Teenages revolution

I am an intern in Time Warner Public Access in Santa Monica. Last time I was working there, I saw a show interview about the new movie of Ann Finnegan, a new producer. I also had the chance to see a preview of her new movie Plastic makes perfect.
The movie talks about a big change in the teens of nowadays. It shows young girls wearing hills, make up and sexy swimsuits. They actually behave like her mother. From the back, we believe they are at least eighteen , but, then we realize that those are kids and they are having an unusual behavior for kids of their age. There is also a scene where they talk about sex and check out the guy who is cleaning the swimming pool.
With such a controversial movie, Ann Finnegan wants to show that the new teen generation is not what it used to be. Girls do not play Barbies anymore, they want to be Barbie and fool around with ken.
This movie is definitely going to shock people because of the straightforwardness of the dialog. It is also an important movie that is showing the change that is happening in the new generation. Kids are growing up too fast. They do not live a childhood for a long time. They want to act like adults. They want to dress like adults. This movie is denouncing this. Kids should not act older than they are. Society is sick because of all the media and images that kids are exposed too, they are acting differently. They want to be the sexy models on the magazines. They want to seduce boys as girls do in the television shows. It is becoming dangerous because sometimes, we have problem to figure out what age someone is. It may be dangerous for teenagers that may become victims of pedophiles.
Kids should try to look older or imitate the adults at the point that they kinda look alike. Media are dangerous and the results of it are underage kids trying to pretend they are older.

It ’s all about packaging!

Why do i choose one cereal packet to another? Is it because of the size? of the composition? Maybe it is because i just like the nice packaging of the brand.
Here we have a Kellogg’s corn flakes cereal box. To promote their cereals, the brand had chosen an Olympic champion, Michael Phelps. He looks happy and have a big smile on the front picture. He looks healthy and very sporty because we see several pictures of him swimming. The images used should have a powerful impact on the buyer. The buyer will make a connection between the champion and his cereals. Apparently, corn flakes seems to be the best breakfast for all wannabes sport champion. It looks as if the cereal had magic power; it is as if they could change you. By giving so much energy, you will become a winner.
What is funny is that the package is also patriotic. They use the color red and blue of the American Flag and also there are many stars on it. Moreover, you can see the American Flag on the swim hat of Michael Phelps. There are also sentences used to reinforce this patriotism. Kellogg is a “Proud sponsor”, Michael won gold medals “representing his country with pride”. There is also the poem “Amazing Awaits” that is totally over patriotic.
Amazing Awaits
where we least expect it, or
after training for it all our lives
it awaits in Our Olympians.
In all Americans.
In the honor of victory
and the glory of pursuit.
with a nation behind us,
with a world before us,
and within us all…
amazing awaits
The words honor, nation, glory, victory have a big impact. You want to be the best. You want to win for your country. That is the goal of the Olympic Games, to push the patriotism in his excess.
Moreover, it is written that you can get a poster of Michael Phelps. It is also fat free, cholesterol free, diabetes friendly although it contains sugar and high fructose corn syrup. There is also an overuse of vocabulary involving superiority. They use the words proud, winner, amazing, performance, legendary, record, pride. Kellogg Corn flakes is also the Original and the Best. All these words are selling you the product. They want to make you believe that it is the best and that it is connected to champion and victory.
Finally, there is the results of the Olympic competition of Michael Phelps. These results are obviously amazing since he is a eight gold medal Olympic champion.
With such a packaging, it should not be easy to convince the buyers that this cereals are the “Best and Original”.

bad jesus

There is a cartoon I just found on the website www.dig.com at http://www.explosm.net/comics/1467/   that I really enjoyed.

The cartoon shows Jesus doing what he usually did according to the church which was being able to turn water in wine. According to the situation, this action does not look good at all because Jesus is not suppose to have a drink since he is driving.

To me, this cartoon is not in favor of Jesus or religion. It appears that Jesus is tricking one of his believer. He shows him something and change it into another thing.  This may relate to many things religion has done in the past. For instance, the religion war. The church said it was to bring the right religion to the pagan and heretics but what happened was that the real purpose of it was gaining  territory, possession and more power.

The friend of Jesus in the cartoon is blind. He believes and trust Jesus blindly. He has faith in him and does not think that he will never be deceived by him. The last drawing shows a dark side of Jesus. The cartoon is also humanizing Jesus because this is human nature to lie. Nobody is perfect so why will Jesus be perfect? This cartoon may want to warn people to not trust too easily. Good and bad coexist and is find in everyone even in the church.

Does The New York Times likes Obama?

This last Wednesday, The New York Times edited a picture of two candidates to presidency : Obama and Mc Cain. These two picture were very different.
First, Obama was looking bad on the picture. He could barely opened his eyes because rain was pouring on him. His face looks terrible because it was probably hard to stay under that cold rain without an umbrella.
Then, we have a great picture of Mc Cain showing him with a great smile and looking very confident. Obviously, he did not have to endured the same hard rain than Obama. He looks very relaxed opposed to Obama who seems very tensed.
These two opposed pictures show us that the newspaper publishing them has an opinion about the candidates. If it did not have any, we would see both candidates looking similar and not as contrasted.
Maybe, the media do not tell us directly what is their point of view but indirectly, they try to influence us. Visual images such as pictures is a great way to catch our attention and honestly, who will not think that Obama looks terrible on this shot?
Does The New York Times likes Obama??
Is up to the pictures to tell you…