Gallin’s Weblog

Watching the movie Bamboozled is an unusual experience.

As I was watching it there were parts that were obviously offensive.

For instance, when the boss uses the “N” word about 15 times in one scene, and then of course the use of the word “Coon.”

I hate that word in general, but especially when white people say it.

It is completely wrong and just should not be done.

However at other points, I’m just not sure if it is offensive or not.

It goes back to the conversation we had in class about what crosses the line.

I think that most of it crosses the line, mainly every episode they put on so far in the movie.

I want to see the rest of the movie to see how it all turns out, but I hope that the show gets kicked off the air, and people realize how wrong it is.

The book I have chosen for my report is called Sex, Drugs, And Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuch Klosterman.

I chose this book was because out of the list that was given I felt like this was the book that I could most relate to.

That is kind of sad that I connected most with the subject matter of this book but I do.

Most older people don’t realize what really happens in today’s society.

I didn’t read anything that really made me say this is the book for me.

It was kind of like there wasn’t anything else interesting on the booklist, at least to me.

I don’t know a lot about the book itself, not having read it yet.

However, I do know that it is a collection of essays about “Generation X” and I guess I am an Xer.

I suppose the thing I want to find out about this book is if there are other people in this country see “Generation X” the way I do.

I have met people at school that I have told stories about my hometown and they are shocked.

I know I come from a completely different world than most people here at USC, but I guess I’m wondering if anyone else had similar experiences that I had.

Masculinity in today’s society shows two different types of men, when they are a main character role.

They have the women’s point of view of what masculinity is and men’s very different view of it.

The women’s point of view is the hopeless romantic.

He’s the guy who always says the right thing.

He’s your modern day knight in shining armor.

He will love you and be faithful.

He will be an amazing father and always take care of the kids.

He compliments the character he is dating and the fit together perfectly.

To women that is their ideal of masculinity.

They take responsibility and are faithful honest guys.

Men however have a different opinion.

I guess he could be described as the “Man’s Man.”

The man every other guy wishes they could be like.

He’s smart, gets all the women he wants, successful, and hansom.

Now I don’t really want to get into the double standards of men being able to sleep around vs. women, but I need to touch on it just a little.

It is the male dream to be their “Man’s Man” type of guy.

They want to be free and have fun.

Basically the way men act during their mid life crisis.

Women want the opposite.

They want commitment and monogamy.

I think it’s kind of irresponsible to have these guy flicks (AKA James Bond etc.) to  show a movie with a male lead who can get any women he wants without being in a relationship.

It’s giving men the wrong impression of how they should act.

And honestly, probably giving women and unrealistic ideal of how men should act.

I was thinking about not just rewriting a scene of the movie Kids, but the entire movie set in the suburbs.

I want to show the differences between suburbs and city life.

I’ll show that this situation can happen in the suburbs but it would have significant changes.

For instance, all of the kids would be white and rich.

They would party in mansions when their parents are out of town.

They will take more expensive drugs and won’t have to steal.

But again the situation needs to stay the same.

There will be a Casanova who convinces virginal 14 year old girls to have sex with him.

There will be drugs, sex, rape and everything in between.

For the social aspects that need to be different changing from a city to a suburb I will get from my sources.

Sources:

Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imaginary Places by Edward Soja.

Dual City: Restructuring New York by John Hull Mollenkopf and Manuel Castells

Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions by Edward W. Soja

The City: Los Angeles and Urban Theory at the End of the Twentieth century by Allen J. Scott and Edward Soja

The schools library database system wasn’t working properly.

I could only access the books that are in the library on my subject.

However, I would like to find papers and articles as well.

After reading Johnson’s book I feel that I can not simply write an entertainment paper.

The ideas I had for an entertainment paper were fine but they were not complex enough.

Johnson always had some aspect about entertainment that I would not normally think about.

He takes the simple idea of something like “older” TV vs. “new” TV programing.

When you first think about it before hand it seems so simple.

TV programs now are all scandalous and soap opera like.

TV programs that we grew up with were much more simple and had a lot less cursing and sex.

Johnson questions if The Fonz from Happy Days was having sex with all the women he was with.

After reading that, you are kind of dumbfounded.

It seems so logical now that Johnson had said it.

But before that, it would have never crossed your mind.

I now realize I have to make an argument like that.

As I’ve already said I am one of the millions of people in the world that is on MySpace and Facebook.

I use it to keep in touch with people back home and to even reconnect with people I haven’t seen in years.

You can find pretty much anyone on these social networking, and pretty much anyone can find you.

There has been many a time that I have received friend requests from strangers.

I have a rule of thumb that I do not reject any ones request unless I do know them and dislike them.

It’s very interesting looking at strangers profiles.

This profile is supposed to tell you about the person’s lives and who they are.

But, it really isn’t.

I’m sorry to break the hearts of some but your online profile is not an extension of yourself.

You can’t look at a profile and figure out if the person is a complete jerk or a axe murderer.

You see their pictures of them and their friends.

You see that they talk to people and have their “top friends.”

However, none of this information tells you about who they really are.

Not to mention the information that they provide doesn’t mean it’s the truth.

Because no one ever lies on the Internet.

Supposedly their interest in books, movies and music is a deep view into their souls.

But again, how do we know they are not just putting what they think will make them more appealing to other people.

Also, there are these little boxes that you write down what you are online for.

It could be friendship, dating or something of that nature.

But if you really think about it why should someone be truthful on that box either.

My ex has just gotten a Facebook profile and says girls are sending their p**** to him through e-mails.

They send messages saying a little something about themselves and their phone number or invitations to their parties.

However, if you look at their profiles they are online for friendship and networking.

No women is going to put that she is online for dating or relationships.

They will look like sluts if they do that, well more than they do when they send messages like that to complete strangers.

Men on the other hand can put down that they are online for dating and relationships without even considering it.

It’s the double standard.

Men can be looking for women or have multiple women and be “the man” or a pimp.

If a women does it she’s desperate or a hoe.

In my opinion it’s safe to accept people’s request as long as you don’t have too much personal information on it.

People who put their home addresses or their class schedules complete with buildings and room numbers are just waiting for some stalker person to find their profile and come after them.

My profile has no personal information that I don’t want people to know about myself and people have to be one of my friends to even see my profile.

And of course a no meeting people I don’t know from the Internet.

Just seems safer to me because you can’t really tell anything real about people from their profiles.

I know this wasn’t an assignment but with how much we talk about the war in Iraq I thought it was relevant.

My ex posted this, he’s a soldier who was in Iraq for a year and I just wanted to share this with everyone.

There were a couple of more lines and pictures but some of the pictures wouldn’t load so I just left them out.

You stay up for 16 hours.
He stays up for days on end.

You take a warm shower to help you wake up.
He goes days or weeks without running water.

You complain of a “headache”, and call in sick.
He gets shot at as others are hit, and keeps moving forward.

You put on your anti war/don’t support the troops shirt, and go meet up with your friends.
He still fights for your right to wear that shirt.

You talk trash about your “buddies” that aren’t with you.
He knows he may not see some of his buddies again.

You go out to lunch, and complain because the restaurant got your order wrong.
He doesn’t get to eat today.

Your maid makes your bed and washes your clothes.
He wears the same things for weeks, but makes sure his weapons are clean.

You go to the mall and get your hair redone.
He doesn’t have time to brush his teeth today.

You’re angry because your class ran 5 minutes over.
He’s told he will be held over an extra 2 months.

You call your girlfriend and set a date for tonight.
He waits for the mail to see if there is a letter from home.

You hug and kiss your girlfriend, like you do everyday.
He holds his letter close and smells his love’s perfume.

You roll your eyes as a baby cries.
He gets a letter with pictures of his new child, and wonders if they’ll ever meet.

You criticize your government, and say that war never solves anything.
He sees the innocent tortured and killed by their own people and remembers why he is fighting.

You hear the jokes about the war, and make fun of men like him.
He hears the gunfire, bombs and screams of the wounded.

You see only what the media wants you to see.
He sees the broken bodies lying around him.

You are asked to go to the store by your parents. You don’t.
He does exactly what he is told even if it puts his life in danger.

You stay at home and watch TV.
He takes whatever time he is given to call, write home, sleep, and eat.

If you support your troops, the click “reply to poster” copy all the codes, and repost the bulletin.

If you don’t support your troops well, then don’t re-post. You won’t die in 7 days, your love life won’t be affected, and you won’t have the worst day ever. You don’t have to repost. It’s not like you know the men and women that are dying to preserve your rights.

Well everyone knows that web blogs can be written by anyone and everyone.

Blogs give people a unique perspective of what’s going on in the world.

The blogs written by soldiers and by people who live in Iraq let’s us hear stories we would never hear otherwise.

I mean how often do you talk to people who live in an occupied country.

I mean I do everyday but I figured it was just me. But anyways…………

The blogs by the reporters are really interesting.

They give a uncut view from Iraq.

When you read the stories by reports coming from Iraq it’s after the editing and censorship.

This way you can get the real stories, and I guess you trust them a little more then the everyday person.

It’s the credentials I suppose, but whatever it is I think that most Americans feel like that when they read an American reporter’s blog.

But I guess we should be suspicious of all blogs.

It could be a 69 year old man who’s bored and decides to pretend to be a overseas correspondent.

I suppose we shouldn’t believe everything we read but we should consider that some of it might be true.

It’s better that we look for information that might not be factual then to be ignorant and not know what’s going on in the world.

Well my cultural interests are very fast. First and foremost I love sports. I blame my upbringing. Two older brothers, both football stars in our community and a father that coached football for half of my life. It was amazing yesterday when the Giants won. I was extremely mad because my brothers got go. My father got them tickets and if I had stayed in New York I could have gone with them. I’m a die hard New Yorker, so Giants and Yankees are a huge part of my life. I suppose that it is kind of “Popular Culture” but not to me. To me it’s kind of just another part of my life. Other things in “my culture” consist of family, and friends. I try and be open to everything, different genres of movies and music. That’s my culture and my life .

I guess “Popular Culture” to me is the average celebrity garbage that everyone buys into. There are complete television stations dedicated to who sleeping with who, and who the latest addicts are. Tabloid’s are no different. People pay money so they can find out what is going on in “Pop Culture.”All of these things kind of makes me sad. The average teenager knows everything that is happening in the Spears or Simpson families but they still think that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Last week a MTV correspondent was on our USC campus and was asking the random USC students who they were voting for. I heard from a friend that when they gave their answer and were given a followup question, such as why, and they couldn’t give a reason. What does it say about our society that the future of our country is more interested in scandals than their own countries well being. I don’t know it just makes me wonder what’s going to happen when our generation is in charge of the world. I’m not saying that we are all worthless but I know someone that graduated from my high school who coulnd’t do something as simple as read a clock that wasn’t digital. I just suppose that things are more interesting living lives through other people. Still, this is still just my interpretation of what the term “Pop Culture” means. To other people it means something different and their rant will be slightly different. But yeah, I think that’s pop culture and I’m glad to say that I can be slightly up on what’s new in “Pop Culture” but maintain knowledge in a lot of different feilds.

My name is not of importance.

Everyone here can call me C~Line.

I’m 18. This is me at my high school graduation.

I attend the University of South Carolina as an exercise science major. 

 I’m from a small town in NY right outside of the city.

I have a lot of friends from home that I try to keep in touch with on my Facebook Page, feel free to add me. I’m always online. It’s kind of my lifeline to back home.

I love

• Music
• Movies
• Sports
• Dancing

P.S. I don’t know if this is how normal bloggers act, but this is for an enlish class so it’s basically what the teacher wanted.