Posts

The hit Television show, The Fosters, is a family drama based show about a family, two moms Lena Adams, and Stef Foster, and their five children. The show introduces us to all five children, one being biological from Stef’s previous relationship, two adopted Hispanic twins, and two foster children as well. Their family diverse and tight knit, we see Callie as the main character who is taken in by both by the Fosters. Throughout the series we see the Fosters go through many heartbreaks, trauma, and also things like racism and sexual assault.

The cast of The Fosters is diverse in itself, with LGBTQ+  characters as well as many characters of color, all of those of which are the main characters in the show. When Callie first joins the family, this was the start of it all. The show like mentioned earlier, talks about many serious topics. For example, near the end of the show one of one of Callie’s friends, Ximena, is an immigrant who is under DACA while at a protest, and Ximena is being searched for by the police, she then seeks help from a church. This is one of the many situations many go through in real life every day that The Fosters conveys in the show. Many systematic injustices are portrayed throughout the fosters, and things like protests are shown as well to show that there should be change in our system the one Callie and Ximena were at, and how action must be taken place. In the show we can see those as the Other, like Ximena, as well as many in the show, who have been seen as the Other by people like the police. The Fosters shows a family who undergoes challenges and faces them together, becoming a favorite by many because of the representation in the show.

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