Reading a Movie

Sitting back and watching a film for sheer entertainment value is fun but even if I am not focusing on the film-making I catch myself noticing these things anyways. Last year at Alvernia I had a roommate that was a huge film buff. In fact, he is majoring in cinema and aspires to be a producer or director one day. I hadn't really given thought into how a movie was made until I started watching films with him. He took films that I would simply classify as good or bad and analyzed them in a completely different context. After a whole school year of doing this, I found that I was actually quite good at picking out different aspects of the production itself. Now, even when I am watching a movie for simple entertainment, I still find myself analyzing concepts such as the realism and subliminal messaging that goes on throughout the movie. I do however find it hard to be completely non biased when I am presented with a film I'm very familiar with. Especially if the film is one of my favorite entertainment films. Nevertheless the typical hollywood blockbuster is pretty easy to read.

The Cafeteria

In the first part of the reading on "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria" I found it profoundly interesting that children can almost completely disreguard race. I wouldn't say it surprises me though because it is the nature of a child to be carefree and playful. What changes though when you grow older? I don't know what its like to be a minority in this world and I won't ever know; at least not first hand anyways. But I can see why many white teens and adults for that matter separate themselves from their minority counterparts. It's simple: fear. People fear what they do not understand. In my case, I grew up in a very rural, mostly white community. Many people there were what I considered racist. I believe this was because they weren't exposed to anything except for a white persons world. And many learned racist behavior from their parents who also weren't exposed to any kind of culture. When you put these together it mixes for extreme ideas. Mainly fear of other races overtaking them in some way. It sounds rediculous but I feel its the truth. The point that most people miss is that we are all part of an even bigger community.. the human race.

Race & Ethnicity

I am going to start off with the first couple of sentences when the author refers to there being few absolutes when discussing race and ethnicity. Although this is very true, there are very few absolutes with anything! Next time your bored try to find an absolute in politics and let me know how it works out for you. Even the idea of fact can be twisted and manipulated to favor one sides view of something. It's incredible how complex everything is. When people argue whether a film was good or bad you will receive arguments from both sides of the spectrum. It basically comes down to personal opinion as do so many other things.

Back to the topic of discussion though.. I find racism in many different places today. Although people may clame not to be racist, if you get to know them better you will find an occasional instance where they might like their real feelings slip. Racism in my opinion is such a hinderance to so many aspects of life. We as people could acheive so much more and learn so much more if we could rid ourselves or the racial and cultural barriers that stop us.

Television, The Simpson, & MTV

I have to say my favorite reading and the text that shocked me the most was the introduction 5 pages. I new that tv shows were skewed from reality and built to get the highest ratings possible but I couldn't believe to that extent. I have always wished to have a choice in what kind of tv shows they put on the air. I mean, every third channel I flick through has some sort of crime scene shit. And me personally, I hate the whole ferensic crime deal they have going on at almost every major network. One of the reasons I don't watch much tv is because there are so many shows that are uniteresting to me. Sure I'll turn on the tv to see if there's a good movie with not too many commercials on or maybe get a laugh or two in with That 70's Show or the Office but it pretty much stops there.

The Simpsons essay did not hit me quite as hard. I attribute this to the fact that I have never watched more than 2 minutes of any Simpsons show in my life. The only thing that I know about the Simpson outside of a couple main characters is that the show sometimes caused controversy. I like the idea of the tshirts though. I found some of them to be very unique.

As far as the MTV Next show, I couldn't agree more with the author. MTV has gotten so far away from its origins that it really isnt even music television anymore. I would say that pop culture fashion and reality tv is more of what it actually is. You might see music on that station for 2 hours out of the day. Besides that fact that I think every part of the Next show is staged, I agree that it degrades the way people view women. If I were the author I would have taken it yet a step further and made the claim the it is a misrepresentation of men too. It gives off the image that guys are supposed to disregard personality and just look for a hott chick with nice tits. I mean yes, some if not a majority of men think this but it is just reinforcing the ridiculous.