Spoiler Alert: If you haven't seen The Birds and want to, don't read this. Or watch these clips.
For my Lit & Film class, I have to do a project on Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. While browsing youtube clips of scenes from the film, I found the clip at the end where Melanie gets attacked in the attic room. The scene is creepy enough as it is...dark house, flashlight, killer birds, the works. But I found another clip of the exact same scene that some girl put to music for a project. I was thinking about our class discussion on fear and how music totally amps up the fear factor. It definitely worked for me with the trailer for The Woman in Black. But I really can't decide which of these two clips is more suspenseful. What do you think?
"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses." - Malcom X
Here's another:
"Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media." -Moan Chomsky
So which is it? Does the media control us? Or do we control the media?
Jack Johnson has some awesome lyrics in all of his songs, but I think his song "Cookie Jar" is especially resonant because it questions the media content blame game. Read the lyrics while you listen, they're very interesting:
I would turn on the TV
But it's so embarrassing
To see all the other people
I don't know what they mean
And it was magic at first
When they spoke without sound
But now this world is gonna hurt
You better turn that thing down
Turn it around
"It wasn't me," says the boy with the gun
"Sure I puled the trigger but it needed to be done
Cause life's been killing me ever since it begun
You can't blame me cause I'm too young."
"You can't blame me sure the killer was my son
But I didn't teach him to pull the trigger of the gun
It's the killing on this TV screen
You can't blame me it's those images he's seen."
Well, "You can't blame me," says the media man
Well, "I wasn't the one who came up with the plan
I just point my camera at what the people want to see
Man it's a two way mirror and you can't blame me."
"You can't blame me," says the singer of the song
Or the maker of the movie which he based his life on
"It's only entertainment and as anyone can see
The smoke machines and makeup and you can't fool me."
I was you it was me it was every man
We've all got the blood on our hands
We only receive what we demand
And if we want hell then hell is what we'll have.
And I would turn on the TV
But it's so embarrassing
To see all the other people
Don't even know what they mean
And it was magic at first
But let everyone down
And now this world is gonna hurt
You better turn it around
Turn it around.
Are producers innocently creating what we want to see, or are we mere casualties in their rampage for wealth? Does the media mirror society, or is society shaped by the media? Everybody is trying to put the blame somewhere...where do you put it?
Is storytelling a form of media? I guess if you think of media as a "means of communication," then it is. I love hearing people tell their stories. I am so interested in the culmination of little (and big) experiences that make up a person. My roommate is an especially good storyteller, and last night she had us on the edge of our seats with one of her tales.
She's an archaeology major, with a specific interest in underwater archaeology. She told us that over the summer she was talking with one of her professors during a field study excursion, and after her expression of interest in underwater cave exploration, he began to frighten her away from the prospect with his plethora of cave diving horror stories.
He told an especially disturbing story about one such unlucky adventurer. Apparently one of the (many) big dangers about underwater cave exploration is that you can't predict when/where you may run into a swift current, which may or may not sweep you away from your group and through a maze of unpredictable tunnels never before seen or inhabited by human life. Can you guess what happened to this poor, unfortunate soul? And to add to the claustrophobic terror of it all, your oxygen tank only lasts for about an hour, your lamp maybe double that. So this guy gets swept away, and his buddies can't really follow after him for fear of being channeled into the most remote of watery graves as well. They fished a cord thing through the tunnels and swam in and out, in and out, trying and trying to find him. It's a little difficult though when one fork in the labyrinth leads to another which leads to another. He could have been anywhere. Eventually, after awhile of searching (for days? weeks? How long do you look for a friend/colleague before you decide the hunt is fruitless?) they finally had to give up and go home.
As it turns out, five years later they finally found his body in a small cavern, off one of the maze of branches that they hadn't realized before. An autopsy revealed that he had been alive for an entire month before he finally expired. Though he'd lived in complete darkness all that time, he had been able to breathe because of the air in the cavern, and he lived off of the freshwater until he finally starved to death. They found areas in the cave walls where he had attempted to dig/scratch his way to an escape.
Can you imagine??? Apparently one in four cave diver archaeologists end up dying. Anybody still interested in suiting up and jumping in? My roommate sure isn't.
She made this video as part of an application for a school thing she wanted to participate in back before she came to the United States (she's Portuguese). Each applicant had to make a video describing what they would be able to contribute to the group. At the beginning of the video, the text says something to the effect of, "I know how to tell stories." She certainly does! It's a really cool clip, and she did it all completely herself. Check it out:
I was so excited when I found out that October 19-20 are designated for celebrating the National Day on Writing! (Which is technically tomorrow, but making it an extra day....I mean, why not?) I love to write. I've loved writing since I was a little girl. I love poetry, stories, articles, essays, screenplays. I even love term papers in this twisted way, for the immense satisfaction of utilizing the perfect word with the most precise meaning in order to covey the most intentional thought. It's exhilarating, really. Some people jump out of airplanes. I put pen to paper.
Writing, I think, is one of the most meaningful ways to engage in the media. It is thought and expansion. It is risk and discovery. It is facing the truth, it is creation. I don't know exactly how to convey this, but I have discovered more about myself through my writing (both the process and the product) than almost any other endeavor I have ever engaged in.
Benjamin Franklin said, "Either write something worth reading, or do something worth writing." Is it just me, or does that make it sound like writing is both a means and an end to the fulfillment of the life's purposes? I mean, we write all the time. Every day. Food for thought...
This year the theme of the National Day on Writing is: What I Write. I'm not on twitter, but apparently it's a thing this weekend for everyone to share what they write. I found one random twitter post where a girl said, "I couldn't shine without the rapid sound of graphite on paper." Lovely.
My contribution to the day is a poem I wrote last November (where had the time gone?):
These Hills
These hills are darkened by the deep night Quieted by country slumber Penetrated by a November ice.
Driving through them in the late hours, I can almost pretend that the point where hill meets sky Is the horizon I know so well from home, The point where sky meets water.
The gentle roll of mountain wave Lulls the little farm house porch lights Through the dark sea of grassy shrubs, Like small fishing boats awaiting the palest pink of morning.
So everybody celebrate today and tomorrow! And everyday for the rest of forever. What do you write?
I am FHE mom this semester, which came as a knot of dread in my stomach when the second counselor of our bishopric extended the calling to me. I was also FHE mom my freshman year, and I got partnered with a guy who hardly ever showed up, let alone helped with any planning or execution. Plus, I am a pretty introverted person, and I have never bought into the peppy-hyper-happy-ward-leadership persona that seems mandatory for callings in BYU wards. Needless to say, it was the only one I didn't want. I should have known karma would come at me. Or...maybe Heavenly Father just had a few lessons he wanted me to learn.
One of those came in the form of the lesson my roommate gave on scripture study this past Monday. Being a group leader has made me pay extra attention to the thoughts that people give so I can be engaged and participate, and that has made all the difference for me. Anyway, her lesson wasn't anything very involved or showy. It was just each of us with our scriptures in our laps, having a discussion as she guided us from reference to reference.
With each new verse, we delved deeper into gospel subjects of the Atonement, justice and mercy, the love of God. And I was actually really surprised by how such a simple thing was opening my eyes to insights I had never really considered before. I could very literally feel the Spirit quietly confirming truths to me.
Her entire point of the lesson was to go beyond a simple reading of the words. She told us to ask questions of the principles and doctrines and even word choice in the scriptures, and to go digging for the answers. She explained about how that kind of study, making deeper and deeper connections, will lead you to greater understanding and growth. These were all things I already knew, but for some reason the Spirit really confirmed to me the truth of her words in that moment.
The scriptures are the best kind of media out there, aren't they!
And thank goodness for the inspiration behind callings. Being FHE mom this semester has turned out to be a really good experience for me :)
Here's a little video about scripture study that I love. I think we could all benefit greatly by listening to its message, and doing what the people in it do:
Over the summer one of my friends asked me what I thought about plastic surgery. He explained that he was very against it, but then he had an interesting conversation with a girl about how she wanted to "get just a few minor things changed." She told him he couldn't understand, because he was "blessed with good genes," but it wasn't like she hated her body or anything. She just wanted to nip here, tuck there. Still herself, but a "better" version.
I had another lively conversation with him yesterday after watching Miss Representation in class. Playing the devil's advocate a little bit, he kept challenging me by saying that I didn't know every person's reason for getting "work" done on themselves, and therefore I can't say that it is always the result of media and societal pressures. Of course, I don't know the reasoning of every individual. In spite of a few exceptional situations that come to mind, however, I disagreed with his challenge overall.
I definitely feel that the decision to get plastic surgery, for most women, is based off of the awful influence of the media today. That's not to say that every girl sees a movie or advertisement or whatever with some tiny airbrushed sex symbol in it and thinks "I want to be sexy too! Why don't I just go get a boob job?" I don't think it is so conscious as that. But after years of bombardment from the time you were a little girl, you would be hard pressed to convince me that the media's messages have nothing to do with the fact that you are not content with the way you look.
I have so many more thoughts on the issue, it's just too much to put into concrete words. But I was glad we watched that documentary. Though I didn't necessarily agree with every aspect of it, it brought back the flood of conviction I experienced when we watched this clip last year in Dr. Coyne's adolescence class:
I looked up the definition of "beauty," and this is what came up:
"A combination of qualities that pleases the intellect or moral sense"
Based off of that definition, I think the world is definitely confused about what true beauty is. It isn't just your hair or skin or size. In fact, according to that definition, it has nothing to do with appearance. Rather, it is the culmination of qualities that are pleasing to the intellect, not to the eye.
I am an avid reader. I have been since I can remember. My mom said when I was a baby and she was pregnant with my sister, I would bring her book after book after book to read to me. She would be so dead tired and sick, but she would never turn me down on a book...it was the best way to entertain me. I would say things haven't changed too much.
One of my favorite books is A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. Whether you like to read or not, you should definitely read this one. It is one of the most hilarious books I have ever read...I'm talking laugh-out-loud, read-it-to-whoever-you're-with-so-they-can-laugh-too kind of funny. Plus, it's very informative, sort of like a super interesting textbook.
Bill Bryson has written 10+ books, all creative non-fiction, autobiography style. All the one's I have read are excellent, but I think A Walk in the Woods is my favorite. It's about Bryson's experiences hiking the Appalachian Trail with an old friend named Katz. He details the events of the adventure, which are all so day-to-day you feel he may be writing your own observations and experiences. Plus, he details the history of the trail through rich imagery, interesting anecdotes, and witty humor. By the end of the book you feel not only entertained, but intellectually enlightened.
I'm telling you, there is no book more likely to be enjoyed by so broad an audience as this one. Go to the library and borrow it. Read it. Revel in it. You won't regret it.
Here is an except of one particularly funny part if you're not convinced...scroll down, second book on the list. (Though I would encourage you to skip it and read the entire book instead so it doesn't ruin the surprise!) And here is the book cover:
And just for fun, here's an assignment I did for a class a few semesters ago where we had to imitate the writing style of a favorite author. My imitations:
"The sun spread across the dewy hills like an epidemic, blinding every concave dip with its brightness, fevering every rounded peak with its heat."
"I looked up into the great expanse of stalwart trunk and steady limb, nimble branch and translucent leaf, squinting at the small flickers of sunlight that filtered through the frenzied boughs as the wind tousled them."
"The ground sucked at our worn boots as we slogged through the steamy sludge, beating away maddening mosquitoes with our dirt streaked fists and breathing heavily the muggy air."
I decided to put the Roth & Smith (2008) study to the test...I have been listening to classical music throughout the ENTIRE time I have been studying for our first exam. I haven't taken the test yet, so I don't know what the results will be in terms of my grade. But I have noticed myself going for much longer stretches of productive study time than usual before I have to take a break! And this blog post being one of those breaks, I had better get back to it. Good luck on the test everyone!
PS The Antonio Vivaldi station on Pandora has been suiting my studying needs quite nicely. I would highly recommend it to anyone who finds him/herself struggling to concentrate.
PPS I officially reclaim my praise of Julie and Julia. Another few chapters after my post about it last week, I finally had to put the book down for good...as it went on, it got more and more explicit, more and more crude, more and more bad language-y. A book has to be pretty negative for me to actually stop reading it, especially when I'm already halfway through. So as much as I was enjoying it, I'm sorry to say I would definitely discourage anyone who doesn't want their mind tarnished by inappropriate images and language from reading it.
I went with one of my best friends to her home stake this weekend to eat and watch the Relief Society Broadcast with her mom. Their stake did one of those elaborate dinners beforehand (which are so quintessentially Utah), and over yummy soup and cobbler, a lively discussion about texting broke out at our table.
It was interesting to hear the perspectives of these women, as they were all 50+ years old, and hadn't grown up in the "media saturated society" I have known for most of my life. They talked about their kids who are my age, and how they can usually get a better idea of what's going on in their lives over text than in person. Or over Facebook, or sometimes over the phone (if they're lucky.) My friend's mom explained that she likes having the extra options for communication, because it helps her stay closer to her kids. But some of the other ladies didn't feel so positively; one (the oldest of the group) dislikes her adult children texting because she can't read their private conversations and she worries about what they're saying. Personally, I thought that was a little much. If she were talking about her 15-year-old son then that's one thing. But if her 25-year-old can't handle himself by that point, I don't think it's really under her jurisdiction anymore.
Their thoughts made me reflect on my relationship with my own mom, and how we communicate. We do text each other pretty frequently, but we also talk on the phone. And on Facebook. And even email, sometimes. But then again, I live 3,000 miles away from her, rather than 30 miles. My point is, I talk to my mom a lot. And I don't think our relationship in person has suffered any for it. How do you keep in touch with your family?
PS I have never seen so many Crockpots in one place as I did at that dinner! (I counted 27 I think.)
