Thursday, March 28, 2013

Talking Points #7 (Connection)



I want to connect this text Cinderella Ate My Daughter to the movie we watched in class Brave.
I think the main connection I saw was in the text when Orenstein talks about her daughter having the first ever fight with her best friend in school, and that fight was precisely about who can be the princess. The main idea of this fight was that there can only be one princess therefore one of them couldn’t be. Is this taken very seriously and if Orenstein wouldn’t have told her daughter to apologize that could’ve ended their friendship forever.
In Brave we see this same kind of competition, when the clans arrive with their first born sons to compete for Merida’s hand in marriage and become the prince, again because there can only be one, and competition between them must be involved in order to win the throne. 


This need for competition and need to be the only person able to shine is embedded in us from a young age. We grow up wanting to be the fastest, biggest, better, the center of attention, etc… There is I think no "safe" competition, because there always has to be a winner and on the other side of that coin there must be a loser, this can bring about anger, fear, low self-esteem, and many other feelings in any person. This article about competition tries to soften the blow.
This can torn apart families and friendships because in order to want this so bad for yourself, one I think must have greed and a sense of feeling that you are better than everyone else.
My question is why can’t we just work together to be one great unity of many different styles and ideas.
In Cinderella for example: why can’t all the girls in the house have a nice dress, be beautiful and pleasant? Why do we always have the need for competition and the need to belittle others in order to make us feel better about ourselves?
This also ties into all the discourses we’ve been talking about in class that are feed to us via the media, we watch these movies, shows, videos, etc. … judge whoever is on the other side and say to ourselves “at least I’m not like them”. I think this is a horrible way of doing better or trying to do better for you, by belittling others.

Smile :)
kt

5 comments:

  1. Hey Kenia,

    I really liked your post. I do agree with you that competition breaks up families and friends. Competition does bring anger, frustration, jealousy with it. To answer your question, "why can’t we just work together to be one great unity of many different styles and ideas?" its because we live in a world where unity and peace is no long dominant. And to be honest it would take a huge miracle to get unity and peace again. Only God can do that. But I also do notice that competition becomes a dominant thing in our lives. We turn everything and anything into a war. Even the simplest things, like for example getting your ex boyfriend back. One will have go into war with the current girlfriend in order to get him back. And most of the time, that view is not pretty at all.

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    1. I agree with you Nescarly,
      its a never ending cycle.

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  2. Its THE DOMINANT IDEOLOGY that is embedded within us even at the subconscious levels...females have been pinned against each other and told to only focus on their beauty and being bigger in better instead of working with each other in solidarity. I really do wonder sometimes how the world would be without such a machine working against humanity... great post keep that beautiful mind thinking!

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  3. well said well written i think that you did a great job

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