You can be the next Batman.

Kiss-ass has managed to become one of my favorite movies, with a somewhat ridiculous story line, I like it more so for the cinematic concepts of it. As I saw it again this past week, I saw many connections to the readings of last week regarding fanaticism. The story revolves around a teenage boy who is very much devoted to the world of comic books, then falls under the belief that he too can try and become a superhero himself. The boy then buys a costume, and goes into vigilante mode. In his first attempt, he ultimately fails and gets severely hurt. As the readings of Stacey mention that the fan will start an imitation and copying styles of the character they are trying to show tribute for, he decides to partake in the superhero world even if it’s clearly somewhat impossible because he does not have the resources to do so. Although, two supporting characters under the pseudonyms of “Big Daddy” and “ Hit girl” also disguised as superheroes manage to become the resemblance of the modern day Batmans. Their extreme fighting skills and their expensive weapons aid them in being able to have such success in their fight against the "bad guy" in the film. The struggle we see the main character go through, is that of which we have encounter in any superhero comic book. The character has a couple of struggles, yet still manages to be victorious in their “good deed”. The character goes from being a fan of comic books to actually becoming one, the transition of being a regular joe and getting obsessed with the world of super heroes leads to a complete change of lifestyle because of his fanatic beliefs.

Did I hear that correctly?

As an avid music lover, I will admit that I like to dance around to a catchy song with a good beat at a club. Although there might be some guilty pleasure which I may not be proud of regarding the music created by the singer Pitbull, I came across the song “Blanco” for the first time the other day. The chorus repeatedly sings “Acercame tu pantalon, Regalame tus Panties” which literally translates to “get close to your pants, give me your panties”. Although, I will admit that Pitbull’s lyrics are never really much on the romantic side. I was more intrigued in the content the viewer was watching while the song played. Of course we see Pitbull singing the obscured song, but we see him going around the city having careless sexual encounters with girls who literally seem to throw themselves at him. We see that his behavior although not quite romantic, he still nonetheless still manages to get the attention of countless of women this music allows him and his collaborating team of musicians to live this lifestyle of women, fame, and money. While the video plays there are segments that show the song along the collaboration movie clips from The fast and the furious in which we can clearly see that the same concepts of women as sex objects and money come into place, and which then seems like a natural state of how things work. The music of Pitbull may be degrading towards women and not much of thought goes into the writing of the lyrics; however, the fact that we hear it with a catchy beat and it seems to become a natural thing in the “party scene”. The artist then doesn’t need to show any respect to women nor come with lyrics that speak more than “let me see your panties” because there is a huge fan base under it supporting this. The music is still getting heard and followed by women who ignore the lyrics, but just choose to dance to the same music degrading them. The artist and music production company will still get profits no matter the consent of the music it self, it seems that in Pitbulls situation as long as you put a catchy beat+catchy chorus+ auto tune= massive success.

Happy Ending?

As an avid movie watcher I have come across the wonderful film of “Thelma and Louise” about a year ago and the story of friendship and women empowerment was something quite different. Today I came across the article in Yahoo regarding this film in discussion to the memorable “fly off the cliff” ending in cinematic history. According to the article by Matt McDaniel, there was an alternate ending which reminded me about the semiotic reading of films. The original ending was to have the main characters fly off their ’66 Thunderbird convertible off the cliff and have the detective Hal chase after them and gaze down the canyon then gathering the police forces around as a montage of Thelma and Louise begin to play. It is said that the ending that we all know, shows a more hopeful ending, it manages to give the audience freedom to draw out the conclusion if the women survived or managed to go into a more metaphorical bitter sweet ending. As the ending shows them hold hands, drive off the cliff and the picture freezes with the car in mid air the screen goes into a white fadeout. McDaniel, discusses that when the movie was shown to audiences they said that the white fadeout gave a different meaning rather than actually seeing the car drop down. The semiotic readings really managed to alternate depending on the simple contexts of just seeing a car drop or freeze over, which I totally agree upon as I felt that the freezing of the car in mid air managed to show the women be more triumphant in their journey.

Article: http://blog.movies.yahoo.com/blog/1399-thelma-louise-opened-20-years-ago-almost-ended-differently

"It gets better"

I came across this video earlier last week on youtube and thought that it was a great way to use the social media networks to educate others and become aware about the LGBT community and give support and awareness. The news has covered recent teen suicides because of bullying in High Schools and elementary schools because of this issue. I remember a couple years back hearing in the news about an 11 year old boy hanging himself because of constant teasing and harassing in his school because other boys would tease him and call him “gay”. It’s shocking to know that children are being affected by the ignorance of society, and how it has manage to grow to this magnitude that children feel like they should be ashamed for who they and feel like there is no way out other than ending their own lives. When I saw the clip, I thought that it was great how they managed to show different people who are proud of who they are, even if you are an 80 year old man, a celebrity, a veteran, a cop; the message to give hope to all those in the LGBT community to not feel ashamed for who they but embrace it because as said “it does get better”. It’s a great way to use social networking in creating awareness about the issue.

Because we really needed a fifth one...

During the weekend I went to go see the recently released film of Fast Five staring big time action stars such as Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson best known among the media as “The Rock”. The film has had four previous films and even though I was pretty sure of what I was going to be viewing, I still nonetheless decided to partake in the viewing of the film. As expected, the film was drenched with male gaze and dominance in the film. I found it a bit entertaining that I could pin point certain concepts such as the way the camera would linger in one of the female characters. The slow motion gaze of up and down in her body as she dropped a towel and made her way up a male character or when she makes her entrance in the film she slowly gets off the motorcycle that she arrives in and once again the camera rolls up and down. Although, targeted to a male audience of course by action packed and adrenaline pumping through 90% of the scenes the visual pleasure for men is undeniable in the film. Even though, somewhat entertaining for about two hours, my boyfriend seemed to take a far more pleasure in the film of course than myself.

Technological wizardry killed the TV star?

As I was checking my email earlier today I came upon the widget of the yahoo news which I am a devoted reader and viewer, and get my daily readings of news from there. Nonetheless the yahoo finance finally spoke to me and read that for the first time within the past two decades, there has been a decrease of television sets in U.S households. According to the site there has been multiple factors that has allowed for this occurrence to take place. The two major ones are the economic disparity that many families are faced with living in poverty and second, the immense popularity of growing up in the era of having a laptop. Young generations growing up with laptops and other devices rather than sitting in front of a TV set. The fact that poverty has played a role in how people are not able to get entertained by affording cable, new digital antennas or simply they cannot manage to have the luxury of a TV set, it puts the economic structure of the country in a very fragile place. The fact that “technological wizardry” has managed to surpass the actual TV set is amazing, but yet believable. I myself am usually glued on to my laptop about 40% of my day. I get my main doses of what the world is going through by it, although I do owe a TV set it’s hardly ever on. The world of advertisements can also be affected because it puts them to put their money on the Internet rather than viewing their product on the TV. Times in how media is being produced are sure changing, and the economy is just one factor in showing it.

article: http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/112659/tv-ownership-nytimes?mod=bb-budgeting&sec=topStories&pos=4&asset=&ccode

Flawed economy? Who cares, it's the Royal Wedding!

It seems that the entire world is going crazy for the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Not a day has gone by these past couple of weeks that I don’t hear something regarding the count down for the wedding. Alas the day will finally arrive this Friday. However, one cannot help but question, with an event with such huge media coverage will this be in benefit for the audience and economy of England? It is set that the royal wedding will of course be televised and that it will not go under any commercial interruptions. The ITV is the public serviced network of British commercial television broadcasters; therefore ITV is then forced to screen the royal wedding without any commercial breaks under rules. Which is then going to equal to 8 million pounds in lost advertisement revenue. Although, there will be some loss in the advertisement, it is rumored that the overall wedding will bring a couple of billions in revenue into England’s economy. According to the Bloomberg British site, the economy has fallen down quite significantly this year first with an increased tax and not the mention the cutting back of approximately 300,000 public sector jobs in order to aid the budget deficit (Donaldson). It may seem that the economy will ride like a roller coaster, but yet the people of England along with the million of other viewers across the world will be cheering and glued to their TV screen Friday, all for the pure essence of entertainment.

No More Lucci!

It was recent news as of last week that All My Children and One Life to Live both extremely long time running soap operas are being cancelled off the air. I always thought the stories were ridiculous, but it took decades upon decades for networks to finally cancel them. Although, I wish that this was the reason of why they are being cancelled, for poor laughable writing material. Turns out the soap opera slots are suffering because of network budget costs. It had been foreseen in past years that major soap opera star such as Susan Lucci had taken several pay cuts because of budgeting. I found this to be quite interesting upon last weeks reading of Raphael, regarding how much networks need to spend in order to get a show running. It is rumored that the other two shows replacing them are going to be some type of lifestyle shows, which the networks say that those will run a lot better within their budgets. The economic situation for networks to keep these shows running was probably inevitable, the money being saved from multitude salaries are probably going to shrink some numbers for them; which also connected to how networks would settle for anything that is cheap to make and that will bring high ratings. Therefore, understanding their approach to cancel these sagas of day time TV and create lifestyle shows.

Univision, are you kidding me?

I am a Latina woman and I am proud when I say that and I claim it. My parent’s ethnic background is something I have managed to take ownership and it has become a part of my identity. Therefore, this weekend I came across in the Spanish viewing channel of Univision the most tasteless site to the image of Latin American women. The show is called Nuestra Belleza Latina translating to Our Latina Beauty. The show is a typical beauty pageant that portrays beautiful young girls, the winner gets $250,000 cash and a host position in one of the networks shows. I myself have always thought the show was just another pretty girl parading around asking for world peace, and this week as I sat down to drink a cup of coffee in my living room and my mom was watching the show I nearly froze when I saw the week’s challenge was for the girls to conduct a pole dancing routine. This was my breaking point towards the show, not only do the girls have to parade around in swimsuits every week at the end of the show in order to get viewers to call in for their favorite, but now they are making them pole dance? According to the host of the show the girls had to portray sassiness and sex appeal; however, there could have been multiple ways in which a woman can define her sex appeal. The approach that the network tried to make towards this concept was disgraceful.

This episode was an insult to every Latina woman, and it definitely sent the wrong message to many young girls watching this show. A woman can be sexy without having to dance around in a stripper pole. I was more shocked at the networks approval of the challenge. Univision represents itself as an empowering network for the Spanish speaking community in the United States. Many of their early morning shows advocate the education of young Latinos and how we can make a difference in our country. So now that I am getting my education, am I supposed to go out and dance around a pole? The network really needs to retrace their concepts of the show, if a girl is going to represent the Latina community; she shouldn’t be put to work a pole. This is something that children in a Sunday afternoon shouldn’t be put to watch while they are seating in front of their TVs with their families. I am completely disappointed with the network, and I can only hope that the show doesn’t come around for another season.

Yes, I know Saturday is after Friday.

I am sure that anyone with an Internet connection has managed to come across the painfully poor written song by Rebecca Black entitled “Friday”. The song is a complete joke, with mindless lyrics such as “gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal” or “we, we, we so excited; we, we, we going to have a ball today” making the song not only terrible, but also completely grammatically incorrect. Also, the children in the video are 13 years old, why are they driving around in a convertible? Why are the girls dressed with skimpy dresses and why are they partying? I remember I would get dropped of at the movies by my dad and get picked up after the movie when it was over with my friends at the age of 13 on a Friday night. So I could only ask myself, who in their right mind would help this girl create this mess? Well, turns out the recording company is called Ark Music Factory. While looking over their website it pretty much leads to the understanding that the company charges these girls to help them create their music video and launch it, total amount? About $ 4, 000.

Therefore, if you have enough money to buy yourself a video they will be more than glad to take your money, throw a couple of rap lyrics done by one of the producers of the company in the mix and voilà you have yourself a video. To bad that when it got launched into youtube, everyone saw how horrible it really was and therefore it has become what it is now an Internet meme of laughs at poor production of music. The appreciation of authentic music talent seems to be deteriorating in this market where anyone with the money and resources can make their own “Friday”, the music industry has clearly come a long way down. Therefore, I leave this little piece of Stephen Colbert’s cover of ‘Friday’, which in all honesty I believe I enjoyed a bit more than the actual Rebecca Black cover.