Junot Diaz

Stephanie Harrison

Reflection on The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

I very much enjoyed the first readings assigned for this book so far.  I especially enjoy the culture and Spanish that is used in the book because I can understand it and it is nice to relate to some of the words and ideas of the Hispanic heritage.  The book is very fun to read and one of the things I like most about it is the fact that you forget Oscar is not a real person.  Although this piece is fiction, it is so well thought out, so detailed, and uses so many real life places and references so that it feels like nonfiction.  Oscar is a likeable character and as the reader I feel bad for him when he is unlucky in love.  At first the long footnotes threw me off, I did not feel like reading them and normally I would have skipped over them to be honest, but then I realized these footnotes were more interesting than most.  The footnotes in the book are actually very helpful in helping the reader understand some of the cultural things that may remain unknown if the author assumed we knew what he was talking about or if he relied on the reader to look them up.  The reader is also exposed not only to a cultural world that I’m sure most are unfamiliar with but also a world of science fiction and nerdy-ness for lack of a better word.  The first 30 pages of the book are also interesting because they are told by the narrator, Oscars friend, and he is very manly, and speaks almost aggressively.  This speaking style is different than how you would imagine Oscar talking.  The excessive cursing and vulgar language work for the narrator, it makes the book quirky and interesting to read in this section.

Tarot Cards and Voodoo Dolls

In Holloway’s text the African American culture is examined and we see some of the patterns within it when it comes to certain things such as mourning and death.  There are definitely patterns that allow us to create these understandings of different cultures.  In Holloway’s text she tells stories about certain brutalities and other events taken against African Americans and how the culture as a whole tended to deal with them in a very public way.  There are certain aspects about every culture that categorize them in some way, shape or form.  Patterns are made and this is how we often define a specific culture.  For example I come from two very strong cultural backgrounds.  On my mom’s side, I am Peruvian and our family comes from a strong Hispanic background with many interesting traditions and ways of viewing life.  On my dads side I am a mix of heritages, but recent generations have always been rooted in the south, Tennessee in particular.  These two cultures couldn’t be more opposite and I find it very interesting to compare the two and to have grown up experiencing both of these cultural patterns. 

For example, on my mother’s side something I have noticed that is very prevalent is religion and superstition.  Not only did my mom grow up going to strict nun schools her whole life; superstitions, curses, and voodoo were all something she grew up with as well and passed on to my siblings and I.  I have memories as a young child of my mom sitting in our living room reading tarot cards or on new years eve us burning slips of paper with things written on it that we wanted in our past, such as bad memories, situations etc. I was always taught to keep a rosary nearby for protection and in addition was taught the many staple prayers I needed to know, all in Spanish of course even though I am not fluent whatsoever.  I heard stories of voodoo dolls made of older family members back in Peru, and how they were allegedly cursed after that.  I was taught many superstitious beliefs all throughout my childhood, such as the bad omen of seeing a dead bird or the good fortune that is supposed to be bestowed on you when certain incents are released in your home.  I wouldn’t necessarily say I strongly believe in all of these things, but at the same time they always intrigued me even to this day and I will admit I feel better following them rather than not.  My mom still constantly reads me my horoscope and other fortune telling techniques.  This mysticism and religion combined into a type of pattern is often seen in Hispanic families and has become something our family has become closer over.  We are not witches, or voodoo doctors, but we are a bit superstitious because that’s the way we were raised, and I like it, it gives me a feeling of identity in a strange way.  It is something that my family and my heritage has that is different than my friends.  

Response to Wideman

Within popular culture prisoners are constructed with a very negative image.  They are viewed not really as people but solely stamped as criminal, as if a different breed of people.  They are often assumed to have little education and people assume they are violent.  Everyone thinks prisoner and thinks killer.  People also hear the word prisoner and think bad person, this is just how we are taught growing up to think of prisoners but this is most certainly not always the case.  Everyone has a story for how and why they ended up in the system and things like race, education, and religion all play a role in this story.  For example Robby from the reading at first glance would simply look like a black man who got involved with the drug scene and ended up in jail.  Only at a closer glance would someone realize there is much more to his story along with every other person in prison.  Even his own family had trouble truly hearing his story until he was already behind bars.  Robby felt as if to make a name for himself, to stand out in his family he had to blaze a different trail than the one of academics his brothers and sister had already succeeded in.    By being kept away from other black people as a young child his curiosity for their community and culture grew stronger and stronger to the point where when he was finally exposed to it he was fascinated and wanted to feel like he belonged, a feeling he had not experienced before.  This may have been the original reason for why he dove head first into the world of selling drugs.  In the end he could not be the successful person he had hoped and instead ended up in jail.  Expectations for a young, poor,  black male are not high in a lot of cases but for Robby they were, he was expected to be smart and follow in his sibling’s footsteps but this expectation instead drove him in a complete opposite direction. 

The Exploitation of Men in Advertisements

In the three above advertisements we see an uncommon trend.  Normally in magazines advertisements for clothing and other products we see women depicted as the docile or submissive character.  We see women looking shy and powerless often while we see men in positions of dominance.  But lately every so often we have been seeing the opposite.  We now see some ads where woman are the powerful ones and men are the ones being objectified or put in a spot where they are seen as lower than the woman.  Dolce and Gabbana recently came out with a line of advertisements where woman are portrayed as dominatrix-type characters controlling men.  We see this illustrated in the two Dolce and Gabbana ads I have attached.  In one a man is at his knees while all of the women are standing, putting him below them.  The man is also the only one who is nude while the women wear clothes.  The woman who is next to the man is also holding him by his neck, which is not an affectionate grip, but one of control.  In the other Dolce and Gabbana ad (the first one) we see similar things.  Again, the women are clothed and the men naked.  Also in this ad the woman are posed in a way where they are controlling the men.  They are either holding them in a pose where restraint is implied or in the case of the man to the right he is bent over covering his head while the woman leans over him holding a whip.  This is a very clear picture of female dominance.  The middle ad is one by Gucci.  In this ad the woman is facing the camera straight on looking into the lens with her eyes.  She is squared foreword, which is a position of control, and also stands up very straight again implying control.  The man in this picture is slumped into the woman’s body and is not even looking at the camera.  He is in a much more submissive and vulnerable stance.  The woman has her arm wrapped around him as if she is holding him up and supporting him.  These ads all demonstrate the change in culture where men are now too being objectified and put in place of women.  These ads are changing the common understanding of men’s sexuality as dominant and always the one in control.  I however have a problem with these ads and ones that objectify women too.  Just because they are now doing it to men does not make it somehow equal and acceptable, it just means more wrongdoings are being put into print.  When it comes to ads like these an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.  We need to eliminate the extreme role that sex plays in advertisements.