Joseph Elias

September 21^st, 2010

                                    Ethnography

Part I: Observation:

                        The scene I chose to observe was Cheviot Hills Recreation Park which is located in the west side of Los Angeles. Its address 2551 Motor Ave. Los Angeles, CA in the residential are labeled Cheviot Hills. I arrived around 2:00 on September 18^th, 2010; I decided to sit under a tree on the northeast most corner of the park to get a full spectrum of the environment. It is a rather large park with a recreational Olympic sized swimming pool, an indoor gym, two baseball fields, two full court basketball courts and two court basketball courts, and a full sized jungle gym. I chose a Saturday to observe the park because of my many years as a patron who has visited this park most of my life I know that many people enjoy the park on the weekends. I began my observation by watching a full court basket ball game. There was one team with individuals of Middle Eastern decent versus a group of African Americans. It seemed as if the one team with Middle Easterners where familiar with each other, they where referring to each other on a first name basis. I was watching the next team form on the sidelines, I began to watch this for four straight games, and every single team was of the same culture or race. I next turned to view the little league baseball game going on towards the center of the park. The stands where filled with parents yelling support to there children as they where playing, especially the mothers. The older men who I presumed who where there fathers seemed to be coaching the children more than the actual coaches of the team. I saw one father actually pull his son by the by his wrist to the side and yelled at him for making an error in judgment on a fly ball, the child was probably between the ages of seven and nine. Around an open part of the park I had seen Latin-American family having a somewhat of a family picnic, it had more than twenty people. The men of the group set up goal for a soccer game that they will soon partake in as the women are preparing fold out tables and the food that is about to be served after the game. This becomes a little more interesting though when on accident during the soccer game, the soccer ball gets in between the game of basketball and an African American male decides to make a remark to the situation expressing a derogatory remark towards Latin-Americans at a member of the soccer players. This situation does not escalate as a group of the basketball players partake in applauding the derogatory remark by laughing and adding discriminatory jokes of there own, they also begin to spit derogatory remarks towards the other ethnicities around the park.  I was getting late into the afternoon and the park was beginning to die down. Elderly individuals/couples, young couples, and families begin which seems a nightly walk around the park; some are walking their dogs and parading around. One couple I noticed sparked the eye sight of the whole park it seemed, it was a Lesbian couple holding hands walking there two dogs around the park, it seemed as if that everyone passed them up would turn back and take a quick glance.

Part II: Analysis

            Gender role is defined as a theoretical construct in the social sciences and humanities that refer to a set of social and behavioral norms that, within a specific culture, are widely considered to be socially appropriate for individuals of a specific gender. In America culture, gender role has went through many critical advances that allow today’s people to live freely and actively without various obstacles in an individual’s way. Even though as a society we have evolved into a more liberal people and such we still participate in unpleasant rudiments of the past.

            In my time of observation, the social status of certain indivdual has not changed. The involvement of the group of African Americans contributing to this social discourse is evident. The slave/master idea begins to set in, I being an African American has lived and still lives in a predominately African American community. This also expressed in the constructs of how the teams where selected with one certain race in each team. This also affects other cultures because of the denial of mixing the teams with others. There is a impulse it seems in many blacks (especially the young men) who believe they must defend there culture at all cost and that is because of how the past has polluted their upbringing. The belief that it is still a “white man’s world” still resonates in this society today.

            The ideals of the American dream are also diluted in this social surrounding. Watching the fathers of those young baseball players expresses the male ego of father pushing son to become great no matter what the cost. Baseball is “America’s pass time” is one way bolstering the using gender role as an example from our readings of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” with using sports as a way to promote the male bravado in the sense of showing of your assets (children, materials, spouse) as a success story creating a façade, what could be a great father-son relationship could actually be disastrous. As for watching the Latin-American family who had no care in the world watching a pleasant soccer match between family members. Soccer, which is really not a popular American sport, is usually shunned down as only a foreigner sport, so it is not widely accepted. The majority does not accept it so it is not American, so it does not pertain in the social constructs of supposed American life. That would explain the hostleness of the sport to the men who where playing basketball because of how “non-American” it is.

            The famous writer Carlos Fuentes once said that “people and there cultures perish in isolation, but they born or reborn in contact with other men and women from another culture, race, or creed. If we do not recognize our humanity in others, we will not recognize it in ourselves”. These words speak truth with which goes in our society today. The norms of gender and racial disparity are apparent but not discussed. One day hopefully these norms will be come detested in our society but until then we must work at it.

           

                        

Cat on A Hot Tin Roof

The discussions of this text are very interesting because of the various relationships that are being examined through this playwright. Dysfunctional is not even the best word to explain the situations that are presented in the movie, it’s almost a melting pot of various issues, From an estranged relationship between father and son (Brick and Big Daddy), a dissolving marriage (Maggie and Brick) its subplots make eat much more interesting then I had anticipated. The play exposes the dark side of the All-American family. Brick is in constant internal warfare at the fact that his father only loves him for he represents the “All-American”. There are also some modern topics that are brought up such as homo-sexuality (the relationship of Brick and his past teammate and friend Skipper) and how to cope with life obstacles such as death. I believe that the movie actually presented me with a better idea of where the book was going. I personally believe that it was bright spot from where I thought that this book was going to be somewhat boring. The great thing about this play is that it really has a modern tone to it as well. It seems all these situations could have happened in todays world. 

I know that this maybe a little of topic but i found out they had a  version of the play with African American cast. With the likes of Terrence Howard, Phylisia Rashaad, and James Earl Jones  why in the hell do they have Diddy acting as Guber? You couldn't get anybody else????  c'mon son 

Cultural Identity

The idea of self 

The idea of self explains an individuals indispensable characteristics that make them unique. The essence of ones self is explained through there family, interests, friends, religion and all other facets of human existence. Though these are represented in our uniqueness, society sometimes does not allow these distinctive traits to be presented. Society has a distinctive out look on what the perfect person should be. Case in point, Patrick Bateman, Christian Bales character in the film American Psycho, In the film Bateman is a wealthy Wall Street invester , with high priced apartment, good looks, a beautiful fiancé. All the items that necessitate the ideas of the American Dream. Inside of him though lurks a dark person with homicidal fantasies that kills just for the fact that he likes to do it. This an extreme case of this but a powerful notion as Batemen explains through the film  that he is built to look as society wanted him to be but in reality he is living a lie.As individuals we do put up façade to appease our peirs, parents, employers, colleagues but is there a price to pay for this? As one of my friends used to say “You ain’t gotta lie to kick it”. So even though we as individuals don't take it to the level Batemean does but are we as much different in objective view?

  

The Politics of Culture

When I heard politics and culture in the same phrase I was stunned, I could not think these two ideals can co-exist. When I hear politics the same rhetoric that comes into my brain is power, money, conservative and liberal, Democrats and Republicans, or any other term that separates society from each other. The term culture I would think promotes unity, respect, tolerance, almost willingness for people to come together as we are all part of human culture. In the resulting discussion in class although, I couldn’t be more wrong. In the past culture had been diluted by politics, In retrospect capitalism (especially in America). There is an undeniable truth that there are the haves and the have nots, but what would that have to do with interests such as music, television, cinema?  In the early part of the last century culture was only permitted to the social hierarchy(rich people) which is actually the minority of society. This was used to surpress the rest of society into perceiving the notion that they could not understand culture because it was only granted to the elite. This expressed in our text as High/Low culture.  As the time went on however a strong change came across as we saw society taking a complete turn from the social norm. We saw culture become rebellious, a means of expression for all peoples,we see this today as culture has become almost inclusive to all.