Wow! That's Something You Don't See Everyday!

When tragedies and epidemics start, television shows are created to give their audience a time in the day to get the stressful times out of their minds. Sounds about right, don't you think? While everyone was running around not knowing what to do during the AIDS epidemic that's when vampire movies started to spring up. Since many people today are worrying about the war on terror, They have many television shows about the government and trying to bring them down, as in 24. So if people are trying to get their minds off of what's happening in the world around them, why are directors making so many of the same shows?

What Seems To Be The Truth

Remember in fourth grade, we learned about Rosa Parks? Well, it turns out that the story you were taught happened to be a bit over exaggerated. I remember being taught that she was a poor old African American woman who just got off a hard days work and was fed up with sitting on the back of the bus. Then out of nowhere, a scary white man told her she had to move. When she wouldn't that's when things got wild and people basically started the civil rights movement. The truth of the story is that she really wasn't an old women, she was in her forties and she didn't really pick a seat in the front, it was just that she was a minority and majority race got priority seating. This was also planned, it wasn't her just "having enough." It certainly wasn't the first time that someone refused to be treated second class, referring to the bus boycott in Louisiana. Event though the story was exaggerated quite a bit, I think that it's better that way, because it gave people the perspective that anyone could do it. If they knew that Rosa Parks was a secretary of the NAACP and had planned everything for so long, then maybe not as many people would have acted out.

Mister King Today

If Martin Luther King Jr. read his speech in today's time, what would be the outcome? What would people think about it? I believe that if he was to read the exact words today, "I Have A Dream" people would look at him as if he was high. People today believe that we are all created equal and some even convince themselves that we don't notice race and all live peacefully. When Martin Luther King Jr. read his speech. African Americans were forced to sit on the back of the bus, made famous by Rosa Parks. They weren't treated equally and they had no rights. Martin Luther King Jr's speech gracefully shed light on what needed to be improved and for the most part it has. We all share water fountains and sit where ever we wish on the bus, but is that enough? When it comes to getting a job, a lot of people still might not hire someone for their race. I think that with Barack Obama being president, people will think a lot less about race and there will be more equal opportunities.

Forrest Gump, meet Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is about a boy that is born old and eventually dies young. He meets this girl that he falls in love with when he is 10, but he looks like he is 60. This movie is great, it feels like a life long movie however.
A movie that I would compare it to would be Forrest Gump. Forrest never actually matures in his brain to that of an adult man. He is however present in many historical moments, including the war in Vietman. I compare this movie to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, because Benjamin was born on the day World War I ended, and then served in World War II, on a tug boat where him and his shipmates drown a Japanese submarine. Forrest Gump falls in love with this hippie that wants to be a musician but ruins her life with drugs. Benjamin Button falls in love with a dancer that almost makes it big, but ends up getting hit by a car and ruining her dreams. These movies are alike in so many ways, the movies are mostly about the main characters entire life and is told by a story.

Should Obama Close Guatanamo Bay?

I don't think that he should completely close it down. I think that he should watch over it and make sure that people are safe there and aren't being treated unconstitutionally. If you capture someone in battle and they haven't done anything bad yet, but they are trying to every chance they get, then you have to put them somewhere to protect the citizens of The United States.

Paris Vs. London

We all know that Paris Hilton is an heiress who gets what ever she wants, who's family owns the Hilton Hotels. But is there a Paris mini me on the Disney Channel? There is! London Tipton from "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody". London's name is famous city in Europe just like Paris, and the last names are eerie Hilton Vs. Tipton? They are oddly alike, i wonder if maybe the director did this on purpose. London is a rich heiress who lives in the hotel that her dad owns called the Tipton. She gets everything she wants and she isn't the smartest person ever. She's never had a job, and she never had to work for anything she's ever wanted.

Can Ethics Ever Change?

Ethics day at New Trier is the same every year. You get a long advisory where you eat bagels from Panera and talk about things you should and shouldn't do to make New Trier a better place. My question is whether or not you can change what someone thinks is the right thing to do. Ethics are usually first taught by your parents and family and that is when they become brainwashed. If you were taught as a child that the color red was a devil color, than you heard otherwise in your twenties, you will probably not change your mind. I don't think that the school can change what you think in one hour once a year.

TV Tokenism.. Is It Real?

Like it or not, it is a real thing. TV Tokenism is when a director is forced to hire an African American for a television show so that the television isn't 100% Caucasian. You will never in today's TV, find a drama starring an African American, but because they are needed on TV to prevent the network from being sued by NAACP, they will give them small parts and never as much screen time as they deserve. Whether or not this is a problem is up to you. Some thing to think about is the fact that an average American spends 14 years of their life watching television! That can change any one's perspective of a race or social group, and as a matter of fact, it does! When you are watching a show with the "black guy" always killing people and robbing the banks and the "white guy" there to save the day, or get him out of the slums of the ghetto, your feeling about people change no doubt. This is almost having the networks work against what NAACP stands for. Unfortunately the people in America with the most money are Caucasian and are between 25-50 years old, so they have to produce TV shows that catch their attention, many of them don't yet feel comfortable with an African American starring in a television show, saving the day. This brainwashing starts when kids are little even, starting from when they flip on the Disney Channel. There is a show that most kids are familiar called "The Proud Family" and what I have noticed is that the father eats chicken for dinner everyday, they have the friend that has 12 brothers and sisters under the age of 14, and their mother has never been married. Also the only sport that is ever played is basketball. This is just a great big exaggeration of what people have stereotyped them for a comedy effect. Another show on Disney would include "Suite Life of Zack & Cody" where these two little boys fool the hotel manager, who happens to be African American, so that they can get away with everything and anything. Is him being African American just a coincidence or could it be tokenism and the fact that they needed to pop an African American in there somewhere, so why not be the gullible one?