I enjoyed all three of the assignments and they helped me discover a side of writing I forgot I had. Great class and I would recommend it to any one! The challenge is worth the outcome.

This will mainly revolve around my experiences in office work/internships and possibly

include some future endeavors, interview process etc.

I picked this role because it is the most relevant in my life right now and will be for a

lot of college grads.

 I picked office space (movie transcript) to frame my discourse around, a lot of what I

experienced already is very similar to concepts revealed in the movie.

I was laid off due to consultants then hired back. Getting laid off even at my age put me

through a variety of emotions like questioning my self-worth,

success, even though the laying off had much of nothing to do with me personally.

Now that I was hired back for the summer I notice the company

looks completely different, I have met all sorts of personalities that exist within

 Office Space.

Here are a few rough samples of some figures I would use.

Being Managed 

Bill

Yeah. If you could just go ahead and make sure you do that from now on,
that will be great. And Uh, I'll go ahead and make sure you get another
copy of that memo Mmmm, Ok?

Motivation

BRIAN
Oh. Sounds like a case of the Mondays.

Self-Worth 

TOM
They're bringing in a consultant - that's how I know. That's what this
staff meeting is all about! That's what happened at Initrode last year.
You have an interview with a consultant and they bring in efficiency
experts. You're interviewing for your own job!

 Representation

 JOANNA
That's where you know, suspenders and buttons and all sorts of stuff.
We're, uh, we're actually required to wear fifteen pieces of flair.
quite stupid actually.

There are many other concepts within the movie I will use.

To fill in gaps I may include The Office (I prefer british version  ) series

in addition to some poetry, critical philosophy and narratives.

As for the plot line….One thing I knew going into the movie was that cheesyness was inevitable because its a cartoon gone ‘real life’. As expected it was cheesy but more importantly there was an underbelly to the movie.  The filmmakers built a critique of political ideology which added a levelI never thought would exist.   There was a highly developed critique of the u.s. public’s perception of government as being a ‘foreign’ or ‘out of reach’ entity.  I won’t go into specifics for those of you that haven’t seen the movie  but keep that in mind while watching it.  During the credits there was a character answering questions which confirmed my guess at the filmmakers intentions.  I even think the actual transformers are secondary to the true meaning of the movie.

I ended up enjoying the movie and I would see it again.

Paris has turned America into a disgusting version of “Fantasy Island”

This entry was posted on 6/27/2007 12:50 PM and is filed under The Real World.

I don’t think I’ve ever been more disgusted or ashamed to be an American than I was Tuesday watching Paris Hilton leave the Los Angeles County Jail to a sea of flash bulbs as if she were some conquering hero just returned from helping save the world.

Disgusted and ashamed aren’t even strong enough words, to tell you the truth.
Sad and angry is how I really felt.

Sad because a 20-something year old millionaire heiress, who just finished a less than two-week stay in isolation at a county jail is treated with more respect than men and women who’ve been in jail for years, wrongly accused of crimes they never committed.

Angry because in Georgia right now an 18-year-old black teenager sits serving a 10 year sentence for having consensual oral sex with a white girl two years ago when they were both underage.
His sentence was just overturned a few weeks ago by Georgia’s appellate court, ruling the punishment was too harsh and didn’t fit the crime.
Nevertheless, he still sits behind bars because the prosecutor who put him there refuses to let him out, filing motion after motion to keep him in jail until he can take the case before the state’s supreme court.

The mother of the girl he had sex with says he should be let out, the public’s sentiment is the same and the appellate court has even ruled that he be freed.
All this is happening in a state that has a long and well-documented history of inequality when it comes to justice for blacks vs. whites.

Still, there’s not one paparazzi camped outside the jail where this kid is.

Probably because they were all in L.A. trying to get a picture of a spoiled little rich girl, who spent less than a month in jail because she was too stupid not to drive while already on probation for another stupid driving offense months earlier.

What does this tell you about the country we live in?

Ok … let’s go to the scorecard and weigh the two:
Black teenager still in jail for having sex although a court says he should be free vs. rich little white girl who has served less than two weeks in a county jail.

Hmmmmm. Which story seems more deserving and compelling of endless media coverage to you?

It’s really no contest. BUT it shines a rather bright light on exactly the kind of fantasy world this country embraces.

There are kids dying daily thousands of miles from here in a foreign country most all of them never thought they’d ever set foot in.
There are homeless people on the streets with not an ounce of hope for the future.
There’s countless medical issues killing people every day. And some, if not all, of those issues could be wiped out by a few strokes of a pen on legislation by the jackasses in Washington … putting the wheels of research in motion to find cures.

But you turned on any TV channel Tuesday and what did you see?
Paris Hilton and her crap-for-parents mommy and daddy, mugging for the cameras as they drove away from jail in a top-of-the-line SUV, headed to a million dollar mansion to no doubt bask in glory that their ordeal was finally over.

Disgusting.
Completely and utterly disgusting.

(Darron Patterson is an award-winning freelance journalist based in Detroit)

I enjoy the racialized twist he includes in his writing.

Baa baa black slave, have you any will?
No sir, no sir, but I wish I still!
One whip for the master, one for the sprain,
And one for the other slave who escaped via train.

Quoth the oppressed, `Nevermore.’

Art sabotage strives to be perfectly exemplary but at the same time retain an element of opacity – not propaganda but aesthetic shock – appallingly direct yet also subtly angled – action as metaphor.

Jack and Jim went up the hill to fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down and ruined his gown.
And Jim came tumbling after.
Up got Jack, and home did trot
As fast as he could put on make-up
He went to a pride march and loved to put his wig-up.

Wish we could switch up the roles
And I could be that…
Tell you I love you
But when you call I never get back
Would you ask them questions like me?…
Like where you be at?
Cause I’m out 4 in the morning
On the corna roll’n
Do’n my own thing

What if I?
Had a thing on the side?
Made ya cry?
Would the rules change up?
Or would they still apply?
If I played you like a toy?
Sometimes I wish I could act like a boy

Quoth the oppressed, `Nevermore.’

Art sabotage is the dark side of Poetic Terrorism – creation-through-destruction-but it cannot serve any Party, nor any nihilism, nor even art itself.

Itsy Bitsy Indian dancing up the spout
Down came the disease and wiped the tribe out
Out came the white man and laid down all the pain
Now Itsy Bitsy Indian will never be the same!

Quoth the oppressed, `Nevermore.’

Art sabotage seeks to damage institutions which use art to diminish consciousness & profit by delusion. This or that poet or painter cannot be condemned for lack of vision- but malign Ideas can be assaulted through the artifacts they generate.

[Note:  I'm still editing the Works Cited for the above text, I will post it here when finished]

From what I read I get the idea that the movie is very raw regarding emotion as well as graphics.  I tend to enjoy raw film over stylized (hollywoodized)  dramatic productions.  It is fascinated that Caouette chose to expose himself, his family and his past for the sake of film.  What I don’t understand yet is the queerness aspect that the review is talking about.   I could see how the film could be shot with that in mind but I’m curious if its the focus of the plot.    Maybe the queerness aspect is not obvious when viewing the film unless attention is drawn to it.  Or maybe I am completely misreading this article, either way I’m sure the movie will be fascinating.

Must we support our troops?  In okinawa, Japan our troops are raping 12yr old girls on a regular basis.  From a Japanese perspective the answer may be no.  “No I won’t support YOUR troops.”

Our military is stuck in hyper-masclinity maybe a feminized approach to international politics would be more encompassing.  Instead of perpetuating anti-gay, anti-feminine and anti-foreign ideologies in our military we should train using cultural sensitivity.  This may motivate a wide array of people to SUPPORT YOUR TROOPS.

Ultimately I decided to pick capitalism as an ideology. I make the point in my paper that it is much more pervasive than “JUST” an economic system. In fact I even suggest that it has co-opted nearly all other ideologies. If you looked at all the collections there is only one common connection, capitalism.

The other items I talked about in my paper were the monk who sold his ferrari and the gold rings. They fit nicely with capitalism but hopefully I didn’t make my connections too obvious. I have three general themes, sacrifice, virtual reality, and desire. The Sacred song book created those themes but not directly in the context of capitalist ideology and epistemology.

I’m interested to hear what others say about their collections.

I found it interesting that initially Russell Banks felt that Bambi was a gender neutral movie.  He could not remember the gender of Bambi while his wife did yet he felt a deep, life-changing connection with the character.  His wife and daughter may not be able to relate to Bambi in a similar manner because of the sexual imagery displayed in the movie.  As banks stated, the goal of Bambi was to reach large (manly if you will) antlers to become the leader (or prince) or the forest.  His daughter was able to relate to Little Mermaid in a unique way because of the female sexual bias within the movie.  I do think these gender connections are common but not static.  Young boys may be drawn to Little Mermaid because they feel closer bonds to feminine imagery.  While Disney movies may socialize individuals based on sex(Banks expected his daughter to be immune), this does not explain why some males may relate to feminine imagery .  Could young boys be socialized by Disney movies to become more feminine?

Repunzel:

I enjoyed Porter’s piece more than Banks.  Like Bank’s she explores the socialization but of white structuring in society.  Sarah is deemed ugly in reality because she has natural nappy hair.  This reveals our systemic preference of white European appearance; naturally African identities are warded off as dirty.   This form of socialization exists today in many forms.  For example, domestic violence victims that are of color and received bruising from a spouse are considered less severe because of the darker skin tone that they have.  We expect the ideal woman to have long flowing hair, to be white.  White is clean in our society and from that standpoint covert racism flourishes and pervades our society.