The book that stuck out the most to me this semester was “Hollywood Vs. America”. The reason why I seemed to disagree with this book the majority of the time was because Medved had no sound arguments or sources. The only sources he had within the book were people who basically had the same mindset and worldview as he. This book mainly stuck out to me, purely because it made me mad every time I read it. I really thought, based upon the first couple of pages, that this would be a book I would enjoy. I thought that Medved was going to have sound reasoning why he thought the movies were against American popular culture based on his opinion and the opinion of others. The book would have been great if he had had surveys of the population surrounding him; survey’s stating what the actual American population thought about certain movies, not what his opinion on what the American culture should think about these movies. I thought that would make a pretty good extended response; talking about something that made you fired up! The way Medved would talk about certain movies or musically genres was extremely rude and biased. Within the first pages I read something that got under my skin. Medved is talking about how Michael Jackson came out with his song “Black or White”. The song is about racial harmony within the family during a time where it was not completely culturally acceptable to be married to someone of an opposite race. Medved proceeds to discuss what goes on in the music video. This portion of his interpretation is what bothers me the most: “The most troublesome transformation comes near the end of this incoherent epic… A stalking panther turns miraculously into Michael Jackson as we’ve never seen him before… Michael grabs repea... ... middle of paper ... ...absurd personally, and I do not feel as though Christianity is directed targeted; Catholicism is. In conclusion, I found a quote from Michael Medved that I thoroughly agreed with, he says, “This same habitual blindness to spiritual, substantive dimensions of every significant challenge continues to handicap Hollywood”. I believe what he wants to get across here is that the Hollywood industry always misses the mark when it comes to spirituality and this is his whole meaning throughout the book. Whether I agree with his wording or not, I am a Christian, and I should be concerned with the way the media is influencing the mind of the world around me. I am called to be the light in this world, and I do believe that is the one area Medved and I agree; in some way, we both believe that the world is under attack and it is our job to show the light to this darkened world.
The book I chose to read for this assignment was All the President's Men, by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. The book was about the biographical accounts of two Washington Post reporters and of how their investigative journalism played a major role in solving one of the largest political scandals in American history. Me being a history buff was happy that the book was on the list of selective readings that we could choose for this assignment and before even reading a page was most certain that I would enjoy the book. I knew some about Watergate already and was eager to jump on the chance to learn more about it, especially from the two people who played the major role of bring the whole scandal to the surface. I had seen the movie before and had known from past experiences that movies leave out so much information when they are based on a book so I knew that I would be getting the full detail in account from the authors that I missed out on before. I am not the type who enjoys reading and it always ends up being a hard struggle for me to get through an entire book, but this book ended up not being like pulling teeth for me. Reading the book ended up being the exact opposite, enjoying it so much that it was hard to put down, not only because of the fact that I was fascinated with the information being provided, but also in the direct way that it was presented.
“The Perils of Obedience” was written by Stanley Milgram in 1974. In the essay he describes his experiments on obedience to authority. I feel as though this is a great psychology essay and will be used in psychology 101 classes for generations to come. The essay describes how people are willing to do almost anything that they are told no matter how immoral the action is or how much pain it may cause.
...a Rae article that, “moviemakers are in the movie business, not the social change business”. Although they talk about film specifically, any medium of entertainment could still apply to this statement. This cycle of production is unhealthy, but if the process works, why fix it?
Touching upon one specific case of this growing problem, she incorporates “Michael Brown,” who was an “18-year old unarmed black man shot down by a white police officer.” As heartbreaking as it sounds, it has happened on several occasions to men similar to “Michael Brown.” Accordingly, Myers formulates that it “is the same story. It is just different names.” Myers logically lists the other names of several black men who unfortunately fell victim to hate crimes, (Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin), as well as flashing their images on the screen. Not only does Verna Myers use imagery in order to show that there is an evident issue with brutality and racism, but she knows it will tug on her viewers heartstrings. Likewise, this makes her audience become wary and sympathetic towards the situation at
Ultimately this assignment was beneficial to my perspective on class issues. It exposed me to multitudes of informational sources ranging from mainstream to alternative. It was also interesting to see the ways in which issues are portrayed differently, and as I mentioned other the lack of blaming the system is extremely interesting. The various sources opened my eyes to the reality of media impact and control over our lives and opinions. It is difficult to see beyond the obvious appeal of corporations such as Wal-Mart, but this should be apparent to me after all these years of sociology. I think this assignment really helped me to think outside the box, and really analyze who has control; it isn’t me or you. That’s for sure.
For Thirteen Reasons Why, I am going to explain the literary terms. Thirteen Reason is about a girl named, Hannah Baker who killed herself. Before Hannah killed herself she made 13 videos of why this person made her make that decision.
The novel I chose this year was “Crank” BY Ellen Hopkins. This book is introduces many topics most don’t like to bring up to children now a days. It is banned in many locations. It is related to drugs, abusive language and sexual moments. The book is about Ellen Hopkins daughter’s drug abuse with crystal meth. In the book she experienced extremely hard moments. She has to try her best to overcome all the darkness in her life.
The Hollywood Industry has already begun promoting Christian ideals. We see this through the recent epic of Christian Movies that have materialized in the theaters. Movies such as: Fireproof, Courageous, Fifth Quarter, The Grace Card, and Facing the Giants are a few examples of such films.
Furthermore, Bharati Mukherjee describes how both her and her sister’s life resemble each other in order to develop her argument that there are multiple ways to belong in a foreign country. For example, using anecdotes, Bharati provides the audience, being lawmakers, a personal view of how she and her sister were before they moved to America. Then, she clearly illustrates how close to being the same person they were in the sentence: “We dressed alike, in saris; we expressed identical views on politics, social issues, love, and marriage in the same Calcutta convent-school accent.”. The explicit description of how they were the same, gives more meaning to the differences expressed later in the essay. Afterwards, Ms. Mukherjee exemplifies how
Scott, A. O. (2012, December 24). The Black, the White and the Angry. The New York Times [New York], p. C1. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/25/movies/quentin-tarantinos-django-unchained-stars-jamie-foxx.html?pagewanted=2
Life is an ongoing process of learning and growing through challenges and experiences. It is mentioned by Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American poet, that “unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.” Emerson contributes to the idea that change is inevitable and it is key to one’s personal development (Lipovetsky, 2012). Well, such is an essence in the film “The Blind Side” when the protagonist, Michael Oher, changes and grow through adversities, which eventually shaped him into the man he is today. Oher, also known as Big Mike, is a 16 year old African American teenage boy. Oher was one of the twelve children living in a broken extremely impoverished home in the ghettos of Memphis surrounded by drugs.
This is a great story Ten Big Ones by Janet Evanovich has everything you would ever want in a novel. When first just touching the novel my eyes were singed by the title and short summary. In short words I assumed that I would utterly despise the book. As I read the book it became more than enjoyable with the non-subtle sexual references, cursing, and violence. Ten Big Ones, Ten Grand, Ten Thousand Buck is what you could win as the hero at the end of the story. The theme is gang related crime will indubitably fall. The star of the novel is Stephanie Plum, resident of Trenton, NJ. She is a bounty hunter not armature but also not professional. She is deciding on lunch at the deli or sub shop, while at the shop Plum and her partner slash file clerk, they see the infamous Red Devil robbing a deli mart and attempting to throw an alcohol bomb. Plum goes near halfway though book looking for him until she finds out that there is a hit on her. The hit is not for money but for power for the Junkman originally based in LA but has moved to Trenton to take a place of power in Slayer one of the two top gangs in the city. Her: over protective, off and on boy friend does everything he can to keep. Throughout the book while Plum hunted for the Devil and she was also hunted, Stephanie took her grandmother and Lula the file clerk to pick up people like Sally a drag queen, performer, government worker. Sally became a more important character than thought after. He’s stays to plan her sister wedding, but he is the hero after pushing through with his school bus and Uzi killing a large amount of Slayer.
Recently we watched a movie called American History X. It touched on a lot of major subjects such as gang violence and racism, which has been passed on from generation to generation. It also asked questions like, what were their racist ideas really based on, how did racism effect the community, can racism be reshaped by actual experiences, and how or why racism to begin with? Racism has been the main topic in the judicial system, police affairs, and racially divided communities for years but it's neither disappearing nor growing to this today.
...k that the novel, Children of the New World is very interesting and even though it is fictional, it gives a lot of insight into the Algerian war and even more into the Muslim lifestyle. After learning about the Islamic faith all semester, it is nice to actually see the information learned put together in a different setting. The author does a good job at creating characters that are not real but portray issues that are relevant to the Muslim community. The author also has times where the wording is so descriptive and impacting that I had trouble not making my entire summary of just quotes from the book! Overall, I feel like this is a great book to end the semester with because even though it is a lighter read, it still is very informative.
As I began to question what had been taught to me and truly approach the subject from a critical standpoint I found that I did not necessarily agree with what I had been told to accepted about religion. The film was also was the first time I had seen major ideas I hold challenged and thus made me realize the need to examine the many competing opinions out there and many ways of looking at the same subject. With this recognition I found a need to be open to new ideas and evaluate what I believe because honestly considering new information can change who you are. This recognition helped leads to more tolerance in my opinion. When you consider the different perspectives out there it helps you better understand why people think the way they do which leads to empathy and the recognition that your view on things is not inescapably correct, just a way of thinking that can be just as valid as another. This approach eventually led me to become a agnostic which I do not consider to be a minor shift in opinion and can be traced back to the idea of being skeptical about things you have accepted as truth or fact in your life and a willingness to consider competing opinions honestly and