Category: RCL

This blog is about the second extra credit opportunity I attended, the Zoom session with Andrew Yang.

This links back to the other blog I wrote, specifically about minorities in leadership positions. To start off, no matter the political affiliation, I was happy to see an Asian representative running for a Presidential position. While I think America has a long way to go until it votes for an Asian president, if it does ever, it is still encouraging to see people trying. Yang was also a really funny presenter. I found myself occasionally smiling or laughing when he was talking.

I agree with what he said in that the two party system is driving us towards a “civil war”. This creates an us vs. them system, and especially in the past few elections, people are more divided than ever, and are less willing to listen to each other. It already has caused so much disruption and violence in our country. Especially with the election of 2020, I feel like we got pushed to the extremes. It is so sad how much people have been directed to hate people of the other party, regardless of whether they may or may not actually agree with them and if they want to vote for a bipartisan bill. Diversity is important within a political party! I am interested to see when my generation makes up the majority of the voting body how that will impact the Democrat vs. Republican party dynamics. There has been a surplus of hate in the past 5 year towards people of color, and having both parties divided instead of unified did not help anyone. I feel like we are a more progressive generation, which I am proud of, and I would like to believe that some of the policies that have been passed lately and the mindsets that have been apparent lately would not stand right with us.

I also agree that social media is not always the best when it comes to politics. On one hand, it spreads information quickly, which can be good, but on the other hand it spreads information quickly, which can be bad. I know I pay attention to the news, but not as much as my parents might. On TikTok or Twitter, I’ll see something trending politically, and that is a quick and efficient way for me to get my information, as long as it is from credible sources. Also, with cancel culture, specifically from my generation which may not be the majority of the current voting body, if a politician says one wrong thing it can wreck them and/or their career.

Some other things he talked about that I agree with…it is sad that our standard of living has gone down, while our standing of living has gone up economically. Especially with the worldwide pandemic, so much is changing rapidly and not everyone can adjust quickly. I also believe in terms limits, that our country is governed by fear, and that we need change.

This blog is about the first extra credit opportunity I attended, the panel.

I have never been to a political panel like this before, so it was something new. Granted, I did not speak but it was interesting to hear other people speak, especially local people from the area. Sometimes it is easy to forget that there are active communities here that are not just made of college students. I wonder how our community impacts their community, or if it has an impact at all on their political community. I know when we were being informed in class on it, Hastings Hall in East was its own thing or something like that? It would make sense for State College to be grouped as one district; while I do not live here and I voted for my home county, I see the validity of keeping this area together. I was surprised that many of the speakers had a script as well, but they sounded very professional and informed.

I agree that densely populated areas should be kept together. That would make sense for any city, like Philadelphia or New York City. Now the question is if different areas of the city have clear political divides, but that was the whole point of the panel, to decide how areas should be split. I think if you grouped areas together by majority, it may pressure people of the opposite political affiliation to move, but if every area was on the fence about majority, that would be tough for politicians to campaign everywhere. Also, depending on the population, if it is like 500 people compared to 5,000, obviously there may be a difference.

I also agree that minorities should be represented more. I say this not just in terms of politics but in all terms of leadership. Just like in a movie when the director is a person of color, they can tell stories their way, and have more peoples’ stories be told. Obviously everyone’s story is different, but especially when it comes to policies that may affect minorities more severely, having representation in political leadership positions is critical. Also in terms of gender, women should be represented more, as well as the LGBTQ+ community, but I think we are definitely moving in the right direction. Politics affect everyone, but they affect everyone differently. However, only having one narrative be told ignores everyone else.

I wish that students would be more educated on things like this; while some people may not be interested, we are developing young citizens, and I feel like we will be expected to know this when we graduate, how the political system works, how our area is organized, etc. Our generation needs to know the importance of voting, and how to actually vote. Especially with the past few elections, each vote counts. While I do not think I would go to another panel necessarily, I thought it was very informative about general political processes and it was a good opportunity to attend.

This speech was a lot of fun to do! I always love doing something related to my identity as an Asian woman, and this was really fun to research. It was hard condensing what I wrote in my essay to a short TED Talk, but I believe I hit all of the points I wanted to make. Acknowledging the pioneers of Asian representation in film was very important to me, because no one talks about them in history (or at least the history classes I have taken). Stereotypes were another important aspect I wanted to talk about, as those are prevalent in every film. I also really wanted to touch on the importance of the two full-Asian cast movies as those are very significant, as well as the 2 recent Marvel movies, especially because they reflect rapid change just during this year.

This talk took me a few hours to record because I would mess up one tiny thing, and then I would want to restart. I know that my final product has some small mistakes as well, but for the amount of effort that I put into the talk before and my end product, I was pretty pleased with it. My one friend watched my talk and gave me positive feedback as well, which was really encouraging. I was pretty proud of this project.

For my History of a Public Controversy Project, I want to do something unique but I am not sure what a unique controversy is. There are the ones on capital punishment, abortion, gun control, etc., vaccine requirements, freedom of speech and its limitations, climate change, artificial intelligence and the growing role of technology in our lives, and police brutality. I will keep trying to think of some unique topics, but those are some to start off with. I feel like the gun control and freedom of speech topics could be interesting and very applicable to today.

Evolving Ideas Visuals

My subject is Asian Portrayals in Film Throughout History, and my outline for this subject is as follows:

I would go over the history, stereotypical roles of men vs. women, critiques, well-known films, and recent films and their reactions.

For history, one source I would refer to is this Washington Post article. This article talks about significant Asian actors and actresses in the past century, and the struggles that they faced, from being casted in stereotypical roles to being whitewashed.

For stereotypical roles of men vs. women, I found this thesis that someone wrote that touches on this area. Asian women are generally sexualized in media, while Asian men are sometimes portrayed as nerdy and undesirable. I am not a princess person, but I always liked the strong, smart princesses, especially Mulan. It was one thing to see a Disney princess who looked like me, but it was another to see her lead an army and save China. There are too many films however that portray Asian women as damsels who need to be saved.

For critiques, I forget where I saw it but I saw someone critique Awkwafina in Shang-Chi for being an Asian actress that is “in everything” and that her role did not suit her. This angered me, because no one says this about a white actor or actress. Many white celebrities star in many movies and franchises, and yet their roles are never questioned due to their race. (I need to find this source.)

Well-known films/recent films I want to touch on are the Joy Luck Club for its significance, Disney portrayals such as Mulan vs. the Aristocrats (even though they are cats, the way the Simese cats are portrayed is downright offensive), Crazy Rich Asians, and most recently, Shang-Chi, the first Asian superhero. Also, I have to note I was thoroughly dissapointed in Marvel at how they failed to promote the movie because the superhero is a person of color. However, I am proud to say it blew the box office out of the water, and I contributed to it. (I posted links to articles on the significance of some of these movies as a hyperlink).

The TED Talk I chose to watch was Getting Stuck in the Negatives (and How to Get Unstuck). I love the power of positive thinking, and it is always something that I can work on. I found it also fitting due to the choice of my blog.

I like that the speaker tried to be humorous at appropriate times, she gestured the right amount to get her point across but it wasn’t obnoxious, and I also liked that her visuals were simple and easy for a viewer like me to understand. I think she brought in the right amount of personal experience, and I also liked that it was clear when she was explaining the significance of the study. It was a light, positive talk that left me with a few cute takeaways.

For my Unit 2 Topic, I was thinking of either writing about the raising of children in the past few decades, specifically the approaches towards motherhood and babies. For example, there have been so many different viewpoints on the journey of motherhood, what vitamins to take, what food to eat, what is the right amount of physical activity to do. Then when you have the baby, there are so many safety regulations that come out each year, it seems hazardous to have a baby. plus the tasks of being a mother, such as breastfeeding vs. bottle feeding. I would probably organize it into stages of getting pregnant, getting ready to have the baby (hospital vs. home births), having the baby (an epidural vs. a natural birth), and raising the baby (the right crib, clothing material, etc.).

Another topic I was thinking of was the portrayal of Asians throughout film, including the history decade by decade from the 1920’s, stereotypes of men vs. women, critiques (Awkwafina was criticized for being in Shang Chi as an Asian actress that is “cast in everything”, but white actors never face the same criticisms)/requirements (being too “Asian” or not “Asian enough” like Jessie Mei Li in Shadow and Bone), well-known films (Karate Kid, emphasis on Joy Luck Club significance) and recent films (Crazy Rich Asians, Shang Chi).

Both topics have changed drastically in the past few decades, so it would probably be an observation of the past century or so.

Essay Rough Draft

3 inches. According to Psychology Today, this is the height difference that most men prefer in a partner. Standards are also to be on the thinner, athletic side, with some curves, long hair, and natural makeup. Society dictates what women should be and wear and look like all the time. Whether it is critiquing a person, usually a woman’s, face, body shape, skin color, height and more, not only is society our own worst critic but so are we. Luckily, beauty standards have started to shift over and have begun to fight back against this notion of being “perfect” and have instead opted for body positivity and self-love. Among the multiple campaigns all vying for a woman’s time and money, Dove is a company that has been promoting its slogan, “Beauty is for everyone.” However, in two of their campaign ads, there were conflicting messages. The “Real Beauty” Campaign, along with the ad for Dove’s VisibleCare Body Wash, promotes their slogan but in very different ways. Regardless of how the campaign and ad are carried out, their goal is the same: to emphasize their audience’s beauty and build up confidence. In Dove’s “Real Beauty” Campaign and VisibleCare Body Wash Campaign, Dove utilizes pathos, rhetorical situation, and representation to promote the body positivity and self-love market while still trying to get their customers to buy their products to attain their “natural” beauty.

The ”Real Beauty” Campaign was created to encourage women to feel beautiful. Women described themselves to a forensics artist, and then another person described the same woman. The results were that everyone’s second portrait was happier and “prettier”. This invokes pathos, making women viewing the ad feel like this could be them. Especially since the women were ordinary women, many audience members may have found a similar face. Representation and diversity are hot words of today and Dove certainly attained them by having subjects of different ethnicities and ages. Beauty and confidence are ideas that do not disappear with age, especially the feeling of insecurity and urge to fit. Personally, having an Asian woman on screen grabbed my attention the most as she was someone who looked like me. Campaigns get more attention when they make their audience feel something, and many women in the conclusion of the video were getting emotional at their second drawing, causing the audience to also possibly get emotional. Reflecting, they were more grateful for their features and believed that the way they perceived themselves had a critical impact on their happiness. This has significance as this campaign was a response to a study where a miniscule percentage of women described themselves as beautiful. Dove’s timely response to the rhetorical situation led to a possibly more effective ad than it originally would have been because this study supported the fact that more women need to feel more beautiful and confident in themselves. Dove’s strategic utilization of everyday women at the time that the ad came out was a tactical strategy for an effective ad.

Dove’s VisibleCare Body Wash Campaign on the other hand was very controversial and promoted the idea that women needed a product to feel beautiful and “clean”. This also utilized the lens of representation, having a Black, Latino, and White woman on the cover. Dove again tried to check the boxes of the hot words of representation and diversity. However, the campaign raised a few eyebrows with the positionings of the models. The Black model was under the “dirty” side, with the Latino model next and the White model under the “clean side”. The visual rhetoric here depicts three happy women, feeling “clean” from Dove’s product. Similar to the “Real Beauty” Campaign, the ad utilizes pathos since the ad attempts to get women to want to feel the way that the models are displaying. The visuals here can say a lot in a few to little words while still promoting the emotions that Dove is hoping to promote: desire to look and feel beautiful, clean, and happy like the models. However, what the ad actually indicated may be less what the company had intended it for. Dove’s misuse of representation caused a domino effect of failing to get their audience to want to feel like their models and buy their product and instead just feel confused and skeptical.

Regardless of whether the ads actually got their message through or not to their audience, there is no denying that Dove makes an attempt at knowing their audience. One of the biggest keys in having an effective campaign is having your audience feel the same way you feel or getting them to feel the way you want them to feel. In this case, Dove wanted their audience to feel beautiful and more confident.  The way that they carried this out in both campaigns is very different though; the “Real Beauty” Campaign wasn’t promoting a product, just their message, while the VisibleCare Body Wash Campaign was clearly promoting a product. Not only is the body wash almost undermining the original message by indicating that women need the product to feel beautiful, but the way that Dove also severely messed up their representation makes people think twice about the brand they want to support. Indicating that all women, regardless of age or ethnicity, are beautiful in the “Real Beauty” Campaign attracted many in their audience because seeing someone like you in the media has a significant impact on the emotionality and effectiveness of the ad and emphasizes the idea that beauty is for everyone. However, indicating that women need Dove’s product to be beautiful, especially in their not-so-subtle placement of their models leads to a different emotionality and not as effective ad.

With the high percentage of women who do not feel beautiful, Dove also had an opportune moment to boost women’s morale and confidence with a well-timed ad. While the “Real Beauty” Campaign may have hit the nail right on the head, the VisibleCare Body Wash ad may have injured the audience’s morale by indicating they need a body wash to be clean and beautiful, that they need to use this product to be happy. Understandably, they are trying to promote a product, but by implicating that people should use it to feel good, they are undermining their own message of feeling good in your own skin. Reflecting on how the ads make someone feel, the “Real Beauty” Campaign has a feel-good, wholesome message of accepting who you are, embracing it even. The VisibleCare Body Wash ad instead makes women reflect on their natural state and question are they “clean”, and therefore beautiful, possibly targeting some women’s insecurities. One ad’s utilization of their audience’s pathos led to a sweet message, while the other led to feelings of self-doubt or skepticism.

Dove is a well-known brand that is seen in every CVS or grocery store. As a company that plays into the beauty market, they understandably have constructed ads and campaigns to promote beauty and confidence in their consumers. However, when appealing to an audience with a wide variety of women with different viewpoints on themselves and their beauty, there has to be a strategic way to empathize with the audience, comfort them, and make them feel good. Dove’s “Real Beauty” Campaign strategically created an ad that spoke to many women about their not feeling alone in feeling insecure, or not beautiful, and promoted the idea of a woman’s natural beauty. The VisibleCare Body Wash ad used all of the same strategies, but in a more questionable way that led to a less effective message and promotion of their product. It is tricky to promote all of the right messages with such a diverse audience, but companies like Dove will keep creating ads that possibly check all of the key boxes to having an effective message.

For the speech, this is my general outline:

Start with beauty spending statistics as a hook

Transition it into background of the “Real Beauty” Campaign

Utilize pathos, representation, and rhetorical situation -> Survey came out that “only 2% of women around the world would describe themselves as beautiful”, as well as the current atmosphere with COVID and beauty

Emphasize impact on us as college students/active consumers

Conclude with goal and thank you

Beauty standards are so different around the world and have changed so much in the past few years. Whether it is critiquing a person, usually a woman’s, face, body shape, skin color, height and more, not only is society our own worst critic but so are we. Luckily, while not completely shifted over, people have begun to fight back against this notion of being “perfect” and have instead opted for body positivity and self-love. Among the multiple campaigns all vying for women’s time and money, Dove is a company that has been promoting its slogan, “Beauty is for everyone.” However, in two of their campaign ads, there were two conflicting messages. The “Real Beauty” Campaign, along with the ad for Dove’s VisibleCare Body Wash, promote the ideology of beauty, but in very different ways. Regardless of how the campaign and ad are carried out, they are trying to emphasize beauty to their audience. By promoting their idea of beauty, Dove tries to play into the body positivity and self love market while still trying to get their customers to buy their products to attain their “natural” beauty.

My speech will be built on my speech from last week, with some more information about the new Body Wash ad I selected as my second artifact. I like how I led into my speech with the statistics, so I think I am going to do that again. I will just make it more compact so I can fit in the ad’s information while still maintaining the 3-4 minute range. I want to compare and contrast the campaign and ad, especially since the ad is so controversial and even can be seen as going against the “Real Beauty” Campaign. I think ending with analyzing how they accomplish their messages and their impact and reception is another important aspect to speak about.

As a woman, I feel like the Heartbeat Bill is a topic that all women should be concerned about. I cannot imagine being a woman in a state where my own reproductive rights are threatened.

In terms of the presentation, I like how Emma talked loudly but at a moderate pace…I could clearly understand what she was saying. Also giving some background information was great as we could understand her POV better, and she barely used her notes as well. She used her gestures purposefully.

The speech which was the artifact is definitely an intriguing one. More and more people our age are speaking up and using their voices to incite change, and this is a perfect example. Paxton Smith utilized her platform to spread her message, and rather courageously I might add. Fearing the microphone will get shut off during your own speech is terrifying, but she did it. Sometimes taking a risk is necessary. This speech can be seen through many lenses, including a source of trust, pathos, the rhetorical situation of exigence, and even possibly representation. After all, a lot of the lawmakers who are making decisions about this topic are men. Like Emma said, these people say “my body, my choice” when referring to wearing masks, but they are hypocrites when it comes to reproductive rights. We need more women in the seats of the people who are making these decisions, as the representation that needs to be there is not. Abortion is always a highly contested topic, but it does not make sense for people to be making these decisions when this issue does not apply to them. Most women do not even know they are pregnant by the 6-week period. I think it’s important to speak up about this topic, to advocate for ourselves.