The old advertisements were thought provoking. It was interesting to learn the “themes,” or the larger ideas, that an advertisement for socks was actually appealing too. In the Paris Gaters advertisement, it was revealing to note the generalization: from socks to social acceptance. In fact, generalizations relating commercial products to larger themes are extremely important today. This trend obviously has persisted overtime. I liked the difference in portrayal between the successful man and women. It was good to note that “women” were also seen as successful (although not “as successful” as a man). The illustration of the man seemed “larger” than that of the women which explicitly represents the perspective of the time.
I hadn’t realized how important the US victory in World War II had been for the American ego. I remember visiting the WWII memorial and the first two words that I would use to describe the memorial would be: magnificent and glorious. Perhaps, this is a true representation of the US perspective of WWII, this is as aspect of history that the US is proud off. It was surprising to find out that marriages were being held in the memorial. I found this to be a little strange, considering that the magnificent structure was still a memorial. Perhaps, this was for the actual visual scenery rather than in relation to the WWII memorial. Finally, it was important to notice how architecture represented perspective. The alarming disparity between the WWII memorial and the Batann Death March memorial spoke volumes.
I believe learning the origin of the “lend lease” of weapons in support of wars/ politics was important. This is an important part of international relations today. The fact that USA was the first nation to ever use nuclear weapons was revealing. It is ironic how they advocate so strongly against nuclear weapons today while holding the largest stock of such. Is this a result of learning from history, or another means of extending US domination?
I believe that WWII, served to “emphasize” women as second class citizens to men. Women truly were a convenient substitute for men; however, this also gave women a chance to prove their capabilities which is important.
Finally, the horrible nature with how the Japanese were treated in the US was alarming. It was interesting to note that such an effort was made to distinguish Chinese from the Japanese. I left the class wondering: the Japanese, Irish and the African Americans faced great racial discrimination by Americans, how do American citizens with these racial descendents feel about this? Is this a part of the past that they don’t care about, or is could there possibly be a sense of resentment?
