Three Possible Topics

For my research essay I have narrowed the field down to three broad topics. Although I still have a ways to go in figuring out exactly what to write about I feel I have three possible main choices to start from. I would like to base my paper either on Race, Gender or Class.

The first topic I was considering was how race is portrayed in the media. There are hundreds of ways to spin this topic, and for that reason I may not chose it. I was thinking of focusing of one of two areas with in the topic of race. The first one being how minorities are often portrayed as violent gangsters who kill for no reason, while white men are often portrayed as freedom fighters or reluctant heroes who chose violence because they have to. A second way I could spin this topic would be to discuss how in most moves either minorities are helping themselves or whites are helping minorities, there is hardly any movie where minorities help whites. These two negative images in movies result in negative images against minorities.

The second topic I was considering is media's portrayal of gender roles in our society. As a back drop to this I could use how the media targets genders when advertising common house hold items like cleaning supplies. I think that the media sets certain gender roles and plays off of them with claims of "You are not a man/or women if you don't have ....." I think these set roles are bad for our society, especially children.

The third topic would be how class issues come into play within the media. Much like the topic of gender, many commercials are geared towards a certain class or status. This approach makes other classes feel inferior or superior, which helps to promote hatred and bigotry between them. I would argue that because the media portrays certain class groups in a negative light this way of thinking leaks out into society as a whole.

Those are are my three broad thoughts. Any ideas or feedback to help me narrow things down would be greatly appreciated.

Now Exiting Melting Pot Island.

The man pictured above may not be famous but his 15 seconds of fame has made him infamous. His name is Keith Bardwell, a justice of the peace in Louisiana. How did a simple justice of the peace get on the news and kicked off my island? Mr. Bardwell denied the marriage between Beth Humphrey and her boyfriend Terence McKay. Why would he do such a thing? Well it seems that Mr. Bardwell is not a fan of the "melting pot." He denied the marriage because Ms. Humphrey is a white female and Terence McKay is a black male. His reasoning for denying the couple was purely based on race. During a recent Associated Press interview Mr. Bardwell stated he would not marry the couple because in his opinion mixed marriages do not last and the kids of the marriage suffer.

He is voted off my island because his racism is hindering his judgment. He is a public servant with guidelines to follow, these guidelines state that with the proper money and papers he is to marry anyone regardless of race. He defends his racist stance by claiming he has seen mixed marriages divorce faster than non-mixed marriages. There is no evidence his opinion is valid, according to divorcerate.org the national average is 50% across the board, regardless of race. Mr. Bardwell claims he is not a racist, in a recent CNN interview he went on to say he has "piles of black friends and lets them use the bathroom of his home." That is the equivalent of someone saying "I'm not a racist I have a black friend." His racist way of thinking and separatist outlook have no place on my island. Much like a president should not be judged on the color of his skin, the decision of who to marry should not be based on race either. Mr. Bardwell is perpetuating the stereotype that the south is racist and playing God, deciding who and who should not be married to each other.

If we allow our public servants to decide who should be married based on race we are destroying the work of the civil rights movement. We are destroying the work of the Freedom Riders, thousands of activists, historical figures like Ceasar Chavez, Rosa Parks and Stokely Carmichael. What Mr. Bardwell is doing is akin to the old south Jim Crow laws and the laws against interracial relations that put people like world boxing champion Jack Johnson behind bars for traveling with his white wife. On my island and in the world around it there is no place for racism. Being born a certain color is as much your choice as being born handicapped is. Racism will never die if we allow people like Mr. Bardwell to have a voice in decisions that affect the public.

Scarface-A History Lesson?

Almost everyone has either seen Scarface, heard about it, or can quote a line from it. Scarface was written by Oliver Stone and directed by Brian De Palma in 1983. The cast is filled with stars such as Al Pacino as Tony Montana (Scarface), Michelle Pheiffer, Steven Bauer, Robert Logia and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. The movie was made in 1983 and was a remake of an old 1932 mob movie of the same name.

The movie follows the life of Tony Montana, an immigrant from Cuba who comes to the U.S.A in search of money and power. When he gets to Miami he is hit with the harsh reality that life is tough in the U.S. and he is forced to take a job as a dishwasher. With the right connections in place he gets into the world of drugs and fast money. Once in the drug lifestyle he thirsts for more power and more money. The story is about his rise from dishwasher to drug kingpin and his struggle to stay on top of a fast life.

The movie is a roller coaster of highs and lows, action and drama not only on the streets but in the interactions of the characters. Scarface in my opinion is a movie that can be analyzed hundreds of ways. We can discuss how the character of Tony Montana can be seen as a tragic hero, or how power corrupts the soul and doesn't always bring happiness, we can even analyze the effects of drugs on each character. All these would be interesting topics but for me the interesting thing about the movie is one point that is overlooked many times.

Scarface is set in Miami during the 1980s. Oliver Stone spoke about the setting in the Scarface DVD box set, he said he wanted to put the film in a setting modern day people could relate to instead of in the mafia times of the 1930s and 40s. So, why did he chose Miami in the 1980s? For that we have to step out of fiction and look at historical events. Miami in the 1980s was the site of the Mariel Boatlift.

The Mariel Boatlift was a mass exodus of Cubans who left from Cuba's Mariel Harbor for the United States in the summer of 1980. The United States opened it's borders to Cubans who were not happy with the Castro regime that was and still is in power in Cuba. The U.S. government thought this would prove disastrous for Castro but the plan backfired as far as many are concerned. Instead of letting Cuba's citizen's go, Castro opened up his prisons and let the Cubans he didn't want in Cuba go to the U.S. There were so many refugees that the U.S. government was forced to put them into "Tent Cities" below the Miami freeway.

It was during this time that the movie Scarface takes place and Tony Montana begins his reign. In one such Tent City, Tony Montana kills a Castro supporter for money. In the movie the men can be seen living in the tents while the cars drove above them on the busy freeway. According to many people I have spoke to who were in Miami at the time, my Father included, what the movie portrays is very much like what it looked like in Miami at that time. The movie highlights how the people who came to the U.S. were pretty much forced to find they're own way to get out of those Tents and into a culture that didn't want them.

The movie Scarface is in no way meant to be a documentary; but, it does highlight a moment in our history that is overlooked. It has been my experience that much of the history of U.S. and Latin American relations is not talked about in school. Before watching the movie Scarface and wanting to know what the Mariel Boatlift was all about, all I knew of was the Cuban Missile Crisis. I think it was a time that many people both Cubans and Americans would like to forget, but it's important to keep history like that alive so it is not repeated.

Scarface is a great movie, lots of action, drama, fights, romance, comedy, basically everything you could ask for in a movie. If you scratch a little bit deeper you also see the struggle of a culture to survive in a foreign land. You can see glimpses of what many immigrants went through to survive and are still going through to survive. If your one of the few people who has never watched it I invite you to give it a look. If you have seen it, I invite you to look at Scarface from a different perspective, one we can learn something from.