It's So Hard to Say GOODBYE!!!

It’s that time to say farewell to the critical &the Academy blog. I must say it has been an interesting experience. I have never been a part of a blog site before and to be quite honest I was not too keen on the idea at first. However, today I stand and admit that the blog was very helpful component to assisting me understand the theories that we learned throughout the semester.
I’ve had a couple of favorite topics/parts of the semester. My first one was the Matrix. I was excited to see the movie, in general, because I had never seen it…so it was a treat in general. But the fact that it entwined with Baudrillard’s concept of Simulacra and Simulation. That was a double treat. It really grasped the concept that Baudrillard was trying to illustrate, which was that the reality that we see through our lenses is not real and it’s exactly what the Matrix was trying to saying. But Baudrillard does not believe the Matrix understand his work. But for me, it did. It helped me understand the concept. One of my favorite topics is feminism. Especially since I had to do some research on it, since my paper was on the feminist view and the objectification of women in music videos. It allowed me to open my eyes to a lot of things and realize how women are objectified in the media. Hopefully, I don’t become like that Grad student and start analyzing every piece of media that I come in contact with and start applying the theories.
But for the most part it has been a positive experience and I feel like I can walk away from the class gaining knowledge that I didn’t have when I arrived to the class for the first time. So I want to thanks Dr. McGuire and the others who helped us understand these theories throughout the semester. Greatly appreciate it… Thank you!!!

Signed,

S.B. Eyez

Thank you Tanya Krouse.......FEMINIST!!!

First, I want to thank Tanya Krouse for taken the time to write this post to give us a deeper understanding behind feminism and literature. We truly appreciate it.

Usually when people say the word “feminist”….the negative stereotypes start rolling out. Usually people think feminists are man-hating lesbians, who are scary, ugly, hairy, and wear combat boots all day. However, the problem with these stereotypes and assumptions of what feminist is that they are completely WRONG. My definition of a feminist is a woman who does not conform to the convention of femininity and make it a mission to empowerment women (they believe men and women should have equality rights).

I believe that through literature feminist want to show the inequality that women face and present women in their own identity; rather than through a man. For years, we as women have faced problems with proving ourselves to be considered on the level of men. Overall, women have obtained enormous things over the years…things that people in the 50s possible would have believed was impossible. However, we still have ways to go. In my paper I took a feminist view on women being objectified in the media(specifically music videos) and through my studies I realized that although women have gain their own identity throughout the years, we still conform into the norm of being shape around a male figure. In music videos, in particular, most of the women are presented to be the object of the man’s desire and detached from their being. They are not presented as people with ambition, emotions, and dream. The question is why is it that women are only presented this way? Why they are only presented as sexual beings in popular culture today? I think it stems down to what it means to be a woman, not biologically but socially. Most women in today’s society have been taught to act a certain way and if we do not follow the norm then they will be referred to as masculine or even a bitch. Feminist just want people to start viewing women as equal and not people that are only identified through men, and I can definitely agree with that. In my opinion I believe that we can achieve bigger things and until that wall is brought down…we will never know what can be obtained.