drugs, so the family has to survive without him with Fiona becoming in charge off the rest of the family.

This show shows lots of power by individuals as well as different identities among the characters. I will first start by talking about the later seasons where the creator focused on Carl and how he was released from jail a different person. Carl went into jail looking like a “normal guy” says Fiona, and then comes out of jail with dreads as hair and he talked like a gangster. Fiona was not letting Carl come back to live with them like that. She said he was trashy, and she was not allowing him to be like that. This was Carl’s identity now, and his brothers stood up for him and talked about how he did what he needed to do in jail and now he is out so just let him be. Fiona becomes in control very quick at being the older sister. She takes care of everyone in the house now. She starts going crazy, which is understandable as she has to deal with her 4 other siblings and says that everyone has to listen to her and that’s she’s in control and all of this. Fiona has to realize that her siblings are old enough to make decisions for themselves and if they want to make a bad decision, she is just going to have to let them go especially if they don’t listen to her. My point here is power and identity play a major role in this entire tv show. The characters get treated different because of the way they are or the way they act. You have to remember these kids never grew up with a father or mother figure. I would classify these kids as others because they are not like each other and they do not always fit in with people around them. They grew up in the city with no money and barley a house at times. I think the creator of this show wanted the viewers to realize that not all family life is perfect. There are going to be circumstances you have to deal with. But having an older sibling to show you what’s right and what’s wrong can always help. It can also help when an older adult has power and puts you in your place.

A couple months ago, before the corona virus, I had witnessed an experience where a girl was not able to work for someone because she was not strong enough like the other men that were working. In fact, she was even black. She had been knocking down trees and carrying the stumps to the trailer. I could tell she felt targeted as being a woman and because of her race. It was even very uncomfortable for me. She was trying to carry these huge stumps, but it was hard for her and then it’s like they made fun of her because she was having trouble doing it. I was also assuming they weren’t going to help her carry the stumps because of her race. I actually see this a lot throughout the day where men will treat women different because women are not considered strong enough. If women could be taught how to do something and work towards doing the task, then the men and women workplace would not be so divided. Moral of the story is women should have an equal opportunity as men in the workplace, and discrimination should never be a determination factor in the workplace as well.

Looking through some research, I had found where someone talked about gender differences in the workplace as well as race. It had said that the reason there are differences between men and women in the workplace is because of their social factors. This can include physical and emotional factors. After reding this article, it does make sense that certain companies might want men over women, but what is not okay is that women who are a different race, don’t get the chance to try a job in the workplace just because of their skin color or gender.

This can relate to the topic of “Other” that we have disused in this course. The black girl felt like an other as she felt like she didn’t fit in. That felt as if she did not belong there. We have learned a lot in this course how “others” are treated differently. We have also learned how other countries are considered others. This could have to do with races or whether or not they are considered privileged. It is crazy to think about all the differences in the world, and how still to this day, there is inequality. There shouldn’t be that fine line between women and men in the workplace because of their race.

Here is a link that explains why there is the differences between men and women in the workplace.

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/gender-differences-within-workplace-10512.html

Here is a video link that shows an experiment that was conducted on men and women jobs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE-vJO67xqg

The video of Persepolis shows how the characters reacted to living in Iran. Since we already know the situation in Iran, it was neat to see the video as more of a comic presentation. Seeing their facial reactions, especially Marji, really helped understand how she was feeling about the Shah’s. An example is how Marji was listening to her parents talk about how this guy was whipped in jail by cables and how he called those people torcheres. She would always back up and hide her head like she knew that was wrong, but yet still continues to follow that faith she had. The Lord had also told her that the Shah’s were ” chosen by him” but he would also tell her that torturing someone isn’t they way to go about things. She learned very quickly that the whole saying “Treat people the way you want to be treated” didn’t work out so well.

At the beginning, Marji is kind of alone. Perhaps she was confused on why the Shah’s were a bad group. She would even pace around the room acting like she was marching with them which shows that she had different views on the Shah group than her parents did. She was told about how her grandfather was put into jail because he was a communist and she did not really understand that, and why everyone had different views. The Lord had lead her to thinking the wrong things.

As the story goes on, things in Iran didn’t get much better. Marji gets harassed as she gets asked about her “punk shoes” and how she had Michael Jackson on her vest. Satrapi made is clear that Iran was not a place to be during this time.

Marji eventually gets sent away because she had been expelled from school due to her behavior. Her parents felt as if the best thing they could do was to ship her to Vietnam. Leaving your family is something that I would not be up and willing to do, but she did it in-spite of her parents recommendations. Why didn’t her parents go with her? We might not know fully, but what we do know is that they were involved in a lot in Iran and I believe they wanted to make it a better place. Thinking about it more in depth, they really did have hope that one day Iran would become a happier place.

Watching the actual film made me realize a lot more than when I had just read. The facial expressions show an amazing view on how the characters felt during certain situations. Being able to read and listen had made my viewpoints on Iran and the western culture a lot clearer. This film gets the audience thinking about the events that used to take place in other countries and how different things are today.

This short video from the film shows how Marji was attached to the Lord and how she had a different view on the Shah’s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de8itLl61Fs

Works Cited:

English and Comparative Literary Studies. (2013, May 24). Retrieved October 2, 2020, from        https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/first/en123/cwl-litcrit/persepolis2013/persepolishistoricalcontext/

Flowers, K. (2020, June 3). Library.SCOTCH: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi: Context. Retrieved October 2, 2020, from https://library.scotch.wa.edu.au/english/year12/persepolis/context