POST 11: THE US GUN CULTURE

In this poster we can see a gun printed with the Stars and Stripes and above that, a list of countries with the number of deaths in a year because of gun. All these states have had less then 100 deaths except for Canada and Germany (respectively 200 and 194).

Below this list, we see in bigger letters the number of people killed by gun violence in one year and the USA: almost 10 thousand, with written underneath "God bless America".

This poster is part of the Brady Campaign, campaign that has existed for now 40 years against gun violence in the United States, because the USA are one of the only developed countries to allow its people to carry and use guns.

In this one, we see the same poster but with little differences: first, the gun is older so the poster must be older too. Then, the list of countries is not the same. And last but not least, the number of people killed is higher: instead of almost 10 thounsand people killed by gun in one year, we have more then 11 thousand, which means one good thing: with time, guns are making less victims, or we should hope it is not a casualty.

~

In these graphics we see two things: first, the top 10 countries where there is gun murder and secondly, the number of people killed by guns in developed countries only this time.

In the first graphic, we can see that the USA are far behind (26th) which can make USA feel better about themselves but if you compare with the second graphic about gun murder in developed countries we can see that USA "wins" the contest by far, because we can probably not compare poor countries with an unstable political state with developped countries, putting the USA first in line when it comes to gun violence in developped countries.

This cartoon denounces the role of the state in the gun traffic in a USA. We see a congressman and someone from the gun lobby exchanging money after an ironic interruption because we see blood on the side so we can guess that somebody was killed, probably by a gun, and the gun lobby guy says: "Now where were we, before we were so rudely interrupted..." which is ironic because he thinks the killing was rude only because it interrupted his business, not because someone was killed.

In this cartoon we can see an old statue representing the authentic second amendment and a parody of this statue with a man from the National Rifle Association standing on a pile of munition boxes.

Next to the first statue, the author wrote "Second Amendment as defined by the founding fathers" and we can see a soldier holding an old gun in his hand and standing proudly.

Next to the second "statue", the man from the NRA, looking scary and scared at the same time, is carrying three rifles and multiple guns in his pocket. He is way "larger" then the man of the other statue and looks really threatening. 

With this cartoon, i think the author is trying to show what were the really goals of the founding fathers with the second amendment, which would be defending their beloved countries and be safe from eventual dangers or animals, but on a defense note, not an attack note as we can see on the second "statue" where we understand that the NRA has taken advantadge of this amendment to turn the USA into a land of fear and where having a gun is normal for every family.

POST 6: Personal choice of a song in relation with a notion

Same Love - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

This song by Macklemore was released in 2012, one month after the french parlement proposed a law to authorize homosexual mariage (i'm not sure it has something to do but it is a interesting coincidence). Macklemore is an american rapper with irish origins. Though he comes from a christian family, he supports gay rights especially with this song, which is about the subject.

In this song, Macklemore talks mainly about homosexuals in the american society. 

In the first verse, he paints all of the stereotypes built around homosexual in the society, for instance, when he says "i thought that i was gay, cause i could draw (...)". Then, he brings out the problem of american conservatism and the place that church takes in this society.

In the second verse, he explains how society twisted words and expression like "gay" or "faggot" that have a totally negative connotation meaning for young people that being gay is ridiculous, and homosexuals are associated to weakness.

In the third verse, he gives his personal point of view on the question (though he does that during the whole song), defending gay rights through religion, saying that no matter what everybody has the same god, and that gay people are humans, like everybody, born this way, and not chosing to be gay like right-wing conservative people think.
He compares gays to black people before they got their rights and gives the same arguments we could have given for black people at the time, only, using one more argument: love.
We can relate this song to the notion of forms of power because we can see mainly two forms of power facing each other: the power of love, and the power of society, repression and fear.

Also, we can even branch out to the notion of progress with the end of the song since we compares gay rights to black people rights, which was a progress for the time, and when he says "love is patient" at the end, it means that gays will never give up for their rights and that America is, slowly, openning itself to gays because nowadays, 9 states have legalised gay marriage.

(354 words)

POST 17: SPACES & EXCHANGES: ON THE ROAD / CROSSING BORDERS

A road movie is a film genre in which the main characters leave home to travel from place to place, typically altering the perspective from their everyday lives. The term can still apply to scenarios where it can be a misnomer, such as when the plot of a film involves off-road travel.
he genre has its roots in spoken and written tales of epic journeys, such as the Odyssey and the Aeneid. The road film is a standard plot employed by screenwriters. It is a type of bildungsroman, a story in which the hero changes, grows or improves over the course of the story.
The on-the-road plot was used at the birth of American cinema but blossomed in the years after World War II, reflecting a boom in automobile production and the growth of youth culture. Even so, awareness of the "road picture" as a genre came only in the 1960s with Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider.

 

Paris, Texas (1984)

The ultimate 'road movie'

I think this film can illustrate the notion 'Spaces and Exchanges' by maybe showing how the man (in general) looks for himself in space, in different places then the places where he lives his everyday life, and by loosing the everyday routine. Here, in the opening scene, we can see a man in suit in the desert, apparently lost. It illustrates very well the topic of the man looking for something in his life by travelling from places to places.

Under the Same Moon (2007) 

A MOVIE ABOUT EMIGRATION / IMMIGRATION

UNDER THE SAME MOON (LA MISMA LUNA) tells the parallel stories of nine-year-old Carlitos and his mother, Rosario. In the hopes of providing a better life for her son, Rosario works illegally in the U.S. while her mother cares for Carlitos back in Mexico. Unexpected circumstances drive both Rosario and Carlitos to embark on their own journeys in a desperate attempt to reunite. Along the way, mother and son face challenges and obstacles but never lose hope that they will one day be together again.

This movie is about immigration from Mexico to the USA, which is a very common thing in America. Here, the notion is very well illustrated because the journey from a space (Mexico) to another very different space (the USA) is not just a car travel but a life journey for a little boy from Mexico and the exchanges of cultures in the movie (mexican-american) might be very interesting for the notion we study.

POST 16: Working in autonomy on song lyrics (and video)

For my post, i chose the song Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys. Enjoy!

POST 12: MYTHS & HEROES: THE AMERICAN DREAM: NOW IT'S YOUR TURN!

The first document is a video: it is an extract from the musical West Side Story, written by Leonard Bernstein. It tells the story of a group of young portoricans who move from Puerto Rico to America. They live in the Upper West Side of New York, and are rivals with a gang of white youngsters, named The Jets. The portorican gang’s name is The Sharks. This scene takes place in the building where they live after a party where the Jets and the Sharks are together and a young portorican, Maria falls in love and dances with Tony, a jet. In the scene, the women and the men are fighting over a subject : life in America. The women are obviously very happy in their new country and the men start to enumerate all the bad things about America, and they actually seem to hate it. A kind of battle starts between the men and the women through a song and a choregraphy, which I find very nice, and also typical of this kind of musical, about life in America.The scene illustrates very well the concept of American dream because the women, led by Anita, are dreaming about their new life and telling all the good things about it : buying on credit, owning a washing machine, etc… The other side of the American dream is illustrated by the men who make fun of their girlfriends' dreams : they negate everything the girls say, talking about the life of immigrants in this country, who has no futur there : they say « better get rid of your accent » to the girls, in reference to their very strong hispanic accent. The girls are trying to give their life a fresh start in America, by, for example « changing » their names : when her boyfriends starts making fun of her with all her spanish names « josefina, margartia, etc… » , Anita gets upset and says « no, it’s PLAIN Anita now ».
All in all, this document illustrates very well one part of the American dream, about immigrants from all over the world coming to America for a fresh start and eventually get dillusioned by it.

~

The second document is a picture of the very famous american actress and singer Marilyn Monroe. Born Norma Jeane Mortenson on August 5th 1962, she was and will always be an icon of beauty, fame and glamor. She grew up in various foster homes subject to abuse and neglect. In a few years, she became a factory worker, a model and finally Hollywood's biggest star and sex symbol.

Marilyn is one of the best examples of a person who achieved the American dream: she started from the bottom and reached the top. She had everything, but we can see, in the story of her life, one of the downsides of this concept of American dream: even though she had everything a human beeing can get in life, in the material part, Marilyn didn't achieve the ultimate goal of the American dream: happiness. This huge star with a beautiful smile and everything women were dreaming of was unhappy and ended her life at the age of 36 years old.

The case of Marilyn shows that the American dream isn't just about money because the ultimate goal of this dream is happiness, and happiness can't be bought by money.

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To put it in a nutshell, i chose these two documents to illustrate the fact that even though the American Dream is (or maybe was) real, it has its downsides, like everything. I tried to show through this documents that people who dream to much or who get every material thing they want/can, can end up disapointed, unhappy and in the end they don't even achieve completely the American Dream because the ultimate goal of the dream is happiness, and material things can't bring this.

POST 11: MYTHS & HEROES: THE AMERICAN DREAM

 

This is a debate from the Arthur M. Blanck Foundation between a journalist and a guest, i presume. They are talking about the future of the American Dream, and the journalist is wondering wether this ideal is about opportunities, home ownership, economic betterment, education or expecting that the next generation's lives will be better than now. The guest answers by using a notion that the journalist did not mention: jobs. He explains that nowadays, "kids" are better prepared for jobs that aren't available, and who, when they are, don't have health care, retirement benefits or payed vacations. And so he wonders what America might have to do to give all the young generation the jobs they need, because jobs are the cornerstone of this American Dream.

`

  

This video is the trailer of a movie called In America by Jim Sheridan. It tells the story of a family of Irish immigrants who got away from the police in their country and arrived in New York City. It embraces very well the concept of American Dream because they came to America to start from scratch after loosing a child. They meet a black man, their neighbour, who is an artist and a loner and who has AIDS. They also try to have another child but the mother could die and in America, any medical intervention including delivery, is very expensive.

POST 10: DEFINITION AND REDIFINITION OF THE AMERICAN DREAM



 

 The first thing that comes up in American people's minds about the American dream is the word "opportunity". This idea sums up a lot of other criteria, named in the first document above. Freedom is the second thing that comes up to their minds, since America has been known and named as the "land of freedom" .It comes as no surprise if we remember that America was one of the first democracy in the world (after Great Britain) thanks to the Pilgrim Fathers, puritans who travelled in 1620 to the USA aboard the May Flower to escape religious persecution in Great Britain. If we look at all the others, we can see that, before, the idea of reaching material prosperity in the pursuit of happiness remained very strong, and even though "wealth" comes almost last, it is still present in American people's idea of the American Dream, happiness being the ultimate goal. 

If we look at the second document though, we can see that the American Dream has been redefined, and that now, expectations are much lower than before, and that the idea of the American Dream is getting closer to the idea of the perfect american way of life, with the perfect house and family, financial security being the priority, for example having enough money for retirement is the first idea in the new version of the Dream (47%), or owning a house (17%), a car (3%), and paying for child's education (5%). We can see that now, American became disillusioned about the american dream and that they no longer expect to go "from rag to riches" even though i think that now, their expectation are a too low for us to talk about this as the American Dream

                                                 

POST 10: DEFINITION AND REDIFINITION OF THE AMERICAN DREAM



 

 The first thing that comes up in American people's minds about the American dream is the word "opportunity". This idea sums up a lot of other criterias, named in the first document above. Freedom is the second thing that comes up to their minds, since America has been known and named as the "land of freedom". If you look at all the others, we can that, before, the idea of reaching material prosperity in the pursuit of happiness remained very strong, and even though "wealth" comes almost last, it is still present in American people's idea of the American Dream, happiness being the ultimate goal. 

If we look at the second document though, we can see that the American Dream has been redefined, and that now, expectations are much lower than before, and that the idea of the American Dream is getting closer to the idea of the perfect american way of life, with the perfect house and family, financial security being the priority, for example having enough money for retirement is the first idea in the new version of the Dream (47%), or owning a house (17%), a car (3%), and paying for child's education (5%). We can see that now, American became disillusioned about the american dream and that they no longer expect to go "from rag to riches" even though i think that now, their expectation are a too low for us to talk about this as the American Dream

                                                 

POST 9: MYTHS & HEROES: THE AMERICAN DREAM

'Myths & Heroes' is but one of the four notions that will be research topics next year for the Baccalauréat in Terminale.
Thus, it seems quite advisable to broach it in 1º.

This post as well as the next three will include different types of documents dealing with the American Dream.

 Study the documents, copy and/or embed them to/into your blog and write a five-to-ten-line commentary on each of them after giving a definition of the American Dream.

Definition: 

The American Dream is a very strong belief for immigrants from all over the world (and of course for american themselves) in the ideal that America is a land of oportunities where everyone can work their way up/upward mobility (through hard work and will power) and make their dreams come true in order to reach material prosperity in pursuit of happiness.