Essay 3 Workshop

Essay 3 Workshop

People tend to subconsciously criticize themselves about everything. They compare themselves to classmates, to celebrities, and even fictional people they see on TV. In the story, Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, Schooling and the Media have had a bad influence on Lovey because it makes her feel less perfect about the way she looks and acts. We can see this through her complaints about her physical traits, the way she speaks in class, and her perception of who she should be on television.
                The first chapter starts of with one of her favorite TV shows, "Shirley Temple". "I use to wish I was just like her, with perfect blonde ringlets and pink cheeks and pout lips, bright eyes and a happy ending every Sunday" pg 3. It seems to me like she has this vision of who is the perfect girl, and she definitely doesn't think it’s her. She thinks she’s not "deserving" of the kind of treatment she sees Shirley temple has on television. Lovey also notes how perfect the children look on the show, "The Checkers and Pogo Show". "The Spotlight finds the Merry UnBirthday child. Of course, it's the cutest one in the studio" pg 5. She also notes that it would be impossible for her to be on the show, and that only the rich kids get to be on the show. It’s this kind of discouraging feelings that put negative thoughts on Lovey about herself.
                 Through Schooling, Lovey has found ways to look at herself in a negative light. Her Pidgin English is unacceptable in English class, and Lovey notes that she is extremely ashamed of it. She points out her differences than other people in school. The food she eats, the car she drives and even the clothes she wears is something she hates. Her Asian traditions do not sit well with her at all, and like her thoughts of Shirley Temple, she views the traditionally white Americans as the people with better lives. "Sometimes I secretly wish to be haole. That my name could be Betty Smith, or Annie Anderson. pg 11" What ruins her self esteem even more, is the fact that kids at school pick on her because she is different.
                      She also uses the media as a source to come up with better ways to describe her. An Oompa Loompa is what her family calls her, based on the small orange creatures on the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. To her this word is even worse than ugly. This tells me that she would rather be ugly, than be an oompa loompa, and unfortunately, she feels more like an oompa loompa. The Oompa loompa is a symbol for something she is trying to avoid becoming, and the "haole" is a symbol for something she is trying to become.
                       Both the media and schooling has given Lovey a false look on what she should be, and I think that it is a bad influence in this story. It seems to me that the students at her school have done a lot of damage to her self esteem, and media has alerted her perception on what it means to be perfect. Shirley Temple is something she constantly strives to be, and an oompa loompa is a symbol for something she is trying to escape. Through all of this her own traditions, physical features, and the way she speaks is something she hates.