Born and raised in the United States. The truth about my family is this; I don't know enough about my father to know whether or not he loves me. My sister always hated me and treated me like an idiot, four years her younger. My cousin was a bully. My family is just my mother's generation and mine, a sister and a cousin. We didn't talk to the men in my family for a long time not including my dad who had every other weekend but I never got to know him. I felt like I spent a long time not even talking because no one seemed to like me.
Today as an adult I can finally put my foot down and refuse to be treated like a lesser being by a family I didn't choose. Constantly ridiculed and pushed aside and ignored. I don't have to have a family at all.
How selfish, you must think I am. Just desperate to regain some of the self respect I grew up without. If I want to live in this world I need to break away from the memories of hate I grew up inside of.
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
My Family
Monday, February 2, 2015
Comedy and Stereotypes and Is It Really Funny?
Today a great point was made in class. More than once now in my favorite class, "Family Guy" has been brought up as a point-maker in whether or not certain kinds of comedy are really getting across the point they were intending. When it comes to "Family Guy" I have always been torn on the subject of their intentions. Today though, Professor Glover gave me insight and understanding on something I had long since forgotten I cared about.
He said that; when a joke is made about a stereotype, on TV, it's intention (hopefully) is to point to the stereotype. To make you feel icky about it so you think about it, so you care about it and reexamine it. "Family Guy," however, perpetuates its own jokes in an awful two miles over the line kind of style. Heavily repetitive, taking something funny for five seconds and thinking it can be funny for five minutes. Later, in a few years, they take that joke and try to make it funny for thirty minutes. Over many years the other characters have been fleshed out while the main character stays exactly the same himself. It's very popular for shows to recall on their own jokes. Even Futurama did it before they went off the air.
What I always felt about Family Guy was that people weren't laughing at the ironic pointed jokes they were making but that they were laughing at the joke because it was real to them. Well I couldn't watch "Family Guy," thinking that people were stupid enough to laugh at it for real. No offense if you liked its fart jokes and general disgustingness. We have a different taste in humor. Please don't laugh at a pointed stereotype because you think it's ok if "Family Guy" says it.
I'm not someone who asks you to be 'politically correct.' I grew up under the harsh reign of my upright sister. I will never ask you to be anything but smart and humane. Too many children are being allowed to watch "Family Guy" while when I was a kid I wasn't allowed to watch "South Park" until I was about a teenager. There's going to be a different outcome for children being perpetuated these stereotypes that we're trying to get away from without the understanding that "Family Guy" is a horrible show about how you shouldn't think or act.
Stereotypes are a hard topic to cover altogether. I like to think that most everyone knows the phrase "don't judge a book by its cover" and how to relate that to not stereotyping people. We're a pretty smart peoples. But, stereotypes exist because they're perpetuated not just by TV but by the people being stereotyped. Some of them can be discredited like, I don't know a person anywhere that doesn't love fried chicken, others are harder to discredit.
Making jokes about a person's differences from you; race, gender, sexuality, slurrs. All of these things are a way to offend because if you still find it funny to be derogatory towards someone else then you're attempting to gain a power over them. I've found more than once over the years that woman jokes make me very angry. Logically I should laugh it off and ignore the person but why is it so unacceptable for me to be angry? Because you're attempting to put me into a hole because of who I was born. A joke about my gender is the same as a joke about someone's temperament or driving abilities.
Just stop making these jokes whether they're meant to educate or not. Come up with something fresh and tasteful and the world will thank you.
B-dog OUT
He said that; when a joke is made about a stereotype, on TV, it's intention (hopefully) is to point to the stereotype. To make you feel icky about it so you think about it, so you care about it and reexamine it. "Family Guy," however, perpetuates its own jokes in an awful two miles over the line kind of style. Heavily repetitive, taking something funny for five seconds and thinking it can be funny for five minutes. Later, in a few years, they take that joke and try to make it funny for thirty minutes. Over many years the other characters have been fleshed out while the main character stays exactly the same himself. It's very popular for shows to recall on their own jokes. Even Futurama did it before they went off the air.
What I always felt about Family Guy was that people weren't laughing at the ironic pointed jokes they were making but that they were laughing at the joke because it was real to them. Well I couldn't watch "Family Guy," thinking that people were stupid enough to laugh at it for real. No offense if you liked its fart jokes and general disgustingness. We have a different taste in humor. Please don't laugh at a pointed stereotype because you think it's ok if "Family Guy" says it.
I'm not someone who asks you to be 'politically correct.' I grew up under the harsh reign of my upright sister. I will never ask you to be anything but smart and humane. Too many children are being allowed to watch "Family Guy" while when I was a kid I wasn't allowed to watch "South Park" until I was about a teenager. There's going to be a different outcome for children being perpetuated these stereotypes that we're trying to get away from without the understanding that "Family Guy" is a horrible show about how you shouldn't think or act.
Stereotypes are a hard topic to cover altogether. I like to think that most everyone knows the phrase "don't judge a book by its cover" and how to relate that to not stereotyping people. We're a pretty smart peoples. But, stereotypes exist because they're perpetuated not just by TV but by the people being stereotyped. Some of them can be discredited like, I don't know a person anywhere that doesn't love fried chicken, others are harder to discredit.
Making jokes about a person's differences from you; race, gender, sexuality, slurrs. All of these things are a way to offend because if you still find it funny to be derogatory towards someone else then you're attempting to gain a power over them. I've found more than once over the years that woman jokes make me very angry. Logically I should laugh it off and ignore the person but why is it so unacceptable for me to be angry? Because you're attempting to put me into a hole because of who I was born. A joke about my gender is the same as a joke about someone's temperament or driving abilities.
Just stop making these jokes whether they're meant to educate or not. Come up with something fresh and tasteful and the world will thank you.
B-dog OUT
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