bathroom issue

In 2009, there was a plan to make public bathrooms for transgender people in Chennai, India. According to the local authorities, the purpose of the plan is to broaden understanding of transgender people in society. The new brought on active debate over its pros and cons among transgender people.

When I read the news, I became concerned that having bathrooms for transgender people would stimulate discrimination against transgender. Recently, the acceptance of transgender people is becoming widespread. However there are still many people who believe that there are only men and women in the world, and consider people who are between men and women as unnatural. Therefore, those people would oppose bathroom for transgender people.

Moreover, I think that people who had surgery or who try to look like men or women want to be treated as the sex which they believe themselves to be. They don't want to be distinguished as transgender. So I don't think bathroom for transgender is needed.

The bathroom issue is important to transgender people. They struggle which bathroom (men's or women's) they should use. For people who are under the process of changing sex, the bathroom issue is especially serious. There was a case that a transgender person who was receiving surgical process was arrested three times for using women's bathroom. For these people, having bathroom for transgenders is helpful.

Therefore, I don't know the plan of making bathroom for transgender people is really a good idea or not. It can cause discrimination. On the other hand, there are transgender people who need it. I learned the gender can include many things about men and women from my class. Gender should be more fluid thing. Therefore I haven't decided whether there should be the bathrooms for gender people. At least, I don't agree about dividing bathroom by labeling because I don't think people need to be distinguished by means of sex.


http://www.indianexpress.com/news/chennai-move-on-separate-toilets-for-tra.../432575/
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE4DD1731F932A35750C0A9609C8B63&scp=1&sq=transgender%202006%20march&st=cse

photo: popbunka.hamazo.tv/d2009-01.html

The Jazz Singer

I wacthed The Jazz Singer (1927) in my class. It is the first film with synchronized dialogue, but most part of this movie is silent. The actor's faces expressing their feelings are impressive for me because the film depicts the story without color and voice. The songs used in this movie also play important role. They are used along the character's feeling. For example, I can receive main character's feeling by the rhyme of the word.

I am interested in the relationship of the son, mother, father, and their heritage. They all struggle against their feelings and their duty as Jewish.

The son (Jakie) who has a passion for singing jazz tries to succeed in white culuture. He leaves his home and efface his Jewish heritage by changing name. However Jakie can't abandon his family and identity as a Jewish. The night before his big show which is important for his career of jazz singer, he shows discomposure with saying " in my heart - maybe it's the call of the ages - the cry of my race." "The Day of Atonemnent is the most solemn of our holy days - and the songs of Israel are tearing at my heart." In my opinion, his Jewish heritage sinks into his psyche even if he wants to live a different life from his father. He wears blackface at the rehearsal for the show to assimilate into white culture; however, his Jewish identity comes up in his mind instead being white because observance of the Day of Atonemnent occures at the same time.

His father who is a cantor struggles about his family's heritage as well as Jakie. His father throws his son out of his home because Jakie refuses to be a cantor. To be a cantor is a heritage for his family. When Jakie leaves home, his father says, "We have no son." and he keeps denying Jakie return home. I think that his father may understand Jakie's feeling; however, his father takes his family's, Jewish religion, and heritage rather than loving his son.

Jakie's mother plays a symbolic role in this story. She tunes in to Jakie and tries to explain his feeling to her husband; on the other hand, she wants her son to sing at the Day of Atonemnet. She struggles between her son and husband. Her role represents a conflict between assimilation into whiteness and upholding their Jewish heritage.

At the end of this movie, Jakie sings for the Day of Atonement and his father dies while Jakie is singing. He chooses Jewish heritage; however, Jakie, after the day, goes back to the show. He succeeds in being a jazz singer in white culture. Although the story comes to a happy end, I think that when his father dies, part of the Jewish identity in Jakie's mind also disappears. I believe that in his heart, Jakie will continue facing conflict between being Jewish and white.



American on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality at the Movies. 2nd edition. Wiley-Blackwell, 2009

photo: xroads.virginia.edu/~UG01/hughes/jazz.html

Fuzzy Zoeller vs. Tiger Woods

Zoeller's comments at the Masters: "That little boy is driving well and he's putting well. He's doing everything it takes to win. So, you know what you guys do when he gets in here? You pat him on the back and say congratulations and enjoy it and tell him not to serve fried chicken next year. Got it? Or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve." (CNN)

The news about Fuzzy Zoeller’s remarks toward Tiger Woods which became a controversy in America. Although he apologized for his comments and Woods accepted his apology, he lost his sponsorship and bowed out of the following golf tour. Zoeller accounted that he just made a joke. Yet people criticized him. When I saw this news, I also got some negative vibes from his remarks because he knew the words he used could be considered as racial terms. Moreover he made remarks at The Mater Tournament, which is one of the four major golf tournaments. I think that saying something racist in such a big event has a great deal of influence because lots of people watch it on TV. He shouldn’t have told an off-color joke, even if he tried to be funny.

However we can’t criticize only Zoeller because Woods also made a joke about African-Americans during the interview for a GQ article. It was a sexually distasteful joke. Woods asked the writer, Dave Anderson, not to write what he said; yet Anderson refused his request. (The New York Times, 1997)
In his article in The New York Times, Anderson compared Zoeller with Wood, and mentioned the difference of making racial jokes between in public appearances and among individuals. Then he argued that Woods needs to apologize as well as Zoeller.

I think that people can make jokes to be funny even off-color jokes if they use the jokes among individual toward people who know each other well and understand those jokes aren’t intended to hurt anyone.
It is difficult to set an obvious line among words. Some of those words are on the line because there is perception gap among people. Their feelings vary according to the situation: who speaks the word, where the word is used, how, and when.
I found complexity surrounding race issue from those two cases. It is so sensitive, especially saying something racial to people.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9704/21/fuzzy/

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/27/sports/tiger-woods-also-needs-to-apologize-for-distasteful-jokes.html?pagewanted=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aWS0StFM5I&feature=player_embedded

female composers

When I think about classical music composers, people who come into my head are all men, for example Mozart, Bach, Liszt, and so on.
I can’t name any female composers.
So I looked for information about classical composers, then I found an interesting perspective regarding how women who composed music in 19th century Europe suffered because of the male-dominated culture.
Of those women, Fanny Mendelssohn is the person I was interested in.
Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847) was brought up in a wealthy family and got a good education in music, language, and philosophy.
Her brother is Felix Mendelssohn, known as a famous classical composer.
Fanny and Felix showed their talent for music; however, their father limited her creative musical activity. Although she created fantastic music, the society didn't readily accept women as composers, though they did as instrumentalists. Therefore she published her pieces under the name of her brother.
Finally, in 1846, she published her works under her own name.
She died in 1847 during the rehearsal of her brother’s cantata. It was only a year after publishing under her name.
She had a gift and passion for music. She was praised for her creative activity; however, she couldn't go mainstream as a composer because of the male-dominated culture.
Though Fanny faced the difficulty of being a composer, she kept doing what she wanted to do. I appreciate her strength.


https://www.essentialsofmusic.com/