Scavenger Hunt (of sorts)

for class 8/5:

I want you to, during the blog session, find a current event that relates to your text and work to explain the text's relationship to your news clipping.

The goal here is to move us outside of the classroom and start seeing how/if our classroom conversations join with other conversations. We are gathering a larger conversation, we are joining with our communities.

The event need not be a "global" occurance, but could be something happening in your neighborhood, at your church, or somewhere local. Since we are part of many communities, it will be interesting to see us relate our reading to local/regional issues and global issues. How we relate to the text and the issue will tell us more about our membership in those many communities.




For example, Christian Dior's new campaign (pictured here) reminds me of both texts. In the campaign, there are Asian women who all look identical, are shorter than the singular white model, and seem "plain and complicit." This reminds me of
James Smalls' essay, "Slavery is a Woman," where Smalls breaks down Jean-Marc Nattier's "Mademoiselle de Clermont at Her Bath Attended by Slaves". Smalls comments that "black women are shown in their expected roles as servants and exoticized complements to the white mistress. [...] The portrait constitutes a visual record of white woman's construction and affirmation of self through the racial and cultural Other. [...]" Is Dior doing the same thing? Reaffirming the postcolonial perspective that Asian women are subordinate? Do the rows of Asian women stereotype Asians as submissive? Indistinguishable from each other? And opressed? What do we do with a fashion advertisement that has so much cultural resonance?



While the photograph is alluring and the work might not be intentionally racist, the work is--in fact--racist. At least, it bring up issues of racism. And I'm reminded of how we portray prisoners--as people who all look alike--and how True Notebooks is really working towards offering individual identity through writing. If we gave a pen to all of these Asian women in the photograph and asked them how they feel being "lumped together in conformity," would that give them freedom? Marjane plays with this in her illustrations--she illustrates everyone to look the same or at least similiar. How are her illustrations and her intentions different from the Dior ad?