White people as an "oppressed majority"

The idea that white people are the ones being oppressed, and scrutinized more than an actual minority is preposterous! As an American white male I am afforded privileges that most minorities cannot have. White people are generally treated better than most, as we have been the majority and therefor have become used to a set of customs, which is really just a myth. White people have been treated better because we were the ones who oppressed everyone else, be it wiping out the Native Americans, forcing blacks into slavery, or the crack epidemic tied with the Reagan years. White Americans who suddenly feel targeted ones, honestly should feel bad for the things that our race has done, however we should celebrate our differences through diversity, and tolerance. True, the recession did scare a lot of whites, as mentioned it hurt us financially and psychiatrically because we had not had the playing field at a economically level ground. So those who feel like we are falling from grace, and say it's a principle, not racism, I have two things to say to you; It's probably about time we let someone else rule the world for a while, we messed things up so terribly, how can anyone do worse. Secondly, I think it's vital as human beings to evolve, not just from single cells to more advanced stages of life, but to evolve emotionally, and mentally. If we can embrace change as a positive, that interracial couples make some damn cute babies, that people are on a core level all the same, thus deserve the same, equal opportunities, regardless of our race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ect. We are all unique in our own ways, yet we are all put on the same rock, spinning around space together, for a certain amount of time, we are all going to die in less than a 100-120 years, this is fact. So we must embrace what little time we are given, and accept that things are universal, all humans are beautiful.

Characters

During the lecture about characters and archetypes, I was fascinated with Joseph Cambell's "Hero With a Thousand Faces" and the idea of Monomyth. As a kid we are all read the same types of stories with the basic plot line of the Hero, the Princess, and the Anti-Hero all fighting it out, and as most stories with these archetypes, the Hero wins and gets the girl, thus living happily ever after. The idea that you can find the exact same plot throughout these types of stories actually doesn't sit well with me. Obviously this statement has elements of hypocrisy, as I am a fan of movies like "Star Wars" and "Avatar." The main reason I like these types of movies, is because it allows for the creator to be as visually stunning as possible, while maintaing that sense of familiarity, therefor keeping the short attention span of viewers. However there are certain movies and shows that allow for character growth, in completely different way that that of the Monomyth.

I am currently watching a great TV show called "Dexter" on Showtime that uses the main character Dexter to mix up what you would consider a hero, mainly because he is a serial killer. The thing with Dexter is that he is constantly dealing with a "Dark Passenger" a force deep inside of him that keeps him in a non-stop battle with his public and private lives, including trying to raise a family.

The Dark Passenger is always telling him to kill, a problem that has plagued him since he was a child, which we find out was caused by seeing his mother being chopped up with a chainsaw because she was an informant for the police. Harry Morgan was the cop who found Dexter in a shipping container full of blood after several hours, and eventually he adopts Dex. This is crucial to the development of Dexter, mainly because Harry tries to install a sense of morality with a set of codes that he must always follow in order to keep his dark passeger contained. Harry understood that he wouldn't be around forever to protect his son, so the rules that Dexter must follow still allow him to kill those who would hurt innocent people. Dexter works as a blood splatter analysis for the Miami Police, giving him access to DNA, criminal databases, and the ability to know how a homicide department works. With Dexter you have a character trying to juggle multiple lives while still having to be the same person, act exactly the same way to the the people he sees day in and day out, even after getting back from a murder, chopping them up into perfect sized pieces, and dumping them 30 miles out at sea, donuts in hand for the unsuspecting detectives working side by side.

Daily Show Blog 4

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Biggest Newser
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

My personal favorite news show is the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and even though it is "fake news" I truly believe that it has more relevance on our current media, and political environment than most present news shows on TV today. The example above is my evidence for this argument, specifically the part where CNN has you text in the story that you would like to see. As Stewart explained, all three news stories are interesting, and significant to the world. Afghani women losing protective shelters, one of the worlds largest arms trade shows in the Middle East, and Iraq-Afghanistan female veterans finding themselves homeless, sometimes with kids, the public should have the right to be informed on such pressing issues. However CNNs programmers seem to think showing clips from youtube is more entertaining, and their right, it is much more fun to watch a cat putting on a bunny rabbit mask. This is what's so great about the Daily Show, Jon Stewart has a free and open platform to rip on whatever he and his writers woefully please just for a laugh, but in a sense not just for a laugh, to show what is the morally correct thing to do.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Crisis in Dairyland - For Richer and Poorer - Teachers and Wall Street
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

The idea that teachers, the people who are directly involved and in charge of out children's education, apparently are the ones bankrupting out economy, while Wall Street CEO's require millions of dollars in bonuses from the same pool of money that taxpayers used to bail out the banks that were corrupted by these same CEO's! Stewart is able to point out the hypocrisy not just in politics but the 24/hr media whom covers it. We must do all we can to see through the BS, cut the crap, and get straight to what is right and decent. The Daily Show does just that with a wink and a smile.

Photo by Matt Embrey

I think the problem with our campaign was that there was a lack of consistency throughout the ads. Another problem we ran into was how to transform the historical figures into something that a tween would think is funny. I liked the explorer theme and wish to continue down that path except this time i think it might be better if we created a narrative to entice the viewer. Stories are what makes the world interesting, and I think the single image with the line "what if _______ had a cell phone" could be taken a lot further. Perhaps dividing up the ad into small comic book like sections would break it up to allow your eyes to flow throughout the image instead of jumping around.

Originally uploaded by samuel pritzker

Maps & Atlases - Solid Ground from FatCat Records on Vimeo.

Here's a video from one of my all time favorite bands; Maps and Atlases. This video was directed by Taryn Gould and Emily Kowalczyk.

There are a couple of reasons why I posted this video even though it has nothing to do with sex or how women are portrayed in most music videos. The most obvious being that this was directed by two women, and secondly, this video is beautifully captured without the use/need for sex appeal. That's what I really like about this video is the fact that it's all about the art, the ability to make a music video where it tells a short story, has innovative, creative shooting techniques, and is visually aesthetically pleasing. What this does is allow the viewer to focus on the music, which is the whole point of making a music video! Not the idea of releasing a single, then making a video for that song which isn't really about the song, more so of a way to show off, either girls, money, power, or all of the above. In the video for "Solid Ground" the music is integrated with the video. (See the description below the video on the Vimeo site.)

Social Media Campaigns

Personally I am a fan of ad's that use social networking sites like Facebook and Youtube to promote their ideas and products because it changes things up. I'm all for change, especially when it comes to seeing an advertisement. Americans are blasted with thousands of images everyday so whenever a company can mix things up to present their ideas differently, I say go for it! My favorite example of an internet company who utilizes every possible outlet is Threadless a very awesome t-shirt company where the basic democratic system it operates from relies on people to submit designs, then other people vote on those designs, and whatever shirts are voted 5 and a $Buy$ (0-5 scale) wins and gets printed for a limited time. Not to mention the designers win up to $2,500, which makes the competition worth the while for all involved because it makes designers design harder, thusly making the shirts awesome and awesomer. (it's a blog, mistakes will be made!) Threadless's ad's can be seen throughout the internet on sites such as Facebook and the like.

Here's my favorite shirt design by Sebastien Heintz

"Renaissance"

Favorite Ad Campaign

My personal favorite ad campaign is from a Chipotle radio marketing campaign in which two guys compose one minute short songs about burritos. The lyrics are witty and catchy like in the song "Life is Burritoful" with a chorus of "Life is burritoful, life is fajitaful, everything's keen with rice and some beans, life's okie dokie, getting down at Chipotle. Chipotle will brighten your day!" It's just a nice and clean ad, no pressure, everything is "keen" as they say and that's what I really like about it. It's not a high priced, flashy, and expensive ad, it's just a good old toe-tappin tune can sing along with and that is very appealing to me. My other favorite songs lyrics make no sense but it doesn't really matter;

"Burritos make you crazy
Burritos get you high
Burritos make you happy and you don’t know why

They full of rice and beans
They can set your sould free
They’re almost as good as swimming with manatee

But why would you even go swimming in a no wake zone
When you can have a nice burrito right here at home
So go swimming if you want to with or without a manatee
don’t forget the best burritos come from chipotle
the best burritos come from chipotle
the best burritos come from chipotle

You can go swimming if you want to with or without a manatee
don’t forget the best burritos come from chipotle"

Now who doesn't love a fun song about burritos and manatees?

TV News What to do?

I would like to be a part of a creative team who produces a series of short segments. I would really like to produce one segment, then shoot a different show (or more than one). Basically I want to make awesome interesting shows that might live up to the expectations of the most professional news team pictured above.

TV News

What would you like to say?

I think that I would prefer to have a creative role in this class by shooting, and producing a series of short stories focusing on either local people and how they are an integral part of the Shepherdstown/Shepherd University community, or to highlight specific issues relating to Shepherdstown. I'm a big fan of programs that tell stories by using the people that are most passionate, or have a unique take on a certain idea or issue. For example "This American Life" which started out as a radio show on PRI, produced two TV seasons which featured different people and their interesting stories in a series of acts all focused on an overall theme. one of my favorite episodes is called "My Way" where one of the stories features a politician named Brad Blanton who's main platform is "Radical Honesty", the idea of never telling a lie, always speak the truth, no matter what. TAL is really great at showing different ideas, from a unique perspective and that is the kind of angle that I would like to work from.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0zg05N2tuY