Movies and Culture

Movies are an interesting phenomena. Most people could not normally sit still for two hours in the dark, however when you give them something to watch, suddenly people will not only willingly sit in a dark room, they will pay often ridiculous prices to do so. Something about movies resonates with a bit of our humanity: these movies depict people doing things we could never hope, or doing things that we wish we had the courage to do. Sure, other kinds of movies exist that do not fall into these categories (such as comedies, documentaries, and many horror films), but the ones that do provide a unique insight into the values our culture holds in high esteem.

For example, take the new movie released just last week, Olympus has Fallen. I will not spoil the movie for those that have not seen it yet, however I will possibly "spoil" this: America wins. The movie, in case you are unaware, follows a secret service agent who has not been on active duty for eighteen months as he attempts to single-handedly retake the White House after it was taken over by the North Koreans. Several elements of the movie stood out to me, one being the security measures the movie depicts that protect our White House. One scene in particular involves the secret service agents hurriedly taking the president out of harm's way. The entire plot of the movie, in fact, is contingent upon high-ranking US officials being more willing to  sacrifice millions of innocent lives than sacrifice the President's life. But why is this considered so patriotic, even at a time when the country is so divided over the actions of the President? I believe that the movie demonstrates the same effect that occurred after 9/11. After the September 11th attacks on our country, our country was unified in a unique way that can only happen after a tragedy. People who are normally split by political party banded together to support the one cause of our nation: Seeking out the terrorist who committed the atrocities. The move Olympus has Fallen allows viewers to relive that emotion of unity. When an audience watches this movie, they will feel themselves cheering for America. Not democratic America and not republican America, just America as a nation. This movie is an especially important movie in today's divided nation.

Movies almost always have a point to them. More often than not, the point the movie is trying to make is also making a statement about the culture we live in today, and popular movies represent finding a commonality in the target audience. Olympus has Fallen, I believe, was popular because it ignites the patriot in all of use and reminds us that we are blessed beyond belief to have our most worrisome problem be balancing a budget.

Nothing Without Proof

High School is a rough time in one’s life, for many reasons. People like to quote biological and emotional reasons, but high school can sometimes be hard educationally as well. This is not always because the classes are hard, but often times because they are setup in a way that is a different pace and organization than Jr. High and elementary classes, much in the same way the college classes are often times not dramatically more difficult (although in many cases they are), they are just different. In my particular case, one of the classes that exhibited this characteristic was my high school English class. I took college English in high school and had the most wonderful professor, however the writing assignments were not always to my liking, and I often times disagreed with my grades when I thought they were lower than they should be. However, the main point of this class was to teach me to write, despite me thinking I already knew how to.

Going into the class, I thought that my writing skills were up to par. Sure, I could use big words here and there; probably convince someone my age that I knew what I was talking about. But when it came to writing with substance, to actually making a point that packed a punch, I was severely lacking. It took a teacher much more intelligent than I to challenge me and point out my flaws to hone my abilities to argue. This was what I learned in my rhetoric class.

As it turns out, this same year I took a Number Theory class at Stanford University. In that Number Theory course, we learned how to prove using all different sources of arguments, and went over, from a mathematical point of view, how to write proofs. As I look back on it now, I got a unique experience in that I got to learn both the math side of argument and the English side of argument within a short time period. I think this positively contributed to my education, and overall improved my argumentative capabilities.

When it comes down to it, I would probably have to attribute any success I have in the future at least partially to the writing course I took in High School. The foundation the professor gave me in writing with a purpose, with evidence and a clear point, has been invaluable in my academic writing at the present, and undoubtedly will come in handy in the future. If I could recommend to any other high school student a certain course to take, it would be a rhetoric course. Even though it will be challenging and seem too rigorous and writing-intensive for high school, the head-start it provides gives an extraordinary advantage not only in college applications, but also in college itself.

A Story From My Father

Stories have great cultural significance, whether they be a story that changes the way a civilization considers a certain phenomenon or a story that makes one thinks about something a bit longer, stories tend to change something, even the stories passed around the dinner table for pure entertainment purposes. One such story came from my father, who was a cargo plane pilot in the navy. A lot of my father's stories stemmed from his Navy past. This probably had to do with the fact that due to his navy experience, he got to visit a lot of different places, from Italy to Kuwait, and many countries that I would have never heard of otherwise.

This particular story involves some country in the middle east, but that is not important. What is important is that it was not a planned landing. Not an emergency landing per se, but a detour from the prescribed path for sure. The problem with this is that now the airplanes were at a foreign airport and did not have enough fuel to return to a friendly airport or to an aircraft carrier. The navy provides pilots with ways to refuel at these airports. One way is to use a military IOU, which is essentially a slip of paper from the US Government that says "We'll pay you back later." One might understand why a foreign, unfriendly airport would be hesitant to take an IOU from the US. Government. The other primary way is with a credit card backed by the US Government. It is just a normal credit card but goes to a military account. Pilots carry these for situations just like this. However, when my father presented this credit card to the refueling crew at the airfield, they shook their heads no. Instead, they motioned to my dad's wallet and said in accented English, "American Express!". They wanted my father to pay with his personal American Express card! So that is exactly what he did. He called ahead to American Express to explain the situation and they pre-approved the transaction, and the order went through. He cannot remember exactly how much it was, but he estimates that with today's price of fuel that it would be around $20,000. Needless to say, my father was anxious to get the military to reimburse him!

The Relationship Status

Facebook  has been in the news more than I can count recently, due in part to movies like The Social Network and privacy scandals involving how Facebook uses their users' data. However, one thing that Facebook does not get much coverage for, positive or negative, is how Facebook affects relationships. The relationship status is something we take for granted on Facebook today. According to the movie, the idea of marking who is taken and who is not was not part of the original plan, but rather came in a sleep-deprived state from Mark Zuckerberg. But today, the relationship status is one key pieces of information people use when looking at the profiles of people of the opposite sex.

In older days, to find out if someone is single or taken, one had to ask. Now, information is shoved in our faces. What does this do for communication? The level of communication required to have any information about somebody has now been significantly reduced. What people do on Facebook when "investigating" a potential love interest now would be considered stalking only a decade or so ago, but now it is the norm, the requirement for staying ahead in the "game". As a result, people are losing the ability to talk to other people. This is an alarming result: if people cannot talk to one another in the real world, imagine the ramifications this will have on the dating scene and intimacy in the future. An interesting trend that would be the subject of a much larger study is the dual rise of both technology usage and divorce rates. It would seem that the increase in Facebook communications, and even texting and phone calls, has reduced the ability of humankind to communicate and resolve problems in the real world.

Its not all bad however. There are definitely upsides to the level of communication that Facebook provides. Facebook allows communication with people that would normally never hear from us again. It also gives us information that gives us the means to establish communication in the real world. However, all this communication ability is pointless if we do not continue to communicate and establish skills in communication in the real world, or else relationships, which one could argue are hinged on communication, will not survive nearly as well.

Different Perspectives on the Texas A&M 2013 Recruiting Class

The end of football season has descended upon us, and until late August, most fans will have to sit idly by and debate with others about who will win the Alabama game next year. However, for those that want a sneak peek at the next season, one needs to look no further than the recruits Coach Kevin Sumlin has brought in this year. Sports writers love to analyze the recruits, grade each school's recruiting class, and even break down how many recruits were "5-stars", "4-stars", and "3-stars". However, as expected, writers hold different opinions, and these opinions are sometimes not immediately evident. By examining the way the author constructs his argument for how well Texas A&M recruited this year, we will be able to tell what kinds of attitudes they are trying to bring out of the reader.

Wescott Eberts of SBNation (link) makes a claim about the class right off the bat, using the title "...Smiles all around", words of pathos, to evoke an emotional response from the reader. He has not yet quoted any facts, but has already started manipulating the reader's emotions. Facts do not come until later in the article, when the author calls the receivers that were recruited "talented", and goes on to give the grade an A-. Later in the article, the author evokes some sentimental feelings for fans of Texas A&M football, by discussing the "rise of Texas A&M" and how this really hurt LSU's recruiting class this season. All around, this author is showing nothing but praise for the Aggies.

On the other hand, while not explicitly negative, Kate Hairopoulos of SportsDayDFW (link) is a bit more cautious when discussing the recruits. She is careful when describing the class as ranked #8 by ESPN to also point out that the class is still ranked #5 in the SEC. Her headlines in the article are "maybe later", "still searching", and "notable", respectively. The careful use of words that are not too sensationalistic seems to provide the idea that, while the recruits are good, they were not something that has not been seen before in the history of college sports.

Overall, the tone in Hairopoulos's article seems to reflect the attitude that most fans perhaps even have: caution. After such a great season, some peopl, such as Eberts of SBNation, prefer to play up the momentum that Texas A&M developed and carry it on into the offseason, but others prefer to stick to reason and hope for the best but stay grounded in the reality that this season was something special, not something to be taken for granted.

The Korean Invasion: From Gangnam Style to Samsung

Ask anybody to name three countries in Asia, and almost certainly, China and Japan will come up. In fact, when I asked my friends,  Up until recently, odds are very slim that Korea would come up, and, if it weren't for North Korea gaining so much time in the media for the acts of its dictator, people would not even know that Korea usually refers to South Korea. However, recently Korea has been invading the United States, not by means of military force (we leave the threat of military force for North Korea), but through its culture, as seen through music (as in Gangnam Style, now the most watched video in the history of Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0), products (such as Samsung mega-corporation and their Galaxy S3, which has now surpassed iPhone sales worldwide), and more.

Culture infiltration is, of course, not a negative thing, especially from such a conservative country as South Korea. But how does it start? I hypothesize that it starts with immigration, for without immigration, music and products has little reason to cross the borders (and oceans) and come to America. Especially for a country whose primary language is not English, there would have to be some attractive force in America to bring the cultural elements of South Korea here so that Americans can become exposed to it. Eventually, as is the case with Gangnam Style, the cultural element reached a critical point where eventually, instead of Korean-Americans sharing the song with Americans, more Americans were sharing the song with Americans. At this point, the song spread like wildfire.

Samsung (www.samsung.co.kr/) is a different story, however, because in most cases consumers are not even aware that they are buying a Korean product. However, in Korea Samsung is a massive corporation, called a conglomerate, that owns their own sports team (the Lions), as well as a host of other subsidiaries. But the reason their products got to America were, I hypothesize, driven by the same reason. They came to America through economic trade, but that trade would have only happened had there been Korean people living in America.

Culture from Korea has not only manifested itself in America through song and products. Hollywood has remade several movies that were originally produced in Korea (such as the Lakehouse, a remake of Il Mare, and My Sassy Girl, a remake of the Korean movie by the same name). BB Cream (http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/the-experts-at-garnier/bb-cream_b_1214401.html), while originally formulated in Germany, was embraced in solitude in Korea until recently becoming popular in North America. Needless to say, the small country south of China has a global reach much further than ever before, and this will likely continue to grow as its culture becomes more intermingled with ours.

Defining Culture

The word "culture" is commonly heard in several different contexts. Many people think of popular things such as the latest songs or the new trends: what I and many others call pop culture. Culture is also used when discussing the people and behavior of people in a different country. When I traveled to Korea, I often found myself comparing and contrasting Korean and American culture, but I did not stop to ask myself what culture itself really meant. It seems that defining culture is a problem many have tried to solve, with little consensus as to the answer.

I am inclined to believe that culture should be defined as the way people behave. Many people might object to this, saying that people are deceptive in their actions, whether intentionally or unintentionally, but I believe that is all the more interesting. In fact, I believe that someone who lies about their intentions or is deceptive about something is disclosing more about themselves than someone who is being honest – to someone who knows they are being deceptive, that is.

Many definitions of culture seem to include what I would consider a rather one-sided view of the world, either by including only the positive or only the negative aspects of human behavior. In my opinion, culture should not be a subset of behavior. Any subset of mankind’s whole behavior is inevitably defined in terms of what one culture’s morals say about another culture’s morals. Culture should be able to be defined in a way such that its definition does not change, regardless of from whose perspective it is defined (bias will, of course, always be a concern, but not nearly as great of a concern as cultural ethics would be).

For that reason, only a universally defined, non-restricted definition of culture based on human behavior as a whole can properly represent culture at an academic level. Defining culture based on only a certain side of the moral spectrum causes the definition to shift based on the moral values held in different areas of the world, and as such does not provide a reliable definition. After all, what is a definition worth if it can change?