Lize

Satire

Eliza — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:04:18 +0000

I actually heard the Sacha Baron Cohen live on NPR. I found him to be a really interesting, and intellectual man, more than I thought. In his movie Borat, he depicts the characters that he intentionally interviews that really satirize our country. Such as the frat boys, who are suing for something that they actually do. I mean, that is who frat boys really are and he did a great job of portraying that. As well as getting people to say some of the totally bizarre things that they said with no problem is truly ridiculous and is a good example of why America is hated. Sacha Baron Cohen is a wonderful actor, and so making every remark seem natural. The interview also made him seem like such a naturally witty intellectual man.

Racism #2

Eliza — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 01:26:48 +0000

This past weekend I was talking to a lady who worked in New York and had been doing a lot of research there on crime and deaths. She mentioned the 1996 case of Jon Benet Ramsey who was murdered in her home, and the killer has not yet been determined. Over the summer there was a break through of news going around that her killer had been found and his name was Johnathon Carr. It was under the breaking news on CNN and all over the place for about a week and a half. Whoever you talked to had known about it and was convinced this man ruined this poor girls life, as well as her parents. This has been a very well-watched case since 1996. Jon Benet was a white, blonde, gorgeous six year old. She did beauty pageants up until the age of six. The lady I was talking to said this would not have been such a profound case in the US if she was black. Indeed I believe she was right. She had been four different cases in which black children were murdered. When she asked for some evidence to find clues or ways of finding out what had happened to these poor children, she got a response of there isn’t any. Nobody had bothered to find evidence on these cases because nobody cared enough. She found it so bizarre how one kid who died more than 10 years ago can have created so much attention to Americans. And how even though these four victims have not found there killer, there is still nothing being done. It is mind boggling, and there is almost no way to explain it.

Slave Narrative #2

Eliza — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 02:30:34 +0000

After reading the narrative of Louis Hughes, it was similar to what I expected but I did learn a lot. I had no idea that slaves actually started so young, ” I was a mere child, probably not more than six years of age, as I remember, when my mother, two brothers and myself were sold to Dr. Louis, a practicing physician in the village of Scottsville.” How can people use that kind of behavior towards children, who are just starting to learn about the world. I also never realized that slaves had a kind of office and arrangement set up for them to be traded. I never knew that there was actually some kind of organization process to it, I guess i just assumed it was just kind of a trade off between slave owners. Another interesting thing to me was that in the “slave market” the owner’s preferred a well-groomed slave rather than one that has been whipped. However, I did realize how harsh a treatment the slaves got, “Once, when I was sent to town for the mail and had started back, it was so dark and rainy my horse got away from me and I had to stay all night in town. The next morning when I got back home I had a severe whipping, because the master was expecting a letter containing money and was disappointed in not receiving it that night, as he was going to Panola to spend Christmas.” That kind of behavior seems foolish and unecessary to me. The movie that we watched in Mr. Olmstead’s class showed the depiction of a slave as someone that watched after the young lady, and as if they were having a good time helping around the house. The way Hughes describes his living quarters is so different from how the living quarters are shown in the movie. The movie shows it as if the slave is staying in the house with the owner’s, however Hughes describes it as a small room made of logs, and dirt floor, it just sounds awful. Hughes accurate description of life of slave reminds me of how Jim would be treated if found with Huck when he was escaping. Hughes has many sections on being whipped and cruel punishments that happened to the slaves. I cannot imagine living in a time period such as this.

Slave Narrative Pre-Post

Eliza — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 23:42:34 +0000

When asked what to expect for the Slave Narratives I think of a very long, unbearable, frustrating, terribly cruel story. However, I also think it will be more along the lines of a detailed description of the cruelty, torture, and pain that the slave dealt with. It may also talk about the freedom that the slaves finally got, or a time of where the slave tried to escape. Nevertheless, I think it will be a very powerful story. I think in class Mr. Wasserman described some of them as boring, however I can’t really imagine any being boring because it is such a huge event in our history that needs to be understood more by our generation. Slavery is very broad, but interesting topic to me, I feel like in some ways it is not talked about as much as it should be because it is the less highly looked upon event in our history. I’ve learned a lot about slavery in the past years, but not as much as specific people other than Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas and a few others. I have learned more about more recent black history around the 1950’s. I think it will be neat to find out what others have to say about slavery.

Iraq Discussion

Eliza — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 00:50:28 +0000

I really think the Baker Commission is doing a really good job trying to handle the situation in Iraq. Almost everyday the cover of the NY times has a gruesome, disturbing, emotional picture of a scene from Iraq. Yet still our government and our society has not done much to improve it, until this new study group. We need to get over the fact the Mr. Bush was wrong and there were no WMD’s to be found which was his main focus, and now we need to move on. We need to move on to more important things such as what we do next with their country. What do we do to help the Middle East? Can we back out or do we need to increase? There are so many questions and so many shortcomings to every good idea. Today’s NY times has an article on Saudi Arabia. It talked about how if the US pulls out, Saudi Arabia has threatened to fund the Sunni insurgents. I find that wrong, if they don’t want us to pull out, why don’t they get the job finished? That may sound a bit harsh, but our country cannot be relied on singally for this. The Baker commission really does a good job of reinforcing the idea of Iraq’s stability. That is a really important goal, to make sure Iraq will be able to survive on its own. In this study group, they mention that the area around Iraq (Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia..) should form a support group. There are also many other minor focuses that needs to be done (Iraqi oil sector, the U.S. reconstruction efforts in Iraq..) but these two “recommendations” will be very helpful in starting a new plan for what to do next.

Racism

Eliza — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 02:20:40 +0000

http://www.bbc.co.uk/1xtra/tx/sony_ad.shtml

This advertisement is okay to some people, but extraordinarily rude to others. For Sony to post a white woman grabbing a black person’s face may not seem racist, and just a way to distinguish between the different color models. However, in today’s society something such as that is not acceptable. Many instances of race are brought up in America everyday. Many people would agree that racism still exists, however I don’t think many people will own up to be racist themselves. It is very interesting to read the multiple perspectives of this ad. Dave says, Dave
“I think the people who think it’s racist are just looking for it! try looking past the racism and accept that all they’re saying is that white people are aesthetically different to black people! They’re not saying white people are better! grrr. I say fair play Sony for trying to move forward and not remind everyone of the past.”

While Mike D says, “
In my opinion, the image portrays white dominance. The white model clearly is the aggressor in the picture with the black model showing fear and defeat with no signs of defense or willingness to fight against the offensive party. The white model is somewhat portrayed as a “racist” figure which was once typical of “punks” with the mohecan hairstyle. Even the dress code and the look of the blakc model is one of how slaves dressed and looked in the colonial days. The advertisment is blatantly offensive and should never have made it past the office of the Advertising Department of Sony. I am dissapointed in Sony and I am sure that their bottom line would be affected!”

Many of the people that also wrote did not make very good input, however those that did were interesting to read.

Another more recent article,

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/weekinreview/10nagourney.html

This deals with the upcoming election for 2008. Barack Obama, and Hilary Rodham Clinton (if elected) would be the first black male, or first female President. A part of the article that I found very interesting was, “A Gallup Poll in September showed a steady rise in the number of people who expect the nation to elect a woman or an African-American as president one day: Americans, it seems, are much more open to these choices than, say, someone who is an atheist or who is gay.” I think it is great that American’s are being more excepting to blacks and women, but if there were complete equal rights and no prejudices (not just towards skin color) then your sexuality and religion would have nothing to do with who you are. I feel that American’s feel very ‘nervous’ about race. It is something that is talked about or touched upon breifly, but never really expanded on.

satire

Eliza — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 01:17:04 +0000

I think satire is a very clever way of portraying humor and truth. Satire is usually for an audience that can handle the “degrading” of a culture, but also laugh with it. In Borat, he gets people to sing a song “throw the jew down the well.” That is completely sick and wrong, but people are still willing to do it, which is even worse. He gets at things that if put differently would be inappropriate, but since it is supposed to have some humor incorporated in it. The scary movies are not satires because they are just making fun of other movies like The Ring. They are not making jokes about a culture, or customs like Borat does. Also in satire, there is a whole meaning of truth, unlike in Scary Movie. I think John Stewart of the Daily Show does a great job with satire. His comments about the goverments are serious yet very clever. Colbert does a good job with it too, but I think Stewart just has this mind set of being nasty and humorous all at the same time. Satire does make people feel uncomfortable, but at least it does get the point across without making it a structural debate.

Race

Eliza — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 23:52:46 +0000

Just an interesting article…

http://www.trinity.edu/mkearl/race.html

Titus Andronicus

Eliza — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 00:45:23 +0000

For the outside Shakespeare movie I watched Titus, directed by Julie Taymor. It was really strange, odd, gruesome, but eventful and intriguing. It started with a boy playing with his toy soldiers, and putting ketchup as blood and other things little boys do when imagining a war-like scenario. Ironically, an explosion of some kind hit his house from the war actually going on. It then goes into this twisted plot of Titus, the king. He was played by Anthony Hopkins, who is a phenomenal actor. The part that stuck out to me the most was when the lover, and lady in the movie are being harassed in the woods. The women essentially gets taken away by two sons of the new queen and her hands and tongue get taken off!! It was such a disgusting image. When someone finally came and found her he asked why she wasn’t speaking and she stuck out her tongue and a ton of blood rushed out of her mouth. I think its a really good movie, confusing at first, and really weird…but overall I liked it and would recommend it.

More on Iraq..

Eliza — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 00:38:05 +0000

I was listening to NPR a couple days ago, when one of my favorite reporters, Dexter Filkins came on. He had been in Iraq giving news reports and footage for a very long time. Once he finally came home he talked about how being in Harvard and living there now is scarier than it was in Iraq. He said that he jumps up and gets very startled in the middle of the night if someone put out there garbage. That he just gets these feelings that an explosion of some sort is going to go off, or that there is going to be a shooting. I found it very interesting for him to describe his fear of being somewhere where this war is not going on, but he it still effects him.