The Topp Twins

When I first saw the commercial for this movie I thought that it looked funny and that is why I decided to go see it, I never thought in a million years that it would not only be inspirational but also an emotional trip as well. You see the day before I watched The Topp Twins one of my best friends moms lost her 6 year battle with cancer, (meaning she passed away) that all started when she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the young age of 34. I really enjoyed how the movie touched on Jools Topp's battle and successful journey with breast cancer and how they have become such active supporters to those women who also suffer from breast cancer, and how they are using their fame to teach and make others aware about breast cancer is truly amazing to me. After just losing a woman close to me, almost like a second mother to cancer (started as breast cancer that then spread to her liver, spine, and then brain), I found the Topp Twins truly inspiring and during the part where they were talking about Jool's battle with breast cancer I started crying.

I also found another truly remarkable trait in the Topp Twins and that is that they never stopped being true to themselves. They always did what they wanted and how they wanted and basically said screw you to those who got in their way and wanted to change them. They knew who they were and they stood up for it. To me that is an important trait for any strong woman to have and I envy them for having it cause I could use more of it myself.

Thee Obsessed Avenger and his Son

Star Wars. Everyone and their mother has seen it at least a couple of times, and if you haven't then I am sorry, I suggest you rent them and probably not read on, cause they are classic and I do not want to ruin them for you. Anyways one of my favorite characters, even though he is the bad guy, will always be Darth Vader. In the newer movies, showing how Darth Vader came to be out of such a sweet and innocent little boy named Anakin Skywalker you learn just how twisted someone can become with the right encouragement. Sure it can be argued that Darth Vader did it to himself. He choose to turn to the dark side and sure he chose to try and jump over Obi-Wan Kenobi leading to himself being pretty much a walking burnt piece of toast, but he was pushed in that direction very hard by the evil Darth Sidious, who kept spitting him lies after Anakin gets his hand cut off and marries his true love (who he then fears is going to die).

After getting his hand cut off Anakin becomes even more bitter about being a Jedi and having rules to constrict him. He feels he can be the most powerful Jedi ever and that everyone is holding him back, so he tries to take matters into his own hands (one mechanical and one flesh) and ends up becoming even more decapitated, which he then blames on Obi Kenobi and swears revenge.

He is the perfect model for the obsessed avenger becuase something horrible happened to him (which even though it was pretty much his own fault, he still blamed everyone else), to make him disabled and rely on a machine to pretty much keep him alive. He then swears revenge and eventually gets it when he kills Obi-Wan later in life (or in the earlier movies).

Now his son, Luke is quite the opposite. After Darth Vader cuts off his own sons arm to make his son more like him, and to try and turn Luke into a bitter evil boy, Luke goes and decides that he never wants to turn to the dark side and that he is going to fight for good. Even though Luke does want revenge on his father for killing Obi-Wan and chopping off his hand, he more wants to rescue and save the world, making Luke something his father never could be, and that is a hero.

Sheltered Problems

I grew up in a Christian home, with parents who are very old fashion and straight laced, and the town where I grew up is very sheltered. Now with this kinda life growing up one would think that I would hold the same morals as my parents and those around me, but I don't. In fact my morals differ from my parents so much that I do not think it would make them very excited to know about. Growing up in my church we were told a lot by our pastors and elders and one of the things we were taught was that it is wrong to be attracted to someone of the same sex as yourself, and that basically if you are then their is something wrong with you. I thankfully grew up and started to form my own opinions and morals of what is right and wrong, but when I was a kid all my role models and people who I looked up to were the ones who formed all my opinions and morals for me, so I personally think that the leaders in the church and in my life should not have pushed their own opinions about gays onto me, and let me decide on my own what I think is right.

Now that I am older and not so impressionable, I decided that being a homosexual is not wrong and that their is no chemical imbalance or anything like that wrong with people who decide that they are attracted to their same sex. I also think that every person should have their own choice to decide who they like and are attracted to and who they want to sleep with or get married to. It is an individual choice not a community choice, and personally I think that all the churches and religions need to butt out of an individuals private matters, because it is that individuals own choice, no one else's.

Another problem that I have encountered being sheltered all my life, besides not being able to make up my own morals when I was younger, was the fact that I was never shown how to rightly act in front of a trans-gender person. I do not know what the proper thing to say is, or even what the proper thing to call them by, like as in mister or miss. I wish that I did know, because it makes me feel like an awful person not knowing, because then I am afraid the person will not like me, and I do not enjoy not being liked.

"Class Systems in Mall Media"

A few years ago I went to a volleyball tournament in Dallas, Texas. While there my team, all girls in LOVE while shopping of course, decided to visited one of the malls in Dallas. One thing that you need to understand is that club volleyball is expensive and although there are some scholarships that girls can get to play with different teams depending on how good they are, usually the girls come from middle class to higher class families. Being girls of the age of 15 to 16 though we did not talk about how much money our parents had, only the one girl that our whole entire team didn't like, bragged about how rich her family was. To the rest of the team it did not matter how much money each others families had, we were all friends. Now when we got to the mall I started to notice that this trip to the mall was not going to be an ordinary trip to the mall instead it was also going to be an issue of class, because this particular mall had different sections. The sections were that of class. Each section had it's own color, and each color stood for a class section. Purple was for the expensive brand stores that only two girls on our team could go to and choose to leave the rest of our team for the day to shop. Another section was green and stood for the stores like Hollister, American Eagle, Abercrombie and Fitch, etc that most of our team went and shopped at, and the three girls on our team that had scholarships and who's families were a part of the lower class in society went to shop at the red color stores. This break up shopping trip that happened to my team opened my eyes to class issues happening all over todays society. Issues that effect politicians and their decisions on taxes, and health care issues, and how different brands advertise to their target audience. While searching the web looking for different ads targeted to the different classes in society I noticed a very surprising difference.

Ads targeted for what is seen as lower class and poorer people on the U.S. are with normal teens dressed in the product, with sales information about a sale for the product going on that month/week right next to the teens. While an ad targeted for upper class rich people have naked/half naked "gorgeous" people laying on top of each, usually not even showing the product. Just having the people looking glamorous. I bet you can tell which is which below. I feel like class is getting to be a bigger and bigger issue the bigger the class gap between upper and middle, and lower and middle/upper. And ads will get even more opposite as their target audiences get more and more separate.

http://model-max.com/models/javier_de_miguel/gucci_shot1.jpghttp://westfield.com/uscentres/images/newsletter/email/aeropostale_ff.jpg

One thing I think will help close the gaps between classes are the Unions that are forming all over the U.S. I personally am part of a Union because I work for Albertsons in the Butcher Block, and the benefits that I get for having a some what dangerous job make wanting to go to work so much better. My dad is also part of a Union, as he works for Boeing. The benefits and protection he gets from his Union has helped my family get all the American dream thing that we could ever want.

"Standards of Race?"

Race is an issue that has been around for centuries. Personally I think race is only what us as humans allow it to be, and the power we give it, just like we give simple words the power to be racist. Words that I myself will not say because I have been told that they are as bad as swearing. So I will let the movie clips above say them for me. What "standards" do we as humans, black, white, yellow, etc, give each other for what is acceptable and what isn't? Is it acceptable for a black person to make fun of a white person, but not vice verse because of what happened in the past? Is it acceptable for any race to make fun of another even if it is just for fun. I myself have laughed at racist jokes made by a person of any race.
I also find stereotypes laughable and funny, and have made fun of myself plenty for dancing like a white girl. And who am I to say if one white comedian is allowed to make fun of blacks, or if say a comedian like Dave Chappelle is allowed to call white folks "crackers". My view is that jokes are just jokes and that yes there are some underlying meanings but a joke is just meant to be fun, and whoever gives it the power to be hurtful has done that themselves.
On another note words like "cracker" and "haole" (a Hawaiian; or as the census calls them Pacific Islanders, but a few of my Hawaiian friends I play volleyball with say they would rather be called Hawaiian; word for foreigner that has recently been used as an insult for white people) aren't hurtful to white people unless hurled as an insult, while the more vulgar words such as the n-word or the word in the Clerks clip are taken more heavily just because they are used to insult a black person. Shouldn't all hurtful words be taken the same, and not so lightly? That is just my opinion. Every prejudice thing should be seen on the same level, no matter how guilt whites feel about the past. It is the present and, sure although the past can teach us things, it is not good to dwell on what happened, but what we can do to change the future.

Not another teen movie

"Token Black Guy" starts at 0.35 seconds.

Not Another Teen Movie - Token Black Guy