Category Archives: blog assignment #2

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The Final Girl

In class the other day we noted that often in the sub-genre of slasher films, the girl who survives is The Good Girl” the virgin, while all the more promiscuos girls are surely going to be killed. In this clip from Scream, we are taught some of the rules to survive a horror movie.

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From the first two rules layed out in this slasher film parody, we learn sinning (by either sex, drugs, or alcohol) is what get you killed. This might support the approach that the slasher film is preaching conservative ideals, and that the killer (much like Thursday’s group discussed about Michael Myers) is restoring order amongst the chaos.

However, there are many other
explanations that offer a different perspective in explaing the virgin survives phenomenom. One thing to note is that almost always, the lead of a slasher film is a female. In fact there is a phrase coined for the final survivor of horror flicks, as The Final Girl. Therefore, the female lead needs to be explained.

One popular explanation helps explain why the Final Girl is often a virgin. In horror films in order to deepen the anxiety and terror of the film (which is the point of horror films, either that or to laugh at them but thats a different story) the main charachter has to show terror, fear, and essentially scream; which a man lead can not do (as men are never allowed to be afraid even when chased by an axe bearing lunatic). However, as this genre is more male orientended, and the lead at the end has to portray some characteristics more often associated with males, such as the bravery and aggression to use violence and weaponry, it is important for the lead to not to be too feminine. Therefore, her sexuality is mininimized and she often is made into virgin , often with a unisex name, so the male viewer can view her as a somewhat more masculated hero. That is why the more feminine characters are killed off. (This idea is somewhat derived from Carol Clover theory on the Final Girl, the term she coined).

I also found this song on youtube that is written about the Final Girl of horror flicks from 70s and 80s. Doesn’t offer much content but thought I’d share it.
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Is there such thing as a good remake?

In class we started to get on the subject of how remakes are just a cheap way to gain profit and are rarely well made films.  Well I found someone’s blog post where Vic Holtreman claims to have boiled down how to successfully remake a movie in just five steps.  I’m going to take his five points and write my own opinion about them.  I’ll paste the link below so everyone can read his reasons behind the five steps.

http://screenrant.com/top-five-rules-for-movie-remakes-vic-964/

1. Stories in the public domain that have already had multiple movie remakes done.

I agree with Vic’s first step because in a way I feel remakes of classics don’t really count as remakes.  Vic uses movies such as Dracula as an example of a classic and I feel stories like this are so well known and established, that it is very hard to mess up a remake.  What I mean is that, for example, the story of Dracula is known by many people, so in a way people know what to expect in a remake.  Kind of like how people feel when they go to Mc Donalds, they go there for food because they know what they are going to get, no matter where it is or when it is.  People going to see Dracula usually have a base knowledge of what to expect, leading to less let downs. There is the argument that people would like to see classics reinvented, but do you think that really counts as a remake?

They both suck blood... right?

2. The original is terribly dated in either setting or pacing and style.

Where many people who love older movies will totally disagree with me, I feel this is very true because when I watch some movies from the 40s and 50s I find myself a bit bored, which I feel has to do with pacing.  Maybe this is because newer generations of audiences have a different respect for movies, but then wouldn’t a remake serve good here, to retell a story for newer generations?

Too much masculinity...

3. The original is not terribly well known or beloved.

I feel this is very true and I will use the example of John Carpenter’s The Thing as an example because many people probably do not even know this is a remake of The Thing From Another World.  This proves the point that it helps to remake films that are not well known and it creates a successful remake because hell, half the public don’t even think of it as a remake.

Ain't nothing but a thang!

4. The remake does in fact bring something new while respecting the original.

I think this is interesting because here someone can use the original film to tell the story in their own way.  A good example of this is Halloween and Rob Zombie’s remake, where it essentially tells the same story without changing main plot elements, just from a different characters perspective.  One film I’m interested in seeing how this is done is the soon to be American remake of the Swedish Let The Right One In, titled Let Me In.  I feel this is going to be interesting because the Swedish movie is based off a novel that is quite lengthy and has many different elements and the American film plans to focus the movie on elements from the book that weren’t expressed in the Swedish film.

All I'm going to say is I hate Rob Zombie...

5. The original was basically pretty cheesy or tongue-in-check in tone and most folks wouldn’t care if it was remade.

I think this is very true and the perfect example that comes to mind is the remake of Wes Craven’s The Last House On The Left.  I must say I actually enjoyed the remake better than the original because it stays very true to the original story, it just takes out some of the slapstick elements of Wes Craven’s original.  Personally I felt this element did not mesh well with the rest of the original exploitation film and actually takes away from some of the shock and horror.

I liked the last house on the... right more

I feel these are actually five pretty accurate steps to create a successful remake.  Let me know if you guys agree or disagree.

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Halloween, different take

To begin with, I thought you might enjoy this video, which definitely gives a different perception of Halloween.

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I definitely experience fear and anxiety while watching Halloween. One of the most obvious techniques that the film uses to create suspense is the music, which builds up to a crescendo as the process of stalking and killing progresses. The camera movement is shaky, switching from Michael’s point of view to the victim’s, which creates a sense of disorientation, an unsettling feeling, and puts the audience in a moment-to-moment viewing position. The villain is hidden from the viewer, more often brought into awareness by the heavy breathing, which makes him appear more dangerous and evil.  Lastly, the ending does not give a resolution but leaves the viewer with a sense of imminent danger still present, which has a powerful effect. The film builds up tension continuously, pretends to conclude to a release of the anxiety (the numerous times Michael was perhaps dead), and quickly returns to a stressful state, and in the end leaves the audience with these feelings. Halloween makes numerous references to Hitchcock’s Psycho throughout the film: the stabbing with the knife, falling down the stairs, using theme music to alert the audience to approaching danger, as well as other stylistic techniques. I contemplate that perhaps most importantly both films share simplicity in eliciting fear: a near lack of gore, blood, and graphic violence. By showing less, the films give the audience more – a very emotionally disturbing experience.

Of course, one of the most prominent themes in Halloween is sexual promiscuity and the price of this “sin.” It all begins with Michael witnessing an illicit sex act, which some might argue is what turns him from an innocent boy to the monster he is. This particular loss of innocence is portrayed as the root of the evil in the film. The only girl who survives Michael’s killing spree is the only virgin, while the sexually experienced girls are killed. In addition, they are open about their sexuality, the murder follows the sexual act, the easiness with which this “sin” is lived out intensifies the theme of the film. It is only the women who are pursued for being sexually active; the one male who is killed dies because he was just there. The film clearly speaks to the society’s anxiety of the change in women’s attitudes and roles, however, it is only women who are judged for their sexual behavior. This difference in treatment has persisted over the years and is unlikely to change as long as we continue to place such high value on gender differences, which are not as great in quality or quantity as they are perceived to be.

Here is another different view of the film.

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Inside the mind of a murderer…

Having watched both Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween, one can’t help but wonder what drives serial killers to commit such atrocious crimes. I usually take the Freudian approach and search for the answer in their troubled childhood. This person had to somehow be brought up differently to lead him or her to not have the same emotions as us, same sense of morality.

Pedro Alonso López is considered to be one of the most infamous murderers of all time. He is said to have killed over 300 victims. I learned that his mother, a prostitute with 13 children, caught him fondling his younger sister when he was eight years old. She threw him out of the house. He was then picked up by a pedophile, taken to a deserted house and repeatedly sodomized. Later, he was taken in by an American family and enrolled in a school for orphans. He allegedly ran away, either with a teacher from his school, or because he was molested by a teacher. Furthermore, at 18, he was gang-raped in prison. There’s no justification for what he did, but this certainly gives us some insight into how tragic events shaped his character.

However, what incites more fear is facing a serial killer that is seemingly normal but leads an alternative life full of murder and cruelty. One that gives no explanation for his actions, no warning signs. One such famous murder was Richard Kuklinski –  “the Iceman”.  He was an ordinary man. He had a job, a wife, children, and as we later find out a hobby! In the following interview with him, we can see how he got his nickname, having had no feelings as he committed the crimes.

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A couple of weeks ago I was browsing the internet in search of some scenery pictures of the city I am from in Ukraine. I kept coming across references to the “Dnepropetrovsk maniacs”. I thought they are some local band or maybe a motorcicle gang. I then found out that it was a group of guys who murdered for fun. They started with stray dogs and later moved on to humans. They tortured and then killed their victims and recorded it all on camera to keep as memories. What’s more is that they would attend their victims’ funerals and desecrate their gravesides. I was disgusted to find out that these teenagers came from fairly wealthy families and simply took this up as a hobby. I searched for answers; I tried to blame their parents. In interviews, they denied that their children could commit such things, claiming that they were framed by the police. But there are endless pictures and videos showing them committing the crimes and enjoying them! Here is some news footage.

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A video of one of the murders made it onto the internet. Movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween dont scare me much, so I began to watch the movie out of curiosity. You can easily find the video online and www.ohlookaforum.com has a whole lot of information on it. But I urge you not to. I am not exxagerating when I saw that it took me days to recover from it, and the images linger in my mind to this day. The three murderers attacked a middle aged ma, a recent cancer survivor. They used a hammer and a screwdriver to slowly kill him, but what made the video most tragic, is that the poor man wouldn’t die for the longest time, suffering slowly. Some say this is the most gruesome video available online and anybody who dares to watch it, please respond with some feedback. Perhaps it was the raw realism of the footage, perhaps its because it occured in my own city, but I swear that I have never been more horrified in my life…

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Jesus Camp

After reading Stephen’s post, I was inspired to write about how children in the US are brainwashed. I had recently watched a documentary called Jesus Camp and I thought it was an excellent example of the indoctrination of children. It reminded me of The Manchurian Candidate and Melley article (Stephen covered most of the points so I won’t spit them back out).

The movie is basically about an evangelical Christian summer camp. Like the video below says, these children are training to become preachers or “warriors for Jesus.” As you can see, all the attendees of this camp are children.  Children are most susceptible to new beliefs and ideas. The pastor in this documentary also compares her teachings to Islamic schools that prepare their children for jihad.

Although this is not as extreme as the topic Stephen posted about, there are obvious signs of brainwashing. In the trailer (below), one of the boys was talking about how he was saved at the age of 5 because he wanted more out of life (:40 mark). When I was 5, I barely knew what life was; I went to school and had friends and family; that was pretty much it. I wasn’t thinking about what life had in store for me or if there was something more to life.

This next clip about Harry Potter pretty much speaks for itself.

I feel that it’s sort of over the top. Both the camp and the parents of these children are just pumping certain information into them and the children will obviously believe it all.  They home-school their children so they won’t be influenced by information that might be contrary to their beliefs and they even pray to a Christian flag, for instance.

So I was just wondering how you guys feel about this now that you’ve seen faith-based brainwashing in two different cultures.

Also, I recommend you watch it if you get the chance!

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Exorcism

After watching The Exorcist and today’s discussion I thought it might be appropriate to post a video I found on youtube about real life exorcisms that take place.

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I was a little freaked out when I first watched the clip and did not realize that exorcisms were really still performed these days.  I think that the freakyness and curiosity that is associated with exorcisms and demonic possessions in general is one of the reason that The Exorcist is so popular to begin with.  We touched upon it in class a little bit today but I just wanted to bring up the reasons why a person would find a movie scary.  There are actually a variety of reasons but one of the main ones for me is that I find some kind of personal connection to the film or the situation/setting is realistic enough for me to suspend my disbelief and really allow myself to become scared.  Granted, I did not find this film to be one of the scariest I’ve seen.  The most it did was freak me out at some parts, mostly the possession parts but I can see why when it came out it was thought of as something completely new and terrifying and why this film has continued to remain popular so many years after its release.

I feel that exorcism is general is something that is a very touchy topic for people because of its place in religion.  This is not something that is thought of as so mythological or fake such as zombies or monsters, but is a real world threat and I feel that is what is so scary about a film like The Exorcist.  The clip I posted above shows a woman who believes herself to be possessed, undergoing exorcism to try and remove the demon.  It’s almost crazy to watch this woman as they try to exorcise the demon from her.  It seems a little ridiculous to someone like myself, who doesn’t really believe in the idea of the devil.  But for so many people, this exists as part of their belief systems and I can see why a movie about demonic possession would strike many people as very frightening.  I am still uneasy with the idea and may have been more scared by the film had the cinematography and production been a little bit scary, because I think just the idea of it is enough to cause anxiety.

In case anyone is interested there are more clips up on youtube about real-life exorcisms taking place.

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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Disgustingly Fun

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was an attack of the senses. Though it was a low-budget film, with an unspectacular plot and flat characters, TCM was a great experience.

What I love most about the movie was how evocative it was without really showing that much. There wasn’t a whole lot of blood, but it was the suggestion of killing that made it scary for viewers. The fluttering of the guy’s body when he is knocked in the head. Pam hanging on the meat hook. Leatherface chasing Sally through the woods and wielding his chainsaw madly. The viewer is immersed in a disturbing killing spree, where the sensation of fear and anxiety is created more by the imagination than anything else.

For me, the most frightening scenes were when Sally was being chased. I could feel my adrenaline pumping as her predator neared her and my heart probably skipped a beat every time Leatherface’s chainsaw narrowly missed her. It was as if the withholding of death was even worse than death itself. When the other characters were killed, it was quick and relatively painless for me, but watching Sally being tortured, chased and bludgeoned in the head was agonizing. I wanted her to escape, but a small part of me was hoping they would listen to the cook and get it over with.

Another important part in creating the atmosphere for the movie was the use of physically disgusting elements. The gallery below contains some disgusting scenes that I could find on the internet. Some of what’s missing is the grandfather, especially the scene where he sucks on Sally’s finger and the room where Sally finds herself surrounded by bones and feathers and ghastly remains. What was scary was not only the senseless murders, but imagining coming in contact with some of those disgusting things.

I also wanted to add part of a documentary on the making of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In this particular video, they discuss some of the disgusting elements of the movie.

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Animated Soviet Propaganda

I would like to turn back a little and continue on the topic of cold war and mass propaganda, this time examining it from the point of view of Russia. It’s pretty obvious that if America had propaganda, where communists seemed evil and manipulative, Soviets must have also used mass media to control their population. I found a great documentary called “Soviet Animated Propaganda” , which depicts a history of all the mind controlling cartoons made by Soyuzmultfilm Studios from 1924 to 1984. Thirteen parts of it are available on youtube.  Here is part one to start with.

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I thought it would be interesting to know how Soviets portrayed Americans in the cold war period. During WWII, media was created to align people against fascism, and during cold war American capitalism took its place. It seems that Soviets stayed on top of their game and criticized every single aspect of American life – the money, racial divisions, war strategies and so on. As Igor Kokarev says in the film, people were persuaded to believe, which they did, that they live in the best country of the world, and that the rest of the world with their money and ideologies is absolutely evil: outsiders are the enemy. As Kokarev notes such strong propaganda was so successful, because Soviet people were artificially isolated from the rest of the world, and lived almost like a “cult”. Children from early years were taught how to view the other countries and how to react to certain situations. All children and adults were given the same mindset, the same resources of knowledge, therefore leaving all on the same page. The government created thousands of propaganda posters, which were hanged on every wall in every institution – from schools, busses, cafeterias to private homes. Those posters “told citizens what to do and how to think and who to blame”. All media was strongly supervised and corrected “very stubbornly” up to the last days of the Soviet Union.

I urge you to watch this documentary even though its long, if you are at all interested in media as a brainwashing device. I found it very interesting, since it goes through most of the propaganda cartoons ever created by USSR. After watching this, I got a strong sense that the Hollywood blacklisting was minor, compared to this large degree control in Soviet Union, where nothing could leak out.

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Satire during the MADness of the Cold War

Dr. Strangelove is one of the best satires on the paranoia of the Cold War. During a time of great fear and panic, Dr. Strangelove served to offer a more humorous approach towards the threat of mutually assured destruction. This greatly contrasted with other movies, such as the short film “Duck and Cover”, which only seemed to add to America’s fear of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. There is a snowball effect of panic, where out of the fear of the spread of Communism, there is the rise of the military industrial complex. Such a response only triggers a similar reaction by the Soviet Union, thereby adding to the fragility of foreign relations. Dr. Strangelove understands these fears, and is able to effectively turn them into a form of entertainment, during a time when many only seemed to add to the anxiety.

But Dr. Strangelove was by no means the only satirical take on the Cold War. Tom Lehrer, a famous American satirist and songwriter during the time of the Cold War, recorded “So long, Mom” in 1967, which remarked on the same fear of mutually assured destruction. The youtube video of the song is embedded here for your entertainment. Strangely, I found it rather difficult to find many musical satires of the Cold War during the 50s and 60s. There seems to be a trend, where during times of crisis, there are spikes in the entertainment industry. During the Great Depression, Vaudeville adjusted itself according to the economic times, becoming an excellent means of escape for those in great hardship. In recent years, the entertainment industry has performed exceedingly well, correlating with the exceedingly poor performance of the economy.  As a result of this correlation between economic and political fears with the performance of the entertainment industry, it would only make sense for artists to cater to this shifted environment. Additionally, Tom Lehrer’s satire offers a unique perspective on the time period, where he produces songs during the time period, as opposed to in retrospect. It is one thing to comment on the irrational fear of the constant threat of nuclear war with foresight, but it is entirely different to create a piece which acts almost as political commentary. In addition, Tom Lehrer also produced the song “We Will All Go Together When We Go”, another piece on the threat of mutually assured destruction.

Weird Al Yankovich’s “Christmas at Ground Zero” is an example of entertainment that focuses on the threat of nuclear winter. During the time of its production, the Cold War was coming to a close, and after existing for many decades, the threat of nuclear war seemed increasingly distant. What I found particularly interesting in the music video is that many of the scenes were taken from the same “Duck and Cover” video that we had watched in class. It’s also amusing to see the contrast between the fear of total destruction by nuclear winter and the joy of the holiday season.

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Check Your Watch!

After spending the past couple of lessons on movies of the pinnacle of the era of Nuclear Threat I feel that it would be interesting to delve more into the concept of the Doomsday Clock. The Doomsday Clock is so interesting because it takes such a complicated scenario dependent on so many variables, the end of the world, and transforms it into something we glance at on a daily basis, a watch. The Doomsday Clock is a metaphorical clock that is monitored by the heads of the The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago that depicts of close we are to ‘midnight’ or global disaster. It was created at the beginning of the Cold War in 1947 and was first set at seven minutes to midnight. When the Soviet Union began testing nuclear bombs in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s the clock inched closer and closer to midnight. The closest it’s ever gotten was 2 minutes to midnight in 1953 and the farthest it’s gotten was 17 minutes away in 1991 when the United States and Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. This current year in 2010, the clock was moved back from 5 minutes to midnight to 6. While this allegorical clock is not in the best position it’s ever been in the fact that it’s moving back can give us all a brief reprieve and breath. For more in-depth looks and good articles on the current state of the world in regards to nuclear weapons and ideas here is the main website of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: http://www.thebulletin.org/

Electric Yellow Watchmen Doomsday Clock

I would also like to highlight the use of the Doomsday Clock in modern culture, in particular in the wonderful graphic-novel ‘Watchmen’ by Alan Moore. The movement of the Doomsday Clock can be seen in the movie but is particularly important and symbolic in the actual graphic novel, which I personally feel is better than the film. In the graphic novel, which deals a lot of ethical issues and the destruction of the world, each chapter is denoted with a picture of the Doomsday Clock getting closer and closer to midnight and finally, fittingly in Chapter XII the clock does indeed strike ’12’. This shows that the Doomsday Clock was not a mere fade of the hype of the Cold-War era but a lasting barometer of where we stand as a planet with it’s share of feuds.

Who Watches the Watchmen?

Also: While watching ‘The Day After’ I would just like to emphasize how I feel that I believe it really struck a chord with me with how horrible all of this nuclear arms war really is and how terrible it could be. I started feeling this way during the scene when the bomb detonates in the city and there’s a good ten minutes of explosions and destruction that is deeply disturbing. When I was witnessing this I shuddered at the thought of something like this ever happening again and the horror that must have been experienced in Japan after the Atomic Bomb drops. The Atomic Bomb was chosen in World War II as the lesser of two evils, the other being a complete mainland invasion of Japan, which would have been catastrophic with death-toll estimates being predicted in the millions. After World War II I honestly have no idea why any country would want a nuclear bomb after the destruction that was seen. Here’s a documentary I found on YouTube about the bombing on Japan. Very interesting. It’s incomplete but unique nonetheless:

Looking at footage on YouTube the best is looking at all of the out of control political rants on the comment boards. I dare not comment but I do chuckle out loud reading some of the absurd things written. Someone even talked about in a really positive light the movie ‘Apocalypse 2024’, which I would guess to be similar to ‘The Day After’. And here is also some nuclear arm testing footage from the History Channel. Powerful stuff figuratively and literally:

Nuclear Tests

I guess it could be a child-like complexity of wanting to have something that someone else has or the insecurity of being at a military disadvantage but after fighting for world peace for years it is still a conundrum to me why countries would even want to bomb another one in peace-time. The world works in complex ways but these movies try to simplify them.

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The TUBE: Can you handle the truth?

After looking at the blog assignment, a YouTube video popped into my head. It was over a year ago that my friend sent me this clip from the 1976 satirical movie “Network.” I didn’t think too much about it then, besides finding it ironic that the clip showed a man ranting against the “Tube” while being a YouTube clip. To provide you a bit of background, the movie is about tv anchorman Howard Beale, played by Peter Finch and how he is shaken by his network for his poor ratings. He goes mad while live on camera and his ratings skyrocket. The network then gives Beale his own show where he rants and raves. In this particular segment, he speaks about his disillusionment with the media and how the television, man’s miracle invention, is filled with propaganda and lies that the public feed into without knowing any better.

Barely three minutes long, this clip touches heavily upon the topics of fear, anxiety, and paranoia that our class is based on in relation to the notion of “truth”. I have below the part of his impassioned speech that really hit home for me:

“We deal in illusions, man! None of it is true […] We’re all you know! You’re beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here! You’re beginning to think that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you– You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even THINK like the tube! This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God’s name you people are the real thing, we are the illusion!”

The words were so powerful, especially in the frenzied way Finch plays his character. With each angry word, I was filled with anxiety. We take what we see on television and other digital media, as the unspoken truth. We learn our values from television, and we just hope that we’re being taught the right things. Isn’t it worrisome that what we see impacts how we think, and if we just watched or heard something else, maybe we wouldn’t think/act a certain way?

I know this kind of diatribe against the media is nothing new. No one can trust the media because it is biased, no matter which way you cut it. From Fox to CNN, all major news channels have their own motives for getting out certain stories while minimizing others. Then again, if we choose to never watch television or connect to the world through the media, does that mean that we’re too paranoid and choose to be ignorant of the world?

In relation to the movies we’ve watched, I thought the idea of truth, how we consciously (or subconsciously) try to hide from it, and how it can destroy the best and worst of us is evident in movies like in Touch of Evil and Memento. Quinlan in Touch of Evil hides the truth and frames people for committing crimes. Yet it catches up with him and he dies for what he’s done. Then in Memento, Leonard is forever on a quest to find the truth behind his wife’s murder, yet he’s actually sabotaging his own pursuits to fulfill his own needs. Just as striking was the fact that in this YouTube clip, Beale was a man denouncing the media while he himself is a player in the arena. It was insane that right as he was on the verge of finishing his speech telling people to turn the television off in the middle of his sentence, that he should faint in the middle of his sentence!

I don’t know whether he was staged to faint, but it’s still nevertheless an eerie omen–as though the truth is too much for one man to bear alone.

Also, you can find a longer version of the movie clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qfqZ1ZIx_U&feature=related

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Those “Bull”headed Americans…

After the presentation on Thursday, I was inspired to ask my Ukrainian born mother if she too remembered encountering any pro-communist, anti-American cartoons while she was growing up. She seemed a little dazed by the question, as if she had never even considered before that there were such cartoons. Of course I forgot the name of the cartoon we watched in class and therefore had no hard evidence to present to her. However, I continued to press on. Did she really not remember any propaganda filled cartoons filled with innocent looking, communist dancing/singing happy go lucky creatures facing some horrible, gun blasting, cruel American soldier looking monsters? She affirmed that she did not.
Three possibilities occurred to me. A: My mother really never watched such cartoons. Considering that TV time was limited and my mother was a scholastic over achiever, this is definitely possible. B: My mother has Americanized herself to a point that she actually has forgotten certain memorable animated features of her youth – also possible. Or, C: Russian filmmakers/cartoonists were exceptionally gifted at hiding their true intentions and thus able to make the common public believe that they were in fact watching an innocent cartoon and not partaking in a political ploy to control the masses. For the benefit of this blog entry, I decided to go with C. A & B really don’t leave much to talk about.
Naturally, even my mother had to agree that there was strong political backlash against America during the Cold War years. There were military parades throughout the Soviet Union, sending a message out to the world of “Don’t mess. We got guns.” Stalin would regularly entertain passionate monologues spurring anti-American sentiments on the radio. Americans were usually perceived as ungrateful, uneducated, and ignorant. However, all this did not surprise me. I wanted the real dirty stuff – the cartoons!
In my quest for animated truth, I stumbled upon possibly the most blatantly anti-American media item I have ever encountered.

So for those of you who will not watch the full 10 minute cartoon, though I STRONGLY suggest you do since it’s really actually funny, this animated feature tells a most remarkable tale. The story itself is based on a poem by Sergei Mihalkov, a Russian author of children’s literature. Basically, an old rich American woman dies. Her intense greediness and impracticalness leads her to leave a million dollars to her bulldog. (Leona Helmsley anyone?!!!) This dog essentially buys his way into power and becomes a member of Congress. The moral of the story is that in America money can buy everything and government officials don’t require a very high intelligence.
So after my initial crack up at the cartoon, I began to ponder if people took this stuff seriously. Ok, sometimes I too feel certain Congressmen aren’t the brightest of people. After all, my favorite quote is Mark Twain’s “Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” But deep down I have respect for the system. However, Russians during the cold war era probably did not. Thus, cartoons such as this one must have left them with a very odd impression of Americans. While back home, we were thinking communists were anti-family, anti-business, etc…, they were thinking we were rich, lazy, and mentally handicapped. We thought we were fighting dangerous villains and they thought they were arguing with developmentally challenged Westerners. No wonder nobody won!

P.S. Before I end off, I would like to let you all know that I found the cartoon we watched in class and showed it to my mother. She had in fact never watched it. Moreover, the dark people we thought were Americans she actually identified as Germans. America was depicted in one scene but very briefly.

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Anti-Communist Propaganda and Anti-Anti-Communist Comedy

When I was young I loved cartoons of all kinds, ranging from Tom and Jerry to Popeye The Sailor Man to Dragonball Z. Through this simple, animated medium I saw continual rivalry, heroism and the power of spinach. A well-made series broke down larger, more complicated concepts in a way a child could understand and did so in an exciting and captivating manner. This being said, it would make sense for any group wishing to promote an agenda to use cartoons to communicate a message to a wide demographic. In the following cartoon, Dr. Utopia’s wonderful formula promises to cure all the ails of the America population.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/KkXTd9v56LQ" width="600" height="400" wmode="transparent" /]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkXTd9v56LQ

For the farmer it promised a great yield and favorable weather, for the manager massive profit and no strikes, for the politician government control and the ability to choose your salary, and for the worker higher wages and security. All each of these individuals had to do was sign on the dotted line and they would receive their bottle of ISM free of charge. The only person who chooses to question the contract is John Q Public. He discovers that the contract actually offers the signer’s freedom and that of future generations in exchange for ISM. When he tells the others to sample the product, they imagine a world of slave labor in which the government determines all and they have no power to retaliate. Ultimately, Dr. Utopia is run into the distance by the other characters as they hurl ISM bottles at him.

Through the oversimplification of both positions, the cartoon exalts American freedom and government while demonizing the ideals of communism. This is a feature of many of the films of the Cold War era we have read about and seen in class presentations. Furthermore, it continues to be a feature of the modern day media, especially in times of questionable governmental action. It is easy to unite against abstract forces that seem to be the root of all-evil, no matter which ISM they are. The media develops blanket terms that threaten our way of life and anyone who does not unite against the forces is deemed un-American. It is a divisive strategy that, on the surface, serves to give credibility to the actions of any group, especially the government. Recently a friend of mine directed me to an article I found most disturbing.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1253

Simply put, it states that the Texas Board of Education is debating legislation that will alter textbooks in a radically conservative way. Among the proposed changes are decreased emphasis on the influence of the Latino population and the addition of country music as an important cultural influence (hip-hop is to be dropped from the list). More importantly, Texas sets standards for approximately eighty percent of the nation’s textbook market. Potentially this could alter the way children learn, inundating them with false and biased concepts about the nation’s history. In middle school we all learned about the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. We learned about his three ships and the first Thanksgiving. However, many of us did not learn about his massacre of the Native Americans rivaling that of any conquistador. Early education system tends to have a conservative slant, almost denying the atrocities the United States has committed in its history. It is yet another method to generate blind patriotism in the nation’s citizenry. It is only as I have developed a more cynical, yet pragmatic, view of the world that I have truly realized the half the media sounds like this underneath all the jargon and propaganda.

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Communism and Homosexuality

While viewing the clip shown in class this week dealing with how to spot a communist I was reminded of a family guy clip that I had seen before. This Family Guy clip is very similar to the one shown in class but substitutes communism for homosexuality, showing the viewer how to spot a gay. Knowing that Family Guy spoofs usually have some relevance to real life events I decided to do some research on this and found out that there was a Lavender Scare occurring at the same time as the Red Scare, both being effects of the Cold war. The Lavender Scare refers to the persecution of homosexuals in the 1950’s, and gained its popularity through the association of homosexuality with communism. Around this time homosexuality was seen as a mental illness and because they had this “mental illness” gays and lesbians were seen as being susceptible to blackmail. McCarthy, who was very prominent in the Red Scare was also prominent in the Lavender scare. He and many others believed that because of their susceptibility to black mail homosexuals would be easy prey for communists and those in the federal government would be forced to give them secret information on the U.S. government. Just as with the Red Scare, the Lavender scare resulted in various accusations, investigations, and firings within the Federal government. Many Americans terrified of communism were easily convinced to back the Lavender scare, and some even began to view homosexuals as a bigger threat to national security then communists themselves. Today; however, many people claim that there were other reasons as to why the Lavender Scare was started other then Communism. One being that the number of Homosexuals in America was on a rise and Lavender Scare was used to put an end to this and preserve Americas masculinity. Others believe it was used by the republican party as a way to take down Harry S. Trumans administration by exposing it as not only communist but homosexual. Like the last post on pornography this shows another example of politicians taking advantage of peoples fearss to push their agendas. I had previously not heard of the lavander scare and i think this Family guy clip was a great way of bringing attention this event which people do not tend to talk about.
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Pornography Will Make You a Communist!

All this talk about the fear of Communism during the Cold War period has made me very curious about how this fear really influenced society. While browsing around archive.org I came across a video from 1964 called “Perversion for Profit.” The video, in total, is about a half an hour long, and addresses pornography in American culture as something that is weakening society in the fight against Communism. I won’t delve into debating the grandiose claims made in the short film about how various publications were transforming America’s youth into “homosexuals, lesbians, sadists, masochists, and other sex deviants” because I fear that may just turn into a long-winded rant. I would, however, like to examine the true intention behind this film, and also how paranoia and propaganda can influence an entire culture’s perspective. It seems to me certain periods of heightened social stress can give radical groups a perfect window of opportunity.

I think it can be argued that groups who are against certain ideals, ways of life, and “types” of people take advantage of social distress. If a society is constantly bombarded with messages warning them that the life they know could be gone in an instant, they are far more susceptible to believe almost anything they hear. During this time period in particular, I think people were less critical and therefore less likely to consider the real intention behind the images and ideas that were being fed to them. During the Cold War period the media was able to propagandize most of what Americans were seeing, and, in turn, mold the public exactly how they wanted. I thought it was really interesting that this video used images so heavily, and even quoted a passage from one of the risqué “pocket books.” Displaying these censored images, in my opinion, seems like it would only pique the interest of viewers unfamiliar with the world of pornography.

Much of this video is connected to the societal taboo that sex holds. Sex outside of marriage is frowned upon, and anyone who even looks at any of these materials, according to this film, will become forever perverse and unnatural. This sends a very clear message that sex is not to be enjoyed or experimented with, but rather is serves the purpose of procreation as it is spelled out in the proper “Judeo-Christian tradition” mentioned in the clip. We have discussed how sex has always created fear and anxiety within society, and it is interesting to see that people can be so uncomfortable with and afraid of sexuality that they will go to such lengths as to create a half an hour of film filled with statistics and questionably credible claims about its dangers.

I think I found it most interesting that the alleged purpose of this film is to discuss how “moral decay” is weakening the American public to the threat of Communism, but this concept is only mentioned a few times. Overall, the film seems to be targeting homosexuals and openly sexual people. Near the end of the film the narrator urges the public to keep their standards high and reform the corruption in society. It also sort of advertises the interest group, and suggests that viewers should start groups in their neighborhoods. At this point, it becomes far more evident that the film is not so much about the threat of Communism as it is a tool to spread the ideals of the group producing it.

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Brainwashing Children

After watching The Manchurian Candidate and reading Timothy Melly’s “Brainwashed! Conspiracy Theory and Ideology in the Postwar United States” I began contemplating the issue of brainwashing in our society. The idea of brainwashing was introduced to the United States during The Korean War, but was certainly not confined to that era. In fact brainwashing is still a huge part of American culture, especially commercial advertising. Although we all are victims of brainwashing through advertisements, children are undoubtedly one of the biggest targets. This is mostly because children are highly impressionable and easily manipulated. 

 The video, “The Corporation: Advertisements Targeting Children” shows how children use nagging to get their parents to buy them various products. Companies are able to brainwash children to buy their products by showing the same commercials repeatedly during children’s programming. The more the children are exposed to the products, the more likely they will want the products and nag their parents to buy them. For instance, while watching a movie on the Disney Channel, a child may say several commercials for the Bratz Dolls or Hot Wheelz. Commercials also make their ads very colorful to appeal to children and maintain their attention. Companies also have flashy logos or catchy songs to force these young consumers to remember their products. There’s a reason why children remember Oscar Mayer bologna instead of Boar’s Head bologna. Another method that is particularly effective is associating the product with a character that children like. Children are more likely to want to eat macaroni and cheese that is in the shape of Spongebob Squarepants than regular elbow macaroni. Children might even argue that it tastes better.

 When children see these products, they fuss and throw tantrums until they get their parents to finally give in and buy the products. Then the cycle starts over again. In the video, Professor Susan Linn says, “It’s not that products themselves are bad or good. It’s the notion of manipulating children into buying the products.” There are some great products out there for kids, but if the ads are not played constantly, or are not visually appealing, the kids will not want these products.

 Brainwashing children to buy merchandise is a long way off from brainwashing men to be assassins. However, if the children do not eventually learn to be educated consumers, they could potentially become mindless zombies who are unable to think for themselves. 

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The Cold War Through Music

The Cold War lasted approximately from 1947 to 1991 and it was a period of high tension and political conflict between the USSR and the US. There was not any physical fighting, but there was conflict behind the scenes: military alliances, espionage, propaganda, the nuclear arms race, and a race for technological innovations. 

I came across this song by Sting from his debut solo album, The Dream of Blue Turtles called Russians. In it, he sings of the consequences of the Cold War and of what we could do to save the world from the escalating shows of power. 

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The lyrics are: 

In Europe and America, there’s a growing feeling of hysteria
Conditioned to respond to all the threats
In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets
Mr. Khrushchev said we will bury you
I don’t subscribe to this point of view
It’d be such an ignorant thing to do
If the Russians love their children too

How can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer’s deadly toy
There is no monopoly of common sense
On either side of the political fence
We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too

There is no historical precedent
To put the words in the mouth of the president
There’s no such thing as a winnable war
It’s a lie we don’t believe anymore
Mr. Reagan says we will protect you
I don’t subscribe to this point of view
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too

We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
What might save us me and you
Is if the Russians love their children too 

Source: http://www.lyrics007.com/Sting%20&%20Police%20Lyrics/Russians%20Lyrics.html

Please take the time to read the lyrics. Each line is really very meaningful. The song’s lyrics and Sting’s mournful voice really portray the despair of the situation. He wants the everyone to get along to ensure that a future will exist for generations to come.  The last four lines are really poignant. Sting says, we are all human beings; you and I are made of one and the same. Why can’t we just get along and live in peace and harmony?

I think Sting’s debut of this song was very taboo, but I applaud him for being courageous enough to come out with this radical song. People were very frightened by the prospect of another World War and there was a lot of hatred towards foreigners. They were anti-Russian, anti-Communist, and anti-foreigner. Sting tries to soothe people by singing about the innocence of sons and daughters, trying to convince them to unite peacefully for their sake. 

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Obamaism- taking away our freedoms

After Thursday’s class discussion, I got thinking about socialism and Obama.  Being politically conservative myself (dare I publish that?), I heard all the talk about Obama being a socialist and turning this country into a Communist state.  I won’t say that there is zero truth in that, but I do recognize it as typical conservative anti-Obama propaganda (aka Obama trash talk).

I decided to do a couple of Google searches on “Obama” and “socialist”, expecting quite a number of wacky websites to pop up…which it did.  On one of them ( http://obamaism.blogspot.com/ if you’re interested) I found a couple of videos which eventually led me to this:

Interestingly, this video was not made for the McCain campaign.  It was made before anyone even knew who Obama was…in fact, before he was even born.  It was made in 1948 by Harding College, a conservative Christian college in Arkansas.  In 1948, they saw the spreading Communism as a threat to the “American way” and the values we share.  They responded by creating this captivating cartoon to convince the American people to think critically about the way of life they have now and how it can change for the worse with the introduction of Communism.

(As an interesting sidenote, one of the main proofs they use as an American capitalistic success is the thriving automobile industry in the US that has created many jobs and boosted the economy at large.  60 years later, the US government had to save the ailing industry and until today it’s seen as a main drag on the economy.)

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eww blood….i mean yayyyy blood!!!!

As we discussed in class many video games reflect the zombie movies of our time. But a videogame which has done the opposite is the Resident Evil franchise. This videogame has inspired movies to be produced reflecting the gameplay. Resident Evil started off in 1996 on the sony playstation, and was noted as being one of the most terrifying games of its time. the plot consisted of a t-virus spreading around Racoon City, turning the living into walking zombies that devoured living humans around them. This game has evolved throughout time, and currently there are 5 parts to the game.The last installment takes place in Kijuju,Africa and deals with the same virus but it has been changed and the zombies are now manjini whose fury and craze causes them to savagely kill uninfected humans. The games have not only changed in their location but also in the way fear is invoked in those who play the game. Even just by the trailers we are able to see how far the game installments have come. The first resident evil game i played was resident evil 2 on the n64 and from then i have been hooked on the games. Here i have two trailers, one for resident evil 2 and the other for resident evil 5.[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/ey6eCImoHJk" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /][kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/UX89tmpiuDA" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

As we see in these trailers although both videogames deal with lots of blood and the idea of zombies taking over cities, the trailer for resident evil 5 is much more advanced then the one for resident evil 2. aside from technological advances i think the underlying factor as to why the resident evil crew hasnt kept the same type of zombies and the same simple storyline is because of the fact that as the years pass the game must age along with those playing the games. i know that as a 8 yr old kid resident evil 2 terrified me and i could not play it alone in the dark as the trailer suggests, but now when i play it i get annoyed as to how slow the zombies are in resident evil 2 and how my weapons are so limited. but as we see in resident evil 5 the game is no longer a game in the same sense it almost become a movie in which you feel you control the characters fate. the characters no longer hold static personalitites, instead they hold dynamic ones which reflect the people we meet in our everyday lives. also we see how the speed and intelligence of the enemies has changed drastically. in resident evil 5 the manjini run at about the same speed as a healthy uninfected human and hold weapons which they can aim and use very effectively, making them that much more menicing. but also in comparison the weapons the good guys can use in resident evil 5 are much more advanced and varied .the first resident evil installments i feel used our childlike imagination to play on our fears, alot of the scenes of death although they contain much blood do not show actually stabbing or impalement of the good guys, but in resident evil 5 we see how this has changed drastically leaving us with little to imagine, and although i feel imagination is a great thing i really do enjoy actually seeing how the deaths take place because it gives me this front seat view to something i will hopefully never see in real life, yet i still feel it being real because of how advanced the cinematographic scenery is and how lifelike the characters look and act. In these two videos we see the difference in death scenes of resident evil 2 and resident evil 5.
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As you can see for yourselves the deaths in resident evil 2 are almost comical compared to the gruesome ones we can see in resident evil 5. although both use blood as a fear inducer, the deaths in resident evil 5 are far more advanced. i think this can clearly be seen in movies we look at today compared to those shown 10 or even 5 years back. in class we discussed night of the living dead, and although the lighting of the movie does tend to scare many people, to me, it can not compare to zombie movies of our time such as dawn of the dead(2004), a scene which is very similar to that of night of the living dead which is present in dawn of the dead is that of a small girl killing a grown man. this can be seen in both movies but to me the second movie does it so much better and actually provokes fear in me.i think the idea of movies changing along with their viewers is also prevalent in this case. not only do technological advances help to achieve this but the more relevant issue of viruses causing the spread of this transforming infection hits closer to home for us then would the idea of a nuclear leak causing zombie mayhem.the ideas in movies are much like those in video games especially when it comes to zombies, the more blood and the more the director can show without going over the top the better. and as time has passed its easier to make a zombie death look more realistic and that much more pleasurable (weird i know) for those of us who love zombie movies/videogames.it is safe to say that zombie videogames have changed from having slow moving, polygonal characters, into being almost life like actors and the games are becoming more movie like (hence the extremely long trailer for resident evil 5 and the really short one for resident evil 2). and as for movies we see how the zombies themselves can now run at the same(if not faster)pace as that of a normal human, and they are not as easily pushed away as in earlier movies. for many people these movie ad video-games can be too much because of how realistic they are, as for me i cant wait to play resident evil 6 which is in talks to be release in 2017,,,lets cross our fingers that it is released much sooner then that.

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John Hinckley and “Taxi Driver”

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hinckley/taxidriver.htm

After doing some research on “Taxi Driver,” I stumbled upon a website about the assassination attempt on former President Ronald Reagan. Apparently he was shot by a man named John Hinckley Jr., who was obsessed with the movie and Robert DeNiro’s character, Travis Bickle. According to the article on the website, Hinckley imitated many aspects of Travis’ life. He wore the same outfits that Travis wore in the movie, wrote letters to his parents about his imaginary girlfriend, was obsessed with Jodie Foster, and of course, he tried to assassinate Reagan. Another point to note was that both Travis and Hinckley were both loners and outsiders within their society. It amazes me how the level of insanity consumed Hinckley’s life and how it paralleled with Travis’ character.

Not only did Hinckley imitate Travis’ looks but he also imitated Travis’ psychotic state of mind. According to the article, Hinckley believed that he could escape his loneliness and be rewarded for his actions by killing others, just as Travis had done when he killed Sport, the hotel manager, and the pimp. When looking at Hinckley’s attempted assassination on Reagan and the ruthless murders that Travis committed, we see that there was no justifiable reason for killing the victims of these crimes. The only driving force behind any of these killings was the suspects’ psychotic thinking and their false assumptions that killing these individuals would somehow cure their loneliness.

Ironically, it was determined that both Travis and Hinckley would not be severely punished for their crimes. Hinckley was acquitted because he was clearly insane while Travis was never sent to jail for murdering all of his victims. So in a literal sense, the crimes committed by Travis and Hinckley did free them in some way. It makes one reassess our legal system when murderers are free to once again roam the streets just because they plead insanity.