Artifact 1- Vampire Diaries

For my cultural artifact I chose to watch an episode from season two of CWTV’s The Vampire Diaries. This series is a suspenseful, romantic horror series which takes place in a fictional small town haunted by supernatural beings. The main focus of the series is the love triangle between a human and two brother vampires. The episode I watched was “Kill or be Killed” in which one of the vampires has to decide to go against everything he thinks is morally right and against his natural being in order to protect himself and his lover.

This cultural artifact tells so much about human purpose. In these episodes humans are solely for vampire consumption and there is a great contrast between the two vampire brothers in what they believe is right. Stephan does not drink human blood and suffers great weakness because he only consumes animal blood. Damon however, is a ruthless killer and feeds on humans for strength and entertainment. This artifact reveals the fragility of human life and the choices those with power have to make. This artifact encourages one to hope for good to overpower evil. While Stephan is suffering from his choice the audience hopes that he will be able to overcome the hardship he is presented and prove to Damon that there is a way to fight the inner demon they are possessed with. While Damon and Stephan both have the great desire for human blood, Stephan has chosen to fight against it and that gives hope for humans as well to be able to recognize that not all vampires are bad. We can apply this lesson to the in the real world as we strive for awareness of how challenging fighting against a strong impulse can be and how love, support, and guidance should be provided to those who need it. I am aware that humans don’t often have the desire to drink blood but we are hindered by alcoholism, sex addiction, eating disorders, and mental incapability.

1. 1.How are we to reach out and support those who are struggling to turn away from life in the empire and live for the kingdom of God?

2. Although this is clearly not a “Christian” television show, do you think it is possible to derive the good versus evil theme and apply it to our discussion using a Christian viewpoint?

Artifact 1, The Next Christian

The artifact that I choose was one of the January Series lectures. The lecture that I attended was titled The Next Christians: How a New Generation is Restoring the Faith. The speaker of this lecture was Gabe Lyons. He spoke about the Christians interactions with the current culture.

In culture many perceptions of Christianity are that Christians believe in anti-homosexuality, they are judgmental, hypocritical, sheltered, and too political. The lecture went on to talk about the interactions that Christians have with the current culture. Lyons describes three different types of Christians. They are separatists, cultural, and restorers. Separatist Christians are described as separate from the world and that they are one group who think, act, and look alike. Cultural Christians are described as people who blend in, have a close alignment to culture, and just put themselves in the category of Christians. Restorers are described as Christians practicing what faithfulness looks like. He went on to talk about the creation, fall, redemption, and restoration and continued saying that the cultural Christians only look at the creation and restoration, while the separatist Christians only look at the fall and redemption. Lyons then says that the restorers look at all the whole story form creation to redemption, while the other two only look at half of them. Restorers are provoked because they get engaged and involved and through this we can see he kingdom showing up. Restorers are also called to creation; this is true because they create and environment, experience, conversation, or an organization that is bettering the kingdom. Restorers are also called they are to use the gift’s that God has given them; Restorers use their gifts to redeem and restore that world. He continues that it is important to not escape from the world but to renew it and also that reconciliation can happen with anything and pleases God because it changes our hearts. He then finishes up saying that there are seven channels of culture and they are church, business, government, education, arts and entertainment, media, and social sector. He says that pretty much everyone is a part of one of the channels.

1. How can we get engaged and create the world as it should be?

2. Which of the seven channels do you think you could be apart of? Why?

America the Beautiful

Last night, for the dorm film showing, I watched America the Beautiful. This film was a documentary written by a guy who had passed up an incredibly beautiful woman just because he wanted to see if he could find someone even prettier than she. The woman ended up falling in love and marrying a different man while he was left pondering the mistake that he. He wanted to discover why exactly Americans, especially women, are so obsessed with being “beautiful”.

 In the film the director, Darryl Roberts, gives many examples of how advertising and especially modeling corrupt our society on our views of what a woman should look like in order to truly be beautiful. He particularly showed the story of a girl who began modeling at the young age of only twelve years old. Already then, this girl had started comparing herself to sexy women and advertisements as well as the bodies and slim figures of models. He then went on the say that over 46 percent of eleven to twelve year old girls already begin dieting and talking about plastic surgery at their age. To me, this was not only a very sad statistic to hear, but also a sad reality to be confronted with. It made me realize just the extent that so many women go to in order to achieve the American eye of beauty. As Jessica Reaves phrased it in her review in the Chicago Tribune, “Women suffer all sorts of indignities, anxieties and pain in our futile attempts to achieve a narrow, twisted standard of attractiveness”.  I completely agree with this statement because to many people around the world, every American woman is absolutely beautiful, yet to Americans, there’s automatically a certain standard that women hold themselves to which only a slim few can actually achieve.

The film also gave the statistic that over 91 percent of college girls are on a diet. This also hit me hard being that I myself am a college student. I think one of the biggest differences I can do in my life for myself is to recognize that I’m beautiful to God and that alone is the opinion that matters, not the world. The biggest difference I can make amongst my peers is just simply giving a compliment and genuinely letting someone know their beautiful. Sometimes it’s the smallest things that truly make the biggest difference.

Artifact 1: The Next Christians

For my artifact, I attended to a January Series event. The lecture was called “The Next Christians: How a New Generation is Restoring the Faith.” The speaker was Gabe Lyons, who is famous for his book “The Next Christians.” Lyons lecture mainly focused on the Christian interaction with our current culture. He explained the two kinds of Christians in today’s society—the separatist, and the cultural Christian. Separatist only spend time with people who think like them, act like them, and share their beliefs. They only listen to certain kinds of music and watch certain kinds of movies. Overall, they seclude themselves from the world in order to remain holy. Cultural Christians, on the other hand, tend to blend in with the rest of the population. These Christians do no stand out--the word “Christian” is simply a label. Both separatists and cultural Christians fail to see the full creation-fall-redemption-restoration story--they only see half. Separatists look only at the fall and redemption part. For these separatists, redemption is solely about escaping the material world, rather than working at renewing it. In contrast, cultural Christians focus on creation and restoration. They fail to see the need to redeem what is fallen—rather than standing out in opposition to fallen culture, they fit right in.

As followers of Christ, we are to be neither separatists nor cultural Christians. Instead, we are called to be restorers, or a vision of how things ought to be. As restorers, we are to be provoked. This means that we are not to simply critique and condemn culture, but we are to get involved in it and take action. As Lyons explained, humans are called to help create the world as it should be and use their God-given gifts to help restore culture. However, in order to restore culture, we must first become engaged in it.

In conclusion, I believe that our interaction with culture is extremely important. We must not become separatists and seclude ourselves from everything materialistic and evil in the Empire. In order to bring the Kingdom of God into culture, we must be involved in culture. However, we should not let ourselves become so well adjusted to culture that we fit right in, becoming “cultural Christians.” We must work at becoming restorers, bringing the backwards Kingdom of God into our society.

Discussion Questions:

1. How can we avoid being separatists and cultural Christians, and seek to be restorers in today’s society?

2. How can we engage in culture and use our gifts to help reform it?

Glee

For my artifact, I decided to watch an episode of the show Glee. The show is an all-American musical drama aired on Fox television network. It takes place at a high school and focuses on one particular musical club that deals with competition, relationships, sexuality and social issues.

In the episode I watched, the musical club, also known as the Glee club, had to perform at a sectional competition in order to continue to move on Regionals. Throughout the episode many of the characters dealt with relationship issues not only amongst each other in the group but with their parents and families as well. Many of the parents of the teens in the group believed that the club was ingraining into their children an unrealistic vision for their future. Like most American parents in our society, they wanted their children to pick a more successful path for their future which would bring in more income. Rather than looking at the gifts and talents God had blessed their children with, their focus was on money and how only that would benefit them in life.

Money can be very deceivingly evil in our society today because like the children on the show, often people are forced or encouraged to disregard the talents and skills which God created them with and blessed them with in order that they can gain wealth in money. Our culture pushes us to believe that in order to be successful we need to have a high paying job and more money than we know what to do with. The evil makes us believe that we won’t be good enough unless we have are the “top dog” of our class. God redeemed us though and created us each with different skills and abilities. With His truth living in us, we can know that we don’t have to have the best job or the most money, but that rather we can follow our dreams for the joy that He showers us with in that is priceless.

When the club members on the show decided to follow their dream of performing rather than the high paying routes their parents were pushing them towards, they discovered that the joy they received in that was worth more than falling into the lies of society.
What dreams are we giving up in order to be something somebody else wants us to be? What talents and blessings from God are we throwing away at the cost of listening to the lie of society that only money can buy us true happiness?

"Good Hair" Dorm Film Post

On Monday night some classmates and I watched, “Good Hair.” I will be completely honest, being the only bi-racial girl in the group I was really nervous to go see this film and I had my doubts as to how my fellow classmates would react. I am pleased to report that the dorm film experience was informative, friendly, and not at all awkward.

After Chris Rock’s daughter asked him why she didn’t have good hair, Chris took on the journey across the world to gather information on the pressures put on African American women as they strive to get the stereotypical “good hair”. This movie is a funny commentary yet a well-researched study about the true racist attitudes towards African American’s hair and what it has caused. My perspective of this movie was thoroughly influenced by my own ethnicity. I myself have asked my mother why I had to get the type of hair I have instead of her silky blond hair. I am an African- American and Caucasian mix and therefore have incredibly curly hair that comes with similar pressures and insecurities that African American women in this movie face. I was so shocked to watch about the amount of time, energy, money, and pain women got through on a weekly basis to get their hair from its natural “nappy” state to “good” quality, or straight. Women can do this by getting their hair relaxed which is a chemical process that is time-consuming, expensive, painful, and unhealthy for your hair. Processes like this start at the young age of only three years old. Chris Rock also does research on weaves and how very expensive they are and where the hair comes form. The information was simply appalling.

After reading several film reviews I saw how the general public viewed this film. One critique, Jenifer Merrin, stated that according to the film, “People with 'good hair' (i.e. straight hair) get better jobs, are more popular, and have better sex lives. On the flip side, 'Nappy' hair is ugly. 'Nappy' hair is also black.” Statements like this are sad but this is indeed the theme that the movie portrays to its audience. Another reviewer, Jeannette Catsoulis says, “One of the happy consequences of “Good Hair” should be a radical increase in white-women’s empathy for their black sisters.” Being mixed I do know what it is like to be defined by your hair. In this movie good hair is defined as straight hair and the implications of this give into a billion dollar industry. This film certainly opened my eyes and I vow to not be judgmental of African American women’s hair now that I know the severity of what they have to go through in order to avoid judgment.

Capitalism: A Love Story - Response

Earlier today, I watched Capitalism: A Love Story, a documentary about the exploitation of the poor by the wealthy, directed and produced by Michael Moore. I felt that Moore made many valid, reasonable arguments early in the film. He showed many middle-class people whose homes had recently been foreclosed by greedy banks, as they were unable to make their rapidly-rising payments. I can sympathize with them, personally knowing people who have dealt with the same thing. He then showed interviews with women whose husbands had recently passed away. In one case, the hospital had taken out life insurance against the husband, and in another case, Wal-Mart (the husband's workplace) had taken out a "dead peasant" policy against him. Both the hospital and Wal-Mart profited immensely from the deaths, and the widows (who both had children) received nothing in compensation. Again, I can sympathize, and I agree wholeheartedly that these women were taken advantage of in an extremely dishonest, inhumane way.

Though I believed that Moore was wrong to blame the system of capitalism as a whole for the corruption permeating the upper class, I had accepted most of what he said as credible. Having so far kept an open mind, the second half of the movie destroyed all credibility I had given it up to that point. The film degenerated from an expose to an immature rant. Clips were dramatized with zooms and music, voices of supporters of capitalism were distorted to sound demonic, Moore himself brought out his bullhorn on various security guards, and (perhaps my favorite) Bush's address on the state of the economy was given a cartoony horror film backdrop. I decided at that point I couldn't really take the film too seriously. As this reviewer puts it, "broke, tear-stained families sitting at a kitchen table, in a house they’re about to lose to a bank, aren’t best served by...pathos-dispensing musical score."

If nothing else, I learned from the film just how greedy some of the wealthier white-collar workers can be, and I can never look at banks and big corporations the same way again. I can also say that my sympathy for the hard-working lower- and middle-class citizens of America is strengthened, and that something must be done about the corruption of the higher-ups.

Who Killed the Electric Car preview

Wednesday, 7:00 P.M, in Bolt 220, there will be a viewing of Who Killed the Electric Car. This documentary discusses the creation and failure of the electric car in California in 1996. Within this documentary, director Chris Paine discusses the commercialization of the electric car in contrast to its opposition from the oil industry, competing car companies, and the US and Californian government. This film fared very well at the Sundance Film Festival and has received overall positive reviews from film critics.

Here is the official preview for Who Killed the Electric Car:

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

Here are the links to the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, which offer reviews from both professional film critics and user critics.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/who_killed_the_electric_car/

Here is also GM's rebuttal blog post, Who Ignored the Facts About the Electric Car

http://www.altfuels.org/misc/onlygm.pdf

Good Hair Response

Last night, I watched comedian Chris Rock's documentary Good Hair with some of my classmates. In this film, Chris Rock looks at the pressures put on African-American women to get their hair straightened or to get a weave, the high prices it cost African American women to get their hair straightened (sometimes even $5,000!), and the location where all these beautiful weaves come from (India). While I was watching this film, I found it funny, interesting, and informative. However, after reading Jeannette Catsoulis's review on the film, I realized that there may have been some other emotions that other viewers could have felt while watching this movie.

Like Ms. Catsoulis, I found this movie informative and hilarious, but there were elements in this film that I saw, but could not feel. Catsoulis states that this movie shows the psychological and physical harm that the hair business brings to the African-American community. However, being a Caucasian male, it was hard for me to relate to the stress and pain that these women were going through in the movie. It is a lot easier to watch someone get their hair "relaxed" than actually getting it done and a lot easier to hear how much money these women are paying for their hair than actually experiencing the work they had to go through to make their hair "beautiful." For this reason, I feel that while I still got a lot out of this movie, I was not able to relate to and appreciate it as much as African-American women, or even Caucasian women, can.

After watching this film, I am definitely going to try not to judge women on their looks. Just because a women has more resources to receive special hair treatments or the best make-up does not mean they are any better than the women who do not have these privileges. I am greatly appreciative that I was able to participate in this dorm film showing, and I hope this film will make me live in a way that lines up with what the "Kingdom" should be like.

http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/movies/09hair.html

Maxed Out and In Debt

Wednesday evening at 7:00pm sharp the James Manor (351 James Ave SE) will be hosting a screening of James Scurlock's documentary, Maxed Out. Scurlock, 34, originally intended for this flick to have a tongue-in-cheek tone to it, revealing ridiculous situations many Americans find themselves in when credit debt suffocates them. What Scurlock found though provoked little laughter. The documentary invites viewers to visit with a wide array of guests, from a canny Harvard financial professor to a savvy pawn shop owner to families living in the backwoods.

Get Rich Slowly, a personal finance organization online offers a balanced review of the documentary. While many reviews I've perused have offered much praise though neglecting to critique, this review aptly notes where they feel the documentary is lacking or drifting astray. Overall though, the positives and negatives balance out.

The New York Times review was as scathing on the film as the film was on the credit industry. Stephen Holden, the author, posits that Maxed Out fails to astutely convey the amalgam of facts, opinions, and anecdotes leaving the viewer in the shadow of a large issue without candles to illuminate the darkness.

To read an interview with Scurlock on the film, check out this Q&A organized by The Film Lot.

Below you can view the trailer for the film: