The cultural effects of Sacha Baron Cohen's 2006 film Borat
Essay - 5 pages - Film studies
Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's 2006 film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan has garnered much critical attention for its humor, both positive and negative. Cohen plays an extremely bigoted Kazakh journalist named Borat trying to understand American...
The Velvet Underground and Nico: Anti-modern rock and roll
Essay - 7 pages - Journalism
That banana, it's the single image appearing on the cover of The Velvet Underground and Nico, one of the most influential albums of all time, accompanied only by the teasing phrase “peel slowly and see” at the top and artist Andy Warhol's name at the bottom. On the original album...
Re-Africanization and the popularity of the Brazilian Samba
Essay - 6 pages - Journalism
To the rest of the world, Brazil looks like a kaleidoscope of races, foreign in its demographics to virtually every other culture on the planet. From the density of the Amazon rainforest to the all-inclusive street parties of Carnival in Rio, the Federative Republic of Brazil, ostensibly the...
Media portrayal of Midwesterner's
Essay - 7 pages - Journalism
Media influences the way people think and behave. What media says about anyone/thing becomes the norm. It influences simple things such as what people talk about on their lunch breaks to more complex belief systems. Media frames depict people from geographic areas in stereotypical ways; this...
Kurosawa's samurai films and the Westerns that were inspired by them
Essay - 7 pages - Film studies
The films of Akira Kurosawa, from his adaptations of Shakespeare's plays to his samurai films, have influenced filmmakers from the 1950's to the present. This influence is most obvious in the Westerns that were adapted from his samurai films. In 1960 “Seven Samurai” (Kurosawa, 1954) was...
Modern mass media consolidation and the erosion of information
Essay - 5 pages - Journalism
Ever since there has been a way to convey information—spoken language, perhaps even body language?—there has been the immediate by-product of misinformation. It is a reasonable assumption to say that nothing presented as information of any sort can ever be fully “true,”...
The credible reality of fake news
Essay - 4 pages - Journalism
Everybody remembers the moment they first saw footage of the burning Twin Towers toppling down on September 11th, 2001. Everybody remembers the panic that ensued, the news tickers running constantly on all the major television stations giving updates on nothing in particular, the finger-pointing...
Cinema of the absurd: The baby boom generation in The Big Lebowski
Essay - 4 pages - Film studies
After World War II, America experienced what would eventually be termed the “baby boom,” in which about 75 million births occurred between the years of 1946 and 1964. The “baby boomer” generation has been constantly examined since its inception, and the world during its time...
Sexuality in modern melodrama
Essay - 7 pages - Film studies
The depiction of sex and sexuality in American cinema was slow in maturing, but in the last two decades there have been a growing number of popular melodramas that depict sex as a meaningful part of a relationship. This practice distinguishes modern melodramas from the classical Hollywood type....
Films on the ongoing war in Iraq
Essay - 14 pages - Film studies
Since the start of the U.S. war in Iraq in early 2003, the citizens of the world have been bombarded with news coverage the likes of which has never before been seen in the history of armed conflict. Likewise, the world of cinema has embraced the conflict in Iraq in many varied forms and with...
Similarities in the films of Alfred Hitchcock
Essay - 4 pages - Film studies
Alfred Hitchcock's “Strangers on a Train” (1951) carries with it the signature of its auteur director. Hitchcock's other films are marked in the same way using similar themes, character types, and storylines. “Strangers” is most similar to “The 39 Steps” (1935) and...
Women in the films of Jean-Luc Godard
Essay - 6 pages - Film studies
Since 1959 and the release of his first film, Jean-Luc Godard has engaged audiences with a varied body of work. He has entertained, quoted, lectured, and bored, inevitably. Throughout his entire career, both the depiction of the female and her role in his films has been of the utmost importance....
Skyscrapers: An American urban art form
Essay - 5 pages - Architecture
It isn't often that we think of buildings as works of art. We have a word to describe the art of designing buildings and structures - architecture - but to most of us, buildings are things of purpose, not things to be admired. We pass in and out of them, conducting our business, and never give a...
The ideology of film: The portrayal of Women & Blacks in baseball films
Essay - 5 pages - Film studies
Ideology is a very broad topic. Described as “a body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual, group, class or culture” (Giannetti 428), ideology can be discussed anywhere when dealing with any kind of social opposites. In filmmaking, all types of beliefs...
Dragon ladies and China dolls: Images of Asian American women in American film
Essay - 6 pages - Film studies
The image of Asian American Women in film has undergone many changes from the 1920s to today. With stereotypes such as “dragon lady” and “china doll” and the practice of yellow-face, Asian American actresses had plenty of obstacles in the world of film. Actresses such as Anna...
Collegiate publication censorship: Will Hazelwood infiltrate campus life?
Essay - 6 pages - Journalism
In the United States of America, over 295,516,700 citizens enjoy a considerable amount of freedom. A vast assortment of backgrounds, races, and occupations are compiled to make up the population of America. Although this diversity is combined to make a powerful country, it also brings internal...
The creative impact of jazz music
Essay - 12 pages - Journalism
Music frequently requires more than one performer to be created. Perhaps two or more musicians are required, each playing a “part” - without the presence of all the musicians, the song would be incomplete. Perhaps one musician will accompany a singer, each performing distinct but...
Manipulation of space and sexuality in L'Avventura
Essay - 5 pages - Film studies
In Rudolf Arnheim's Dynamics of Architectural Form, Arnheim argues that in many ways, physical space is less important to human beings than the psychological perception of space. For the average man, experience isn't made up of isolated incidents, but rather an “experience is generated only...
Three mile island accident
Essay - 5 pages - Journalism
Three Mile Island Crisis started at four a.m. on March 28th, 1979. There was a clog in one of the pipes and the men working there had to clear it out, which was a regular occurrence. They shot air into the pipe in order to unclog it, which worked and then they went about their usual business at...
Market driven Journalism
Essay - 5 pages - Journalism
The effects of market driven journalism on the fourth estate are questionable at best and disastrous at worst. In market driven journalism, “viewers and readers are transformed into customers, news into products, and circulation or signal areas into markets” (McManus, 1). A prime...
Eric Clapton: Legend among legends
Essay - 4 pages - Arts and art history
In the late 1960s, one of the most well known cases of graffiti observed around the musical Meccas of London and New York was "Clapton is God". Three decades later, the sensational guitarist and singer continues to keep his fans captivated by producing remarkable musical innovations. His...
Hiding in the stacks: How U.S media transmit U.S Government lies
Essay - 4 pages - Journalism
The American Government has a wide array of resources available with which they can disseminate information regarding their activities, both at home and abroad. These resources include but are not limited to press secretaries, communications chiefs, and leaked documents that are released to the...
Shakespeare in vegetable underpants: Peter Stein and Peter Zadek's opposing approaches to Shakespeare
Essay - 9 pages - Film studies
“Shakespeare in underpants,” is how Peter Stein has described the work of fellow director and rival Peter Zadek, while the latter has called Stein's work boring and overly polished to the point that his actors become overcooked “vegetables” (Patterson 132, 168). Both German...
"Text Messaging and Instant Messaging : Aid or hindrance?"
Essay - 7 pages - Journalism
As is the case when many technologies emerge, the debates that spring forth tend to fall to one side or the other. Moral, ethical, social, and religious concerns arise. However, there is one type of concern that I find not only interesting, but in a way disturbing. That is, the fear of the...
Transformers: America in disguise
Essay - 8 pages - Film studies
Michael Bay's Transformers is a genre pastiche, combining elements of action films, science fiction, high school dramas, general comedy and even moments of direct satire. Most interesting, though, are the ways in which Bay's film ties into the genre of war cinema and the modes and conventions it...
Anthropological and historical perspectives on the death of Captain Cook
Essay - 7 pages - Journalism
Scientific and philosophical thought have been preoccupied with the problem of an objective, empirical reality whose nature is discoverable and quantifiable at least since Descartes. This theoretical trend continued and culminated in the discoveries and ideas of Isaac Newton. The Apotheosis of...
The Broadcasting Board of Governors
Essay - 5 pages - Journalism
The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) which became independent of the United States Information Agency in 1999 when that department was dissolved, is charged with responsibility for US-backed, non-military international broadcasting. Such endeavors long pre-exist the BBG, and have been an...
FESPACO: More than a film festival
Essay - 5 pages - Film studies
With the revolution of filmmaking has come the need to bring films and filmmakers together. The creation of film festivals provides a place where filmmakers can showcase their films. Thousands of film festivals have formed around the world over the past decades. Some are larger and more...
Landscape painting in 19th and 20th centuries
Essay - 10 pages - Arts and art history
Landscape painting in the American context emerged in the 19th century along with the philosophical works of Emerson and Thoreau. The literary arts also began to turn toward an examination of the natural world at about this time. American painters, whom had previously been preoccupied with...
The new American musical: How the musical has changed to attract a new audience?
Essay - 6 pages - Film studies
Throughout the greater part of the twentieth century the American musical has entertained audiences of all ages and backgrounds. The musical has become a reflection of American life: sometimes tragic, somewhat unpredictable, but always persevering. The American musical has taken many shapes...
