Since the new trailer for the upcoming Star Wars film was released today, I thought I would bring up Star Wars and it’s influence on film and pop culture in general. Star Wars is one of the few franchises that has almost universal appeal – pretty much everyone has at least seen a Star Wars movie and if you haven’t, you’re met with what could only be described as incredulity. Everyone knows what Star Wars is and this most recent trailer hinges on that fact – literally every line/frame in this trailer is a call back to the original trilogy of movies. From Darth Vader’s destroyed helmet to Harrison Ford proudly proclaiming that he’s “home,” this new Star Wars seems to be incredibly aware of it’s place in our culture. Time will tell if it lives up to everything that has come before.

As I said in class, I really like the idea of the first group using a Go Pro.  These cameras are small, and are valuable because they are specifically designed for sports and extreme activities, where every single second of recording can be valuable. Unlike any normal camera, the Go Pro allows you to capture the entirety of the activity and not just the selected or few “posed moments”.  I’m excited to see what the first group is going to come up with, whether or not their film turns out they way they expected.

After watching both documentaries, I believe the two documentaries had very different style.  I believe Miss Representation wanted to try and change women’s portrayal in the media, while Panopticon was to make people aware of the lack of privacy we have due to surveillance cameras, the Internet, and more.  Additionally, I believe that Miss Representation interviewed not only more people to try and demonstrate Newsom’s point, but also interviewed more experts, people in powerful positions, and first-hand experiencers of the problem Newsom was addressing.  In Panopticon, Vlemmix interviewed several experts, as well as everyday people.  While both documentaries were effective and made the point they wanted to,  I thought Miss Representation was more of an effective documentary.  For me, this was due to the fact that Newsom gathered more opinions and perspectives about women’s portrayal in the media, which made it more relatable to me and kept the documentary more interesting.  In addition, I believe Newsom’s documentary showed more passion and wanted to spark change, whereas Vlemmix’s documentary tried to make us more aware and sort of scare us instead of spark change.

After watching Panopticon, the facts presented in the film kind of shocked me.  While I knew Facebook, Google, and many other search engines or forms of social media can gather tons of information on all of their users, it was surprising to actually hear what kind of information the Internet can gather from individuals.  Additionally, even though a majority of the information and data received through the Internet is looked at, it is still kind of scary to know they have access to a lot of our information.

Furthermore another thing I found interesting about the film was the privacy those in the Netherlands had as compared to other countries.  In the Netherlands they practically have cameras everywhere and as shown in the beginning of the film when Vlemmix goes into the liquor store and they have a person through a computer verify his identification, showing they have minimal privacy.  However, while the Netherlands is very active on spending money on this technology to prevent crimes, not only have their crime rates gone down, but people in the Netherlands trust their government the most out of any European country, which I find surprising due to the fact that it appeared as if they had little to no privacy.  I believe this is due to the fact that the Dutch people have become used to these policies,  have trusted their government for awhile, and believe as if they have nothing to hide, which is what many people said in individual interviews.  Finally, another thing I found interesting was when these cameras, trackers, etc. were placed in Germany, the people strongly resented the new technology, while the people in the Netherlands just accept it now.

After viewing Inside Job we had a nice discussion about accountability. I really enjoyed how Ferguson showed that no one took responsibility but instead played it off as if they had no idea what had happened. It is really interesting because the “Securitization Food Chain” as the movie labeled had many people from all different sectors involved. It was almost as if everyone from Investment banks, to mortgagers, to lenders, to insurance agencies all had incentive to continue selling as they were all making money. It was more of a time of extreme greed. Because of all the moving parts, it is hard to place accountability on just a few people but it is also clear that the people interviewed had a much bigger role and knowledge as to the corruption they were involved in. It is a shame they acted so innocent. After thinking about it though, put yourself in their shoes. Obviously what they did was wrong, but I cannot imagine it being easy to take responsibility for causing a global recession that resulted in millions of lost jobs while you sat back and earned millions and millions of dollars. Obviously, taking accountability for your actions is something you learn growing up to be a gentleman or a lady. The corruption of these men was not very gentleman-like at all and therefore I believe them stepping up and taking responsibility and accountability for their actions is much easier said than done.

http://nerdist.com/stereotypes-and-comedy-finding-where-the-line-is/

It’s all about intent right? I didn’t mean to be racist when introducing my black friend as “my black friend” and because I’m not wanting to be racist its ok to TOTALLY BE RACIST. I think the problem with vines that deal with seterotypes is that today racism is much more insidious, it lives in irony, microaggresions, and the way we use language. Now that we can’t actually say racist things, they’re coming out in irony by pretending to say racist things, which perpetuates those stereotypes and essentially makes no progress in moving towards a place where we don’t have those subconscious biases. To quote Lindy West: “People in positions of power simply cannot make jokes at the expense of the powerless.” I attached some easy read articles with videos that I think are really on point. http://jezebel.com/5905291/a-complete-guide-to-hipster-racism

I thought that it was really interesting how when we watched “The House I Live In” we discussed how the information presented in the documentary could be used as incriminating evidence and the subjects in the documentary are in danger of being prosecuted. However, when we viewed “Inside Job” that wasn’t mentioned at all even when the crimes of manipulating the economy (I believe) are significantly more severe than drug use. I feel like we have a certain bias towards educated vs. non-educated people manipulating the system. All the people in Wall Street are educated and manipulate the system in their favor while putting millions of people at a disadvantage and no one is quick to anger with them and call for justice. However, it’s so easy for people to demonize crimes committed by less educated people and be enraged that they dare test the system. I think there are many factors leading into this phenomenon, (race, class, education level) but it makes it no less disturbing.

I haven’t seen a lot of documentaries but I feel like Inside Job is the first documentary in which I saw an active role of the interviewer in the documentary.The confidence shown by the interviewer to ask several logical questions to the distinguished personalities in politics and financial sector and asking clear and detailed answers on the questions that the interviewee don’t dare to talk openly, was really unique and appreciable.Watching the movie I felt the constant stammering and nervousness of the famous people( who are often seeing speaking in mediums of media), made me question if the things they are saying is actually true or not.Also the constant zoom in in interviewees faces when they stammer makes audience easily believe that these people were aware of what was going on before the recession.

I felt having Julia Gillard( France),Strauss Khan(IMF), Lee Heisng Loo(Singapore) and other international personalities made the points made by them reliable and fair whereas we questioned the reliability of the speakers from American origin as most of them showed low- confidence and were directly involved in the economic crisis.However, I believe having some more people from middle and low class group about their experience during recession and their reaction on the Wall Street Scandal would have made the documentary more appealing and convincing.

Since the beginning of the semester we have been talking about the increasing importance of media in our lives.We have discussed about movies, short films and social medias transforming our lives. I would like to relate the importance of  media during the Arab Spring when social media like Youtube, Facebook and Twitter helped accelerate democratic revolutions and influence larger number of people.In Middle East countries where mainstream media have been substantially controlled by the government, social media emerged as a tool for freedom of speech.Thousands of youths were active on facebook and twitter to raise their concerns about autocratic rule and to disseminate their feelings to the people in the region and the outside world.

Also, there was a video by a Egyptian American youth named Tamer Shaaban which went viral during 2011.The video showcases the real incidents on the streets on Cairo showcasing people’s frustrations about their autocratic government.The video was one of the most crucial pieces of media that helped frame the uprising as people led democratic movement.After watching the video many Egyptians decided to change their minds of staying in their home and take out to the streets and stand for their rights.I believe this is one of the best examples of why having  medium of media in everybody’s pockets, sets the importance of media to an unprecedented extent.

Here’s the link for the powerful video which was one of the most viral videos of 2011:

In the reading “Hollywood and Vine”, King Bach says that having ideas that go around Hollywood ,that Asians play smart people,  whites are rich ones etc- get the most number of likes and views in his videos.Also Klarity acknowledges that one of his biggest vines is ” Racist ATM” video.Some people might argue that vine is just a medium to laugh at harmless stereotypes. However, I feel these videos setting a particular stereotypes or repeating the old stereotypes may have a significant impact on the viewers.Especially, the audiences of these videos are immature teens and child, who tend to imitate the creators of vine.The massive popularity (over several million views) also show that the impact can be significant.

Portraying Asian people as smart and girls as dumb( as seen in some of the vine videos), tend to affect the mindset of teens not mature enough to differentiate what’s true and what’s not.Owing to the huge popularity and fan following of these videos, vines can be attributed as one of the most influential media in the present time.