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26 November 2012

Film"Midnight Cowboy" Hard place for gays

1969 film that a young Texan boy travelled to New York hoping that he would make a fortune but just got troubles ending up being a male whore in cowboy outfit selling sex to men on 42nd street.

I learnt about this film by reading a magazine article published in the same year. That was Japanese magazine. It says "The film is about gay issue in America. That describes how hard for gays living in America. In Japan gays are considered abnormal but not outlawed and in showbiz industry gays can take advantage of what they are. In most states of America gay sex is outlawed. For politicians exposing himself as being gay means end of his political career." (November 18, 1969, PREIBOUI (Playboy) published by Shueisha) That was Japanese perspective of the film at that time.

Sounds odd. Now as we see, America is much more open society to gays than Japan. There are openly gay congressmen and a senator. In some states gay marriage is legalized. But just a generation plus ten years ago, America was a hell for gays. The film clearly described how homophobiac American society had been.

Maybe such oppression turned driving force for liberation along with other civil rights movement like Blacks and women.

The story of the film was very boring to me but I understand significance of the message delivered in the film. Surprisingly the film was released as X-rated at that time. It can never be classified as X-rated by today's standard. Maybe because it was a time even a Color TV with remote was considered most sophisticated product as depicted in the film.

Things have changed drastically over the decades.

22:43 Posted in Film, Society | Permalink | Comments (0) | Tags: gay, homosexuality, cowboy

07 October 2012

Film"The Help" and "Precious" Elegant & Rich Whites and Vulgar & Poor Blacks

Two films are stories about Afro-Americans in the U.S. Both of them described hard situations that Black people had experienced in the past and maybe even now.

"The Help" was a story of Afro-American maids working for white families in Mississippi in 1960's when segregation was very common. Afro-American maids were not allowed to share bathroom with white family members. They had to always put up with white people's arrogance. A young white writer decided to write about their experience and publish that by interviewing them.

"Precious" was about a girl of the same name living in Harlem, New York, 1980's. She got two babies with her father. She was raped since she was a child. Her mother abused her because of pregnancy. Her mother and she lived on welfare. She had to stop attending middle school for pregnancy. So she had to attend special school for dropped outs.

Portrayals of Black people in the both films are kind of, from white perspective although Afro-American characters played important roles. They spoke grammatically incorrect English like "You is smart." They looked uneducated, vulgar and violent, wheras white or lighter skin characters looked elegant, educated and kind. That reflects on reality? Maybe or maybe not.

For white viewers such kind of films satisfy their supremacy and ease frustration caused by forcible integration.

Has America changed since Civil Rights Act?  

Mr. Obama is the president of the U.S. He is half-white and not descendant of slaves. If he was a pure Afro-American of slave descendant, he would have never been elected. He wasn't popular in the Southern States even among Democrats. Because he was elected, since his inauguration, number of Racist activist group has drastically increased.

Most recent survey for income gap among racial groups found Black and white gap recorded biggest since 1984 when the survey was first conducted. It was due to recession but why the burden biased to Afro-Americans? Racism? Poverty and lack of education caused by racial discrimination.

I don't like this part of America but this is reality of America.   

06 September 2012

Film"The Iron Lady" Mrs. Thatcher was indeed Iron lady

Biopic of former British prime minister, the only female PM in British history. Maybe she was as notable as Queen Elizabeth in pre-modern time.

She was born in a family of grocery. Her father was local mayor. She studied in Oxford.

She lived through 2nd world war, and struggled with male dominated society.

After she became prime minister, she won the war with Argentine over terriroritorital sovereignty in South Atlantic sea. At that time US was not very supportive, rather Reagan proposed peace pact with Argentine. That taught us what would happen if similar thing happens between China and Japan.

At that time, Thatcher told the U.S., what did you do when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour? Did you abondon Hawaii because it was so far away and not many people lived there? Did you propose peace pact to Tojo?

She was once about to be assassinated by IRA but survived.

This film described her being woman did not matter to what she did. She had capability of what she wants to do.

Recently I asked some British people about their reputation of Mrs. Thatcher. Surprisingly they did not like her very much. Is it because of her neo-liberal policy? She cut budget spending and privatised national businesses.

Whether that resulted in a good way or not, she had done those things with her firm determination.

Why we never had such a strong leader in our country's politics!

22:09 Posted in Britain, Film, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | Tags: women, feminism, history

19 August 2012

Film"Julie & Julia" How fun it is to write blog!

A young woman who lived in New York decided to write blog on her try on all of recipes wriitten on America's most famous cooking personality named Julia Child.

After she completed all the recipes, she became famous for her blog. That was a true story.

The movie itself wasn't so impressive. Kind of typical and exaggerated. Just one thing that impressed me was writing blog indeed changes your life.

Is it every blogger's dream that your own personal blog became so famous that a lot of people read it and make a fortune?

Even you can't have so many readers and make so much money by that, you can still enjoy writing blog. Sometimes you get comments which impresses you. Even small number of readers that are impressed and tell you how they feel about it, that is good enough.

I am experiencing that. It is just fun to share your life experience with other people whom you have never seen. Like Julia, when you start something new and want to complete, you should declare that on blog, then that can be the promise with other people and that can motivate you to go on, not easily giving up.

Plus, taking notes of every progress teaches you how to manage yourself regarding what you do later on.

I like blog.

12:53 Posted in Blog, Film | Permalink | Comments (0)