"Mobile Cultures" & "Kelly Loves Tony"

Sandip Roy's article about the LGBT communities in South Asia prior to, during, and after the internet's involvement in the movement is very insightful to how the internet helped to bridge people from different places and of different cultural backgrounds together. Roy also touched on the idea of western culture having a prominent influence on the LGBT movement in the world and how it affects other cultures' progress on the movement having a negative effect on the particular needs and thought process of people from different cultural movements. I thought that it was strange how while LGBT communities are oppressed, males still had dominance over the females in the community, so much so that the women had to create their own female specific community to stop the harassment in the general LGBT internet forums. Having only seen the western LGBT movement here in the United States, it's hard for me to imagine what the community is like in South Asia where the population is multiplied a lot and where the gay community is not as widely accepted as they are in western countries.

The documentary, Kelly Loves Tony, is shot through the eyes of Kelly and Tony, a young Asian couple who experience early teenage pregnancy. The film's purpose is to show the behind the scenes of a young immigrant family in a small Asian community. From what I watched of the film in class, it seems as though the traditional values held in the Asian families and the western values in the new country mash and makes Kelly and Tony's life a little confused as they need to find the balance between traditional and western values. The norm back home for women would be to stay at home and take care of the home and children while the man is out earning money. Well, Kelly and Tony do adhere to some parts of this traditional construct, however, Kelly also goes to college to achieve higher education, something that is not part of the traditional way for women to go through. Overall, I think this film is insightful to how young families hold themselves to western culture while maintaining some traditional values in their lives.