Subliminal Messaging

    While discussing the interesting and truthful perspective on how Barbie objectifies women, a sudden idea popped into my head. Not only do their "giant breasts and high-heeled feet"(Prager 354)  objectify women and sexualize their appearance, but Barbies may also subliminally tell boys it's okay to mistreat women. As a child, my keenest memory of Barbie is mutilating the head. Due to fear of ridicule, little boys often feel the need to act manly, which often entails ripping the head off of Barbies ( a way of letting others know that they don't ever want to play with girl toys). This is just another example of how Barbies are not appropriate for children. However, on the subject of subliminal messages in childhood, a few months ago I heard on NPR that by telling first and second graders to circle the differences between two pictures or to find the odd one out of a pattern, it teaches kids that being different is bad. People often have the urge to fit in, and when you tell kids that things that are different should be pointed out, it subconsciously tells them different is bad. The only way to undo this subliminal brainwashing is simply awareness, and Emily Prager does an excellent job unmasking the toxicity towards the image of women Barbie emulates.

Slavery

    Although slavery has been eradicated from America, it's still an issue in other places around the world. People generally assume since slavery is no longer an issue in America, it isn't an issue anywhere else. However, it is. There are more slaves today than there have been at any other time in history. It's estimated that there are somewhere between 21 to 30 million slaves in the world (freetheslaves.net). The slaves today don't have any chances of escaping either. Because of technology advances, security cameras and other high tech equipment can constantly monitor the slaves and prevent them from ever escaping. Any amount of cunningness, "the only weapon of the weak"(Jacobs 556), is not enough to escape such inescapable conditions. Why is there slavery still? The same reason there were slaves in the past. Corporations would much rather outsource their work to foreign countries if the labor is cheaper, and the cheapest labor possible is straight up slavery. People these days idolize money. Holidays like the 4th of July, Christmas and Thanksgiving are all pretty much just opportunities for businesses to host super sales and other market actions. The value of holidays has gone down.  Although not as extreme as Frederick Douglass's The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro, everyone is slowly becoming alienated from such celebrations. We can change this, however, by simply celebrating each holiday for its original purpose. Also, boycotting any sort of “holiday special sale” going on would let the corporations know that Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful, not a time to buy a super mega ultra portable vacuum cleaner. If we boycott these holidays and spread the word about the ongoing issue of slavery, we can eventually end slavery in other countries too.

 

Source: https://www.freetheslaves.net/page.aspx?pid=348

Goodbye

    The Scarlet Letter is finally over! Oh, I didn't mean for that to sound too excited but in more of a sense of closure. As something ends, people often reflect on how such stories or events have affected them. Many times there is an illusion that they will never forget what they have just experienced and it will change their lives forever. However, to be honest, The Scarlet Letter will be but just a faint dot on the collective collage of memories harvested from 11 AP; it will serve as "a motto and brief description of our now concluded legend"(Hawthorne 259). Sure I'll occasionally reference the symbolic A in colloquial conversation or in my essays to seem somewhat knowledgeable, but that's about it. It's like in the real world, when you say goodbye to other things. One of my friends, Josh, moved to Texas a few years ago. We were pretty good friends, both growing up together and always hanging out at church, but we both knew that communication would wither away and eventually die out. Now we're simply Facebook friends. The same goes with going off to college. As we slowly move towards graduating high school, the reality of moving on seems to become more clear. Only a few of my closest friends will remain my friends as we go off to college, the rest becoming mere acquaintances. So as we depart from The Scarlet Letter, I will feel no sadness, for it has helped me
grow as a literary student through those two totally not awkward seminars, countless analyzes of hieroglyphic-like diction, and the identification of symbols that I couldn't possibly have pointed out by myself.  Au revoir, Hawthorne, au revoir.

And belt commercials are just a waist of time.

Guilt.

After talking about how Hester's reputation is starting to change in a positive way, I was suddenly reminded of the Wong Fu short, Just a Nice Guy.

Her selfless deeds are similar to Nick, the main character; they're both constantly helping others, while putting aside their own needs. However, as nice as these deeds are, they're not easy to deliver. Hester's "blameless purity of her life" (Hawthorne 157) while marked with the scarlet letter is her way of repenting past sins. Because she was deemed an adulterer, she forces herself to become selfless and tries to outweigh good against evil. This bring out a positive result;however, Dimmesdale tries to keep his sin a secret, and the guilt ultimately causes him to preach powerful messages. This also has a positive outcome, but Dimmesdale's internal guilt is far greater than Hester's. Therefore, it's better to admit your guilts and ask for forgiveness than to just wallow in secrecy. One time I broke my dad's iPad case, but I didn't tell him about it. I felt bad because he thought he was the one who broke it. We both ended up feeling bad, when I should have been the only one feeling bad. Therefore, I feel like once Dimmesdale admits his misdeeds, his guilt will eventually disappear and then Hester, Dimmesdale and Pearl can live happily ever after. (until they eventually die of random ailments like the common cold because of their super ratchet and demonic doctors)

And those cemetery commercials. It was a grave mistake making those