Boys Don't Cry is a film by Kimberly Peirce, which tells the story of a lesbian girl, Brandon(Teena) who keeps her real sex as a secret. She introduces her as Brandon, wears and acts like boys, hide her breasts, puts on a fake penis and make everyone believe that she is a boy, because she knows how diffucult it would be when people know about her being a lesbian. She falls in love with a girl, Lana, who has a tough boyfriend. Then people find out that Brandon is not a boy and Lana's boyfriend beats and rapes Brandon, which is the most dramatic scene of the movie.
The film becomes more dramatic when we think that this movie is based on a true story. When I watched this movie, I realized that we live in a very insensitive and cruel world, noone respects noones sexual choices and gays are always forced to be shamed of themselves. People become victims of their own choices and be insulted in lots of ways. For example, in a scene of the movie, Lana's mother mentions Brandon as "it". Because for her, she is not a girl and a boy either, so she does not deserve to be called like other "normal" people.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
11. Ideal Woman
There is an "ideal woman" created by media and women's desire on looking like that woman can sometimes cause big problems. For example, I read a story about a woman, who had always been overweight in her whole life. She gets married and starts living with her mother-in-law. Her husbands family always tries to make her lose weight, takes away her meals in front of her and tells her that a woman cannot be like her and if she does not lose weight, her husband will go to other women. These insulting actions of them make her miserable and she makes an unhealthy diet, which turned into blumia in 2 years. Now, she is still trying to be healthy as she used to be.
This created ideal women are only 5% of the whole women, but on TV, the percentage of those women are about 100%, which makes the other women think like they are the only one who is not "perfect". Of course this being perfect is also an issue, which is determined by the tv. For example about 40 years ago, the film stars were all a bit overweight and all women were trying to be like them. But now, we see that especially in advertisements that woman are unhappy when they are fat and do not enjoy life, but as they lose weight, they have fun again and be happy. Especially in the advertisements of diet products, we see that the key of happiness is being beautiful.
This created ideal women are only 5% of the whole women, but on TV, the percentage of those women are about 100%, which makes the other women think like they are the only one who is not "perfect". Of course this being perfect is also an issue, which is determined by the tv. For example about 40 years ago, the film stars were all a bit overweight and all women were trying to be like them. But now, we see that especially in advertisements that woman are unhappy when they are fat and do not enjoy life, but as they lose weight, they have fun again and be happy. Especially in the advertisements of diet products, we see that the key of happiness is being beautiful.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
10. Practice Presentation
Last, week we did our practice presentations, which was my 2. experience. Comparing to the one I did in high school, the audience was looking more interested, which had a motivating effect on me. Their taking notes made me feel like I was an important person and strengthened my self-confidence. :)
When we took the feedback, I agreed all the "negative facts" except the one about the font and color of the texts in the slideshow. I had really worked hard in adapting the text's colour with the dominant colour of the images. :)
What I did not like about myself was being too nervous. I forgot half of the things I had to say and had diffuculties in making correct sentences, although I did not have any in writing the same ones.
If I were the one to grade, my mark would be 65/100.
When we took the feedback, I agreed all the "negative facts" except the one about the font and color of the texts in the slideshow. I had really worked hard in adapting the text's colour with the dominant colour of the images. :)
What I did not like about myself was being too nervous. I forgot half of the things I had to say and had diffuculties in making correct sentences, although I did not have any in writing the same ones.
If I were the one to grade, my mark would be 65/100.
9. An Online Tragedy
Voyeurism is one of the methods of attracking attention, even if it has horrible results, and sometimes we can describe that kind of voyeurism as a serious psychological illness, like a 19-year-old boy from Florida has. The mentioned boy keeps on saying she will commit suicide but noone thinks he is serious till that day. First he writes a suicide note and then he commits suicide while 1500 people's online watching.
According to the article I read about this case, the ceo of the mentioned website, Michael Seibel tells that they have absolute rules about these kinds of cases and they have removed the video immediately, but here comes to mind if it is possible any of the charged people like an admin not to realize such a big occasion happenning, or could not they prevent him to do it online on their website after his suicide note?
8. Tv: The Plug-In Drug
Last week, we made a presentation about Marie Winn's article, Tv: The Plug-In Drug. I had to tell about her ideas, which I mostly disagreed.
I think, her description of the factors which harmed the American family structure was really sexist. She says that "working moms" are one of these factors. Why are "working dads" out of subject? Is the woman more responsible on the child, or is the man more talented in making money?
Another thing is about the "horrible" results of having a television at home. It is obviously true that the family members do not interact as much as the old days without tv, but sometimes it can be fun to watch something with your family, or just watching a movie together.
Her point of view is very strict and this attitude of her makes her tv scandal more ironic. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dotto)
7. "The economic illness"
Obesity, is an illness, which spreads in recent years faster than before. Surveys also tell that, but we can see it too, if we look around a bit more carefully. In my childhood, there were always some friends to play around my house and we were never getting bored. But now, when I look from the window, I never see kids playing like we did years ago, I just see them in shopping malls playing with their ataris or asking their moms to buy one more pc game. I can see it also in my relatives. My cousins' mom never allow them to go to the park without herself because of the "unsafe" environment. So they just come home and watch tv, because they have nothing to do with their nanny, and they both put on weight fastly. Maybe the mothers are right because of the increased crime rate but obesity is much more risky than playing outside.
Especially the children are more likely to have this illness because watching television and playing pc games are generally the main activities of their lifes. Surveys tell that people eat extra meals during watching tv and children, who watch television more than 4 hours/a day are more likely to have obesity comparing to children, who watch less. These illness can lead to more serious health problems but ironically, there are sectors which gain advantage from the obeses.
This is mentioned in an article I read. A research made in Holland tells that the obeses and people who smoke live shorter than healthy people and this makes government save $50.000 per person, and the explanation is that the treatments of the illnesses such as obesity and cancer are much more cheaper than the illnesses like alzheimer. I think it is very inappropriate to make estimations about people's lifes, even if the mentioned people do not think about their lifes so much.
Especially the children are more likely to have this illness because watching television and playing pc games are generally the main activities of their lifes. Surveys tell that people eat extra meals during watching tv and children, who watch television more than 4 hours/a day are more likely to have obesity comparing to children, who watch less. These illness can lead to more serious health problems but ironically, there are sectors which gain advantage from the obeses.
This is mentioned in an article I read. A research made in Holland tells that the obeses and people who smoke live shorter than healthy people and this makes government save $50.000 per person, and the explanation is that the treatments of the illnesses such as obesity and cancer are much more cheaper than the illnesses like alzheimer. I think it is very inappropriate to make estimations about people's lifes, even if the mentioned people do not think about their lifes so much.
Friday, November 13, 2009
6. The Truman Show
I did a bit research about our oral presentation film, "The Truman Show" for using in our slideshow. I found some interesting information and wanted to share.
-In the town Truman lives, every street name refers to a real actor or actresses name. Lancaster Square and Barrymore Road are two of these.
-Truman's Sailboat is called "Santa Maria", which is also the name of Cristopher Colombus's ship.
-Before Jim Carrey got the role, Gary Oldman (he had played James Gordon in The Dark Knight) was thought as Truman.
-According to New York Times, after watching the film, lots of people in the USA had "Truman Syndrome", which refers to the delusion of being watched. (2008)
http://www.funtrivia.com/en/Movies/Truman-Show-The-9416.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120382/
-In the town Truman lives, every street name refers to a real actor or actresses name. Lancaster Square and Barrymore Road are two of these.
-Truman's Sailboat is called "Santa Maria", which is also the name of Cristopher Colombus's ship.
-Before Jim Carrey got the role, Gary Oldman (he had played James Gordon in The Dark Knight) was thought as Truman.
-According to New York Times, after watching the film, lots of people in the USA had "Truman Syndrome", which refers to the delusion of being watched. (2008)
http://www.funtrivia.com/en/Movies/Truman-Show-The-9416.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120382/
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
5. 7 Weeks
This is my second time taking this class. The biggest difference between these two is the encouragement factor I obviously feel in this term. We also had blogs last year but noone seemed to care that much, especially Sonja's interest on us made me feel responsible doing the assignments, which is really helpful. In last 7 weeks, I feel like I learned lots of things which I will need in the rest of my academic life. Writing an academic essay was one of the biggest issues I had diffuculties in, but I understood almost all the system within the links we are suggested to look at and other helpful documents in sucourse.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
4. Catherine Leroy
I read the story of the war-photographer Catherine Leroy and got impressed. She was a passionate photojournalist who decided to direct her life towards that ideal and left school at the age of 21 and went to the Vietnam War with a one-way-ticket. She documented the scenes of the war for years and had been called as "the photographer makes men jelaous", won numerous awards including the "Robert Capa Gold Medal". She was also the first woman who won that award. By the way, Robert Capa is the famous war-photographer, who is also the artist of the photograph "Death of a Loyalist Militiaman, Cerro Muriano, Córdoba front, Spain." (The war photograph which we had discussed in the class).
Leroy then directed a film called "Operation Last Patrol.", which is about the Vietnam War. She died in 2006 and I think she lived a very meaningful life, which is full of effort of making people aware of something.
The photograph above is one of her most famous photographs, Corpsman in Anguish.
3. Person vs Fame
In my process essay, I had written about a man called Sinisa Savija, who committed suicide after he had been voted off in a reality show. Now I learned that he is not the only one dying because of a reality show and 7 deaths has occured in 13 years. Scott Amedure is one of them, who was murdered by his friend Jon Schmitz. Amedure confesses that he is attracted to his friend Schmitz in "The Jenny Jones Show" and tells more about his feelings within Jenny Jones's insistence. After a few days, Schmitz gets bored about the jokes made by his other friends about being gay and murders Scott Amedure.
After the murder, Amedure's family sues Jenny Jones and she gets accused of provoking the murder. It is really pathetic to use people's feelings in case of having a little more rating and any amount of money cannot be compared to the worth of a human beings life.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
2. Kids' Enemy at Home
A common scene: A little kid, sitting in front of the tv and watches it like he/she is hypnotized. We all know that it harms children and experts keep telling it everyday. I read an article about this again and wanted to share.
It says that australian government has prepared a guide about the harmful effects of watching tv in ages less than 2. The guide tells that watching tv defects children's neurons and can cause kids to be asocial in the future. It also extends children's focusing time and can cause more harmful results. Instead of this, If we think about the programs having place on our tv's, let's keep kids far from it.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
1. Cheever's Letters
I've realized that the author of the story "The Enormous Radio" John Cheever had been mentioned in the popular tv series "Seinfeld". I watched the mentioned episode, "Cheever's Letters" (Season 4, Episode 8), had lots of fun and wanted to share with you. Although the topic was not about Cheever's literary career, it was still surprising to hear about him in Seinfeld.
I tried to download the episode video to my blog page but couldn't make it because of the size of the video, but you can download it from BK.
I tried to download the episode video to my blog page but couldn't make it because of the size of the video, but you can download it from BK.
In the episode, George's girlfriend Susan's father has a cabin and it burns down. Her dad gets very upset and keeps telling about the importance of the things inside the cabin but doesn't tell what ther are. At the end of the episode, a fireman comes to Susan's apartment and gives her a box and says that that box is the only thing remains from the cabin. They open it and find letters from John Cheever. They get excited and when they read the letters, they find out that Susan's dad and John Cheever were lovers in the past and these were his love letters. :)
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