Laura Donnelly's Blog – June 2010 Archive (3)

Listening to the radio this morning I heard a story how Wisconsin is creating a law to encourage the removal of Native American mascot names and image usage at colleges, high schools and middle schools. Many schools throughout the United States have sports' mascots like "The Braves," "The Redmen" and "The Chieftains," matched with very exagerrated caricature (cartoonish) looking images of an American Indian. The names and the images are often very stereotypical and do not depict the culture…

Continue

I loved Iron Man 2 for the summer movie it is, but I am left asking why must Hollywood generate such lame parts for women? The two ladies in the film - Gwyneth Paltrow and Scarlett Johanssen have weird placement. Everyone else is saving the world while they are wearing 3 inch Prada heels. I know it's not the actress's fault. At the end of the film Scarlett turns out to be a secret agent and whoops some major enemy booty - 8-9 guys in her wake, but not after being sexualized the whole beginning… Continue

Now and again, when I scan past Comedy Central on my way to Bravo's ridiculous Housewives or VH1's Sober Houses, I see this ventriloquist Jeff Dunham doing his stand up. He's got multiple puppets. Achmed the Dead Terrorist, Jose the Jalapeno on a stick and another named Peanut which resembles the minstrel cartoons of the 30's, 40's and 50s which portrayed African American's as ape-like buffoons. It's hard to say which one is more offensive. The Dead Terrorist yields laughs as he talks of his…

Continue