Hanna+R’s+Final+AmEx+2013+Speech

=Title of Speech= Conformity =Text of Speech= You are at a family reunion. You step out of the car into the sweltering heat and soon you are engulfed in a flurry of hugs from some people who are apparently related to you. You smile and pretend like you have a clue who they are, and make a mental note to ask your parents later. Then your great aunt comes up to you, puts her hands on your shoulders, and looks you up and down. After she is finished telling you how grown up you look and how much bigger you are since the last time she saw you, she asks that dreaded question. “So tell me, do you have a boyfriend yet?” My answer is no, more often than not. No longer finding me an amusing target, my great aunt moves on to another unsuspecting cousin. Yet although I was saved from another bombardment of interrogation, something inside of me wishes I could say yes, that I could fit in, that I wouldn’t always be the boring one who never had a very interesting love life. And it doesn’t stop here. Once you have a long term boyfriend, they will be asking you “So when are you getting married?”, which will turn into “So when are you having a baby?” and then “When are you having another baby? You better not wait much longer or you will get too old and all of the eggs will fall out of your uterus” and so on. Well that’s just great. I am glad to see that there is no end in sight to my dilemma. So why does their have to be such societal pressure on us to be in a relationship from about the age of eleven until we die? Why are we still stuck in the 50’s mentality of the cookie cutter family? I mean, come on, this is the 21st century, not every woman needs a man. You see a boy and girl walking down the street together, and automatically think that they are dating. But what if they are really just friends? Why is it that we have to make a big deal about relationships between boys and girls? Trust me, I know from experience how annoying it is to have people ask you every day if you are going out with a guy just because you hang out together a lot. Why does the phrase “just friends” not seem to be in peoples’ range of comprehension? Sometimes it’s just that: a purely platonic relationship that you know can never be romantic. People should respect that, because those types of relationships are few and far between, especially with all of the stress that we are put under trying to fit into the “norm”. It is no wonder that society has come to this sad realization, when you look at the media that surrounds us, sending hundreds of subliminal messages to us every single day. Airbrushed models are photoshopped to perfection, epitomizing an impossible standard that we must strive to reach. In at attempt to attain this kind of beauty, people go to considerable lengths to change themselves, whether it be through expensive cosmetics, or even plastic surgery. So while all these women chase the unattainable, they sacrifice diversity, and become slaves to society. In our new era of technological breakthroughs, only time will tell how long it will be until we are able to genetically engineer our own designer babies, and then this call will be more urgent than ever. We must be aware of the world around us, and not become sucked into the idealist world the media wants us to become part of. Yet people often take this idea too far. Although Disney movies, for example, are accused of contributing to conformist society, they do have value. I am not saying that we should eradicate them, because they persuade children into thinking that life always ends in happily ever after. As much hate as Disney gets for all of their sexual innuendoes, sexism, and unrealistic endings, I loved those movies when I was a kid. I think every little kid needs to grow up believing that one day they will find their very own Prince Charming. I mean seriously, could you imagine a bunch of pessimistic preschoolers discussing the world’s problems in school? They have the whole rest of their life for that. People need to look beyond the superficial messages of children’s movies and maybe there will be something even adults can learn from them. Disney has heroines of many different races, many different situations, and some of them are saved by others while some of them save themselves, but all of them have one thing in common: they all have a happily ever after. But maybe people need to look at the deeper meaning. I am very lucky to have two parents who love each other and always will. It does not mean that our family does not have our fair share of problems, but we live a very happy life. I believe that this is our happily ever after. Disney movies teach us to dream, and our dreams are what define us, what motivate us to work towards our passions. We all know that Disney movies are not real life, but what is the point of watching a depressing movie? We can just turn on the news channel for that. We all know that life doesn’t go the way we want all the time, but dreams give us something to hope for, an optimistic outlook on life. As a society, we have become more socially liberal throughout history. Looking back on the struggle for rights, we have slowly granted each group their freedoms: from poor white men, to black men, to women, and now to homosexual people. Yet in our conformist society, we are less free than we think we are. As much as we preach freedom, we are not free, of our own accord. It is not any formal regulation or federal mandate that binds us, but the unspoken laws of society and our own fear of perception. In the America I want to grow old in, individuality will be embraced. The norm will not be what everyone as a whole aspires to be, but what each person aspires to be. And we will be freed at last from the shackles of oppression.

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