Strike 1925

Malcolm Gladwell’s article is an activist based story about some college students who went to a local coffee restaurant and they came across some trouble.  Long story short, the waitress refused to serve the students because of their skin color.  Instead of the kids accepting this, they proudly stood up for their rights and began to protest.  This protest got so known that it affected people into other states, including Texas.

Malcolm Gladwell’s main point is that we don’t need all of these social websites to practice activism. He actually believes Facebook and Twitter are the complete opposite of what is used to practice actual activism.  Gladwell disagrees with the majority of our society, saying that he does believe that different forms of social media will not start a revolution.

Personally, I completely agree with Gladwell saying that using social media is not the way to practice true activism.  Activism was practiced before Twitter and Facebook were even around in society. Back before these social sites were available, we practiced activism without social media so there is no reason as to why we can’t practice activism without them now. 

I can say that I do trust Gladwell’s judgement, but I also somewhat disagree with him thinking that the media doesn’t the power to start a revolution. No matter how known the revolution, social media is a very popular and powerful invention and considering how quickly information can spread, social media has the possibility to be a major threat to our society and World as a whole. 

Since the past week and a half our class discussions have been on The Shallows and about how the internet is affecting our brains and intelligence, I decided to comment on my opinion of what the internet is doing to us. To start, I agree that the internet is changing the way people think, function, and even learn as individuals.

To be even more specific, I am so personally worried about how anti social the internet is allowing people to be. Such basic, everyday tasks that used to force people to be social and interactive, is all able to be done behind a computer screen. For example, we can now online shop for almost anything we could possible need, which allows people to stay at home and antisocial instead of going to a mall or active setting. Also, we can order any food to go or for delivery through the internet, which once again cuts our social and communication skills because we dont actually have to interact with others in order to do something we need done. Again, online banking is another huge example of an everyday duty that used to force us to be socially involved but now is available entirely online. 

Most importantly, I am concerned for our children and young adults that have chosen to do online schooling and online classes. Online schools defeat so many purposes of what a school in general is known for. School is supposed to teach kids how to interact with others, do physical tasks, and be disciplined and socially comfortable with society. Online schooling does not allow any of these things to be possible for our kids today. Not to mention, cheating and dishonesty in all sorts of school work is much more prone to happen through online schooling than in a normal classroom setting. 

All around I feel as if the Internet is affecting us in a very scary way, but I have come to realize and accept that the internet is our future, and we have to accept the realities of todays world. 

Here is a quick discussion on our weeks movie screening named Strike. Strike was a 1925 film, and a silent one at that. It was the first full length movie project of   Sergei Eisenstein, who was a Russian filmmaker. Strike is a government celebration of the  1905 Bolshevik revolution. The plot consists of a series of unfortunate events that happened to the workers of a metalworks plant. The Czarist regime is unsympathetic to the workers, and they helped the plant owners to protect the victims. The workers are tired of poor wages, long hours, and harsh treatment by their supervisors,.which triggers a restlessness and strike planning among them. The workers eventually revolt and do go on strike. Eisenstein’s theory of  the montage of shocks first appeared during this time. Eisenstein was the first to fully understand the value of using sudden shock images to get his point accross as drastically as possible. Eisenstein used the silence throughout the film to move our attention to the details in the movie and force the viewers to actually pay close attention instead of just subconsciously watching a film, (which is what usually happens to us today in regular films). I have found that this film is most famous for a part near the end of the movie where the violent suppression of the strike is cross cut with footage of all of the cattle being slaughtered. There are several other points in the movie where animals are used as metaphors for the conditions of various individuals, but the cattle is the most dramatic and exaggerated. Eisenstein created a brilliant phenomenon during his time, and his technique has been praised and copied over the years. I learned through this film, and many of our readings and assignments this past week in class that Images are more important than I ever realized, and we truly our visual and detail oriented learners.

 The Maltese Falcon, written by Dashiell Hammett, is an action novel with many suspenseful twists and turns throughout the story. It was set back in the late 1920’s in San Francisco, so life was fairly different back then compared to how we live now. It was far easier to get away with things back in those days, meaning that laws were not as strictly enforced. 

This particular novel had many important characters that all played a major part in making the story as spectacular as it was. For example, we had Sam Spade (the main character) who was the main detective that I believed had a very dominating and powerful role. He lead the discovery of the murder and he always left us feeling like his intentions were a mystery.

Next we had Brigid (AKA Miss Wonderly) who was the manipulating, but yet beautiful woman who caused all the controversy and conflict in the novel. 

Another main character was Miles Archer, who I felt had a very pathetic personality and he brought confusion and suspense into the story with his dysfunctional marriage and delusional outlook on life. 

There are many other characters that added life to the story, including Effie Perine, Joel Cairo, and Casper Gutman, which all played a part in the murder or the finding of each scenario throughout the book.

The novel, The Maltese Falcon, had its fair share of suspense, violence, bribery, dishonesty, and terror. From trying to find the bird, to trying to detect the murder, to discovering Miles Archers dishonest love life, this story had plenty of cliff hangers and suspense to keep us readers interested throughout the entire story. 

I can honestly say that I have read plenty of mystery stories, and many suspenseful novels, but it is easy to say that The Maltese Falcon topped them all as being the most intriguing and exciting novel of them all.

The movie we watched in class this week, Adaptation, really opened my eyes to see a different view on screenwriting, producing, and plot story lines. As easy as the movie Adaptation was to watch and follow along with, it still had many surprising twists and scenarios that us as viewers would not have expected to happen. For example, the character Susan Orlean created an imaginary intimate relationship and chemistry between her and the orchid lover, John Laroche. Also, the book and the movie both had two different plots, considering the book did not mention Laroche’s attack from the alligator, but the movie is what let us know the “true?” ending. But, do we really know what really happened to John Laroche?

Movies like Adaptation are often portrayed as a mind game to the viewer because as soon as we feel like we are going to catch on to what is happening and figure out what the author is going to do, it then switches its course. Also, another thing I noticed was that Donald Kaufman, the brother of the screenwriter character Charlie Kaufman, was only in the film. This ties together the fact that John Laroche’s death was not in the book either. It leaves us viewers wondering, and it made me believe that it may have just been two separate stories with similar plots.

Between the drugs, sexual scenarios, vulgar humor, and twisted story line, Adaptation is clearly an intriguing movie. A movie such as this can only be written and produced by people with great talent, because a film like Adaptation could get extremely confusing and somewhat hard to relate to as viewers. Overall, the film Adaptation was enlightening and a great brain workout.