{"id":1871,"date":"2021-12-07T16:40:39","date_gmt":"2021-12-07T21:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/fall-2021-gws100-0502\/?p=1871"},"modified":"2021-12-07T16:40:51","modified_gmt":"2021-12-07T21:40:51","slug":"pop-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/fall-2021-gws100-0502\/2021\/12\/07\/pop-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"POP CULTURE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This week we\u00a0looked into\u00a0pop\u00a0culture,\u00a0and we watched the video \u201cDisclosure\u201d<\/em> which is a documentary that\u00a0talks about the history\u00a0of Transgender and\u00a0Cis-gender representation on screen. When we look at how things stand, there is a\u00a0really great\u00a0representation of Trans-gender\u00a0people on TV\u00a0and film in the past few years than ever before.\u00a0The film provides a path\u00a0along\u00a0with\u00a0the presentations of Trans, non-binary,\u00a0and gender-fluid people on screen, starting from\u00a0the film of D.W Griffith\u00a0\u201cThe birth of the nation\u201d<\/em> right up to New York\u2019s queer ballroom\u00a0culture in \u201cPose\u201d <\/em>which featured some notable number of Trans people both in front\u00a0of and behind the camera. The documentary\u00a0also\u00a0gives us multiple\u00a0points of\u00a0view when it comes to letting us know what it means to be Trans,\u00a0what forms both the opinion of Trans\u00a0people and\u00a0Cis-gendered,\u00a0the\u00a0past history\u00a0of Trans people being portrayed on TV, and many other dozens of media. When\u00a0we look at the early 1900s, Trans people\u2019s\u00a0visibility\u00a0was seen as toxic and\u00a0complex as Black visibility. A lot\u00a0of Trans people were seen as comedy, \u201cseen as some kind of freaks,\u201d\u00a0and people thought that \u201cthey were just playing dress up\u00a0in order to\u00a0make other people laugh.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From my personal experience, I never really had much idea about this topic on Transgender people except for when it is talked about in some of my classes. This video was a good eye-opener, and I really learned a lot from it. The media has always made us believe that there are only two types of gender people can belong to which are either male or female and any other type are not recognized as a gender rather they are being used as jokes and mocked. When Trans people are portrayed on TV, a lot of people see it as misleading and sometimes seen as less human which to me is not right. We as humans have the right to be whatever we want, and society has no right to dispute that choice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The documentary also talks about the film\u00a0of D.W Griffith \u201cThe birth of a nation\u201d<\/em>\u00a0which is a film that revives the kkk.\u00a0It\u00a0was a racist movie and\u00a0D.W Griffith was also very much\u00a0aware and understands that he can turn gender-nonconforming people into the joke of his story\u00a0which to me was not right because\u00a0these are\u00a0people\u2019s identities,\u00a0and by right should not be used as a joke.\u00a0His film was also used to stereotype people. Also, another film\u00a0\u201cA Florida\u00a0Enchantment (1914)\u201d<\/em>\u00a0is\u00a0a film that places questions on \u201cGender change\u201d and\u00a0the \u201cUse of blackface\u201d. Looking at the\u00a0film, we see the lady eat a seed,\u00a0and just like that she wakes up and turned out\u00a0to be\u00a0a man. This is\u00a0an unbelievably bad\u00a0way of\u00a0representing\u00a0Trans people\u00a0on\u00a0the screen because a lot of\u00a0people watch these\u00a0movies\/films, and some end up believing what they see on the screen. When some\u00a0of these films are shown in the wrong\u00a0way, Transgender people are seen as illegal\u00a0people and sometimes they get harassed and arrested.\u00a0As Laverne Cox said, \u201cWhen you think about the time, that time historically, cross-dressing was illegal\u00a0so that\u00a0someone who decided to transgress gender expectations in real life was often harassed and arrested.\u201d\u00a0It was believed that people who cross-dress \u201cWas flirting and when they dress as women, they were taken in by heartless\u00a0New York\u00a0copper.\u201d and \u201cGirls who turned into a man was fined $12.45 for walking in street dressed in man\u2019s garb\u201d. This was able to happen due to society\u2019s construct on gender. Gender is a social construct of what\u00a0society considers to be female\/male which means that our society\u00a0believes in only two genders and that is the only one people are expected\u00a0to belong\u00a0in any other type of gender is not accepted and would not be considered as a type of gender. Society has taught us that whichever gender\u00a0we belong to we need to act upon it. As women,\u00a0we need to perform & do things that are meant for women same goes\u00a0for\u00a0men. Women are meant to put on garments\u00a0or clothes that are for men and when\u00a0people go against that rule which was placed by the society, they either get harassed or mocked.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of these Transgender\/cross-dressers have\u00a0been around for\u00a0a very long\u00a0time in this\u00a0country,\u00a0but the media has\u00a0so much represented them in such a way\u00a0that\u00a0they are\u00a0seen more like freaks than humans.\u00a0I can relate this to my classmate\u00a0Nazir O\u2019s\u00a0snapshot\u00a0which quotes\u00a0\u201cI think for a long time, the way in which trans\u00a0people have been represented on screen have suggested that we\u2019re not real… that we don\u2019t exist. And yet here I am. Yet here we are, and we\u2019ve\u00a0always been here\u201d.\u00a0Hollywood\u00a0movies have\u00a0taught people a lot of ways\/how to react to Trans\u00a0people. \u201cAnd sometimes, they\u2019re being taught that the way to react to Trans\u00a0people is fear.\u201d People were told that \u201cTrans People were dangerous. That they must be\u00a0deviants or perverts.\u201d \u201cAsking why else you would wear a dress if you\u2019re\u00a0a man.\u201d Some of those images been seen on the screen\u00a0make people ask questions and most times make people reject\u00a0Transgender & Cis-gender people. Also, some of those images are so belittling towards all women. \u201cAnd we see comedians dressing up as women in order to get a job or affordable housing.\u201d\u00a0It is also sad to see that most of the television shows where we see Transgender characters\u00a0brought in on shows portray\u00a0the\u00a0profession of \u201csex workers\u201d but in a real sense, some of these Transgender women who act as\u00a0sex workers were pushed into it due to \u201cemployment discrimination that Transgender people face. The\u00a0unemployment rate for\u00a0transgender people is three times the national average, and four times the national\u00a0average if you\u2019re a Trans person of color.\u201d\u00a0I believe this film\u00a0was made to make\u00a0people understand that people\u00a0of\u00a0Transgender are humans\u00a0like\u00a0everyone else and the significance of the film\u00a0\u201cDisclosure\u201d<\/em> was to make known every secret information about Transgender people, so everyone can be aware of it and see them for who they are and what they\u00a0represent. I also\u00a0believe it\u00a0is good for people to\u00a0disclose\u00a0about themselves to everyone they love so that they can\u00a0be aware\u00a0and be\u00a0supportive\u00a0of\u00a0them. Being\u00a0a Transgender\u00a0person is obviously not a sin or a crime,\u00a0they are\u00a0also humans and\u00a0need to be loved and accepted in society.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week we\u00a0looked into\u00a0pop\u00a0culture,\u00a0and we watched the video \u201cDisclosure\u201d which is a documentary that\u00a0talks about the history\u00a0of Transgender and\u00a0Cis-gender representation on screen. When we look at how things stand, there is a\u00a0really great\u00a0representation of Trans-gender\u00a0people on TV\u00a0and film in the past few years than ever before.\u00a0The film provides a path\u00a0along\u00a0with\u00a0the presentations of Trans, non-binary,\u00a0and gender-fluid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3946,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-response-12"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/fall-2021-gws100-0502\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/fall-2021-gws100-0502\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/fall-2021-gws100-0502\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/fall-2021-gws100-0502\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3946"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/fall-2021-gws100-0502\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/fall-2021-gws100-0502\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1872,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/fall-2021-gws100-0502\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871\/revisions\/1872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/fall-2021-gws100-0502\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/fall-2021-gws100-0502\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/fall-2021-gws100-0502\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}