Activity on Sexual Images in Media

Although we have no idea what this commercial is saying, it is clearly advertising something through using women as sexual objects. The whole opening shot is filmed looking down a womans shirt, then it zoomes into her glossed lips, and ends taking a full shot of her on her hands and knees. There is nothin non sex appealing about this commercial. It makes no difference whether you are male or female, your eyes are all automatically drawn to the same thing.
In my mind, there is no question whether or not this is inappropriate. This is far too much to be shown on public television. It's one thing for adults to be watching it, but when it is open to the public, children and young teens also have access to it and in my opinion this is not acceptable.

Racism in Disney

They say you learn the most of your values and beliefs in the first few years of your life, whether it be growing up at home with your family or from your peers and teachers in school; hence the saying, "you can teach an old dog new tricks". And although racism isn't nearly as big an issue today as it used to be years ago, you will still find it in many places. The response I get from most people when I ask them why they have a prejudice against a certain race or ethnic group is, "I don't know, I just don't like them". I think this is because this is what they saw as a child. There was most likely racism in the household and young children grew up believing in all they were surrounded in and held true to their beliefs to this day.
One major reason behind all of these feelings though, could have been through watching Disney movies as a child. It caught me off guard, the first time I heard this. But after looking into it further, I find it to be true.
One of the most popular examples is the movie Dumbo, a story about a young elephant with ears big enough that it gives him the ability to fly. The opening scene in the movie begins with a group of faceless African American men all performing labor work in the rain while singing "we work all say, we work all night, we never learned to read or write, we're happy hearted rounsabouts", a roustabout being a laborer, typically performing temporary, unskilled work.
Another example from this movie happens in a scene with a black grow, the only two scenes in the entire movie where the color of the character is black. His name though, being Jim Crow, is the worst of it. To most of us, Jim Crow means nothing. But after I looked into it, I came to find that the Jim Crow Laws are the segregation laws used in the Unites States separating "blacks" from "whites".
But there are more movies than Dumbo and more racism other than that of African American people that you will find in Disney movies. Another example is from The Lady and the Tramp.
I'm sure we all remember the Siamese cats, given Asian-like features like slanted eyes and thick accents. After we see the way the cats behave, it gives off the impression that Asians are cunning and manipulative.
Also, take the main character in the movie Oliver and Company. Alonzo is a Chihuahua given a very thick Latino accent. Throughout the movie, it gives off the impression that Latino's are nothing but troublemakers.
And as for Tarzan, the movie is said to take place in Africa but you will not find a single dark skinned person in the entire film.
Even movies like The Jungle Book and The Lion King have scenes where racism can be found.
Some of Walt Disney's stories date as far back as the 30's and only now are we really beginning to see a change in the way he writes. The Princess and the Frog, which opened last December, marks the first time the hero in one of his films is an African American. It's taken a long time, but it seems Walt is finally coming through.

Deconstructing a Visual

Of course, everyone hears songs in many different ways. To me, Here And Now is saying that this is your time, and there is no better moment to live than now. When GBS explains the meaning behind this song, they say "The difference between the past and the next......is Now" and that is exactly right and everyone should live according to that. 
The song opens up with the line "the sun must set to rise". I live according to these lyrics on a daily basis. In fact, I chose these as my words to live by when doing my grad write-up for the yearbook. To me, it is saying that everything gets worse before it gets better, and I find life really does work that way. 
We only live once, it kind of makes you think of how you want to be remembered and how you want people to see you. 

Here And Now - Great Big Sea

Conflict Resolution

The perfect movie for this assignment in my mind is Paranormal Activity. There are only three characters in the entire film, two main actors and one minor.
The movie is filmed through a hand held camera to give us the image that it was a home video and happened for real. It tells the so called "true story" of a young couple who are "engaged to be engaged" and what happens when a demon possesses Katie, the female of the relationship.
I would guess that Katie is in her early twenties, she is going to school to become a teacher while Micah, her boyfriend, works on a regular basis. They have a lot of money for their age, a huge house with an in ground pool and a convertible.
Considering Katie is being possessed by a demon, the character most often portrayed in this story would definitely be the devil.
There were several instances that happened, progressivelyy getting worse each time. Everything started off when they set up a camera in their room to watch it while they slept and discovered things they would have never known about otherwise like the door swaying mysteriously for example. As time passes, they wake up to very loud bashing noises throughout their house and Katie even claims at one point that she woke up to the feeling of the demon breathing on her face. They call in a psychic to help them, he does what he can, makes some suggestions, and they take his advice and try to follow his directions. But then it continued to get worse,  so they called in another psychic but he would not even step foot in the house because he could feel such a strong resentment to him being there and felt it would only make matters even worse.
In the end, the problem is never resolved which we later found out in Paranormal Activity 2.

To view a link to the movie trailer for Paranormal Activity, click here.

My Favourite Media

My favourite media would definitely be the radio. Some people may prefer to listen to CD's or their iPod's but I prefer the radio because when you listen to other compact forms of media, you are isolated from the rest of the world. The radio though has music along with news and events that are happening on a daily basis everywhere around us. It keeps us up to date with current happenings and sometimes even has open discussions with viewers or celebrities getting different opinions on a certain topic.
It could be related to a magazine in that way. There are obviously no photographs but there are often times interviews and news reports.
I find it perfect to wake up to in the morning before school. I find out everything like the daily weather or even maybe what song was #1 on this day in history or famous birthdays. It also helps to fall asleep to, just to turn it on low and listen to the music

Commercials

The first commercial I found is an advertisement for T-Mobile. The advertisement was filmed in the Liverpool Street Station on January 15th, 2009 and today has nearly 28 million views on YouTube alone. It begins by looking over a train or metro station and then out of nowhere, music begins playing and one man alone starts dancing in the middle of the station. Slowly, more and more people join in and by the end of the ad, the entire station is moving on their feet. Everyone who is not dancing is holding their phone above their head catching the entire thing on video. There people young and old, black and white, every type of person out there is participating in this video.

The second commercial I found is an advertisement starring the young and beautiful Vanessa Hudgens using the Neutrogena Wave, the "secret to softer skin". It is a face cleanser that is believed to give you silkier and smoother skin. I believe the reason they close her to advertise it is because she is young, beautiful and popular, and some people may believe that if they use this product, it will help them to look like her.

The third commercial I chose is an advertisement for "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like", also known as Old Spice. It is a commercial directed towards women, saying that even though their man doesn't look like the young attractive African American man we are seeing, doesn't mean that they cant smell like him.

My Role

If I were to play a role in a movie or TV show, I think I would either play the roleof the blonde chick that everyone presumes to be the "dumb blonde" but is actually extremely intelligent, or the roll of the out cast kind of kid that doesn't really belong to a particular group because she doesn't allow herself to be labeled. 
I would hope to play either of these roles because in a sense, this is the kind of person I am in real life, therefore it would be much easier to play that roll rather than the bank robber or the emo kid which I clearly am not. The director would not have a hard time training me to play these roles because it would come naturally.
Sure, we all have our "blonde moments", unfortunately I seem to have a few more than most, but I know I am smart because my grades prove that I am. Also, I tend to hang out with all kinds of people and I try hard not to judge or label them because I know how it feels to be judged myself.
If I were to be picked to play either of these roles, as unfortunate as it is, it would most likely be on a chick flick or a teen movie, mainly because those roles are most commonly round in movies like those.