Finding Nemo is about a protective father and his son. Marlin is an overprotective father who is taking care of his son Nemo. Nemo, trying to prove himself, swims too close to the surface and gets caught by a diver. Marlin goes on a thrill seeking adventure making new friends and enemies to bring back his only son. This movie displays diversity in its charectars as disability becomes the sole characteristic that every character has to overcome. We see that disabled characters are the most underestimated in this movie. Marlin’s emotional disability stems from the traumatic loss of his wife and his anxiety. This causes Marlin’s overprotectiveness for his son, Nemo leading to Nemos social exclusion. Despite his emotional state of being, he fights the hardest to find his son even though the small pitfalls he faces now and then. Disability in this movie is presented as social quality rather than a state of physical image. Dory also exemplifies this characteristic: a blue finned fish with short term memory loss. Due to her sociable and excited mentality, she is able to communicate with other animals especially whales to progress the journey of finding Nemo. She is however seen as a stupid fish repeating the same phrase “just keep swimming” but proves to help a friend in need. Even after Marlin’s constant request for her to leave, her forgiving nature leads to a well-developed friendship. Some questions the author initializes for the viewer are whether these disabilities cause the characters to be overlooked or give the “villains” power over the “lower” class. Lastly, this movie leaves the viewers that have really engaged in the story to understand if any character was treated with injustice because of a deformity or how one’s with such disabilities come together to become a strong power.

The film, V for Vendetta (2006), is a fictional story based in Great Britain depicting the relationship between a young woman, Evey, and a masked vigilante, V, who is determined to incite rebellion against the neo-fascist, post-war British government. Evey, a seemingly average working citizen and victim of the oppressive government, meets V after he saves her from an attempted assault by members of the secret police and brings her to his lair. Initially confused and distrusting of V, she eventually grows fond of him and is supportive of his ambitions, as she shares the same resentment towards their government. Serving as a physical symbol of anarchy, V’s vengeance stems from the brutal biochemical torture he endured at a state facilitated resettlement camp, in which we learn had held many marginalized groups such as immigrants, Muslims, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

The movie addresses many forms of injustice and social issues, such as violence against women, oppression of the working and lower classes, illness caused by environmental conditions, and general bigotry against minorities. Hegel’s Master-Slave dialect is prominent throughout the film, where the authoritarian government acts as the Master and the civilians as the Slave. The systemic, unjust treatment and brutality prohibit the people of Britain from true freedom,  leading to the ultimate following and support of V in dismantling the fascist state through solidarity.

V’s role parallels with Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak?” as the citizens are forced into submission under the authoritative government and possess no effective outlet to demand justice. Thus with the rise of V and his following, the people find solace in his efforts as they unanimously suffer from the same persecution that was otherwise silencing them.

V for Vendetta presents a dystopian story compiled with a myriad of current, real-world issues, creating a scenario that may feel far from reality, yet by ending the movie with the succumbing of the ruling class, the viewer nonetheless is given hope that injustice can be corrected in their own lives.

Suicide Notes by Michael Thomas Ford was a book I picked up to read on a trip. As you make your way through the book you meet a group of teens that find themselves in long term psychiatric care treatment center.  You learn different things about each character and what drove them to end up in this care facility. The format of the book is reading a diary. This is the diary of 15 year old Jeff. The book discusses issues such as depression and homophobia. The focus shifts to how Jeff thinks he will be perceived by his friends after kissing his best friend’s boyfriend and then being horrified that she knows his secret and will not be able to come out to her when he chooses.  He also fears that everyone at school knows he is homosexual and attempts suicide. A common theme throughout all of the kids in the facility is them being scared of how everyone else views them. Stigmas around mental health are challenged countless times in this book. Ford specifically writes so you don’t know anyone’s full story at any time. It makes the reader sit back and reevaluated their ideas on stereotypes and jumping to conclusions. Othering is the course concept that I immediately thought about when reflecting on this book. All of the characters in this book were so tied up in thinking about what everyone thought of them that they lost themselves and ability to feel okay. Suicide is brought up and that is the peak of othering. Some of the characters did not make it to the end of the book because they felt so powerless and unable to be heard. We also get to read some of what the psychiatrist did and said to each of these people. His job was to make these people feel like they had somewhere to go, but society had pushed many of the characters to feel so isolated that they could not trust what he said. This week we discussed what different styles do and how it changes how it is perceived. Ford wrote this to include humor and satire in the way a teenager would speak about life. I think this was a nice touch to provide some relief, but it also provided a personal touch that allowed the reader to feel things the way Jeff did. I would highly recommend this book to anyone that want to challenge their perspectives on mental health and being an empathetic reader.

Image/ amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Suicide-Notes-Michael-Thomas-Ford-ebook/dp/B003VIWNRQ

I am currently in the midst of watching a French television show called Lupin. In this show, a black man named Assane goes through extensive amounts of strategical techniques to get revenge on an individual who treated Assane’s unjustly.

Many years prior to Assane’s revenge, his father worked for a very rich individual. This individual carries a particular complex where he treated a young Assane and his father as inferiors in his house. He did not care for them and he did not respect them regardless of the work and respect they gave that individual. There came a point where a necklace was supposedly stolen from the rich man’s wife, and he immediately blamed Assane’s father of stealing the necklace, for no reason other than the fact that he was black.

Fast forward to the present, where Assane works tirelessly to get revenge on this individual, and ultimately avenge for the injustice his father faced, who had been sent to jail and eventually killed himself out of sadness and disappointment. Throughout his master plan for revenge, Assane commits a couple minor crimes and illegal activities, but he is constantly able to get away with it, and as viewers we are more committed to standing by him as we know his intentions are good and he plans to give justice to the rich man who treated his father so poorly.

By following Assane in show, the audience gets perspectives of his treatment as a black individual in France both in his youth and as an adult. In his youth, we get to see experiences that definitely reverberate and speak for the entire black community in countries like France and the United States, where he is treated incredibly differently, called a thief, he is belittled, and he is ultimately given constant disadvantages that his white peers do not face. We see how those experiences as a teenager shaped him into the adult he becomes, where he is forced into this role where he has become the other in the community.

Thus far, just one season into the show, it’s clear the creator had the idea to present much of the racial problems going on in France. From the community and minor experiences Assane faced as a child, to the rich white man he and his father had to deal with, it’s clear the basis of the show is about the struggles of black people in France, and probably in Europe as a whole. There are lots of black individuals who have immigrated to Europe and are forced to work laboring and low paying jobs for rich white individuals who self proclaim themselves as superiors and treat black people as inferiors, as in Lupin. Assane’s father is mistreated and is falsely framed due to his race, and it results in his unjust arrest and eventual suicide. In the bigger story, it results in Assane’s spiraling behavior into crime to get revenge on this rich man, and thus far the viewer is unsure if Assane will ever get his revenge or if he will get caught first.

Lupin tv show

Nayak: The Real Hero, is a movie that follows Shivaji Rao, a reporter who gets challenged to become the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, India for one single day.

Rao had a first-row seat in the injustice CM Chauhan was committing after witnessing how Chauhan did absolutely nothing to control the protest in Maharashtra. While people were killing each other on the street and the police were urging Chauhan to order police control, Chauhan sent orders not to do anything. He claimed that he was afraid of losing his popularity votes. Rao got everything Chauhan had said on camera and confronted him in an interview. Feeling extremely criticized about his performance as the Chief Minister, Balraj Chauhan declared the challenge himself. Rao courageously accepted and showed India all the systemic injustice Chauhan had been committing with his power.

In the first hour of Rao becoming the CM, he got all the data about other government officials also abusing their positions of power. By the end of the 24 hours, he had suspended 46,000 corrupt officials. Rao also traveled all over the city to poorer sections and made incredible developments to help the people living there. Throughout the entire 24 hours, Rao changed everything about Chauhan’s rotten system and the situation in India saw immediate benefits. These incongruities and blatant injustices being committed were taking away the livelihoods of the citizens in India, while those in positions in power were just becoming more powerful. The position of Chief Minister goes to the elected individual with the promise of leading the country to greatness. The first priority of the CM, and all government officials, should be the protect and serve all participants of the country. Clearly, this was not the case as all the institutions working with the CM were plotting against the innocent citizens of India. 

The power dynamics explore the Master-Slave Dialectic and the Subaltern. Chauhan and other government officials are the One, while the citizens of India are the Other. Chauhan forced the citizens to become inferior and made it so they couldn’t speak against the unlawfulness occurring to them. If they did, the citizen’s authenticity came into question. The Master-Slave Dialectic is better seen through Shivaji Rao and CM Chauhan. Both of them acknowledge the threat they are to each other and struggle in a vicious war throughout the movie to establish superiority. Even by the end of the movie the Master, Chauhan, was unable to see the limitedness of his power, eventually leading to his death. On the other hand, Rao, the Slave, was able to achieve self-consciousness and spread it to the country as the newly appointed Chief Minister.

Nayak bravely covered topics revolving around power dynamics and how they go with systemic injustices. The movie shone a light on the same systemic injustice that had and has still been occurring in India, forcing viewers to question those in positions in power and break free from the constant infringements occurring against them as citizens of India. 

Shivaji Rao (LEFT), Balraj Chauhan (RIGHT)

Jane the Virgin is a TV sitcom centering around Jane Vilanueva’s life and family. Season one starts off with Jane telling her co-workers/friends how she intends on saving herself for marriage. She tells the story of how her deeply religious grandmother has bestowed the importance of virginity and Catholicism. Jane’s life quickly changes during a routine gynecological exam, where she is accidentally artificially inseminated. This is the beginning of crossroads that Jane meets where she must battle with the different intersectional identities of her life and her deeply meaningful cultural ideas. Season one introduces you to the Vilanueva women and how their intersectional identities differ. While they all share a bicultural and bilingual family; they all have vastly different views on gender norms, sexuality, and religion. Jane the virgin is driven by having a majority Latina/Latino cast but in a way that does not make their identity the punchline like other Latino shows have.
Jane the Virgin does not just bring forth their Latino characters but brings their cultural identities to the forefront. The show adopts the comedic drama of a telenovela that many Latina/latino viewers can connect to. This style of story telling showcases how race and gender affects Jane and her family’s lives. Jane’s family all represent a different character that is traditionally shown in a telenovela, the religious and endearing opposition, the sassy opposition, and the caretaker opposition. The interesting thing about Jane the Virgin is how the writers work these complexities rather than facing the women against each other.

      The first episode presents problems Jane faces with gender roles/family, sexuality, and tradition. Jane’s pregnancy is a huge hurdle for the family to get through. Their Latina background defines what their actions should be. But her pregnancy doesn’t necessarily break these codes. The whole family must question their beliefs. Jane finds out that her mother considered abortion when she was pregnant and that having a child set her life onto a different track that left her dreams behind. Jane then finds out that her grandmother also suggested that her mother have an abortion rather than having a baby out of wedlock. Janes accidental insemination allows the characters to have their views questioned because Jane’s life will ultimately never be the same. Jane the Virgin manages to show the different aspects of a highly touchy and controversial subject on gender roles and sexuality. This style introduces you the complexity of the problems without an agenda. Instead of ideologies, this show represents the real lives of Latinas and how their cultural identities play a major role.