ashleyjavaherian

[ashleyjavaherian]

"Greedy Choke Puppy" Analyzed (African American Studies 112A)

The short story, “Greedy Choke Puppy”, was the best short story I’ve read all year. This story did a great job at keeping me intrigued and engaged the entire time. This story had an amazing plot twist that really left me in shock. The main character named Jacky is a young woman living with her grandmother and she is a PhD candidate. There is a myth in the town about a creature called a soucouyant. A soucouyant is a monster that is similar to a vampire. In the story, a soucouyant is described as an old tempered woman that sheds its skin at night to steal the essence of youth. Due to this description, the readers, including myself, were led to believe that the grandmother was the soucouyant, but to my surprise the soucouyant was actually Jacky. 

At first I could not tell why the name of this short story was “Greedy Choke Puppy” but after concluding the story and analyzing it I was able to figure it out. The title means don't bite off more than you can chew. This relates to the story because Jacky, who is the soucouyant, does not know how to control her appetite and is impatiently craving finding a mate and having a child. She hates the fact that she does not receive the same attention from males as she did when she was younger which leads her to become impatient and greedy. The message of this story and the meaning of the title is to not have an appetite that is bigger than you can handle. 

The grandma, who is also a soucouyant, learned how to control her appetite. She realized that love can suppress the appetite of a soucouyant, and she has spent the majority of her life happily married. The grandma tries to push Jacky to find love in her work and friends since a romantic relationship is not the only way to fall in love with something. Since Jacky is too impatient to find love in a romantic relationship, her appetite grows and she loses control. This causes the grandmother to be forced to kill Jacky the same way she killed her daughter. Her daughter, who is Jacky’s mother, was also a soucouyant and was also impatient and greedy like her daughter. Although learning this made me feel extremely sad because the grandmother not only had to kill her own daughter but her granddaughter as well, I really admire her strength. If I was in the grandmother's spot although I know that I need to kill them both, I don't think I would have the willpower to go through with it. Overall, I really enjoyed the plot and the moral of this short story.

[ashleyjavaherian]

"Eve's Bayou" Analyzed (African American Studies 112A)

The film, “Eve’s Bayou” was a very intriguing movie with many beautiful shots. The scene between the father and Cisely was very thought provoking and left me wondering what happened. In the famous scene, the father and daughter share a kiss, but it is unclear who initiated it. The father says that Cisely went in for the kiss, while Cisely states that the father leaned in for the kiss. One of them is lying and it is one word against another. This film sets it up to allow the viewer to make their own interpretation about what really happened. The first time I watched this film, I completely believed that the father kissed Cisely because of how the father is portrayed in the movie, I believed that maybe he wouldn't set boundaries with his kids. But after rewatching the film and analyzing the plot more, I am convinced that Cisely kissed her father. I think this because in the movie it seems like she is very excited and determined to grow up and in some scenes it's almost like she is trying to take her mothers place. This leads me to believe that in a state of sexual confusion, she thought it would be acceptable to kiss her father. But even if Cisely did kiss her father, I still believe that this is the fathers fault for not setting clear boundaries with his daughter, between what is appropriate and what is not.

Eve is a young girl and throughout this movie she loses her sense of innocence and is forced to mature quickly. This begins when she catches her father cheating on her mother. This secret and betrayal fueled the change from Eve's love and admiration for her father to hating him so much that she wishes he was dead. This along with her sister, Cisely, informing her about how their father kissed her stripped her innocence and pushed her into adulthood. Eve feels so betrayed by her father she puts a curse on him. 

This film really took a toll on me. Although my father and I do not have anything close to a perfect relationship, the thought of him being completely out of my life is beyond terrifying.  Therefore I understand the level of emotions that Eve must have felt in order to wish her father was dead. Overall, even though this film included many controversial topics and was not as scary as traditional horror movies, I enjoyed how this film was extremely interesting and got me thinking.

[ashleyjavaherian]

"Candyman" Analyzed (African American Studies 112A)

The film “Candyman” by Bernard Rose, was released in 1992, and was inspired by a story called “The Forbidden” by Clive Barker. “The Forbidden” is not a black horror story since the monster is white, but during the making of the 1992 candyman, the producers decided to make the monster black. In “Candyman” the origin story for the monster was that he was a victim of racism. Within this movie they make it seem that people that live in the projects don't care about their living conditions by exaggerating the living conditions. An example of this is how "Sweets to the Sweet" was written in feces on a bathroom wall, making it seem that black people are fine with feces on the wall. This film shows black trauma through a white lens. 

The 1992 version of “Candyman” was extremely problematic. Candyman was attacking his own people instead of getting revenge. For instance, Bernadette was killed by Candyman and she did not even say his name five times. I was shocked at this part, and it made me feel very angry. Since the 1992 version of “Candyman” depicts the monster as black and everyone is familiar with this idea, the producers aimed to reclaim the black Candyman in the 2021 version of “Candyman” they decided to keep candyman black but try to reclaim it. In the 2021 version they showed black trauma through black lens.

One of the themes in the 2021 version that really stuck out to me was artist and society. It really sparked a question, “Does art help make things better?” For instance, will this film help our society in terms of racism or will it just retraumatize people? When it comes to black horror, I think the main aspect that keeps it from retraumatizing people is the fantasy element. It helps take our mind off of real life and allows us to enjoy the movie. In addition, I love the puppet show in the film since it is used to portray something that's supposed to be violent without it being too intense or harsh. Even though horror is about trauma, that does not mean we need to visualize that trauma. 

I also found it interesting that in the 2021 version, the bees surrounding the actor were real. There is not enough money in the world to get me to surround myself with bees and have them in my mouth. After learning that the bees were real, this scene was a lot harder to rewatch. Overall, this version of “Candyman” was great and I love how it was able to adapt the storyline to be less problematic than the 1992 edition.

[ashleyjavaherian]

"Us" Analyzed (African American Studies 112A)

The movie “Us” by Jordan Peele was unlike any horror movie I've ever seen before. The concept of this film was very unique and original, and I had never heard of the term doppelganger before this film. It is interesting to think that some people believe that each person has seven doppelgangers. After watching this movie, I believe that each person probably has a doppelganger, but the chances of ever meeting your doppelganger are extremely slim. Jordan Peele came up with the concept of this movie when he was at the subway station, looked across the subway and imagined seeing himself getting back on. This brought on a sense of fright that inspired him to make his next horror movie about doppelgangers.

Although “Us” does not directly mention the issue of race, I was able to notice various racial themes in the movie after watching it for a second time. Some of these themes include isolation and privilege. The theme of isolation was shown in this movie during the beach scene. At the Santa Cruz beach, there were not a lot of colored families, and we can see this when the camera zooms out into an aerial view showing the Wilson family to be the only dark-skinned people in the shot while all of the other families were white. In addition to this, we also see isolation at the beach when the two girls, Becca and Lindsey, ask Umbrea to go into the water but Umbrea does not want to go. Although it does not specifically say why in the movie, I suspect that it is because Umbrea does not want to get her hair wet since it’s pressed. Umbrea chooses to not explain this to them because she does not think that Becca and Lindsey would understand. 

The theme of privilege is interesting because it ties into Jordan Peele's personal life. After his movie, “Get Out” was released, he earned a lot of money and because of this, he feels distant from his friends that he had growing up because of the money difference. This prompts me to the scene in the film where Gabe bought a boat to try and keep up with the rich neighbors and the privilege they had. For example, Gabe’s friend, Josh, just got a nice and expensive car, and this compelled Gabe to purchase the boat.

My favorite part of this movie has to be when we find out the Red and Adelaide switched places when they were kids. When I rewatched “Us”, I realized that the reason that Adelaide could not speak correctly was because Red choked Adelaide the night they switched places. Overall, I really enjoyed watching this movie. After watching “Get Out” I thought that it would be the best horror movie I have watched all year, but I am happy to say that I was wrong because this movie had all the aspects that I loved about “Get Out” and was able to make it even scarier. This movie gave me chills and left me in shock.

[ashleyjavaherian]

"Get Out" Analyzed (African American Studies 112A)

Get Out, by Jordan Peele, is the best horror movie I've seen all year. I really enjoyed how this movie was very direct about the issue of racism. I've heard great things about this movie for years and after watching it, I understand the hype, it really lived up to my expectations. My favorite scene has to be when Rose was pretending to not know where the keys are and then later pulls them out of her purse which showed she was in on it the whole time. I was very surprised at this part, I really did not see it coming. I believe the main reason why this scene was so shocking was because of the white savior trope. The white savior trope is when there is white person whose purpose in a film/story is to show that all white people aren't evil and is to let white people off the hook. This common trope led me to believe that Rose would be the white savior but I got caught off guard when I found that she was in on it the whole time. 

I recently learned in my class that the original ending of Get Out was with the cops arresting Chris. At the end of the movie, when Chris was fighting Rose, a cop car appears and both Chris and Rose assume that a cop would get out of the car and arrest Chris, and this is how the movie was originally supposed to end. But instead, the ending that Jordan Peele went with was with Rod, Chris’s best friend, coming out of the cop car and saving Chris. I believe that this added to the fantasy aspect of the movie because in real life it would have been the actual police and Chris would have been arrested. Although the original ending would have made more of a statement and been more realistic, I prefer the ending where Rod is in the cop car because if not, the movie would have gone too far into real life and would've taken away from the movie watching experence.

This movie sheds light on the problem in our society regarding racism. One theme of this movie that really stuck out to me was microaggression. This was shown when the white people in the neighborhood said things that people who are not usually near black people would say. Such as “I would have voted for Obama for a third time” or “I have black friends.”  When stuff like this was said to Chris in the movie it made not only him feel uncomfortable, but the viewers too. The Armitage family tried to relate to Chris by saying certain remarks and tried to be friendly but it makes the situation worse and makes Chris feel extremely out of place. Microaggression is like death by a thousand cuts, although it is not directly racism in some ways it is worse.

[ashleyjavaherian]

"The Comet" Analyzed (African American Studies 112A)

The Comet, by W.E.B. DuBois, is a short story that showed the racial dynamic between a rich white woman and a black man. When a comet hits earth,Jim, a black man, and Julia, a wealthy white woman, appear to be the only two people left in New York. When they first met, his initial thought was how a woman like Julia would never give him the time of day before the comet struck. Julia’s initial thought was how Jim looked different that the man she was imagining would rescue her. By this, she is hinting that the differentiation is because of the color of his skin. Since they believe that they are the only two people alive, they are able to form a bond and be in each other's presence without their race being an issue. Later on in the story, Julia is able to look past Jim’s skin color and describe him as “... a gentleman,—sensitive, kindly, chivalrous, everything save his hands and—his face.” (W.E.B. DuBois). As they were searching for other survivors, they found Julia's father. As soon as the dad is introduced into the story, the racial walls go back up. Julia’s dad is racist toward Jim and immediately questions if he sexually assaulted Julia, without thinking about how Jim saved and protected her. It wasn't until Julia vowed for Jim that Julia’s father was able to thank him.

This short story did a great job at exposing the issues of racism and demonstrating that beneath our skin color, we are the same people on the inside. It is sad to think we live in a world where there was a time when the idea of an interracial couple was absurd, and this short story really shed a light on that issue. It made me extremely sad when the father thought wrong of Jim when he tried to help Julia out of the goodness of his heart, while certain white people with traditional beliefs, like Julia’s father, can't get past the color of his skin.

I found this short story really expressed the message of racism in our society and how this represents how black people were viewed in the past. As a white woman, I did not get exposed to this issue until later on in my life, and when I was, it was mainly from social media, films and stories I would watch or read. Personally, I believe I was shielded from this ugly part of our society. So, this is why I believe it is necessary to include racial problems in films and such stories in order to try and expose the issue to people of all races, ages, and genders. While reading this story I felt truly disgusted at how society viewed people of color and although this problem is not completely fixed yet, I am glad that our society is making progress in viewing every skin color and everybody as equal.