Class in Review: 11.14.11 & 11.16 & Immortals

On Friday I got to go see the movie ‘Immortal’ and I think Mr. Bahlmann has succeeded in getting me to think about superheroes with everything I watch or read. Throughout the movie I caught myself comparing what I was seeing to what we had read/discussed in class and even considering whether or not the main character could be considered a superhero or not. I must give a warning that I may spoil certain parts of the movie, if you haven’t seen it but want to, I’m sorry. Anyhow I thought it was interesting that I could find elements from some of the stories we read in class in the movie. There was a bow and arrow that had magical powers from the Greek Gods (Ramayana), Theseus (the main character) got his training or “powers” (Beowulf), the idea of immortality (Gilgamesh), and the Greek Gods played an important part in the story (Iliad). Throughout the movie you could see different elements of a superhero story, there was the

damsel in distress, development of a villain, a messed up supervillain, growth of a superhero, gaining of a sidekick/best friend/brother, and epic fight scenes.

Theseus was a bastard child and when asked by his trainer why he didn’t fight in the army he said it was because he only fought for what he loved. Him and his mother were seen and treated as outcasts of the village, if you’ve ever read The Scarlet Letter, they treated Theseus and his mother the same way people treated Hester and Pearl. The supervillain is King Hyperion, his hatred towards the world stems from his past, and wanting everyone else to feel his pain and prove to them that there was no purpose in being faithful to the Greek Gods. The bow is an important part of the story because it can release the Titans that had been locked in the middle of a mountain. Before all of this happened there was a battle in the sky between the Titans and the Greek Gods. Having lost, the Titans were placed

underground imprisoned and the Greek Gods ruled on Mt. Olympus. Releasing the Titans are like releasing all the evils in the world, but the Gods had made a promise that they would not interfere in mortals’ business, it’s only when the Titans are released will they come down and fight. I won’t explain everything that happened in the movie but the ending to me symbolizes that there will always be evil in the world, but becoming immortal isn’t only having a story that will be passed down from generation to generation but it’s also having/starting a family.

In class we had discussed how there were few superheroes that were women and even if there are the male superheroes would save them from danger. In the movie I could see Athena as a superhero in the movie, but the only thing that makes her a superhero is that she is a Goddess so she does have “powers” that mortals don’t have. That leads to another discussion that we had in class: If we can see Greek Gods/Goddesses as superheroes, than why not Jesus? (Or a form of that question). So I guess I could see Jesus/God as

a superhero, I mean why not? If I can see Greek Gods/Goddesses as superheroes than I’m willing to accept Jesus/God as a superhero as well. Overall I felt that the movie had summed up what we had been discussing in class and incorporated different elements of the stories we read. I must admit that I was feeling a little “nerdy” because I would think to myself, “Hey, that’s like this part in the Ramayana! Wow I wonder if they incorporated that on purpose” or “This is like the hero’s journey and, OH! is that the supervillain, I’m pretty sure it is! That guy seems pretty psychotic, kind of like The Joker.” I hope I’ve successfully related this movie to this class, while I was watching I was taking mental notes about all the different comparisons I could make!

Word Count: 686

And this picture popped up on my newsfeed a while ago and it's so true:

Class in Review: Superheroes in general

In class we didn’t have a real topic to talk about so we just listed our favorite superheroes and why they’re our favorite. I don’t have a favorite superhero, but I think the reason why certain heroes are our favorite is because we can see ourselves in them. Not necessarily like a mirror image, but they also hold values that we believe in. That could be a reason why a lot of people like Superman. I must admit that in class my mind started wandering off and I started to think about movies that I have seen where there was a superhero that wasn’t explicitly shown.

There was one movie that came to mind it’s the movie Wanted. It stars Angelina Jolie (Fox) and James McAvoy (Wesley). Wesley is a typical guy, but it seems as if the world is against him. His boss it a pushy woman who loves to humiliate him at work whenever she can and his best friend is nailing his girlfriend. He suffers from “panic attacks” which is the main reason why he doesn’t stand up to either his boss or his best friend. It isn’t until he meets Fox that she tells him his father was part of a group of assassins called The Faternity. He is brought to the groups headquarters where the leader Sloan tells Wesley that his panic attacks aren’t panic attacks but a superhuman ability. At the headquarters Wesley is trained to withstand torture and is introduced to the Loom of Fate. Sloan tells Wesley that the loom shows the names of people that could cause troubles in the future and need to be eliminated. Long story short, Wesley finds out that the loom was crafted by Sloan when he figured out he could make money off of it, and that Sloan started doing it because he was a target of the real Loom of Fate. When he confronts Sloan, Sloan doesn’t deny it and he tells the rest of the main assassins that their name had also shown up on the loom. The other assassins would rather live but Fox curves a bullet to kill all of them to follow the rules of the loom. If you want a more in depth plot summary you can go to the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanted_(2008_film)#Plot. Wesley didn’t know that Sloan’s Loom of Fate was fake, but he killed those people, so does that make him a bad guy? He thought that he was doing good, but it isn’t till the end of the movie is he truly a good guy. In my opinion I think he is a superhero, I mean he has more “superpowers” than Batman and if we can consider The Punisher as a superhero, than I think we can accept Wesley as a superhero and Sloan as the villain. The only problem is that at the end of the movie Sloan is eliminated, so I’m not too sure if Wesley still has a villain. I find it odd how I can accept Wesley as a superhero but I have a difficult time accepting Batman as one. The Joker makes Batman, but without the Joker there really would be no use for Batman. Even if Sloan was eliminated I still think that Wesley’s story will go on.

Thinking about Batman I went off on another tangent where I was thinking about how there has been sidekicks turned into superheroes. Cartoon Network had a cartoon where Robin was the main superhero and he had other superheroes to help him. I can’t remember what the name was, but I thought it was kind of interesting how it was showing that Robin could be a superhero on his own. The thing that bothered me though was that the few times I had watched it there was no reference to Batman, so I don’t think majority of the kids watching it would know that Robin was Batman’s sidekick, but if it was mentioned then I don’t think children could accept Robin as a superhero.

Word Count: 674

Class in Review: 10.24.11 & 10.26.11

Kung Fu Panda is hands down one of my all time favorite movies, and I was surprised to know that there was a belief in the underlying message. I didn’t even know that in some of our movies there’s a christian undertone to it, maybe it’s because I’m just caught up in the movie itself. Daoism is a tricky concept to follow, but I think there are some religions that have similar concepts on different aspects of it. For example in Christianity there’s the idea that everything happens for a reason, we just don’t know what the exact reason is. In Daoism there’s the idea that there are no accidents. Then fate comes in; was Po destined to be the Dragon Warrior or was did he become the Dragon Warrior because Oogway said he was? Were there certain people that were destined to be great or were they great because they were told they could be great? That is the question I left class with.

I’m a bowler and when I first started, like most people I wasn’t great, but I started to get comfortable on the lane. I stopped getting frustrated at every little thing that went wrong and I just let it go and I made the game simple while a lot of people turn it into a complicated game by thinking about so many variables and what not. After a lot of practice I was able to drastically improve my average, and one of my coaches told me, “You can become a great bowler.” When I moved up here one of the coaches in my league said, “Never give up, you’re too talented to do that. You can be a great bowler.” From there, I thought about professional athletes, and of course there are stand out athletes like Michael Jordan and for me, Troy Polamalu, Hines Ward, James Harrison, Ben Rothlisberger, etc (can you tell who my favorite team is?) were they destined to achieve great feats? I think some of them were destined to become great, Troy Polamalu is one of the best safeties in the NFL because he sees certain plays and watches the other teams in ways that a lot of other safeties can’t. There was a week last season where Troy had to sit out and we lost, so I told my dad that Troy should have an apprentice to take his place if he were to ever have to sit out again, but my dad said, “It would be impossible for anyone to train another safety to play the way Troy plays because Troy just sees things other players don’t and that’s what makes him so vital to the team.” The more I’ve watched them play I understand what my dad says and I think that’s why so many people like Troy, he’s the big game changer. He watches the other team and analyzes them, he tries to figure out who’ll get the ball and where. His athleticism also benefits him because he’s able to quickly go where he’s needed.

Was Troy always destined to be this great? I could ask all these “What if” questions, but a Daoist would say, “There are no such things as accidents. We do not have control of the things that happen and bring us to the point where we stand now. If we want to change than we must change the present in order to affect what will occur in the future.” Or something like that. So maybe the whole destiny thing occurs as we learn about ourselves. I mean what if Po wasn’t so passionate about kung fu? Then he wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble to see the Furious 5, and the Dragon Warrior wouldn’t have been discovered. I wouldn’t religiously follow Daoism because there’s a lot of room for error, and yet those errors can be explained using some aspects of Daoism. I feel like I’m going in circles because when I think about it like that, there are some religions that allow something similar.

Word Count: 674

Class in Review: 10.17.11 & 10.19.11

Oh super villains, where would we be without them? We wouldn’t have any superheroes that’s for sure. We wouldn’t have a need for Sueprman or Spiderman (notice how I leave out Batman?) the smaller crimes that are committed by regular people are small enough for the police to handle themselves. I left out Batman because I don’t think he has any real powers that makes him super, in my opinion I think it’s The Joker that makes him a superhero. Superman wouldn’t be known as Superman, he’d be known as... I don’t know what his name is, but he wouldn’t be known as Superman. I think in order to have a memorable Superhero you need to have a memorable supervillain. I honestly don’t think that Batman would have been as successful without The Joker.

With Rama I don’t think it’s the 10-headed beast that makes Rama, it’s the hunchback lady that makes him. If Rama hadn’t been exiled than he could’ve encountered the 10-headed beast in his castle or maybe he wouldn’t have even met up with him. Rama is like the Hindu version of Superman, both are the ultimate boy scout willing to do anything to protect the women they both love and care about. In order to see their greatness we had to see the evilness of another person, they both need complements.

I think that that’s how everything in life works. In order to enjoy one thing, we need something that complements it. Like when we eat sweet and salty snacks, the saltiness complements the sugary sweetness of whatever we’re eating; that’s why all the dessert recipes require salt. I personally like when there are characters in stories that complement each other, they bring out the best or sometimes worse of one another and it brings a lot to a story. I think that’s why I like asian dramas more than the soap operas that we have here. In the dramas there are characters that bring out the best of other characters and in my opinion I feel like the characters are more complex than majority of the ones we have here. For example with the one I’m watching now, the secretary helps her boss become more “manly,” she teaches him how to stick up for himself and he teaches her how to open herself to others and that there are people in the world who want to help her succeed if she’d allow them into her world. Than there are more characters that bring out the best/worse of the rest of the characters in the drama and so on.

I kind of strayed from the superheroes and their villains and how they complement each other, but it’s similar to the two ideas up there and it doesn’t always have to be the relationship with the villains, it could also be their relationship between the super hero and their sidekick. I think sidekicks are often there to complement the superheroes to show a different side of them that a supervillain wouldn’t be able to show. Without Robin I wouldn’t be able to tell if Batman was capable of “loving” another person because he secludes himself from being able to love another person.

Word Count: 538

Class in Review: 10.10.11 & 10.12.11

The passing of Steve Jobs helped lead our conversation into one that I think caught the interest of majority of the class and it’s the idea of immortality. Personally, I would want to be immortalize, but I think that everybody wants to be immortalized in different ways. I want to be immortalized through the relationships/lasting impressions that I built during my lifetime. Some people may think, “Then you won’t be immortal because eventually those people will die off.” Which isn’t necessarily true because especially through family and friends the stories get passed down and around, and the stories will continue to be passed down. Others would want to be immortalized through important achievements by breaking or setting records. Some may even want an monument or something named after them.

Gilgamesh also wanted to be immortal and when he realized that he would never be able to live forever he built a wall so that he would be remembered, and it’s something that a lot of people in the past have done. They don’t necessarily build walls, but they help construct something of importance in the community in which they can get their name placed on it. Steve Jobs created something that will forever be remembered because it had such a big impact on the way we live our daily lives. What he did gives him immortality.

When it comes to singers and artists I think they also have immortality because their songs are constantly being re-made and if they become famous enough they’re faces can be printed on plates, shirts, notebooks, pens, etc. The point was brought up in class that it can only last up until that generation dies out because the younger generation won’t know who that person is. But if we look at Elvis even though he’s long gone, younger generations know who he is. They may not know exactly who he is and what happened to him, but they know what he looks like and what he says. I don’t think the memories of Elvis will ever go away, especially when people come to visit Las Vegas. There are probably two things that Las Vegas is synonymous with, Elvis and gambling. When little kids come with their families they see multiple versions of Elvis roaming the streets and of coarse being curious, they ask their parents who that strange man with the weird hair is. Their parents tell them and if they’re old enough they can just Google his name and figure out the rest of his story.

It’s difficult for people to become immortal the way Elvis or Steve Jobs did, it takes a lot of talent and a lot of persistence. I don’t know of anybody that could just sit back and do nothing, yet they become remembered forever. Maybe us working to becoming “immortal” is our way of accepting death because we know that eventually we’re gonna die and so we work hard to become remembered and hope that in the end we can pass knowing that we won’t forgotten (so redundant, but hopefully that made sense). The idea of immortality is something that I think we all want, well I know I do, but there’s a part of me that wouldn’t mind having my name on a building or in a book somewhere.

Word Count: 533

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 --------->