POST 16: Elephant, a Gus Van Sant movie (2003)

1) What struck me the most in the movie is how the director use a terrible topic from nowadays society and make something so artistic and beautiful thanks to the music and the sensitivity of the caracters.

2) I think that something that impressed me also , is the way to produce the film , with the mix of different scene , the different point of view we've got for all the caracters ( from the background for instance)

3) Yes, i think the movie is really to long actually the film drag on , in my opinion . I think we should skip some scene or maybe make it shorter .

4) Something in find disturbin it's that , at the beggining we focus on John , and on his yellow t-shirt , so we may think "he will be maybe the killer" because of his alcoholic father  . It's a really hard situation for a Young guy . We can also think he is the killer  because in all the movie's cover we've got his face , kissing by Acadia , so maybe all the movie will turn around this special caracters ( we start the movie with him , that is something really specail ) and how he will deal with the massacre.
Somethig also disturbing in my opinión is that , with John t-shirt we focus on a bull but actually the film it's call elephant .

5)   The most shocking in my opinión ,was the scene between Eric and Alex .When Alex was taking a shower and Eric get into the shower with Alex and he confess that he has never kissed somoene before and both Kiss . I don't like the way the scene was made , and i think the fact that at the beginning we saw the meeting to talk about gays and this scene was in relation and the director in my opinion doesn't use it as much he can .

6) The film suggest about the two school shooters that maybe they were bullied because of there own sexuality and they want to take revenge .

7) The film director make clear about the two killers that they were both surffering bullying , and they don't feel confortable with the people of this high school and the only way they find was to made a school schooting , killing all the people who made fun of them in the past because of their difference.

8) I think Gus Van with this movie , take part of the victims and how hard can be to suffer in high school , and the fact that the reason of school schootings are not many time because of the shotters , but because there is like a background of pain because of other people in the school.


9)The main consequence of the realistic treatment he uses is maybe that people may react about school shooting and will try to help the people who are surffering bullying before they create a tragedy , or maybe before they kill themself.


10) As a conclusion we must admit that the killers are shown as victims of the society , surffering bullying because of stupid high school Young guys , and actually they really need help , they can't being forget and marginalize by the others because this can create a tragedy, or maybe this can degenerate into suicide.

POST 15: School shootings in the USA

A photo of Jessica Holliday along with other students of Columbine High
fleeing the school was turned into a cover for Newsweek later that same month.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold

1) Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold , were two young guys from Columbine High School in Colorado . Both Eric and Dylan , were in seniors years , and they would have been graduated a few days after . In the 20 april of 1999 they wanted to take revenge on the people they accused of picking on and snubbing them.
Before that , they also made plans and they keept a diary and made also some videos , were they explain why they made this . They killed 12 classmate and a teacher and they injured 24 other studiants , 3 of them were trying to escape. This tragedy created a kind of fear in United States and in the World to .
Every week , there are school shoootings in United States even though we try to control much more this kind of terrorism , but the fact is that we are in front of another serious problem , carrying of firearms .
We know for sure that the majority of americans have firearms but the savety comes first and we neeed to control much more who use the fireams and how they use them.
3)American Horror Story: Season 1

One of the main characters in this season is a school shooter who killed 15 people. The writers of the show used a real internet search page in one episode where they edited "Columbine" to read "Westfield" but the rest of the search results obviously reference the Columbine shooting. The subject of the shooting reappears several times throughout the season. Aired 2011.

Elephant: A Film By Gus Van Sant


School-shooting movie told from the point of view of someone the shooters let go before the killing starts. Directed by the guy who directed Good Will Hunting and put out by New Line Cinema, it's probably the highest-budget film of its genre. While this meant it's better quality than most, it also unfortunately meant that a lot of people who saw this film didn't know anything about Columbine before. They then thought Elephant was a true-to-life retelling of what actually happened. It and Zero Day (see further down) caused a lot of confusion in their time. This film includes a gay scene in a shower between the shooters pre-assault that set off loads of renewed rumors about the Columbine shooters' sexuality.

Movie: (2003) Directed by Gus Van Sant. 

4) It's obvious that in USA , school shooting are really common and it's foundamental to fight against this. However , What are the reasons most commonly mentioned for the recurrence of school shootings in the USA? First of all in many cases , the shooters had suffered a lot in the past because of other studiants , they make fun of them , they judge the kinf of sexuality , well many reasons are possible ( this is in 86% of the cases)
Then , Maybe the shooters came from a Broken home, or maybe an underprivileged background . They didn't have any kind of Family context at hom , the felt really alone and they want to caught the attention.
Third, they are many time in front of video Games, movies ... and this make an influence on them and they turn into violent people .
To conclude i will say that maybe , also the fact that , to be in tuch so easily with armfire , make this into something really attractif and the young people whant to use them.

POST 14: Individual Documents on 'Spaces & Exchanges' Notion

SPACES & EXCHANGES - Written work on two individual documents

Exchanges in  Real Spaces & Virtual Spaces

Real Spaces

East is East , is a British comedy-drama film written by Ayub Khan-Din in 1999.                                                                                                 

This movie tells the story of Jahangir Khan, he was born in Pakistan and he had got married for the first time there. When he immigrated to Britain, he met Ella, a Caucasian , he fell in love and married her and became the father of six sons and a daughter. The problem is that the father wanted all of children to follow Islam tradition. He wanted to married his sons so he made forced marriage. The first one didn’t work, the first soon escaped from the ceremony because he was gay. The others will try to escape from the traditionalism of their father and at the same time , they will protect their mother because of the father’s violence.

In my opinion , this movie illustrate the notion spaces and exchanges in real spaces as far as he concerned the immigration of Pakistanis to Britain and how they deal with the new culture (western culture) even though they don’t want to abandon their own culture (eastern culture). So how can we deal with the mix of culture between third world and first world? Overlap both culture , western and eastern it’s possible but some difficulties may find . (214 words)

Virtual Spaces

https://youtu.be/0_d7QVHjhfY

How Islamic State uses social media to attract female recruits | Channel 4 News ( 22 february 2015)

In this report , channel 4 news explain how Islamic states uses social medias (twitter for example) to attract female . The videos starts with a pink logo that is suppose to be female friendly , in the background of the video , we see as Islamic propaganda video showing us this women with arms . This women aimed at recruiting other women 550 have heeded the call to travel to Syria , we know for sure  that around 60 of them were from UK . There is no question that for many IS is winning the propaganda war and they are really successful because of internet and social networking spaces for their own propaganda. It’s obvious that media seems to have played a central in recruiting the 3 girls from Bethnal green (like the video explain) . The social networks show also how the girls turn to. It’s important to create a better control of social networking and to delete the propaganda’s videos because this make a fake idea for women , in my opinion it’s important also for medias like TV  to not use the propaganda video in the news because it’s also dangerous for viewers.

I think we can relate this document with spaces and exchanges because it’s talk about how terrorism uses virtual spaces (thanks to the deep web) and new technologies to attract people because nowadays everybody expose his life on the net and nobody is really save although when you think you are alone in front of your computer at home . (258 words )

POST 11: SPACES & EXCHANGES: ¿Qué? A cartoon by Nate Beeler (2007)

1) DESCRIPTION
At first sight , this is a cartoon in black and white from the cartoonist Nate Beeler. This cartoon shows us a TV newscaster and his cameraman, he is equip with his video camera.The TV newscaster looks enthusiastic, fine and more importantly proud of himself , with one of his hands in his pocket and the other one has a microphone , however we can't see the cameraman's face, because it's hidden by the video camera . The newscaster is interviewing an immigrant , the immigrant looks lost and helpless. Actually he looks like if he just arrived , he seems helpless. He is wearing shabby clothes, a cap and mustache and he doesn't have shoes on. He has under his left arm a carpet winds and on his right hand some bags with maybe the only things he has got left. His foot look hurting because he has a thorn wire hangs to him. Contrary to the TV newscaster, he talks Spanish even though the TV newscaster speaks in English.

2) INTERPRETATION
In 2006, the 300 millionth American borned, the demographer William Freys said in the CBS NEWS it will be "a Latino baby boy born in Los Angeles to a Mexican-Immigrant mother,"

Both the cameraman and the TV news maker look well dress compared with the Spanish immigrant .
They ask to him How do you feel about this Milestone sir ? A Milestone is a significant event or stage in the life, progress, development, or the like of a person, nation.
  And the answer gives by the Hispanic  man is ¿qué? ( what ) in English, actually this man doesn't know how to speak in English or maybe he just speaks a kind of “Spanglish” but not a fluid English like the TV news maker maybe this situation between this tree characters happen in the frontier between United State and Mexico which is one of the most important border of America because of the illegal immigration. An important aspect is that in United-State there are many Mexican than American and in 2006 the fact that the 300 millionth American were Hispanic caught the attention of the world .

3) How far does it illustrate the 'Spaces & Exchanges' notion?
In my opinion this cartoon illustrate what an American see on tv in the night in the news,an immigrant about to be interviewed just after he has passed the border and the American is in the impossibility to do something . The notion Spaces and Exchanges can be illustrate with this cartoon  thanks to the Tv news maker who represent the exchange of information between the Americans and this hispanic man , he represents the exchange of culture , way of life ,the spaces can be the frontier between Mexico and United-State which are so critize because of the illegal immigration and the fact that they have a lot of problems because of drugs and arms that come from Mexico to go to the USA , this exchanges are call exchanges from south to north , they are also exchanges of goods because the compagnies are in Mexico and they need to go to USA to be consume .

POST 10 : TATTOOS & GANGS

      

Los Angeles Gang Culture

Credit Robert Yager

Rubble Kings Directed by Shan Nicholson
Saboteur Media
Opens June 19, AMC Empire 25

Robert Yager’s Photos of Gang Life in Los Angeles

photographer: Donna de Cesare

East L.A. : Street Fotografien von Gregory Bojórquez

1)

At first sight we can say, having a tattoo is a phenomenon in vogue . One thing is sure , the fact that celebrities like football player, actress ,singer … make tattoos and use it as something fashionable in full view of everybody ,this make a big impact in nowadays society.  Everybody want a tattoo! However we can’t omit that tattoos were used before to mark animals, slaves and prisoners and beyond any doubt, in a lot of culture make a tattoo is like a rite of passage because of the pain.     One thing is sure, the reason to make a tattoo are varied. Some people make tattoos as a form of self expression and society's rebellion, for instance when we talk about gangs, tattoos are use to now that you are part of a gang, or you kill someone. We can use it also like as a kind of remember you want keep for all your life; it’s very symbolical; thanks to tattoos you show what’s happened in your own life. At this stage I think that the reason why more and more people wear tattoos are very varied (self expression, religion,rebellion,gangs,memory).

2)

First of all the fact that Young people join gangs it is an important topic in society.   We need to emphasize that the young people who join gangs are from underprivileged social backgrounds and broken homes. So it is clear, they are young and they have had already a really hard life between drugs, guns, violence…They have psychological weakness and they can be easily influenced.  They join gangs because they see a kind a family (the gang community), they feel in security with tough guys, they are in surrogate family. Young people can have easy money, drugs, drinks, they kill people, use fear in the suburb, and they feel special. For my part I think that on the one hand they need freedom, and gangs are like freedom for young people but on the other hand they really need help to get off the gangs.

3) To start with, i think we have two topics which are closely connected. In gangs we had saw that they use tattoos to be identify from a gang ,they also represent either a person killed or time served in jail, so it is clear that they are mark of power and prestige between gang members. But tattoos are also use to show your life, your achievement. One thing is sure you can’t take off tattoos without surgery, so pain… it is the same as you can’t get off a gang without pain, it’s in relation. I have the hunch that we can relate both topic , the gang because they have the power of fear , money, drugs, power to kill it’s like a power but a bad power, not well use , and finally tattoos because they are the power of your life in your body.

POST 9: The Draw of 'Dead Town' - A Newsweek article (February 16, 2009)

Go there for a full version of the Newsweek article given out in class.

 

                                                                  Gabriel Hinojos

Laura Bush poses for photos with Homeboy Industries representatives, Gustavo Mojica, Herbert Corleto and Gabriel Hinojos, Thursday, Oct. 27, 2005 at Howard University in Washington, at the White House Conference on Helping America's Youth. I. Gabriel Hinojos is the guy that we talk in this newspaper article , he was part of a gang in L.A. and he tried to getting out of this street gang , we should explain that is a really hard situation " Getting out of a street gang in L.A. is about like getting a tattoo removed :slow paintful,scarring." . He has been at Folsom State Prison and he has got a tattoo "he got his teardrop"actually he tried to remove his tattoo "with laser surgery" to forgot this horrible past. Nowadays , Gabriel changes "became a kind poster child"who leaves behind the gang life . Actually the last sentence of the text is that he returned to jail , so he fell again in gang life. II."Ya 'stuvo" is a tattoo removal center ,it's call with a spanish slang "spanish slang for "that's enough,i'm done with that" " in this center you can remove your tattoo with laser surgery .  Some guys who were part of a gang, came and remove their tatoos like for example , Gabriel who has a teardrop "tattoed just below the eye" . I think the name of the center is really simbolical because is like to say , it's over , i don't want to be part of a gang any more and i leave my tattoos to show that i'm not part of gang, i start a new life . III. The black teardrops is a symbolic tattoo, gabriel got them just below the eye and is to know that he was part of a group , was in a prison or kill somoene " . Gabriel got his teardrop from doing time at Folsom State prison . It has been really painful to take off the teardrop . Actuallly , in my opinion , to extrat the teardrop ,is like to forget the life in the gang and don't look back again. IV. The sentence "this is the 45th visit " (line 11) imply about Gabriel hinojos that he has maybe a lot of tattoos al around his body ,since his part of the gang because ,tattoos are like a reward . It's his 45th visit in the tattoo removal center so this lead us to think that he really wants to remove all his tattoos and delete his past on his body. V. Getting out of a gang is not easy , you can see it when Gabriel says "Getting out of a street in L.A. is about lile getting a tattoo removed : slow,painful,scarring.It's a complicate situation . VI. It's not always possible , you can see it when Gabriel says "In street lore,a gang banger can never laeave a really brutal gan like Mara Salvatrucha ." also when he says "But escaping the pull of gang life is extreamly diffiult ." VII. Is feasible in the conditions that you know as Gabriel that you want to change , you go to prison , you are appologie for the crime that you have commited ,you try to forget you past ,like Gabriel , getting his tattooo removed , and became a kind person . VIII."Extremely difficult "   , Gabriel use this sentense to says that is impossible to leave a gang in the moment that you are inside a gang , you are died in a way because for the other guys of the gang you will be a looser and they will kill you because they are very brutal and they just want to kill. IX. The last three sentense explain that Gabriel changed, and became a kind person , who forgot this black past and who celebrate his achievement with the first lady Laura Bush at the White House so actually it's a big progress. But the last sentence is " afew months later , he was back to jail " so he returned in prison after all this long path , he fell again in the gang  life .  dddddng  in the aggain  X. In this photograph we saw a doctor's hand working to remove Gabriel's gang marking, it's obvious that Gabriel is painful , he grits his teeth so hard . This photograph by Justin Maxon illustrates this article ,because this article talk about Gabriel and the biggest part is about how he remove the tatttoos with laser surgery and also , in the article, he explained , how you feel when you remove your own tattoos. Well you can see the feeling in his face in the photograph.