studying up for my future career!
so far today, i've watched a documentary about ideal beauty in america called America the Beautiful, a documentary about america's debt problems called maxed out and i'm currently watching a documentary called unborn in america, about the pro-life side of the abortion battle. it's very interesting to me to watch a movie from this side of the argument, since i wholeheartedly disagree and yet want to know more.
America the Beautiful was a great movie. this is a film by darryl roberts, a middle aged, fat black man. i was very intrigued from the beginning to see what his take on beauty standards in the US would be. i went into it not expecting much, simply because i hadn't heard much about the film and a wikipedia search turned up little info.
i was pleasantly surprised.
the moment i remember most clearly from the film was a segment with some sort of doctor who thought he'd figured out what it was that made people desire lighter skin over darker skin. his conclusion was that having lighter skin made it easier to spot skin diseases from afar and thus, avoid that person. odd conclusion i thought, but i'm sure tons of research went into this conclusion. at one point in the film, he wanted to put lighter make up on a dark skinned black woman, to show... well i'm not sure what his point was exactly. what i gathered was that he was saying everyone who is dark should bleach their skin and everyone who is light is just better. evolutionarily speaking, that is.
Maxed Out was pretty terrifying of course. i'm an 18 year old with a credit card and while i'm not in any immediate danger of killing myself, as some people featured in the film had, i always worry about debt. i'm heading off to college next year and the government has kindly offered me subsidized loans. thanks america! regardless of the fact that i completely acknowledge education as being the good kind of debt, i'm terrified. what if i get in over my head? i don't want to be the people in this movie, paying the minimum payment every month and only getting out of debt when they die.
a 57-year old woman was having her house foreclosed on after her husband had died. what do you do when you already thought you'd lost everything, one of the most important people in your life, and you still manage to lose everything else? i am now determined that this will not be me and equally as determined to pay off my credit card in the next month. who knows if this will REALLY happen, but i'm going to try!
as for unborn in America... it's interesting, to say the least. the filmmaker seems to be fairly neutral, presenting the pro-life side while using text in the film to explain facts and statistics as they relate to what has been said. for example, at a rally, a woman who had elected to have an abortion showed the scar where her left breast had been. she is proud of this scar, she says, proud that she no longer has her left breast because she can show people that abortion and breast cancer are absolutely linked, 100%. this is followed by a black screen with text that tells viewers that general medical consensus, as well as countless studies, say that no such link exists.
so you see, presenting the other side, and placing it alongside the facts.
it's getting me a bit riled up however, since i greatly agree with the stance these people are taking. the women at the rally i mentioned before are almost all holding signs that say "I regret my abortion". I'm sure many women who have had abortions do, but it's not something you can change. however, every single woman featured on this segment spoke about their experience with abortions as though they were a victim.
no. absolutely not. you made a choice and in the case of some of these women, they also made a choice not to ask for information. they went into the scenario blindly, and now speak about it as if the doctors and nurses coerced them into having the abortion.
i don't accept this at all. people make their own choices and while they might later regret those choices, you absolutely have to take accountability for them. placing your shortcomings on the shoulders of others only makes you look like a fool and a coward.
i have a lot more documentaries to watch and i think i will make more detailed posts about them as i go.
America the Beautiful was a great movie. this is a film by darryl roberts, a middle aged, fat black man. i was very intrigued from the beginning to see what his take on beauty standards in the US would be. i went into it not expecting much, simply because i hadn't heard much about the film and a wikipedia search turned up little info.
i was pleasantly surprised.
the moment i remember most clearly from the film was a segment with some sort of doctor who thought he'd figured out what it was that made people desire lighter skin over darker skin. his conclusion was that having lighter skin made it easier to spot skin diseases from afar and thus, avoid that person. odd conclusion i thought, but i'm sure tons of research went into this conclusion. at one point in the film, he wanted to put lighter make up on a dark skinned black woman, to show... well i'm not sure what his point was exactly. what i gathered was that he was saying everyone who is dark should bleach their skin and everyone who is light is just better. evolutionarily speaking, that is.
Maxed Out was pretty terrifying of course. i'm an 18 year old with a credit card and while i'm not in any immediate danger of killing myself, as some people featured in the film had, i always worry about debt. i'm heading off to college next year and the government has kindly offered me subsidized loans. thanks america! regardless of the fact that i completely acknowledge education as being the good kind of debt, i'm terrified. what if i get in over my head? i don't want to be the people in this movie, paying the minimum payment every month and only getting out of debt when they die.
a 57-year old woman was having her house foreclosed on after her husband had died. what do you do when you already thought you'd lost everything, one of the most important people in your life, and you still manage to lose everything else? i am now determined that this will not be me and equally as determined to pay off my credit card in the next month. who knows if this will REALLY happen, but i'm going to try!
as for unborn in America... it's interesting, to say the least. the filmmaker seems to be fairly neutral, presenting the pro-life side while using text in the film to explain facts and statistics as they relate to what has been said. for example, at a rally, a woman who had elected to have an abortion showed the scar where her left breast had been. she is proud of this scar, she says, proud that she no longer has her left breast because she can show people that abortion and breast cancer are absolutely linked, 100%. this is followed by a black screen with text that tells viewers that general medical consensus, as well as countless studies, say that no such link exists.
so you see, presenting the other side, and placing it alongside the facts.
it's getting me a bit riled up however, since i greatly agree with the stance these people are taking. the women at the rally i mentioned before are almost all holding signs that say "I regret my abortion". I'm sure many women who have had abortions do, but it's not something you can change. however, every single woman featured on this segment spoke about their experience with abortions as though they were a victim.
no. absolutely not. you made a choice and in the case of some of these women, they also made a choice not to ask for information. they went into the scenario blindly, and now speak about it as if the doctors and nurses coerced them into having the abortion.
i don't accept this at all. people make their own choices and while they might later regret those choices, you absolutely have to take accountability for them. placing your shortcomings on the shoulders of others only makes you look like a fool and a coward.
i have a lot more documentaries to watch and i think i will make more detailed posts about them as i go.