week 11 blog

The Dark Knight is a 2008 film that raises questions about exception. The exception that I found most intriguing is the heights Batman will go in order to stop evil. This is interesting because most other superheroes tend to abide by the law. In the film, Batman creates a device that taps into every cellphone in the city in order to create a sonar. This is an invasion of privacy and it shows how much Batman is pushed to the limit in order to stop evil. Even his assistant, Lucius Fox, doesn't find his methods, ethical which shows that Batman has crossed the line. However, it is understandable to see how Batman could go to such heights, considering how chaos has already occurred. The Joker has been killing people everyday that Batman does not reveal his true identity and also has been targeting banks, hospitals, judges, and the police force. This can be linked to why Batman must do something so unethical in order to stop the villain. Also another thing that Batman does to add to the exception is the way he unleashes his anger against the Joker when he asks Batman "does Harvey know about you and his little girlfriend?" The Batman let his emotions get the best of him and lashed out against the Joker in a fury of punches and throws, which wasted a lot of interrogation time. This is significant because if Batman had not beat him, he would have had more time to find out the location of Harvey and Rachel and could have possibly saved both of them.

week 10 blog

Buffy makes power a feminine issue because she changes the way power is viewed. Usually male superheroes are the ones portrayed as the hero in movies, books, and TV shows. However in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy is the heroine and she is good at what she does. She dominates with her powers and the way she fights is much different than than the traditional male superheroes. First, her attacks are personal and physically intimate. Her attacks are mostly against demons and villains she knows by names, not the anonymous attacks that occur in most other superhero stories. This is one thing that is different with a feminist power; they tend to be less reckless. Also one unique thing about feminist power is that in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy wants to work together. Male superheroes tend to want to work alone: Superman, Batman, Green Lantern. This changes because often Buffy refuses to take on the role of the Slayer and instead works together with her friends. This says a lot about feminist power because it says that it wants to stay together and values community and friendship.

week 9 blog

The Incredibles is a fantastic film that incorporates family with superheroes. The Incredibles are not the perfect family; the parents and kids fight, the daughter struggles to fit in, the son wants to do well in sports, the dad is fed up with his nine to five office job and the mom stays at home to take care of the kids. The film does a great job of relating the Incredibles family to most families in America, mine included. Even though the Incredibles had super powers, they still struggled with the uses of it and still set rules on the super powers. Just like any thing with great power in every day life whether it be money, cars, or in this case super powers, there has to be rules. For example, the son is not allowed to use his super speed in sports at his middle school, and the son and daughter are not allowed to use powers carelessly. Even though the Incredibles may not seem like the average family they do struggle with some of the same issues as my family.  Also the Incredibles share happiness like a regular family, when they open up and start to trust each other and work together and succeed, they grow closer as a family. And this happens with any family, mine included.

week 8 post

The film Hero emphasizes the power of words. Even before digging deeper into the meaning of the words I can tell by the characters names that the director had some meaning behind the names of the character. Nameless, Broken Sword, Flying Snow, and Long Sky are some of the unique names given to the characters in this film. Also there is a part in this film where the main character, Nameless, goes to a temple to have the word "sword" be written in Chinese. This takes a while because there are about 80 ways to write this certain expression. This shows the importance of not only of a word, but also about the way it is written. This film has a big emphasis on words and it is proven in a scene where a grand army marches towards the temple where the calligraphy is taking place. The people in the temple are painting characters and the army shoots hundreds of thousands of arrows at the temple hoping to kill everyone inside and thus preventing them from writing characters. Nameless fights alongside Flying Snow to fend off the arrows so that the word "sword" could be properly written. From this scene, I can tell that the film has a big focus on words.

week 7 blog

China's All-Seeing Eye was written to emphasize on the amount of control and surveillance China has on its country. It relates to the movie V for Vendetta very well because just like the amount of surveillance China is implementing so too is this country in this film. There are very strict rules on how much freedom a person is given and the government in this film is run very much like a dictatorship. China's All Seeing Eye takes a look at how some of these total control issues in literature, movies, and history are starting to become a reality in some countries, namely China. The article shows that 20,000 mini cameras are installed in this small city in China called Shenzhen and all of the surveillance will be linked to one grand network. I feel this is an invasion of privacy because people should be allowed some privacy and alone time and if there are mini cameras everywhere, it would make for a very bad place to live, I think. If this happened at Azusa Pacific University, I would probably transfer because I am not happy with security cameras monitoring me 24/7. It's not right and the line has to be drawn somewhere and I feel Shenzhen has crossed that line.