Chelsea Dunn

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Kristin Goehri 07/01/10

I looked at the Dove commercials. These tackle beauty and the ways in which media has contorted our perceptions. It asks women to become role models for young girls and help them feel beautiful in their own skin. I also looked at the seventeen project. It contains blog posts from readers who are tired of the one track focus of beauty magazines. Their posts ask magazine companies to expand their product to meet more women's needs.

July 1

While thinking of a piece with images of and narratives about women, I first thing of songs and movies that have women overcoming some sort of abuse or something very intense. After thinking longer about it however, I thought of the movie Hairspray. Hairspray is about a young girl, high-school age, that is considered overweight. She wants more than anything in the world to be on this dance show called The Corny Collins show. However, everyone in society, school, and even in her family tell her that there is no way that she will ever be on the show. Her own mother does not even think she has a chance because of her weight. Her father is the only one that tells her to go for it and try out. I think this movie stuck out to me because of the image of an ideal woman. The perfect slender body, long legs, pale, and long blonde hair- one which was brought up from the very beginning of class. This calls for action by not only the young girl in doing what she wants no matter what others say about her, but also for people in her family and the rest of society to accept her for who she is. She is a spunky, creative, fun girl and should be accepted for the kind of person she is.

I have attached the link to the trailer:

BreAnna Brock

The piece I chose was "Whats Love Got to do With It", this story is about the life of the well reknowned R & B artists Tina Turner and her life with her abusive husband Ike Turner. She endured many years of mental, emotional, and physical abuse including rape at the hand of her husband. All the while she being the bread winner for the family. And even when she worked he abused her to the point of exhausten and collapse causing her to have a nervous and physical breakdown. Finally when she couldn't take it anymore it lead to her literally having to fight her way out of a moving limosene to escape his abuse for one final time.



In the first scene, it begans right before she is released from the hospital from having her nervous and physical breakdown. the limo scene in this clip shows the strength and the point when Tina a become fed up. I love the fact that after she fought him, she gets out of the car gathers herelf as well she can and walks into the hotel with her head held high like a strong woman. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm6z1I6lNqc



Second Scene I have is a continuation of the first scene, but in this scene Tina finally leaves Ike. I love how during the court scene Tina says he can have it all. She just wants her name although Ike wanted her to change it so that he could capitalize the Tina Turner name. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kwFAGKXdjE

July 1

The piece I chose that is a call for action is the movie The Women. This is a movie that is a women-only cast, however, most of the plotline is about men. The cast revolves around four best friends in their upper 30's and mid 40's. One of the women, Mary, discovers that her husband is having an affair with a much younger gal who works the perfume counter at SAKS. With the help of her friends and family, Mary is able to work her way through this rough patch with the support of her friends and other family members. Also, Mary begins to realize what she wants out of life instead of living the role that she felt was assigned to her.

This movie holds several narratives, however the most prominent one is Marys. She has been living life not as she would have liked, but as she felt she was supposed to live her life. This movie grapples with the ideas we have discussed in class such as societal influence on womens roles, relationships between women, etc. This is a great movie, especially for this class! It calls out to women and encourages them not to live by the books. Instead, live life the way you want and accomplish the goals you've always dreamed of.

June 30th

For the performance piece/call to action I chose the song Goodbye Earl by the Dixie Chicks. It's about best friends and after high school one gets out of the town and the other falls into an abusive relationship with a man named Earl. She eventually files for divorce and takes out a restraining order on Earl, but he violates it and beats her pretty badly. The friend comes home to find her friend in the hospital. They decide that since the law isn't doing justice, they will take care of the problem and decide to kill him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw7gNf_9njs
On one hand, this shows a woman who finally stands up for herself when no one else will. However, she goes to extreme measures to do so. This leaves the question as to what measure should a woman go to in order to protect herself. If she had just moved would she have been safe? Or would he have followed her? But why should she have to uproot her whole life when the law is not protecting her like it should? I am not sure what I would have done in that situation.
On a side note, I am not really a big fan of the video because I feel it kind of portrays domestic violence as something that isn't as serious as it really is. However, this could have just been to make it more appealing to the television audience.

Joanne Haggar 6/30

The piece I have chosen for this assignment is the movie Eough with Jennifer Lopez. She is the victim of domestic violence and takes matters into her own hands when no one would help her. I kind of went off of the website that we looked at yesterday. I think this movie is great because J Lo stands up for herself when no one would listen or help her. It made me think of what we talked about today in class...we still have all of these issues in society because people don't want to get involved and so there is no way for someone to get out of the bad situation they are trying to get out of. J Lo finally has to take matters into her own hands and takes self defense classes in order to stand up to her husband and eventually kill him. Its a great movie if you have not seen it!

movie trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_ofz-4uvmM

Notice in the movie trailer the guy who says, "The cops can't help you, no one can help you."--this is the problem, no one wants to get involved

June 30th Blog

The “piece” I have chosen to talk about was a performance I first saw while online yesterday. The BET awards were hosted on June 27^th, and as part of those awards Chris Brown did a tribute performance to Michael Jackson. One of the last songs Christ Brown sang was “Man in the Mirror.” The song is all about how making a change in the world starts with making a change in yourself. Not even 10 seconds into the song he broke down, fell to his knees and cried, and couldn’t even finish singing. A lot of news outlets speculated that it could have been the anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death that got to him, or it could have been things he had been struggling with in his own life, as I’m sure a lot of people know about him being convicted of abusing is former girlfriend, and a lot of people are saying this contributed to his “breakdown.” Either way, after hearing about it on the news I went to You Tube to find it. While watching his very emotional performance, it actually really touched me. Listening to the lyrics of the song I could see why he may have been having some sort of revelation at that moment, maybe he was realizing how precious life really is. To see a public figure so emotional and exposed like that on national TV really gave me the chills and I really felt for him. I think this video can relate to a lot of things we have talked about it class because I think it really showcases how vulnerable men can be, even though we are so use to the narrative of women being the emotional ones. I think Michael Jackson’s song, “Man in the Mirror,” calls for people to look at their own life and to change the things they don’t like, all big changes start with a tiny change, and I think this performance might have been just that for Chris Brown. I have attached the link so whoever wants to view his performance can.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIul8GdXdNA

His performance of “Man in the Mirror” doesn’t start until about 4 minutes in.

30 June 2010

I am simply torn between two different pieces of art that I want to submit that allows me to grapple with the ideas of the narratives we have been discussing in class. For the most part, I would say that both pieces are closely related and share a certain way of grappling with the scripts we have been assigned.

I have always been very interested in this idea of "suburban life" and the "ideal housewife." While I do agree that it was a much more prevalent ideal in the 1950s, I still believe it is highly circulated even today. I became sort of obsessed with the idea that we are conditioned to believe we must adopt this ideal without question, that is, getting married, having children, getting the house in the suburbs, when I started to pull apart why this is such a common narrative. I think in our society, mostly for women, we are taught to want as little as possible, to resign from having big dreams and realize that what we should want is a husband and children. In my own life, I have always been highly disinterested in ever having children, or even getting married. When people learn this about me, I generally always get the same responses, such as: "You're crazy! You're a woman, you have to have children." or my personal favorite, "Don't worry, eventually you will get baby fever and you will want a child." I have often wondered why people are so quick to judge my choices and why people believe that just because I am a woman, I want things like a husband and children. While I am sure those things are nice, I also want other things. And really, is that not okay?

My first text is something I have just started reading. It is called The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. Admittedly, I am only about 100 pages in, but I find it simply fascinating. It seems to be the perfect text to break down these conditioned ideals of women only wanting a husband and children. While my favorite passage is perhaps too long to include in this already lengthy blog, I will insert just a small section, "We can no longer ignore the voice within women that says, 'I want something more than my husband and my children and my home.'" I think Friedan raises a great point here and really is challenging the script women have been given. I think it is important to note your initial reaction to this passage and then ask important questions. It makes me wonder, why do women ignore that voice? And really, is there something wrong with wanting more than those things? Does that make a woman a bad or ungrateful person?

My second piece of art that grapples with this question is the film Revolutionary Road. For those of you who have not seen this oscar nominated movie from 2009, I highly recommend it. The film is a great challenger to the ideal 1950s suburban life and raises such important questions and issues. Unfortunately I could not find the scene that I chose to focus on but I will include a link to the trailer(it includes the quote I am focusing on) and I will bring the entire scene into class tomorrow. The basic premise of the scene is that April (the wife) is telling Frank (the husband) that they should move to paris as a means to escape their mundane life. I feel in this scene, April is really challenging the "delusion" that once people get older they are supposed to settle down and stop living. April says the most beautiful quote with much more eloquent phrasing than I could conjure up to describe exactly how I feel. "No, Frank. This is what's unrealistic. It's unrealistic for a man with a fine mind to go on working year after year at a job he can't stand. Coming home to a place he can't stand, to a wife who's equally unable to stand the same things. And you know what the worst part of it is? Our whole existence here is based on this great premise that we're special. They we're superior to the whole thing. But we're not. We're just like everyone else! We bought into the same, ridiculous delusion. That we have to resign from life and settle down the moment we have children. And we've been punishing each other for it." I feel this scene will contain even more meaning once I show it in class tomorrow.

Charles French June 30, 2010

After reading the piece by Harriot Jacobs a few things struck me. Throughout the piece she is very careful not to specifically name the horrible offenses that she has suffered. She states at one point that the offenses are "greater than you would willingly believe" ( 505). While I am aware that this may well be the truth, I am not so sure if leaving it up to the reader to completely fill in the blanks at this point is so effective. I would be more affected by this piece if she were to give a greater appeal to emotion. If she were to go into some detail about a few of the horrible things she has had to endure and then go on to note that there were far worse but to leave that to the imagination I think it would present a greater appeal to at least my emotion. (This isn't to say that I am not aware of at least a fraction of the things that slaves did go through, or that I am not against the practice of slaver, but for this blog I am responding to the particular techniques employed in this piece). I do think the piece is effective in the voice that is used. The author is not writing in the stereotypical southern black vernacular. Instead she employs a voice that is perhaps closer to that of the white northerner that she is appealing to. In doing this she gives the sense that she, as a former? black southern slave is not so distant from her audience as they may think and thus draws her own hardships closer to her audience.

As for the clothesline project, I felt that it was significantly less effective in appealing to me. The web page stated that the organization had been started in 1990 and that this was their official web page. For an organization/movement that has been around for going on twenty years I felt that the web page was severely lacking. First it was just the single web page with links containing contact information as well as a list of people and organizations who had/are participating in the movement/organization. There was very little information about the founding of the organization and just a brief statement about the purpose. Also I was unable to find any information on this web page about any impact that the movement/organization has had on their goal of reaching out to the public about the negative treatment of women. All of this lack of information from an organization/movement that has been around for nearly as long as I have gave me the impression that they were not very organized, or that this was not something that they took very seriously. The web page seemed more like a grass roots school project more than a serious cause to action in my opinion.

Kristin Goehri 06/30/10

One thing that I noticed in Harriet Ann Jacobs's piece was the way in which she asks for help. She writes, "Why do your tongues falter in maintenance of the right? Would that I had more ability! But my heart is so full, my pen so weak!" (506). She is playing on the fact that her listeners are the only ones with the power to make a difference. She is empowering their perception of their own strength. By using this technique, Jacobs is giving a universal message that victims often cannot help themselves. She is showing that it is others' responsibility to step up and help when they see something that is wrong.

I see the website working in a different way. The website seems to empower the survivor. The focus is on survivors stepping forward and speaking out. The call for action is a break of silence. The best technique that the website uses is showing, through statistics and pictures, the immense numbers of victims and survivors. This realization that they're not alone gives women the strength to speak up. For me, this website gave me a clearer idea of the magnitude of this problem.

BreAnna Brock

I found www.clotheslineproject.org to be very empowering. I loved how the use of art was somewhat of a get away to abused women. By putting their feelings down and out in the open i feel that this project will allow women to cope better and at some point be able to move past there violent past. In the book the girl constantly talked about needing protection, i found this very interesting when she said; " I longed for some one to confide in. I would have given the world to have laid my head on my grandmother's faithful bosom, and told her all my troubles". She just wants to feel loved but to also have someone who knows her pain and can help her get away even if its just for one second. This goes along with the Clothes Line Project because her grandmother would be somewhat of an outlet for her away from her pain. For the women of the Clothes Line Project there outlet is the artwork they do.