The actress

The actress

In the world, there are three types of people; male, female and actress.

Actress is celebrities who are seen on our mass media such as TV, new paper or magazine. Always, we have some illusion for actress. This movie seems like documentary. However, I felt like watching this one as a realty program. This movie showed one of the most famous actresses in the Korea, back of the story they enjoyed Christmas party. At that time, they shared what they were thinking not in actress position. I mean they were talking about their privacy and their problems. It was not easy to share others or fan because they are actress. When I saw that scene, I realized that they are also normal lady same as my girl friend or sister. However, living as an actress, they had to be wrapped in the media and other’s eyes. Even they really want to say something, they couldn’t because they are actress and they got spotlight from the media. After them talking each other, the actress could understand each other’s situation because they have same situation. Finally, I realized that again sometimes the actress want to be a normal lady and talk whatever they want. Their job is to make us to be happy but we need to recognize that they are female. The actress are not always happy job.

But I'm a Cheerleader

After I watching the movie, my impression to some of the scenes were non-sense. Especially, when Megan’s boy friend and her family thought Megan was lesbian as a hypothesis because Megan was vegetarian and put celebrity’s pictures in her lockbox. When she kisses with her boy friend, she didn’t feel any emotions from him. I almost felt like she was donating a kiss for his boy friend. However, this doesn’t explain the correlation between vegetarian and lesbian. (I thought only few of them were vegetarians at that time and that’s why they treated vegetarian as a lesbian). When she was gone to reparative therapy camp, she realized that she was a lesbian and according to the therapy, she was proven to be a 100 % lesbian. Furthermore, she loved staying with her girl friend, Graham who is also a lesbian.

I believe Megan wasn’t a lesbian to start with because her potential of being lesbian was fired up after she was back from the camp. If she were to avoid herself going to the camp, she is likely to stay straight. What I wanted to say is that she was supposed to be a straight person same as me. After she went to the therapy she realized that she was real homosexuality because she felt comfortable staying with Graham. All Megan did was to find true friend who will love her and stay with her; and the person who can do that was Graham.

When people are judging others, they look at the other person’s personal characteristics, behaviors, and appearances.
Finally, we need to accept those people have who they are and respect them.


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img from = http://www.insidesocal.com/tomhoffarth/archives/But%2520I%27m%2520a%2520Cheerleader.jpg

Murderball

Murder ball is a film that draws history of wheelchair rugby. This documentary film is focusing on life of wheelchair players. The murder ball is a nick name for the game before it has been named as wheelchair rugby. This gorgeous game became official sport in Olympics, and the historical background is back in 2004 where Athena Olympic was taking place on. Movie introduces Joe Soares in the beginning, which wasn’t luck enough to become a coach for the team U.S. The natural of the sports is to win the game; therefore everyone wants to win their games. They are all wheelchair players, but they are very different than what we thought. What I really want to say is that they are hoping to be winners and giving out their best shots. Movie is such as impressive because all of the characters from the film are common people. Only difference from other people is that they are challenged from walking and moving easily, but enjoy their life and never give up. From the part, I was really impressed of never giving up. If I were them, my life would end up miserable. However, they are considered all of the life and things that matter to them.
Also, the movie showed handicapped people’s sexual life which was little bit odd to watch because the actors seem shy. I first thought that they wouldn’t have sexual relationship and noticed that it was my tunnel vision. This part of the compelling scene made me think that these people are same with others.
Finally, the movie made me cried and it was really impressed.

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pic from

http://blogdorugby.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/murderballmovie.jpg

The Jazz Singer

As I mentioned in many previous postings, I focus on different aspects of the movies. The movie that I will talk about today is called “The Jazz Singer”, and it was one of the oldest modern movies that I have ever watched. Before I actually got to sit down and watch the movie, I expected it to be boring and somewhat out of fashion as it was dated back. However, it was a great surprise to find out that I actually liked the movie. It is easier for me to engage with the story as there were less conversations going on and more singing. The movie, The Jazz Singer remains in the history of cinema as one of the first musical movies. Prior to this specific movie, there were films with sound effects and voices but none using singing as a conversation in a script.
Before I go on to talk about the storyline of the movie, I want to warn you readers that I mostly concentrated on the emotional reviews for this posting instead of critical analysis that I am used to doing. The main story of the movie was relatively concise and simple. The main character was young Jewish, Jackie Rabinowitz who was a cantor. A cantor is a leader for the Jewish prayer songs, but Jackie was against tradition of singing at the beer hall. Instead, he wanted to be a jazz singer, so he runs away from his family. He practices singing and dancing at a club and follows his dream to become a jazz singer. He changes color of his face from white to black. [another stereotypes shown in the movies- who says all the REAL Jazz singers have to be black?- It was ironic to compare it with Michael Jackson’s transformation from black man to white.] Jackie ends up changing his name to Jack Robin, and becomes a popular Jazz Singer in Broadway and even gets a chance to perform as a main actor in a show. However, he hears the news that his father passes away, and head to the ceremony instead. Even though Jackie never performed as a cantor, he sings perfectly at the ceremony and touches many people’s heart. At that moment, even though Jackie could not perform at the Broadway show, he was a true super star.
I was very much touched by the story and was impressed about the fact that this movie emphasis on importance of both tradition and dream. The most ideal situation would be tradition and new dreams accepting distinct characteristics and fuse those together to improve on good qualities while tone down on bad. I would definitely suggest watching this movie if you haven’t yet. It made me think more about what I am pursuing and what my traditions are. A great movie full of enjoyable songs!

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pic is coming from xroads.virginia.edu/~UG01/hughes/images/jazz.jpg

District 9

These days whenever I watched the movie, I feel like I should find the information or hidden source of the movie. I realized that I could earn much knowledge from the content when I pay slight more attention to the meanings of both theme and the characters. Out of many things that I could focus on, I try to pay closest attention to the issues of racism and sexism.
I watched the movie, District 9 last night with such topics in my mind. The movie gave me a chance to learn about South Africa in general and specifically about racism in the area. The movie did a great job at closely depicting current status of the nation, and those scenes led me to think carefully about the stereotypical portrayal of non-Caucasian population. For example, the main character who used English with African pronunciation throughout the whole movie becomes the victim of chaos. It indirectly suggests that non-Caucasian population is more gullible and easily harmed than invincible whites. The movie continues to portray similar stereotypes. The “District 9”, itself is pictured as a place for a non-Caucasian habitants. To me, it felt like a duplicate of “Harlem”.
The depiction of negative image on minorities were not limited to the poor living conditions, but also extended to social problems caused by socioeconomic stands of the poor. In the movie, Nigerian man was an illegal dealer for weapons and “special” food source, which has a strong links to the drug dealing in real life. In fact, this movie was interesting enough to get me to do some research on rate of drug dealing and trickster in Nigeria. According to the blog of this man who lived in South Africa for over 20 years, about 90% of Nigerians working population are involved with some kind of drug dealing or tricksters.
It is very hard for me to believe, and saddens me a little to think that such injustice is happening in 21st century. It was difficult to accept especially because South Africa was a nation that is qualified as the nation to hold a huge international event like World Cup, but yet to be treated equally.

boyz in the Hood!

In the class, I watched the movie, “boyz in the hood.” The movie was very old fashioned, and thus was very unique in style from other movies that I have watched. For that reason, I did not quite understand the key point of the movie at first. However, as I continued to watch the movie, I realized that the movie was about how colored people were treated differently from Caucasians.
There were two very important points I have learned from the movie. First, it taught me how the discrimination against colored people was mainly just due to the fact that they are colored, thus different and poor. Even when they behave well, they were often viewed as criminals or lower class people. Thus, they were not accepted to the society as well as Caucasians with same behaviors. Such theory is well shown in the movie. The main characters, who are colored people, were caught by the police. During the investigation process, the cop points gun at the head of the colored people, and verbally demoralize them. I highly doubt that the cop treats Caucasians in the same way.
The second point I learned from the movie was that the physical violence is not the only form of violence. When they were communicating with women, they used sexually abusive languages as jokes. For example, words like “bitch” or “ho” were used. This kind of verbal abuse is also a form of serious violence, as it demoralizes women and look down on them. If these actions are allowed in the society, it will effect young children and bring up repetitive negative cycle.
There are many other aspects of the movie that we could focus on, but for me, the topic of racism and sexism was one that left me with the strongest impression. Everyone has a right to be treated equally. No matter what their social classes, races, or sex are.

In many movies coming that are coming out these days, I started to notice broader masculinity spectrum. Furthermore, it led me to an interesting idea about fused ‘masculinity’! so today, I would like to dedicate this post on the change that has been slowly taken place; how the society have been subconsciously accepting metrosexuality.

The term ‘metrosexuality’ originated in the article by Mark Simpson, published on November, 15th, 1994, in The Independent. He wrote:
Metrosexual man, the single young man with a high disposable income, living or working in the city, (because that’s where all the best shops are), is perhaps the most promising consumer market of the decade. In the Eighties He was only to be found inside fashion magazines such as GO, in television advertisements for Levis jeans or in gay bars. In the Nineties, he’s everywhere and he’s going shopping.

Before we go on to talk about the changes that occurred, let’s first set up a clear understanding on what masculinity actually means. Masculinity, by definition is a characteristic that specifically describes personal that has male identity. Unlike, the term ‘male’ which can be also used to describe animals, the word ‘masculine’ has the degrees of comparison.( For example- more masculine or most masculine). In the past, masculinity was considered to be the one quality that was required for favorable males. The fans of terminator, 007, superman, Spiderman, Rocky Balboa,(you name it) proves the phenomenon.

Recently, there has been an interesting shift in the representation of characters in cinema. More movies include male characters that are not afraid show their unique styles. One of the notable examples would be Johnny Depp in Alice in Wonderland, and the reason should be very straight forward. (He had very vivid make-up on!) Putting a powder on a face was thought to be a privilege for women only. Now, here is a famous actor, having an obvious painting on his face, and even proudly exhibiting it!

When we are talking about changes, we are not only talking about dramatic shift like previous example. Along with these very apparent changes, comparably subtle metrosexual characters are being planted into different male characters in past decades. The male characters that show tears, share emotions, talk or act more gently are all results of broaden masculinity spectrum.

In a bigger picture, the media is influencing the world in a good way by having a better representation of diversity in this world. It does not make any sense to expect billions of people to fit into very limited categories of “masculinity” or “femininity”. I am very glad to see positive changes in people as they have opened up for various qualities through media. The characteristics that were once thought to be different are now special!