POST 14: Elephant, a Gus Van Sant movie (2003)

1) What struck you most in the film?
What struck me the most in the movie was that the first characters that we meet aren't the two shooters. The director decides to show us in the first place a normal day in all these teenager's lifes, one apparently normal day that will have an unexpected and tragic end for most of them.

2) What also impressed you?
After seeing the movie twice I latterly realized that the director gives us a lot of clues about what is going to happen and who are going to be the victims depending on the colors of their clothes (i.e.: the two "angels" are wearing yellow shirts / the jock's sweater is red like the color of blood and has a white cross on it, looking like a target). These little details and choices are very well thought out and I find it impressive to show the character's destiny's this way.

3) Did you find anything more particularly upsetting?
I think that the school's climate is a bit exaggerated, the hypocresy that the school's students represent is very schematical and I find it a bit upsetting that the director critisices a lot of people who actually died during this tragedy. For example the characters of the three bulimic girls Brittany, Jordan and Nicole are taken to the extreme of the group they represent, they are pictured as the "silly girls" who only think about boys and archieving the perfect body through a physical and mental disorder such as anorexia is.

4) What did you find very disturbing?
I find the scene in the shower between the two shooters very disturbing because none of them were gay taking into account that they had neonazi ideologies. I know that this is a mirrored scene that shows the truth about the own director's sexuality but I personally think that he should have stick to the truth.

5) What was most shocking?
What shocked me the most was the delivery of the guns to Alex's house, the delivery man didn't ask for any documentation and what was the most shocking about this scene for me is that the mailman was talking to Alex as if he already knew him which could mean that it wasn't the first time he ordered guns online. The lack of gun control in the United States is amazing. 

6) What does the film  suggest about the two school shooters?

7) What's more, what does the film director make clear about the two killers?

8) What kind of approach to the school shooting itself did Gus Van Sant opt for?

9) Moreover, what's the main consequence of the realistic treatment he uses? What about the 'poetic' touches he instills throughout the film?

10) As a conclusion, what must we admit about the way in which the killing and the killers are perceived by the film viewers?
To conclude we can say that 

POST 13: THE US GUN CULTURE

Steve SACK, on www.startribune.com,

Gun Lobby and Congress (2010)

In this first cartoon we can see on the bottom left two men who represent the Congress and the Gun Lobby (written in their briefcases). On the top right of the cartoon we can see the Congress, and down its stairs a trail of blood that goes right until both of the men's feet. The man representing the Gun Lobby has a bag with the dollar sign on it and a bubble speach above his head that makes us understand that he might be negociating something with the other man (i.e: "where were we, before we were so rudely interrupted). The interruption that he refers to is probably related with someone who doesn't share the Gun Lobby's opinion, and it implicitly makes us understand that this man used violence related with guns to make his vision and opinion rule. The cartoonist crtisices the power of guns in the US legislation, but also the profits that these lobbies make out of guns and promoting violence against others.

Dave GRANDLUND, on www.davegranlund.com, 

Second Amendment and NRA (2013)

The Founding Fathers of the United States are the individuals of the Thirteen British Colonies in North America who led the American Revolution against the authority of the British Crown and established the United States of America. The term is also used more narrowly, referring specifically to those who either signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 or who were delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention and took part in drafting the proposed Constitution of the United States. A further subset includes those who signed the Continental Association or the Articles of Confederation. During much of the 19th century, they were referred to as either the "Founders" or the "Fathers"

The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is an American nonprofit organization which advocates for gun rights. Founded in 1871, the group has informed its members abour firearm-related bills since 1934, and it has directly lobbied for and against legislation since 1975. Initially founded to advance rifle marksmanship, the modern NRA continues to teach firearm competency andsafety. The organization also publishes several magazines and sponsors competitive marksmanship events. Membership surpassed 5 million in May 2013. Observers and lawmakers see the NRA as one of the top three most influential lobbying groups in Washington. Over its history the organization has influenced legislation, participated in or initiated lawsuits, and endorsed or opposed various candidates. The NRA has several charitable subsidiaries, the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) is its lobbying arm, which manages its political action committee.

In this second cartoon we can see two different cases in which there are two different representations of the understanding of the Second Ammendment of the American Cobstitution who gives right to the Americans to bear arms and keep them. There are two visions in this cartoon of the Second Ammendment: the Founding Fathers vision and the NRA vision, all this through the cartoonist's point of view, of course. The fisrt one is represented by the statue of an 18th Century American who bears a rifle on his hand and looks proudly towards him. This man is in a defensive position that would lead us to understand that he is bearing the gun only in self-defense. This could also represent the British colonialism and how Britain invaded the native american's territory using violence and later on legalize that violence. But this is not the heavier  vision of this Second Ammendment, the vision of the NRA according to the cartoonist's opinion is the most stricking one. On the left side of the cartoon we can see a military with too many fire-guns on him. I believe it's a parody of how american men have evolved to the point of not having a gun for self-defense, but owning too many guns just because the law allows you to have them. 

POST 11: Individual document on Spaces & Exchanges.

CRASH (2004)

Crash 's poster.

Crash 's trailer.

Crash is a 2004 american drama film written and directed by Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby 's director). This movie focuses on the relationship of the citizens of Los Angeles, a city with a high cultural exchange since white, black and latino people all co-habitate the city. The main issues of the movie are racism and prejudice against others, violence and murder.

I belive that this movie illustrates very well the notion spaces and exchanges because it talks about the exchange of culture and understanding of other in a very concrete space: the city of Los Angeles. This movie shows how people run away from the cultural and physical differences that we have because of simple fear of the unknown. All the characters realize at the end of the movie that they've lived all their lives prejudiced against these differences (cultural, ethnic...), and in fact these people that we think so very different from ourselves are just the same as us: human beings with the same problems as us. It also shows the live in this city from various view points of the social scale.

POST 7: THE IDEA OF PROGRESS: QUANTITY VS. QUALITY.

As we have studied in class, progress could be defined as a forward movement, an increase in a specific field. This is related to quantity in terms of progress. The other definition that we gave was a gradual betterment, a progressive improvement of society, this is the definition for a quality progress.
To illustrate this notion I chose to focus on today's problems and issues of society, I will be focusing my presentation on the Arctic zone.

This document is a chart showing the advantages of the Northwest Passage. This passage is a navigable route likely for trading situated in the Arctic Ocean. This passage would mainly allow bigger trading ships, that don't fit on the other trading passages (Panama, Suez and Malacca). The problem of this area is sovereignty: Canadians say that this area is legitimately theirs, whereas the USA and Russia and other European countries think that it's an international strait and transit passage. First of all we should compare the distance ridden between the comercial ports through different navigable passages for trading. Let's take the example of a cargo ship travelling from Barcelona to Hong Kong, through the actual transit passages they run between 20 000 km and 25 000, but from the Northwest Passage the travelling distance is reduced to 18 000 km reducing also the time merchandises spend in the boat. This passage could be andvantageous, not only for a faster trading, but also for environement.


The second document I chose is an article from The Wall Street Journal, written by Zac Unger on 2013.
Here, he talks about his personal experience investigating about polar bears. As many know, polar bears's living conditions and habitats have been destroyed because of global warming and humankind dammages to our planet. But what we don't possibly know is that there are 19 different colonies of polar bears. Most of them haven't been studied by scientifics enough to know what is going to happen with them, but the one who are under scientific control are actually better than we think. Polar bears don't actually need ice all the time because in summer they have a kind of active hibernation, during which they feed themselves little and wander around with no goal. Even if there are some populations of polar bears that are under control, we have to ask ourselves to what extent does globalization affect these creature's future, that could be uncertain.

To conclude we can say that technological and economic progressis always starving for growth, but we care little about the quality of this progress to our planet and wildlife living in it.