Stranger than stranger than fiction: Postmodernism

     Postmodernism takes it's course throughout the film Stranger than Fiction. It shows up a lot on people, places, and things. in the movie, there is a narrator, and animations. The narrator narrates the movie and explains what the main character, Harold Crick (Will Ferrel) does throughout every day. The animations show you clippings of what Harold sees in his head and shows why he is so good at math.
      The Narrator narrates Harold Crick's daily life; his emotions, physical exercises, simple techniques, and so on. For example, if Crick looks at a stack of files, the narrator will say,"He closely examines the files wondering what they keep inside", and it's in a British accent. Harold can hear the narrator, which is postmodern, and the voice in his head drives him insane until he finds his mysterious narrator.
       The visions are what goes on inside Ferrel's head, making him so good at math. His mental thoughts are projected into the movie for us, the audience to see. They're really sophisticated calculations that nobody can see besides the audience and Harold. They represent Harold's mind and what goes on to make the calculations he makes when he looks at things.
       Postmodernism comes from the everyday things that people don't generally do, it;s thinking outside of the box. the film portrays many examples of postmodernism, and Will Ferrel fit the movie perfectly to show it.

Fight Club Post

     Fight Club has a lot more to it than it's title. It's about the state of mind and how id vs. ego takes it over. The id is the part of someone that triggers their first instinct to getting something they need. The ego, on the other hand, is being self conscious, or aware of your personality and knowing what you want. There are many signs of id and ego throughout the movie that are portrayed through the characters played by Brad Pitt and Ed Norton, who are the same person in the film.

      Ed Norton's character has some obvious problems. He goes to meetings and sessions for people with diseases or other problems such as testicular cancer, sickle cell, tuberculosis, and others. He goes to these things because he can't sleep due to the fact that he is depressed and needs to let feelings out. All of this is compromised when a girl named Marla Singer joins some of his groups and he can no longer cry or sleep to satisfy his id and ego because knowing that there is another faker present, he feels guilty. All of this is settled when a part of him comes to life when his ego (Brad Pitt) comes to life.

       Brad Pitt's character represents Norton's character's ego deep down inside. He is in every way what Norton wishes he could be like. Pitt's character's id was to keep Norton thinking that he was real because then he can lead Norton to success, which leads himself to success. He himself is an ego, and the things that he does that connect with his personality is that he lets things happen, he's kind of nuts, like how he shook his blood in the face of the guy who owns the bar.

        Marla is the kind of person that has no conscience, no id present. She walks on in the middle of ongoing traffic, smokes 24/7, casually steals things, and her appearance lacks effort a lot. However, she has quite an interesting ego. She has a careless sort of personality and smokes all the time, she always goes to Norton's house to have sex, and later has feelings for him. Marla can also represent a superego to Norton's character. she is that outside power making him mad and upset and in the end he cares about her a lot.

          There are lots of examples of id and ego that are portrayed in the film, and they have a lot of different ways in which they are shown. Pitt's ego and id are probably the most powerful since his main job is to be an ego. Marla is the second most powerful, and they both have one thing in common, and that is that they both control Norton's character.

DTRT criticism

     In  DTRT, Mookie is a main character that represents a racial symbol. Throughout the film, he faces situtions in which race is an issue. Most of these comfrontations he's involved in are always brought upon him by the italian family he works for, Sal, the owner, and Vino and Pino, Sal's sons. Vito is the mean big brother of Pino, who is Mookie's friend. Vito always offends Mookie because he's black and racially depicts him.
     Another character that is racist toward another citizen living on his block is Buggin' Out. He and most of his friends are really racist and mean to the korean family-owned corner store. In turn, the Korean man is racist back, and they hate him for being self-defensive. Towards the end of the movie, a crowd of black people tear down Sal's Pizzeria and aim for the Korean man's store next. The man comes out of the store, broom in hand, and says "me, you, same". Of course, the mob reacts negatively but is stopped before taking the store down.
         Mostly all of the characters represent something. For example, Radio Raheem like to bring his big boom box wherever he goes, and plays it at full blast all the time. Buggin' Out overreacts over everything. He started the biggest problem in the whole movie, and that was that Sal had no black people on his "wall of fame', and Buggin' Out took that to heart and set up a boycott. Smiley represents Dr. Martin Luther King jr. and Malcolm X, and portrays characteristics of both. He publically speaks about them, and is against violence, like Dr. King. The only time he used violence was in self defense, which is what Malcom X said was the only necessary time to use violence.
            Violence was used a lot throughout the movie, but there were a few particular characters that used it excessively. The three old blak men that sit at the corner across the street from the corner-store use violence with words. they mouth off a lot about people, but mostly about the korean corner-store owner. They say that his store takes money away from the black people becasue he should stay in his own neighborhood and not take monwy from them. The other character that used excessive violence was the muscular police officer, but he did it physically. He thought the only way to calm Radio Raheem was to choke him out, and he killed him.



     

Living the Hard Way- Boyz 'N the Hood

    Boyz 'N the Hood was an extraordinary film about the struggles that young African Americans go through growing up in a neighborhood where you have to be on your toes and keep a sharp eye out for danger. The movie focused specifically on the kid who was well-behaved and most likely to succeed, and that's Tre Styles.
     Tre lived with his mom until he was ten years old, and due to bad behavior in school, his mother sent him to go live with his dad in the ghetto. Tre grew up living there until he went to college, and that senior year when he was seventeen, was probably the worst year of his life.
     There are no second chances where Tre lived. If u did someone dirty, you got shot without a question asked. Tre's friend Doughboy, a vigilante, had a brother named Ricky. He was the star football player of his high school, didn't get into any trouble, and the only thing he needed to do was to get over a score of 700 on his SAT in order to get a scholarship to UCLA. Earlier that month that Ricky took his SAT, he was defending himself against an opposing gang. They shot and killed Ricky on the same day that he got his SAT scores in the mail, and he got a 710, eligible for college.
     Tre was one of the very few lucky kids in the hood. he knew who both his parents were, they did a good job raising him, and he turned out really good. I think that when it comes down to it, parenting is the main key to not having a hard time growing up. If there's good parenting, there's good kids, right?
   
   

Blog 2: Toosie

Feminist Criticism: Tootsie

   Dustin Hoffman plays in Tootsie as the main character, Michael Dorsey. He's an actor who is temporarily out of business because he isn't so easy to work with. He disagree's with most director's decisions on stage direction and lines, making him a nuisance. Mike comes up with a new way to get time on stage on a soap opra when he takes one of his apprentices, Sandy, to an open audition for a part in a show that aires once-a-week. 

        

The roll for the show requires a strong independent woman, which is the exact opposite of what Michael's friend Sandy was. Mike took this to his advantage and threw a women's outfit on real quick. he was very appealing to most of the men he came into contact with, which was one of his problems/obstacles when being a woman. Mike got the part, but that's only one of the very few upside of having an alter ego.

        Dorsey changed his name (while being a woman) to Dorothy Michaels, similar to his own name. while on the set, Mike, still as Dorothy, fell in love with another girl who works on the set, Julie Nichols. This is the start of one of his problems being woman. Another problem along with this one is that his friend Sandy finds him getting undressed to get into his woman's clothes just in time for him to only be in his underwear, and he covered it up by saying "i want you" and that was it, it worked! And so now he's got one more issue that covers almost all; Dorothy is attractive to most guys on the set, such as Dr. Brewster. He was kissed by a man twice and he managed to keep his temper, keep in mind Dorothy is strictly for business. 

          Thelma and Louise can be compared to Tootsie. They both portrayed a good lok at Feminism, but naturally, being women, Thelma and Louise did a better job than Michael Dorsey. Thelma and Louise showed what true feminism is on a different scale. They changed or blossomed into new beings after an incident happened that changed their lives forever. They both got tougher, stronger, and smarter while on the run for their lives after killing a rapist. They both realize what they have to do to win, and that's to lose.

         

            Thelma and Louise were just two country girls in need of a good ol' adventure. They got what they wanted, but everything went upside down from the time they got in the car to the time they never got out. That old Pontiac convertable became their best friend. Thelma & Louise had a lot of feminism through a Marxist lens. Thelma changed a lot throughout the film. From the start of the story, she was a girly-type house wife who listened to everything her overpowering husband commanded of her. She showed no type of independence and strength until she sat in the car to go on a "vacation" with her best friend Louise. That was her first step to being strong. later in the movie, Thelma realizes that she needs to do what she has to to to thrive in her situation and she becomes what nobody thought she'd ever be; strong.