Watching 12 Angry Men was actually a fun blast from the past and brought back some memories to high school. Also, how boring it was but how at the same time got more and more interesting as it went on. There is a lot of character development in this movie that is almost too complicated to understand even as a high schooler. You really see 12 people completely change their point of view in only one day’s time. It really just goes to show that humans look for approval from other human so bad that they can cloud their judgement. It started off with 11 guys that just wanted to get out of that hot room and be done with the seemingly open and shut case of a murder done by a young Hispanic boy that lived in the slums. This story not only tells the story of the unfair treatment of some people in the legal system but shows how powerful one person standing up for what they believe in because it’s the right thing to do not because it’s easy. You see a whole room of men go from one side to the other just because one man stood up the rest and didn’t make that boy another statistic.    

This semester will defiantly be something to remember, being my first full semester not being on campus and it was really hard to get used to and I don’t think I would ever want to do it again. As for this class I really enjoyed stepping out of my comfort zone and posting my work for everyone to see and also getting comments about your work. It was very cool to be able to see others blogs and almost get a sense of how the class is feeling about that week’s topics. I also thing we looked deeply into topics that people don’t really talk about and most likely don’t have an opinion on the topic. It was awesome we had to go through and elaborate on our thoughts and we actually had to make it good because we would want our classmates to see something that want good. I really enjoyed my time in this class and want to thank everyone for an enjoyable experience I hope everyone has a safe and fun thanksgiving and winter break, stay safe out there.               

This week’s Screenings the Galaxy Quest documentary the Jews 45^th year university wemake were very interesting and really showed the power of fans coming together. I at first didn’t understand why they connected at all they just seemed way to different and they had nothing to do with each other. But then it hit me, they both are about a group of fans that come together to make something that is a tribute to something that was a big influence in their life. Just one is a full-blown production and one is a little smaller of a production but both are made from fans.

  Other than Galaxy Quest being a great tribute to one of the best tv shoes ever made and with one of the biggest following, it was the start to movies as they are today. This is because it is one of the first comedy that was a mix between a movie with a serious story line but is casted with people that can make it funny but on the other hand a that can be taken seriously. This was achieved by a combination of real special effects that make you feel like you are watching the real thing unlike past comedies that make everything a job from the explosions to the way charters are dressed. But Galaxy Quest had another thing that made it even more special and that was that everyone in the movie and involved in making the movie are huge fans of the show Star Trek which the movie was based off of. This made it even easier for the movie to not make fun of Star Trek but be something that even the biggest fans won’t be offended by because it comes from a good place.

The 45^th anniversary of Jaws Wemake was awesome in many different ways and it really gave you a good idea of now important this movie was to so many people. This was definably a different approach to a tribute but it was way more special. I think the idea of having fans from around the world that all loved Jews as much as the next person. I still remember seeing that huge shark under the water as it eat the guy on that orange boat when he was trying to get back in his row boat. That picture of the shark just under the surface about the bit the guys legs still makes me uneasy when swimming in open water. Just goes to show how much a movie can have an effect on someone.

What do you think, would comedies be the same without Galaxy Quest?                  

The new, it’s something that almost every kid hates when it’s taking up the tv at night, and It’s something you don’t talk during when Dads Trying to listen. the news used to be the people eyes and ears for any breaking news happening around the world, the news would tell you anything from what world leaders had at lunch during a meeting to where the newest war is today. Now a days the news seems more like a reality tv show rather than an informative channel. But is it that news stations are getting more untrustworthy or the people are getting harder to keep watching something?

                      As we have talked about in previous blogs that entertainment has changed a lot over the years, and the people watching it have changed as well. The way people consume this entertainment has changed the most over the years, from books and newspapers to radios to tv. With the way they send the media out has changed so has the ability to go more and more into depth in the topic so people get better understanding of what people feel and say. This also makes it easier to see how people truly feel inside by being able to see peoples face as they talk unlike the radio and newspapers. This could mean that the reason behind news stations getting more political is that they aren’t doing anything more besides their facial expression and the tone of their voice when they talk about someone. For example, if news caster 1 says “Trump signed another executive order then morning” and says it in a monotone voice without a smell. Than news caster 2 on another channel says “The President signed an executive order this morning” with a upbeat tone and a smell on there face. I think it’s pretty safe to say most people can pick up on what way the news casters lean politicly. And this is some of what I think is happing today and why there are news networks that lean one way or the other is because it’s sometimes hard to hide how you really feel when talking on camera but it is easier to hide your views when writing in a newspaper not saying it’s not possible but its definably harder.

                      This week’s viewing was very interesting and was very cool to watch what it’s like inside a newsroom other than the movie the Anchorman. The first episode of the news room was very fast paced which I liked lot, this show really show chased the work that goes in to a news story from the beginning to end. It also talked about how news is not just news it is paid for by sponsors and the news station has to a line its self with the sponsors values it’s not just a news station that produces news. I also think the way they determine what news stores ae worth covering was very out dated seeming and makes me wonder what stores they pass up on to keep a narrative or to save a political party they are affiliated with. I think news should be free flowing and we shouldn’t just hear about the things that will make the most money or the most sure thing, it should be about the American people and what they need to hear and nothing else.

My question to the readers is what do you think does it make you nervous that the news is getting to be more about their affiliations and not about bring you the stores that matter to the people?                                

With all this violence in the world today it’s impossible to not ask yourself what is making this happen. Is it all the violent video game or movies or is it just because we hear about it more due to mass media? I tend to think that it is because we hear about almost every violent thing that happens in the world as soon as it happens, which could make you feel like you are surrounded in violence. I don’t think that humans are any more violent then we were before, but I do think that we are more scared then we have ever been. I think instead of violent movies and video games making us more violent I think it has made us more scared of it. I think this is due to people seeing things on movies and video games that would be the worst thing that could happen in a situation so it makes us fear the worst because we’ve seen the worst even if it is fake. I know I’m not the only one that uses what they see in movies to make choices sometimes if I have no other experience, but it’s not because I think that its right but because it’s all that pops into my head first. Movies are so much more relatable then they used to be, movies are now almost so realistic that it makes you feel like you are watching real life.

After watching this week’s screening, it got me thinking about how people react to a bad situation and in particular the COVID-19 pandemic. I made me ask “would the COVID pandemic of been more controllable if people didn’t always fear the worst?” What I mean by that does the bad situations depicted in movies and video games make use fear the absolute worst case when things like sicknesses and wars? They could be connected, because when the news hit the USA that COVID-19 had started to pop up in the United States almost everyone ran to the stores to get everything they could just like every post-apocalyptic movie ever seen. Going to the stores were kind of scary to see empty shelves and not being able to get what you want. Wouldn’t have been so much easier if everyone remanded calm and just bought what we needed there would have been no shortages. I’m not saying the pandemic wasn’t scary but if we didn’t have that fear surrounding us at all times. On the other hand, there is a possibility that the panic came from our need to follow one another due to human nature which was shown in the Stanford prison experiment. Which one seems more possible to you? Why do you think Humans are seeming so violent is it because we are hearing about it more or is it because we are influenced by violence in movies and video games?   

Movies have been rated for as long as I can remember and it was the one thing that could keep you from watching the movie that you have been seeing all the ads about when you were a kid. I can still hear my parents till this day saying sorry buddy is not appropriate for you and my sisters being able to watch it but I couldn’t it was a very hard time. But movie censorship didn’t look like it does today, the movie used to be just secured and the scene that was deemed inappropriate cut out of the movie instead of having a rating all movies where just safe to watch. But now a day’s movies have a rating system that goes from G to PG to PG-13 to R to X they go from most appropriate to least appropriate but back in the day there was NC-17 which ended up being done way with after it being too hard to differentiate from R to NC-17. This started a lot of problems in the movie world because if a movie was rated NC-17 instead of R the movie wouldn’t be released and left a lot of producers with a worthless movie that they had to cut out the scene or the movie wouldn’t be seen and it was a waste of money.

            The problem really came from the people that rated the movie and how they didn’t really have any guide lines they just watched the movie and made up the standers as they went along. That’s why you would see such a drastic change between movies ratings, its because there is no true system to make their decision on they just used their opinion which changes person to person. What do you think, do the movie raters have too much power? Should they have a system in place?            

Movies have been bringing families and friends for as long as I can remember and most likely as long as our parents can remember. Movies were invented in 1888 and they were not like we see now. They were series of pictures played really fast that would make a video just like what we used to do as kids on our note books making little flip books. These movies didn’t have any taking in them there was just music in the background. Then after that they moved on to making silent movies which were just black and white movies that had no sound, the story was told through music and body language which is a very interesting concept when you think about it. it makes me wonder if people back them were better at reading body language then we are today due to things like silent movies or were people a lot easier to entertain. I think it could be a combination of things but I will say even the difference between even movies from the 90s till now there is a big difference in the way the story is told.

Movies back in the day where much more based off of a curve, there is a plot, a climax and the rap up. But now people don’t care as much about character building as they used to they just want the movie to get to the point and they want to movie to be as exciting as possible at all times. So, are movies getting worse or are we just getting to be too hard to please? This is what has made things like Netflix and Hulu, we don’t even want to wait for things like episode releasing or even sitting through advertisements. We are a society that runs off of immediate satisfaction that is going to soon be impossible to please.                 

In class we were talking about freak show television with things like the Jerry Springer show, and how they exploited people with problems for views. This really made me think about the show American Idol and how that show was the epidemy of freak show tv during its glory years. They had a group of judges that were more about the entertainment than actually carrying about music. For those of you who don’t know American Idol was a show that was first aired in 2002 to 2016 but was most popular up until 2010, this show featured three grudges who where originally Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson and was hosted by Ryan Seacrest. This show was an American singing compotation that had contestants first addition infant of the three judges by singing their favorite song. Somewhere pretty good, somewhere actually good, and somewhere so bad you could laugh. Those ones that were so bad you could laugh at left you asking yourself “how do they even get on the show?” and that’s where they become freak show tv. That’s because they let the really bad ones through so the judges can make fun of them on national tv for a laugh.

This is the something as having people come on the Jerry Springer show to have them fight and tell their story for people to sit home and laugh at them. This is almost how I remember tv as a kid growing up in the early 2000s, it just felt like entertainment was very much based off laughing at other people’s problems. That might be why our society as a whole is so sensitive or seems so sensitive because we are so used to being attached from so many different angels.                           

The internet is the thing that connects us to everyone around the world and is also one of the most misunderstood things on earth. No one really knows how it works or where everything goes (unless you are a computer genies) it’s just kind there in our lives. The internet changed or lives forever when invented in the 1960s and was made by the department of defense and was made so two computers could communicate in the same network. Now it is used for everything from social media to looking up food recipes, and the immediate consumption of news right when it happens. I do think after all that the internet has changed is the thing that it changed the most is the news. Not only did it change the amount of information we can consume it changes when we can consume it. The internet made it so people could get news at any time anywhere without having the watch tv, this makes it so people are more informed then ever now a days.

Not only does the internet make getting news easier it has made for more informed shoppers, this is because of how easy it is to find information that you want or need. Let’s say you are in a store shopping for a pair of shoes and see a sign that says cheapest prices in town. Before the internet signs like that could influence a shopper to buy the shows, but in a world where customers can check prices and buy the product from another store before leaving your store changes everything. It has changed the way stores have had to switch to different tactics like price matching and undercutting the competition. This has made the buyer power of customers go up around the world, it has made the life of a marketing professional very hard and has made them come up with different ways to get customers in there store and buying their products.                        

I’m going to start off by saying the fact that we are talking about television two week in a row goes to show how important tv is to us and how influential it is in our lives. It really is one of the things that shapes what normal is in our world today and how people should act in different situations. Even though everyone knows tv is fake they still base their life off the fiction and dramatized stories they see on tv today, it really does help shape social norms. Tv is also very relatable to real life situations.

In saying that this week’s viewing from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER the episode Hush, it was about a town of people losing their vices and not being able to talk. Well they were worrying about their loss of voice, bad guys killing members of their community. This show really reminded me of what we went through with the Coronavirus this year. There were many things that made me think of our resent pandemic, a lot of it was the way everyone reacted to the loss of their voices, they all freaked out and had no idea what to do. This was much like when we started to see cases of COVID in America, everyone wanted answers and wanted them now. another similarity is the reaction once the situation set in, everyone was running around getting supplies there was restraints closing all over and chaos in the streets. This was very similar to the reaction when the shelter in place order was mandated in the beginning of the Covid outbreak. Then after all the chaos and freaking out you start to see people start to adapid to the situation like wearing white bored around their neck to be able to communicate through writing. This reminded me of how we started to adapted to the quarantine by using things like Zoom and Microsoft teams to conduct meetings and even celebrate special events. You also saw in the episode Hush the news media trying to make sense of the situation by trying to find something to blame the loss of voices. This was also seen in the resent pandemic; the media was there the whole time trying to blame someone or something. Even though this story in this show wasn’t real it definitely hit home for me because of the close similarities to the COVID Pandemic. It goes to show you how resilient humans are and how we need to come together in a time of need much like now.

So what do you think is there a similarity there or am I crazy?