Last Blog

Well, this will probably be my final blog ever. I'm graduating this semester but for some reason, I can't accept the idea. I never thought that this day would come...well, at least I hoped it would never come. Oh, well. Thanks for everything this semester Professor and I hope everyone else enjoys their Holidays.

Peace :)

The Wall

The concept of the wall is simple. You reach a certain point in a given activity, and once and a while, especially if you've been working really hard on the activity, you suddenly freeze up, unable to do anything. Unfortuanetly, it seems like I've hit the wall. This is my last semester and one of my last papers and I can't for the life of me, think what else to write. I just don't have the energy.

The worst part? I have to write another 7-8 page research paper for my other film course. This semester can't end fast enough.

Censorship

I've been watching the TV show Lincoln Heights, which airs on ABC Family, and frankly I can't believe how it possibly made it on that channel. The show is about a black family which moves to Lincoln Heights in LA. The father is a cop and the mother is a nurse. The show revolves around the father and the cases that occur during his job, sometimes involving his family. One episode in particular seemed a little too extreme for the network that it airs on. The episode begins with the parents finding a baby in a dumpster wrapped in a trash bag. By the end, we find out that a 15 year old girl was raped by her father, gave birth to the baby in her house and her mother threw the baby in the trash to "get rid of the abomination". To me it seemed like this was a little too real for a network like ABC Family.

On another random note, Nip/Tuck showed full frontal female nudity on FX about two weeks ago. The only reason that it was allowed (I would assume) was that the girl had no nipples because they were surgically removed (I'm not going into the reasons why lol)

It seems the standards of censorship of old are starting to die out slowly but surely. Hell, network television usually uses every swear except f**k nowadays (which I'm sure won't be far away). Not that I'm complaining but I do find this phenomenon interesting (i.e. the changing censorship standards that we live by).

Videogame Characters

Going through the video games that I've played over the years, I realized a few things. First, most of the main characters are males, with females usually the damsel in distress (ex. Mario and Princess Peach). Second, most of the characters are white. It is hard to find any ethnic characters within the library of videogames of the world. When I looked online, the best site I could find to illustrate this point is here:

http://listverse.com/2008/03/30/top-10-video-game-characters-that-are-not-white-males/

There are a few more but it is difficult to find any that have any exposure beyond being the lead characters sidekick. Just thought I point this out.

Foreign Remakes

Watching movies nowadays, we often get a slew of remakes every year. Many of them are old horror films that studios reproduce to milk the franchise or name for a few more dollars, but some are remakes that were formly "foreign films". Films like The Departed, The Grudge, The Ring, and Quarantine are all examples of this. Though some of these films are good, you wonder why they bothered at all. Isn't a remake supposed to improve on the formula or bring it in a different direction than it was already shown? Have we become so lazy in America that we find it easier to watch Americans to act rather then watch a film with subtitles? Hollywood has been doing this more and more, with films like Edge of Darkness and State of Play being some of the most recent examples (and these films were originally produced in England.

Modern Warfare 2

Since this is the Game of the Year (or at least will be) and I've just beaten it, I thought this might have an interesting discussion that I could use. For those who are going to play the game and haven't read anything about the game SPOILERS BEWARE!!!!!!!!!

When I first booted up the game, I was treated to a warning that some disturbing content may be observed within the game and that I could skip it if I wanted to (which I didn't) after a few missions to get the game started, we start on a mission where a US Ranger has infiltrated a terrorist group. The first thing that happened was a massacre at an airport. Essentially you thousands of innocent civilians while portraying a terrorist. Kinda messed up, huh?!

I wonder if this has truly created any conrtrovesry and if so, what will become of it? I also thought it was interesting that the game could censor content like that, actually really fascinated by it. Well, we can only wait and see.

Growing Up

I noticed someone talking about Doug and its colot treatment and I decided to run with it. As a child, I loved to watch Doug, Rugrats, and Ren and Stimpy. Needless to say, I had now idea how many jokes I never understood as a child that I understand now. Growing up certainly changes your perspective on things and enhances your perception. For instance, when watching Doug, I never associated the show with its racial colors. Actually what I mean is that I never compared the characters to their real races. For instance, Skeeter is bluish-green and was meant to be black, but as a child I never understood that, nor did I care. Patti Mayonnaise was supposed to be a typical Californian surfer blonde that was overly intelligent but I never picked up on that either. Even Roger Klotz, is portrayed as a sickly yellowish-green, which is supposed to be Asian I believe (though don't quote me). I never noticed ANY of these things and its strange to see these things change before my eyes. I wonder at what point do I leave my childhood frame behind and transition into the adult mindset?