Asians in the Library: UCLA Rant

This girl comes off as being completely ignorant from the very beginning when says that she may not be the most politically correct person and not to take it offensively. Then she goes on the state that she is a political science major, she better figure out how to be politically correct if she ever wants a job and especially after this video. She thinks that she’s just being honest and open about the situation and Asians in the library, when in truth she makes herself sound stupid because she’s completely stereotyping them. Her rant is completely negative; instead of making the difference she thought this video might have made, it just completely back fired. She was the one who received the negative feedback. Asians are not the only people who talk on their phone in the library either; just because she hasn’t seen other people do it does not make it okay for her to attack only them. In the video she makes it seem as if Asians are completely absorbed in their own world and don’t care about anyone around them. Instead, because she’s made this such a negative video she did the exact same thing. When she says things like “the nice, polite, American girl that my mamma raised me to be,” it is obvious that she is actually the one who is absorbed in her own world and no one should be disturbing it. She is trying to give a bad reputation to the Asians at UCLA from the video and get people to stand behind her in what she believes. All she did was give herself a bad name and stereotype the “dumb blondes” even more at her school. This rant did not help any situation or person, it was completely negative.

Paragraph Exercise

In Exit Through the Gift Shop, reclusive street artist Banksy tells the story of Thierry Guetta, a videographer who sets out to capture the world of street art. Banksy does not give interviews, so producer Jaimie D'Cruz joins NPR's Lynn Neary on his behalf. "Thierry," explains D'Cruz, "was obsessed by filming everything in his path." Guetta was related to a street artist, and through that connection he became embedded in the graffiti world. It's "a world populated almost exclusively by furtive men, working illegally and at night." Guetta became a well-known personality in the underground scene, "a world without any personalities," and served as a diarist for the movement. He parlayed his access, built on his reputation for trustworthiness, into meeting "the prize, which was the street artist Banksy — the uber-anonymous person in a world full of anonymous people." The subjects Guetta cast his camera on believed he was using the footage for a documentary, but that may never have been the case. Rather, Guetta seemed to use the story as a cover to further access to a world he found exhilarating. Guetta began creating his own street art, under the pseudonym Mr. Brainwash. Through a series of unlikely events, Guetta becomes the subject — and a street artist, himself.
Banksy found Guetta's story more intriguing than his own, so he took over the documentary and switched its focus — or so the story goes. Some believe Banksy invented Guetta's story, and that it's more of a creative movie than a documentary. The film, nominated for an Academy Award in the documentary category, has confused reviewers and moviegoers alike, who doubt its authenticity. D'Cruz dismisses the suspicion. "The truth is, the film is really a true story of something extraordinary that happened," he says. "We wouldn't be able to create something as extraordinary as the rise of Thierry Guetta ... We didn't have the intent, we didn't have the inclination to do that, to kind of stage a prank on the world.”

Dove Commercial

The first stage of the evolution is the girl without any make-up on or her hair done. Then they start the process of doing her make-up and hair. The next stage after that they take pictures and pick out the perfect one. The next stage is to photoshop the picture and change her neck, eyes, lips, and coloring. When all of that is finished and they decide they have created the perfect woman, they put it on a billboard.
The different scenes in the commercial relate to the different stages. The first scene is the backdrop for the picture where they first do her hair and make-up, the next scene is of photoshop and the corrections they make. The third scene is the picture on the billboard. The final scenes are talking about self-esteem and the world's view of beauty.
The beginning setting of the commercial is in a workshop where they take pictures of something normal and turn it into something they think is beautiful. In the last scene they are taking something they think defines beauty and putting it into a normal world with people who, by their definition and their acts, can never look beautiful.
In the beginning when the model comes in, her facial expression is morose and dull. She looks unhappy to be there and with life. As the commercial goes on she perks up a little and becomes more self-confident and happier.
This message is coming from a company who's job it is to make people feel beautiful. They use real women in their commercials and ads. From what I have gathered from the commercials they don't use photoshop on them or try to change them. But that is also how all companies want their ads to be portrayed as.

Exit Through the Gift Shop

I think street art is illegal. If the artist is putting his or her art on something to them, which is how most of them do it, then it's illegal. If whatever they are putting their art on belongs to them, then obviously it is legal. To me the difference between art and graffiti is art is legal and graffiti is not.
I don't think that Mr. Brainwash is a real street artist. He only got into it because he was around it and filming it. He's not a real artist either because all he did was take other people's art and change one or two things on it and called it his own. He didn't have any original work.
Banksy did take over the film, but he didn't take over it because of selfish reasons. Guetta had no idea what he was doing and that was evident in the film that he made on his own. So, yes, I think Banksy had a right to take control of the film. I think the "real" reason he takes over the film is because he's a real artist. Maybe he wanted to expand from street art and start directing. A new form of art and expression for him.
I think Banksy tried to be a good friend to Guetta, but Guetta used him and ruined the friendship himself. They started off being friends and Banksy offered to help him start his own career. In return though Guetta used him to become popular and get his name out there. Banksy could have made Guetta look a lot worse that what he did in the film, but he didn't.
I think the Disneyland stunt was to get people thinking and so he could see the people's reactions. This probably wasn't the best way to go about it though.
Guetta is successful in his art show because he makes a lot of money. A lot of people come to see his show and a lot of people buy his art. He fails because in order to get this "success" he uses his friends and family and thinks only of himself. He fails because he burns bridges and loses friends.
I think his fans at the show have no idea who Mr. Brainwash really is and the only reason they are there is because it was so well advertised. If they saw this documentary their opinions on him would probably change. They don't know the background of the art they saw and bought. Guetta himself put little thought into his art. It was the people he hired who did the work.
This film started off as Guetta's, but as it goes on, it is clearly Banksy's. The reason it is called "Exit Through the Gift Shop" is because Guetta's art show was all just a ploy to get money. His art didn't have any meaning to him, he just wanted to be able to sell it for as much as he could.
I don't think this film is a hoax. I think it is a real story on how Mr. Brainwash came to be and it was basically over night. He didn't have any history, all he did was decide he wanted to be an artist and the next day he was naming himself Mr. Brainwash.
The statement this makes about the art world is they either don't care about real art anymore, or people who know nothing about art are taking over. The media attracts to anything that causes a scene. But the real street artists know what real street art is and have no respect for Mr. Brainwash with reason.

Profiling

Many people have made huge impacts on the world in the way people think, act and feel. This made choosing one person to write a profile on difficult.

Once of my choices is Marilyn Monroe. She was not just a great actress with a pretty face who did a few movies and didn’t hear much else from her. She was a troublemaker. She helped women see that they have rights and they can be self-confident and share their opinions. She made the world see it was ok to be bigger, not everyone needs to be a size two. She showed everyone that bigger is beautiful too. Another reason she was a troublemaker was because of her affair with JFK. Her life was very interesting and her death was no different. Marilyn Monroe made a large impact on the world.

Another person I was thinking about writing about is Gordon B. Hinckley. He was the prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from 1995-2008. To me he was very much a truth-teller. While he was prophet of the church he helped the church to grow. He made the orders to build around 80 temples, the membership of the church grew significantly like it had never done before, and he helped make BYU and BYU-Idaho better schools. He focused on the youth in the church, he gave them the Be Attitudes to show and explain to them how to live a better life and be a better person. He met with people like Steven King and the president of the United States to answer questions about the church and help the world get a better understanding of what Mormons believe in.

I’m not too sure who else I might write on; I need to do a little more thinking. I’m most likely going to stick with Marilyn Monroe though. She led a very interesting life and didn’t care what others thought of her. That alone is something to admire.

What I want to learn

One of the hardest things about writing for me, is the first sentence. I have a hard time thinking of something interesting that grabs people's attention quickly. Everything I think always sounds extremely boring or just stupid. I'm always worried that people won't want to read my writing because of this.
Another thing I'm not the best at is thesis statements. I never was truly able to grasp the concept of what one is. In high school whenever I would have a paper, I would go to my yearbook adviser and she would help me come up with one; doing it on my own seemed impossible. Now I'm stuck with the task of trying to figure out what a real thesis statement is; how to make complete sense of it.

Right to Remain Silent

I don’t think Officer Schoolcraft is a trouble-maker. He was standing up for what was right; he wanted people to realize and understand what the department was doing wrong, how they were breaking the law. He is a truth teller in that way. People were being punished for things that they weren’t doing. The police officers were forced to bring people in and then find something that they were doing wrong. They were arresting people for nothing. That is wrong and that should be stopped. Officer Schoolcraft was the only one who really wanted to stand up for what was right, he saw the reality of it all. It’s not about making money and arresting people; they were affecting people’s lives. I would have been nervous to step outside of my house in fear of getting a ticket for nothing.
Officer Schoolcraft was brave for doing this. He didn’t know exactly what the consequences would be for recording what was being said. He thought that his superiors would be the ones in trouble; someone would step in and stop it from going further. Instead he was the one punished. This does not make him stupid; this kind of act makes him brave. He was doing his job as an officer. He was trying to help the people, to protect them. He may have never thought that he would have to protect them from police officers, but he was willing to still do it. The police force he was working for only concentrated on making money and Officer Schoolcraft knew that is not what being a police offer was about. He ended up going above what a normal police officer would do, even if it was not seen that way because he was the one being punished.
To challenge the status quo means to challenge the norm or what people expect. He did this by challenging his boss and his coworkers. If I had been in the same situation I don’t know if I would have had the guts to do what he did. He was brave. Knowing that I might lose my job over it, I might have just stuck through it for my family and my career. I may have tried to transfer to a different police force but I don’t think I would have had the guts to stick up to them. I don’t know if Officer Schoolcraft could have handled it in a different way. He thought he was doing it a way that would get people’s attention, but instead it backfired. I don’t know how else he could have done it.

Facebook

Facebook is used in many different ways. Some of my friends I will hardly see online and they update pictures and their status about once a month. Other’s are on several times a day posting and talking and sharing useless information. I have to admit that I’m on Facebook a lot. It’s the first page I go to when I open the internet browser. I have an app for it on my Ipod and on my phone. I also have new notifications sent to my phone so I always know what’s going on. I use it to talk to people, to keep in contact with people I don’t live close to anymore. It’s a more casual way of keeping in touch than the phone and texting. I don’t use it to stalk people I don’t talk to anymore or have never met. I move from Iowa when I was a sophomore in high school to Cincinnati. At first we would call each other and text, but soon we didn’t have the same bond that we used to and we moved our relationship to Facebook. The same is happening now that I’ve graduated from high school, I use Facebook to keep in touch with all of my friends.

Some people on Facebook can get the wrong idea from things posted, like what happened in “The First Rule of the Apple Store.” My great aunt has a Facebook, and she is always on. She takes things the complete opposite of what they actually are. My older sister posted something on her status about wanting to die. She posted it because she was stressed out and had a lot going on in her life. My aunt interpreted it as she wants to commit suicide. She told my grandma who called my mom concerned. It started huge drama within the family and my aunt continued to be worried about my sister for a very long time. People need to realize that some people don’t take Facebook seriously; it’s just a way to goof off with friends and have fun.

The thing that annoys me most about Facebook is when people post status that are scream “Pity me! Pity me!” or “Look at me I’m so cool!” You don’t need to reach out to the Facebook world for attention. There are so many people in your life you should go to for help in support. Most of your friends on Facebook could care less if you broke your nail or you and your boyfriend got in a fight. Facebook is not your diary nor a help center.

Troublemakers and Truth-Tellers

It’s one of the hardest things you can do in life; it causes fights, hurts people’s feelings, and causes people to see the reality they’ve been hiding from. At the same time it pulls people together, strengthening relationships and gaining respect. Telling the truth can be scarier than anything else; it’s hard to know which way it’s going to go. It’s an important decision people have to make in life, but in the end it’s usually for the best. Living a life of lies is far from being happy. The truth may sting for a moment, but when looked at in the long run it benefits a person. It will help teach lessons that may have never been learned and makes a person stronger.

                Troublemakers are the opposite of truth-tellers. Troublemakers will say things to cause debate or problems; they like to stir things up. What they’re saying is not the complete truth in a situation. They may tell part of the truth, but then spin it to make it more controversial. This may cause people to fight and disagree with one another, but this is not always a bad thing. It gets people thinking about something they might not have ever before. It puts people out of their comfort zone and into a situation they may have wanted to avoid before. This is how people learn to form opinions on a subject. Although troublemakers may seem to cause more problems than anything else, they also help people to learn and grow.

                People are not either a truth-teller or a troublemaker, people are both and some more so than another person. It is nearly impossible to tell the truth 100 percent of the time. Everyone has been a troublemaker at some point in their life. Glenn Beck is great example of being both. He likes to stir things up, get people thinking. Some of the things he says cause much controversy. He is not afraid to debate things that most people won’t talk about, like religion and politics. He will voice his opinion loud and clear, though it may not always be right. Beck is also a truth teller; he will tell of things exactly how they are. Recently he has been talking about the shooting in Arizona. People have been trying to come up with reasons to why Jared Lee Loughner did what he did. They want to blame it on something, the government, Atheists, or people who think differently than the norm. Glenn points out that no one is to blame but Jared Lee Loughner himself. No one else made him decide to go to that store and shoot those people; he thought of the idea and made himself do it. People may not want to believe this; it’s easier to blame someone else for a person’s wrong doings. This kind of truth may sting for a bit, it may take some time to accept it. In the long run the truth will be better than trying to blame and cause more problems.