I am so sorry that it has been a few weeks since I have posted something new. I started my school classes, and I've been very busy with them. I am taking a wonderful class that has me writing semi-long papers every week, and most of the time I usually write and post my blogs have been taken over by writing. I am excited to post this because it's about my class that I love.
I needed to take a humanities class because it's required, and so I took a class called Film and Culture. It's awesome because I still get to watch movies, which I do anyway, and writing about them have almost become second nature, for the most part. I thought that we would be watching films about different cultures around the world, but it isn't. It's about different cultures in the United States.
For example, this past week we have been learning about African American culture, and the way it is represented in films. We have a text book, which this past chapter talks about African American culture, and the five stereotypes that are too common in film. When film was a brand new medium, there were hardly any African Americans in films, and if there were, they were shown serving white people. Each stereotype is appalling. The 1915 film, The Birth of a Nation had white actors in make-up to look like black skin, called Blackface, and features African Americans as stupid and lazy, or rapists, and the Ku Klux Klan were shown as the heroes of the film. That film inspired the Ku Klux Klan, which was founded twenty years before The Birth of a Nation, and wasn't really a racist brotherhood until the film inspired them to become White Supremacists, and the rest is history.
Every week in the class, we watch a feature film, and sometimes, we get to choose which film we want to watch and write about. This past week, we were given the choice of three different films that were directed by Spike Lee. I chose his film BlackkKlansman. It was the most recent film, and I have seen it before, but watching the film with questions in mind, and the descriptions of things we read in our book, and write a paper about how the films represent African American culture in America. We also have to watch little clips from other films as well, which we are required to write about in our papers as well.
It's been an amazing class, and my mind and eyes are opening up and I am noticing more and more with each chapter I read and film I watch. This past week, I had a critic screening for Jurassic World: Dominion, and I caught myself thinking about the African American characters in the film, and how they were portrayed in a positive way. They aren't the main characters, but they help progress the story in a good way. The characters were smart and had really good jobs where their intelligence was needed. It wasn't anything I wrote about in my review, but at least my understanding has grown.
In our first week, we studied white people, but how when the English settlers were here and settled, they thought they were better than the Irish people who immigrated a few years later, and then when Jewish immigrants came, the Irish immigrants weren't treated as bad as they had been previously, and the Jewish settlers were then harassed. Even though they were all white for the most part, they were still prejudice towards the newest cultures that had immigrated here. Then the slavery issue happened, and that's where our country turned against slaves, and didn't treat them like other humans.
I like that the class has really helped me look at and examine how to be a better person. I know I won't always be able to know and understand any cultures of races which I am not apart of. I don't know what it's like to be scared to be black and have a racist cop pull me over and uses excessive force on me, when they aren't the same way towards white people, but I am trying to learn and trying to understand cultures that I am not apart of, but want to be kind and understanding towards any human beings that I might encounter. Race isn't just about skin color, it's cultures and the way people think, and what they do and who they are.
Anywho, the class is going well. I have 102% as my grade because I have gotten all of the quizes right, and I have watched more films that were recommended, and recieved extra credit. I am so happy that I went back to school, and it's not just school, it's fun, and it's different approaching school from when I was young. I don't dread reading and writing and doing assignments, I actually look forward to them, if that makes sense.
I hope you are all doing well, and staying safe. Elliot will be spending the whole month of July, and we have some awesome plans that I look forward to writing about and sharing pictures of our trip back down to Moab. We went down two years ago, but Elliot was scared of heights, and cried the whole time we were at Delicate Arch, but he is older, and he told me that he isn't that afraid anymore. Also, my favorite hike in Arches National Park is the Fiery Furnace, and it was closed due to Covid, so we didn't get to do that. We are also going on a half day horse backriding adventure. It follows an awesome trail where there are arches, and then there are places we will ride to where movies sets from John Wayne films were filmed. We are super excited about that. Besides the trip, I finally got my hands on a PlayStation 5, and we are gong to be doing some gaming, and also some geocaching, like we did last summer. It's going to be great.
Well, I am headed off to bed. I promise to post something cool sooner than I did this time around.
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