I'll be writing about the character Baljeet from the TV show Phineas and Ferb . Baljeet is an Indian immigrant living in Danville with the titular characters who go on wacky adventures every day of summer vacation by building crazy gadgets. Baljeet is very focused on grades, as he has received straight As and has only gotten one A- as the worst grade of his life. He's even described a failed math test as "the scariest thing known to man". And to top it all off, in The Baljeatles , where Baljeet is stressing about getting a good grade in Summer Rocks, he ends up singing a song called "Somebody Give Me a Grade", all about asking for an A for the camp. "Somebody Give Me a Grade" Baljeet represents the "Smart Asian" stereotype, with his character so focused on grades. This stereotype implies that all Asians, specifically Asian-Americans, are good at academics such as math and science. This stereotype is harmful because it places undue exp
There are plenty of ways for Baljeet to be changed. I think the main one is his focus on grades, which doesn't do much within the plot of the show except for a couple episodes. Outside of that, it's mostly used for jokes at Baljeet's expense. When the character was first introduced, he was the nerd that was bullied by Buford, getting wedgies and swirlies for comedic effect. However, as the show progressed, this relationship generally changed to a more true friendship without the bullying. If we remove Baljeet’s obsession with his grades, which was done in later seasons of the show, we can begin Baljeet’s story as an intelligent person with friends, not as the stereotypical “smart” Asian immigrant. This in addition to removing the bully/nerd relationship between Baljeet and Buford will make Baljeet’s character a much better character and no longer representative of the smart Asian stereotype. Buford giving Baljeet a wedgie.
The past 15 weeks have been a journey. Pretending that I enjoyed this class wouldn't be fair to either myself or the person reading this either. I was here for the requirement and it felt like everyone else was as well. The collaboration was limited and not very effective and the self-publishing was thoroughly useless. Nobody commented anywhere close to on-time, in fact, the only comment I received before the last week of class was about some messed-up formatting of one of my blog posts. What I learned was only reinforcements of what I already knew: I'm a solid writer and I hate this kind of writing. This stuff won't be helpful because I'm not going to become an academic, nobody likes writing it, nobody likes reading it, and it just felt like a slog to write bloated papers without any passion behind them. My advice to future students is to make sure that you at least try to write about something you're passionate about because that will help make it more bearable.
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