Meida Blog 5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fried_Green_Tomatoes_(film)

The media item that I choose is a Movie called Fired Green Tomatoes. The movie was made in 1991 Stars Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Mary-Louise Parker and Mary Stuart Masterson. This has been one of my favorite movies since I was little. The Movie was based on the novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg. A summary of the movie is a woman named Evelyn Couch meets an older woman named Ninny Threadgoode whom she starts to become very close with. Ninny greats her with a story of the now abandoned town in Alabama called Whistle Stop and the people that lived there. Evelyn Couch is a housewife who is bored and becoming uninterested with her and her husband’s relationship (Wikipedia). She becomes fascinated with the stories Ninny is telling her and the independent characters of Idgie and Ruth. Ruth and Idgie’s story is about their life after Buddy Idgie’s brother’s death. Idgie and Ruth become best friends after Ruth leaves her abusive husband. Ruth and Idgie raise Ruth’s son Buudy by themselves and become two very strong and independent women. During this time there was slavery and issues with race. The Threadgoode Family had black workers but they sis not treat them as slaves there were very nice and respectful with them. The black workers were Sipcey who worked with the women in the kitchen and was the nanny to the children and Big George who was the caretaker around the house. They were mother and son and lived with the Threadgoode’s were it was a nice environment. The reason why I choose this piece of media was because it really gives an example of who it was back in the old days with slaves and colored people (Wikipedia).
The movie Fried Green Tomatoes relates to class material because it is an example of how slavery, privilege, power, race, and gender all work. In the film there was a separate place where black people ate. The movie shows all the white folks eating inside the diner where it was cool, and all the black or colored folks sat outside in back of the diner. In the reading Drawing the Color Line Zinn stated, “Human status by the use of racial hatred, with that relentless clarity based in color, were white was master, black slave” (26). This was stating that white people where the masters and that black people were the slaves or workers. In the film even though the Threadgoode family were nice and kind people they still showed an example of how the whites were the masters and the blacks were the salves. Zinn states in the reading Drawing the Color Line, “This unequal treatment, this developing combination of contempt and oppression, feeling and action, which we call “racism”-was this the result of a “natural” antipathy of white against black? If racism cant be shown to be natural, then is the result of certain conditions, and we are impelled to eliminate those conditions” (27). The main part of the film is about Ruth’s ex husband’s death and who killed him. He was part of the KKK in the film and there was a scene where he came to the diner and tied Big George up and started beating him. Idgie came to the scene and told Ruth’s ex husband if he ever came around here again she would kill him. Well Ruth’s ex husband did not listen and he came to steal Ruths baby and the nanny Sipcey who was black was watching the baby at the time, the ex husband knocked out Sipcey and proceeded to steal the baby. Sipcey woke found the ex husband of Ruth and hit him over the head with a frying pan and killed him. Idgie wanted to be put on trial for the case because she knew if Sipcey were put on trial she would be hung immediately because she was black. Zinn stated in the reading Drawing the color line, “From the beginning, the imported black men and women resisted their enslavement, under the most difficult conditions, under pain of mutilation and death. Zinn was talking about how slaves were treated unfair and in certain conditions it came to death, which relates to the film. The film displays a lot of what Zinn sates in his reading called Drawing the Color Line and the movie is a great example.
I liked Zinn’s reading called Drawing the Color Line and the movie Fired Green Tomatoes. I thought both of these pieces fit well together because the film was an example of what Zinn was stating about slavery and how colored people such as black’s were treated unfairly. I agree with Zinn is his writing and I learned a lot from the reading and it was very informative as well as the movie. The movie also taught me so much and was a good visual example of how slavery was and how black’s were treated back then. I feel that many do not understand how those African American’s felt back then and they never will.