Category: Pop Culture!

Latrell Greene

Marvel’s X-Men are a symbol for the struggle of people who are seen as different to achieve equality. Created in 1963 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the X-Men weren’t created in a vacuum. They were written into existence during a time where the civil rights movement, the fight for racial equality and the end to racial segregation, was reaching its peak. The struggle of the X-Men being ‘mutants’, and putting up with those of society who hated them, and discriminated on them simply because they were different was an effective way to get readers to face redundancy of racism and discrimination based on race.

The comics gave people who had experienced that kind of discrimination a form of representation, while giving those who might not have faced it an understanding. Though Marvel Comics are also known for it’s social commentary in a lot of their other properties too during various time periods, the X-Men perhaps delves the most deep into those issues, and is perhaps the most inspired by those real world issues in comparison. In the series, the topics of racism, diversity, and anti-Semitism are explored.

Going further than just connecting the issues between in the comics and real life, characters are even heavily paralleled to real life figures that embody the issues being explored.The leader of the X-Men and the Leader of the opposing team of mutants, Professor X and Magneto, respectively, are representations of their real world counterparts, the Civil Rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X. Professor X has connections with Martin Luther King Jr. in that their ideologies share hope that everyone can coexist peacefully in the future despite the hostile discrimination occurring in the present, while Magneto and Malcolm X hold the more opposing ideology; they’re inclined to the notion of embracing their differences and separating from the rest due to the discrimination.

Some might argue that because they incorporated these issues into a comic book during a time where these issues were serious, that they made light of these issues. But in reality, including something serious like this in a comic book or a similar piece of entertainment allows it to reach more people, and its demographic being younger, it can influence and teaches the next generation to be greater. It gives those who can relate representation, and lets them know that their problems do matter. On top of this, it can be a lot more impactful by getting a reader to care about the characters, and then by effect, getting them to care about their problems. It gets the reader to do something watching the news might not be able to for them; understand why those problems matter.

 

Name: Tohuratun Chowdhury

Class: english1121

Prof: Carrie Hall

Creative project

For the creative project, my topic is “women empowerment”. I am using a book called “ I am Malala: the girl who stood up for education and was shot by the Taliban” by Malala Yousafzai. When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, she almost paid the ultimate price. Also, I will use a painting to show the power of women empowerment. I am planning to draw an eye and inside the eyeball, I want to draw a girl holding a book and price. Which will show that she achieved her goal after facing all the conflicts  I will use some Malala yousafzai motivational quotes about women’s empowerment. I want to talk about this topic because some countries don’t allow women to get their education they think women should stay home and do all the housework. I want to show that women can change the world if you give them a chance. All the women and men should have the same right for education and work on their own career. Malala yousafzai faces a lot of conflicts to get her education in Pakistan. She got support from her family to face all the negativity but most girls don’t get the support of their family. I want to show the importance of education for women and they shouldn’t scared of anyone.

I used the communist manifesto for nearly the entirety of its structure. I established a visual that compared the issue with what is causing it. Then continue on why and how the issue exists. The main reason being the separation of ‘classes’. If someone were to read the Communist Manifesto and then look at my peace, the similarities would be pretty blatant. My article, to me, feels a bit like a rewrite of the Manifesto on a much different topic. The language is similar, the structure is also similar. The humor might as well be the biggest difference, for one article was hired by communists to be used as a formal document, while the other speaks of the great injustice that video games can bring to gender, all be it in an extreme and unusual fashion. Another thing that I’ve realized the Manifesto influenced my writing in the fact I don’t plan on really using many drawn out and explained examples. I originally went into this project thinking “I’ll write how capitalist pigs are making money off of breasts and Male fantasy, yadda yadda yadda.” But now I feel that making the issue exaggerated and make a clear villain that has been abusing people for generations. Though I personally know the gaming industry has been getting better, and most women I speak with in the gaming community are ok with such fan service things, all be it because there are times where females get their own fan service from attractive guys in game as well. But who needs to hear  that the situation is getting better when it’s easier to draw attention by exaggerating an issue by making a cause that inspires support. That’s the way Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto and it’s how I plan to complete my project.

Karina Ramsey

Dr. Carrie Hall

English 1121

03/14/19

I am doing a documentary shining light on some of the people who we as the next generation look up to, who has been sexual assaulted. Sometimes we look at these people and at their lives like it’s all sunshine and rainbows, but in reality, they go through a lot of things as well because at the end of the day we are all human. The popculture artifact that I’m basing my project of off is Kesha. Kesha was sexually assaulted by her music producer Dr. Luke. In my opinion I think that people who feel like they have “power” over someone else, they like to abuse their “power” and do horrible things with that power. However, this power that they have is their own self-given power. Kesha wrote a song called praying where she addresses the fact that this man is a monster and she’s is praying that he gets better and that he doesn’t do what he did to her to someone else. She also shows in the video how lonely she was dealing with this situation by herself. I will also be telling the stories (short versions) of some celebrities who have gone through similar situations that many people wouldn’t have think when though something like this. Far too often people are afraid to talk about this because it’s hard to and they are in the public eye. In light of this #metoomovement we have seen many celebrities and regular people come out with stories about how they were sexually assaulted and now they are trying to get justices against the people who sexually assaulted them.

 

 

 

Amani Nassar

English 1121

Dr. Hall

Although my mentor article was quite short, there were somethings within the article that I could use in my own writing, just with more detail. The opening of the article is what made me want to continue reading. By grabbing the readers attention from the beginning they’re more likely to continue reading and can develop the same thoughts as the writer. The details the writer of mentor article used were brief and straight to the point, but they were pretty good.  Just like the writer I want to discuss the artist in great detail about things like where they come from and how their music helps other people. The song will be my main focus since it is very important to discuss and I would like to pay particular attention to how the song “Alright” was used during many protest. The video for “Alright” is very deep in meaning and has had a great impact in which I would like to dig in more too in order to have my reader look at the song with a better understanding.  A publication like MTV has a heavy presence of people who want to know more about entertainment like TV and of course music. My intended audience will range from teenagers to young adults that go through the struggle of being categorized as a statistics when they can offer the world so much more than others may assume. Minorities in particular face a lot of police brutality, mental health issue and so on. The song “Alright” is just one of the platforms that make a  call for an urgent change in our world.

Logic 1-800-273-8255

What I plan on drawing is a kid walking down a hallway crying and kids and a bunch of kids pointing at him and laughing at him as he is walking down the hallway. The reason that I am creating a drawing on this song is because this is song is about suicide and bullying plays a major role in kids suiciding. Suiciding is a major issue in the world but I feel that people don’t take that topic that seriously. It continues to happen in this world and people keep going on and on by saying hurtful things to kids and they end up hurting themselves. The difficulty I had was the thought of that to draw and show in my drawing the hurt in someone without actually showing them in the image. Then I ended up thinking a bit hardier and came up with the idea of drawing hurt kid walking down the hallway. As I was drawing the artwork I actually realized how miserable other peoples life can be. Many people around this world till this day either want to hurt themselves or kill themselves but it is the matter of the people around them that can change that. I am talking about just always being nice to someone you never know what someone can be going through even just giving them a smile or talking to them about something nice can make them feel better about themselves and you never want to add onto someones pain.

NBA YOUNGBOY is a rapper from Baton Rouge, Louisiana who is currently the rapper who is averaging the most views on YouTube. One of his most famous songs is Genie. The reason why people listen to that song a lot is because it describes certain pain that most rappers don’t show. Youngboy starts of by expressing he doesn’t care about anything and on this song he is going to say everything on his mind. NBA Youngboy is known for his violent activities as there is multiple videos show online of him fighting people and getting in altercations. Some of Youngboy’s song are about him doing violent things that are proven.  Youngboy continues the song by saying “to may problems, thinking how I’m going to solve them, so much pain in my body, they selling lies and I bought it”. This is one line most people can relate to because everyone has believed a lie and been taken advantage of. We all been at a point where we had a life problem with no idea of a solution. Youngboy continues the song by throwing a shot at his ex, Jania. Youngboy says “saying you would never leave how can you just lie to me, get from your knees you aint gotta cry to me”. Jania is known for being the one who gave Youngboy herpes. She cheated oN him with a rapper named Gee Money who she got the herpes from and then gave to Youngboy. Jania was a person Youngboy trusted and to betray that trust really shows that you have to watch out for these females. Youngboy continues the song by saying “I’ve been giving you all my love do you feel it, never learned how to trust sittin in penitentiary, all for you I take a slug baby who the realist, had to tell her I’m a genie I can answer wishes”. NBA Youngboy has been to jail for years and currently has cases pending against him. This line is basically Youngboy saying that if he ends up trusting and loving you then he will give you anything you want. Youngboy continues by saying “I got my static when you ridin with me, we get pulled over know you ain’t gon no time for me, I put my hands up police drew down on me, so many charges make me want to go way oversea”. This is an important line because Youngboy is saying how loyal he wants his female to be to the point where she is willing to go to jail for him. Also he is saying how he is tired of his criminal charges that it just makes him want to go to another country where he has a clean slate.

David Wu

3/13/19

Prof. Hall

Eng 1121

The mentor article I chose that was interesting to me was short, simple and straight to the point. With the article being short and simple it is easier to understand and remember. The author analyzes the song and music video thoroughly to explain the whole idea and concept in a short amount of time. In the article, the author explains how Kendrick’s “Alright” goes about on police brutality. The author deconstructs the video and explains the important scenes and lyrics of the video on how it tackles on the social issue. I see the article fitting in the publication I chose because most of the audience who views this mentor article are African Americans of all ages. The topic of police brutality will definitely engage the audience since the problem of police violence against African Americans has been a relatively popular of nationwide discussions about race. The language will also engage the audience since Kendrick is not afraid to get into politics and use his voice to drive movements that matters to him. The song, which has served as the rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement, seemed to speak directly to the audience facing a time of increased tension to show that black lives matter too.

Celebrities, everyone in the world has a celebrity which inspires them to do better and one day become like them or maybe people want to become like them. Well, what if everyone is going to start doing what most celebrities do. In some cases this can be a tragedy, because in the past few years many known celebrities committed suicide. If everyone would start doing the same the world population would go down pretty quickly, which is not a good think. A study released in February by researchers at Columbia University said there were 18,690 suicides in the four months after the death of Robin Williams in August 2014, suggesting an excess of 1,841 cases — nearly a 10% increase, based on previous monthly suicide data from 1999 to 2015 (Fottrell 4). In the past year celebrities Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain had ended their lives which has caused a lot of rumor in social media. This means that celebrities are effecting other people when committing suicide. It is important that people understand that we should stop the spread of suicide and once for all end it. Many factors are not helping stopping suicide from happening but instead numbers of people committing suicide are increasing and reasons are unhappy environment, social media and substance abuse.Woo and Postalache states “Behind the curtain of world economy globalization, the occupational environment is delivering increasing stress, such as job insecurity, increasing workload, and the burden of lifelong learning. Larger proportion of employees became involved in service- and knowledge-based industries requiring heavy technological preparedness and mental stress. If the pace of change exceeds the capacity of the workers to cope, negative stress reactions can occur.” Also another statement is  “The relationship between occupational environment and mood disorders seems to be reciprocal, creating vicious cycles in many cases. For example, depressive episodes resulting from work-related stress can impact vocational performance by ‘presenteeism’ due to decreased concentration, reduced motivation, and decision errors, as well as ‘absenteeism’ Negative feedback from the organization, decreased self-esteem, and reduced salary may follow and add on the stress level of depressed workers.” (9) This evidence is showing how bad environment can effect people in a way which most of the times leads to suicide. Most of us spends at least 5 to 8 hour s a day outside, this is why environment has such a big effect on us. What then people experience when outside effects them in different ways and those can vary. A bigger part of people are effected most by their work environment. This is crucial because by understanding what is frustrating many of us can result has a better environment and that can then lead to an happy environment and suicide rate caused by unhappy environment might reduce.