ELS Autoblog

Alright…so, talked to Dr. C about my project and decided it would probably be best if CCTV were dumped from the list. This leaves blogging and citizen journalism together, and those two mesh rather well so I think this project has gotten less hectic. I found new sources in Technorati.com and was told to see what wikipedia has to say about citizen journalism in general. I guess I really just have to build out what I want this project to answer and make it…well…inspiring so that I’m not staring at my computer with a blank look and hating every minute I spend working.
Last night was probably one of the most interesting discussions we’ve had, and we left on many tangents. From the quote “faked interaction can be an annoyance” we went off on several tangents, one of which being if ignorance was really bliss. We also talked about the best […]

Original post by georgestreet

The suspicion came to me today during Sociology, shortly after having been asked what was the biggest cause in environmental destruction. The burning of non-renewable fossil fuels, my group and I first thought; more than just the pollution that emits from them are the dangers of ozone depletion, which theoretically fuels Global Warming, and wars over obtaining every last drop of oil. Apathy, another group thought, because we don’t care to stop the destruction of the environment. Government and corporations, said the third group, because they are the only people with significant power to the end environmental destruction they cause (which would ultimately be a suicide).
I’m not sure that any of these get to the heart of the problem, though. The genealogy digs much deeper into the ground. We burn fuel for energy. We use energy to build and to mend, weave, harvest, transport, illuminate, communicate, i.e. produce. We progress […]

Original post by humanisticmystic

Long story short, I had to stay in a hotel last night with my two year old nephew. As we were sharing a room we had to go to bed early and I couldn’t exactly fall asleep at 8pm. As I was trying to sleep I found myself pondering over our lively and interesting class discussions yesterday (I had a great time, thanks to all who assisted Sarah and I by joining the discussions). Here are a few of my musings:
I feel really torn when we start discussing gender roles and the negatives (or positives) that go along with those roles. As I’ve said more than once, I don’t claim to be a feminist and I truly feel that I have every opportunity open to me. With that being said, I’m not blind to the fact that there is a way in which men and […]

Original post by kcannon

In contemplating yesterday’s class discussion on gender roles in film, and in our culture, I thought about the many ways in which the media uses gender roles to cause a certain type of reaction from their audience. While I still believe that women aggressors in film are often portrayed as “pathetic,” I found that film, and television in particular uses gender reversal as a sort of comic effect.
Think of most of the popular television sitcoms from the last decade. Many of them use the role of the “strong woman” as a punch line. “Everybody Loves Raymond” is one of my all time favorites but much of the comic effect comes from the central female character (Deborah) calling her husband an “idiot,” or “moron.” This is not a new phenomenon either. As we saw in “The Glass Key,” Veronica Lake’s character punches Alan Ladd in the […]

Original post by ellie

mercy – In this work we are given a look at the well rounded knight who is not simply filled with an all-consuming lust for blood; although the interplay of shame and honor do directly lead to fighting between one or more knights. However the violence that occurs in this reading is set against a back drop of Tristam De Liones’ willingness to show mercy toward his enemies. He takes many opportunities to to allow his foes to admit that they have been beaten and tell him that they want no more of the physical battle they have just endured; this is interesting because Tristam certainly had the ability to secure a true victory in these battles but instead choses to exercise patience and forgiveness. Tristam many times forgives his counterparts and it is no coincidence that this text stresses the power and worth of […]

Original post by bford

My previous post was a short “movie” created by my roommate, Justin, (with a little help from myself as well) of our friend, Eric’s 21st Birthday Party… which actually took place last November… so when you think about it… all the footage had been sitting around awhile before anything was made of it.
To start off, there was a lot of footage, a lot more than this 1:39 min movie shows.  If I remember correctly we had a good 90 minutes worth of footage, but as with any movie most of it ends up on the clipping room floor… or in our case, not used.
All sound from the footage was removed, and in place the sound from the “300″ trailer was placed in.  The key in the making of this video was making clips seem like they fit with the sound from the trailer.  It took several hours of going through […]

Original post by Amanda

In Valentino’s films if a woman looks with interest at a man first, she is a vamp.  The traditional gender roles the women are the ones who should be pursued, while the men are the ones who will do the pursuing.  Is this still the dominant way of thinking even in today’s movies?  In a Romantic Comedy (aka: A Chick Flick), boy meets girl and they fall in love.  Most of today’s romantic comedies display the traditional gender roles, typically the boy sees the girl first and then the pursuit begins.  An example of this is seen in “10 Things I Hate About You” when Cameron sees Bianca first and the pursuit begins.  Bianca continuously blows Cameron off, until she finally realizes that Cameron is worth dating (but that’s not till the end of the movie)… so throughout the movie you see Cameron trying his best to impress her.

The switched […]

Original post by Amanda

“If an entity is sufficiently non-humanlike, then the humanlike characteristics will tend to stand out and be noticed easily, generating empathy. On the other hand, if the entity is “almost human”, then the non-human characteristics will be the ones that stand out, leading to a feeling of “strangeness” in the human viewer.”(Wikipedia)

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Original post by arynna

Today’s discussion on Hansen’s work, specifically in regards to female spectatorship, got me thinking.
I don’t think anyone doubts that the vast majority of films today feature women as their “primary object of spectacle.” What I do have questions about is the extent to which making films that “entail the full range of transformations as proposed by Freud” would really be something which the average female moviegoer would be particularly interested in.
(Alright, I just spent forty-five minutes trying to type my thoughts on the matter in an objective manner, but I’m not getting anywhere. So I’m just going to come out and write it. My apologies to all in advance…)
Let’s face it: the only thing that pisses off a woman more than being hit on is *not* being hit on. There. I’ve said it. And you ladies reading it know its true. Women, as a group, tend to derive […]

Original post by crain2mn