THIS IS KIMBERLY

I felt that "Heroes and Hard Times" and "Framing Blackness" were very informative in relation to the topic of our class. They were both however, very repetitive and textbook-like, and sort of a struggle to get through.
"Heroes and Hard Times" pointed out discrimination between race, gender and age in cop action movies. I was most of the time not familiar with the movies used in the examples, but when reflecting on the ideas of the author, I do agree. Most of the time, it is the white male in the position of the hero in cop action movies. However, it is also most of the time a white male in any leading role of any genre. Hollywood is very discriminatory in every genre and within any subgroup of people. You can relate the points the author makes on stereotyping to any other differing feature on people such as weight or attractiveness. So in conclusion to "Heroes and Hard Times," yes, I do agree with the author's views of stereotypes, but I do not believe that this discrimination is limited to cop action movies.
"Framing Blackness" highlighted the discrimination of African Americans within film. The author believes that through Hollywood movies, blacks are belittled and put back into the position of servitude. True, many of the stereotypes that "Framing Blackness" shows are real. However, there are just as many movies that degrade whites and every other race. I felt that the author was a little bit too sympathetic towards antidiscrimination and took points a bit too far. For example, the author relates black servitude to the mansions used in plantation movies and how their many rooms are filled with racism and degradation; this I thought was a little ridiculous.
Although I did not thoroughly enjoy reading the books, I did become aware of ideas that I might not have noticed otherwise. Both authors were very intelligent and sometimes persuasive. I look forward to further discussing in class.