The 1961 video Boys Beware, directed by Sid Davis, is an anti-gay film to be viewed in school by young boys. During this time, homosexuality was still being diagnosed as a mental illness, and this film works to try to instill fear into these children about gay men, or possibly try to prevent these boys from becoming gay. Boys Beware is a specifically sexualized and gendered script of childhood and is a significant artifact for the study of children and culture due to its erroneous, adult constructed take on childhood innocence. The video seems to give these boys agency, and then immediately take it away. The issue of the video is that it seems to be forcing innocence onto these young boys that truly aren’t innocent, in turn making them seem unaware and senseless. …show more content…
Lots of young people hitchhike. Seems like a good way to get from one place to another. But sometimes there are dangers involved that never meet the eye”. By adult standards of innocence, the boys depicted in the video, and the boys the video is meant to be watched by, are supposed to be innocent and oblivious to something such as homosexuality, yet they’re hitchhiking home. The narrator mentions that young people hitchhiking is an innocent activity, but to be weary and look out for a homosexual that could possibly give them a ride home. Hitchhiking is something left to more experienced adults, and even then, it’s usually thought to be unsafe. It seems like a task we would never associate with children nowadays. The video is saying that hitchhiking itself is innocent and harmless, the only real danger for these boys is the possibility of a gay
The War Against Boys is the story of our cultural attack on the modern male. Twenty-first century men are looked down-upon, laughed at, and many times emasculated in our day-to-day lives. In her book, Christina Hoff Sommers does an excellent job reminding us that men are responsible for a lot of good in the world: “This book tells the story of how it has become fashionable to attribute pathology to millions of healthy male children. It is a story of how we are turning against boys and forgetting a simple truth: that the energy, competitiveness, and corporal daring of normal, decent males is responsible for much of what is right in the word.” Our culture has promoted a skewed view; most people believe that women are treated unfairly, that
In the movie Pleasantville, a story about a perfect, 1950s town becoming corrupt by two teenagers who show the residents the love living inside them, protection of innocence is very notable throughout the film. Before everyone starts to live a normal life, they, as well as their surroundings, are all black and white. Protection of innocence is shown here by the governing people of the town. They are trying to keep people from being creative, from having imagination, and even from finding deep emotions hidden within themselves, which is shown by the appearance of color in the people themselves and the world around them. Pleasantville shows the audience that innocence does not have to be typical innocence as society thinks about it today, such as virginity, but that it can be the loss of innocence through creativity and even through the simple and primitive feeling of love. Examples such as these distinctively show protection of innocence in many ways. A final example of the protection of innocence can be taken from real life experiences. I experience this almost
Analyzing innocence has always been a difficult task, not only due to it’s rapid reevaluation in the face of changing societal values, but also due to the highly private and personal nature of the concept. The differences between how people prioritize different types of innocence - childhood desires, intellectual naivety, sexual purity, criminal guilt, etc. - continually obscures the definition of innocence. This can make it difficult for people to sympathize with others’ loss of purity, simply because their definition of that loss will always be dissimilar to the originally expressed idea. Innocence can never truly be adequately described, simply because another will never be able to precisely decipher the other’s words. It is this challenge, the challenge of verbally depicting the isolationism of the corruption of innocence, that Tim O’Brien attempts to endeavour in his fictionalized memoir, The
Social psychology is a branch of the spectrum of psychology that primarily focuses on social interactions, environmental influences and the social experiences that weigh heavily on individuals cognitive schemas. The film “Boyz ‘N The Hood” is comprised of many contemporary influential African American actors, heavily influenced by the environment they are in and the violence surrounding them in their community. There are various aspects of the movie that portray social psychological concepts, such as social perception, attitude change, aggression and violence, and group dynamics. Social psychological issues such as proactive aggression, reactive aggression, desensitization, differential association theory, and deviance
In this lifetime, society has very pragmatic views. This makes it difficult to feel normal if you are considered different. You may be viewed as an outcast, which can make growing up harder than it already is. The idea of self-concealment is a sexual lesson that ones’ survival depends on.(Sullivan) Sullivan speaks of his own experience as a child, opening up with a story of an un-willful desire for a boy unchanging in front of him in the locker room. Sullivan states, “ He learns that that which would most give him meaning is most likely to destroy him in the eyes of others; that the condition of his friendships in the subjugation of himself”. This demonstrates why a homosexual may be deceitful and contained. Being young is a time to explore, understand ones’ self, and be open about your true personality. I believe the authors’ views because I see it daily .With these conflicts, a child may miss out on the carelessness of youth which is natural to experience before ...
George Orwell quotes, “He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.” The documentary, “The Mask You Live In”, directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, shows different ages of males who struggle to be themselves while battling America’s limited meaning of manliness. George Orwell quotes, “He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.” Influenced by the media, among their age group, and the grown-ups in their lives, adolescents dissociate their emotions, disrespect women, and are aggressive. Society gender stereotypes affect young males to change to fit into the societal norm as they characterize “real” men.
Pascoe’s next major study was an eighteen-month research project, which produced the book Dude,You’re a Fag. The book is an ethnography the daily lives of teenage boys in a present day public high school. She finds that masculinity in teenage boys is defined by dominance and control. More so she talks about what she calls “fag discourse”, boys call each other hurtful names to further create domina...
Innocence is usually associated with youth and ignorance. The loss of one’s innocence is associated with the evils of the world. However, the term “innocence” can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Similarly, the loss of one’s innocence can be interpreted in more than one way, and, depending on the interpretation, it may happen numerous times. The loss of innocence is culture specific and involves something that society holds sacrosanct.
According to a study done by National Youth Association in 2010, 9 out of 10 students in the LGBT community have experienced harassment in school, and over ⅓ of LGBT youth have attempted suicide. More recently, statistics by the Human Rights Campaign (hrc.org) claim that 4 in 10 LGBT youth say that their community is not accepting of LGBT people. In 1998 the Westboro Baptist Church was brought into America’s spotlight when they picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a young man in the LGBT community who had been beaten to death because of his sexuality. Since then, the cruelty of WBC hasn’t ceased to leave many in sickening shock. Bullying, throughout time, has evolved. It’s not just Little Timmy being beaten up for his lunch money anymore. Now, parents are involved. Many religious households raise their children on the beliefs that bullying is A-OK if Little Timmy is a homosexual. Parents ar...
One of the many issues that homophobic people have against homosexuals is that being brought up in an “untraditional” home is not good for the children. There have...
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The discussion of homosexuality in comic books has a long history, reaching back to 1954, when German-American psychiatrist Frederick Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent, a book that warned about the negative effect of popular literature. The book was a minor bestseller and was taken seriously at the time, creating alarm in parents with the claim that reading the crime-, superhero- and horror comics that contain descriptions of violence, sex, drug use and other adult themes, children will be encouraged to similar behavior (Wikipedia). More than five decades later the song remains the same; not much seems to have changed in society’s mentality. Parents fear that violent video games will make their children into raging psychopaths, and that a boy will turn out to be a homosexual if he plays with dolls and not toy cars or action figures. Even the books being read to children are censored and romanticized, not to mention all the Disney movies that have nothing to do with the original stories anymore, because parents wish to protect their children from everything, even though in this world of flowing information and the Internet this task is becoming more and more difficult if not impossible.
“What’s the big whoop?” asks a cute, blonde, elementary school aged boy when his teacher discusses homosexuality. He didn’t understand why people cared who other people loved. Little kids are perfect examples of how society’s negativity towards homosexuality creates homophobia. Children don’t understand why it matters who you love because they don’t see it as a problem and their opinions aren’t clouded by stereotypes. If LGBT issues were taught to these innocent, uninvolved children in elementary school, it would be more likely they would be accepting as they grew up. It is important to present LGBT in a positive light before parents, classmates, and media influence their perceptions.
Homosexual adolescents learn from an early age that “survival depends on self-concealment (Sullivan, 2008).” Sullivan illustrates the internal struggle of the homosexual adolescent with a powerful statement, stating “...that which would give him the most meaning is most likely to destroy him in the eyes of others; that the condition of his friendships is the subjugation of himself (Sullivan, 2008).” The use of the word destroy is a haunting acknowledgement to the bullying that occurs throughout our schools and social media sites. The notion that homosexual adolescents don’t simply keep his or her sexual orientation private, but suppress this aspect of his or her being is detrimental to developing a strong sense of self. Sullivan’s description of the experience of growing up as someone “profoundly different in emotional and psychological makeup” reiterates how challenging it is for...
As a gay man who lived and died during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980’s, Morrisroe’s photography captures a moment of beauty and happiness during a time of pain and turmoil. One photograph in particular, Untitled (John S. and Jonathan) encapsulates this mood. Two men are clutched in a strong embrace, arms wrapped around each other, heads resting on chests and shoulders, and the tiniest hint of a smile, barely visible from behind a tangle of limbs. They are clearly close friends, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume the two are lovers. Either way, the two men are intimately familiar each other. The way the photo was taken appears as though it was taken in motion, taken just after the point of connection. Perhaps they ran at each other from across the room in joyous exuberance. This moment is made even more significant when the time period is considered. The way Berger describes nature as “fearsomely indifferent” can be applied to Morrisroe, HIV infected individuals regardless of age, sex, or ethnicity. The gay population was under attack from an enemy they didn’t understand, and consequently, thousands died. Morrisroe himself died from AIDS only four years after Untitled (John S. and Jonathan) was taken. His photograph is a beacon of light in the dark- proof happiness can still be found even in the darkest