Blog 5

The theme in Chaplin's speech in "The Great Dictator" that spoke out to me the most was equality.  While listening to Chaplin, I kept hearing "men" and how the men need to do something about the issues of that time.  I understand that "times were different then," but that doesn't give reason as to why women were, and still are, excluded from certain aspects of society.  Today, most American women are fighting for the wage gap and equality in the workforce.  However, what is not being recognized is just women in general being inferior to men.  We need to see that just because a woman is working a minimum wage job does not make her less of a human than a man who is the CEO of some company.  This society thinks a large income makes an individual more educated, kind, honest, respected, etc. than someone who struggles to make ends meet.  This issue applies to all genders, of course, but women tend to get dealt the shorter end of the stick.  A present day issue that speaks toward income acting as the definition of a person would definitely be Christian Grey from 50 Shades of Grey.  Despite all of the other issues that this book shows, Grey is seen as this powerful, strong man who deserves to be loved.  In reality, he is merely an abusive and manipulative person, but this is blindsided by the fact that he makes a lot of money.  I think we need to start basing people off of their actions, words, and promises rather than the income they receive or the plentiful amounts of decorations that they own.  We need to judge people on who they are rather than how much they make.