Perfect 10

For my last blog entry I went to see the film Perfect 10. It was very interesting and funny. I’m really impressed with the work the producers did and at the same time the film really had a good lesson to learn.

The film is about Mara, a girl that is not happy with her body image. Since she was a little kid she had been told that she was fat and ugly and everyone used to make fun of her. That stayed with her for the rest of her life that she never felt happy about the way she looked. Mara was married and even though his husband loved her just the way she was that wasn’t enough for her. Then Mara was invited to attend her tem-high school reunion, but the only reason that she wanted to go was because her first love, the love of his life Danny was going to be there. She lied to her husband so she could go to the reunion so she went with her best friend Libby. At the reunion she took her ring off because she didn’t want Danny and the rest of her friends to find out that she was married. Even though Libby wasn’t okay with this she supported her at the beginning. Libby knew that when they were in high school Danny never liked Mara and that he always used to make fun of her, but Mara didn’t care about this. Mara wanted to feel wanted at least for once in her life. She wanted to feel wanted by an attracted man. That’s why she was willing to lose her husband for Danny. During the high school reunion Mara and Danny confessed their love to each other but soon Mara found out that Danny was married to another woman that looked just like her and he never went to look after Mara. During high school he never liked Mara, and when he found out that he loved her he never went to look after her, so it was too late. Mara realized that her husband was much more worth it, and he always loved her just the way she was, so she went back with him and even though she apologized, she was honest with him telling him that she didn’t know if she would do this again. During this high school reunion Mara’s as well as Libby’s lives changed a lot. The reunion opened their minds and helped them to see things differently.

The main concepts from class that we see in this film are the stereotypes about women’s body image. Most people; in this case man have the idea that for a woman to be beautiful she needs to be skinny, young looking, with curves, etc. This is the idea that Mara had, that’s the reason why she could never be happy with her body image. She went to the gym, she even lost weight but still that wasn’t enough, but by the end of the movie she realizes that what really matters about a person is what’s inside, not the physical appearance. Wee see this by how at the beginning of the movie it starts by Mara looking herself at the mirror in her underwear, and her face expression doesn’t look happy at all, but the last scene of the movie is the same scene but now Mara is looking at herself in the mirror and she is completely naked, showing that finally she’s happy with the person she really is and that’s all that matters. For me the lesson was “always be you and don’t try to go along with the myths and beliefs of this world.” Another interesting scene that I found is when the teacher tries to touch Libby and she stabs him with a fork. What Libby mentions after is that she accepts that she likes to play around with guys but that doesn’t mean that she wants everyone to touch her. Guys assumed that for the way she acted she wanted to play around with every guy but this was not true. At the end of the movie she finally gives hope to a guy that always used to like her since high school.

I really liked this movie. Attending the SIFF festival was a great experience for me and what I liked the most was that I got to meet the producers and some of the actors and actresses. I think this is the first time that I have an opportunity like this and I even got to say hi to them and asked them some questions. It was very fun.

American History X

For this blog I was suppose to go and watch the film The Actresses. I actually drove downtown but I got there late so I couldn’t get in. Instead yesterday I went to watch American History X.
This film was a hard movie to watch and at the same time it was very sad because this kind of racism situations still exist these days. Plus it was totally related to class concepts. The main concept that we see through the whole film is racism. We see racism against all races. The two main characters of the film are Derek and his youngest brother Danny two white boys. Derek became racist because his father was killed by some black people while just doing his work, but his father was racist too. So he though minorities were only occupying extra space that didn’t belong to them. He also mentions that immigrants are just taking the jobs that supposedly belong to the white people. Whites were the norm and they owned this country.

It’s interesting to see how in the basketball game the ones who win the game are the whites and the blacks get to leave the court. In another scene in the movie Derek’s mom and her boyfriend try to tell Derek that white people also commit crimes and kill people, but Derek insists that the numbers are very different and that minorities and immigrants are guilty of everything. Dany followed his brother example and he became racist too. After some time Derek went to jail for three years for killing some black people. By being in jail he got to experience racism against white people also. He suffered a lot. He also got to hang out with a black guy who totally changed his way of viewing things. It’s impressive to see how the black guy got six years sentence in jail just because he stole a TV and he accidentally dropped it on the cop’s foot, while Derek got three years in prison for killing two black guys. In jail was where he learned that being a racist just brought him problems and he also realized that his life was a misery and he didn’t have any happiness. He was even sexually abused by his own race (white guys). He also realized that his brother was following the same path and that sooner or later he was going to also suffer the consequences. He had experienced a lot of things, bad things that he didn’t want his brother to go through. After he got out of jail he started to change everything. He wanted to fix his life and his family’s life was well. He was more focused on his brother. After Danny knew all that Derek went through in prison he realized that the path that he was following, the path that his brother used to follow wasn’t bringing him any happiness as well, so he agreed to change. They started to live a new life. A life were they stopped being racist and a life where they saw everyone equal, but it was too late. Danny was killed at school by some black guys that he always used to hate and they hated Danny as well. Even though Derek changed in prison and tried to change his family most of the people that knew them, knew them as racists so there were still more consequences. That’s why Danny was killed.

Even though we don’t see it much around, this movie definitely tells real life stories that people are living out there. Racist people and gang members killing each other. The movie also tells all the offensive words that there could be to describe another race and that many people still use out there. Active and passive racism are present. Active racism done by all the gang members against each other, and passive racism like the cops that didn't do anything when they saw that someone was being beaten in jail. As I mentioned before this kind of situations still happen in life and for this to change we need the cooperation of every single person in this country, and not only in this country but in this world which of course, is a very hard thing to do. But let’s don’t this stop us from doing what we can. We as an individual, even though is hard, we can still make a difference. I would like to end with a quote from the movie that I really liked: “Hate is baggage. Life is too short to be pissed all the time. It’s just not worth it”- Dany