Analysis Of Adichie's TED Talk '

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Think about your beliefs as a child, all of the information that you learned from those around you and all of the impressions you took from things you heard, listened to and saw. We learn to see the world based on the things that we are first introduced to. These first thoughts and opinions begin to form our stereotypes, biases, and even actions because they are how we learn, they are what we know. When I was little I saw my mom and dad together with their children and that was my definition of a family just as I had white skin so all the images I drew of myself and others reflected that. I had a one-sided opinion of the world and that was all I knew. I was a carrier of a single story. A single story is a limited viewpoint, a story that lacks …show more content…

Adichie’s TED Talk opens with Adichie telling a story about her childhood and the lack of diversity that she knew due to the information that she had available to her. She believed that books could only be written one way and about certain people because that is all she had known. She says, “Because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign, I had become convinced that books by their very nature had to have foreigners in them and had to be about things with which I could not personally identify.” Adichie believed that books could only be about white Europeans who enjoyed ginger beer not Nigerian girls like herself. This risk of critical misunderstanding is the danger of a single story, by only having one view of the world we are unable to understand …show more content…

The Celluloid Closet says that “Hollywood, that great maker of myths, taught straight people what to think about gays and gay people what to think about themselves.” The film argues that Hollywood’s portrayal of homosexuals is often cruel and homophobic portraying them in a negative light. Throughout history, the view of homosexuals has changed in the media from the original object of ridicule and laughter with “sissy” or feminine males. In the media, homosexual men are usually dressed very fashionably, have feminine characteristics, enjoy fashion, are emotional, the “gay best friend” and portrayed as “sissies” and “disgusting”. On the other hand, homosexual women are often portrayed as either very sexualized and attractive, very manly or very scary “cold blooded villains” (such as in Rebecca). Progressing on from the time of ridicule, many homosexual movie scenes were considered “raunchy” and had reason for restrictions on things such as “open-mouthed kissing, lustful embraces, sex perversion, seduction, and rape”. From there, Hollywood moved onto the view of homosexuals as dangerous or violent, “a kiss would become an assault or an accusation.” The Celluloid Closet suggests that “Americans are afraid of their sexuality” if sexuality is a single story to many people and they know nothing other than heterosexual relationships it may be harder for them to accept anything else

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