1. State lottery/funding education 2. NBA draft age limit/high schoolers' financial situations 3. Necessity of general education classes at universities
The area that I have been researching is young athletes. The only real problems that I have found in the community were those that are explored in "He Got Game". Balancing friends, family, girlfriends, and money while becoming a successful athlete is shown to be extremely difficult. I think that this is a very broad identity, because almost everyone that plays or has played high school sports has dealt with these problems in one form or another. While some people do not have to deal with the racial aspects of the movie, many do. It is not something that I had to deal with in my personal experience, but it is examined in the film extensively. The inner city location provides many different scenarios and types of people that the main character must confront, something that many people in the community must deal with. I think that this movie will make for a good paper because it deals with a multitude of issues that normal people must confront.
For my ethical evaluation paper I am writing about Spike Lee's "He Got Game". It is the story of an African-American high school basketball player who is destined for NBA millions. He is confronted by many different people attempting to take advantage of him and his situation. It is a painfully honest depiction of the struggles a young athlete faces in the inner city, while he attempts to balance his future, his girlfriend, and his family.
I felt that the movie was overdone in almost every way. It is hard to focus on the subtleties when every stereotype is being shoved at you during the movie. Going over each stereotype is pointless, as they were all overstated during the film. When the writers attempted to reveal Leah's secret passion for Dave with her involvement with "Daisy", she came off as genuinely indifferent to the sex of her partner. I think that as a bi-sexual, she was depicted in a very likable way. The homosexual and bi-sexual portrayal was very positive overall. The movie had its moments on the comedy end, but when it tried to be serious at the end (the revealing of their secret, the apology) it felt like I had seen the movie 100 times before. The film was too preachy, shoving the message of understanding down viewers' throats. Am I glad that we watched a movie during class? Yes. Was it the worst movie in the history of Western Civilization? Debatable.
For my discussion I chose the Democratic Presidential debate from November 15th, 2007. The participants in the debate were Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, and Bill Richardson. When the opening question was directed at Clinton, she wasted no time incorporating the pathos appeal. When questioned about her supposed refusal to take solid stances on controversial issues, she began to list off all of the different groups she had worked for, including families, workers, women and children, etc. Playing to specific groups of voters is a very intelligent strategy to employ in nationally televised debates. Obama responds with the ethos appeal, establishing his decisiveness as just "what the country needs". Edwards, while an extremely likable person, seemed to have several of his arguments fall into the fallacy of begging the question. He rarely explained his reasoning, instead choosing only to state his feelings. To revisit our discussion of media influence in politics, this video ran 9:10, with nearly every second involving Hillary or Obama. Dennis Kucinich (who was voted by viewers to have won this debate, and nearly all that he was included in) did not get a chance to speak.
I am still deciding on a song for my protest song essay. I have narrowed it down to a few different songs, but I have not completely made up my mind. A few that I'm considering are Bob Dylan's "Hurricane", Dylan's "Blowin' In the Wind", Rage Against the Machine's "Sleep Now In the Fire", a few Rise Against songs, and Lupe Fiasco's "Little Weapon". Right now I am leaning toward Bob Dylan's "Hurricane", a story about a wrongfully imprisoned African American man that was freed years later. I think that this song will make for a good paper because it can be argued that the song is a protest of Ruben Carter's wrongful imprisonment, and it can also be argued that the song is a piece of social commentary on the racial undertones in legal settings.
I think that John Fiske makes the most compelling argument in the media vs. audience debate. It is his general belief that all the "culture industry" can do is produce things for the people to accept or reject. I think that this is most accurate, as the ultimate buying power lies with the people. Should the masses express interest in buying a different product from those offered, the culture industry will have no choice but to tailor its production to meet the desires of the people. He also believes that it is incorrect to confine all buyers into one category, such as "people" or "the audience" because they are nothing but a strings of individuals with constantly changing preferences. If certain individuals are interested in a product not offered by the mainstream culture industry, they will seek it out from other sources. In the case of music, individuals may even go so far as to purchase a product directly from the manufacturer. Individual taste can't be put into one box, the same way that the term "culture industry" cannot be used to refer to everything that is produced.
Adorno believes that every part of culture is a product of mass media. People are not making choices individually, but are simply conforming to the ideals of mass culture, which is dictated by media. This is a stark contrast to Fiske, who believes that culture, as a whole, is created by the choices of individual people. These choices are viewed on aggregate and people have the chioce to embrace or reject any of the ideas of mass culture. He is of the opinion that the individuals power of opinion outweighs the mass media's power of influence. Adorno claims that the idea of mass popular culture influencing everyone's lives limits critical thinking and personal expression. The 'culture industry', as Adorno refers to it, offers little opportunity for deviance, keeping the vast majority of people under its influence. Fiske sees such influence as trivial, as the true power of choice, as he sees it, lies with the individual.
Autobiographical writing offers a different, first hand perspective that sets itselft apart from other writing. While television, newspaper, and other forms of reporting media offer the stories, autobiographical works allow readers the opportunity to understand what exactly was going on in the mind of the subject at any given time. Autobiographies make use of the "I felt..." and "I thought..." that are discouraged in many other forms of writing. When other forms of writing are reduced to guesswork when analyzing certain events, the autobiographies of the people involved offer (typically) factual accounts, as they were the ones involved. Sentence structure is another aspect of personal writing that can be varied at the authors discretion. If the author feels that a one word sentence best captures the emotion of the moment, he or she has no reason to hesitate. Mistakes will be corrected by the editor(s), but, as long as it remains factual, full creative license is given to the author.
