the end is drawing near

I am pretty sure i have changed my thesis about 2379.37 times. yes. decimal. this one gets to be super short. partly cuz i’m tired and sick [call the wambulance. i'm sick with the swine flus and the whine flus] and partly because i’m going to honor the 250 word limit today.

i think right now, the thesis is something along the lines of “totalitarian governments and the restriction of personal liberties cna lead to terrorism, as shown in V for Vendetta”

how do i know this?

Numero Uno: because real life told me so. plenty of plenty of plenty examples tell me this. also, wikipedia tells me this. and komo4.

Numero Dos: examples of this in the movie.

Numero Tres: other wachowski bros movies and controlled societies- the matrix! ya know.

Numero Cuatro: lets put some reasons why here. i always wonder why. its a valid question.

Thats pretty much all i got for now, it is late, i am tired, and i made this up yesterday and i’m not even completely sure what the assignment is. i feel like this isn’t too bad for one days worth of thought. i will probbably go back and fix all of this and make it fuller tomorrow or friday.

The Believing-Doubting Game

For the record. EbscoHost is NOT a friend of V for Vendetta. I still am. Great film. I ended up searching some obscure words and came up with an article about the commercialization of the US, how we are NOT turning into a media driven society that is owned by corporate America/ “the man” and how we are NOT a shallow country. Hmm… that goes against everything I think. I immediately had to read this and argue it. It was begging to be argued. It did have some great points [by “great points” I mean that I found the counterargument……]

First. Quote. What this punk believes and then me shouting out a big NO!

“As the theory goes, because McDonald’s is fast and relatively cheap, the chain will drive out restaurants that are less technologically advanced and involve individual choice (delicatessens, coffee shops, regular restaurants, ethnic restaurants, and so on) and eventually, following the logic of the elitist theorists, only McDonald’s and similar fast-food restaurants will be left in America and eventually, all over the world because people have lost their taste for “good food.” In fact, fast-food restaurants have not driven other restaurants out of business. People use fast-food restaurants for their own purposes, and they do not lose their taste of other kinds of foods. Just the opposite happens frequently. In the San Francisco area, for example, there has been an explosion of Thai restaurants and as other ethnic groups settle in America, other ethnic foods become increasingly popular.”

 okay story time- I was one of “those people” in high school. I wore vintage clothes and flip flops, shaved my head, got half-inch holes in my ears, rode bikes to get places, carried around a Nalgene bottle, made friends with the international students, went to underground shows, had karabiners attached to everything and I LIVED OFF OF INDIAN FOOD. [mmmm. Delicious] Naturally, my friends did the same. It goes to say that the people who support McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell etc are the people who go there regularly for meals- at least more than once a week. People [like “me”] go to McDonalds when you need food really quick and relatively cheap [why not go to safeway?] and go there once every… couple of months after track meets and such. The people who support the Thai restaurants are people who did what I did- go there several times a month. They aren’t the same market, its simple. Its like saying the people who buy things at the Goodwill are going to put Nordstrom out of business. Different people shop there and they are there for different people. So, don’t worry. Americans are still losing their taste for fine things [I heard somebody call Hershey’s chocolate high quality]

 

So another quote that is wonderful and WILL be in my paper-

“People in mass cultures become dehumanized, deadened, anxiety-ridden, they are exploited, entrapped, lonely, debased, and their lives are standardized, vulgarized and manipulated by mass culture, which is a threat to our autonomy, and if this situation is exacerbated by things such as sleazy fiction, trashy films, bathetic soap operas, creating, in the general public, unrest, lives emptied of meaning and trivialized, as well as alienation (from past, work, community and possibly one’s self) leading to that horrendous entity, mass man. Mass culture is cultural pap and gruel that cretinizes our taste, brutalizes our senses (paving the way for totalitarianism), and destroys our taste so that all we like is kitsch.” 

I had a few questions for this man. How is this apparent? Is this fact or your opinion? Is this still true today [this was written almost 15 years ago] ?

 

Okay. Done.

Only when You have no fear are you free.

I think there are several really quick short scenes that really show you how corrupt this government. I dont think any ONE scene really does it. One that could show the intolerance of the system is the whole scene with Valerie. Evey ends up in a prison being tortured, having her head shaved [like me] and later finds a letter written on toilet paper. It is by a woman named Valerie who was tortured for being a lesbian.

Excerpt from the Graphic Novel version:

Work improved. I got small film roles, then bigger ones. In 1986 I starred in “The Salt Flats.” It pulled in the awards but not the crowds. I met Ruth while working on that. We loved each other. We lived together and on Valentine’s Day she sent me roses and oh God, we had so much. Those were the best three years of my life….. In 1992 they started rounding up the gays. They took Ruth while she was out looking for food. Why are they so frightened of us? They burned her with cigarette ends and made her give them my name. She signed a statement saying I’d seduced her. I didn’t blame her. God, I loved her. I didn’t blame her…..

This much illustrates that. She was a lesbian and the government killed the lesbians. This is a turning point for the movie too. You see Evey read this by the tiny bits of light let in through cracks, laying on the ground, shivering, fetal position. This is when Evey changes. she later tells V that whatever happened during her torture changed her more than any physical change could, that she ran into an old coworker that didn’t recognize her at all. we later find out that it was really V that imprisoned Evey and then tortured her, testing her. haha. dialogue:

V: [V enters Evey's field of vision as she walks into the Shadow Gallery, directly from the prison] Hello, Evey.
Evey Hammond: You. It was you.
V: [quietly] Yeah.
Evey Hammond: [gestures behind her] That wasn’t real… Is Gordon – ?
V: I’m sorry, but Mr. Deitrich’s dead. I thought they’d arrest him, but when they found a Koran in his house, they had him executed.
Evey Hammond: [whispers] Oh God…
V: Fortunately, I got to you before they did.
Evey Hammond: You got to me? You did this to me? You cut my hair? You tortured me? You tortured me! Why?
V: You said you wanted to live without fear. I wish there’d been an easier way, but there wasn’t.
[Evey whispers, "Oh my God...?]
V: I know you may never forgive me… but nor will you understand how hard it was for me to do what I did. Every day I saw in myself everything you see in me now. Every day I wanted to end it, but each time you refused to give in, I knew I couldn’t.
Evey Hammond: You’re *sick*! You’re *evil*!
V: *You* could’ve ended it, Evey, you could’ve given in. But you didn’t. Why?
Evey Hammond: Leave me alone! I *hate* you!
V: That’s it! See, at first I thought it was hate, too. Hate was all I knew, it built my world, it imprisoned me, taught me how to eat, how to drink, how to breathe. I thought I’d die with all my hate in my veins. But then something happened. It happened to me… just as it happened to you.
Evey Hammond: Shut up! I *don’t* want to hear your lies!
V: Your own father said that artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself.
Evey Hammond: No.
V: What was true in that cell is just as true now. What you felt in there has nothing to do with me.
Evey Hammond: I can’t feel *anything* anymore!
V: Don’t run from it, Evey. You’ve been running all your life.
Evey Hammond: [gasps] I can’t… can’t breathe. Asthma… asthma! When I was little…
[V reaches out his hand, Evey grabs it, they fall to the ground together]
V: Listen to me, Evey. This may be the most important moment of your life. Commit to it.
[Evey continues sobbing]
V: They took your parents from you. They took your brother from you.
[Evey groans]
V: They put you in a cell and took everything they could take except your life. And you believed that was all there was, didn’t you? The only thing you had left was your life, but it wasn’t, was it?
[Evey sobs, "Oh please...?]
V: You found something else. In that cell you found something that mattered more to you than life. It was when they threatened to kill you unless you gave them what they wanted… you told them you’d rather die. You faced your death, Evey. You were calm. You were still.
[Evey continues gasping]
V: Try to feel now what you felt then.
Evey Hammond: [breathes heavily] Oh God… I felt…
V: Yes?
Evey Hammond: I’m dizzy. I need air. Please, I need to be outside.

This is such an awesome movie. So excited to watch it again.

wordpress can… die.

I was screwed over today. three times. all by Internet Explorer. Oh goodness. Pierce needs firefox. firefox has yet to screw me over. I have written upwards of a thousand words today and they were all sucked out my brain and sent to cyber-hell. fml. anyways.

I made a final movie decision. Much deliberation between Doc Holliday and THE Audrey Hepburn. I like them both a lot. I’ve seen tombstone WAY too much to do a paper on, and I worked on My Fair Lady last year, I know too much about that. I finally settled on V for Vendetta. Not only because Natalie Portman is super foxy and super classy, but because it was a great movie and I’ve heard it was a great graphic novel.

Plot synopsis [after writing it three times, I decided to finally get one from imdb.com--- copy + paste + edit  to not suck so bad] 

Driven by a personal vendetta, a mysterious individual comes to the forefront to take up the cause of freedom. He wears a mask of Guy Fawkes to cover his face and is known only as V. His mission is to kill all the doctors who had tortured him at detention center, and bring back justice to the country which has been corrupted by a totalitarian government. On November 5, in the process of blowing up his first building, V rescues a young woman, Evey, from the secret police. V takes over the TV station and broadcasts a message to the country condemning the oppressors in Parliament. V invites all the people to join him in one year on Guy Fawkes Night to see him complete what Guy Fawkes couldn’t- blow up Parliament.

I guess my thesis/focusing question will be “How does V for Vendetta illustrate the effects and downfalls of a totalitarian society”

I have almost no “working knowledge” of totalitarian societies. I really only known useless things, like graphic novels and how to play spider solitaire. It appears to be a little different than communism, the concept of equality is totally lacking. The government just controls every aspect of these peoples lives including their religion, their orientation, their choice in literature and art, even their conversation and what they watch on television. [this would suck. Hardcore]

Hermano! Donde estas??

for all you english speakers out there, that means Brother! Where are You??

So. Is this a plausible plot line? Was it a story created to be realistic or unbelievable? comedic or dramatic. literal or figurative. complicated or simple. basic or complex.

Could this have happened in real life?

The characters in Raising Arizona were thought by some to be crazy. Are these characters kooks? Are the characters believable as real people?

I know i won’t answer all these questions, because I am QUITTING at 500 words, but this is good brainstorming for my paperrrr.

Pretty much everyone knows that I think Raising Arizona was supposed to be a light hearted comedy and not to be taken seriously. so, what about O Brother Where Art Thou? Well. O Brother was based on the epic poem by Homer, “The Odyssey”. It is pretty much on the same level as Beowulf- a wicked awesome story that survived centuries but nobody has believed it was true in hundreds, more likely thousands of years, if ever [people tend to not believe mystical things with an author. if it lacks a single finite author, it can be justified as valid. the bible. book of mormon. koran. anything signed "anonymous". things with authors can be invalidated as complete truth. we don't believe everything sylvia plath wrote, do we? or aldous huxley? not at all. yeah, aldous was brilliant, but he holds no spiritual significance]. This poem was not meant to be believable in a natural and human way. It involved greek mythology and was based on events that most likely didn’t happen [ butwho am i to denote greek mythology? i wasn't there!!] the poem was NOT meant to be applicable to this day and age.

The film adaption, however, was written in a slightly more believable fashion. characters and settings are changed. Some ridiculous characters that don’t exactly fit into modern day society were edited [cyclopsss. sirens] and the basic plotline could easily stand on its own- a man tricks two other guys to break out a certain correctional facility with him to pursue a [fake] treasure while “man a” tries to get his wife and kids back. There are several things that make absolutely no sense. [john turturro has been in a chain gang. manual labor. all day. everyday. right after the depression. why is he so... soft in the middle? why is it that extra characters are all conveniently blind? why is george clooney such a creeper with his hair? who mistakes george clooney for being black? or maybe that part just confused me. why do all three of the guys know "Man of Constant Sorrow", harmonies and everything good enough to record? whatever, it was an awesome movie]

How can Delmar be. so. freaking. stupid? He is so dumb! Pete never turned into a toad! He is so gullible to the point where I got distracted from the movie while i was thinking about how dumb he is. Pete is pretty dumb too, but Delmar takes the cake on that one. that child is dumber than a traffic cone.

Though this plot could have happened, it probably never would have. With all the chance that was involved, not likely. i mean, their single became a hit. they ran into a magic prophesying blind man.  soul selling youth whose lynching they coincidentally end up at, where they own on like a trillion KKK dudes. it could have happened, but it probably never would have. the details all work out a little to well, but then again who wants to see a movie with loose ends everywhere?

601 words? heck. i’m done.

PsYcHoGrAPhiC fIlmMmMMm

I thought the visually offensive title would be… festive. i was correct.

Yes. I would have to agree with Andrew Moss when he said that Raising Arizona was a psychographic film. Well. actually. No.

I think that I would never ever ever have looked into the movie farther than I initially did. I took the film at face value [the value of a face?] and left it there. But then I had to do homework on it, so here I am, analyzing something I thought was very simple. Maybe I’m simple-minded? Anyways. I think I am pretty ambivalent[apathetic!] about the matter of Raising Arizona being a psychographic film. I cannot disagree with Andrew Moss, he provides a pretty good argument. But, I don’t feel that there was any reason to think it was a psychographic film. It wasn’t like Fight Club where they end up telling you everything. This seems like somebody got confused and made stuff up. You want to know what I think? [i know you do, because you were free to leave this blog anytime in the last 158 words] I think that Leonard Smalls was super real. HI had probably encountered him or heard of him before and was super super afraid of him. He had a nightmare about Smalls. And ALAS! Smalls paid HI a visit that would have profitted Smalls pretty well. I think that was the main fuzzy spot in the psychographic theory. What was the other one? That HI went to sleep? People sleep. the end. I think the movie was supposed to be ridiculous in the first place. If the Coen brothers were really trying to make a psychologically thrilling movie, i think they would have used thrilling characters [hello, no country for old men! now that is a pretty creepy character. read the book? do it.] I still maintain that low-level ex convicts don’t steal babies for their law-abiding wives. CRAZY people steal babies for themselves. [one tree hill. crazy nanny carrie. yeah.] i guess crazy people could steal a baby for someone else. but still, nothing else really shows that HI was crazy. Maybe developmentally disabled or something. he wasn’t a sociopath. he knocked off convenience stores and liquor stores.  Thats what guys do. not grownup-crazy people.

I guess. I’m just super confused about a film i thought was pretty simple.  I can’t disagree with the argument that it is a psychographic film, but i don’t agree with it. i think it is a hullabaloo. so what, the movie had symbolism? The Lion King had symbolism. We aren’t calling “Crazy” on that movie. The Fast and the Furious had symbolism, but that wasn’t a great movie. V for Vendetta. Boondock Saints. The Wizard of Oz. all great movies have symbolism. Great stories have symbolism. end of story. this was not necessarily an amazing story or movie, but it had symbolism. That is nothing new, as far as i’m concerned.

Numero Dos- Raising Arizona

Wow. What an ordeal. Okay, finally getting this thing posted after so many mishaps.

What interested me most about the movie/discussion? Um…. Absolutely nothing. I mostly just criticized the film and called it silly, until a little past half way. I was having the most difficult time not zoning out, falling asleep, texting a friend, or reading a book. I thought the film was a little ridiculous and had a difficult time getting into it. Once I finally accepted the unbelievable nature of it, I was finally able to focus. It wasn’t until John Goodman and Nicholas Cage have that ridiculous fight that I realized that the movie wasn’t supposed to be mirroring any real situation.

I thought that the character of Leonard Smalls was super stupid. Bounty hunters can’t carry grenades any more than I can carry grenades and throw them at strangers. What was he planning to do with grenades? Especially with six or seven of them. Also, bounty hunters, they can’t shoot people, for any reason other than self-defense, like a regular citizen. And I’m pretty sure cops can’t shoot people either unless you are going to harm somebody or if you have a gun. The flagrant shooting needed to stop. I do wander why the character was named Leonard Smalls. Was it done purposefully, in reference to Of Mice and Men? I’m not seeing a connection between the characters. Another problem. Regular people don’t steal babies. Crazy people steal babies [hello. One tree hill. Crazy nanny Carrie] then again, how would I know? I’ve never met a baby-stealer.

Leonard Smalls. Reeaaalll. Why would Nathan Arizona have a conversation with a fictitious bounty hunter? And in the end, why would Ed run away from nothing? Because there is a real person there. Even if the person was a little outrageous.

after the movie, i thought it was pretty okay. I would not, however, watch it again. ever.

Excellent Adventure

I’m Jennifer. I am Not cool. I have wicked big holes in my ears. And I shaved my head. I like to slackline. and mexican food. and slapbox. I soemtimes put too many lettersssssss. That is not cool either. I do not understand what the smiling face with the P means.  Baffling. If i could be anything in the world, it would be a Green Street Hooligan. so cool. Or, I would be Doc Holliday. If I could be that witty, oh lord, I would let everybody know.

I like math. I like to multiply. I like movies and i’m one of those people that everyone hates because they know everything about movies. but, music is “my thing”. What i do. music is life.

I have an awesome cousin named Teri. She is ssssoooooo cool. The coolest lady I ever met. Seen Teen Girl Squad? she’s like on of them. She’s the best. Her mom and my mom are gonna be best friends forever. They not very social. On tuesday, my cousin and I found a not-so-secret meadow and we frolicked through it and it was amazing. We took pictures. It was the best. we ate mochi and french fries and we went to Bertolinos cuz that is where not-cool kids like us spend time. we ate biscuits and gravy and they were delicous and we played with Adrian the weiner dog and Boomer, the other dog that I am not afraid of. At Berts, we saw Stephen and Kevin and the two daniels- Regular Daniel and Daniel the Baristud. all of them are pretty wicked awesome. after class, i’m going to call her and we will go to the beach and make brownies. Awesome.