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[fenlings]

So at the midyear seminar, this guest speaker showed us a powerpoint his high-schoolers had made. Each group found pictures online and drew pictures to go with a story they composed.

The one he showed us was: "The Black Dog Which Wanted to Become White."

And really, the title is bad enough on its own. But the rest? The story combined with the hilariously bad illustrations had all of us ALTs literally *crying with laughter*.

I wish I could reproduce it. It started with a photo of a black dog saying, "The black body is disagreeable! That's because it disappears at night."

Then there was a photo of a white poodle and the narrator explaining that the black dog wanted to become white so that the *white girl dog* would notice him. Which - yeah. It was something like "What is the reason? Love is the motive." I seem to remember pink hearts drawn around the white dog. Hee.

So the black dog embarks on a series of whitening endeavors.

First he tries paint. There was a picture of the dog with a drawn paint bucket and drawn-on white paint. Something like: "If you paint the body, it will be white."

Then another picture of the black dog. "But the body is still black."

"If you cover the body in flour," - here there was a picture of a dog with white powder on him - "surely the body will become white."

A black dog. "The body is still black."

I think there was one more failed attempt, but I don't remember what it was. It's just - they found the most *cracktastic* pictures of dogs to put with their story.

It ended with a picture of clouds and a picture of the black dog. "Then he enters into the clouds."

OMG. Because apparently clouds will make you white. God - SO FUNNY. I can't stop giggling, even typing it. It's so bad!

And God we are such just-out-of-college dorks, that we were freaking *analyzing* it at lunch. Like a *text*. And saying why it was bad. Or, hah, I should say, problematic.

Avoiding the whole race tangle, this boy said: "It's sending a message that you have to change who you are to be happy, to be in love."

And sidestepping that whole in-love=happy issue, I actually said, "Yeah, you have to change your identity to conform to heteronormativity."

Then it turns out the boy was a gender studies major and was happy to hear that word. Some of the other ALTs were like "Wow, ten-dollar word!" which is amusing in and of itself because, yes, ten-dollar word FOR A HIGH-SCHOOL POWERPOINT.

::puts head in hands::

I mean, does my SMRT come with an off switch? Am I really that desperate to write essays now that I have no more classes? Well, um... ::eyes Harry Potter meta essay:: Heh, maybe. This is so sad. I'm glad at least that fandom keeps me well supplied with my subtext, meta, analysis, and theory, because otherwise apparently I'd GO LOOKING FOR IT ON THE STREET.

Why, hello. Are those some Power Rangers fake-fighting some monsters on the Bunkasai stage to entertain children? Did you know that what they're actually doing is metaphorically suppressing the abstraction of your fears and anxiety about people who are different and being different yourselves? So by projecting your own "montrous" attributes onto the creatures, and then having them destroyed by the socially-accepted Power Rangers, this reinforces your own socially-accepted attributes' triumph over your less-accepted attributes, and you are able to function harmoniously in society. Shall I write this up in lj? Wait, why are you running away?

Comments

[glaphix.livejournal.com]

*Huggle* I was just thinking today, I'd like to read someone's term paper, but your talk on black dog and power rangers is superior. :o)

[fenlings]

You know what's sad? I've been reading my *own* old term papers (which works out because I have no memory of writing most of them). Sometimes I feel compelled to edit them. IT'S A SICKNESS.

::huggles back::