Group Video: "Western Eyes"; "Swipe my race: 'If you're only dating someone for their skin color, you should consider why'"

 Video: "Western Eyes"


My main takeaway from this film is that it actually made me feel really sad. Seeing how these Asian women felt so ostracized because of their natural features and the fact that they didn't look very western is really heartbreaking. Additionally, it's terrible to see just how early in childhood that all of this starts, from the discrimination that they face to the insecurities and self-hatred that result from it. I'm especially disturbed by how Sharon's mom pressured her into going through with the surgery. You would think that a mother is supposed to be the supportive and encouraging one so the fact that Sharon's mother is perpetuating her self-hatred is really unfortunate. Sharon said she felt better after the surgery but to me she seemed even more sad.

Overall, we can conclude that these western beauty standards are incredibly harmful. It's truly heart-wrenching to see just how depressed and insecure these women feel and how immense their desire to change themselves just to fit in is. And the women's friends are confused as to why they would want to change their faces but then you realize it's because they could never possibly understand or relate to the pain that the Asian women feel due to the racism they experience and the western beauty standards. One thing I noticed was how the women kept on saying they wanted to "fix" themselves but how can you fix something that isn't broken? What caused them to feel so broken that they need to be fixed? I'd say the answer is pretty clear.


Video: "Swipe my race: 'If you're only dating someone for their skin color, you should consider why'"


The main thing that stood out to me in this film was all the stereotypes and unsolicited comments. It really does appall me that people can ask questions that are so obviously discriminatory and act like it's okay. Additionally, it's weird to me how people can get so blinded by stereotypes that they can only see certain races through a certain lens and that affects whether they find someone attractive or unattractive.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Class Video: "Building Connections: How to Be A Relationship Ninja | Rosan Auyeung-Chen | TEDxSFU"

Video link:  Building Connections: How to Be A Relationship Ninja | Rosan Auyeung-Chen | TEDxSFU Being in my first year of year of college, making connections is a big part of my life right now. It's my first time living away from my family, my first time at such a big school, and my first time not being constantly surrounded by people I'm close to and comfortable with. So when I first got here, I was immediately confronted by the importance of learning to make connections or else my next four years would be really lonely. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at making connections. I'm really shy and introverted and insecure and I tend to get anxious and overwhelmed during social situations. So watching this video was actually quite helpful to me, as Rosan Auyeung-Chen was able to give me some decent insight and advice on the process of making connections. That being said, I would disagree with the idea that there's a step-by-step instructional process for making connec...
Read more

Class Video: "The myth of race | BBC Ideas"

 Video link: The myth of race | BBC Ideas Before watching this video, I didn't understand what people meant when they said that race is a social construct. I always thought that since people have physical characteristics that can indicate their race, that must mean that race is ingrained into our DNA in some way. I was blown away by the idea that I could have a closer relation of genomes with some random person of some random other race than I could with someone of my same race, but that makes the argument that race is a social construct make so much more sense to me. Since there's really nothing in our DNA that indicates our race then that must mean that race is something assigned to us by society. To be honest, race is something I've always been confused by in the sense that I'm not really sure what my race even is. I know I'm Hispanic on my dad's side and White on my mom's side. I've always identified more with my Hispanic side but am I Hispanic enoug...
Read more

Group Video: "Lock-Up: The Prisoners of Rikers Island"

There were many things that stood out to me while watching this film. The first thing I noticed was how a lot of the prisoners were still wearing their own clothes instead of some sort of prison uniforms. In a lot of movies and pieces of media we see prisoners forced to wear a uniform in order to strip them of their individuality (everyone's familiar with the black-and-white stripes or the bright orange jumpsuits) but that wasn't the case in this real-life prison. Another thing I noticed was the immense amount of segregation on Rikers Island. In the prison, not only are male and female prisoners separated but even gay prisoners had their own facility. Additionally, the prisoners would even separate themselves by race within their facilities. Lastly, it was somewhat disturbing to see just how many prisoners accepted the idea that that was their life now. We were introduced to some prisoners who had practically made homes out of their cells, with all their clothes and furniture a...
Read more