What is this course?
In a future interview, I may be asked, “What is this course ‘Sport in Modern Society’ on your UIUC transcript?” I would give the following response: “Sport in Modern Society was a general education elective that I took as a freshman. I was originally taking another computer science class but decided to drop it and pick up another general education elective. Sport in Modern Society was a class that analyzed sociological theories and hegemonic ideas in the context of current day topics. It was a class that taught me to take an everyday topic such as sport and look at it through a sociological lens. Before taking the class, I was not aware of the cultural complexities that sport contained. I was one of the people that …show more content…
This defines so many movies and so many actors. The one that comes to mind for me is Will Ferrell. In just about every movie he is in, no matter what type of character he is playing, he always has this childish attitude and humor. I hadn’t thought about this before but this could potentially(and almost certainly is) be changing the way that young white males view the world. It’s teaching them that these racist and sexist remarks are funny and something that is socially acceptable to believe and vocalize. It’s teaching these teenage boys, whose brains are still being formed that it is OK not to grow up and not to accept responsibility. I too am guilty of glorifying these films and allowing them to be accepted in society. Kusz says, “more than a few white men of Generations X and Y can recite scenes or quotes from memory. (Just ask them, I’m sure their eyes will light up with delight!).”(Kusz, para. 8). This really struck a chord with me. After thinking about it, I think films like these(one with an awkward man boy protagonist) may be the most quoted, proving their true importance in modern society with white males. Relating this to sport, I think this example goes hand in hand with the stereotype of the adult male that peaked in high school as the big time football player. I think I can lend a personal perspective on this having just graduated high school. From my high school I’ve spent a good amount of time with the football “jocks”. The biggest thing I noticed was that not many of them were preparing themselves for a life outside of football. Hardly any of them had any real plans for what they wanted to do with their lives. I think this was promoted by many of the football staff that told these kids that as long as they played football, everything would be OK. I saw several instances of coaches “taking care of” a player’s grade
In a future interview, I may be asked, “What is this course ‘Sport in Modern Society’ on your UIUC transcript?” I would give the following response: “Sport in Modern Society was a general education elective that I took as a freshman. I was originally taking another computer science class but decided to drop it and pick up another general education elective. Sport in Modern Society was a class that analyzed sociological theories and hegemonic ideas in the context of current day topics. It was a class that taught me to take an everyday topic such as sport and look at it through a sociological lens. Before taking the class, I was not aware of the cultural complexities that sport contained. I was one of the people that …show more content…
This defines so many movies and so many actors. The one that comes to mind for me is Will Ferrell. In just about every movie he is in, no matter what type of character he is playing, he always has this childish attitude and humor. I hadn’t thought about this before but this could potentially(and almost certainly is) be changing the way that young white males view the world. It’s teaching them that these racist and sexist remarks are funny and something that is socially acceptable to believe and vocalize. It’s teaching these teenage boys, whose brains are still being formed that it is OK not to grow up and not to accept responsibility. I too am guilty of glorifying these films and allowing them to be accepted in society. Kusz says, “more than a few white men of Generations X and Y can recite scenes or quotes from memory. (Just ask them, I’m sure their eyes will light up with delight!).”(Kusz, para. 8). This really struck a chord with me. After thinking about it, I think films like these(one with an awkward man boy protagonist) may be the most quoted, proving their true importance in modern society with white males. Relating this to sport, I think this example goes hand in hand with the stereotype of the adult male that peaked in high school as the big time football player. I think I can lend a personal perspective on this having just graduated high school. From my high school I’ve spent a good amount of time with the football “jocks”. The biggest thing I noticed was that not many of them were preparing themselves for a life outside of football. Hardly any of them had any real plans for what they wanted to do with their lives. I think this was promoted by many of the football staff that told these kids that as long as they played football, everything would be OK. I saw several instances of coaches “taking care of” a player’s grade