“Appearances are not held to be a clue to the truth. But we seem to have no other”. This quote was spoken by Ivy Compton-Burnett which states that we tend to have a belief that appearances are what define a persons self and as to who we see them as. We don’t take into consideration that they can be anything or anyone else regardless of their image. An example of a misjudged stereotype based on appearance would be characters of giants in all sorts of media. Hearing the word giant, many form a mental image of a very large, intimidating being who has a disfigured stature with repulsive characteristics. That mental image leads many to label giants as unintelligent, slow and aggressive beings. The filmmakers of Big Fish, Jack the Giant Slayer, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix were under that same belief that the appearance of giants are what label them as unintelligent and aggressive beings. Intelligence is defined by the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills, and the ideology based on prejudice or discrimination against any real, fictional or mythical race of beings of superhuman size and possessing superhuman capabilities is known as Giantisim. The filmmakers are Giantists based on their negative representation of giants in their films.
In Tim Burton's Big Fish, Karl was seen as a character who was gullible and easily fooled. Being a giant with a disfigured appearance, Karl was an intimidation to the towns people of Ashton. Based solely on his image, Karl became a victim of misconception and was thought of as an aggressive being wanting to feast on the residents living there. Edward bloom arrived to Karl as Ashton's hero and offered himself as the sacrifice, but ended up going on a journey together. His...
... middle of paper ...
...ense of confusion. When Hermione ordered him to put her down in a firm commanding tone, Grawp listened and settled her back down. He was like a child that still needed to be educated. The filmmakers created Grawp as a dirty looking giant, giving him no lines to speak indicating that he was not educated enough to even produce words.
Alotaibi 4
Therefore, the filmmakers portrayed giants in a negative impression. In Big Fish, Jack the Giant Slayer, and, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Karl, the legendary giant warriors, and Grawp were represented as unintelligent beings based on their appearances. The filmmakers chose to elaborate on their characteristics in order to maintain the prejudiced stereotype of giants, proving them as giantists. The misjudgement of these characters based on their image encourages the outlook of Giantism in all sorts of media.
Northrop Frye is the author of The Educated Imagination. The book talks about literature and methods that improve and enthralls the reader from common fallacies, to how an author can manipulate what is put in the text. These lesson can be put to use outside in the real world such as advertising. These can also be connected to other media pieces such as other books and movies. The movie Big Fish directed by Tim Burton is one of those media pieces that can be connected to Northrop Frye work. The movie is about a son who trying to learn more about his dying father by listening to stories and myths about his life. The purpose of this reflection is to show that in the educated imagination the chapter
Jeffery Cohen's first thesis states “the monster's body is a cultural body”. Monsters give meaning to culture. A monsters characteristics come from a culture's most deep-seated fears and fantasies. Monsters are metaphors and pure representative allegories. What a society chooses to make monstrous says a lot about that society’s people. Monsters help us express and find our darkest places, deepest fears, or creepiest thoughts. Monsters that scare us,vampires, zombies, witches, help us cope with what we dread most in life. Fear of the monstrous has brought communities and cultures together. Society is made up of different beliefs, ideas, and cultural actions. Within society there are always outcasts, people that do not fit into the norm or do not follow the status quo. Those people that do not fit in become monsters that are feared almost unanimously by the people who stick to the status quo.
Throughout history we see monsters taking many different shapes and sizes. Whether it be a ghoul in the midst of a cold nightly stroll or a mass genocide, monsters are lurking everywhere and our perception of what monsters truly are, is enhancing their growth as a force with which to be reckoned. Fear of the unknown is seen throughout time, but as humans progress we are finding that things we once were afraid of we are less frightening than they once were. Monsters can evoke fear in their targeted victims rather than physically harm their victims. For instance, every year a new horror film is released with the next scary beast, but why do we call something a monster even if we know it is not real? Even certain people and creatures are classified as monsters, but are they really monsters, or do their actions speak of monstrous doings? In his article and book chapter Monsters and the Moral Imagination and chapter 5 of On Monsters, Stephen Asma suggests that monstrosity, as we know it, is on the rise as humans progress, and how we perceive monsters can often define monstrosities in itself, providing evidence as to why monster cultures are on the rise, and showing how human progress has evolved our perception of how we think on the topic that is monsters.
The film Big Fish delves into the ideas of mythology in such a way as to be relatable to a modern audience. At the center of the film is the struggle between logos and mythos, William Bloom vs. Edward Bloom. People are increasingly trying to apply logic and reason to their everyday lives to explain why things happen, but there are certain aspects of life that are currently beyond the reach of logos, such as death and the questions of existence. This is where mythos steps in and is able to provide “reasons” for why things happen as they do and why humans exist in the first place. Big Fish is told in a manner that resonates with the viewer, because most of the tales are told by Edward Bloom, one of the protagonists in the movie. He weaves magical tales of intrigue, mystery, and impossibility when telling them to his family, and for this reason his son, William Bloom, doesn't believe any of them ever happened. As a reporter, William needs facts and evidence to back up his father's miraculous claims. The viewer would be of the same mind if they attempted to apply logos to Edward's stories instead of looking at them through the intended mythos paradigm. Ingrained in each story are inklings of the truth and William must learn the hard way that his father hasn't been lying to him his whole life, but merely embellishing some of the finer points in each story. Ordinary stories aren't as hard to believe, but they aren't as easily remembered either. A person's true actions and life may be forgotten in time, but they can live on through their stories, as Edward does. This is how mythology exists today: as a collection of stories passed down from generation to generation and recorded in the histories. There are many parities between the movi...
The term “stereotype” originally referred to a stamp used in the printing industry to make multiple copies from one single block. The first one to adopt this notion, to describe the way society categorized people, was social psychologist Walter Lippmann in 1922, in his book on media democracy, Public Opinion. He described the term as “the picture (of the world) that a person has in his/her head”. He was convinced that a picture it is definite, and reduces the world to simple characteristics which are represented as permanent by nature (Lippmann, 1997 [1922], p. 233).
Becoming a man is one of the most important things a boy goes through. It takes many years of hard work and guidance. At the beginning of the movie Friendly Persuasion, Josh Birdwell is still a boy, but as the movie progresses we can follow his steps in becoming a man. The dialogue and events in the movie show us what a man is, how Josh’s father, Jess Birdwell, is an immense influence in his passage into manhood, and how the war affects this voyage.
In my words, Sociological imagination is a way for a person to look at their life as a result of their interaction with society. It can explain why a life is lived with way it is lived and all events, decisions, successes, and failures that have occurred. In my life I have encountered many situations, problems, opportunities and events. I can use my sociological imagination to examine these and figure out why I am the way I am and also why I have chosen to do certain things
Rosina Lippi-Green's article "Teaching Children How to Discriminate - What We Learn From The Big Bad Wolf" (1997) examines the discrimination and stereotypes toward different race, ethnicity, gender, religion, nationality and region that Disney presents in their animated films. Lippi-Green also points out the use or misuse of foreign accents in films, television and the entertainment industry as a whole. Such animated films are viewed mainly by children. Lippi-Green makes a central argument in which she says that children are taught to discriminate through the portrayal of the different accented characters in Disney films.
In the novel Big Fish by Daniel Wallace, we are told the story of Edward Bloom, a man of many adventures, who is somewhat of a myth. Big Fish is a collection of the tall tales Edward tells his son about his life, and also of the effect his tales had on his son. The novel comes from an American author from Alabama, while the movie comes from Hollywood and is directed by Tim Burton, who is also American. This story is not an ancient sacred text, so the story’s function(s) is to entertain and to make money.
he focus of this paper will be to examine Kate Chopin’s The Awakening chapter ten, specifically paragraphs five to ten. Throughout The Awakening Edna is constantly fighting with the expectations of society and her desire to be a free woman. As a woman, Edna is expected to be the perfect wife and mother, however she longs to embrace and free her creative self. Because of this battle within herself she shows many of the characteristics of depression. The passage mentioned above is very symbolic of Edna’s fight to overcome her mental illness. The thesis of this paper is that Edna’s yearning to swim is a metaphor for her longing to overcome depression, patriarchal expectations and societal constraints. By taking an in-depth look into the author’s word choice, a parallel can be found between learning to swim and the ability to overcome the depression within.
Stereotypes are all around us. Wherever one goes there will be stereotypes for people, a specific group, or even animals. For example, pit bulls are known to be very vicious dogs even though there are many pit bulls that are nice and friendly. These stereotype can really cloud people’s judgement of others just solely based on appearance. This prejudgement of a person can really hurt them various ways in the “real world” such as applying for a job. A man that wants to be a nurse can hurt his “manliness” because nurses are thought to be a job for women only.
According to Baron, Byrne & Suls in their book Attitudes: Evaluating the social world. (1989) they defined the term Social Psychology as “the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behavior in social situations”. (p. 6). There are many concepts of social perception, two of these that will be looked at in this essay are Implicit Personality Theory and stereotypes. Implicit personality theory describes the beliefs, biases and assumptions, that an individual uses when he or she forms impressions on a stranger based on limited information. The way we form impressions and the different conclusions we make about other people based upon our individual impressions is also part of this theory. One of the first people to investigate how people form impressions was Solomon Asch in the 1940’s in his experiment ‘Forming Impressions of Personality' he was interested in how people form impressions and if certain traits affected peoples impressions. A good example of Implicit personality theory is if someone who is considered unpredictable they may be considered dangerous. The second Concept of Social Psychology that will be considered is stereotypes. Cardwell (1996) described stereotypes as “...A fixed, over generalized belief about a particular group or class of people.” may have beliefs and thoughts on different social groups and individual people and how they should act, and believe that all people in that group conform and have the same characteristics as the rest. By using stereotypes, it helps us simplify how we think of the social world as having a stereotype reduces our thinking process when we meet new people. An example of stereotyping is saying that all French people wear berets and have garlic a...
Stereotypes are a concept that is incredibly interesting to think about and question, mainly because of the fact that there really is some truth to most of them. In Chimamanda Adichie’s TED Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story,” she mainly discusses the trouble with people using stereotypes as their only schemas towards certain groups of people instead of learning more about others and their stories. While it can be agreed upon that there is some truth to stereotypes, it is important to realize that there is always more to a human than meets the eye.
This belief that one is not worthy of a stereotype is completely devastating to the soul and eventual quality of life.
Generally when people think of monsters all they think about are some scaly, or hairy, or just big some big scary monster. But actually spending some time with said monsters start to discover a bigger meaning of these monsters. You see a monsters isn't just made off the top of someones head it is actually thought about like what features it will include. For example the makers of horror film monsters have to think about things like what audience are they making this monster for or what kind of features will the monster have to have to scare this audience.