9. Pop Quiz

Yesterday we had the review for the class issues we have seen and it was quite entertaining and competitive. Our group lost it by 1 point or something, but it is not a problem,we were o.k. in answering, in my opinion."Italian and Latino" was our wrong answer that pushed us to be 2nd but we are respectful to teacher's opinion as it said in the pop quiz rules.I think that this year oral practice presentation and review are good things for the students because practice makes final presentation easier and review gets full attention from the students because of the award at the end.

8. Oral Practice Presentation

In oral practice presentation,our group presented "A Woman on a Hot Roof" by Doris Lessing.It was a nice short story to read and it was not boring.Writers good use of the language enables the text to have a fluent style. My part was symbols and I think that she uses symbols so cleverly and effectively.The parallelism between weather and woman, roof as difference, colors as symbols and three different generations are all so important for story.I think that in overall it was a good presentation and we will try hard to improve for the movie one.

7. More About Turkish Tough Man Kadir İnanır

Kadir İnanır in a film of his with the name of "Yaban", translated as wild, plays an ignorant and a brutal fisher who strangely has a relationship with a girl who comes to bathe and swim at the same beach he fishes.But he hides his feeling so much that he does not talk with the girl and he just behaves to her if she is her fish.Lately in the movie he starts to talk and share his emotions with her.This actor has mostly played the "tough guise" example in the Turkish Film Industry.So nowadays in a tv show called "Haneler",there is a part "Yaban" the same name with İnanır's movie where an actor teases with the old movie by making it as comedy but not love in genre.So İnanır did not laugh and say congratulations to this guy but he became angry at him like he had done in his movies.This is also a mask because if he was not angry, his masculin image in the history of Turkish Cinema would have been destroyed.

6.Tough Guise

Being "tough" for a man is generally defined as being harsh,violent,rude and killing people.The movie "Tough Guise" explains the use of "tough" in movies and media which causes men to act as violent and strong images.They think that if they are not "tough", they are useless.The film shows the increase in men image throughout the years and it is interesting that Star Wars toys for little boys have become more muscular.Another shocking thing that is shown in the movie is "children killing children".It is not written as "boys killing boys".Statistics show that men do many of the crimes but media tries to hide this by writing "children killing children".Jackson Katz speaks about the rap stars who play the tough guy as acting like that because of their circumstances and this is a different example for the men image.Media,by showing men who use weapons,violence and power and by not accusing them causes these acts for being a tough man to continue by increasing.

In Turkey, the actor Kadir İnanır(in the picture) was the tough man of 70's and the 80's in the Turkish Cinema Yeşilçam.He always was slapping his girlfriends, and also loving them.He was not laughing or crying because he should be a man.He is a similar figure to John Wayne except that he is tough in the real life,different than John Wayne! He is tough enough to become angry at a man imitating his old movies.

5. Killing Us Softly 3

The movie "Killing Us Softly 3" is an effective work against media's use of women.Jean Kilbourne the speaker, talks about the colossal role of ads on showing women as sexy,passive and object not a subject.She gives lots of examples in order to visualize this and she shows little details in them that maybe most of men see as ordinary.Woman body as a perfume bottle , or a girl whose mouth is closed by her hand,or the use of innocent but sexy woman are all things that make woman passive. She points out these so powerfully.

I think that both women and men need eachother in the social life and also in relation.But that should not mean that women has to be a sex object that has to be thin, big breasted, and unwrinkled.Because that is not natural.What is natural is to think primarily that women are also human and they have the right to be equal to men.The ads shown in the film are so negative to this idea by defining women as low,passive and just sexy.It is a shame to sell products by using women and trying to lower their status in the community.As Kilbourne shows,there is also an ad that shows a girl looking down at a boy , but the boy is black.So as a summary media; by doing these kind of commercials; helps unequalities between the people to emerge and increase.

4.Television: Why Reality TV Is Good For Us

In the article dated Feb.17,2003; James Poniewozik writes about the benefits and uses of reality TV, comparing it with other TV programs such as TV series. The writer shows the readers the good parts of reality TV.He gives the example of "American Idol" and asks if Lady Tiger who raises her orphan child by boxing is a bad example for the society who watch this program.The concepts are dreaming,persevering and being proud in this show for viewers to be affected as he says. He accuses people of looking at reality TV with negative prejudgments.

For me his ideas are true but not totally because,many of today's global world's TV viewers know that reality TV show's primary objective is not being the good example to the community but firstly eat the bigger piece of the cake of rating in the TV.This does not mean that there are not any reality shows which are based on reality.If reality show's concern can be highly focused on living the moment like it is in real life,this would also bring TV rating I suppose.

3.Isabel Allende's "And of clay are we created"

In her real story "And of clay are we created", Chilean writer Isabel Allende takes our attention to a drama of a little girl stucked in clay after a disaster.This is a sad story because,people and mostly photographer Rolf Carle see her in that awful position but they can not help her to get out of there. There is an irony because,the photographer has to take Azucena's photo in order to form the new's visual part of the disaster's affects on humanity.But at the same time,he tries to rescue her but he can not.He does not choose the option to not take her photo.This is a big dilemma of news photographers in state of emergencies such as wars and disasters. Besides urging the worker to make a decision of taking the photo or not; this situation makes psychological effects on human brains.

In my opinion,the photographer has to do his or her job without bypassing the hard and sad situation he or she faces.Also if the photograph of Azucena was not taken, the effect of this reality story would not be this powerful.

2.Reality Tv: a dearth of talent and the death of morality

In his article about the reality shows, Salman Rushdie talks about the interesting characteristics of these programs and the silly actions the contestants do which make these shows popular.Although he says that he does not watch, it is the newspapers that Rushdie learn about these reality shows .This shows the placement of these artificial-real mixed show's in the community.A program is on the news not because it caused cultural improvement but because of the fight for popularity,wealth and ego in it.He tells the reader that it is so easy to become popular in the reality tv.It is about you being more silly and more funny and more absurd.For him one reason of reality tv mania is the seeking of our own behaviours similar on the tv screen.Different than the present of the Reality TV , Salman Rushdie adds that in the future there will be no attention on an indiviual who killed someone,if he did not do a massacre.
In my opinion, reality tv can be beneficial but not in these conditions that become a bad example for generations.It is harmful by constructing unreal fights,loves,arguments,friendships in a real supposed to be place. Reality tv should not be based on rating aim but on showing people perfectly real things.This would bring TV ratings also.

1.The Enormous Radio

"The Enormous Radio" by John Cheever is a short story that looks at media-human relation in a realist, fantastic mixed way.It is an interesting story for people to read because it has many ironies in it that make the story more beautiful.In the beginning of the story,the author wants us to think of a perfect American family with two children and a perfect understanding of classical music. But as the story continues family member's behaviors reveals the lack of moral values in their characteristics.Also the author's affective use of personal analizations of the protagonist and the antagonist makes the readers to see not the bad influences of the radio but the bad usage of the radio by Westcotts,especially by Irene Westcott.

Logically,the radio can not be the victim because it does not have any function to operate as a listening device or something like that. Cheever formed this detail to mix up the readers head to see if he/she will accuse the radio of being the causer of the problems in the Westcott family, or not.But it is seen that Westcott family and mostly Irene is the guilty one by listening to the conversations and arguments of their neighbours and being addicted in this silly behaviour.

Written in 1947, this story is a very good way to learn the importance of human-media,technology relation.For me it is so successful by showing us how to deal with todays high media and technology intervened life from 62 years back.