culture

Fuck. Shit is hitting the fan in Ferguson, MO.

Tony Thompson

5 arrested, two officers shot in Brown memorial unrest

Five protesters were arrested and some businesses were damaged Tuesday night after a memorial to Michael Brown was destroyed in a fire. The confrontation reignited tensions in the St. Louis suburb that was rocked by violence this summer after Brown, an unarmed teenager, was shot by a Ferguson police officer.

During a news conference Wednesday, Capt. Ron Johnson with the Missouri State Highway Patrol said two St. Louis County police officers were injured during the unrest.

Johnson said one of the officers was hit just underneath his eye with a rock. He is expected to recover.

The unrest started Tuesday when a beauty supply store was looted and vandalized by several people attempting to haul out a cash register. Johnson said the manager said this was the third time the store had been broken into in the last six weeks.

Police responded to the break-in and then several gunshots were heard and approximately 200 people gathered at the site where demonstrations were held after the Aug. 9 shooting of Brown, 18, by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.

After the break-in, a fire was reported at a restaurant on Carson Road. Johnson said the investigation shows gasoline appears to have been poured around the restaurant. He said the fire was put out by Ferguson firefighters.

****

Ferguson police officer shot, but not killed

Scant details at the moment, but we’ll know more soon, I’m sure.

Update:

Police say the shooting occurred while the officer was at the Ferguson Community Center checking the building.

Tim Zoll of the Ferguson Police Department said the officer was shot in the arm. The officer’s identity and condition is unknown at this time. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the officer is female.

The suspect is still at large. No further information was immediately available.

****

 Ferguson unrest

Cast as an olive branch by some, the Ferguson police chief’s attempt to march with protesters demanding charges in the killing of an unarmed, black 18-year-old by a white officer still erupted into a clash that activists Friday blamed on police missteps.

The trouble Thursday night came hours after Police Chief Tom Jackson released a videotaped apology to Michael Brown’s family that drew skepticism from residents and protesters who still crave answers about Brown’s death. A county grand jury is weighing whether to indict Ferguson officer Darren Wilson in the Aug. 9 shooting, and the Justice Department is investigating whether Brown’s civil rights were violated.

This “olive branch” ought to have been extended the same day Michael Brown was murdered.  I think it’s a bit late in the eyes of many people.  For my part, it rings hollow bc it flies in the face of the chief’s actions since August 9th.  He’s got an uphill battle ahead of him if he wants people to think he’s on the correct side of justice.

 

****

Browns unmoved by chief’s apology

The parents of Michael Brown told The Associated Press on Saturday they were unmoved by the apology given by the Ferguson, Missouri, police chief weeks after their unarmed 18-year-old son was killed by a police officer.

Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, said, “yes,” when asked if Chief Tom Jackson should be fired, and his father, Michael Brown Sr., said rather than an apology, they would rather see the officer who shot their son arrested for his Aug. 9 death.

Fuck. Shit is hitting the fan in Ferguson, MO.
{advertisement}

LGBT news 9.27.14

Tony Thompson

“Would you oppose attempts to add ‘homosexuality’, ‘transsexuality’, or ‘pedophilia’ to the anti-discriminations laws in Michigan?”-a survey sent out to political candidates by Public Advocate of the United States, a Virginia based non-profit run by Eugene Delgaudio.  Josh Derke was shocked to read this survey. The Michigan House hopeful shot back at PAofUS and Delgaudio:

“You and your group should be ashamed for sending this pile of excrement,” Derke wrote. “And I hope that if there is even a shred of humanity within you that you feel a twinge of guilt and shame for comparing loving couples and parents to pedophiles.”

Of course Delgaudio doesn’t see things that way:

Delgaudio, for his part, stood by the questionnaire, noting that Michigan candidates on both sides of the aisle have already accepted campaign contributions from wealthy LGBT rights supporters.

“We’re against any kind of bizarre behavior being protected under anti-discrimination laws. If you’re saying homosexuality is not bizarre, I understand, that’s your position,” he told MLive.

“We’re not singling out gays and saying gays are pedophiliacs, or that they’re supporting pedophilia. We’re just asking, would you agree to oppose that?”

The survey only allowed a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.  How is someone supposed to read it any other way than “these things are all bad-do you support them or not”?  Homosexuality and transsexuality should be protected by anti-discrimination laws.  Pedophilia, which is actively harmful to children, should not. But for people like Delgaudio, they think they’re all bad, so of course they conflate all three. Fuck you Delgaudio and thank you to Josh Derke.

* * * *

If you have an outdated cellphone or computer, consider donating it to at risk LGBTQ kids.

The Trevor Project, Human IT and Straight But Not Narrow have released two new videos in support of their new Power On campaign which aims to provide refurbished technology to underprivileged LGBTQ teens.

Donated hardware will be refurbished free of charge by Human I-T with resources for LGBTQ youth, including access to The Trevor Project’s accredited instant messaging service for youth in crisis, TrevorChat, and the organization’s social networking platform for LGBTQ youth, TrevorSpace. The refurbished laptops, smart phones, and tablets will then be distributed to LGBTQ centers and shelters around the country.

* * * *

 Department of Justice will ask Supreme Court to uphold same-sex marriage

I can just hear the wailing and teeth-gnashing of bigots everywhere.  I laugh. I LOL. I guffaw  at their tears.

This evening NBC News’ Pete Williams said that the U.S. Department of Justice “will ask the Supreme Court to uphold same-sex marriage.” Eric Holder, Williams reports, says the country is ready for marriage equality.

“Once again, Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama Administration have stood up for marriage equality at a critical moment,” said HRC President Chad Griffin said in a statement. “As the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court gather on Monday to evaluate several marriage equality cases for full hearing, I hope they consider two facts—that the nation is ready for marriage equality, and that there are painful consequences to inaction. Committed and loving gay and lesbian couples can’t afford to wait any longer. It’s time to settle this constitutional question, once and for all.”

LGBT news 9.27.14

Hey look! Reverse Racism is totes real!

Tony Thompson, 1 Comment

Thanks to Brony for bringing to my attention a video by Aamer Rahman- ‘Fear of a brown planet‘:

This is what so many people get wrong when discussing racism (most often those people are white, but that’s not always the case).

Racism is not just a white person calling a black person a racial slur like nigger, coon, tom, savage, pickaninny, mammy, buck, samba, jigaboo, or buckwheat.

It’s not just mobs of white people storming into the homes of black folks and subjecting them to lynchings.

It’s not just black people being denied the right to vote, which came in 1870 (but is still fought against today).

It’s not just slavery (abolished by the 13th Amendment which was passed in December 1865, however, enforcement of the 13th Amendment took decades to realize, and even then, some whites found a way to practice involuntary servitude; the last state to abolish involuntary servitude was Maryland, in 1972).

It’s not just black people being forced to sit at the back of the bus.

It’s not just white people fearing “racial contamination” from swimming in the same pool as black people.

Racism does not just harm black people either.  Asian-Americans, Indians, and Hispanic-Americans are all harmed by racism in the United States.

Racism is so much, much more.

Racism is racial profiling practices like ‘Stop & Frisk’.

Racism is the Republican and Libertarian opposition to government assistance programs.

Racism is bootstrapping and the idea that there’s a level playing field for whites and blacks.

Racism is the treatment of President Obama by virtually the entire Republican Party and a great many Americans.

Racism is The Bell Curve.

Racism is the American criminal justice system.

Yeah, those are all examples of racism.  But what IS racism?

Racism refers to a host of practices, beliefs, social relations and phenomena that work to reproduce a racial hierarchy and social structure that yields superiority and privilege for some, and discrimination and oppression for others. Racism takes representational, ideological, discursive, interactional, institutional, structural, and systemic forms. Despite its form, at its core, racism is constituted by essentialist racial categories that turn human subjects into stereotyped objects, and then uses those stereotypes to justify and reproduce a racial hierarchy and racially structured society that limits access to resources, rights, and privileges on the basis of race.

Extended Definition

It is important to recognize that racism manifests in a variety of forms and styles in today’s world. Forms of racism include the following:

  • Representational: depictions of essentialized racial stereotypes are common in popular culture and media, like the tendency to cast people of color as criminals and as victims of crime, or as background characters rather than leads, in film and television; also common are racial caricatures that are racist in their representations, like “mascots” for the Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves, and the Washington R******* (name redacted because it is a racial slur).
  • Ideological: racism is manifest in world views, beliefs and common sense ways of thinking that are premised on essentialist notions of racial categories, and the idea that white or light skinned people are superior, in a variety of ways, to dark skinned people. Historically, ideological racism supported and justified the building of European colonial empires and U.S. imperialism through unjust acquisition of land, people, and resources around the world. Today, some common ideological forms of racism include the belief that black women are sexually promiscuous, that Latina women are “fiery” or “hot tempered,” and that black men and boys are criminally oriented.
  • Discursive: racism is often expressed linguistically, in the discourse we use to talk about the world and people in it, and manifests in racial slurs and hate speech, and in code words that have racialized meanings embedded in them, like “ghetto,” “thug,” or “gansta.”
  • Interactional: racism takes an interactional form such as a white woman crossing a street to avoid walking past a black or Latino man, a person of color being verbally or physically assaulted because of their race, or when, someone assumes a person of color working at an establishment to be a low-level employee, though they might be a manager, executive, or owner.
  • Institutional: racism can take institutional form in the way policies and laws are crafted and put into practice, such as the decades-long set of policing and legal policies known as “The War on Drugs,” which has disproportionately targeted neighborhoods and communities that are composed predominantly of people of color, New York City’s Stop-N-Frisk policy that overwhelmingly targets black and Latino males, and educational tracking policies that funnel children of color into remedial classes and trades programs.
  • Structural: racism takes structural form in the ongoing, historical, and longterm reproduction of the racialized structure of our society through a combination of all of the above forms. Structural racism manifests in widespread racial segregation and stratification, recurrent displacement of people of color from neighborhoods that go through processes ofgentrification, and the overwhelming burden of environmental pollution born by people of color given its proximity to their communities.
  • Systemic: racism within the U.S. can be described as systemic because the country was founded on racist beliefs with racist policies and practices, and because that legacy lives today in the racism that courses throughout the entirety of our social system.

In addition, sociologists observe a variety of styles, or types, within these different forms of racism. Some may be overtly racist, like the use of racial slurs or hate speech, or policies that intentionally discriminate against people on the basis of race. Others may be covert, kept to oneself, hidden from public view, or obscured by colorblind policies that purport to be race-neutral, when in fact they manifest in racist ways. While something may not appear obviously racist at first glance, it may in fact prove to be racist when one examines the implications of it through a sociological lens. If it relies on essentialized notions of race, and reproduces a racially structured society, then it is racist.

(bolding mine)

That part is bolded because so many people do not understand that racism is not limited to racial slurs or policies.  Racism extends to institutionalized structures of power that benefit the racial majority and discriminate against racial minorities.  This is why there is no such thing as reverse-racism.  Black people do not have social, political, or economic power over white people. They never have. While some African-Americans have bigoted or prejudicial views of white people, this doesn’t rise to the level of racism because they lack the social, economic, or political power that white people have.  Aamer Rahman’s video explains perfectly why reverse-racism is not a thing.  I wish every person on the planet could watch this and take the time to think about it.

Hey look! Reverse Racism is totes real!

Kathy Jetnil-Jijiner's History Project

Tony Thompson, ,

This week, poet and performance artist Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner stood before the world leaders at the opening ceremony of the United Nations Climate Summit.  She was one of 4 people out of 544 chosen to address the Summit.  She says she wanted to “bring my people’s message out to the world, that climate change is a threat we need to take more seriously.”  Poetry has been part of her life since she was young and she uses her poetry to address social and environmental issues.

On her blog Iep Jeltok , she writes: “My poetry mainly focuses on raising awareness surrounding the issues and threats faced by my people. Nuclear testing conducted in our islands, militarism, the rising sea level as a result of climate change, forced migration, adaptation and racism in America.”

In one such poem, The History Project, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner expresses the frustration she and her people have felt over the nuclear tests run by the United States on their island home in the Marshall Islands.

Here’s the video.  She delivers a powerful, passionate performance:

Kathy Jetnil-Jijiner's History Project

Kathy Jetnil-Jijiner’s History Project

Tony Thompson, ,

This week, poet and performance artist Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner stood before the world leaders at the opening ceremony of the United Nations Climate Summit.  She was one of 4 people out of 544 chosen to address the Summit.  She says she wanted to “bring my people’s message out to the world, that climate change is a threat we need to take more seriously.”  Poetry has been part of her life since she was young and she uses her poetry to address social and environmental issues.

On her blog Iep Jeltok , she writes: “My poetry mainly focuses on raising awareness surrounding the issues and threats faced by my people. Nuclear testing conducted in our islands, militarism, the rising sea level as a result of climate change, forced migration, adaptation and racism in America.”

In one such poem, The History Project, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner expresses the frustration she and her people have felt over the nuclear tests run by the United States on their island home in the Marshall Islands.

Here’s the video.  She delivers a powerful, passionate performance:

Kathy Jetnil-Jijiner’s History Project

Pop Culture Link Roundup 9.25.14

Tony Thompson, , 6 Comments

This following images will be fill today’s quota of the spectacular. 

Although these stunning images might look like the work of Photoshop magic, photographer Robert Bösch (or Robert Boesch) captured these campaign photos for the Swiss mountaineering brand Mammut by carefully coordinating an entire team of mountaineers on the snowy Alps. Racing against time and extreme conditions, the team demonstrated their mountain-climbing skills and the durability of Mammut’s products by hiking to incredible heights, hanging from suspension ropes in precise positions, and forming beautiful patterns and shapes spread over the landscape.

The crowning image is the above shot of the Matternhorn, captured for the brand’s 2015 ad campaigns. Paying homage to explorer Edward Whymper and his team, who were the first to ascend to the peak 150 years ago, Bösch directed his team of mountaineers to journey to their designated locations, shine their lights, and illuminate the route taken by Whymper a century and a half ago. The carefully crafted image not only honors those brave people who climbed the Matterhorn in the past, but also inspires adventurous souls who hope to reach the zenith in the future.

Check out My Modern Metropolis for more cool images.

****

The trailer for the upcoming Jupiter Rising film by the Wachowski Brothers Siblings [edit: I apologize for this screw up.  I had forgotten that Lana Wachowski transitioned to a woman several years back.  It was a fuckup on my part and I’m sorry.]

The early trailers for the Wachowskis’ Jupiter Ascending have always looked impressive, but they seemed like they wanted to bludgeon people into theaters by assaulting them with an overabundance of chaotic scifi/CG action. But this third trailer is the first one to makes me want to see the movie.

Of course, we’ve known the plot details of the movie for a while — Mila Kunis is the reincarnation of the queen of the galaxy, the evil Eddie Redmayne wants to keep her from inheriting the space throne and Earth — but the trailer lays it out cleanly and efficiently, from the secret origin of humanity on Earth to why and how Mila somehow doesn’t know she’s space royalty, to why her emergence puts the Earth in danger. But it also has no lack of amazing visuals, including elf-eared Channing Tatum fighting a winged lizard alien.

(via i09)

****

The Chalk and Charcoal Characters of David Zinn-On the Streets of Ann Arbor

More images at This Is Colossal.

****

Women in Food:  Kuniko Yagi

There have been countless news stories highlighting just how few women—only 6.3%, in fact—hold executive chef roles in the U.S. But taking a bird’s eye view of the local culinary landscape, there appear to be heaps of immensely talented female chefs breaking the mold, paving the way for a new generation of young women aspiring to pursue a career in the kitchen. We’ve sought out to showcase their stories through a video series called “Women in Food.”

The first female chef on deck is Kuniko Yagi of Hinoki & The Bird, the stunning Silk Road fusion restaurant that’s one of the best in Los Angeles. She tells us about her internship in Tokyo, where she was the first woman to wear a chef’s coat in a traditional kaiseki restaurant that had been open for over 50 years. (She was still not allowed to cook, however.) When she returned to L.A. to open Hinoki, Yagi employed almost 70% women in her Century City kitchen. There, she shares her immense knowledge of world cooking with a budding group of talented young chefs, many of whom are women as well.

Pop Culture Link Roundup 9.25.14

There are things people need to stop believing

Tony Thompson,

From Fbomb comes a list of stereotypes about women in Third World countries that are often held by people in First World countries (note: not a comprehensive list):

Continue reading “There are things people need to stop believing” →

There are things people need to stop believing

Philly hate crime update

Tony Thompson,

There have been a few developments in the case of the group of bigots who savagely attacked two gay men who were going out for dinner.

Thanks to my friend barkeeperin, I’ve learned that one of the attackers is a woman by the name of Kathryn Knott.

In the not too distant past, she Tweeted the following:

https://twitter.com/kathryn_knott/status/181230916390240256

Some lovely ::spits:: homophobia there. You don’t see me saying “yuck” when a man and a woman kiss (nor when two women kiss). Oh, I know bigots like these see homosexuality as something different, but as I’ve mentioned once or twice, there is nothing immoral about being gay.  No one is asking Ms Knott to kiss a woman, so there is no need to shame two people who aren’t harming anyone else while expressing their affection for one another.  The hatred she shows is what is worthy of saying “yuck”.

https://twitter.com/kathryn_knott/status/279638683584454656

“Fairy boys”.  Uh huh.

Fairy is one of many different types of slang terms used to describe homosexuals.  When used by bigots, it is intended to be a demeaning slight to gay men (based on the idea that gay men aren’t “real” men). You can imagine my dislike for the term (hell, I don’t use it to describe myself or any other gay person).

Here is the Storify with more examples of Knott’s Tweeted thoughts.

Oh yes, I almost forgot:  Kathyrn Knott is the daughter of Chalfont Township Police Chief Karl Knott.  I’m sure there will be no preferential treatment given to her.

Ms. Knott has also been suspended from her job at Abington Health, a local area Philly hospital:

24-year old Kathryn Knott, who surrendered to Philadelphia Police this morning, has been suspended from her job at Abington Health, a local area hospital.

“Because of the nature of the charges against her, she has been suspended from her job as an Emergency Room tech,” reads a statement from the hospital reportedby WPVI-TV’s Kenneth Moton.

Additionally, Knott appears to have tweeted at least five x-rays, which might be in violation of patient confidentiality laws.

“We are investigating an additional issue that was brought to our attention related to this employee’s Twitter account for potential violations of patient privacy and our organization’s social media policy,” the hospital statement continues. “Abington Health takes patient privacy and confidentiality very seriously and is fully investigating this matter.”

Mugshots of three of the individuals charged in the hate crime that is not legally a hate crime have been released.

From left, they are: 26-year-old Kevin Harrigan of Warrington; 24-year-old Kathryn Knott of Southampton; and 24-year-old Philip Williams of Warminster.

All three defendants are charged with aggravated assault, criminal conspiracy, simple assault, and recklessly endangering another person.

All three suspects have turned themselves in.

According to CBS Philly, the three suspects facing charges in the gay-bashing in Center City on September 11th turned themselves into the police this morning. The suspects are 24-year-old Philip Williams, 26-year-old Kevin Harrigan, and 24-year-old Kathryn Knott, each charged with two counts of aggravated assault, two counts of simple assault, two counts of recklessly endangering another person (REAP), and one count of criminal conspiracy.

According to CBS, “after surrendering, attorneys for Williams and Knott both proclaimed their client’s innocence. Williams’ attorney Fortunato Perri Jr. said the confrontation was a mutual fight and was not related to anyone’s sexual orientation.”

All this talk of “3” suspects.  What does this mean for the other 9 people in the group?  I don’t know if they participated, but even if they didn’t, did they just sit there and watch?   Neither scenario paints them in a good light.

Stories like this are the reason anti-LGBT bigotry still needs to be called out.  A string of marriage equality victories (and one loss, grumble mutter grumble) doesn’t not mean that lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual people are treated any better in the United States.

Philly hate crime update

Quote of the Day- Marian Wright Edelman

Tony Thompson
Marian Wright Edelman, the founder and President of the Children’s Defense Fund, was the first African American woman admitted to the Mississippi state bar. Marian Wright Edelman has published her ideas in several books.

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.

Quote of the Day- Marian Wright Edelman

University of Baltimore to offer course on Marvel's cinematic films

Tony Thompson, 2 Comments

I’m a fan of comic books.  That’s no surprise to anyone that knows me to any great degree.  At the age of 38 (I’ll be 39 in December), I’ve been reading comic books since I was ~5 years old. I’ve been collecting them since I was a teenager who rode his bicycle several miles from our home at Redstone Arsenal (in Huntsville, AL) to the comic book store.  As a teen, I was drawn to the Uncanny X-Men though at the time I didn’t know why (looking back, it makes sense as mutants were a metaphor for the disadvantaged, oppressed, and marginalized members of society, and between my ethnicity and sexuality, well let’s just say I’m part of those groups in more ways than one, so mutants likely resonated with me on some level). As I got older, my interests expanded; I read all manner of books, from the Amazing Spider-Man to the Incredible Hulk, from the Avengers to the Fantastic Four.  I even branched out and started reading DC titles like Action Comics, Justice League America, and Wonder Woman.  I remember reading comics and thinking how cool it would be, if not virtually impossible, to see my favorite characters on the big screen, and despite my affection for DC Comics, my favorite characters have always been Marvel heroes.  Specifically, the Avengers, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

Fast forward more than a decade to the year 2008, and the debut of Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man, a movie that was a risky move for the fledgling Marvel studios.  Despite the success of Fox’s X-Men franchise, and Sony’s Spider-Man movies, the new studio (which is not affiliated with Fox or Sony, which is why you won’t see Spider-Man crossing over with the Hulk, or the X-Men and Avengers together on the big screen), there was no guarantee that an Iron Man movie would be profitable. Following an opening weekend that saw the movie bring in $100.7 million at the box office, and buckets of praise for Downey Jr’s performance, Marvel realized they had a hit on their hands.  Over the years, audiences have been treated to two Iron Man sequels, two Captain America movies, two Thor movies, and as far fetched as it once sounded to me, a movie with a talking tree and a raccoon.  As of this writing Guardians of the Galaxy boasts box office sales (in the US) of >$313 million.  All of this is fantastic of course.  For this comic book fan, seeing characters I love and grew up with on the big screen is like a dream come true.  Nowhere, and I mean nowhere is this dream more exciting, thrilling, amazing, fantastic, and fanboigasm inducing than the spectacle that was 2012’s The Avengers.

Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and the Hulk were brought to the big screen under the direction of Joss Whedon (who’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of my absolute favorite pop culture creations and one of the best tv shows I’ve ever seen).  Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johanssen, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, Samuel L Jackson, and Tom Hiddleston came together (along with many other actors) to create a blockbuster film that took in domestic sales of over $623 million dollars (it grossed more than $1 billion worldwide).  The success of that movie paved the way for Guardians of the Galaxy, and showed that Marvel Studios was here to stay.  I’ll never forget walking out of that theater after watching the movie and being shell shocked. Dumbfounded.  Boggled.  Gast was flabbered.

That movie rocked my world.  In all the right ways.  Going by the sales, it seems like I wasn’t alone in that.

The Marvel movies have become a phenomenon that hold up a mirror to our culture.  In a press release from the University of Baltimore, it was revealed that a new course is going to be offered in 2015:  “Media Genres: Media Marvels”.

The course, “Media Genres: Media Marvels,” will examine how Marvel’s series of interconnected films and television shows, plus related media and comic book sources and Joseph Campbell’s monomyth of the “hero’s journey,” offer important insights into modern culture. The course is believed to be the first of its kind in the country.

Taught by Arnold T. Blumberg, D.C.D. ’04, an adjunct faculty member in UB’s Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences, the class will uncover the unprecedented efforts by Marvel to establish a viable universe of plotlines, characters, and backstories that leave no question unanswered, no story or character abandoned or otherwise unexplained. Blumberg says this critical look will encourage students to better understand the culture’s fixation on superheroes, fictional global threats, and other “widescreen” novelistic tales that have pushed the comic book-to-film ethos into new territory.

Yes please.  I’ll take that class.  Why are we, as a culture, fixated on superheroes?  Are we obsessed with fictional global threats?  As I thought about these questions, I realized that these movies-especially The Avengers-reflect our cultural zeitgeist.  We live in a post-911 culture where many view the enemy as being nameless, faceless, unknowable, unreasonable forces bent on eradicating our Western civilization.  These forces, led by a charismatic man of tremendous power, and near godlike levels of disdain and apathy toward those he deems less than him present a grave threat that we want our heroes to overcome.  No, I don’t think that Joss Whedon wrote the Chitauri as being Islamic terrorists and Loki as Osama bin Laden, but you can see the cultural influences.  Those influences continue when you recognize that the Avengers represent America’s military might and the heroes we wish truly existed who could protect us from outside threats. There looks to be plenty of material from Marvel’s Cinematic movies to discuss and deconstruct, enough perhaps, to feature in a second course.

What would such a second course look like? It would need to be one that while drawing from the same material, analyzed it in a unique manner.  What else can Marvel’s Cinematic Universe tell us about our culture? Does the MCU reflect more than our cultural values?  Does it also reflect our cultural attitudes? What does the MCU say about institutionalized sexism or racism?  What does the MCU say about our attitudes towards LBGT people?  The fact that the main cast of The Avengers featured only one woman and one black person, while featuring no LGBT people does indeed reflect our culture. As in the comic book industry or the video game industry, LGBT people, women, and People of Color have become increasingly vocal about their lack of representation.  They want to be heard. They want to be seen.  The message is clear-white, male, cisgender, and heterosexual has been the default for pretty much the whole of human history, and it’s time to change that. It’s time to recognize that there is no default gender, race, or sexuality for humanity, and that if our popular culture is going to reflect our values, perhaps it ought to reflect more than a narrow slice of the humanity pie.

Yeah, I think that would be a decent foundation for a 202 level course. Don’t you?

University of Baltimore to offer course on Marvel's cinematic films