Film Review - Beauty And The Beast

The Beauty and the Beast is a well known fairy tale written by a famous French novelist known as Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve. There are a number of different versions of the tale across the Europe and it was published in 1740. It is estimated that the tale was originated around 4,000 years ago and was succeeded a lot among people.

Undoubtedly that Beauty and the Beast was an unique Disney movie, for some decades it shows the reality of how women were treated in the past, freedom and telling us 'Don't judge a book by it's cover'... 

 Book equals knowledge in the past

The writer symbolises the book equals knowledge, that is why Belle has been described as 'odd' 'weird' and 'unusual' girl in her town, where boys were only educated. Fortunately she was well educated as her father is willing to teach her to write (There are exceptions!)
It was clearly shown in a particular scene while Belle was teaching a little girl how to read however she was then criticised of her action by the Headmaster of the town.  Be true to yourself we all know we're living in a patriarchal society where Men are seen as superior as they're more muscular and do more work then us?
In contrast surprisingly Belle wasn't portrayed as a weak or a girl is incapable of choosing her path, she had the choice to reject Gaston and choose the Beast. Furthermore at the end SHE was the one who saved the Beast, or should I say mutually. The writer has predicted that Belle and Beast must be together at the end as the first letter of the title indicates they must be together, Gaston will never be the one as in French ; Gaston means 'Guest' 'Stranger' so definitely there isn't a chance for him.

There must be more than this provincial life!

It is indeed, she was also like the ladies in her town where she was unable to explore the outside world, the only thing she ever come across with the outside world is her father going to The Market each year to bring her red roses. 
Consequently her father was imprisoned due to he tried to pick up red roses from the Beast's castle, the Beast wouldn't let him... as the Red roses has the meaning of 'True love', but the Beast never show love to the outsiders therefore he stopped Belle's father from picking it up.
It also shows the only way Belle could live a not so provincial life is that stay with the Beast - this has something to do with Gender as this may indicates the fact Women weren't able to leave a particular place without a MEN.

Don't judge a person by his/her appearance ;

Having lived a life in selfishness, a young prince is cursed by a mysterious enchantress to having the appearance of a monstrous beast, he then never mentioned his name or family anymore - a curse has been made and everything in the castle were objectified, winter in four seasons. Even the most selfishness person in the world will have a small dim of conscience presented within their heart...He may be a beast but he still has a human heart. But as you know most of the people have the ideology settled in their mind thinking that 'Beast' are cruelty, nasty or violent, it is true but not with him because he saved Belle! 
As long as you have the commitment of changing or slightly improves her personality then everything is possible. The appearance doesn't tell you all about a person's personality, you need to be willing to spend time to discover the positive side of him/her.

Love is essential in life but with mutual respect and trust

As much people know how did Gaston treat Belle's father and the Beast by trying to kill them in order to make Belle his wife but if it was a one sided relationship then no one would be happy or neither  future child,  Belle is more like a prize to him, we can tell from how his side kick always mentions things about 'War' 'Winning' and 'Women to make him calm.  Too self-centred! In contrast of The Beast he showed his interests and tries to open his deep heart and declare his love to Belle, and willing to set her free.  In addition to this also when they both saved each other twice.

Freedom plays an important part within this context as it indicates they have the choice to choose or live what they like. 

The phenomenon is known as 'Happiness'.

As much people have thought about fairy-tales are always simple minded and have the same plot as always, maybe try and stretch your mind a bit - outside the box perhaps? 

:)

Kelsey xoxo

Why can't I be a heroine??

Opinion article on Is Women’s language weaker than Men?

While growing up, we were socialised that heroes were mainly man – therefore have embedded the patriarchal ideology within our innocent mind, Think about it, we have all grown up with many images and from novels to movies of what constitute a hero and this cultivates culture expectation, Let us look at some in detail? Shall we?

Look at Cinderella, her blue gown, fine blonde hair and a skinny woman however living in such extreme environment treated badly by her stepmother which is actually a bad thing, what could she do to get herself out of the tragic zone? Well you’re throwing me a question so let me tell you it’s that there’s always a hero will solve this issue which is – Prince Charming with his muscular muscles. He saves Cinderella by running around the town and chose her to become his wife, but as most people will not be aware of the way how she didn’t choose Prince Charming to become her prince? In this context it’s a way of how society is indicating a women has no control of her life, seen as a possession and they often need someone to rely on , like mice’s, magic and men!

The point I’m trying to bring out is that all the ideologies has started to embed since we were little, just like how they portrayal women as a weaker sex therefore it’s language is weaker, well it is surely not the case because in most recent researches women are seen to be using language differently in contrast to men, Deborah Tannen has said ‘Different sex aim for different things in a conversation’ which means we aren’t people from different planet, it’s just that we live in the same planet speaking the same language but not the same dialect. It’s like women has to speak in a certain way to be seen as more feminine, which absolutely makes no sense because there aren’t such definition for how a women should be acting in order to become more feminine, but certainly a high pitched squeaky voice sometimes do make you look like an idiot.

I think Lakoff’s theory is a bit too extreme in terms saying Women’s language is weaker, the use of tentative language will lead to some disadvantages, like preventing themselves getting a promotion but that isn’t the case though, I can’t challenge her theory as in some features were very true however look at the world! More and more women are working in leadership positions which is absolutely fantastic, you can find heroines in workplaces, there are 2 female Politian working within the G9 group however the ratio is still small compare to Men, but it is a great massive improvement in our society, we aren’t preventing ourselves getting a promotion, it’s because the way how we use language differently, us, women tended to aim for Overt prestige which we rather make someone feel orientated or nice instead of being competitive or often challenges the other – the phenomenon has been named as Rapport talk, To be honest if a women started to have such challenging conversation she will be seen as rude so that’s probably why we add so many politeness strategies into our sentence and this may make us look even weaker due to we literally add endless of politeness strategies! But Janet Holmes has indicated the fact about this is a way of how women helps and keeps the conversation going on – but lakoff’s theory is a bit too simplest in terms of just seeing women’s language in a one way, she has to think wiser and outside the box!

I guess one of the reasons could be the way how the patriarchal society often do not give a chance for women to expose their strengths in terms of not giving them a particular job roles which is frustrating from my point of view, like adding the suffix ‘ess’ to indicate a specific job role should led by a men but not a women because she can’t work properly. Absolutely none sense! But that doesn’t stop women can’t be heroine in their own rights, we are living in 21^st century!

Even though our culture tends to celebrate masculinity when it comes to being a hero, we can still look at all the great quantities of heroines and appreciate them – we have many examples in our lives such as our grandma, mum or aunties!

Remember both heroines and heroes do compliment with each other so don’t be too fussy about it, we’re just different, the same coin with different sides and patterns.

Kelsey <3

English is not sexist, it has been altered to become sexist by stereotyping

PLEASE NOTE: JUST A MADE UP ESSAY

It’s hard to discuss whether a language is sexist or not, as our language is undergoing gender neutrality in terms of more gender-neutral alternatives has been created within the past 20 years. Which shows a big improvement on how the power in discourse is shifting within our society embedded with the patriarchal ideology. Recently I have been watching an interview with the BBC, interviewing a female engineer about her daily life – marked form is used positively within this context. 

How shocking and strongly how the patriarchal ideology has been embedded in my 6-year-old son’s mind as he has questioned me ‘Mummy why could this woman become an engineer, she is a woman though’. My first reaction was to freeze and unsure how to answer his question. But it was absolutely normal having this kind of thought, as we all know living in the UK means you have to accept the fact this is a country which speaks a language with an inequality. Even the EU has strongly emphasized banning the use of marked forms, but why do we still use it, though? Is it still valuable in a society moving towards gender neutrality? 

Well, blame the English teachers in primary school. English teacher has always taught us the vocabs about jobs, food or even just normal words we use in our daily basis, but reinforcing what has been discussed, the educational system is responsible for the use of marked forms and ideology. Because the teachers tended to teach us words such as ‘Policemen’ ‘firemen’ ‘surgeon’ and quite unfamiliar to see words that associates with women gender being taught unless it is a nurse or ‘mid-wife’. A reflection on a feminist theory published by linguist Dale Spender, he said adding the suffix ‘men’ or ‘ess’ strengthens the perceptions that the male category is the norm and that it corresponds the female category is derivation and therefore less important. 

Or maybe because women are seen to be ‘weaker’ sex as linguist Robin Lakoff published her deficit theory in the 70s about the fact women uses weaker language, may have illustrated an imagery to the others where woman are not strong enough to catch thieves or save the day. Indeed you may have noticed that the ideology has started embedding since we were young but we have not been aware of it, furthermore to bring out a concept on jobs which some jobs can only be carried out by a specific gender. I am sure you are very aware that no one uses these terms anymore and are becoming more obsolete as there is more gender neutral phrases are being created within the past years. 

Therefore I do not see the point why do we have to judge people what work should they be doing depending on their sex. 

Just like how women has to identified their marital status, for example attending my son’s parent evening, the school he goes to would ask me to fill in a slip with a title ‘Mr/ Mrs’ has already been filled in by the school itself automatically by computer, they were the only 2 options. Like do I have to be married to become a mother? Since when does the title ‘Mrs’ has been used as one size fits all? The Swedes has recently introduced a new gender-neutral title ‘Hens', I’d be so much happier if they have used that instead of being stereotyped as a married woman. 

Our language is changing anyways but it takes a bit of time – nowadays the use of a male pronoun to refer to both men and women. Using ‘he’ or ‘his’ to refer to humans in general (known as ‘male as norm’) is actually still fairly common, probably because no-one is actually completely sure what the grammatically correct alternative is. 

Using the plural ‘they’ or ‘their’ never sounds quite right when we are actually referring to the singular. Another option is to change the focus of whatever is being said by the second person, using ‘you’ and ‘your’ – but, of course, this can completely change the register of the sentence. It’s difficult to determine whether or not language is sexist or not, it may have been like this all the time. I realized the way how I greet my friends using a word that looks like gender neutral but actually has the implication of manpower, such as calling my female friends ‘Hey guys’ or the utterance ‘oh, man’, our language is littered with expressions refers to men as the powerful collective. it is unbearable in the English language as men have the power and the authority in charge within our society. Until we have equality in our language, it’s difficult to argue for equality in language elsewhere, which is why it’s so important that change is encouraged. And we can quite easily encourage it by giving a little more time and thought to the words we use, like use more gender neutral alternatives. Surely this will take a while in our lifetime, probably 20 years? 30? 40? – all we can do now is that simply make little changes and live happily. Eventually one day we will have equalities within our language or in every language. 

*Please note this is based on my personal views, no offense 

Kelsey

'Movie' or 'film'?

BRITISH ENGLISH OR AMERICAN ENGLISH?

All the time, all the time , there has always been some words that do confuses people, for example, words such as 'Fall' and 'Autumn'.
They both have the lexical field of  'weather' but described in different ways, to the people who are not familiar with American English like the British people, they might think 'Oh yeah, that's a pile of bullsh*t'.

Back in the days where English has originally formed from French/ Latin words, could have been much more and more histories behind the whole thing if you're talking about history. However, I am definitely not going into such deep talk about it. - it may bores you and me!
Recently I have been reading an article about English Language and noticed that the 'TH' sound in British english will be gone by 2066. whereas no more proper British language due to the muticulturalism said by the linguists in this research.
As a linguist in English Language, I do feel disgraced, devastated and concerned about the whole situation we are in now.

'Th' sound to vanish from English language by 2066 because of multiculturalism, say linguists

Multiculturalism is important;

According to researches from the tourists, visitors came from different places around the world expecting to see and hear Queen's English (or Standard English you may refer to) on the street while banging on the street. but this may be gone after 50 years due to multiculturalism, SE could be extincted forever!

'Given the status of London as the linguistically most influential city in the English-speaking world, we can expect to see significant changes between now and the middle of the century' - Dr Dominic Watt, a sociolinguistics expert from the University of York.

We're an English speaking country (proud to be!) - however, a lot of the things are influenced by the Americans such as TVs, Magazines, Films or even netflix.

The majority of the people, including 'you' who is reading this article may have been using some American slang words at some point, does not matter where are you from or which language do you speak.

90% of the people in the world are learning english, but only 25% could speak proper English because American English has evolved to become less formal and much more simpler, so foreigners does find it easier to learn American English.

A lot of non verbal communication skills are also replacing English Language, so Emojis may be part of your life by the time we reach to 2066.






Reporter - Kelsey Wong