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bellamygateoldblog · 4 years

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The 100 7x01: Discussion

My general takeaway from the episode can be summarised like this: Echo is spectacular. (I might’ve said “oh my god look at her!!!!!” and “ugh she is just The Best” too many times to count).

This is long-ish because I really just wanted to consolidate my thoughts in one place. Bitch it’s me i got a lot to say!!!!!

The Good Parts

— The farmhouse setting. While it’s existence is strange and “a sore thumb” and worked to further push Sanctum being the abomination born of clumsily mixing genres and time periods in terms of construction/costuming, making everything appear disconnected and obnoxious, it was still a nice change. It made me feel warmer and more comfortable as a ‘modern’ viewer. It’s a breath of fresh air from the constant dark element: dilapidated post-apoc buildings falling from their foundation, endless woods, and equally cold-feeling labs and skeleton dungeons.

— Echo. This was a damn good episode for Echo and every second reminded me of why she’s my favourite. She’s a badass. I always love to see her falling naturally into leadership of her little ragtag groups who accept it wholeheartedly. From the “testing a theory” moment where she went ‘when Gabriel doesn’t speak >>>’, to right at the end when she killed the solider about to “eliminate” Hope (hesitation is death...oh no he can’t hear us he’s got airpods in oh my god). It was Echo that got them through the whole sequence with the anomaly, Echo who figured shit out, Echo who quickly judged the situations and formed plans to overcome the obstacles. In other words: she did THAT.

Favourite scene: Echo coming face-to-face with the projection of her own insecurities in the form of Roan and Echo 1.0, and physically overcoming them (shooting them down), along with the trauma and pain that they both represent. The perserverence and getting the job done despite the emotional torture felt like a callback to the Psychosis episode of 6x02 when she was clever enough to sedate herself to silence the voices in her head. I also think the dialogue chosen was also foreshadowing that she would become a leader by the finale (commander?) and i love to see it!

— Clarke and Madi’s conversation. Oh Clarke, you just keep reinforcing and validating my perceptions of who you are as a person over and over again lol. In all her self-importance failing to remember that Madi, in fact, had and was raised by her biological parents for half of her life (and the new knowledge that she spent six years telling her little mind tales from the book of her life whilst apparently never taking the time to learn about Madi’s or acknowledge/honour her birth parents in any way) is “yeah that’s about right” to me. Sure you could say she was still reeling from the events of six and her death-almost death-almost death again. But I’ve always had this Thing about the relationship between Clarke and Madi. And i’ve seen some of the lighthearted humourous reception that scene got from fandom, “#where do you think the child CAME from?!” which only served to remind me of my own impression that Clarke views Madi as wholely ‘hers’, as if Madi’s existence was tied to Clarke, but i might elaborate in a seperate post.

This scene was a lovely display of self-awareness I’ve rarely seen on Clarke (never even got it when she electrocuted said child two seasons ago- however that absense of apology and acknowledgement of the sheer wrongness of that action also fits very nicely with my view of her lmao, still though, a weird choice for your ‘heroine’).

— Clarke’s “feels like a different world.” Felt romantically-coded. I think Gaia/Clarke might be the most convinient relationship to transform into romance at this point. However I’m sincerely hoping this road they could go down won’t reduce Gaia to a crutch/accessory for Clarke, and that she doesn’t become merely a love interest. I’ve seen talk already of Gaia being “Clarke’s happiness” etc.. which is already confirming my worst fears. Sigh.

This moment very much felt like found closure and the turning of a page. But i will say it was a very sharp turn from the three seasons of shoehorned-in mentions of Lexa, and last season’s emphasis on Clarke’s very-much intact emotional response to her memory- “it’s why you cry when you think about Lexa”- to her looking at an image of Lexa’s memory of her, reminicing but having no emotional response to it, and brushing it off while sharing a soft look with Gaia (and this is a few days since s6? I don’t know how this timeline is working but Tbh it’s not like these writers ever concerned themselves with ‘realistic time frames’ anyway lol). Yep, Jason’s seasons are individual “movies,” alright.

Other *nodding approvingly* moments

— Raven’s subtle “elevator eyes” on Clarke when she started giving her orders again. I see you, Miss Reyes, and I appreciate you.

— Raven + the foot in her mouth and the cute way she catches herself both times. I just love watching characters fail at existing LOL. She was feeling more human than stereotype or plot device this episode.

— "Mommy and Auntie O” and the implication that Hope is a child inside an aged-up body.

— This quote: “I know what it’s like to lose your family 100 years ago and yesterday at the same time.” It’s so literal but I like it a lot.

— Clarke being ‘leader’ again is, as usual, solely a matter of convinient (and familial/love) circumstances and it felt very true.

The Rest

— The Eligius Situation. So Clarke and her inner circle conquer and live in a nice home, and we’re specifically told Clarke takes the master suite (and the dog), and I was like ‘fair enough’ but then she orders prison labour. She tells them to build her a compound that they won’t actually get to be apart of, and to live in tents while they do so. They aren’t getting anything out of this (before they resist and set their own terms). This is slavery. Also, those aren’t her people to boss around, look down on, and use accordingly for her own gain (in fact they barely know her or why she’s gone from being that one unloyal woman who executed their men and got herself captured like an idiot, then couldn’t make up her mind about which side she wanted to kill- to one in the uppermost position of authority...like...they woke up yesterday) But, then again, that never stopped her.

— Too much and not enough at the same time. The pacing of the episode in general was awful. Too much happening in quick succession, no breathing room, too many factions (no, actually Raven, where is ALIE when you need her? smh). I blink, I miss an entire scene and a character is now beating someone else up. Amazingly, i was still bored 90% of the time.

— The Children of Gabriel calling themselves “The Children of Gabriel.” It was always goofy, even more so when a grown man is saying it.

— Murphy + his self loathing over Abby’s death. Did I miss the part where she was ever good to him? One of their final moments together was of her telling him he deserved to die over Clarke after she spent the entire series treating him like he was inferior and disposable. uhhhhhhhhhh.

— The picnic scene. Jackson’s sudden violent outburst was unearned (it wasn’t even set up???), and also disrespectful. Wrong place, wrong time, bro. He’s grieving? Okay. But when Abby’s daughter is sitting right in front of you, making this about you, ruining a perfectly good toast in her honour with your uncomfortable accusations loses you points you never even had to begin with. And this is a ‘me’ thing but I can’t be bothered to be sympathetic when this is about Abby Griffin.

Also, I have to say it. Eliza’s acting took me out of the scene every time I looked at Clarke. I couldn’t for the life of me work out what those expressions were supposed to be.

— Russell, his manpain, and a fury over the consiquences of his own actions that could rival the grounders (”my brother died in your ring of fire [while he was trying to murder you all]” hmm sounds like a you problem). But the worst part is, I simply couldn’t tell where he stood or what he was feeling. He’s so one-dimensional. He’s an evil man (so much for ”grey morality”).

— Clarke + Jordan. A small point to make but all Clarke has done since Marper made her ‘Godmother’ of their son has blame him for everything bad happening lol. Marper loses a lot of my respect as time goes on for that choice. As much as I dislike Jordan’s presence in the show, still not a great pattern to have noticed.

— Raven seeking approval from Clarke (specifically) for the Prime idea was...weird and very bad. When has Raven ever cared for Clarke’s validation, especially in the last few seasons?

Was also taken aback by how Indra and Miller are both suddenly so protective of Clarke, like i can make sense of the Indra part even though it relies on me making things up that aren’t supported by what’s on screen, but Miller?

— (Bonus moment that was bad for me, but not for the same reason it was for the rest of you: the scene of Hope finding the message in her arm. When she was removing the blood-soaked bandage I freaked out because I thought she was peeling her skin off. You’re welcome for that visual.)

The Mixed/No Feelings

— Clarke’s full-dark-no-stars. How many times have they told me now she’s “the head”? LMAO.

I have no actual formed opinion on it. Only disjointed thoughts. Like i might’ve just gone “good for her” if Clarke wasn’t the person she is, with the history she has.

I appreciate the idea, to have her spend the whole episode declaring she is, in fact, completely fine, to end it having her explode with the repressed pain.

I mean...i realise the cognition behind it, but it’s eye-roll inducing at this point. This- kicking Russell to death (giving him exactly what he wanted and set out to provoke), and burning down a palace she promised to keep intact, once again going against the group to do her own Thing that they all ultimately have the suffer the consiquences of and help clean up- is just a repeat of past patterns, and Monty’s “do better” mantra that she desperately clung to like she owned it last season is nowhere in sight.

(Also, I can’t be the only one who spotted her physically smacking that Sanctum girl as she walked onto the balcony? Not cool. Wasn’t cool when Murphy acted like a dick to one of them either this episode.)

The rushed switch did a number on me, too, like Jackson’s did. Literally five minutes before she was preaching about a peaceful life for Madi that doesn’t take revenge (I think I know what they were going for with that but it just left me feeling confused and frustrated).

Furthermore, I’ve seen talk that this was her “burning down of a symbol of oppression”, something she experienced first hand (not so unlike Blodreina and the bunker she desperately wanted to escape and deliver her people from), but there was no noble, calculated intention there. She burned the palace accidentally in her rage because she was in pain and disorientated. The moral stuff was just an after effect.

The speech was also very ‘Clarke’. Feeling entitled to and making decisions on who lives and dies right after declaring this wasn’t their kill to make. She wasn’t the only person hurt by the Primes (but we’ve also been given no reason to care about any of the other victims- the manipulated, enslaved population have been turned into a joke and a punching bag for the main characters which...isn’t great either). And the castle could’ve been used to shelter some of the “too many people” we had problems with through the episode (or used to harvest resources from). It really comes down to if i think the situation justifies the reaction and if i hold her wholely responsible...and this is the part where i reiterate that i have no intact opinion and don’t actually care to have one either ha.

#the 100 s7 #7x01 discussion #the 100 7x01

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the-queer-look · 5 years

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Butch is Beautiful

The scope of LGBTQIA+ culture and identity is incredibly wide. People in all parts of our community have grown up in different parts of a wider cishet community and culture, bringing those experiences with them. This constant injection into our community means that it is as hard to nail down a unifying sense of Queer Fashion, as it is to nail down specifics for gender identity. There will people who identify the same, but present different aspects of that identity, and there will likewise always be people who never feel comfortable with any labels at all.

- K

Name: Ciara

Age: 23

Gender: They/Them

Sexuality: Lesbian

Location: Summer Hill

Occupation: Cashier, studying fitness

My sexual identity I guess I would say is lesbian, but my gender identity is… a bit more nebulous. In some capacity it has its roots in womanhood, just because being a woman, and being raised as a girl has been very important to me in how I experience the world, but beyond that, I don’t have any particular attachment to femininity. But being raised as a woman, and experiencing the world as a woman has been so instrumental to me becoming who I am, that to completely disregard it when talking about my gender identity would seem a little disingenuous.

I’ve always been very insistent that people realise and remember among all this discussion about gender to remember that women can be masculine, and that butch and masculine women do exist. I’ve held onto that as a part of my identity for a long time, because it felt I needed to prove that it could exist, and I guess I feel that I still do. I don’t want to disregard my womanhood, because it’s very important to me, but I dont feel any attachment to the physical markers of my womanhood. For example, I want top surgery at some point, I guess because when I was a kid I was very happy with my short hair and running around shirtless and enjoying the androgyny that came with being a child. I started going through puberty and freaked out about now having to be different. Like the entirety of being a teenager was just about trying to be okay with that? So I feel like I spent my teenage years feeling like a defective woman. I used to hate when people would think I was a boy, so I would try to be more performative in my femininity, but there was something that felt so completely unnatural about it. I got to my twenties, and realised that it wasn’t working for me, though since embracing my masculinity, and realising that I want to be read as a masculine person, I’ve then become more comfortable with putting on a bit more femininity, as long as I can be read as someone who isn’t traditionally feminine whilst doing so.

I don’t identify as nonbinary, for the same reason that I don’t, on a personal level, identify as queer. I think the pure range of things that Queer and Non-binary covers, doesn’t feel particularly accurate to me. I appreciate that for many people, the broad blanket statements of Queer and Non-binary feel very comfortable, but for me it feels a bit too open ended. I certainly identify strongly with transmasculinity, but I’ve seen and known people who identify themselves as “transmasculine lesbian,” which feels like a better fit, even though it sounds like an oxymoron at the same time, and “lesbian” has nothing to do with gender identity… I guess I’m still working it out a little bit, but everything changes over time, and I can only ever be true to myself y’know?

When I was a teenager I’d get crushes on both men and women, but there was something about the crushes that I got on women that was just so...physical… Like I’d get so nervous around them that I just couldn’t talk, and my hands would start shaking when I saw girls I had a crush on. I just interpreted that at the time as physical anxiety about not being out as bisexual to a lot of people, but retrospectively I’ve realised that all of my crushes on women have been like that, and none of my crushes on men. I identified as bisexual from about sixteen till nineteen, and then.. I just sort of stopped being attracted to boys. I realised sometime when I was twenty that I just wasn’t attracted to men anymore, so I tried referring to myself as a lesbian to see how that felt, and it just sorta stuck, And I never liked a boy again! *laughter*

When I first came out, I was intensely scared of being read as too masculine. I’d be wearing these horribly fitting t-shirts, with push-up bras underneath, and these incredibly tight jeans, like a butch/femme fusion in the most uncomfortable way possible. But I sort of moved towards more more masculine clothing to see if it felt more comfortable. And it did, it did. I started wearing a binder from time to time, and wearing mens clothes, and it felt so good to just not be uncomfortable with how things fit me, and how my body looked under clothes. But because I’ve always been quite butch looking, I’ve never really had any problems signifying to anyone in, or out of the community that theres something very queer here. As an assigned female at birth, but masculine presenting person, I’ve never had any problems standing out in the community. Sometimes people read me as nonbinary, or transmasculine, or just a butch woman, none of which I mind. For the most part I dont mind what people read me as, I used to hate being mistaken for a boy, but not so much anymore depending on context. Out and about on the street, being mistaken for a boy is fine, but being yelled at for trying to use the womens bathroom? Not so much. I think, as a queer person, I have a huge privilege of being palatably androgynous, when I know there’s this immense pressure for many nonbinary folks to present this way for their gender identity to be considered valid. I can’t imagine how frustrating it would be to be under that pressure, because it’s just how my body is.

For me the internet has been important for doing research and having resources. Be that looking up “do other people like me exist?” or researching tips and tricks on presentation. I think that before having this community at our fingertips, it would have been incredibly difficult to exist as a queer person. But I feel that for all that social media contributes to comparing yourself to people in an unhealthy way, I feel that things like Facebook and Instagram have been helpful for me the be able to document myself. It helps me manage dysphoria, and moments of not seeing myself clearly, or moments of insecurity; I feel that it helps to have a consistent log of images taken of myself two or three times a month. I like sharing with people how I look, because when you do go through a lot of physical changes, it feels good to keep people up to date with that. If you met someone three years ago, it’s nice to know that if they have you on facebook or whatever, they get to see what you look like as your perception of yourself changes, rather than having this outdated image in their brain. Go off, take photos of yourself kids, selfies everyday.

I feel that historically that LGBTQIA+ community has had to use these quiet signifiers to signal their sexuality to other people in the know, whilst flying under the radar. I think that there’s nothing really wrong with fitting into queer stereotypes. I fit into a lot o stereotypes about both butch lesbians, and nonbinary people. I think that the worst that can, and does come from it, is that people who don’t prescribe to those norms tend to feel a bit invisible, like femme lesbians have major gripes about people thinking I’m straight, and the only time people think that about me is when they think I’m a straight boy, so I cant imagine how bad that is. It becomes bad when we assume that these stereotypes are the norm for the whole community, but I think that if people want to signify their gender or sexuality in these ways, then theres nothing wrong with that. As long as we don’t expect people to abide by these stereotypes, I think there is zero problem with them.

I feel like the mainstream media needs to catch up in terms of queer fashion. Theres a massive disconnect between what you see on tv, and in movies, vs what you see in person at a queer event, where everyone’s dressed… I cant even begin to describe how fashion it is. I went to an event over the weekend where everyone was dressed in just weird shit, which is actual queer culture, and queer fashion. It is important to recognise that queer fashion doesn’t actually exist. Because the culture is as wide and varied as there is in the broader mainstream community, that any attempt to capture an idea of queer fashion will alienate most of the community entirely.

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#thequeerlook #the queer look #queer #lgbt #lgbtqia #lgbtqiaplus #interview #identity #butch #lesbian #girl #woman #non binary #gender #sexuality #photography #photograph #portrait #portraiture

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drcontrarian · 7 years

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How to persuade people without changing their minds

IT IS ALL IN THE FRAMING

You may not have heard of framing, but it shapes what you believe and how you act every day in every way.

Marketing gurus will tell you that the ‘new’ marketing is about storytelling. In fact, the old marketing is about storytelling.

Except, that it isn’t about ‘stories’ it is about ‘narrative frame’. This is how a paper from University of Southern California describes it:

A listener's psychological reaction to narrated events is influenced by how the narrator frames the events, appealing to different values, knowledge, and experiences of the listener.

If that sounds awfully academic, allow me to reframe it (simply):

People base their decisions today on their past experiences.

HOW FRAMES ARE CONSTRUCTED

People (over time) process their experiences in a way that forms the basis of what they believe to be true (knowledge) and what they believe to important (values). In this way experiences build on each other to create a mindset or worldview that has utilitarian value for the individual; he or she can use it to function properly in the real world.

New experiences are viewed through the lens of your existing worldview, and the ‘facts’ that fit best with the existing mindset are easily absorbed because they are deemed true. The trap we all fall into is that, new experiences that don’t fit with the existing mental models, are bent so that they are forced to fit.

We all do this bending of reality to fit our mental models, because we don’t have the mental capacity to objectively, systematically evaluate every experience, and to file it properly. The process is too slow for the real world, and it is psychologically uncomfortable and destabilizing.

This process is related to the idea of ‘bias’ but not necessarily the way it is often explained. A bias is not some ‘bad’ thing that you should strive to eliminate. (Here is a long list of cognitive biases.)

One such bias that people universally claim to be ‘bad’ and that should be avoided is (for example) stereotyping, which is expecting a member of a group to have certain characteristics without having actual information about that individual.

Whilst there is some benefit to gain from expecting the unexpected, and to give people the ‘benefit of the doubt’; most often people conform to stereotype. That is stereotypes have functional utility because they are usually true. By not having to wait for, or in the absence of any other facts, it is practical and expedient to assume people will conform to stereotype. It takes very limited mental processing capacity, which leaves you free to pay attention to other things. Stereotyping is a useful bias. Of course, there may be times with certain individuals where the stereotype does not apply, and it is useful to be able to recognise that. But the point is that, until proven otherwise, the bias has a purpose.

Biases are useful shortcuts (heuristics) that allow people to operate efficiently in the world.

It is very hard to change people’s biases.

This gives rise to another aphorism which has become cliched, but is essentially true. People will often claim ‘perception is reality’. Of course that is not true; reality is reality, irrespective of how it is perceived. But in practice, how people perceive reality leads to them acting in a way that is in accordance with how they perceive it, so it is a fair enough approximation to accept the statement is a useful proxy.

So, we have three considerations here:

One: People construct mental models to operate in the world

Two: Our biases influence how we stack more information on top of existing information, favouring the facts that have proven most useful and repeatable over time

Three: With our personal mental models thus constructed, we perceive the world in a certain way.

FRAMES IN ACTION

The way we perceive the world is through frames - and people have multiple frames which are contingent upon circumstances.

It is not easy to change people’s biases. It is almost impossible to change people’s mental models - their personal paradigm - but it is possible to persuade people by creating a specific narrative frame. Strangely, you are actually not changing people’s minds (that is almost impossible) but since people have multiple frames through which they look at reality, you can change the perceived reality by changing the frame.

Imagine someone is looking through a keyhole into a room. They see a man lying on the bed, and another person taking a knife to his chest and slicing him open. They might think they are witnessing a murder.

Imagine now you put a sign above the door that reads OR 3 with a red cross. They still witness the same (limited) set of behaviours, but now people are more likely to think they are witnessing a medical procedure.

People’s mental models and biases have remained UNCHANGED. There are certain behaviours that are good (life-saving operation) and there certain behaviours that are bad (murder).

It’s not a great analogy because you may tempted to think that the ‘persuasion’ worked because you simply provided more information (the sign above the door). Consider some real life examples:

For decades there was strong push to get abortion legalised. The arguments were framed as pro-abortion and anti-abortion. Looking at the issue through the lens of abortion made it very difficult for pro-abortionists to win an argument. People have certain biases and certain mental models; including that the ‘innocent shouldn’t be made to suffer’.

Over time, and I am not sure if it was by design or by chance, the debate was re-framed as being ‘pro-choice’ and ‘anti-choice’. As soon as this happened, the debate was over. Most people would subscribe to the idea that personal freedoms are important. Consequently the right to choose is important, and they accepted abortion viewed through that lense. People did not change their minds about ‘innocents not suffering’ - but they just looked at the debate as being about choice and not about suffering.

The same happens with the debate about same-sex marriage. Traditionally homosexuality was deemed a deviant behaviour and was ignored or covered up. (Those who refused to do so were said to ‘come out’.)

As soon as the debate was reframed away from homosexuality (we are different) towards marriage equality (we deserve the same) the momentum towards allowing same sex marriage swung rapidly and decisively towards acceptance. Most people can identify with the importance and the inherent fairness of treating people ‘equally’.

Those opposed to same-sex marriage have attempted unsuccessfully to frame the debate as being about ‘political correctness’. That is because being PC is, whilst generally derided, not seen as a human right issue and therefore carries less weight - or what I like to call ‘persuasive valence’.

So much for the background. How does this apply to business?

THE IMPORTANCE OF A SINGLE WORD

One of the key ‘narratives’ that an organisation can create is through mass-media advertising.

Aldert Vrij’s (Detecting Lies and Deceit) describes the framing effect as follows:

Participants saw a film of a traffic accident and then answered questions about the event, including the question ‘About how fast were the cars going when they contacted each other?’ Other participants received the same information, except that the verb ‘contacted’ was replaced by either hit, bumped, collided, or smashed. Even though all of the participants saw the same film, the wording of the questions affected their answers. The speed estimates (in miles per hour) were 31, 34, 38, 39, and 41, respectively.

One week later, the participants were asked whether they had seen broken glass at the accident site. Although the correct answer was ‘no,’ 32% of the participants who were given the ‘smashed’ condition said that they had. Hence the wording of the question can influence their memory of the incident.

A bank may choose to frame their home-loan product as being ‘smart’ or as being ‘safe’. Or an institution may choose to frame their life-insurance products as being ‘smart’ or as being ‘responsible’. (Which would you choose as the most effective?)

THE RISK OF FRAMING FOR CHEAP

The interesting thing is how many retailers choose to frame their offer as being ‘the cheapest’ or value for money. These are valid frames, because consumers have a propensity to want to save money and they have a frame of not wanting to be ripped off.

There are multiple problems with this frame:

One: Several brands are offering the same frame, so it is crowded in front of that particular window. Competing on price is an option only if it is well-considered; but often it seems to be a lazy strategy applied inappropriately to the wrong product or market.

Two: The type of customer you acquire is the least valuable and most disloyal. It is a precarious business model that relies fully on price-conscious customer. I am not suggesting that it can’t be done (WalMart e.g.) but there are a number of other things that need to be balanced, one being that it is best suited to products or services that are commoditised, and the entire business model should cater to that type of business.

Three: The brand association is inherently negative, because.heuristic that applies to things that are cheap is that they are poor quality. You can say ‘value for money AND best quality’ as much as you like in your advertisements, it won’t change people’s minds because people have a bias to disbelieve what people say about themselves and believe the actions they take. I can tell you I am an honest guy as much as I like, but until you ascertain for yourself that I act honestly, you will tend to disbelieve it.

CONCLUSION

The best kind of persuasion is the kind that does not rely on people changing their minds. It is nearly impossible to change people’s minds, because they have constructed a mental model of the world that allows them to function properly in reality.

Instead of changing people’s minds, try and change the lense through which they look at the world.

You can do this by changing a word.

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/maumana/3714637604/

#bias #heuristics #framing

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