For one of my subjects, Sex and the Screen, I have yet another blogging assignment (I actually have 2 blog assignment subjects this semester so this should be interesting.
This is my first post for Sex and the Screen.
A quick introduction – usually I write an entire post for that but honestly I’m not that interesting – my name is Alex, and I’m a 2nd year Media & Comm. student. If you want to know anything else about me, feel free to abuse the comment box. Makes me look good hey.
This is just a quick note, really, nothing deep. Today in the lecture when we were warned not to be homophobic or sexist or any other -ist, I kind of had a moment where I saw things from the other side of the stick. While it would please me to no end if any kind of discrimination would just disappear off the face of the earth, it’s plain naive to think that they don’t exist if we simply repress it. The thing is, people have gotten so sensitive over any kind of negative intention behind words spoken that you can basically look at anything as insulting. To be slightly homophobic is now considered ‘wrong’, and there is a huge stigma stuck to it.
To have any kind of opinion isn’t ‘wrong’, but it can be ‘close-minded’. The aim should be to open those minds, not force some version of ‘correct’ onto them. Doing that would almost be identical to repressing homosexuality, for example, because homosexuality is considered ‘wrong’.
My point is, if someone posts a homophobic post, or a racist post, it’s too extreme and, to some extent, plain counter-productive, to fail them on the subject. Instead of punishing them for having an opinion, and further cementing their negative feelings towards a social group, engage them in discussion and try to have them see things from the other point of view.
While it saddens me, whenever I come across a friend who expresses homophobic tendencies, I don’t just tell them that they’re backwards, I try to ask why they feel that way.
The other part of this post is really just…people take things too seriously! A tiny little joke gets blown up to epic proportions of inappropriateness, and it just makes what would be a light-hearted conversation annoyingly technical.
Alex.
P.S., hopefully GIFs work. I won’t do it too much but I do love my GIFs.
Alex
the life and laughs of me 