Represent

Before coming to college it occurred to me very little, undoubtedly due to my privilege, about representation in the media. Most of the media that I consume has to do with superheroes and the like. Of course the white straight man is well represented in this regard. So naturally I have felt well represented, even without realizing it. However when I came to college it started to be brought through my attention, by media no less, the short comings of  the media in the representation department. It also showed me how important it is. Before it had not even occurred to me, a character was just a character. Now of course I realize how important it is for people to feel their ethnicity and sexuality and religion and so on represented in the media, especially young people. I know how it feels to see people like Luke Skywalker and Peter Parker everyday and being able to identify with them. They helped me grow and heal and find out who I am, and to deprive people of that kind of basic development because they are different is not only cruel and ignorant but lazy and idiotic. People have the right to engage in media and see themselves represented. I'm both glad that I was able to broaden my knowledge and frustrated that this is an issue in the first place.

media perspective

through our discussions in class, something intrresting arose for me to blog about. Whenever we move ghrough the media, we always have to be aware about how different other people's media perspectives are, for two reasons. the first is content, when we move through the media, there is so much of it that it is impossible for everyone to move through or prefer all all of it. some people like rap and some like classic rock, some like the ny times and some like fox. This makes it impossible for everyone to have the same perspective on media. There is also the cultural perspective. I myself have undoubtedly a completrly different view of the media then someone who is black or a woman or not cisgender. These two things create an array of people with different views on the media. So when we discuss the media with other people it becomes essential to a productive conversaton that we take into account our own and others perspective and be open to other perspectives, and even be willing to change our opinions on things.

Need to Know

In class on wednesday we discussed what the public needs to know about political leaders who represent them. I found myself unsure on where to stand on this issue. both sides had really good points. on the one hand, does it really matter if a political leader like the president has and affair but still carries out his duties as president in a satisfactory way? on the other hand the president is there to represent us as a people and shouldn't we have the right to now if he or she is not representing us in the manner we want, especially morally? To be perfectly honest I still don't know where I fall on this issue. It seems to me that I would be angry to find out someone i voted for turned out to be unfaithful, after all, if someone can't be faithful to their own spouse and respect them, how can I expect the opposite treatment for myself. Yet it has been shown that a president can be unfaithful or morally unsound, or just plain lie to us and still be a good president. FDR constantly lied to the American public in order to maintain the image they had built up of him, and yet he was committed to his job as president and was always concerned with making America better. Perhaps when it comes down to it the people should know everything about their elected leaders, however, it is the responsibility of the media to present a balanced unbiased picture of their leaders, and especially their job to ensure no mob mentality prejudice ensue, like believing that a crippled man cannot lead a country. In other words, it's the job of the media to show us exactly who are leaders are in every aspect, and to let us take that even balanced information and decide whether or not we want them to lead us. The people should always be on a need to know basis with their leaders.