Today in class we were talking about Orientalism and the question came up:
"If there was a middle eastern looking man walking onto the plane you are about to board, would you be scared? Would you be so scared that you wouldn't get on the plane?"
Would you get on the plane? Why or Why not?
Personally, I would get on the plane without hesitating. There is no way to know if he is an American citizen or somebody actually born in the middle east. There is no way to know if he has any intention of harming you or not. Why would you just assume that he is planning on harming the passengers of that plane just because of his ethnicity? And how do we reach this point in society? How do people get to the point that they don't trust certain looking people? Is it how we are raised? Is it based on personal experience? No matter how it happens, it just blows my mind that people would be scared of somebody just because somebody that looks like them has caused somebody harm before.
Feminism, Is a major part of our every day life. There is always something that women of today's society see and think they should have. But Is there a point where "equality" goes too far? I saw a clip from Ellen where she talks a little bit about equality between men and women.
Now is this over the top? Ellen mocks feminism a little bit. Where do we draw the line? Do we need, even certain types of pens that match the "pens" that men use?
We have been hearing since we were very little that "life isn't fair", however some can't seem to face that fact. There is always going to be someone, be it man or women that has something that you don't. There are some however that wont rest until women have every right as men. And I being a women myself, feel that that is in a way very unfair to men. Women want things for themselves; so why should men give up their own things so that women can get what they want? Men deserve equality as well.
Let me paint you a picture. You are in charge of a hiring new employees, you need to hire a new worker. You have two candidates one is a women who has very little experience and is just all around not quite up to the standard that the other candidate who is a man is. However someone up higher than you in the chain of command has told you that for so many male employees there must be at least one women. So instead of hiring the more qualified candidate you hire the women. I speak from first hand experience that this happens. How is this fair to the man? That women didn't get the job because she deserved it. She got the job because of a standard that has been pushed into society for equal rights.
That is where I draw the line. There is a point where we need to let things be. There are just somethings that we can't or better yet shouldn't change.
“Under monopoly all mass culture is
identical, and the lines of its artificial framework begin to show through.”
Lets talk about the how every chick flick is the same, or close to.
Lets start with... The Notebook
The Last Song
Twilight
The Vow
Safe Haven
The Lucky One
Endless Love
Friends with Benefits
...anddd you get the point.
Don't get me wrong, I'm always down for a cute, sappy love story but why? Its the same story, boy meets girl... parents don't like boy, ex boyfriend gets involved etc... then the boy gets the girl and they live happily ever after. Every year a new epic chick flick comes out around Valentines Day and every year we beg our boyfriends to take us, or make sure we are at the premier with our girlfriends because it just looks so good. Watching it on redbox just won't do. People have the previous on every radio station, its in every youtube ad and if you go to the movie theater a lot you've probably seen that same preview in every single movie you went to see. They make it a huge deal with every single one.
I will totally admit it, I'm that girl that criticizes the ending and have an input on how terrible a movie was.
Endless love? Awful. Totally predictable and boring.
The Vow? I almost fell asleep. Don't get me wrong, Channing is nice to look at but it was just blah.
The Lucky One? It was okay. I didn't have to see it a second time but I didn't have anything bad to say about it either.
The Last Song? I loved. The ending was out of nowhere. Yes, some of the parts were cliched but it made me think. It even made me cry and question whether they were going to end up together or not.
So, what about the movies that don't fit the cliche? What about the movies that don't get put on every radio stations and don't have the top actresses? Those are always the best ones. Those movies make you think, they make you feel and relate because they're scenarios that actually could happen. They aren't about random girls moving into a new city and finding love for the first time. They are about the things that are real.
My top 3 favorite under-appreciated films:
*only watch if you're okay with rated R movies*
#1 Stuck in Love: This is by far, hands down the best movie I have ever seen. It is so deep and real. It tells the story of divorced parents and the ripple affect it has on their kids. The daughter despises her mother and has the worst trust issues in relationships due to watching her father completely destroyed after the divorce. There are kids doing drugs and struggling with addiction at a young age and it shows how much your first love will impact you. All things people can relate to, or know someone who can relate.
*only watch if you're okay with rated R movies*
#2 The Spectacular Now: This movie shows the truth about the struggles of high school and how scary the future can be and how everyone copes with uncertainty differently. Just because Mr. Popular gets invited to all the parties and everyone knows who he is doesn't mean he's gonna pass all of his classes and graduate. It shows how hard it is on the kids who only have one parent and having to worry for themselves if their parent is gonna be able to pay the bills this month. They show why parents lie in order to protect us, not hurt us. Two polar opposites fall in love, and give each other different strengths. It shows that no matter how much you say something isn't going to happen because you don't want it to, life and feelings get in the way and can change everything.
#3 LOL: This movie captures high school life perfectly. It portrays what a big deal sex is to some people and how it can be completely meaningless to others. It shows the struggles of being a girl and the double standard there is at that age. It shows the bond between a mother and a daughter; one day she's your best friend and the next shes your worst enemy. It demonstrates how much of an impact social media has and how much kids really do lie to their parents. It shows what its like being the black sheep of your family and how hard it is having different dreams from your parents.
They are all movies that make you think, cry and ask yourself questions. They were so well made that you forget about the boy meets girl cliche.
As we've been discussing originality, I've noticed that we've taken a rather accusatory tone when talking about art that seemingly fails to be original. We talk a lot about artists (filmmakers, writers, musicians, etc.) as though they always intend to be unoriginal, like they are knowingly and purposefully ripping off someone else's work. According the Frankfurt theory about media, this is precisely what artists are doing. They saw it all as a giant scheme to keep reproducing the same things just to placate audiences and rake in more money.
However, I believe that many of these artists' intentions are far more innocent. I can personally think of many times throughout my life that I proudly came up with what I thought were completely original ideas for stories. It was only much later that I'd be reading one of my stories and realize how obviously similar the plot was to other, more famous pieces.
I've learned from myself that even when you suspect an author or director of blatantly recycling another's ideas, they may have just been innocently oblivious to what they were doing. I used to be incredibly angry with Christopher Paolini, author of the Inheritance Cycle (aka the Eragon series), because I firmly believed he had intentionally stolen J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings world and made it his own for personal gain. Now I see that he was just a fifteen-year-old boy who probably just failed to see the countless parallels between his work and Tolkien's.
So, all of this reminded me of a film I saw two years ago at the Sundance Film Festival called Stoker. From the very start, I was noticing a lot of Hitchcockian influence in this sinister, slow-burning film. By the end, it was so very obviously like Alfred Hitchcock's film Shadow of a Doubt that I thought the director, Park Chan-Wook, had made Stoker as a very intentional, modern nod to the 1943 film. I was surprised to find out in the Q and A afterwards that he hadn't even noticed the similarities until later on.
Here's a trailer for Stoker:
Here's a trailer for Shadow of a Doubt:
As you can see, there are several parallels between these two films. In both, the main girl's mysterious uncle comes to stay with the family and soon befriends his niece. The girl develops a sort of infatuation for Uncle Charlie, and eventually discovers that he has a thing for murdering people.
(Here is a picture I took of Park Chan-Wook and the cast at the premiere of Stoker.)
It seems as though Park Chan-Wook specifically intended to pay homage to Shadow of a Doubt, but he insisted in the Q and A that, while Hitchcock did inspire him to get into the film business, he didn't mean for there to be any connection between his film and Hitchcock's. He did admit, "In many ways, although I tried not to consciously think about it, I must have been invariably influenced by Hitchcock."
Does that mean Chan-Wook is in the wrong? Does it cheapen Stoker, or make it any less interesting? I don't think so.
This past three weeks we have been studying Pop Culture in our Media & Society class, it pretty much covers everything we do in our daily lives. The TV shows we watch, the movies we watch, the music we listen too, look at most peoples cellphones, who has the Apple Iphone, or who has the Samsung S4. I found a video on YouTube that to me covers my point about pop culture, here's the link:http://youtu.be/U_pxfifB6Co .
I hope that you enjoy it.
Jason Ferguson- Media and Society How popular culture affect us
I have started reading the book series "Game of Thrones". I have only finished the first two books, but it is an awesome series as you can see by HBO using the right to produce a TV series based on these books. So in the book's there is a main theme of someone always wanting to rise to the top and how in their society there is one ruler the king and he is the law of the land. There is lords guys or ladies who own land or Castles and run somewhat of there own state lets say. But these books are supposed to be in the day of lets say King Arthur days since there is dragons, witchcraft, and castles. So as I said before there is always someone conspiring by themselves or with someone else to rise to the top or to just move up a social class from where they are at. I couldn't help but think of Adorno & Horkheimer culture industry, and how they say that everything in media today is the same and it isn't changing at all but, just taking on the same thing and putting their own individual stamp on it, and may become more powerful or perfect that thing which it aspiring to be.
"Every detail is so firmly stamped with sameness that nothing can appear which is not marked at birth, or does not meet with approval at first sight. And the star performers, whether they produce or reproduce, use this jargon as freely and fluently and with as much gusto as if it were thevery language which it silenced long ago. Such is the ideal of what is natural in this field of activity, and its influence becomes all the more powerful, the more technique is perfected and diminishes the tension between the finished product and everyday life." (pg5 ADKcultureindustry)
So my point being that in these books it is as the title says a game of thrones, someone is always wanting to kill the king and become the ruler of the land and run it the way they want to or perfect it in the way they think it should be perfected. Society that is to run and rule it the way they see it should be done themselves. But yet even though someone may succeed at over throwing the king, noting ever changes. It is still the same day and age of ruler and ruled class the only thing that changes is the status of that person who becomes the king and he changes out his friends and family to be higher positions around him to rule the people or society. I can't help but to agree with Adorno & Horkheimer on this idea that culture stays the same for the most part with a slight twist of their own personality coming out in how they go about doing what they do. Other than that it is still the same. There is a King and class getting ruled upon by his rules which are a set of rules that are established as laws of the land. So why then would anyone want to be king or raise their status or better known as a social class if noting really changes except that that one person is in a better position themselves. So it actually brings Marxism into it as well that people are greedy and want all the power so they over throw the ruling king at the time to become powerful and more rich. But yet again society or culture didn't change it is just a mimic of the person that led before them. So is this book affecting our society? Or is it just and idea or theme that's been around forever and someone just wrote a better more interesting story of kings, knights,drama,love,power, and greed? I guess that is for us to decide.
