I was at a regatta for rowing this past Saturday and during all of my 3 years of being on rowing and going to countless regattas I've never seen anything as amazing and inspiring as what I saw this weekend. I noticed that there was an organization called the Chicago Rowing Union that I'd never seen before setting up their boats. I saw that my history teacher (who is gay) from last year was on the team. After asking around and looking it up myself, I found out that the Chicago Rowing Union is a LGBT rowing association... not to mention, the only one in the midwest and one of three in the entire world.
This was so touching because homophobia has become more apparent within the past decade and this organization shows the LGBT community that even though they might receive hate from many people, improvements are being made to make their lives better. Now they know they can row without being anxious that they are being judged or that people will harass them and make fun of them.
I think America is going in the right direction regarding steps being taken to help out the LGBT community. Even though I wish there were more than 3 LGBT friendly rowing associations, I am happy and hopeful that more will be formed.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Sunday, September 15, 2013
"American" Plot Line Applies in Space, Too
Last Friday in class we discussed the typical "American plot line" that Hollywood movies follow. The main character usually starts out fortunate, then his luck goes downhill, then uphill and he ends up happier than he ever was. These types of movies supposedly leave the audience the most satisfied because the audience wants the characters to be happy and defeat the bad guy (or overcome whatever obstacle was the conflict in the story).
This weekend I watched the new Star Trek Into Darkness that just came out on DVD and I had the "American plot line" in mind while I watched it. This is where the spoiler alert applies. If you haven't seen it, don't read on. So basically, everything starts out normally and everyone is happy. Then things get ugly when this bad guy, Khan, comes into play and tries to kill everyone. So far, this seems exactly like the plot line for Hollywood movies. Then Captain Kirk dies while saving his whole crew from Khan, which threw me off a little bit because based on the American plot line, things should've ended on a good note not with the main character's death. Then, (surprise surprise) Captain Kirk gets brought back to life and the day has been saved again. I got a little bit annoyed that it becomes pretty easy to predict movies when you realize most of them follow the same plot line. Even though I was annoyed that the end was so predictable, many movie critics wrote in their reviews that they enjoyed the ending. A critic writing for The Atlantic writes that he liked the ending and it "flagged" his interest.
I think that Hollywood should start supporting more movies that don't follow the "American plot line" because I find them redundant and more predictable.
This weekend I watched the new Star Trek Into Darkness that just came out on DVD and I had the "American plot line" in mind while I watched it. This is where the spoiler alert applies. If you haven't seen it, don't read on. So basically, everything starts out normally and everyone is happy. Then things get ugly when this bad guy, Khan, comes into play and tries to kill everyone. So far, this seems exactly like the plot line for Hollywood movies. Then Captain Kirk dies while saving his whole crew from Khan, which threw me off a little bit because based on the American plot line, things should've ended on a good note not with the main character's death. Then, (surprise surprise) Captain Kirk gets brought back to life and the day has been saved again. I got a little bit annoyed that it becomes pretty easy to predict movies when you realize most of them follow the same plot line. Even though I was annoyed that the end was so predictable, many movie critics wrote in their reviews that they enjoyed the ending. A critic writing for The Atlantic writes that he liked the ending and it "flagged" his interest.
I think that Hollywood should start supporting more movies that don't follow the "American plot line" because I find them redundant and more predictable.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Miley vs. Syria
At my block party last night, I was talking to my 40-some year old neighbor and she brought up the topic of Miley Cyrus' VMA performance. I was pretty surprised because I had no idea the older community was at all interested in Miley Cyrus' twerking ability. I had the impression that only Miley-obsessed-teens still talked about her. This prompted me to go look at just how interested people actually were in Miley Cyrus. After reading an article in the Huffington post about the interest in Miley Cyrus at the VMA's and Syria, I was blown away. The Google searches (by Americans) for Miley Cyrus' performance outnumbers searches for Syria a whopping 6:1. After reading further, I calmed down a bit when I found out there were 3X more Syria news stories than Miley news stories. Further, the articles in major newspapers about Syria outnumber Miley articles 11:1.
It is not surprising to me that writers for the New York Times and other newspapers choose to write about Syria rather than Miley because they are professional journalists and the average newspaper reader is probably going to be more interested in that than Miley. The average age of someone who watches TV news reports is probably less than that of a newspaper reader. The average computer user is probably even younger than both groups. It seems to me that the younger Americans are focusing their attention on the wrong things. Even though I am glad newspapers chose not to write tons of articles about Miley's twerking, it still bothers me that the average American is 6X more likely to Google Miley Cyrus than Syria. Is a VMA performance really more important than genocides in Syria?
It is not surprising to me that writers for the New York Times and other newspapers choose to write about Syria rather than Miley because they are professional journalists and the average newspaper reader is probably going to be more interested in that than Miley. The average age of someone who watches TV news reports is probably less than that of a newspaper reader. The average computer user is probably even younger than both groups. It seems to me that the younger Americans are focusing their attention on the wrong things. Even though I am glad newspapers chose not to write tons of articles about Miley's twerking, it still bothers me that the average American is 6X more likely to Google Miley Cyrus than Syria. Is a VMA performance really more important than genocides in Syria?
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