I personally don't find her attractive but that's just down to personal preference. The culture issue is a hard one i guess, the media pander to the public and the public follow the media. Its a vicious cycle. The problem i have with the discussion of racism is that in almost invariably focuses on white vs black, over here we have a bit of a problem where ethnic minorities are being racist towards each other and/or towards the white population but its being brushed under the carpet because no one wants to approach the subject. It's swings and roundabouts as far as im concerned. Not sure "coloured" is the correct term to use The portrayal of white people as nerdy, clumsy etc is sort of what im talking about, its going too far in the other direction.
Meant it as in 'a person of color.' There were several ethnicities, hence the word-choice. You're right, it has 19th century connotations. My bad.
It doesn't even have to be about looks. Social pressures and media control the sheep every day. My blood still gets boiled when I think about the "Tickle Me Elmo" Christmas; parents trampling parents for a doll that I don't even think their kids wanted that much. It happens every year; some dicks in NYC decides what is the hottest gift for the season and watch the public clamor about trying to get their kids a faux golden fleece. Those same dicks drink their pinky-out cocktails at the same private club that those in charge of "what's hot" snort their nose candy off the highly polished bathroom counters. Why does that club exist? What gives them the power? We do. Stop giving a shit about what your favorite celeb is doing, buy what you want to buy, sleep with who you want to sleep with.
I don't think the vast majority of people ever really question their own premises. It's not remunerative, emotionally. You don't feel good finding out you're wrong (if you're the average spoonfed herd animal), so it's best to nod and congratulate yourself, right? Asking ourselves why we do or don't do something is work. White males are easy targets in the mass-media market, because anyone who complains courts charges of racism. And in general, the white folk are nerdy stereotype doesn't find nearly the same number of critics as blacks are criminals / Arabs are terrorists / Jews are money-hungry etc. I'm not defending any stereotypes, but it's obvious that some are more acceptable, in our culture, than others. As a white man, it's sometimes frustrating to be held to account for forebears whose views don't reflect my own; and it's definitely irritating to be assumed to be racist or chauvinist by dint of my complexion or gender. Pray soon that the media catches up; I'm tired of their horseshit.
On the other hand, being nerdy isn't that negative. Nerdy = smart. And there're other racial nerd stereotypes, the nerdy Indian, the nerdy Japanese/Asian. Of course, sitcoms tend to play with stereotypes a lot. Even though I'm not super savvy with the correct terms, I was a bit surprised 'cracker' was used in the show quite lightly. I've understood it hasn't positive connotations (while it's not as offensive as the N-word).
I remember playing basketball with a few black people a long time ago, and one of them kept calling me "cracker" and "whitey" in a very negative manner. After a while it became annoying, so I asked him to stop. He asked why, and I said that he was basically being racist by saying those things. He then replied, "There's no such thing as racism against white people." Granted, these were kids who were just starting high school, but it was still a weird comment. It all worked out in the end because I completely dominated them.
I recently saw a show about this very thing that said that the idea of beauty isn't perpetuated by the media, but instead something that is innate and known as the "Golden Ratio." I think I originally saw this on the television show "Brain Games." http://facethis.blogspot.com/2012/01/perfect-face-golden-ratio-beauty.html
One area where the stick-like white physique isn't the ideal shape is the currently popular fitness world. There small, flat butts and skinny limbs are seen as negative traits and a pale complexion is a bad thing that has to be fixed (all the contestants either go to tanning salons or use self-tanning products). This doesn't have that much to do with racial issues, but it is disturbing: the contestants are athletes, yet many if not most judges place a lot of emphasis on what they see as the beauty standards of that world, i.e. the women have to be muscular, yet have a curvy hourglass figure and they have to have trimmed figures with low body fat, yet they must have big breasts, which isn't really even possible since breasts are mostly fat. So what's the current trend among professionals? Almost all of the top women in the female fitness / figure etc. circles have silicon implants. What kind of a message does that send to girls and aspiring athletes? Yeah, be athletic and lose fat, but by God, you must have big hooters. I mean, when a woman has low body fat, the plastic boobs don't look anymore natural than if I glued grapefruits on my chest. I've noticed this trend when, within the span of around 2 years, pretty much all the Finnish pros have gotten implants, which I just find sad. Some of them have talked about it in interviews, saying that if they want to succeed in the big leagues (i.e. USA), implants are a must because if you have a small bust (and they all do in the competitions because their body fat is in the low single digits), the judges dock points for not being "womanly" enough. And here I always thought what made a person a woman was to have girl parts instead of implants that any man could get as well, but maybe that's just me... /rant
@Andrae Smith : That's a really beautiful comment I agree with you completely. My brother in law is very dark skinned (Jamaican) so when we were buying my baby nephew children's books, it was really difficult to find children's books that actually feature black people. My sister was saying how stupid she'd feel giving Leo a book that features a white 'Dad', for example. The bias against any look other than determined as 'desirable' in the media is shocking, and it's just discrimination. And I agree that it's ridiculous to focus on the physical so much. This obsession with appearance is way more prominent than even I remember from 20 years ago. I think with the internet, we suddenly started to be inundated by images unlike ever before. It was only a matter of time before we became obsessed with it. It's quite sad really, because there's far less 'free will' involved if you know how to push people's buttons in just the right way. People are extremely easily influenced, and sadly, they aren't even aware of it. It could also be that advertising and profit chasing pushed the beauty agenda a tad too far and now we have a problem.
@Thumpalumpacus it is work, but I'm one of those guys that usually advises, meditation, introspection, soul searching and such when people have certain kinds of problems. I think it is important to "know yourself" inwardly, outwardly, and completely, and to do that, one must take the time to ask the why questions. Sometimes there are answers, sometimes not, but there is almost always some sort of pay off (at least in my experience). If something is bothering you, and you try figure out why it matters to you so much, you might find out that it doesn't matter at all. Otherwise you may find that it matters but you'll know why it matters and maybe how you can fix it at the root. Yup it's work. @jazzabel You raise a great point with the internet. Think of it this way. We are all able to hide behind screens projecting whatever image we want to out to the world. The image is your introduction. Without the right image, you don't fit in with certain online communities. Translate that back to real life and now you must find a way to match your image. You become hyper-aware of how you think people are seeing you because you want to control your image to the same degree that you can on the computer. That's one explanation. Another is, as you mentioned, the overflow of advertisements inundating us much more constantly. And we only ever see people of with a certain image. If everyone we see looks one way, and we don't the natural response is that we are out of place. At first it was tv. Now there's the internet, which knows no such thing as filters (save for parental control). It's nauseating.
@Andrae Smith : I also find it interesting, how certain age groups view the internet. You have kids who were born after the internet was firmly established in our lives, some of us were at university when emails became a big thing and then there are others who were already parents or grandparents when the internet first appeared. I think different internet 'generations' view the internet with less or more detachment.
Shrek is not Disney - Shrek's from Dreamworks. I'd be more interested in Disney's actual non-white princesses like Tiana, Esmeralda, Mulan, Pocahontas etc. But it's true that the predominate princesses still seem to be white (Ariel, Snow White, Belle, Aurora, Rapunzel). I don't believe I've ever seen a black doll, or a black barbie... Anyway, the speech reminded me of The Bluest Eye, how this black girl's one wish was to wake up one day with blue eyes. Sad Sometimes moving across the world could be good for your self-esteem. Being Chinese, white skin is celebrated and blonde/brown wavy hair is desired. Growing up in England meant all my friends around me envied my easily-acquired golden tan (in fact, the darker, the better), and they were forever telling me how they wish they had luscious black hair like mine. What's more, most of my female friends owned a hair straightener and talked about straightening their hair, while I stood there wondering why they'd want that when they have beautiful waves. I didn't get it for ages. I still don't get it really. But yes, that was good for my self-perception. But I still didn't like my rather flat and wide nose until I found my husband, who thinks it's the cutest thing in the world lol What we all need, I think, it's just a few people who are close to us and love us. Approval from the people who really matter to you can block out a lot of poison.
I remember how as a kid it was so important to have your "own" Disney princess. My redhaired friend would be Ariel, the blonde friends could choose between Cinderella and Aurora, etc. Maybe that's just another reason why having a princess like Tiana is important. Still, as a white kid, you could choose from several princesses, while there's only one Native American princess, one Chinese/East Asian princess, one Arab, one African American, and one Romani.
To be fair, a lot of those characters are very old. Also consider the audienece they catered to, people naturally relate to people of the same culture, if you go to any university in this country you will see that in the first few weeks the students will naturally gravitate to people of the same ethnicity. I'd bet it's the same all round. I found I'm not represented...at all in Asia, but I dont mind as I'm a visitor.
Actually, you are represented in Asia. Most anime drawn in any of the more realistic styles (not moe or shoujo style) are drawn with unquestionably western facial features. Especially the male characters. The female characters can often be easily argued to be either/or, but rarely the men.
Yeah, I understand that, the stories are old, yet their roots or other variants of them can be found in places we might not have expected; Albania, Armenia, India, Russia... Of course Disney has the right to make the Little Mermaid into a wildchild who gets the prince in the end 'cause a suicide story of a mopy teenager just wouldn't sell that well, after all, it's their interpretation, but the audience has changed over time, especially the American audience, and if Disney writers can give the mermaid a Hebrew name and a Grimm-esque happy ending, surely they can do other cultural mash-ups too. Having more role models like Lupita, or animation heroines like Tiana can be really important to a kid, and it wouldn't be a matter of, I don't know, catering to visitors? I just don't think it's quite the same as you going to Asia for a visit and expecting that their folk tales described the hero as a white Brit... And as @Wreybies pointed out, manga and anime are riddled with Caucasian-looking characters. On a sidenote, my hubbie just ordered this novel, Eona, by Alison Goodman. It takes place in a fantasy world very similar to ancient China, yet the girl on the cover is a Caucasian wielding Chinese swords. The cover for the first book of the duology, The Two Pearls of Wisdom, on the the other hand, shows a Chinese-looking girl. The author doesn't describe the heroine in detail, so she could be imagined any way the reader wishes.
I'm not represented in many Tyler Perry movies. I'm sorry we have to get over it and move on. History, the world, the media...they are all very big and if you look hard enough you'll find things you like, thing you hate, things that are like you, things different than you, and maybe if you look deep enough maybe you'll even find something to pleasure yourself to. The point is, if you are only looking for something to complain about, you'll find it, but doesn't that say more about your psyche than it does about the rest of the world?
Culture is always changing. When it starts changing away from what makes us comfortable or from what we are accustomed to, this causes discomfort at some level, but within the paradigmatic wrapper of culture, always there is someone on the receiving end of that discomfort. The focus changes, but is always present somewhere.
With some matters one may decide to stay in the side lines and shut up -- fine -- while something else makes them "complain" or criticize or [insert the verb of your choice with the connotations of your choice] -- also fine. I daresay, though, that it's the "complainers" who tend to have a better chance at changing and improving things than those who stay quiet and count their blessings. Of course, if there's nothing left to improve... Then that's another matter.
I agree, however I'm not sure how often you visit the UK or how familiar you are with English culture, the problem we seem to be having over here, especially in the southern big cities is that the as the diversity of the people increases so does the dilution of the "englsih" culture. Where I grew up we have local areas where the signs (not shops, but train stations, council buildings etc) were written in Indian with a English translation underneath. The general feeling about that wasn't good. It's not a change in culture buts couple that with a comeplete removal of English restaurants, pubs and shops. It effectively removed our culture from the area.
What comes around, goes around... You're being colonized in turn! Though I think it might've been Hindi, not 'Indian.'
