Assignment 5-1

Have you ever wondered what it is about musicals that make people happy, or why people enjoy watching them? What would make people want to pay the money to watch a lot of people on a stage singing and acting? Well the answers to those questions I could not tell you because I do not know why all people go and watch musicals. However, I can tell you what I think about them and why I would go and pay money to watch them. I consider a musical either live or recorded musicals, so in theater or on DVD.
One of my favorite all time musicals is “Grease 1 & 2”. Another musical which is a really important to America as a population is the musical “Rent”, which is a musical about AIDS in America. One of the last ones and the one I will be talking about is “High School Musical 1 & 2”.
The reason why I like “High School Musical 1 &2” would be because it is a 2000 version of “Grease”. It is a story about a guy (Troy) in high school who is the star basketball player for his school, who finds out that he really wants to perform in the high school musical production when he meets a new girl (Gabriella) at the school. It starts out they are at a high school news years party and get coned into singing karaoke, both being shy at first, but then by the end of the song figuring out they can both sing. Later, Gabriella wants to try out for the musical, but the teacher says she is too late. Troy steps in and tells the teacher that Gabriella can really sing and to give her a chance, but the teacher says “no.” They end up trying out a song for the producer of the musical (Kelsie), and the teacher hears it and decides to let them in the musical. It turns out to be a experience they will never forget.
I think this is a important movie in today’s pop culture because it shows you can discover what you never thought you could be. My nieces really like this movie, and it is one of their favorites. I think it is a really good learning point for young kids today, and it is something which they can look up to.

Assignment 5-1

Assignment 4-1 Weekly Analysis

Harry Potter is a legend and a hero in today’s society, because of the unnatural way in which he came around. The story about Harry Potter is one that will probably be a great one for years to come. It will be like Star Wars in the 80’s, because the first book was published in the late 70’s, and the first movie was produced in the 80’s. The movies having a huge impact on kids and even some adults, which caused many of them to look up to Star Wars as a way to get away from reality. Today Harry Potter is that same way, the books and movies both having a great impact on both children and adults. The books mostly impacting the adults because they are able to get away from reality and imagine being inside the book, while children love the movies because they are realistic while still having a fantasy appeal.
Harry Potter is raised by his aunt and uncle and in his opinion a normal kid, but different from the rest of society around him. On his eleventh birthday, he finds out he is really a wizard and that he is accepted to Hogwart’s which is a wizarding school located in the middle of nowhere so that no non-wizarding person can find it. He learns the story about how the evil wizard Voldemort is responsible for his parent’s death. Through the series of the books and movies he and his best friends (Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger) go out to defeat Voldemort and bring peace back to the wizarding world.
I believe this series of novels and films are an important part in today’s society because they bring a certain childhood feeling back into people’s hearts. Just like Star Wars did in the 80’s, Harry Potter is doing the same thing bringing families together to either read the novels or watch the movies. Doing this brings the families closer, and even helps them to understand one another.

Assignment 3-1 Weekly Analysis

I will be doing my weekly analysis on the movie “American Pie – Beta House.” Just like the previous “American Pie” movies, this one is about trying to prove manhood by sleeping with girls. However, this movie has a slight twist compared to the rest. In this movie the main character Erik Stiffler goes to college with his friend Mike Coozeman. Erik’s cousin Dwight is a brother at the Beta house, one of the major fraternities on the campus. Erik and Mike decide to pledge to the Beta house in order to meet many women and help boost their social skills.
There is one little problem with pledging the Beta house this year at school. Edgar, the head brother at a rivaling fraternity house is trying everything in his power to close the Beta house down. Edgar and his brothers are what the Beta house calls “Geeks.” However, they are not like the traditional geeks of the past who do everyone else’s homework and still get looked down upon. Edgar and his band of brothers are more advanced and are more aggressive then the geeks of the past. They do not allow jocks or preps to take advantage of them.
After being put down enough from the Beta house, Edgar challenges them to a competition of Greek Games. In the end the Beta house wins by a narrow advantage they picked up from another fraternity.
This relates to today’s pop culture because in today’s society geeks are making a comeback. In the TV/Reality show “Beauty and the Geek,” and even in “I Love New York,” a high intelligent male gets to the last three people before getting eliminated. Even more today being smart and sexy seems to get you further ahead than just being beautiful.

Assignment 2-2

The three icons that I chose were the TV series “Smallville,” Superman, and Kewain Ratliff. “Smallville is a show about superman while he was still finding out all of his powers and abilities. Superman is a fictional character who is basically invincible beside kryptonite. Kewain Ratliff is a Professional football player who grew up in Whitehall, OH.

Smallville inspirers me because of the situations in which this young Clark Kent gets into, and how he is able to still get out them without anyone realizing how he done it. Also in this TV series Clark is in love with a girl name Lana Lang (who appears in superman 3), and the show displays how hard it is for him to act human and love her and to follow his destiny which is to save the world. One last thing about the series, besides the fact that it is action packed and introduces characters from the Justice League and old Superman movies, is that in the show Lex Luther is Clark’s best friend in the beginning seasons. Lately, Clark has seen Lex for who he really is. I like this show and love watching it because even though it is fictional it makes me think about what I could be if I really put my mind to it, besides the kryptonite and invincible thing.

When I say Superman for my second icon, I mean the movies about Superman the man, not the young Clark Kent. Superman knows all of his abilities and his true destiny which is to protect Earth from destruction like his homeland of Krypton. He falls in love with Lois Lane who is a journalist who’s favorite story is about Superman and eventually finds out who Clark Kent really is. The reason why the Superman movies are so important to me is because that was my influence when I was growing up, my mom was gone working all the time, and my dad was off somewhere else, Superman was my inspiration.

The last icon which I will be talking about is Kewain Ratliff. He grew up in Whitehall, OH which is my hometown. He was also one of my brother’s good friends, so I actually was about to hang out with him every once in a while. Also Whitehall was not one of the best places to grow up as a kid in the 90’s. The reason why he is a icon to me is because he was able to resist all of the violence and drugs in Whitehall and made it to college on a football scholarship. After that he proved that he was good enough for the pro’s and got drafted to the Bengals. He gave me a reason to work my hardest at what I love to do which is football.

Assignment 1-4 Weekly Analyses

Between the time that I had this week from doing homework, I was able to watch the movie Live Free or Die Hard with Bruce Willis. This movie is the fourth of the old but popular movie of Die Hard. In this movie Bruce Willis is detective John McClane is stationed to look after a convicted computer hacker, Matt Ferrall played by Justin Long. Whose life is on the line because he is one of the only hackers left who is able to prevent Thomas Gabriel, played by Timothy Olyphant, from hacking into the pentagon and crashing the stock market for the second time in America’s History and putting America back into the stone age once again. John McClane who has a history of action packed adventures with other bad guys in the past including the following: Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), Simon Gruber (Jeremy Irons) brother to Hans who avenges his brother the third movie, and Col. Stuart (William Sadler).
As you can see John McClane can handle a little computer hacker terrorist trying to put America back into the stone-age. There was a part in the movie when John is driving a cop car and catapults it off of a toll booth aiming it at a helicopter in which one of the terrorist are trying to kill him and Matt. In the past movies the terrorist would take John’s wife, Holly Gennero McClane (Bonnie Bedelia), hostage and he would have to save her. In this movie; however, they are divorced so she does not appear in this one, but his daughter is Lucy McClane (Mary Winstead) is taken hostage in place of his wife.
As you can probably tell he gets angry and comes after the terrorist and saves the day the only way John McClane knows how to. With quick thinking and a lot of pain on his part and the terrorist.

Assignment 1-2

1. Popular culture is the situation in which people base their lives. I believe popular culture are all the new developments and fads in which we live our lives. If it was not for the new fashion ideas that come out every year then we would be stuck with the same fashion from the 80's to now. Even still men wearing the high and tight gym shorts and women wearing bulky turtle neck shirts. Not saying that every new fad and development that comes out is great, like the holes in pants, the half made shirts or even the logo's which appear on some of the clothing today; however, they are still changes in which make this country so great.

2. I believe popular culture effect in the work place, because of all the new developments that happen everyday in today society. I am currently an assistant manager at Wendy's and I know that without the new advertisments on TV, radio, and in newpaper and magazine articles then we would not be as popular of a food chain as say McDonald's. I am hoping after I graduate from Franklin Unversity that I will be able to get a job with a big company like JP Morgan, who is the sister branch to Chase Banks. Without the new development for free checking accounts and things in that nature that are being thought up everyday then JP Morgan would not be such a huge success, which they depend on to survive as a company.

3. A popular culture artifact that come to mind for me would be the old Wendy's commercials (Where's the Beef), which simbolized that all the other food chain would downsize there hamburgers and sell them for a quoted price, while Wendy's would give you the same price for a much bigger portion of meat.