OH GOD! ... Another One Strikes

  

It Strikes Again. I was going through pictures of my friend over Facebook .. and LOOK what I found!! IT was taken in the States.

BE STUPID ... Its getting US!!

Well look what my friend in New York came across … Stupidity has no boundaries.

BE STUPID .. Strikes AGAIN!!!

  Recently the AIS Soccer Girls Team 2010 travelled on ISSTS to Bonn, and look what I came across!!! … BE STUPID!!!.. The widely popular and very successful campaign “Be Stupid” run by the hyped leading jeans label Diesel, has taken Stupidity to the next level. “Be Stupid” is the new thing. “To be stupid or not to be”.

Ardekani and Stereotypes in the Media

Ardekani and Stereotypes in the Media

Should amateurs like Ardekani be encouraged to dispense advice about religion and morality to troubled adolescents?

Every human being is an individual. An individual is a person with different opinion and thought and different perspective and approach about any subject and issue in the world. And, every human being on earth has the right to learn from his past or his experience, therefore the betterment is to allow the person to make their own decisions and learn from it. Likewise, when it comes to sensitive topics like culture and religion, this freedom to select ones faith and religious view should be as open as any other matter. But what has to be considered is the channeling of thoughts because you have to be aware that people have different views and there is bound to be colliding ideas or contradicting ideas. If not handled carefully, sensitive issues often lead to fights and powerful outcomes. But allowing an armature like Ardekani to speak about religion, it is very wrong to say because a person who is not well informed about the issues at hand, is bound to lead into controversial matters which always have severe consequences.

Some people assert that all stereotypes are based on some measure of truth. Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not?

I do not agree that stereotypes have any attachment of truth to them. When people say that stereotypes origin at some event of truth and people generalize others on that basis, it is not true. Stereotypes can simply be created to offend the other class, or to start rumors to show disrespect to the other people. It is used as a tool, or sarcasm to entertain people but, even when we laugh at these stereotypes, somewhere in our minds these little details get imprinted and we try to relate to these details when it comes to a real life situation and these connections are made so quick in our mind subconsciously. Above all stereotypes hurt people, and it is not a good practice. It just shows how unoriginal you can be.

What language do you hear in school halls or at school events that reinforce stereotypes? What can you do about this?

We study in an international environment and that is one of the key factors why international students are very unique from the others. We are able to interact with people from other ethnicities cultural backgrounds and we are able to develop a sense of understanding and respect for everybody around us. So there is no such kind of stereotypes against anybody but there are always people who poke small racist jokes but with no bad intentions, but people need to realize that in an international community, it becomes even a bigger challenge to maintain that kind of patience to avoid such situations where you might be speaking offensively about other people’s religion because people do get hurt and do not take it lightly. I know that I don’t take it lightly.

Why do stereotypes exist? What purpose do they serve?

Stereotypes make you different from the rest. That is the initial approach of creating stereotypes. I am not saying it’s a good thing. It’s a fact. Other people say that stereotypes comes from repetitive behavior of people of the same background.. WRONG! There is always more to “Indians being cheap”. I am not saying that I am. Maybe Indian people who you have might be cheap because of their financial background, doesn’t mean they are cheap. If you have money, then be happy and spend it, why be cheap? BUT WHERE IS THE MONEY??! .. is the right question. After people see that, then stereotypes start to develop. Stereotypes do not serve a purpose. They cause hatred. I am sorry if you feel that I am biased but show me the good side of stereotypes because I can’t think of one. For example the following poster. 

Exposure to Advertisement: My Experience

 Exposure to Advertisement

I wake up at 6:40 and I rush into the shower. The first advertisement I come across is my Nivea shower gel and my Colgate tooth paste. By the time I reach down stairs waiting for my car, I have already encountered a dozen restaurant ads and take-away pamphlets outside my door way.  On my way to school, I pass by at least 50 different ads, very commonly seen McDonalds big large yellow M Sign, the Guinness pub, Castro, ToysRUs, the Big Coke replica in Ikea and dozen on car logos. It is amazing how affected I am by this point. I reach school only to see people actually sporting Levis, Castro, Lee, Denim Jeans and Nike, Adidas, Supra sneaks all except their shirts. I see people sporting different company bags, and throughout the day, I see a variety of drinks like Nestea, Arizona and other little snacks of different companies. And throughout my day, laptop is used in at least 75% of my class time, I am flooded with ads and pop ups and whatnot. Not only that, just looking around the classroom, the different company of laptops, ranging from Dell, HP, Lenovo, Toshiba to MAC books. There are spams of prize winning pop ups, and free gifts over the internet. Then there are people always walking around in the corridor with their brand of music players like I-pods and Mp3s and their unique set of headphones, Dr. Dre Beats to be more precise which is a growing trend in our school. By the time I reach home, I get on with my homework and am on my laptop for 5-6 hours because I go to bed pretty late. The amount of internet usage is scary. I have noticed that pop-ups increase, especially when I am on a website for watching shows online on websites like SideReel which branches me to all the links where I can watch the show online. In this process, I encounter double the ads because the websites are made in such a way, that when you click on a page, an involuntary link immediately pops up, with new ads every single day. I don’t watch t.v because I don’t have time for that because all my needs are fulfilled over the internet. Also, in the morning drives to school, when I tune into radio, which is not very often, because most of its in Hebrew, I do come across a lot of ads during the brakes.

My Findings:

Shop advertisements: 100 +

Product advertisements: 50+

Billboards: 15 around

Internet ads: Prize winning: 5

Online games: 4

Cash prizes: 5

Dating online ads: 12+

       

News Analysis

Toddler Killed In Crewe House Fire

This article has been extracted from BBC London website. It is the second big article after the headline. The story of a toddler who was rescued at the sight of the fire but who did passed away at the scene while the mother of the baby was able to rescue her two other children before the fire brigade arrived. The children and the mother were rushed to the hospital. At the end of the article, the article quotes “urged people to check smoke alarms in their homes were working properly to avoid further "tragic incidents". This is a very tragic accident for the family, but putting this news up with a major headline, does draw a lot of attention to the news. The news is only relevant to the people living around in that neighborhood, or even that society, but putting it with National news, makes it inappropriate.

The Norris 5:

a.)    Informative vs. Superficial: 

      This article is defiantly informative, because it gives us details about the timing, the place of occurrence, the name of the people involved, the effects and the quotations of sympathies of the neighbors.

b.)    Accurate and Truthful vs. False and Deceptive: 

      The news was short and brief even though it highlighted the major points of where, when and about the people involved. It did not get into depth of how long, and what might have caused the fire, since investigation is still going on, but we can most likely assume that the fire was an accident but there can be other factors which we are not aware of. The news is very local, so it still lacks the immediate investigation. It does include quotations of the neighbors but it does not have information about the parents.

c.)    Objective vs. Biased

I am not sure, but I have a feeling that is biased because of the lack of information. It is biased because firstly there is no statement made by the actual people who witnessed the fire and secondly, it stated that police is investigating, and the fire fighters are trying to figure out the source of fire and some fighters got injured during the rescue mission. This news is objective in way because the target audiences are families with toddlers at home. Nothing was mentioned about the house, or any need for urgency in investigation. They stated “investigation is on the way”. Nothing was mentioned about the location of the house, or any suspicious people in the neighborhood or house defects which could have led to the fire.

d.)    Pluralistic vs. Insular Viewpoint

Defiantly insular because the story is being led by the comments and viewpoints of the firefighters and the chief of the police department. We have no information about the incident from the point of view of any witness or the family suffering.

e.)    Balanced vs. Weighted Side

I would say neither, because this is not an argumentative article. It is plain news based on incident with minimal information. There are no accusations made against any parties, for example, there would have been a weighted side, if the parents of the toddlers would have blamed house security for poor service, or house owners for faulty designs but there are no statements made by the family so there is nothing to argue about. The main concern at the moment is to check properly working fire alarms.   

   

Entourage : Content Analysis

Content Analysis

Name of Program: Entourage

Medium: Television

Genre of Program: Comedy-drama

Name of Character Viewed	Vincent Chase	Eric Murphy	Johnny Drama Chase	Turtle (Jerry Ferrara)	Ari Gold
Male or Female	Male	Male	Male	Male	Male
Main Character?	Yes	No	No	No	No
Occupation	Famous Actor	Actor Manager	Struggling Soap Actor	Chauffer, party manager	Vinny’s agent, Big acting label company owner
Level of Education	College	MBA	College	High School	MBA
Race	White	White	White	White	White
Marital Status	Single (one night stands, got out of relationship with Missy Stone)	Married to Sloan(working in Sloan’s godfather’s company)	Single (one night stands)	Single (one night stands)	Married to Mrs. Ari Gold, with 2 kids
Age	32 years old	32 years old	34 years old	32 years old	35 years old
Number of Children	0	0 (planning on getting 1)	0	0	2 children
Appearance	Handsome, good looking	Average	Average	Average by traditional Standards	Average, strong built
Body Type	Healthy	Healthy	Healthy	A bit heavy, big	Strong built, fit
Personal Characteristics	Arrogant, kind hearted starting to get emotional, humorous, Big sexual drive	Emotional, Intelligent, Committed, Rational , Straight forwards,	Emotional, Desperate, Kind hearted, short tempered.	Confused, Indecisive, Desperate, Nondependent	Womanizer, Humorous, Straight forward, Stubborn, Gets what he wants/says, Persuasive, Promising, powerful
Role of Character in Narrative	Flirtatious, Main character, Helpful	Reality check figure	Supporting character	Wingman character	Comedy character
Impact of character in Narrative	Major voice	Contradicting with Major voice	Side conflicts	Negative outcomes	Mixed conflicts, conflict manager

The show is straight up amazing. It is about the chronicles of an A-list movie star, Vincent Chase, popularly known as Vinny, and the fluctuations of this acting career in Hollywood. Even though the whole show is centered about the acting career of Vinny Chase, his entourage or his childhood mates, makes his life experience even more lively because the intertwining relations and conflicting ideas of the characters lead to large fights and blows but in the end, they come through as caring and true friends. Vinny Chase, is a star struck celeb who debuted on Aquoman, and he immediately came on the rooster of A-list movies. His older brother Johnny Drama is a struggling actor, and he hides under the limelight of his brother’s fame, and living under his younger brothers roof, but Vinny Chase being the kind hearted person he is, lavishly spends on luxurious Hummers, Rolls Royce and 10 grand personal custom-made sneaks, 3 million Beverly Hill apartments NOT for himself, but for his friends. In the show, the characters are more like “bros” then just childhood friends. Their foundation of friendship was established during their childhood, and Vinny trusts his entourage so much, that he made Eric, E his agent even without any actual managing training, but because he trusts E like his family. And then we have, Turtle, who is not defined, because he does not have a job of his own, so he drives Vinny around, and lives of favors and Vinny’s wealth. But as usual, this is a story of people in Hollywood, so there are stereotypes everywhere. The characters Vinny and his brother and Turtle all enjoy getting laid and one night stands except for the two other characters that are married. So the portrayal of women as an object of desire and fulfilling their sexual drive is the message projected in the show, and that is negative media. Also in the show, there is extensive abuse of alcohol and drugs and it is the everyday life style of a superstar and that is what they are trying to portray. There stereotypes are embedded within other stereotypes which makes it hierarchical and more complex. For example, the lifestyle of a famous actor is portrayed with girls who are models and have a thin skinny bodies and are desperate, which is another stereotype for modeling girls and also project women as dependant and docile. Also in the show, Ari Gold, is the man, so he wants to get what he wants. He is very racist, especially towards his assistant who is Chinese and homosexual. So he makes fun of his Chinese origin and generalizes all Chinese people to be gay. And he treats women as inferior and objects of pleasure to the eye. He treats women like dirt and calls them all prostitutes at heart. This sends a very negative issue about women. Even though in the show, there is a supporting actress who is the co-manager with Ari gold, but Ari Gold still manages to dominate her and over rule her voice and throws sexist slurs on her, and she takes it without much argument, which shows another stereotype of women being pushed down in society even in work areas. There are many more stereotypes, but the major ones are the alcoholism and drugs that comes with naturally living like a superstar, the perception of women as objects to fulfill sexual drive and discrimination against Chinese people.