Response

After watching Jean Kilbourne’s documentary on Killing Us Softly I was left with some reactions. I think the Jean Kilbourne was very subjective when she assessed the advisements and gave the advertisers a bad rap. Before you leave me comments in uproar know this: I agree with her that women are taken advantage of in advertisements and THAT IS WRONG. Now that we have that out of the way lets look deeper in to my disagreement with Jean. When she was looking at the children advertisements dealing with the children learning at a young age to either be “manly” or “innocent” this muse is wrong. I think that Jean should do a bit of close reading and research before taking a swing at the artists making these ads. At a young age children are subjective influence from many different areas including ads, so the problem starts with the ads dealing portraying women as innocent and portraying men as manly. I think that as a consumer you must have a filter and be able to “filter” the true meaning of the ad and be able to pass the nonsense aside. As consumers we need to be able to form our own opinions and as consumers we need to be able to send the message to the companies that we are sick of the ads they are sending out. As my dear friend Gandhi once said “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Identity

Lately we have been talking a lot about the idea of identity and where we derive our identities from. I think that a person’s identity comes from a plethora of places. The first place is individuality, we all are unique from the rest of the world the part of the identity that is formed from this is the personality. Each person has a personality that is individual to them; their behavior is a reflection of this. We also form an identity from the culture that we live in, the part of the identity that is formed through this is how the person is dressed and what activities they like to do. An example of this is the different “fads” that are predominating in different regions or even cities of the world. When people that are from different regions come together they instantly engage in conversation about the various things they have been doing, in actuality they are sharing the “new” parts of their identities. When this sharing of “identities” takes place each person adds a patch to their quilt work that we call “identity”.

So this new book

Hey folks, so we were handed a copy of Caucasia two days ago we have read 47 pages thus far and so far I am not impressed. I am really having a tough time trying to modivate myself to read the next section we have to read due to slow plot line. The author is doing a great job developing the characters, who are quite interesting. Another aspect of the book I do like is how the mother and father are characters that are round, and they seem to change from page to page. Even though I do like some aspects of the book it is quite slow...but I have new found hope after todays discussion that it will begin to pick up as Mr. Kunkle stated. So before I judge a book by the first 47 pages I will read the next section and see how it goes.

Book Thief

I had read the first 50 pages of the Book Thief over the summer holiday and never got the chance to finish it. So when the opportunity was presented to me during our English course I jumped at the opportunity. The first 50 pages were excellent and the rest of the book was not of distaste. We meet Liesel our main character and follow her through the eyes of Death as you move through the novel, which is based in Nazi Germany during the second great war. Liesel grew from the sad little girl on the train to the strong woman we see at the end of the story. In part the reason for my fondness of the book originates from the way in which the narrator is able to keep a quick pace through the book. This fast pace many people feel as thought it would make a fantastic movie. I disagree, not to take away from the "great" works Hollywood produces, but I think this is better left as a book. The book was powerful and through our discussion we all expressed our growing love for Hans and Liesel each and every lit circle, a movie would kill the whole reason behind the book. So as a final statement I urge you to become emerged in your studies and look further into what you see on the television and in movies because many of them have written stories that are far greater than Hollywood or Chucks film creators could ever produce.

Persepolis

The complete Persepolis sits next to me as I complete this blog post, I feel inspired. This book has been eye opening on many levels. I am familiar with the graphic novels having read Tintin and Fullmetal Alchemist series both of which I relished. Persepolis hasn’t been any different; Marjane Satrapi has done a great job incorporating the pictures along with the text to for a great work of writing as well as art. As we saw in class today protesting can be portrayed in many different ways, Persepolis is an excellent example of this. The author incorporates her distaste for the government and certain aspects of Iranian life, but manages to do it in a dimmed manor. Another aspect that I enjoy about this book deals with the distinct voice of the author which is prevalent at every page. I look forward to finishing the last 50 pages of this novel.