Here is a photo of Richard Chen who is from Taiwan. The stereotype that is commonly associated with Asians is that they spend all their time focusing on academics because grades are the only thing that matters to them. Here, we can see that he is breaking the stereotype by refusing to study.
For my Practice IO, for my lit text, I chose a 40 line extract from the play, Top Girls, around the scene with Marlene talking with the wife of Howard. For my non-lit text, I chose a work from Saint Hoax’s Making America Misogynistic Again. Specifically and advertisement that portrays a crying woman and a happy man, with burnt dinner and with the heading “That’s okay. I know you’re not thinking. You never do”. The global issue that I decided to explore with both of these texts was the representation of gender power imbalance in media.
The reason I decided to choose this part of my lit text was that it is able to represent my global issue because of how women were generally perceived back in the day, in which women were usually seen as working for men instead of the other way around. The whole discussion of Marlene with Howard’s wife about her position of power provides good content and evidence to explain this point, as well as being a good representation of how women were perceived.
The reason I decided to choose my non-lit text was because of the way that Trump’s misogyny was represented in the Media, as well as his words being able to fit in pretty well within the context of an advertisement made back in the 1950s when misogyny was more normally seen. This links with my global issue, in which the advertisement is able to represent gender power imbalance in media because of how the context of Trump’s were able to be transformed into this context.
Who owns culture? I personally don’t think that any single person can own a culture since it represents the customs and social behaviours of a specific society rather than an individual. It is because of this that I think that it is okay for any individual to represent a part of a cultures fashion styles. An example of this is Katy Perry’s representation of the Japanese culture. Katy Perry did a performance that was supposed to represent the Japanese culture and aesthetic, but received a lot of backlash, some of which was directed at the fact that her “Japanese” clothes were actually part Chinese. This is a case of cultural appropriation, in which the person attempting to appreciate the culture has instead stereotyped and disrespected the culture by not putting in the effort to ensure that they are representing the culture properly. In cases like these I think it is fair to properly call something cultural appropriation as it has some kind of negative effect on the way people perceive the Japanese culture. If Katy Perry had properly represented the culture without focusing specifically on stereotypes as well as actually using a Japanese Kimono, I think it wouldn’t be fair to call it cultural appropriation as there was effort put in to ensure that the culture was respected and represented properly.
There are many similarities and differences between both the extract from Home Fire and Yumna Al-Arashi’s photography in terms of offering insights and challenges into contemporary religious and cultural practices. For example, one similarity is how both represent empowered women. In the case of Home Fire, Aneeka can represent empowerment due to her independence and control over the situation with Eamonn. We see the concept of stereotypes in this situation because Eamonn mentions how he is familiar with the situation but doesn’t actually know how to handle it because of his perception of Islam. He can’t fathom the idea of linking the religion of Islam (with Aneeka’s hijab) and sexual acts. It’s because of this that we see Aneeka take control of the situation. On the other hand, in Yumna Al-Arashi’s photography, we can see that empowerment is represented by the Muslim women in the photo due to the way that she is seen in her confident stance, and the independence shown in her being isolated.
Another similarity would be that there is the subject of the hijab in both Home Fire and in Yumna Al-Arashi’s photography, but there are a few differences. For example, in Yumna Al-Arashi’s photography, the hijab is used to represent Islam. The woman wears the whole burqa and the whole attire because Yumna wants to represent this idea of independence and empowerment in specifically Muslim women, while on the other hand, in Home Fire, the hijab is used because she is Muslim.
Another similarity is how both women stand out. In the case of Home Fire, she stands out because of how she is essentially representing herself as religious in a non-religious country, which provides insight into the feeling of isolation and loneliness due to the way that you are misunderstood because of your religion. On the other hand, in the photos, she stands out because she’s quite literally alone and contrasting heavily with the rest of the image. However, in this case, it provides insight into the strength of Muslim women as well as their ability to be independent, which contrasts with the isolation and loneliness that is represented by Aneeka.
The concept of loyalty can be seen in the extract from Home Fire. In this case, Aneeka is loyal to her religion and to her beliefs. We see this because of how she carefully folds her hijab when she takes it off, as well as her making no sign of being aware of Eamonn and angling herself away from him when he’s in his naked form. This shows that she takes priority over her prayer than sexual acts.