leilaloves1d

[leilaloves1d]

The thing that stuck out to me the most in this class is the effect director and writer Jordan Peele has had on the horror genre of movies, especially Black horror. The amount of themes that he snuck into Get Out is truly mind blowing because if one is not paying attention, it could completely go past their heads and they would miss the opportunity to be enlightened. The same thing for the movie US. There are many things in this movie such as the intentional blackness in the US, the theme of isolation, privilege, preparedness, and the survival mindset. The intentional blackness of US, Jordan Peele made the choice to cast Lupita Nyong'o as his lead, at the time he cast her she had never been a lead in a movie. Additionally, he wanted to cast an entire family of dark skin black actors because he wanted the entire family to represent an African-American family without the Hollywood conveniences that are typically present in a film about a black family. The theme of isolation in the US stands out a lot because of their location especially. In Santa Cruz, it is a very non-integrated setting and the population is very homogeneous for the most part. Especially the scene on the beach where the daughters were the only African American girls there and they felt alienated. Their whole life was defined by being surrounded by whiteness and it was a fact in their existence. The next theme that was explored was privilege in the US. It is very important to note how some people are constantly grappling with the question of privilege. People who have privilege sometimes do not realize it, but when people do not have it it is very obvious that they are at a disadvantage. And must work harder to fight for the same things that others have and do not even appreciate. The final theme is preparedness and the survival mindset. The characters seemed prepared to know when danger is near and how to fight against it. Especially Zuora, the daughter, who is a quick thinker and always knew how to fight the danger. For example, in the scene where Winston Duke’s character says to his son “get me the bat” and the son says “what bat” and before he can explain the bat Zuroa has already brought him the bat.  

[leilaloves1d]

It is important for certain movies, especially black horror films,  to have black actors and black directors. The film Blacula is an example of this working in the best way possible. During the 1700s, history was defined by the triangle trade and most black people were portrayed as the helpless and kidnapped slaves who were being sold to be traded for other goods. They had no say in their life outcomes and were subject to abuse and murder at the hands of colonots and were typically portrayed as such in films. It was that way until this movie showed black people as being on the same level as the colonists that things began to change along with this movie. But since Blacula was directed by black actors and directors, they changed the narrative for Black people and showed them in a different light than everyone was used to. It is sad to know that there was still prejudice and a separation because the majority of the production crew was white but the main characters were black. It just feels like sometimes there is no winning for minority communities. Horror films were trying to do more to reduce black exploitation and make sure that there was equal representation, even in the horror genre which some would believe is not important in terms of having diversity. It was important for black writers and actors to shift the narrative that was overwhelmingly present in horror movies that included black people. Many times, black people were the villains and were seen as the people that white people needed to be protected from, and it perpetuated the view that black people are predators. Furthermore, black people were always the first ones to die in horror films, which represents the underlying message that society at the time, and one could argue even presently, did not value black lives as much as whit lives, and believed they deserved to be less protected than their white counterparts. At the end of Blacula, they were so brave as to kill a white police officer, which was a major step forward for the black community in light of all of the police brutality that was occurring. The themes and underriding messages of movies may not be so apparent to the naked eye, but once one takes an analytical view of a movie or piece of literature, the themes are basically screaming out at you to be seen. Once you see them, they are basically impossible to unsee and can move mountains in social activism and bring awareness to such important topics that can be portrayed through the mode of art and films. 

[leilaloves1d]

In this blog post, I want to focus on the movie starring Samuel L. Jackson, called Eve’s Bayou. To preface, I will start by naming all of the characters so I could easily mention them without having any confusion. The oldest daughter was Cicely played by Meagan Good, the youngest daughter was Eve, played by Jurnee Smollett, the father, who is the doctor of the community, is Louis who is played by Samuel L. Jackson. I am now going to speak about how the disgusting father, Louis, engaged in a kiss with his daughter Cisley. Cisley was always jealous for her fathers attention, and, since she always saw her father being so sexual with other women, thought that the only eay to get attention was through being as sexual as the other women and constantly compared herself to them. She even wanted to kiss her father so she could feel close to him like the other women in his life, but he slapped her. I believe that the father is sick enough to have slightly initiated it and then continued his gaslighting ways by slapping her. He wanted to make CIcely feel crazy for kissing him so that she would seem like the crazy one in the situation, even though Louis has groomed Cisely to be exactly the way she is. She is a child. She is only fourteen years old and would not have even had the idea to do such a thing if her father was not as outwardly crude as he was, and did not betray his family like he did. Although he was not abusing her directly, I would like to classify the way he treated her as emotional abuse with a twinge of sexual abuse embedded in the thought processes he instilled in his children. She felt like it was completely normal to do that to her father and thought it was the only way to receive the love that she longed for so very much. She also had the pressure of protecting everyone in her family from her father’s betrayal. The oldest child always tries to stand between their younger siblings and danger, upon and she took that responsibility upon herself. She was then humiliated by her father and felt so much more rejection than she originally did. This was a truly twisted story.

[leilaloves1d]

“It sold for more than enough to move Lynn and the kids back north near her family.” Surprisingly, these were the words that stood out to me most out of this entire story. The short story “Wet Pain” was a riveting and harrowing story of how a seemingly progresive white man who, although was from the South, had a black wife and best friend who was both gay and black. He also had biracial children and seemed to be completely content with his family life. However, once he moved to his old house in th South he completely lost his mind and was infected with an alt-right racism that caused him to become a nasty racist who attempted to murder his wife and children because of their skin color. Although this story was all-in-all impactful in every way, the sentence above really made it sink in for me. The fact that Lynn had to go back “up north” to find safety made me feel like we were going back to the 1860s with the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments that were meant to abolish slavery. After this, many African AMericanm people who had escaped from slavery and wanted amnesty fled to the North to start new lives. Even though slavery was technically over and outlawed by the federal government, the remiants of slavery still remained inescapably obvious in the South. White prejudice was still rampant and there were Black Codes that greatly impeded the lives and opportunities of these newly freed slaves. Additionally, because of the years of generations slavery, many people were suffering from extreme poverty and couldnt build new lives for themselves. The fact that the presence of this was so strong that Dean was gravely infected is terrifying. Although this story was a little bit dramatized, it is representative of real life in a way. There are many people who are still a part of the Ku Klux Klan and want things to go back to the way they were before slavery was abolished. They talk about people who are not white in the same way Dean talked about Lynn and Terence Taylor. As if they were not human and deserved to be spoken to in a degrading and inhumane manner that had white superiority written all over it. This story really opened my eyes and made me realize extreme racism is definitely not a thing of the past. 

[leilaloves1d]

In this post, I will write about the movie Get Out again, but this time, I will focus on comparing the characters. While the entire Armitage family is seriously messed up on too many levels to count, it could be compared to who is more messed up. Like all things in life, one must see something from every vantage point and do their best to have a comprehensive background of each individual and their motives. So, I think it is important to have an insightful analysis comparing Rose and her mom, Missy Armitage. They both play major roles in the Armitage family heist, but their levels of evil differ. Let us first analyze Rose. Rose grew up in the madness of her family, and was probably brainwashed to believe that what they are doing is not evil, and, is in fact, a great thing to do because they are allowing their grandparents and other family and community members to have an elongated life with the best of capabilities (that they obtain from being implanted into another person’s body). One can argue that she is also the victim of her family because she has been completely manipulated into believing what she is doing is a good deed rather than an evil deed. However, one can also argue that, although she grew up surrounded by her insane family, she eventually enters real society and can realize that her actions are actually horrid and she needs to change, and cause her family to change as well. She shows to have no conscience and no remorse for her actions, even until the very end of the movie when she thinks the cops are there and pretends to be the victim, showing that even after all that had happened, she still does not want to own up to what she did, and does not even realize she did anything wrong. She is a mastermind and has no conscience to the point where she spends months at a time pretending to be in love with men so she could lure them into her house and ruin their lives forever. She is constantly on the lookout for new victims and will do anything to capture them. On the other hand, Missy did not grow up in this environment but rather chose to do it herself. She is even very educated and uses her talents for evil rather than for healing. She is the mastermind behind the operation, and, although she knows of other ways of life, continuously decides to pursue this route. I personally think Missy is worse because she is part of the reason Rose is as evil as she is. 

[leilaloves1d]

Other than having watched Frankenstein as a kid, watching the movie Get Out was the first time I had ever watched a horror movie as an adult. I have long known about the movie Get Out, and watched some clips and the trailer on Youtube, but I never mustered the courage to watch it because I am very easily frightened and was afraid I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night after watching it. However, even before I watched the movie, I had an inkling that this movie was not a horror movie, and never really considered it to be part of that genre. If anything, I thought this movie was geared more towards addressing the racism that is still present in the United States in the 21st century as opposed to making the viewers yelp or hide from fright.  Movies about racism, espeically movies about slavery, have always had a deep and life changing impact on me, and, after watching them, I cannot stop thinking about what I witnessed for days, and sometimes even months. For example, in eight grade, the history subject for the year was United States history, and, of course, we spoke in great lengths about the history and lasting impacts of slavery. One day in class, the teacher showed us a harrowing movie about slavery that depicted the horrors of slavey in their recreations of the terrible things the slave owners would do to their slaves. In one scene in particular, the evil slaveholder is whipping his female slave nearly to death for refusing to do sexual acts with him. After that class, I ran to the bathroom and vomited in the toilet because of how disturbed what I just watched was, and continued to think about it almost every day for the rest of the school year. Looking back on it now, I realize that my young heart could not fathom how humans can treat each other with such evil and inhumane intent, to the point where they don’t even see others as human anymore. This was a big theme that I saw in the movie Get Out, where the Black characters are objectified for their bodily capabilities and covered by the white characters. I especially noticed that the brother Jeremy doesn't even view Chris as a human being. It is as if he is a car and throughout the movie he constantly is looking at him like an object. This movie overall rehashed so many feelings I felt throughout my whole life, and I am glad I’m in this class so I could unpack everything I thought. 

[leilaloves1d]

The Signs as Typical Fairy Tale Characters

Princess:Libra,Capricorn

Heroine: Aquarius, Sagittarius

Evil Queen: Scorpio,Virgo,Aries

Animal companion they pick up along the way: Cancer,Pisces,Taurus

Prince/Dream Guy: Leo,Gemini

[leilaloves1d]

@ people who love hot weather why do u love sweating and being sticky and smelling bad

[leilaloves1d]

me and my girl talkin dirty

gf: babe what do you want me to do to you?

me: I want you to explain how Spongebob Squarepants seemed to be the only fry cook at the Krusty Krab. Everything in this underwater world we know as Bikini Bottom is pretty westernized in terms of its customs and general rules. so do they not have labor laws? Spongebob should only be working 40 hours a week because we all know that Mr. Krabs would never give Spongebob any overtime. So we can only assume that he has 2 days off. Being the only restaurant in Bikini Bottom would warrant it being open at least 6 days a week and that is far too many hours for Spongebob to be constantly working there. So who is the other fry cook? 

gf: hun i didn’t mean–

me: babe. who. is the other. fry cook.

[leilaloves1d]

I know someone who was murdered, I know someone who lost their mother, I’ve been to the funeral of someone who lied on a coroner’s table, I know how it feels to lose someone via murder, I know what it looks like to lose someone you love at a young age, I know what it feels like to see your cousin cry at the loss of her mother and know you can’t do anything about it.

I know what murder feels like.

Don’t you dare tell me that abortion is murder, don’t you dare tell me removing a fetus from a uterus is the same as murdering a person.

My aunt died scared and in pain. A fetus feels none of that. Don’t you ever tell me they are the same.

[leilaloves1d]

College Packing Index Cards: Use these index cards as a college packing guide — you don’t have to bring everything on the list.

[leilaloves1d]

RASPBERRY TEA HELPS WITH PERIOD CRAMPS PASS IT ON

[leilaloves1d]

I AM NOW A ONE DIRECTION FAN.

[leilaloves1d]

i can’t believe this is happening again 

they’re trashing the synagogues and destroying jewish-owned establishments and calling for the deaths of jews 

everyone says “never again” BUT HARDLY ANYONE IS EVEN TALKING ABOUT WHAT’S HAPPENING 

SPREAD THE WORLD 

FUCKING HELP US 

DO SOMETHING 

[leilaloves1d]

sam smith: this song is about my ex.

everyone: YASSS BOY SHOW HIM!

taylor swift: this song is for everyone out there who needs a reminder to forget what the haters say :) i love you and thank you all.

everyone: JESUS CHRIST TAYLOR STOP FUCKING WRITING ABOUT BOYS ALL THE TIME WHY ARE YOU OBSESSED WITH YOUR SIXTEEN EXES MAYBE YOU'RE THE PROBLEM DID YOU EVER THINK OF THAT YOU HAVE NO ASS AND ALL YOU DO IS DATE BOYS SO YOU CAN WRITE SONGS ABOUT THEM YOU ARE DISGUSTING

[leilaloves1d]

its been a month since Leelah Alcorn’s death and all posts about her have died down, never forget Leelah Alcorn. She wants her death to be remembered as a message for trans rights. Never Forget Leelah Alcorn.

[leilaloves1d]

Images from the #50DollarsNot50Shades campaign on Facebook: 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/50-Dollars-not-50-Shades/713262428793958

Hollywood doesn’t need your money; abused women do.

Sponsors of this campaign include:

Stop Porn Culture stoppornculture/London Abused Women’s Centre/National Center on Sexual Exploitation/PATHS of Saskatchewan/Antipornography.org/ oneangrygirl.net