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The Celluloid Closet

Watching the Celluloid Closet was very interesting to me, from the examples of films, to the standards in old movies about homosexuals. I have seen Ben Hur, Maltese Falcon, and Rebel WIthout a Cause and not once did I notice the "so-called" gay characters. This might be because the film makers had to desguise the characters to only make them seem gay not make them actually gay in the film, I found it unbelievable that the film commission actually screened film to make sure there was no homosexuality in it. I had no idea that this was done and it was sad to watch these actors and actresses explain how they used to watch films looking for a hint of homosexuality to help comfort them and make them feel "normal". Thinking about this subject made me realize how little films actually show homosexual relationships, even in this day and age the majority of people don't accept gays, and this shows through in the movies. I remember when Brokeback Mountain came out people where very uncomfortable with this film, including myself, and I have no idea why? I saw the film and thought it was really good, and it was a great story, maybe this film was a turning point for gays in films actually being huge Hollywood hits, because that movie was very big. Hollywood is a place where ideas thrive on what the majority wants, and the majority of people find it awkward having homosexuals in films, even I did until I saw Brokeback Mountain. But why? Why are people so turned away by homosexuals in films? I think because its rare, and its not done enough to help people realize its just another way of life and not some horrible sin. Many people need to open there eyes and accept these people for who they are and not what there sexuality is.

Courting Condi

I went to see Courting Condi on opening night of the Durango film festival , with classmates Andrew and Ansley. We all had mixed feelings about how the film was presented but overall it was a decent film. Courting Condi ended up to be a film that was very different than what I had initially expected, it turned into more of a documentary on Condileeza Rice rather than the comedy/love story I thought it to be. Using the side love story along with the funny songs written by the lover of Condi, was a great way to spice up the story and add a little interest to this topic. This interested me because this approach to a film was one that I have never seen before and I think it worked very well with this story. Although, it was not a film that interested me with its content very well, but its prestentation did. I thought that Courting Condi was too lengthy and to easy to lose track of because of how long it was strung out. The musical parts could have been shortened and cut down, so they were still funny, and the love story could have been either portrayed to be real or not portrayed at all. The love story was a littler cheesy, and I couldn't figure out if it was supposed to be cheesy or not? Basically, it was very funny to start and as it got into the more documentary part I felt as if it should have cut down on the love story cause it made me lose interest, and it was almost distracting to the real documentary. In the end I didn't enjoy Courting Condi as much as I enjoyed the intro short film named Making the Man. This short film was hilarious! It was very creative and kept me very interested and entertained. This film consisted of an interview with a man, that was very awkward and funny. Then in the end they edited it to make him seem very confident and perfect. Then showed the film as like a dating service thing, it was really funny and probably the best short film I have ever seen. Making the Man was an awesome short and it even made my night, and i'm glad I was able to see it because I was a little disappointed by Courting Condi. 

THis is definatley a meme! On Youtube you can find quite a few videos of people that have redone this video to the same and different songs. Anyway, its pretty funny!

The Merchants of Cool.

Although this video was 8 years old, and much of its content was over 10 years old, I could still relate to it because I can actually remember watching these shows and bands on t.v. I think of of the marketing ideas are very simliar today, find what kids think is "cool" and use it. I did find it interesting that sprite kind of started this entire marketing idea in the late 90's, I can remember the commercial with the basket ball player. Sprite marked a milestone with this kind of marketing, now almost every company that has an market with teens uses something like a celebrity, or a band, or some kind of symbol kids can relate with and that will give there product some credit among teens. I found it really funny that the "Insane Clown Posse" band actually was big, I remember seeing them and thinking that they were probably the lamest, and worst band ever. But, they got a top 20 on record sales one year which is pretty impressive and a lot f people must like them. The Britney Spears and Christina Agulera part was also interesting, and how they got so big overnight basically. Brintey was kind of the first of her kind, and now there are so many celebrities just like her, this shows how just ten years ago so much of the media was completely different, and how it has rapidly evolved into what it is now. I remember all of the advertisements they showed although I was about 13 years old, little did I know that those ads would be the benchmark of advertisements today! What I found realy strange about this was the companies that brought in teenagers and interviewed them on what they thought was "cool" and uncool. I had no idea that companies wwnt to this extent to shape a product that they were trying to sell. It now makes sense, that these companies that try to market to teens this way, because they go for the mass teen communtiy, and this market is huge, and amazingly profitable! Before this movie I didnt beleive that marketing was this influenced by the teen community , and now I realize that it is, and most companies are going for this mass community because its bigger and more profitable than ever.

Corporation Documentary

I knew I would like this video because I'm easily amused by these "Michael Moore" style documentaries, I find them very interesting. What I really liked about this certain film was the interviews. For example, they showed the former president of the Interface Carpet company, and his story was a perfect example of what this video was trying to do, take the CEO of a corporation and make them realize the dangers there companies instill on the environment. The Interface President completely changed based on customers asking him "what his company did for the environment", and many of these companies need to ask themselves these questions. What if every corporation and company just changed overnight like Interface, we would drastically reduce our carbon footprint. This video kind of taught me how these companies need to find a balance between what is good for sales? What is good for wages? And, What is good for the environment? What was really heartbreaking about this film was the sweatshops, that they showed, and how they explained that these people often worked for much less than one dollar per day. Also, they explained how much certain clothes sold for here, like a jacket for $130, and that jacket cost under a dollar for a person to make, and they were only payed 8 cents for the jacket. Its unreal how much mark up that a product will get, with absolutely no benefit to the manufacturer. This made me really sad, and embaressed because I more than likely own many of these products and I feel like I supported a terrible thing. I don't really know if I like Michael Moore or not, but he is so witty, he makes these style films so interesting. I was glad they used him for a small section, because when he does things like buy plane tickets for him and the owner of Nike to fly to Indonesia to see there facilities he is really pushing these companies to try to show what they are actually like. Either way if a comapny like Nike agreed or disagreed they would earn more of a poor reputation, they would either say no and lose customers, or agree and share the truth and lose many customers. In the end, I'm glad we viewed this video in class because its a video that gets people thinking and makes people aware of what these companies are doing thats bad, Although it would be interesting to see what these companies truthfuly do good for us?

Consumption log!

Although I felt as if the day I chose to do my log turned into a pretty lazy "inside" day, I still consumed a ton of different media forms. On an average day I consume probably a steady rate of the same kind of media, from certain shows I watch, music I listen to, maybe a movie, and numerous commercials, Websites, road signs and all that. However, Sunday the 15th was a abnormal day, I didn't leave the house, so it was fun to see how much media I consumed inside closed doors, and it was a lot! I started the day off around 10am, turning on my favorite band Lucero and listening, while I checked my facebook, hotmail, and fortlewis accounts. All of this while half way tuned into the news on the television. The internet, television and music all at once, for me to get three media usages at once was not very hard. Who knows how many advertisements I viewed between the internet and the television? Then I jumped on Netflix.com and streamed a movie and some episodes of The Office to my xbox to watch during the day. Humbolt County was the movie I watched from Netflix, which was awesome and i would definately recommend it. Humbolt County was about a medical student who spent a summer out in the rural woods with pot farmers, it was pretty wild! Then I watched countless episodes of The Offices,I just started watching it and its really easy to get all the episodes from netflix. There are four seasons, with about 20 episodes per season, so i've been watching a lot! The Office took up most of my afternoon into the night. My roommate brought home a copy of the movie Miracle at St. Anne, which is the new Spike Lee film that just came out on dvd. This was also an awesome movie, but very, very long. I watched this movie while on my computer checking facebook once again, along with some other cycling news websites I often go on. I also read a news article on how doctors have seemed to cure a HIV positive person, using stem cells! which was an amazing article to read! After Miracle at St. anne ended I went and layed in bed, jumped on NBC.com and watched the episode of Friday Night Lights which I had missed on friday night. So through out this day, I cosumed basically a full days worth of media entertainment without even leaving my house, thats pretty amazing to me! I'm sure I consumed so much more without even realizing it, even something like seeing a brand of a car in a movie or some commercial about food that made me hungry, I bet there was so much I didn't even realize Along with countless movie preveiws that I saw before for movies I watched that I will definately be seeing in the future. I will definately think about this everyday now just without writing it down, when I drive, and just every place I go I'm going to try to see if I can even recognize the media that is being pushed at me, this was definately a fun experience!

This piece by Jean Baudrillard is brutally hard to read and shift through, and in my opinion one of the most poor attempts at getting a certain point across, I have ever come across. Between the over analyzed examples I found what I felt was the basis of the work, what was simulated, and dishonest, or real, and truthful? I understand this is a topic that one cant ague very well, obviously we are not 100% sure that what around us is real and not simulated, but calling Disney Land a concentration camp may be taking things a little bit far. Yes, people enjoy "fantasy lands" and fictional characters, but people are smart, they know those things are fake, or atleast little children will soon realize they are fake. Also, you have to be a little bit crazy to look at it as if all the simulated, fake characters at disney land are real, and we are the simulated people. If she was going to bring up an arguement to try to help her case, that was a terrible choice. "Real is no longer the real", I honestly tryed to make sense of this in any way I could, and I failed. When bringing up a confusing point, and backing it with confusing topics, is what you are accomplishing, why not throw in an incredably unbelievable statement like that, because you got nothing to lose. Yes, Watergate was a scandal, because it was unexpected and against the law. Again, yes, it was also a scandal because they lied to try to cover themselves because they didnt want to get in trouble. All of this is true, but it in no way relates to the point. Most people believe Watergate happened, because it DID, I would actually consider is a FACT. Once again, a very poor example to prove your case. However, do I agree with this topic? Yes, I opened my mind enough to slightly consider the possibility that what we have around us in this world is all simulated. Therefore, I also would like to say how unrealistic this topic is and in fact I would consider it a topic that makes a persons head hurt when they think about it, similiar to question like, Why are we here? Why is earth, earth? What else is out there? I would consider "Is the real no longer real?" to fit in very well with those questions. Attemping to push this topic as a real possiblity could be done, but it was not done well in this writing. A person must understand what the purpose of a piece of writing is for it to be useful, and for them to take it into consideration. That being said, I could be completely wrong, maybe I misinterprted what she was trying to say, maybe I wrote on the entirely wrong thing. That should be a huge hint that what you wrote was poorly done, that when a person reads over it time and again they still dont understand what is being said. I look forward to discussing this in class because obviously I am a little confused.

I figured in honor of this years super bowl commercials we could also take a look back at last years greatest, these ones are awesome too!

Deconstruction of an ad!

  When an advertisement can capture the reality of a situation and successfully relate it to things in our everyday lives is a huge accomplishment. Everyday certain advertisements catch my eye, but its only ever so often that I see an advertisement that I'm truly impressed with. Denver Water has been running these to ads stating "use only what you need" , which in reality is speaking of water control in the area, but put into a very creative and affective way.

The reason I love these ads is because they go into such  extremes to get there point across.  First, the bench is just a brilliant idea, they make a point by cutting a bench to fit one person, this explains to people exactly what the ad says, "use only what you need". Second, I find the billboard really funny and very effective, this puts the problem in perspective for people as well as getting the point across. Not every billboard needs to be filled for an ad, just like people don't need to take 1/2 hour showers everyday, wasting water. These to ads are so creative and so effective by relating the problem to something else people can truly understand and it also is kind of a reality check into the problem of water construction.

This is an approach that I have never seen before in advertising and that is why I chose to deconstruct it. I found this ad to be very deep and very affective and I love how it took a problem people don't really see and put it in a very understandable perspective. These two ads are very unique in the way of who they appeal to. These ads have an audience of everyone, this is a problem everyone is faced with and that everyone can make a difference in solving. It is very rare that an advertisement is directed towards everyone that looks at it and that is one reason I found this ad so interesting, it effects everyone that looks at it by putting the water control problem into a perspective everyone can understand. When we looked at the bike advertisement in class we all had so many opinions and not one of us truly understood the ad, therefore I feel that ad was uneffective, as are many ads that try to get a point across in a very abstract way. However, these two ads are so simple yet so creative. In my eyes, this is a perfect way to advertise and it couldn't be for a better cause. Denver Water made a risky move by trying a new form of advertisement and I believe these two ads are two of the best ads I have ever seen, very straight forward and very effective. Creativity is the most important part of an advertisement to me, I found a lot of interesting ads and a lot of very confusing ads that took time to see the right side of. I chose this ad because it was so distinct from the other ads I found, yet so simple and so interesting, but yet so heavy and so important. Ads are everywhere magazines, the internet, newspapers, and television are the major contributors to advertisements these days. What I love seeing are the advertisements on buses, benches, or even a banner behind a plane, anything interesting that catches a persons eye is a great advertisement.

This video is really funny, and he actually brings up a few good points. Is the mainstream media good or evil? What is actually important that the mainstream media broadcasts?

I watched this video expecting it to be pretty bland, but it was actually very interesting. Also, its a good follow up on the inauguration last tuesday. This video explains how the media can skew things such as ratings polls, or even the intellect of a president. Thats all.

This was the taken over Sydney, Australia. The Brightest comet in 80 years.