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04 July 2021

Film: Black "Annie" Diversity Casting?

A famous classic musical film was remade using a protagonist with a Black skin. Traditionally the protagonist was played by a white girl. 

Is this part of Hollywood's "Diversity Casting" campaign? 

Sounds good. Good musical play. Actors sing very well. I was not bothered by the Black Annie. What I was still bothered was a rich man who adopts Annie was a Black man. 

Maybe a white man adopts a Black girl is not politically correct? 

But how many of white audience enjoy this film? Wasn't it for Black audience?

In the last scene of the film, a Black man kisses a white woman. Is this widely acceptable in U.S.? 

Wasn't this too much of liberal twist?  

I am not being racist but I am realist and view the world from realist perspective. 

Look who was the President of the United States last year. 

I just don't think this casting really fits the current social trend of that country. 

28 February 2021

Film “Hidden Figures” breaks the stereotype

It’s been thought women are not good at mathematics and not suitable for engineering jobs. But that kind of notions were proved to be nonsense a long time ago. The film “Hidden Figures” described three Afro-American women working for NASA rocket engineering department as mathematicians, in Jim-Crow era, 1950’s to 1960’s.

 

I learnt about the film by Voice of America article on NASA’s International Space Station program. NASA named the supply ship to the ISS Katherine Johnson after one of mathematicians in the biopic film.

 

They were not only being woman but Black women, who had to sit down on back seats in public bus and could not share the same bathroom with their white co-workers. But they did contribute to the very difficult space programs by calculating the orbit and designing rockets.

 

If they were white male, this story cannot be a film.

 

Breaking stereotype is the most important factor to counter racism or other type of discrimination such as gender, and sexual orientation. Stereotype is the origin of discrimination. Prejudice is biased view on others using stereotype images. Then people discriminate others based on prejudice.

 

Stereotype is baseless information about others. Like all Japanese can do Karate, which I don’t. You cannot generalize others based on such stereotype. The sad thing is people judge others by these stereotypes and then sometimes treat them badly.

 

In the film, NASA officials found the women very useful to the organization’s projects so they accepted them equally. If they hadn’t accepted them as legitimate staff, NASA would have lost such great assets and wouldn’t have succeeded in historic space missions in those days.

 

Stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination undermine progress of our society.

 

Let’s get rid of such things from our world.

31 December 2020

First Episode of "Little house on the Prairie" Model life in Post-COVID-19 era?

I just happened to watch the old time TV show on internet.  The TV drama-series "Little House on the Prairie" was first aired in 1970's US and later dubbed version of it was aired in Japan as well. 

I liked the show but it seemed the stories in the show were mostly fiction or modified for the dramatic effect. 

But the very first episode seems not since I read the original novel written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and compared to the episode. 

It started with Ingalls family departing from the woods and found the place to settle down. They could have owned the land by cultivating the fields in accordance with Homestead Act of late 19th century, a pioneer period. 

But they had to live in a very wild environment and had to deal with native people and wild animals. They had to dig the ground to make a well for water. They had to cut trees to make logs to build the house. 

In a very small house, at first there was no floor boards and the roof was hood taken out from the horse carriage.  What they had was only basic needs. 

Our civilization is now on the edge due to the deadly flu and global climate change. It was because we try to have too much destroying the natural ecosystem. The modern system we rely on too much was found to be very vulnerable to such crisis. 

It is time to rethink our way of life. "Little House on the Prairie" may be a good model of how one lives one's life without luxuries modern people have gotten used to.  

The answer may be somewhat of that little wooden house or Native People, whom the family called "Indians" in the show. 

27 August 2020

Film "Bombshell" Trump and FOX culture in America

A real story about women who worked in America's conservative mainstream news media network, FOX during 2016 US presidential election. 

A popular anchorwoman, Gretchen was demoted and finally fired because she refused to accept her boss, Ailes, president of FOX news network. Then she decided to sue him for his constant harassment over a year. 

Another popular anchorwoman, Megyn Kelly was also harassed by him in the past. At first she was reluctant to join Gretchen's lawsuit fight but later she joined for women's rights. 

What was surprising to me was, even in 21st century America, such cases happen in a major corporation and it was really courageous thing for women to file a lawsuit against a boss. 

Women were still dealing with harassment but tried to conceal their emotional struggle in public. They often blamed themselves for what happened. 

FOX and its owner Murdoch supported Trump. Actually FOX culture was really Trump-like, sexist and racist. But people love such culture. Actually, more people view FOX than liberal news channels like MSNBC or CNN. 

FOX is like Goebbels strategy channel, attracting and harmonizing conservative people. The media represents the very honest opinion of some major portion of America who are fed-up with political correctness and diversity campaign. FOX is like silver-fox. 

This year, another election, it seems Trump can be reelected. His opponent, Biden is not a very strong candidate. Even polls indicated Biden has got more support but Trump has been supported by hidden fans who never responded to the surveys. 

America is dominated by FOX and Trump culture. It is just scary but this is the real America we have to deal with.