Suprisingly Interdisciplinary

When I signed up for this class at the beginning of the semester, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I never realized how interdisciplinary the course could be, and I now have a completely different view of the city of Los Angeles. Looking back, my favorite aspect of the coarse was my ability to connect it to other courses I was taking, despite the fact that they are in completely different subjects. I am taking an Asian Religious Traditions class at CMC, and one of our activities was a trip to a Buddhist temple. I was lucky enough to visit the temple when they were celebrating the Thai New Year, so there was a large festival with tons of authentic Thai food available to the visitors of the temple. I also took this opportunity to use the temple visit as my LA activity. This was a perfect example of how diverse the LA area is. I was very surprised to find that the temple was located in the middle of a neighborhood in Ontario. When I walked past the gates of the temple, I felt as if I was stepping into a completely different world, almost forgetting that I was in a residential LA area. Before coming to the Claremont Colleges, I had only visited LA once before, which limited my view of the area. This class helped me to see all aspects of LA and all it has to offer.
In my Core class, which focuses on traditional and modern fairytales and they psychoanalytic interpretations behind them, we have discussed at length the role of Disney in the fairy tale realm, as well as the racial stereotypes portrayed in them. Our discussion of Disneyland and other films, including Tarzan, reminded me of many points of discussion that were brought up in my Core class. As Maggie mentioned before, the newest Disney film that is soon to be released, The Princess and the Frog, stars the first African American princess. There has been a lot of discussion and debate about multiple aspects of the film that appear racist and insensitive, including whether or not the prince should also be African American. I realize that regardless of what Disney decides, there will always be a group that finds aspects of the film at fault, as seen as the changes made in the Tarzan films, where regardless of the changes made, there were sill parties that were offended.