5 Replies to “Vacation on the Moon, 1953 (Swartz)”
Hi Miriam! I really loved your slidecast on a 1950s imagination of a vacation to the moon. Your analysis was both thorough and sharp; you couched the clip in contexts that allowed it to seem obvious and natural given what was going in the world at the time. In particular, I liked your emphasis of how the man vacationing to Mars was shocked that the Aliens didn’t know what Christmas. This element seems to epitomize Christianity, morality and egocentricity that was central to the United States at the time. I also enjoyed your analysis of American imperialism. When you put the United States within this context, it seems like a natural continuation of this behavior for America to extend its reach to outer space.
Overall, I really liked the structure and organization of your presentation. The images you chose aptly reflected the material each slide covered, and you led the audience through your analysis with ease and grace. I would have loved to learn how contemporary society images vacations to the moon, but I understand that the thorough and comprehensive nature of your analysis may have taken away from your ability to bring the technology into the 21st century!
I very much enjoyed your presentation Miriam! You covered a very wide range of topics and central themes of the period which were all relevant to your clip. I especially like how you talked about the religious context behind the video, as that is something we have not touched upon too much in class, but nevertheless has significant influences over societal values. You provide relevant background information on important events of the time which shaped the general attitude towards space travel. This paints a good picture for why space and extraterrestrial life themes were so prominent during this period. I like the part where you emphasize that it was the idea of space travel, rather than the actual means of transportation which was notable in the clip, as this shows that people’s imaginations were taking them to space long before a person actually made it up there.
I think it would have been interesting to look into space travel/vacation depictions in other forms of media, as comparisons and similarities between them and your clip could have provided insights into common themes and patterns which reflected the cultural values.
I also think it was good how you delved into the future implications of your clip, and that you tied the defensive nature of the human in the clip to current issues today, relating to immigrants and cultural diversity.
Overall, really great job!
I really enjoyed how you used a movie as your media instead of just a regular image. Also, it was a great idea to have words accompanying each of your pictures because it gave the viewer a sense of what theme you were trying to address for each picture. I liked the connections you made to modern problems in the U.S. one of these examples included talking about the second amendment and how guns were included in the futuristic vacation. Another, was comparing american values to other “alien values” that the people encountered on the moon. You did a great job relating this to the current atmosphere with mexicans and other ethnic groups in our country. From this I learned that the space race and the moon exploration was a continuation of American Imperialism. Furthermore, I was not aware that religion played any kind of significant role in the space race. The one critique I have for this video is that in some parts there was just black space with a question at the bottom. I would try to avoid this and put a picture with it so were not just looking at a mostly black screen. All in all this was an incredibly informative slidecast and you made a bunch of great connections in it.
This video clip of people being able to take vacations to the moon is a great representation of futuristic aspirations during the 1950s. Your first point about the imperialist mindset of society and its influence on americans’ desires to colonize the moon does an excellent job of showing the values embedded in american history. The connection of vacationing on the moon to the Cold War also provides the viewer with a better historical context for why people cared so much about the space race. American nationalism was another good point related to the Cold War era that can explain why this quest for superiority in space travel was so prominent during this time. One critique that I have is to try and focus on including images that prove the main point of each slide. Try to avoid the use of phrases as the visual slide content. Besides that, it was very well done. In general, this video was constructed very well, easy to follow, and provided in depth analysis on the context behind this video.
Miriam, you did an amazing job with this project. I love how you used a video to start off. It was engaging and set the tone for the rest of your project. I also liked the amount of history you presented within the project. I learned about the term McCarthyism, which was a hyper nationalistic period within America. The inclusion of the second amendment and talking about the pledge of allegiance were nice touches, as you pointed out that the people on the moon were talking about Christmas and had guns there too. The amount of progression in technology through this time period you are presenting, shows why people actually believed we be able to vacation on the moon and see aliens. The idea of getting to the moon for vacations really excited people, as you pointed out. The project came full circle at the end and was a pleasure to watch. My critiques for this project are that you used multiple slides that were just blank. With the pecha kucha format, you should always have a picture. The pictures are there to further expand upon your argument. You could have easily put pictures on these slides to elaborate on what you were talking about. Overall though, you did a great job and it was quite enjoyable.
Hi Miriam! I really loved your slidecast on a 1950s imagination of a vacation to the moon. Your analysis was both thorough and sharp; you couched the clip in contexts that allowed it to seem obvious and natural given what was going in the world at the time. In particular, I liked your emphasis of how the man vacationing to Mars was shocked that the Aliens didn’t know what Christmas. This element seems to epitomize Christianity, morality and egocentricity that was central to the United States at the time. I also enjoyed your analysis of American imperialism. When you put the United States within this context, it seems like a natural continuation of this behavior for America to extend its reach to outer space.
Overall, I really liked the structure and organization of your presentation. The images you chose aptly reflected the material each slide covered, and you led the audience through your analysis with ease and grace. I would have loved to learn how contemporary society images vacations to the moon, but I understand that the thorough and comprehensive nature of your analysis may have taken away from your ability to bring the technology into the 21st century!
I very much enjoyed your presentation Miriam! You covered a very wide range of topics and central themes of the period which were all relevant to your clip. I especially like how you talked about the religious context behind the video, as that is something we have not touched upon too much in class, but nevertheless has significant influences over societal values. You provide relevant background information on important events of the time which shaped the general attitude towards space travel. This paints a good picture for why space and extraterrestrial life themes were so prominent during this period. I like the part where you emphasize that it was the idea of space travel, rather than the actual means of transportation which was notable in the clip, as this shows that people’s imaginations were taking them to space long before a person actually made it up there.
I think it would have been interesting to look into space travel/vacation depictions in other forms of media, as comparisons and similarities between them and your clip could have provided insights into common themes and patterns which reflected the cultural values.
I also think it was good how you delved into the future implications of your clip, and that you tied the defensive nature of the human in the clip to current issues today, relating to immigrants and cultural diversity.
Overall, really great job!
I really enjoyed how you used a movie as your media instead of just a regular image. Also, it was a great idea to have words accompanying each of your pictures because it gave the viewer a sense of what theme you were trying to address for each picture. I liked the connections you made to modern problems in the U.S. one of these examples included talking about the second amendment and how guns were included in the futuristic vacation. Another, was comparing american values to other “alien values” that the people encountered on the moon. You did a great job relating this to the current atmosphere with mexicans and other ethnic groups in our country. From this I learned that the space race and the moon exploration was a continuation of American Imperialism. Furthermore, I was not aware that religion played any kind of significant role in the space race. The one critique I have for this video is that in some parts there was just black space with a question at the bottom. I would try to avoid this and put a picture with it so were not just looking at a mostly black screen. All in all this was an incredibly informative slidecast and you made a bunch of great connections in it.
This video clip of people being able to take vacations to the moon is a great representation of futuristic aspirations during the 1950s. Your first point about the imperialist mindset of society and its influence on americans’ desires to colonize the moon does an excellent job of showing the values embedded in american history. The connection of vacationing on the moon to the Cold War also provides the viewer with a better historical context for why people cared so much about the space race. American nationalism was another good point related to the Cold War era that can explain why this quest for superiority in space travel was so prominent during this time. One critique that I have is to try and focus on including images that prove the main point of each slide. Try to avoid the use of phrases as the visual slide content. Besides that, it was very well done. In general, this video was constructed very well, easy to follow, and provided in depth analysis on the context behind this video.
Miriam, you did an amazing job with this project. I love how you used a video to start off. It was engaging and set the tone for the rest of your project. I also liked the amount of history you presented within the project. I learned about the term McCarthyism, which was a hyper nationalistic period within America. The inclusion of the second amendment and talking about the pledge of allegiance were nice touches, as you pointed out that the people on the moon were talking about Christmas and had guns there too. The amount of progression in technology through this time period you are presenting, shows why people actually believed we be able to vacation on the moon and see aliens. The idea of getting to the moon for vacations really excited people, as you pointed out. The project came full circle at the end and was a pleasure to watch. My critiques for this project are that you used multiple slides that were just blank. With the pecha kucha format, you should always have a picture. The pictures are there to further expand upon your argument. You could have easily put pictures on these slides to elaborate on what you were talking about. Overall though, you did a great job and it was quite enjoyable.