Class in Review: 10.03.11 & 10.05.11 + Presentation

On Monday we got into a pretty interesting conversation about superheroes and their costumes. I think the costumes are a very important part of a superhero it’s our way of distinguishing them and even becomes a part of their identity. Like what Mr. B said, even with color schemes or symbols we can identify the superhero and when there’s changes to their costumes some people aren’t too happy. In the first Spider-man movie they took the time to show him creating his costume, although it was for wrestling in, nonetheless I think it demonstrates how important it is for a superhero to have a costume.

When they’re not in their costumes, they’re the everyday Joe Schmo, going through the daily ups and downs of life. We relate to them on that level, especially when they form friendships/interests in other people. They can get in trouble with their boss, they can spill coffee on themselves, they can be having the worse day ever, and we know how it feels to have nothing go right. To see someone and feel like it’s love at first sight, but not have the courage to say anything or to realize that they’re with someone else. Then the city comes under attack and all of a sudden they change/transform into a superhero, goes out and saves the day. Transforming sets themselves a part from us and they become something extraordinary; they make us think of things we haven’t thought of before (I’m thinking from a kid’s first experience with a superhero) and they make us dream that maybe somewhere out there, they really do exist. I think that if we didn’t have this transformation it would’ve been a little difficult for people to really accept these superheroes because they wouldn’t have anything they could relate to.

Wonder woman is one of the superheroes that, I don’t believe, has that secret identity thing going on, but it works to her advantage. The reason why I think that is because women can embrace her and feel empowered because they see her out there kicking guys’ you know what and she looks good doing it. She stands up for herself and does what she believes is right. I think she stands for what women want to be, powerful yet feminine at the same time.

On Wednesday my group and I did our presentations and I must admit, it felt like I was in COM 101 again (mainly because it was the same room that class was in a couple of semesters ago) and I think my group and I did a good job. I really don’t have much complaints about our presentation, except I’m kind of mad at myself because I forgot to point out two important points, but other than that it went well. I loved Patrick’s rap! The final product was a complete surprise for me and the rest of the group because we hadn’t seen it until that day and he did an incredible job! It was extremely enjoyable, catchy, and informative. If I had to give the rest of the groups advice it’d be: It’s better to know more than what you think you need to know. There was so much research invested into the presentation that not all of it made it into the final product, but it did help when actually talking the class because you have the confidence that takes away any nervous feelings.

word count: 575

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztlh7FXmvuI

Class in Review: 09.26.11 & 09.28.11

This week has been pretty stressful and busy, which didn’t help when it came to class on Monday and Wednesday, and reading The Illiad didn’t help make my week any better, in fact it gave me a headache while I was reading it I needed to sparknotes it afterwards to ease my pain. When we were discussing the story in class we brought up other issues while also trying to solve the main problem we’ve had for I believe the past two weeks, which is how do we categorize humans, super humans, heroes, super heroes, superheroes, etc? I posed the topics and questions that we had discussed in class and asked my parents what they thought, it was my dad who kept pointing out that everything depends on one’s perspective. I tried to see if he would say anything close to what others had brought up in class, but he kept giving me one answer, “It’s all about perspective.” I even gave him the example of the nuclear bomb in the stadium and if that person could be considered a hero or a nuisance (ends vs. means) and again he said, “It’s all about perspective.”

So afterwards I described Achilles to him and asked him if he would consider Achilles as a hero, superhero, or neither; I’m sure we all know what his answer is, “It’s all about perspective.” When I ask myself the same question I don’t even have an answer, Achilles just doesn’t appeal to me. I think it’s because he was all about making sure he got what he wanted his way, but he did go through one of those “defining moments” because it took the death of his closest friend to really give him a cause for fighting. It’s difficult to keep writing this while working on the group presentation because a part of me wants to relate Achilles to Gilgamesh. I’ll save what I want to say for later.

I started to really think about superheroes during the weekend, and I started to think about the Power Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sailor Moon, Astroboy, and Kikaida. If you don’t know about Kikaida, he’s like the Japanese version of Iron Man, he’s a guitar playing motorcyclist that transforms into this half machine half man thing, but the focus is on protecting Japan from an evil organization. I’m pretty sure we’re all familiar with the other shows maybe not Sailor Moon, you can always google it, but how would you categorize them? Power Rangers are the ones that I’m not too sure about because with the power rangers they were specially chosen to become the rangers and they learn martial arts and stuff to beat the weird looking evil minions. Then when the main evil character grows like a 1,000 times bigger they use these remote control things to form a megazord thing and they’d win. They don’t really have any powers except for their megazords, so I guess I’d consider them super heroes, besides the fact that they destroy parts of the city and don’t do anything about it.

When I was in elementary school, I would spend the mornings watching Power Rangers and Sailor Moon and to me Sailor Moon seemed more of a superhero than the Power Rangers. Sailor Moon was my version of Wonder Woman, she became someone I wanted to be but knew that it could never happen because I’d never be able to have those “powers.” I got away from the main topic that I wanted this entry to be about (Achilles & The Illiad) but I couldn’t help if it got me thinking about Power Rangers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Word Count: 611

<--- Kikaida

Sailor Moon --------->

Class in Review: 09.19.11 & 09.21.11

Oh Oedipus, I thought I had left your story behind in high school, but nope your story has followed me to college. My English teacher in high school passed over this story because he really didn’t see how any of it was really relevant to what we were learning. We spent about half an hour discussing it and left it at that; I had completely forgotten who Oedipus was, but I didn’t forget the story and the riddle he solved. When I was reading it there was one question I kept asking myself, “Why are we reading this? I don’t see any connection between Oedipus and a superhero.”

Our class discussion brought up two interesting topics:

• Should we consider God and/or Jesus as a superhero since we have turned Greek Gods into superheroes.

AND

• Would we try to fight fate or sit still and let fate occur.

I honestly wouldn’t be able to answer the first point objectively because of certain reasons, but I do believe that if a comic book creator were to attempt to market a Jesus superhero it would most likely be a waste of time. We’re a society that was built on a religious foundation (although there are some people out there that would like to doubt that) and this religion runs deep through people’s veins (not everybody’s). For someone to create Jesus into a superhero I can see some people saying that it’s mocking certain religions or saying that they think Jesus is better than other Gods out there because they’d rather have him as a superhero (or something along those lines). I could only see the concept of Jesus the superhero working if it were to teach kids who he was and what he did. I think it’s easier to turn Greek Gods into superheroes because there isn’t as much conflicts surrounding them. We incorporate them in movies, tv shows, and in other elements as well and there were no outcries against them. To me Greek gods are one step above superheroes, and God and Jesus are in a completely different area.

My opinion on fate is also one that is not objective. There are people who believe in it and place a certain amount of trust in it and there are others who think of fate as just coincidences and don’t believe in it. I believe in fate but to a certain extent, the thing I don’t believe in is the situation that occurred in Oedipus, I think we aren’t supposed to know what our fate is. In the case with Oedipus, if it was fate that he were to kill his father and sleep with his mother, he is the one who fell victim to fate, but I wonder what would have happened if his father wasn’t told that Oedipus would do those things. Would they have kept him? What would’ve happened if they kept him? If they kept him than he would know who is mother is, right? Then how would it be possible for him to sleep with her if he knew who she was? It seems that when we know our fate, depending if it’s good or bad, we try to either do everything in our powers to make that prediction occur or we do everything to prevent it. It seems the more people try to prevent “fate” to occur they blindly walk directly into it.

Word Count: 568

Class in Review 09.12.11 & 09.14.11

On Monday we discussed whether or not we thought that Beowulf could be considered a superhero or a super hero. Throughout the discussion it was apparent that there are so many different definitions of a superhero and we all have our own opinions of what makes a superhero. I believe Beowulf can be considered a superhero by today's standards because he'd fit the criteria of what I believe a superhero is (as stated in my last post). He may not have gotten his powers from a radioactive spider or fell into a toxic vat of goo, but his "powers" (supposedly) came from God, his strength is unlike a regular man's, and the confidence he has is extraordinary.

There was a point brought up in class that Beowulf is too cocky which takes away from him being a superhero because superheroes are supposed to be humble with their powers, I guess that's why most superheroes have a secret identity, right? Their secret identities are supposed to allow them to blend in and show that they're just like everyone else, even though they're not, right? Well, I was re-reading the first part of Beowulf and I realized that there's a small part that shows his humility. It was before he was to face Grendel and he says, 'So I shall bear no blade in the night if he sees fit to fight without weapons. May God in His wisdom grant whom He wills blessing in battle." (Pg. 1579, 611-614) For Beowulf to abandon all his armor and depend on his strengths and abilities, and to also make it a fair battle, shows that he's cocky but to an extent. He's only interested in a fair battle to prove himself and show that he can talk the talk and walk the walk.

Personally I actually started to like where the discussion was going and I was actually interested in it (to my surprise). The more we discussed whether or not Beowulf could be considered a superhero, during his time, the more I was convinced that he was just super human. Maybe it’s because I kind of think about him and Batman on the same level. Both don’t really have “super powers” they’re human beings that have worked to develop themselves to become stronger and superior than average people. It actually reminds me of what body builders and weightlifters do; they train themselves to become stronger and superior than everyone else. They try to take the human body to the extreme and make us watch in awe as they lift ridiculous amounts of weights.

Back to the story as a whole, I honestly had a difficult time reading the story. The names of most of the characters confused me and I could only understand maybe 25% of what was really going on in the story. I think I understood the important parts, but I think it’d be a better idea for me to sparknotes it and re-read the entire thing. I should be honest, if their names weren’t so difficult to pronounce and actually sounded like real names than I swear it would’ve been so much easier for me to read it. I couldn’t keep up with who was who.

Word Count: 539

Intro + Components of a Superhero

I guess I should introduce myself first before getting down to business. My name is Janelle Takahata, I'm from Honolulu, Hi (lucky, I know), this is my second year here, and I'm currently majoring in business. The question I get asked a lot is, "Why did you leave Hawaii in the first place?" To that there are two reasons:

1. To live there costs a lot of money.

2. I took my teacher's advice to get off the rock and experience something different.

Since I grew up in Hawaii, the way I talk can be very different from the way other people talk. See, back home there's this unofficial/official language of the islands called Pidgin (not named after the type of bird), we even have a dictionary for it. It's difficult to really explain what Pidgin is, it's a combination of words from different languages and cutting long sentences into shorter ones... forget I can't explain what Pidgin is, if you want to hear what it sounds like than just let me know I guess.

Anyhow, on to business:

In class we discussed the traits/components of a superhero and throughout the discussion I couldn't help but keep thinking that there are many of those traits that individuals in today's society have. The only difference being they can't fly, they don't have invisible jets, a secret lair that has dozens of t.v. screens displaying everything that's going on in the city, they don't run around in tights with their goods getting suffocated, etc. To me the big difference between a superhero and a hero is the fact that superheroes have certain traits or physical abilities that as real people we may never have.

Isn't that what makes them super? Let's take Superman for example. I learned about Superman when I was around five or six years old and to be honest, I had no clue what he looked like. All I knew was that he could fly because of that phrase people said, "Look... Up in the sky... It's a bird... It's a plane... It's Superman!" I mean honestly the fact that a guy good fly without using a rocket or anything of the sorts makes him special in my book, and on top of that he fights crime and saves the world on a daily (well maybe not daily) basis, he is super.

In my opinion superheroes are people who make us want to push "normal" human boundaries, to believe the unbelievable, and they use the "gifts" they were given for good rather than selfish reasons.

To me heroes are people we look up to that have certain traits that we wish we had, and sometimes we can have. Example, my cousin told me he wanted to become a firefighter and I asked him why, he said, "Because they save people who need help, they aren't afraid to go into a burning building, and they're strong." The traits that he described are traits that he can obtain over the years, they're not completely out of reach.

I hope this made sense, it was difficult for me to really illustrate my point without feeling like it'd take people 5+ minutes to read. Anyhow, what's your take one a superhero and/or a hero?

Image from: http://ohmyshoot.blogspot.com/2010/11/hello-kitty-superheroes-version.html