Major Post #5

As cultures spread, traditions among the people transform to fit their environments; these traditions include clothing, language, and most importantly, food. Americans generally think places such as Panda Express serves “Chinese” food or Taco Bell caters “Mexican” food when in reality, these foods do not even have roots from the cultures themselves. The fortune cookie, for example, is generally known as a Chinese desert when in reality it originated from San Francisco, as discussed by Jennifer Lee in the article “‘Fortune Cookie’ Offers New Taste of America” by Michelle Norris. In this interview, Lee explains how the fortune cookie is looked upon as Chinese when it does not even originate from the culture, posing the question of what other common foods could be a misconception of culture. With this, I proceeded to interview my mother Wilma Tamraz about her favorite dish within our Assyrian culture and if there could be a possibility of this misconception of this food actually originating from another culture.

My mother grew up with her currently favorite dish of a stuffed tomato, eggplant, and pepper mixture called “dolma.” She was born and raised in Iran, among a dominantly Persian society but still holding onto Assyrian traditional food.  Her mother taught her how to cook this dish and she brought this heritage with her to the US when she moved in the 1970’s, and has been periodically cooking it for my father and I ever since. She was taught by her mother that the dish was as old as the civilization itself and had always been originally Assyrian. Modern day middle eastern cuisines carry this dish along with popular Persian restaurants. However they did not change the food in any way and kept its original recipe (though there are different variations of the dish) unlike American restaurants that change dishes to “Americanized” versions. My mother explained it as special to her because not only is it a good tasting dish, but it is part of her personal identity and her history as a culture. It is especially important because the Assyrian culture is generally nonexistent since there no longer is an “Assyria,” but this keeps the history alive and present.  Also, the fact that this food is completely Assyrian brings the sense of nationalism, even when there is no country, it still gives hope that the Assyrian culture will exist.

Through this interview I found how important it is to value true, cultural food rather than dig into foods that are simply quickly made with no special background. Much like how Jennifer Lee looked into fortune cookies and found they are not actually a part of Chinese culture, I learned one must understand the foods they are eating when categorizing it culturally. My mother’s dolma for example holds greater value than fortune cookies because it was brought up from the culture itself instead of made into a misconception that it is of that culture, like how America has done on fortune cookies and the Chinese food culture. Though i do not find it bad to embrace these Americanized foods, I think Jennifer Lee would agree when I say that they should be looked into before connected to a culture just because the environment of the restaurant reflects aspects of that culture. Also, actual, authentic foods hold more value than these transformed foods because, as my mother said, they give a taste of the history behind the culture rather than just eating a quick fast food meal.

Major Post #3

Feminist Frequency 

The Feminist Frequency blog is run by Anita Sarkeesian, a media and pop culture critic who takes a feminist standpoint to point out her views and perspectives; she utilizes video blog posts to share these views on a range of feminist topics mainly pertaining to discrepancies in the media that lead to misconceptions among females. In her blog, Anita Sarkeesian takes typical media movies, music, TV shows, etc. to point out these misconceptions the media tries to make against females and sheds light on these truths so the audience would be informed and think differently than what society tries to portray as “normal” with females.

One of The Feminist Frequency’s blog posts includes Tropes vs. Women: #5 The Mystical Pregnancy, which is a video post where Sarkeesian informs how the media is using TV shows to degrade women through sci-fi shows where women are “reduced to their biological functions,” mainly pertaining to  pregnancy.  Through these science fiction TV shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Stargate SG-1. women are looked upon as characters that simply get tortured through pregnancy and giving birth to aliens; throughout these shows, the process is simply made to look painful and unappealing for a woman who did not know much about pregnancy. Women should be known in society to be the bearers of children who bring life into the world, but the media and Hollywood directors keep bringing a bad name to the process. Politics are also imposing against women and their freedoms with pregnancy where laws are being passed against miscarriages and abortion, where women as individuals are not allowed to do what they want with their bodies. All in all, Anita Sarkeesian is pointing out the misconceptions the media is working to make: that women are only good for pregnancy and pregnancy is a bad thing; she points these out so her audience does not believe these things and that they should get Hollywood producers and directors to portray women as more valuable characters with more to them than just pregnancy, and that pregnancy is not a bad thing after all. This view on the topic is important because the typical audience of these TV shows does not catch these misconceptions that the media is trying to make while Sarkeesian proves how wrong they are along with proof of how prosperous they are. This thinking goes against conventional thinking because it is against how the media portrays these women; the media tries to display “normal” thinking and going against this typically goes against conventional thinking that the media creates.

Another post on the blog is Tropes vs. Women: #4 The Evil Demon Seductress; in this post, Anita Sarkeesian shows how the media is utilizing TV shows and movies such as X-Men and Batman to show that a woman’s only power against men is her sexuality. Throughout these movies, vampires, mermaids, and alien women are shown as overpowering and dangerous only due to their sexuality where men fall as victims to their clutches. These movies and TV shows are getting people to believe that women are powerful only due to this, while Sarkeesian goes against this trope and asks producers to show women as more than dangerous and overpowering only because of their “sexual powers.” Hollywood needs to incorporate more with women in movies than having these ideas and misconceptions only for the purpose of attracting the male demographics. Having this in popular movies and shows makes the ideas expand to reality where women are prone to being degraded because of their apparent power the media has given them. This feminist view is important because not many people realize what the media is doing to women; Sarkeesian’s view brings about a fair result that there could be female villans in these movies but not only revolving around their power being their sexuality, since that expands to bring about misconceptions against women in reality.

Internet and Cultural Criticism Assignment

Angry Asian Man blog: 

1) The man behind this blog has taken up the alias of “Angry Asian Man” who concentrates on the roles and positions of Asian Americans in the American society. He concentrates on racism but not for the intention of bringing down the racist; instead, he studies and points out racism because he is interested in the topic. His intentions behind the blog are to simply post his opinions and observations of racism especially towards Asians in society.

2) One of Angry Asian Man’s posts is “harold and kumar’s yuletide jamz.” In this post, he shares his liking of the Harold and Kumar Christmas songs that are parodies of original Christmas songs. At the end of the post, he advertises the new Harold and Kumar movie A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas. Though he does not share why he posts this, this movie is a prime example of an Asian American (Harold) going against cultural norms for Asians in an American society, showing Angry Asian Man’s liking of this different portrayal of an Asian American character.

Another one of his posts is “kim ng not hired for general manager job. again.” Here, he talks the Asian American woman Kim Ng who was a candidate for a job of general manager of the LA Angels, a job where no Asian American women are found. Angry Asian Man posts his grief and disappointment because it was a chance for Kim to have a job outside of what would be a normal job for a stereotypical Asian American woman.

Disgrasian blog: 

1) This blog is run by Diana Nguyen and Jen Wang, two Asian American women who point out Asian American people and actions who do not fit every day norms of society. They observe and humorously report these events to promote/demote their actions.

2) One post by Disgrasian, called “Forever 21 tells girls that math is hard” observes the shirts put out by Forever 21 and its founder Do Won Chang. These shirts, some of which say math is hard the other promote Yale and Harvard, were removed a day after release. The authors take a humorous look at this stating the irony of the actions and how the shirts do not “compute.”

Another post on the blog is called “But what does Japanime Brittany do?” illustrates a humorous conversation between Brittany Spears and two dancers who dress up in Japanese outfits in a concert. In this conversation, Brittany and two dancers are mocked for why they wore the outfits, showing the author’s satirical view at the celebrities and their intentions of promoting Asian culture.

Bitch blog: 

1) This blog is geared toward feminism where media and society are looked upon with a feminist view and perspective. The intention of the blog is to display these views and share the realities of every day life, going against what people think as “normal.”

2) One of the blogs by Bitch Media is “Mom and Pop Culture: Dealing with the Halloween Hangover” where truths are shared with over-sexualized costumes for kids, mainly girls. Corporations are pointed out for increasing sexuality in kids costumes and making it seem like the norm when Halloween is supposed to be about “ghosts and goblins” instead of the media pushing kids to dress poorly and take away the creative aspect of Halloween. This view isn’t necessarily feminist but it still shows a social issue where the media is pushing norms and degrading children.

Another post on this blog is “In the Frame: Great Artists Always Male? I Demand A Recount!” This blog post points out the history of famous artists and how females were left out of this loop. This post is to bring modern female artists who do not get enough attention for their art into the light so they can share and be famous like the male artists. This post brings about the neglected truth that females have been excluded from art yet no one has noticed. The authors point this out and promote female artists to fix this issue.

Feminist Frequency blog: 

1) This blog belongs to Anita Sarkeesian who is a feminist and blogs about news concerning women in order to spread news and bring about popularity with feminism.

2) One of her posts is “The Straw Feminist” which is a video where the author brings up women’s roles in modern day cartoons where characters are portrayed as how the media wants their norm to be. Sarkeesian brings up that cartoons teach people, especially kids how social norms are supposed to be but they are not the reality of the situation. The author brings this up to have people aware of these and act accordingly against how the media wants their audience to act.

Another post on her blog is “Feminist Critiques of SlutWalk” where the author informs about the event where police told women to “stop dressing like sluts” in order to prevent sexual violence and how anger towards this act brought about SlutWalk. The author shows her belief against this organization because of its controversial name and how they are neglecting important issues such as rape. She also goes to show how this organization does not help because it is generally not sexual liberation. Overall, the author proves her views because few are against this organization and she wants to prove why is it deficient.

Illdoctrine blog: 

1) This blog is run by Jay Smooth, the founder of Hip Hop’s Underground Railroad radio who shows his views and opinions through a series of videos featured on his blog. In his videos, he states his opinions through modern events and utilizes them to prove his point and point out ridiculous things he finds in society. These events range from the media to politics and satirically uses them to prove his own  point, mainly pointing out the irony of the situation.

2) One of his posts is “How the BET Awards Changed my Life.” In this post he uses a funny picture from the awards to expand to the ridiculousness of modern events that are important to the general public today. He covers a range of topics including Rebecca Black’s video to show how low society has gone this past year, all from one picture of a celebrity from the BET awards. This view is important because rarely anyone ever thinks about how society and what people think is important has degraded over 2011 and the years preceding. It catches people’s attention, is funny, yet all in all holds true.

Another post he has is “On Rick Perry and Superman;” in this post, Jay Smooth takes another simple but modern event and uses it to point out the irony in politics. In this video, he talks about how Rick Perry was asked if he were a superhero who he would be and he said Superman because he came and saved the US, when clearly Superman was an immigrant who would be outlawed today. Here, the irony of how people look to superheroes as their heroes yet won’t accept everyday people like them is pointed out.

Racialicious blog:

1) Racialicious is a blog run by many people, more like a company than a blog, all who have the vision of pointing out racial issues in pop culture today that would not seem apparent to the general public. It covers a range of races rather than one and shows support to the oppressed and takes initiative to get people to think differently than what the media or society portrays as normal in every day life when it is racist.

2) One of the posts on the blog is “Open Letter to the PocaHotties and Indian Warriors this Halloween” where a letter is shared by someone who finds offense with Halloween that portray and distort a race or culture. This specific letter concentrates on Native American costumes that distort the actual culture but can expand on all races that people dress up as for Halloween. This view is important because Halloween is a time that the media and society shows is normal to dress up as another race or culture even if its not to make humor out of it, but little do people know that those of that racial group find these offensive and creates discomfort on a day that is supposed to be celebrated by everyone.

Another post is “We are the 99%: Chinese American Youth Edition” where the blog promotes those Asian American youth in San Francisco who are participating in the Occupy programs in order to bring support to them and their families. As stated in the blog, these issues with this youth serves as a “reality check” to those who are unaware of these lifestyles yet serves as inspiration to help.

Superhero Assignment

Beniel lived life as an average kid living with his parents in a San Jose neighborhood. He attended high school, enjoyed friends and worked hard on his homework. However, the one thing that set him apart was his love for music; he would go home and spend some time playing his favorite instrument: the guitar. For hours on end he would be either writing or listening to music, recording tracks and learning covers.

Beniel would not only listen to the music but also pay attention to lyrics, listening to the artists’ intake on life and their ideas. As he kept familiarizing himself with all types of music, he began to notice lyrics among popular artists becoming more vulgar, glorifying violence and drug abuse. One night as he was walking down the street, he witnessed his first crime scene where two criminals robbed a man of his money. He was astonished to see this because he had never seen this in his neighborhood; more nights passed by and more and more he noticed these crimes yet he felt helpless because he couldn’t stop them. By the time he would call the cops, they would have fled and he certainly was not one to pick a fight. As he spent nights wondering why people would suddenly turn to crime, he realized it was the music they listened to, but he could not do anything about that.

One stormy night as Beniel was carrying his guitar to his car after a show, he was struck by a flash of lightning that knocked him out. Surprisingly he got up right after feeling fine as if nothing ever happened; however when he got home the next day and started his practice session on guitar again, lightning shot out of his fingers every time they played a note by holding down the metal strings. He also found he could control the lightning by pointing his fingers at the target. He kept practicing guitar and of course his lightning powers and devoted this to using them for the good of the people. With this devotion he lived life by day as Beniel and by night as his new alias: Guitar Kid, using his lightning powers and his guitar to strike criminals, put them in their place, and save innocent civilians. He was praised as the hero with his strings of wonder; little did they know he was just a typical high school kid with a devotion to live for: to improve the lives of others.

Major Post #1

In the documentary Examined Life, Astra Taylor follows eight individual philosophers who share their ideas with the audience and explore settings from landfills to airports to 5th Avenue in New York, all of which pertain to the general ideas of their philosophies. Of these philosophers, the one that stood out to me was Peter Singer who examines the true meaning of life and what entitles us to the rights we think we are given, such as killing animals for our pleasure and use.

To live a life that is meaningful according to Peter Singer, one must make contributions to others so that the world can benefit from their life instead of gaining nothing from one’s “unexamined” life. With more depth, he uses an example where one would sacrifice their expensive shoes to save the life of a drowning child but they do not know that by donating that money given for those shoes to UNICEF or any other organization, the life of a child (maybe even multiple children) would be saved; thus, people must not indulge in Gucci, Aldo, etc. products and instead should donate and help those in need. But is indulging in pleasures after hard work morally good or bad? Are they doing wrong when they are simply living life the way they want? I believe not, but what if everyone of these people was conscious of these alternatives for money spending? For example, what if a Prada store set a picture of a child in need that could be saved next to each product in the store? There would definitely be a lot more money going for those children. In turn, those people would feel greater satisfaction in life and improve the lives of others around the world; they just need to be aware of this idea. I, myself for example, was not conscious of Singer’s idea until watching Taylor’s video of him which changed my view of buying things for myself, as it would for others if the ideas were introduced to society.

Singer examines more ethics within daily life such as eating; specifically, meat. With this topic, he questions what gives us the right to treat animals the way we do nowadays and how it is justifiable. Overall in society, Singer states that things such as animals are being taken for granted and thus treated the way we feel like just “because we like the taste of its flesh.” This example stands out to me because it can expand to the idea of changing perspectives to where an action can be justifiable. Another example of this happens every day in New York: walking past a homeless man. In this occurrence, countless people simply walk  past worrying about how their day at work will go or where they’ll go out for lunch; now, if they would change their perspective to that of the homeless man would their actions change? If they kept walking past and ignoring with this consciousness of the homeless’s perspective would this be perceived as justifiable? Though it is not exactly the same as eating meat since there is no killing taking place, this example follows Singer’s idea that actions would be changed to being justifiable if one were to change their perspective, like that of not eating animal meat after one sees through their eyes.

I think Singer brought up an interesting concept when saying how an ethical choice is not based on one’s own liking but the liking of others around you and their perspective on the choice. Yes, the world would be a better place if everyone vested more interest in others than themselves but I personally think that people need to have an idea of other’s perspectives in order to have that interest for others. For example, people will not look into becoming vegetarian like Singer until they have come face to face with factory farms and the perspective of the animals. Overall, Peter Singer’s points and ideas bring about ways to better the world and lead individuals into living a meaningful, examined life once they are aware of these ideas.

Implicit Association Test

When I first navigated to the IAT site from the Creative Minds course blog, I was pretty skeptical with how accurate the readings from the test would be. I, personally, was expecting a bunch of multiple choice questions that would be like any average assessment test that would simply scan the answers and come up with a generic and obvious result. However, I was pretty surprised with how the IAT tests were formatted and the psychologists’ reasoning behind the test results to lead to numerous conclusions. Previous tests I’ve taken in the past have included mandatory school assessment reviews, career choices, etc. but this one really stood out from the rest to me, mainly because of the strategies used to read one’s unconscious by noting how fast/slow specifically placed questions were answered.

For the gender test, I received what I initially thought I would get so no surprises there; “Your data suggests little or no association between Male and Female with Career and Family.” Differences between males and females in roles of society had never been an issue I ever really thought about so I was satisfied with my result. On the other hand, I was not very satisfied with my result on the race test, that my “data suggests a moderate automatic preference for European American compared to African American.” I was not satisfied with this because I thought I would get the same score that I got on the gender test because I really feel that there is no difference in my personal preference. However, I think I may have gotten this because this was my first time taking the test and I may have taken my time a little more rather than answering based on my immediate reaction; which is probably why I feel that my gender test score is more accurate. Even though my score does fall into the majority of other people’s scores, I still do not believe I have any personal preferences between the two.

Overall, I think taking this test was a good experience. I wouldn’t really call it “enlightening” because I already knew how I felt about the two test subjects but I found the test procedure pretty interesting. That aspect stood out to me of all things in the test and I would recommend this site for anyone who is curious about how they unconsciously feel about the other test topics available.

Plato’s “Apology” Questions

1. In Plato’s “The Apology,” how does Socrates come across to you?  Why do you think Plato chose to characterize him the way that he did?

Socrates in “The Apology” comes across to me as a wise and humble individual who seeks justice over what pleases him; even when he knows he is not at fault and does not deserve to die, he apologizes for his actions and gives in to the final death sentence without argument. He instead utilizes these events to prove his point to others where “an unexamined life is not worth living.” In the story, Plato characterizes Socrates the way he does simply because he was always on Socrates’ side as his pupil who passes on his philosophical ideas. Plato portrays him as a hero as an image for others to follow who soon followed Socrates’ teachings.

2. Who are Socrates’ opponents and what are they accusing him of?

Socrates’ opponents are Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon who represent the poets, craftsmen, politicians, artisans, etc. They accuse him of corrupting the youth and questioning the gods’ existence.

3. What does Socrates value?

Through his actions in the story, Socrates is shown to value truth, justice, and honor. He does not act on what he wants; instead, he proves the true reason to his actions through his apology and thus goes with what the jury believes is a fair sentence. He knows that he was falsely accused, goes to tell the truth, and dies a humble death.

4. What did the oracle really mean about Socrates being the wisest man?

The oracle, when saying that Socrates is the wisest man, meant that for being a humble man questioning what he sees around him, Socrates is the wisest. He acts upon what he physically sees around him instead of questioning spiritual ideas in society and what is beyond the human mind, which is why he does not seem to believe in the gods. The politicians, artisans, and craftsmen around him only think they are wiser because of their views beyond the human eye and thus think of themselves as gods rather than men. Since this idea leaves Socrates as the only “man” in society, he is seen as wise by the oracle because he questions physical and psychological concepts rather than spiritual ones.

Image #3

Image #3

14) Someone who knows a popular dance and is willing to teach the team that dance.

14) Someone who knows a popular dance and is willing to teach the team that dance.

12) Someone who saw 3 Transformer films

12) Someone who saw 3 Transformer films