"Photograph" or Illustration?

Photo Manipulation has gone too far! What ever happened to natural beauty? There is no such thing as natural beauty in the media today. Pictures are all manipulated in some way where it is just removing a zit, erasing freckles, or just changing the lighting or colouring. At the other end of the scale there are manipulations such as changing skin tones, widening eyes, making people skinnier/ more toned.

I am not really sure what I think about the OJ Simpson picture on the cover of Time magazine. I truly believe people see it differently and I understand why people see what they do. There are two different sides to every story. Time was either trying to make their magazine stand out so it would catch peoples attention OR they were trying to make OJ look scarier, guilty, mean, dark, evil, etc. Personally, I don’t really believe that this photo manipulation is racist. I believe people try to bring racism into any problem when they don’t have anything else to blame it on. People love to play the “race card” when they have nothing else. It’s not like Time darkened him and only him, they darkened the border to so that the whole picture appeared darker.

Compared to other photo manipulation such as Madonna’s Glamour cover for December 1990, this OJ Simpson cover is nothing. What about Katie Couric’s image? When she became the first woman head anchor, instead of being respected for that, they decided to manipulate her photos and make her skinnier. I think it is a lot different to make some one skinnier then they actually are, or change someones smile! I don’t believe they really changed OJ’s appearance all that much, it just seems like the pictures were taken with different lighting. Why did the media feel the need to post his mug shot anyway? Clearly no one looks good in a mug shot! You’re not aloud to smile; everyone looks like a criminal, so clearly this picture was posted to help persuade that he is guilty. Personally, I don’t really see this as the magazine being racist, but I am not surprised that people say this.
I don’t believe this photo manipulation is unethical. People alter photos everyday, I think making someone skinnier, or putting someones head on someone else’s body is unethical! Although, it seems our society accepts it all!
This is only my opinion, I do realize that people with different backgrounds, ethnicity, religion, etc with have different opinions. Perhaps, African Americans may find this racist as they sometimes receive the stereotype that they are the “bad” guys just because of their skin tone. Personally, I find that completely ridiculous and his skin colour should have nothing to do with deciding whether he is guilty or not. What does it say about our world when the jury is suppose to be random, and an outsiders view, meanwhile no matter what they are always rigged. Racism is definitely still around and this just proves it. There should be no need to have an African American dominated jury so that it is “fair” skin tone shouldn’t matter at all!

Work Cited

Unknown Artist. “OJ Simpson Newsweek TIME”. June 27th, 1994. Online image. Airbrushed Ethics. December 31st, 2007.

Unknown Artist. “Katie Couric”. August 29th 2007. Online image. TV Newser: the news about the news. December 31st, 2007.

Spears Bounces Back

Britney recently let out her new music video for “Piece of Me”. I believe that this song is actually an exceptional song and the video is a lot better than her few previous videos. I have a lot of respect for Britney after releasing this song as it is all the truth. She has been the “American dream since she was seventeen” so it doesn’t matter what she does nowadays she is still going to be in the limelight. Britney also speaks out about the media. Basically, this entire song shows the media that she really doesn’t care what they say about her and what they make her out to be, and I love that! At one point she states ” I’m Mrs. Lifestyles of the rich and famous,I’m Mrs. Oh my God that Britney’s Shameless,I’m Mrs. Extra! Extra! this just in,I’m Mrs. she’s too big now she’s too thin,”
And that is all completely true! I think this song would have been a better way to bounce back from all this drama with media instead of her preformance at the VMA’s. If her VMA’s preformance never happened, this song would have done a lot for her.

McCain Stereotypical Commercial

Unfortunately I could not find the commercial for “McCain Slow Cooker Solution” so if you haven’t seen it; I will give you the outline. The mom comes home from her day, the daughter is on the phone and says “mom call me when dinners ready” then a second later she says “one second someone’s on the other line”, and answers it. It is the mom and she says “dinners ready” and the girl screams as if it was way to fast. It is actually pretty funny although I find this commercial rather sexist and stereotypical. In the other McCain Slow Cooker Solution commercial the father is in the garage working on his car (very stereotypical) and the wife comes home, walks in the front door and the husband says “eh honey let me know when dinners ready” and a second later she walks in the garage door and says “dinners ready” and the husband screams.
I find this commercial very sexist because why does it have to be the mother cooking dinner?.. How come the mom gets home and the first thing they say is “let me know when dinners ready”. They could show how easy it is to make by having the teenage girl be like “great mom your home, dinner will be ready in a minute” something like that. Why did the father have to be working on his car in the garage? He could have been doing something else. The dad could have come home instead of the mother.

Avril's Career Questioned

According to The Rubinoos, Avril’s song “Girlfriend” is the same as their song “I wanna be your boyfriend”. The Rubinoos claim the lyric, the meter and the rhythm are identical and she that Avril stole the “heart and soul” of their song. Avril states “I had never heard this song in my life”.
Personally, I think the two song sound nothing alike, besides that one line “hey hey, you you…” besides that I see no similarities. In the copyright code it states that you can use 2% of a song without risk of copyright infringement. I am pretty sure four words is only 2%. I think the Rubinoos are being ridiculous for bringing this up. They are probably mad that their career is in the past and Avril Lavigne made a lot of money off that song.
You can’t just claim that someone stole the “heart and sole” of your song. When I look at songs such as break up songs, they all have the same story line! Someone cheats on someone, they’re left alone, still miss their love, want them to come back, etc. Break up songs either talk about how much they want the person back, or how much better off on their own. That is why I think it is absolutely ridiculous to say that someone stole the “heart and soul” of your song. That is like a movie producer saying that another movie stole the “heart and soul” of their movie. Meanwhile, we all know that all romance movies have the same story lines. They have a perfect life together, break up, meet up again later, and realize they’re still in love even if they’re with new people.

After revisiting this issue, my opinion has not changed towards the Rubinoos situation, but I do really wonder about Avril. After watching the videos on Brittany Lennox’s blog, I definitely see similarities in her “Keep holding on” song and My chemical romance’s song. Also defiant similarities between Avril’s “I don’t have to try” song and Peaches “I’m the kinda”. In those situations I definitely would say that Avril copyrighted. Although as far as the Rubinoos I still completely disagree.

Work Cited

Mark Liddell. “Avril Lavigne: Best Damn Thing CD”. Unknown date. Online image. Girls Who Rock. December 22, 2007.

9/11: Simply Unforgettable

I was in grade 5, in sciences class with Mr. Mcdonald. He was the type of teacher who had no control over our class. We didn't hear about it until the afternoon. I remember my teacher into the class late with the TV, so we were all extremely happy because we figured no science work, just watching a movie! Then he gave us a lecture before playing it about how it wasn't a happy sight to see, but it was the talk of the world. Our teacher seemed to be a bit of an emotional wreck, September 11th definitely hit him hard. I was more confused than anything. I never even knew what the trade towers were before September 11th. I remember walking home so fast staring in the sky, looking for planes because everyone said the CN tower was next. When i got home it was all over the news, every single channel. I was so sick of watching it. After a while i realised my mom was really shaken up, it had never occurred to me that half my family lives all over New York State, just 2 hours away from Time Square.

Everyone has different ways to deal with tragedies such as 9/11. Some famous singers decided to write songs and sing them to the world, to help themselves and eventually others. Alan Jackson decided to write a song called "Where Were You". This song was heavily criticized for the world to decide whether it was touching or tacky. Personally, I believe it was not tacky, if this is how Alan Jackson needs to help himself get through this tragedy then let him be! When will the media stop complaining?... people complain about how terrible our music is nowadays, how its always giving out bad messages, and then when ever someone tries to sing about something good, they get criticized saying its tacky! I believe this song describes a vivid variety of the manifestations of grief.

Movie directors also saw 9/11 as an opportunity to make movies, such as “United 93” and “World Trade Centre”. I think it is a tough call about these movies and whether they were created to make money, or for the memory on 9/11. Unlike artists directors don’t need to make us a visual to deal with things.
Personally, I think “United 93” seems to make you look at 9/11 through the eyes of the people on the planes. Therefore, it makes you see things differently, which I like. The part where the stewardess is talking about how she just wants to see her kids, really made me think. Imagine waiting for your mom to come home from work, and then you find out she’s never going to make it home. Imagine answering the phone and having your dad tell you he’s on a high jacked plane and wouldn’t be coming home. That would be awful! I really don’t have a clear opinion of whether this was created for money or not. The movie looks rather sad, but it is also the typical Hollywood movie.
As for “World Trade Centre”, I think that this is more of a “Hollywood” movie. Especially with the wording at the end, “The world saw evil that day, two men saw something else”. Was their actually two men that they talked to which inspired this movie? Or did they just make up two men that they knew they could make money off of. This movie also contributes to our study of “beyond good and evil” because this movie shows us that “the world saw evil that day”, which is contributing to stereotypes.

Work Cited
Unknown Artist. “9/11.” Sept 11th, 2001. Online Image. Art De Vany. 14 January 2008.

Celebrities Speak Out - Politcs

Back in 2003 the Dixie Chicks were n their “Top of the World” tour. Their career really was at its peek. That was until their performance at Shepherds Bush Empire in London, England. During the Dixie Chicks performance Natalie Maines said

“We’re ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas”.

At the time, the audience cheered, they loved it. But afterwards, it was all over the news and the hate began to flow in! The Dixie Chicks songs were pulled off the radio, radio stations were receiving hate letters and refused to play their songs. People said things like “strap her to a bomb and send her over to Iraq”. The hate Natalie received was unbelievable. After this whole ordeal the Dixie Chicks had hit rock bottom. America showed true support for George Bush during this situation as this was not to long after September 11th.

Later Pink decided to speak out about George Bush. She wrote a song called “Dear Mr. President” which was released on her album on April 5th, 2006. Although this situation was dealt with completely different than the Dixie Chicks comment. Pink has been praised for her song towards George Bush instead of hated. Pink claims some US television shows would not let her perform the song but that was the worse it got for Pink. Pink also seemed to deal with the situation differently than the Dixie Chicks. The Dixie Chicks never took back what they said, which I admire, they stood true to their opinions. Instead, Pink said at an MTV interview that she hoped George Bush had listened to the song and that "[he] is proud of the fact that we live in a country where we can do things like that, where we can have dissent, talk, communicate and share our opinions." So in a way, Pink gave him a compliment in that as we do have a good government system unlike other places around the world where something like this would never be accepted.

Kanye West also tried to take a jab at George Bush. After Katrina, Kanye claimed that "George Bush doesn't care about black people" This comment was soon forgotten because Kanye had no proof of that, he had no reason to make that comment.

These three situations were all handled completely differently! The Dixie Chicks had a perfect image before all this, so it was easy for the media to destroy their image. They were just your typical ‘girl next door’ country girls. Pink on the other hand has always been known as someone who speaks her mind no matter what. She doesn’t care what people think of her, and she’s always been that way so it’s hard to pull someone down like that. Kanye West on the other hand has always been known as a drama queen, always complaining about something or someone. The three artists are also apart of three completely different genres therefore they have three completely different audiences. These situations all happened at different times as the Dixie Chicks happened after 911 so the country felt the need to stand together and support Bush as everyone was still devastated about 911. When Pink spoke out George Bush was at his lowest point in ratings, people were not heavily supporting him as they once were. Kanye West’s comment happened after Katrina as America was trying hard to help save people in Katrina and raise funds for them. They were all three different times. Also I think the statements were all irrelevant. The Dixie Chicks comment was clearly against Bush, as Pinks song seemed more like she wanted to open Bush’s eyes, she wasn’t exactly saying something against him she was just asking rhetorical questions trying to make him think. As for Kanye West’s comment, his was just ridiculous and I find it typical that it came from him. All in all I can see why they were dealt with differently, but I think it is funny how much the media mingles with celebrities lives. I mean the media single handedly destroyed the Dixie Chicks career, it almost ended. Yet basically nothing was done to Kanye West as he tried to claim that George Bush was racist.

Truth About Arabs!

Arabs shown on television are nothing like the Arabs you would meet on the street. Arabs are always shown on television as terrorists, violent, abusive to women, etc. Dr. Jack Shaheen did a study using 1000 films that have Arab and Muslim characters in them, and recorded how they were portrayed. 900 out of the 1000 we negative towards Arabs and Muslims. This is all caused by Hollywood. Hollywood has their own concept of how Arabs are.
In order to help spread the word about what Arabs are really like, I would use a few different methods. First of all, I would create a typical family sitcom. It’d show the life of a regular Arab family, living in Buffalo. I chose Buffalo because it is a pretty busy city and lots of snow, therefore they would have to adapt to North American customs as they are not use to so much snow. I would have a family of 4; a mom, dad, teenage boy, and a younger girl. My goal of my show would be to show everyone that Arab people are not the same as the ones that Hollywood portrays. I would use secondary characters to help fight stereotypes against Arabs. For example, I would have a Caucasian “maid” appear on a few episodes, and the boys’ best friend would be Caucasian. I would do this because normally in Hollywood movies the Arab would be the Caucasians butler or cook or something along those lines. They are normally shown as the secondary characters, never the main character. The show would take you through different aspects of their lives, and it would prove stereotypes wrong in every episode. The show would help you to see what innocent Arab people have to go through just because of the media. I’d show that Arab families adapt to western culture, but I’d also make sure that people would be learning about the families culture/background as well. I’d say that the family would have immigrated to Buffalo 5 years ago, that way they would be adapted to their surroundings, and wouldn’t be in the learning process. I would air my show from 7-9 on week nights. My show would be family friendly, although aimed for 14-49 although it wouldn’t be a show that you would have to change the channel if your young one came in. I plan to also have a website for the show, so that I can see what people think of the show. I would advertise the website at the end of my show when the credits are rolling. Older episodes would appear on my website, and a message board for upcoming news. I would also like a spot where people could post their opinions on the show, give ideas on how to make it better etc. I would also have my email posted incase anyone needed to get in contact with me and my producers. I chose to use the computer and television for this product because I think it’d be the most effective to start off with anyway. Until the show became known, and then I could start putting out more things once people were familiar with the show. I think my product would be effective because it would be fun and entertaining yet people would be learning a lot and I think Arab people would appreciate it.
-Cassidy