Media Portrayals of Culture

COMM 536

Critical  Thinking Paper 3: Media Portrayals of Culture

Kathleen Norris is a renowned American poet who has authored several nonfiction reflections on spirituality and life.  Her work is described as being, “at once intimate and historical, rich in poetry and meditations, brimming with exasperation and reverence, deeply grounded in both nature and spirit, sometimes funny, and often provocative” (Steven Barclay Agency, 2013, paragraph 1).  She shares deep truths through stories of her own self-discovery, her interactions with neighbours and friends, and the traditions of places that either have been passed down to her or that she herself has studied.

In the opening chapter of Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, Norris (1993) introduces her memoir by sharing that, “This book is an invitation to a land of little rain and few trees, dry summer winds and harsh winters, a land rich in grass and sky and surprises” (p. 2).  The story is of her reflections on small town living, her exposé of rural American culture.  As she later recounts, “Where I am is America’s outback, the grasslands west of the 100th meridian that constitute the western half of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas […] there are far more cattle than people” (p. 107), and the small town of 1,600 people that is her residence was and is one of the largest in northwestern South Dakota.

She writes first of the early 1970s when she returned to her roots after having lived in Virginia, Illinois, Hawaii, Vermont, and New York; her roots being the 1923 homestead of her mother’s family in Lemmon, South Dakota, where the population shrank from “3,400 in 1964 to around 1,600” (Norris, 1993, p. 47) in 1991, with a current population of 1,227 (City Data, 2012).  The time period of the book then covers a span of 25 years on the frontier: “Frontier has all too often been romanticized in American culture by movies and novels glorifying the violent and often ugly code of the West.  The fact that one people’s frontier is usually another’s homeland has been mostly overlooked” (Norris, 1993, p. 127).  This ignorance, or rather a conscious misrepresentation of culture, is why Norris (1993) that her stories of Dakota are so valuable: They reveal a people and place distinctly different from any other.

The book’s content concerns the impact of the isolation of the Great Plains on how Norris (1993) identifies herself as an American writer and on how she sees the world through the lens of American asceticism, which is, contrary to mainstream American culture, the idea that giving up some things results in others of greater worth.

One of her touchstone topics is the idea of a story: “real story is as hardy as grass, and it survives in Dakota in oral form.  Good storytelling is one thing rural whites and Indians have in common” (Norris, 1993, p. 6), and where she is “is a place where Native Americans and whites live alone together” (p. 108).  Though, “for white settlers, the period since the end of the “Indian Wars’ has been marked by the slow death of their towns, churches, schools, and way of life” (Norris, 1993, p. 120).  Only in culture-shaping and preserving stories can what is lost be remembered.  

Through her stories, Norris (1993) shares a glimpse into the interweaving of lives between the grade-school children she interacts with, the old-guard townspeople and farmers she knows through church and community, as well as the order of Benedictine monks who have established a monastery in a nearby county, referring to Assumption Abbey in North Dakota (Barclay Agency, 2013, paragraph 3).  These three groups of people share with her, in different ways, what it means to be a Dakotan, American.  She compares their experiences to say that, none of these groups “are frontier people in the exploitative sense of the word - those who take all there is from a place and then move on” (Norris, 1993, p. 119).  Rather, they belong to the group of those who stick it out hoping for better times; their patience is exclusive to their prairie heritage.

In summary of what a Plains person really is, Norris (1993) refers to the words of one of the monks, Kardong, who writes, “We have become as indigenous as the cottonwood trees … If you take us somewhere else, we lose our character, our history - maybe our soul” (p. 9).  Looking at what it means to be American and what American culture really is, I think these wise words apply: the name is inherent to the place and one cannot exist without the other. 

This is not unlike the experience of the First Nations, and Norris (1993) is “haunted by the sense that we are all Indians here, as much in danger of losing our land as the Indians of one hundred years ago” (p. 36).  This idea relates to her reference to the Native American writer Paula Gunn Allen, who said, “that the longer Europeans remain in America, the more Indian they will become” (Norris, 1993, p. 128).  The connection to land is called into question, because it is the primary source of food, wealth, and progress.  

Norris (1993) examines the enterprising nature of the local American Indians, who set up casinos and novelty stops to attract attention from those passing through.  She worries that, “there’s always the danger that in selling Dakota to tourists, we’ll destroy it;” she writes of having lived in Hawaii and seeing “what tourism can do to the soul of a place” (Norris, 1993, p. 34).

Natural influences, like the geography and the weather, impact the type of person and culture that survives on the Plains: “Say what you will about our climate, in Dakota we say it keeps the riffraff out” (Norris, 1993, p. 26).  This quip about the small-town American culture represented hints at a feeling of superior lifestyle when compared to that of the urban centers and more populated areas.

The unfortunate balance of power between coastal and mid-America, Norris (1993) feels, may result in something tragic: “It’s the mythologized Old South that’s acceptable to readers outside that region, and this may prove true for Dakota as well.  We could be facing a situation like that of Native Americans who came to be seen as romantic while their culture was being destroyed” (p. 28).  Further, Norris (1993) has “long had the feeling that our [Dakotans’] inability to influence either big business or big government is turning all Dakotans into a kind of underclass” (p. 30).  In other words, the isolation and financial disparity of the Plains people is a disadvantage to their ability to achieve the American dream or any modicum of national influence whatsoever.  

Norris (1993) notes that “Times were so bad by 1985 that I began thinking of the Dakotas as the new Old South, an image that was reinforced when South Dakota dropped to fiftieth place among the states in average teacher salary, a position that Mississippi had held for years” (p. 27).  Currently, South Dakota ranks “dead last” as far as education is concerned and “The report card takes into account almost every possible metric imaginable in American education, from school finance to environment to grades to equity” (Resmovits, 2013, paragraphs 3, 5).  North Dakota sits just below the U.S. Average with the grade of a C+ while South Dakota has been relegated to the sole assignee of a D+, the lowest grade given to any state. (Hightower, 2013).  In that way, they are isolated by poverty and secluded by choice as the people who live there have no need of any other way of doing things.  

In terms of isolation, Norris (1993) keenly observes that the disconnectedness of America is what results in so many distinctly different cultures being spread out across the large expanse.  In looking at the Plains communities, she writes that “It is a given that [they] cannot hold on to most of the best and brightest who grow up there” (Norris, 1993, p. 50).  Additionally, those who do stay, “stop connecting to the world outside, except through the distorting lens of the television.  They drop subscriptions to national zines and newspapers.  Their curiosity about the world diminishes” (Norris, 1993, p. 50), and that effectively defines their culture.  They are content and not curious, but struggling in the closed-in space.  In the same vein, Norris (1993) notes that, “By the time a town is seventy-five or one hundred years old, it may be filled with those who have come to idealize their isolation” (p. 50).  A culture defined by idealized isolation is unlikely to initiate interaction with others, and may thus be entirely lost if it dies out before being passed on.

A review of the history of settlers on the interior reveals that “the ruggedly independent Dakotas have always been more or less a colony in America” (Norris, 1993, p. 32).  This reflection is supported by the current statistic that shows North Dakota producing more wheat, barley, honey, canola seed, navy beens, oats, pinto beans, rye, soybeans, sugar beats, and sunflower seeds than any other state in the U.S.A. (North Dakota, NetState, 2012).  South Dakota leads the nation in the production of beef cattle, hogs, lambs, sheep, wool, corn, flaxseed, hay, and oats (South Dakota, NetState, 2012).  Each, however, is listed as being one of the five least-populated states, thus boasting a diminishing cultural influence.  Norris (1993) reports that, “America’s agricultural majority of 96 percent in 1790 became a minority of 30 percent in 1920 and a mere 1.7 percent” (p. 52) in 1991, growing slightly to “just 2 percent of the U.S. population” (American Farm Bureau, 2012) twenty years later.

Stemming from the 1980s farming crisis, Norris (1993) remembers several major publications making predictions for the changes that would happen for farmers across America.  One considered that “no town with a population under 1,000 would survive as a viable economic trade center” (Norris, 1993, p. 53).  In 2004, Brian Hayes (2004) wrote a Small-Town Story that looked at the stability and resilience of communities on the verge of collapse.  He cites a study that, beginning in 1940, followed 10,099 town of fewer than 1,000 occupants.  At the end of the period of study, 1960, only 8,363 of the original were still on the list.  Further investigation reported that rather than being wiped out, populations increased: “only 303 of those missing towns dwindled away to nonexistence; the rest departed the data set not by shrinking but by growing beyond the 1,000 person cutoff” (Hayes, 2004, paragraph 3).  While this exponential growth may not be demonstrated by today’s statistics, there is truth to the idea that people are expanding and a new affinity for simple, country living is coming back into vogue.

One of the stated benefits of engaging in small town Americana culture, Norris (1993) says, is being in a place “where life is still lived on a human scale” (p. 34).  One of the stories she shares is a comparison of banking in New York City and realizing the value of being able to write a personalized cheque at the counter of any story within 100 miles of her home.  Another benefit to the collaborative culture is a falling crime rate, which Norris (1993) qualifies by saying that, “Of course our population is falling as well, but it can be pleasant to live in a place such as Lemmon, where arrests dropped by a third between 1981 and 1991” (p. 34).  Modern reports indicate that Lemmon, South Dakota boasts far fewer than the U.S. average for crimes with  no murders, robberies, or arson charges in the past decade and the number of burglaries, thefts, and rapes counted together on one hand (City Data, 2012).  

The people of this marginal culture themselves can only be described as salt of the earth.  Norris (1993) illustrates this through the story of an encounter: “In the spring of 1984 a woman in her early thirties said to me: ‘You don’t understand this town because you’re an outsider.  You don’t know what it was like here twenty years ago.  That’s what we want; that’s what we have to get back to’” (p. 45).  This statement epitomizes the insider-outsider dichotomy that exists in every small town or closed community in the United States.  Interestingly, this statement is made to Norris after she and her husband have lived in a generational home for more than a decade.  With roots that go so deep and a 13-year history in the town, Norris is still considered to be “outside” of the culture existing within the town.  This aspect reveals that culture is very exclusive: safe for those within, but closed to those not of the place.  Rather, strangers to small towns are described as “a serpent in her Eden” (Norris, 1993, p. 46), showing the importance of “othering” and the role it plays in creating a community-shared sense of culture.  Norris (1992) suggests, “It is a truism that outsiders, often professionals with no family ties, are never fully accepted into a rural or small-town community” (p. 82).  

Conversely, people feel connected when they know and recognize something in the other.  Norris (1993) records another story of a young woman who came into a local cafe to use the pay-phone.  She was observed and approached by several community elders, women who questioned her merits and connections: “On discovering that she is from a ranch some sixty miles south, they question her until, learning her mother’s maiden name, they are satisfied.  They know her grandparents by reputation; good ranchers, good people” (Norris, 1993, p. 73), and she is accepted and helped on those grounds.  According to Norris (1993), “a small town’s values come to supersede and ultimately reverse those of the world outside” (p. 58), a proposition that succinctly defines the cultural difference between rural and urban America.  Further, she goes on to quote a friend and fellow country-dweller who wrote, “We need outsiders here but often end up repelling them” (p. 60). This reflects a people-oriented culture where trust and goodwill abound for those who can prove their connections.  Others, however kind and good-intentioned, are dismissed and quickly forgotten.

Those from the small, wide spaces are often unaware of the unique realities of their culture.  Rather, they vacillate between trying to not change at all and trying to adopt all the new technologies and fads, however inappropriate for their own circumstances: “conformity at the expense of community” (Norris, 1993, p. 113).  The bottom line is that, “in trying to make this place like the places they had known, they would not allow it to be itself” (Norris, 1993, p. 147).  Norris (1993) blames this contrast of behaviour as being the reason why small towns fail to survive.  She identifies that those who have become extinct, “were indulging in a willful ignorance of their own regional history” (Norris, 1993, p. 47), and it is for this reason that they die out, fail with the land, and are forced to relocate.  This is essentially tragic as it is not only the loss of a town, but the loss of culture, as these are the people who chose the sheltered life having seen beyond the county borders they, regard “the values of the broader, more pluralistic world they had encountered as something to protect themselves and their families from” (Norris, 1993, p. 50). 

Norris (1993) shares a telling story of a time following the 1980s farming crisis when the Lemmon, South Dakota Chamber of Commerce was trying to bolster the community’s morale and economy.  They introduced funding for some nostalgia shops and held a banquet to celebrate the opening of an old-fashioned craft shop, gunsmith, upholsterer, and shoe repair.  The theme of the banquet was “Alive, Well, and Growing” and Norris (1993) reports that, “many were comforted by the boosterism” (p. 48).  This statement alone reveals the integral part that culture plays in forming the identity of a community.  The mid-American Plains are full of hardy, hard-working people who can be expected to turn their circumstances around: axiomatically, the efforts always pay off, even though the financial records may not report this: Norris (1993) calls it “the all-American myth of self-reliance and self-sufficiency” (p. 122). 

Their written records reveal what one man called, “the way they wished it had been instead of the way it was” (Norris, 1993, p. 81), characterizing a type of idealistic culture in which perseverance is celebrated and failure is forgotten.  Norris (1993) writes of the local histories that have been written about the Plains saying that, “In North Dakota, most homesteaders failed to remain on their land after proving up a claim, and the 1920s and 1930s brought farm bankruptcies and political upheaval, but you would lever know it to read local histories, centered on those who made it” (p. 81).  Emphasis on the unmistakable success of a few overshadows the downward spirals a community may have faced, which shows how Norris (1993) perceives the culture of mid-America.  Within a greater story of success and the myth of prosperity and opportunity, she demonstrates that even the smaller towns buy into the larger tale, and a subculture is defined by the idealized, unrealistic idea of what American culture is overall.

Ultimately, what makes Dakota different is the noticeable differences that can be seen in a study of its population.  Norris (1993) asks: “What does status mean in a world so at odds with American society? […] The divisions created by status stand out so starkly in Dakota if only because its population is so sparse.  In a way, we are a microcosm of the tribalism that is reasserting itself in the world” (p. 137).  In that way, the experience of Plains people is an important addition to Americana as they can reflect on a smaller scale the same cultural dynamics that play out over all of the country and any that share Western culture.  People of the Dakotas can relay something no one else can.  Norris (1993), however, sees an obstacle to that culturally-ingrained value for stories as she shares that, “Dakota can be terrifying enough without the loss of one’s cultural context […] I can’t help but connect the fact that so many Dakotans have been denied access to their culture with the fact that they don’t trust that their own stories are worth much” (p. 138).  They have been taught that their experiences are not as valuable as those of someone from a large economic center.  Their lives are not lived with the same kind of vitality because they are from the country.  Relating to this cultural picture, I reflect on my own rural childhood and would propose that primarily because of the country culture, these people live in more colour and contrast than their city counterparts.

Throughout Dakota, the author portrays a culture that is both rich and deprived, full of holes and yet whole, conflicted and also resolved.  The simple life is complicated, but also realized in real lives.  Norris (1993)  identifies a subculture of rural American life that is marginalized and yet so vital to the existence of mainstream U.S.A.  Her stories and reflections reveal an insider’s glimpse of small-town living where people care for one another and learn from the past, while also experiencing obstacles and limitations to their future.  The values of this way of living are rooted in the people who live in community, and who will defend their way of life and the dream for which it stands.  With consideration for the culture of the Plains and their people, Norris (1993) concedes, “I’m well aware that ours is a privileged and endangered way of life, one that, ironically, only the poor may be able to afford” (p. 35).

Works Cited:  

American Farm Bureau (2012). The Voice of Agriculture.  Retrieved from: www.fb.org Accessed: March 19, 2013.  

City Data (2012). Lemmon, South Dakota.  Retrieved from: City Data South Dakota  Accessed: March 17, 2013.

Hayes, Brian (2004).  Small-Town Story.  Computing Science.  Retrieved from: Small Town Story  Accessed on: March 19, 2013.  

Hightower, Amy M. (January 4, 2013).  States Show Spotty Progress on Education Gauges.  Education Week.  Retrieved from: Ed. Week  Accessed on: March 19, 2013.  

North Dakota, NetState (August 7, 2012).  North Dakota Economy.  Retrieved from: Net State Economy  Accessed on: March 19, 2013.  

Norris, Kathleen (1993).  Dakota: A Spiritual Geography.  New York, NY: First Mariner Books. 

Resmovits, Joy (January 10, 2013).  Quality Counts 2013 Education Rankings Come In: Maryland First, South Dakota Last.  Huffington Post, Retrieved from: Quality Counts Education  Accessed: March 19, 2013.  

South Dakota, NetState (August 7, 2012).  South Dakota Economy.  Retrieved from: Net State South Dakota Economy Accessed on: March 19, 2013.  

Steven Barclay Agency (2013).  Kathleen Norris.  Retrieved from: Kathleen Norris Accessed: March 19, 2013.  

Film Analysis 1: Fried Green Tomatoes

COMM 536 

Film Analysis 1 

The film Fried Green Tomatoes is directed by Jon Avnet (1991) and based on the book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg (1987).  Both media tell the story of Idgie Threadgoode and her friend, Ruth Jamison, as they combat prejudices and racism in their small rural community: Whistle Stop, Alabama, 10 miles away from Birmingham.

Initially, the tale introduces the character of Idgie as a lively impetuous child whose family struggles to control her.  She is young just after the Great War has happened, so the audience sees her as a child of the 1920s.  The family is well-off and employs a black family - Big George, Sipsey, and their children - to help in running the household.  It is in this plot that the content deviates from what is expected.  The Threadgoode family is portrayed as involving and interacting with their indentured servants in a way not typically found in the pre-civil rights U.S. South.  That fact becomes a source of the main tension in the film when a murder is introduced later on.

As a young girl, Idgie is a hand-full.  Only her imaginative brother, Buddy, can talk to her.  He tells her stories that help her make sense of the world around her and he introduces her to the girl he is in love with, Ruth Jamison.  Buddy dies near the opening scenes of the film, providing a rationale for why Idgie is as difficult a woman as she was a child.  The movie fast forwards from Buddy’s funeral, showing how she camped out along the river in her grief and mourning and only Big George knew where to find her, to the start of the 1930s where she is an untamed, un-Christian woman, the talk of her small town.  Mrs. Threadgoode, Idgie’s mother, concerned with the lack of familial connection, invites Ruth Jamison to spend the summer before her wedding with the Threadgoode family in hopes of drawing Idgie out of her wild ways.  

Ruth earns Idgie’s trust and the two develop a fast friendship based on a shared, though differing, sense of Southern hospitality.  The story takes place at the start of the depression, and Idgie illegally breaks into train boxcars transporting crates of food and distributes it indiscriminately to displaced white and African American tent cities along the tracks.  Ruth recognizes the true goodness of Idgie’s actions and, while she remains connected to the church community, respects Idgie’s freedom and choices.  

One of those rather unpopular choices is that Idgie moves out of her family’s home and into the home of Big George and Sipsey.  She is thus called a “N----r lover” and earns criticism from many in the surrounding communities.  It is from this position that Idgie seeks out Ruth, then married, and learns that Ruth’s new husband is abusive.  Honoring her commitment to the Christian institution of marriage, Ruth asks Idgie to leave, “If you ever cared about me at all.”  Not long after, Ruth sends her mother’s obituary clipping in the mail along with a torn page from her Bible marking the passage in the book of Ruth where she promises Naomi, “Where you go, I will go.  Where you lodge, there I will lodge.  Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.”  After that, Idgie takes the strongest man she can trust, Big George, across the state lines to Georgia, where Ruth’s home is.  Together, they pack up the deeply unhappy white woman and take her away from her abusive husband.  However, he enters the home just as the group is packing everything up and is outraged to find his wife not only leaving him, but leaving him for someone who is sympathetic to the Black community.  He vows revenge on the wife and their yet unborn child. 

Ruth and Idgie are happy in Whistle Stop, Alabama and open a cafe together after Ruth’s baby, Buddy Jr., is born.  The pretty white girls run the front of the shop while their black friends take care of the barbecue.  As the owners of the Whistle Stop Cafe, they are more forward thinking than others in their area.  They do not turn away any hungry soul, and are kind to the coloreds and drifters alike.  This unusual behavior sets them apart from the rest of their people and they begin receiving threats from the local Klu Klux Klan.  The evident threat only binds their loyalties more tightly to the black family who has always cared for Idgie, and now Ruth and Buddy.

It is through the activities of the KKK that Ruth’s abusive husband finds her and their baby.  In the middle of a “raid” on Whistle Stop, Big George is taken to be whipped and possibly hung by the sheet-cloaked crew.  The husband recognizes his wife’s lodging and forcibly enters the home of Sipsey and Big George, where Ruth and Buddy also live.  He threatens that the next time he comes, he’ll make sure nothing stands in between himself and his child.  Ruth is rattled by his force and aggression and is worried until Idgie can assure her that the husband will not come near the baby as long as she and Big George are around.  She interferes with the KKK mob, taking Big George back from their burning effigy and treating the open wounds on his back made by the whip.  To this, he  says, “You’re too kind, Miss Idgie,” and she waves his comment away saying, “You would do the same for me.”  Her relationship with Big George and his family is one of unrivaled equality that is rarely, if ever, seen in the days post-slavery and pre-civil rights movement. 

Her acknowledgement of Big George’s loyalty to her comes into play later in the story when Ruth’s husband returns for his child.  It’s on a night when Ruth herself is traveling with the church and Idgie is performing a silly act at the town talent show.  The baby is with Sipsey and Big George, who runs to get Idgie the moment Ruth’s husband appears.  He takes the baby and  knocks Sipsey down leaving her unconscious on the floor.  Several other small black children in the home flee and hide.  The husband is about to load Buddy Jr. into his old truck when a drifter, someone Ruth has been kind to, steps up and confronts him.  The man from Georgia is angry and punches the drifter until he falls away, and is about to pick up the infant again when a frying pan crashes down onto his head.  He dies, but neither the audience nor the reader knows for sure who inflicted the killing blow.  

Idgie and Big George together take care of the body.  It is implied that the abusive husband is roasted on the barbecue with Big George’s secret recipe, and then fed to the Georgian sheriff who comes to investigate the missing husband’s absence.  He is highly suspicious of Idgie when he sees how she treats those around her, including the social undesirables.  He vows that he will come for Idgie the moment any shred of evidence arises.  

The film jumps back and forth from the plot of the 1930s to an unhappy housewife in the 1990s, who is hearing this story from Cleo Threadgoode in a nursing home.  Those two women build a relationship and increase in wisdom and confidence while studying the lives of these historical people.  

Back in the story of the 1930s, the abusive husband’s vehicle is pulled from the muddy river that runs through Whistle Stop.  it is identified by his Georgia plates.  Immediately, Idgie and Big George are placed under arrest.  Because Idgie grew up with the town’s sheriff, he gives her the opportunity to run, warning her the night before she is taken into custody that if she disappears, everything will be dropped.  Ever loyal, she asks what would happen to Big George if she were gone, and the sheriff replies that he suspects they hang n-----s in Georgia just as quickly as they do in Alabama, meaning that the accused black man will face the fullest consequences for the crime, but no one wants to hang a woman.  

Idgie doesn’t leave.  She testifies in court that both she and Big George are innocent.  Up until this point, the audience still doesn’t have the missing detail of who really killed Ruth’s husband that night, but such confidence is placed in Idgie and her faithful friendship with Big George that a modern viewer almost wouldn’t mind if she were found guilty.  She is not.  Because of a surprise testimony by the town’s preacher, who has had difficulties with her in the past, she and Big George are both exonerated.  The amusing detail here is that the minister brings his own Bible to swear into the witness stand by, but it is pointed out that if the judge had looked any closer, he would have seen it was a copy of Moby Dick.  

Big George and Sipsey continue to take care of Idgie, Ruth, Buddy, and the Whistle Stop Cafe, even after Ruth is diagnosed with cancer.  She dies quickly and still in her youth trusting the raising of her son to her best friend.  Sipsey nurses Ruth until she passes away and Big George and his family mourn her loss like she was one of their own.  

In the later story, the audience sees Cleo Threadgoode in a nursing home to keep her neighbour, Mrs. Otis, Big George’s granddaughter, company in her final years.  It’s an amazing contrast between the white-black relationships of the 1930s and the more progressive, though still racially-charged relationships of the 1990s.

If this film was the only representation of the United States culture in the 1930s, I would believe that slavery had not really ended and the majority of white people were willing to perpetuate an unjust society where they could live with impunity at the expense of their black neighbors.  In fact, because of the unquestioning obedience of Big George and Sipsey to the Threadgoode family, I wonder if they as self-actualizing individuals sought something different for their life.  They appear to be happy to live in the shadow of the white family they “belong” to.  Big George defends Idgie, cares for her, and does not protest when the KKK takes him to be lynched.  Sipsey is self-less and devoted to the Threadgoodes, as well as Ruth and her baby.  When Idgie moves in with her family and Sipsey mentions Mama Threadgoode, Idgie makes a disrespectful sound and Sipsey comments, “Now you can talk to your Mama that way, but don’t you treat me the way you treat your family,” indicating that she is even closer than family to Idgie.  It is revealed in a final flash-back that it was Sipsey who regained consciousness and killed Ruth’s abusive husband with the frying pan before he could run away with Ruth’s baby.  Throughout the rest of the story, it is assumed that Idgie and Big George know this, but are willing to take the fall for her since she acted out of blind loyalty to the white girls she loves.  

Looking forward to the 1990s portrayal, I would wonder about the roll of mentors in empowering women and see that there is still racial inconsistency in how little the role of Big George and Sipsey is valued or spoken of in retrospect.  If this film were the only representation of U.S. culture I had to judge, I would look at the depth of relationship established between old Cleo Threadgoode and the modern woman, Evelyn Couch.  Each of them has holes in her history, but is able to fill the other’s need through stories.  I might falsely assume that the culture of the U.S. is built on community and caring.  In this storyline, Evelyn Couch transforms her adult son’s bedroom into a space for Cleo Threadgoode to move into when she is able to leave the nursing home.  Though they are not family, they treat one another as though they were.  

This film says a lot about the United States of America as it used to be.  Despite an overall light-hearted depiction of a rather serious incident, there is the underlying tone of national inequality.  The black family is always present throughout the events the white family participates in, but they are segregated.  From being relegated to the upper level of a courthouse to drinking and eating in a half-sheltered shanty behind the Cafe, the black community is represented as being lesser than the white.  However, the true depth of the atrocities of racial conflict and segregation are not elaborated on, and the redeeming relationship between Idgie and Big George and Sipsey shows that not all white folk were the same.  In looking back on the United States and the society of the 1930s, I think that Fried Green Tomatoes reveals the struggles of women in a male-dominated culture alongside the racial tensions of the KKK and the treatment of criminals in different states.  The culture itself is still a rather opportunistic, individualistic, capitalistic hierarchy of classes, much like modern day, but some very important factors have changed since this story is said to have taken place. 

The U.S. has come a long way in recognizing the rights of women and racially diverse groups.  If an individual today wanted to run off and live a secluded non-conformist life like that Idgie of the 1930s sought, it would be more widely accepted than this film indicated.  If a black family lived in close proximity to a white family, one can hope that each would treat the property and persons of the other with kindness and respect.  However, there are still strong issues of segregation emerging in different contexts of quality.  Women are not valued as much as men in the workplace, even now, a problem that is certainly more prevalent in the scientific disciplines than others.  People of varied backgrounds and pigments often suffer from the modern stereotypes that are assigned.  This film reveals some of what that hostility is built upon, such as the KKK and the community’s acceptance of black-lynching, but it also demonstrates that wherever such evil exists, there are people who recognize the wrong.  As Idgie stood up for Ruth in addition to Big George and Sipsey, so too others defend those who are weak.  I think that is the strongest point in the favor of U.S. culture - that human rights are recognized and protected regardless of position or prestige.  Some, not all, but many will work to maintain that freedom to be different, and that is what the U.S. governmental system and values were built upon.  

First Nations and Stereotyping

COMM 536

Critical Thinking Paper 2 

The New World (2005) directed by Terrence Malick portrays the Powhatan tribe in the early 17th century just as English settlers are colonizing the area that was later called Virginia.  

  

The story begins in 1607 with a group of soldiers and male settlers arriving on land and the First Nations people curiously watching from behind trees.  There is a lot of interaction between “the naturals,” as the Captain calls them, and the colonists.  The first face-to-face meeting takes place in an open field where the contrast between the well-clothed and decorated Englishmen and the dirty, half naked savages is made more distinct.  The party of soldiers halts as the braves each approach one and curiously examine clothing, weaponry, and faces.  It is peaceful. 

The narrator reads from a diary entry saying, “the savages often visit us kindly, like a herd of curious deer,” and while this is the initial view, the Captain orders his men to sleep offshore in their ship in full armor as a precaution until the fort can be built.  

As the film goes on, the First Nations watch the white man’s activities closely and the first death happens when a Native man walking through the English construction site snags a tool from a nearby table and fails to return it at the request of the soldier.  He is shot and from that moment on, the tribesmen are fearful and distanced from the harsh judgment of the English.  

To negotiate between the parties, the soldiers send a group, including John Smith, a known and redeemed pirate, along with two kidnapped warriors.  The white men are afraid of the unknown territory and when their captives run away, they abandon John Smith in the forest leaving him to his own devices.  In his wanderings, Smith is taken captive by the Powhatan tribe and brought to the chief, who orders death.  Pocahontas, daughter of the chief, saves Smith’s life by throwing her body across his in the moments before his execution.  He is then kept with the tribe throughout a period of months and learns their ways as he earns their respect, and Pocahontas’ love.  Significantly, he promises the chief that the white men plan to leave and go back to where they came from in the springtime of the year. 

He is returned in good health along with gifts from his captors, though the First Nations are not allowed inside the fort.  The buildings are complete, but Smith finds his comrades are nearly starved to death.  Conditions are so poor that mutiny takes place and he is immediately placed in charge.  Throughout the winter months, they survive, but barely.  Their salvation comes when Pocahontas, against her father’s wishes, brings a friendly party bearing gifts of food and seeds for the spring.  The fort at Jamestown survives only because of her kindness.  

In the spring, the settlers plant crops and establish themselves even further disregarding their promise to the Powhatan chief.  The Chief, in turn, is upset at the betrayal and attacks the fort to drive the white men out.  An exchange between his advisor and himself shows the negotiation where the advisor says, “They just want a bit of swampland” and the chief replies, “For now.”  

From the point of the attack on, the English settlers are at war with the naturals, or the “naked devils from the mouth of hell” as they are now known.  Relationships have broken down.  The chief learns that it was his own daughter who gave the seeds for them to be established, and Pocahontas is kicked out of her settlement.  

At the same time, John Smith loses the confidence of his people and is removed from leadership.  He and Pocahontas still share a special bond, but he knows that taking her away from the land she loves is not something that will make her happy, and also that they cannot have a life together there.  

He is sent away and has a friend tell Pocahontas that he has died at sea.  She grieves for him and seven years after she and Smith met, a new John enters her life, John Rolfe.  They become friends and eventually marry, though her heart still belongs to Smith. 

In 1614, Pocahontas learns that Smith is still alive, and honestly expresses her hesitancies to her husband, Rolfe.  They have been planning a trip to England as Rolfe secured Pocahontas a court with the King and Queen, and he also plans to respect his wife’s wishes and reunite her with her first love.  

When Pocahontas and Smith meet, they have much to talk of, but she sees that he is not as good of a man as Rolfe.  They leave on amicable terms, but she returns to her husband and asks to go home and continue her life with him and their child.  Unfortunately, she becomes ill and is unable to travel home.  

On April 13, 1616, Pocahontas dies away from her homeland.  She never returns, and the relationship between the white settlers and her people, the Powhatan, are never healed.  

Throughout this film, the First Nations people are represented with perhaps more fairness than had been granted to them in past historical depictions of life.  Their village is revealed to be organized and intentional.  They are gentle, faithful, lacking in greed, slander, and jealousy with no sense of possession, according to the narrator.  They are deeply religious, often communing with Mother Nature and feeling the interconnectedness of all living things.  They are industrious as each of their actions is significant to survival.  They play to learn how to hunt; they create art in order to clothe and feed themselves; and they perform ceremonious dances and songs in order to build community and faith.  

Despite these positive views, the First Nations are also critiqued from the perspective of the colonists.  They are described as thieves, uncouth savages, scalpers, and a threat to the established settlement on the coast.  

Having only this representation of the First Nations, history of the new world might be framed in a new way.  For example, it is evident by the introduction of a First Nations presence on the land before the colonists anchor in the harbor that what is a “new” world to the English is an old world to others.  There is a stronger sense of the resistance First Nations have toward the white settlers encroaching on their land.  The white settlers have a strong position of entitlement and manifest destiny is evident, as is the unfairness of this perspective toward the native First Nations.  This film also demonstrates both the generosity and the brutality of the Powhatan people.  They come to rescue the colonists in the first brutal winter, and also fight them in hopes of wiping them out of the land once it becomes clear that the settlers want to stay.  History, according to this film, recognizes the invaluable role of the First Nations in assisting the English in settling and staying.  History also might maintain a skewed perspective of First Nations government.  They are fair, but they are ruthless, and much more lenient, by comparison to the English settlers.  Altogether, a balanced view of history is needed, and this film alone would not suffice to teach the lessons. 

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A First Nations child growing up with the societal stereotypes that present their ethnic group as being lazy, intoxicated, savage, and uncivilized may have serious consequences for the child’s cultural identity.  The initial response might be one of severe dissociation.  A First Nations child would not want to be perceived in the present through the lens of the past.  He or she may then be uncomfortable with being identified as a First Nations person, rejecting the positive community-building aspects of this title along with the negative views.  

Another reflex besides running away from one’s identity might be to accept it as truth and become complicit in a self-fulfilling prophecy of behavior.  If a child is always told he or she is lazy because of a difference of values or learning modalities, that child may simply give up and stop trying to achieve by the standards of the western, individualistic classroom culture thus becoming lazy in their lack of motivation to succeed within that framework.  This does not mean that the child is in fact lazy, but rather that they do not share the beliefs that promote a specific definition of achievement.  

Besides rejecting one’s own culture with hopes of assimilating to another, or submitting to the popular stereotypical belief, a First Nations child may have a more balanced reaction to the depictions of his or her ancestors.  He or she may recognize the fallacy of presenting one weighted perspective of a people and work to correct the misrepresentations that occur.  This approach involves noting the negative stereotypes and thwarting them.  For example, the child from a tribe known for rampant alcoholism may stay sober and become an educated social worker advocating for positive change.  The child from a a violent gang-divided community may resist all recruitment and become a law-enforcement officer. By rejecting the negative stereotypes and living out positive rebuttals, a First Nations child may affect change in reaffirming his or her cultural identity.  

 

Framing is when the dominant communicator presents a context for information that highlights certain aspects designated as being attention-worthy while minimizing others that are deemed unimportant.  For example, directors who focus on a First Nations community at war rather than at peace is framing the natives as violent, blood-thirsty people.  To this effect, the producers create a sense of fear out of respect on the part of the viewer, but also a distance from the savagery that is not prevalent within western culture.  In the film The New World (2005), Malick shows scenes from the Powhatan village where young innocent children are playing and interacting, thus humanizing a group previously represented as having little regard for human life.  

Framing is an intentional story-telling device used to persuade the audience to adopt one perspective, the director’s perspective, on a certain topic or group.  Miller and Ross (2004) explain that “Through content selection, organization, and emphasis, the media produce, reproduce, and acculturate preferred story lines and descriptions” (p. 245).  By showing one side of a story in contrast to another, the problem can either be intensified or downplayed at the discretion of the director.  For example, the problem concerning violence against women in the global sphere can be downplayed by focusing on films or celebrity stories that normalize the abusive activities.  It can also be intensified by presenting figures and statistics that reveal the startling percentages of women in different parts of the world who suffer from violence.  

The act of framing distorts reality and skews the story toward one side or another.  Typically the side with the most power, position, or capital is the one who decides what is shared and what is left out.  The purpose behind framing a story or a group of people is to sway public opinion in either a positive or a negative direction.  To rally support for a cause, it will be framed as something that is immediate and impactful.  To turn a group of people against another, the one faction will be framed as a threat in some way to the security of the other.  Distancing and distinguishing people by using labels and one side of the story frames history and creates an unfair balance of information and opinion. 

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Miller and Ross (2004) explore “three dominant frames of American Indians: the generic Indian, the Indian as ‘other,’ and the good/bad Indian” (Berkhofer, 1978, as cited in Miller and Ross, 2004, p. 249). 

The framing approach of the First Nation individual as “other” or being different from mainstream culture creates a label that distinguishes a native person from the culture within which he or she lives.  Dee Brown (1970) illustrates this framing technique when he records how the First Nations people are denied citizenship and personhood within the government of the United States, though they are the original occupants of the land this government protects. Mainstream culture’s perception of the First Nations is influenced by “othering” because it reinforces the right to seek assimilation and acculturation from those who are different.  To emphasizes the distinctiveness of First Nations culture is synonymous with identifying areas of growth for the natives.  For example, examining the cooperative learning strategies employed by different First Nations communities reveals a contrast to the highly individualistic competitive classrooms of the colonists.  By comparison, the measurement of intelligence and achievement is established by the formalized educational process, thus negating the importance and influence of cultivated experiences.  

Looking at the First Nations people as either “good or bad” measures individual and collective worth by the moral standards of the enfranchised society.  To say a native person is bloodthirsty and savage is to characterize them by uncivilized and morally wrong behaviors, though the violence from which the labels extend may be enacted in self-defense.  Referring to a First Nations individual as stoic, dignified, strong, or at one with nature is to illustrate the good qualities, again, within the context of the “civilized” culture.  In mainstream western culture, the moral judgement is based on perceived behaviors not on actual virtues of character.  Highlighting the good or bad qualities of an individual native reinforces the idea that participants of mainstream western culture are in superior position that thus enables them to pass that judgement.  Similar to “othering,” this approach creates a power imbalance that permits the prejudices directed towards marginalized groups.  The evolved perspective of the "bad" native is the "degraded Indian," who has adopted the base behaviours of western culture without the predominantly Christian framework.  

On the opposite end of this spectrum is the "voiced participant" frame used to describe the experience of First Nations people.  This frame explores the positive interaction of those native individuals who are able to retain strong connections to their history and past while operating within the western mindset.  Mainstream society can accept these individuals for their distinctiveness as natives and also celebrate similarities emerging through likened experiences and linked humanity.  

First Nations culture is often presented through the frame of being a "historic relic" belonging in stories but not in real life.  This is an especially problematic frame as it creates a vacuum for contemporary First Nations culture.  If they cannot practice traditional lifestyles and cannot fully integrate as mainstream citizens, then there is no place for a First Nations person to live.  Without allowing the general understanding of First Nations to grow and incorporate culture changes as communities adapt over time, western society robs First Nations people of everything that makes them unique and distinctive.  This framing causes problems like the next point, treating all people of First Nations descent as one and the same, and that same being archaic.  

Framing a First Nations person as a “generic outsider” relates information about community, lifestyle, and practices as if it applies to all First Nations groups and tribes everywhere within North America simply because they are not white.  The assumption is that all non-Caucasian entities function within similar rules and structures.  It is dangerous because it misinforms the uneducated audience about the role of different and very varied tribes, thus devaluing the distinctiveness of each independent culture group of First Nations.  The mainstream culture is then cultivating a new type of stereotype that speaks to the similarities between West Coast natives and the Plains tribes rendering each group as being treated like another.  It is this framing that appears to be the cause for the tribal relocations Brown (1970) records in Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee.  Why else would conquered communities be displaced to areas beyond the familiar?  Because if one First Nations group can successfully make a life there, every other one should be expected to as well. 

This last framing concept is perhaps the most prevalent in mediated portrayals of culture.  Unfortunately, it is perpetuated by the lack of knowledge concerning the distinctions between different bands and tribes, and is permitted because of the overwhelming “othering” that has dominated the views of First Nations in North America.  Significantly, Disney’s representation of the First Nations that James Barrie placed in Neverland in his play Peter Pan reveals some of these framing concepts that still existed in North America in 1953 when it was released.  Interestingly, the song "What makes the Red Man red?"  is sung by Anglo choristers and the concepts used in the story-telling are exclusively Western constructs, though that presentation alone has significantly influenced the way in which First Nations are viewed and the stereotypes that fuel prejudices.  

The Nature of Cultural Identity

Critical Thinking Paper 1

Rural Route number 2.  Cochrane, Alberta, Canada.  That’s the address of the 20+ acres where I grew up.  Before I turned 10, I could only go into our yard as far as the well, not for fear of kidnapping, but for coyotes.  It was a wilderness and I grew up wild.  

The Millers

The oldest of 3, I was often left to my books and the outdoors.  Our traditional family did not really seek out traditions, but we did have a few repeated activities that evolved out of our habits and interests.  We were nearly always outside, but Sunday evenings lent themselves to a homemade pizza dinner and CBC’s Road to Avonlea.  Sabbaths were for church and, until we went to school, our once-weekly trip into Calgary. 

We had a lot of space and didn’t use it all, so it was not uncommon to find transient families or campers occupying the far corner behind the barn.  These people, whose names I can’t remember, became like family for the time they stayed.  

We were isolated from the world and from each other.  It was rare to find us all in the same room at one time.  There were parts of our property where we could scream without being heard.  

In the summer, I would make my own paths in the woods and find forts in the fallen trees.  They seemed to tower over me until I grew up and saw them for what they really were: prairie scrub brush and poplar.

My culture was the one I found in stories.  I was convinced that a secret passageway existed somewhere in our house and that every unaccounted noise was an adventure waiting to be found.  I wasn’t wrong, either.  Our homestead bordered Crown land that was used to fulfill Treaty 8 for the nearby First Nations Cree and Stoney Plains communities.  

I lived there 18 years, in the room under the western peak.  From it’s vantage point, I could see the snowy Rocky Mountains, and I knew them all by name. 

Mount Rundle, Banff National Park

My roots are deeply set into the fertile foothills of Alberta.  Even when I moved away for University, my heart stayed at home.  I missed the mountains and the security of our house at the end of Willow Way, but living in Central Alberta opened me up to wide blue skies and the freedom of unfenced fields.  

I lived in Lacombe for six years.  In that time, I finished school, got married, and stayed in the province’s smallest city while I taught grade school.  In that landscape, there is nothing to love except the people.  The citizens of Canada’s farming towns are so hospitable that random acts of kindness don’t make the news.  They are the rule rather than the exception.

From there, my educational interests took me to a new place, nearly 3000 kilometers from home.  Berrien Springs is where I will live for two years and eight months of my life, but being in the U.S. has strengthened my cultural identity as a Canadian.  It’s nearly the first thing out of my mouth when I meet someone new, sometimes even before I share my name. 

Cultural identity defines the linking traits and associated behaviors of a group of people.  Sometimes it is what one chooses, and other times it is part of an assigned stereotype.  

I am Canadian.  I grew up with knowledge of Peacekeepers instead of an active military, but I do believe in a reasonable use of force and defense.  We have troops in Afghanistan until 2014 and also intervened in the recent Libyan civil war in cooperation with NATO and the U.N. 

There are, however, parts of the Canadian persona I cannot identify with.

I enjoy watching ice hockey, but I’ve never played it.  I have Irish roots, but do not drink, and I grew up minutes from the Rocky Mountains, but have never downhill skied.  

Despite my lack of experience in Canadiana, I hold the core cultural values dear to my heart.  My best friends growing up were African-American and First Nations.  I visited a working residential school.  My church hosted services in five different languages.  My choices of cuisine, art, and entertainment demonstrate a love for diversity.  All that is different is what defines Canadians and makes Canada beautiful.  

I do not want to continue growing up the way I have already grown.  I don’t believe that rigid adherence to the culture of my youth is feasible or desirable.  My grandparents grew up in a generation of WASPs and I had to defend my choice of marrying a man whose pigment differed from mine.  I also know that the family of two we make is much more enmeshed than the one I grew up in.  I enjoy sharing my love of books and the outdoors with someone who will continue the adventure with me.  I want to be different from, more involved than, and curiouser in my maturity than in the family I grew up in.

Cultural identity is subjective and there is no such thing as a pure form.  Rather, it's a beautiful muddied mess of blended borders and shared histories.  I think it needs to be a “pick-and-choose” approach where women and men coming into their own decide which elements of their childhood culture they identify with, and which they can leave behind.  

Cultural identities merge and distort over time.  They cannot be defined by the snapshot of one place or one moment.  I recently visited Disney’s Epcot park in Florida.  The World Showcase of 11 nations was both enlightening and enraging by turn.  I learned that there is too much to encompass in the word “culture” to represent it as one point of reference.  Mexico is more than margaritas and Italy more than food.  Modern-day Morocco does not look like an alley out of Aladdin and not all U.K. residents love British rock and The Beatles.  Samurais are not the only residents of Japan, nor vikings the only history of Norway.  Besides all that, Canada is so much more than Toronto and snow.  And the Montreal Canadiens is not our nation’s only NHL team. 

The Calgary Flames

The nostalgic approach to culture tends to disregard much of what is true and changing.  There is value in recognizing the known indicators of a culture, but not limiting the individuals to what can be defined by a stereotype.  It is important to see the forest, or the culture, for the trees.  That is, the people and their choices create a new and emerging sense of belonging and community that often coalesces into culture.  

By that token, one can belong to and identify with many “cultures.”  I am a citizen of Canada, but i have taken that passport all over the world.  I was a child in the 80s-90s,  but am not a digital native.  I love the music of the ‘60s and, worse still, New York City sitcoms of the ‘50s.  I am a Seventh-day Adventist Protestant Christian.  I compulsively cook and consume curry.  I run as fast and as far and as often as I can: I finished a marathon.  I feel more at home in a tent than under a roof, but if I had a volume of 18th century correspondence, I might never go outside at all.  I see the world through many lenses, and one of them is attached to a camera.

I belong to a culture of contradictions, paradoxes, and people.  Really, I do not have just one culture that is mine.  My identity is what I choose to pursue and the elements of each cultural influence that I allow to influence me. 

My Canada

Born and bred north of the 50th parallel, I was raised with an appreciation for the wonderful and distinct practices of many people under one flag.  I am part of that culture and in it lies my mosaic.

I have driven all 7,821 kilometres of the Trans Canada Highway and have witnessed the natural beauty coast to coast to coast.

The sense of connection and connectedness that I feel to this land and with its people is difficult to describe, but worth trying.

Ottawa's Parliament Hill Light Show says it well.  This is my Canada.