If you were too lazy to actually watch this video, I guess I just have to explain it to you. The video featured a number of young boys, probably no older than the age of ten, who were asked a bunch of questions about their first impressions about a girl. They were asked what they liked about her appearance. Among the many answers were "her eyes," "her smile," or "her hair." It was no secret that these young boys were infatuated by this girl. Then, they were asked to caress her, and they were even more happy. Just when the young boys were least expecting it, the maker of the video, told the boys to "SLAP HER!!!"
Of course, the boys were taken aback by the two words, and none of them actually committed the action. When asked why, the common response was, "because she is a girl," "because you're not supposed to hit girls," "because she is pretty and she is a girl," "as the saying goes, 'a girl should not be hit, not even with a flower.'" At the end of the video, in white words across the screen, reads, "In the kids' world, women don't get hit."
If you thought I was going to completely murder this video, I am not. I am just going to take a knife and stab it a little.
This video has a very positive intended message. It encourages people, especially boys and men to not hit women. Today, many women are subject to domestic violence, and this video is an attempt to tackle that issue. The explicit message of this video is that women should not be hit.
However, I had a mini-protest at my desk when I first watched this video. I was literally yelling at the screen, "DON'T HIT HER JUST BECAUSE SHE IS A GIRL. DON'T HIT HER BECAUSE HITTING PEOPLE IN GENERAL IS WRONG!" However, I'm not going to ignore the fact that some of the boys gave answers that did not include gender in their answer.
40% of domestic violence is suffered by men, but these issues go unsolved. We should be making an effort to end domestic violence in general, and not just that towards women.
If the makers of the video really wanted to get rid of the "single story" that we studied earlier in the semester, they should have made a video with those boys being told to hit another boy, or girls being told to hit a boy. Lucky for us, there was a response video that was released a few days after "Slap Her" was released.
Again, my bad for not being American media.
If you were too lazy to watch this video, too bad. I will not summarize this one for you. Continue reading once you've watched it.
Not what you were expecting? Exactly what you were expecting? I love the line at the end, in contrast with that of "Slap Her." It clearly states that we should work to end domestic violence as a whole, and not just that aimed at women.
Big question: What would happen if the media actually WAS American media? Would the children's reactions be different?
I am so happy to see you address this video, and even happier to see that the response video exists. Often times when we see psa's targeted at decreasing domestic violence, we see a woman portrayed as a victim, and if we're lucky, as a strong survivor. In effect, we make male survivors feel more alone and less able to escape their situations. If this were filmed in America, sadly, I feel it would be far more likely for the young girls to hit the boy back. This might just be me being a pessimist, but for a long time, I accepted that you didn't hit girls because we were girls. It took me until I was in middle school to learn about domestic violence and how it can happen to anyone. We need to abolish the image of the young, helpless woman as the domestic violence victim, and elevate the images of strong men and women surviving and thriving outside of their abusive situations. The American media can play a big role in decreasing domestic violence, but we the viewing public have to be willing to stop ourselves from projecting stereotypes onto the words domestic violence.
ReplyDeleteEthan I cannot actually believe you right now. I critiqued this video as my choice post for this week too, however unlike you I asked Mr. Starace about it since it wasn't an American video and have to wait to post it. Anyway it doesn't matter we took very different approaches to responding to the video. While I didn't focus on the question 'what if it was "slap him" rather then her', I think this is an eXTREMelY good point and one I very happy that you made!! So often people, (feminists) focus on bringing attention to issues that our primarily affecting them (I get they effect us all, that's not what I meant by that). And that is why we need to focus on all issues. What is gender anyway??? #HUMANISTS
ReplyDelete-Sophia
I thought one of the girls would slap him lmao good think i was wrong
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post to address because you made the point that is not okay to hit people in general. It is also important to note the fact that the people in the video are little kids. As a child, people are easily influenced by their peers and adults, showing that being good role models should reinforce well-developed children into adults.
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