Teach me how to say goodbye

So this is weird. I’m not sure if I was the only one but I really enjoyed doing these due to the sheer fact that I consume an insane amount of media and doing these blogs made me hyper aware of that fact. I remember talking to my teacher and telling him according to my phone I was on YouTube for nine hours a day and watching his face just be in utter shock. I didn’t think it was such a big deal but looking back on it, it is. I need to learn how to disconnect from media, to enjoy my friends and family and to just take a second and breathe. Today, during our English final I remember everyone being on their phones or laptops, I was not an expectation. I think that people love media and the internet so much is that it cures our boredom. Before I had a phone or any electrical devices I was bored all of the time, now never. That’s okay, I don’t think that media is this devil out to get the world, its there to do its job, which is to entertain. It’s always cool and a bit scary to know what tactics these companies are doing to sell us things, it’s good to be aware. Anywho, these blogs were a lot of fun I’m going to miss them. Bye. 

I just really don't like David Cage and his "games" but mostly Detroit

         So like I don't make it a secret that I really dislike David Cage. His "games" are jokes that take themselves way to seriously for the terrible writing and most of the time terrible voice acting that are filtered with in them. But I realized that I haven't explained why I dislike this man and his ''games'' so much, so that is my job today. First of all I should probably explain why I put "games" in quotation marks. David Cage has gone on record saying that he wants to make movies and not games which makes a lot of sense if play his games. The game Heavy Rain is the one that put him on the map. And the only "game play" that the player does is walk your character and quick time events. That is it, the rest is just cut scenes. Don't get me wrong, this could work and it has before with games like The Wolf Among Us and The Walking Dead Season 1 but the biggest issue is that David Cage's stories are filled with plot holes after plot holes so the story is not gripping whatsoever. It is honestly just like watching a really boring movie. Also it does not help that David Cage is just a creep.

         David Cage is just not a good person. He has done a lot of creeping things to his employees. For example, in David Cage's fourth game, Beyond Two Souls, they used a lot of facial recognition technology and they did this for the main characters. The main actress, Ellen Page, said that she did not want a nude model of her at all but David Cage made one anyway. This did not make it into the game but the model leaked on to the Internet so Ellen Page's privacy was invaded against her will. Another thing that was reported that he makes very uncomfortable and inappropriate jokes towards his employees and it overall being a toxic work environment. Also, he always has these tropes in his games that are really bad and unnecessary to the game. He always has some time of sexual assault and child murder in his games and when it comes up it just comes off as insensitive and inappropriate. 

         David Cage's newest game is honestly the worst one he has made up to date, this game is called Detroit: Become Human. The reason why I consider this game to be the worst one to date because it is the first time David Cage tried to hit on real world subjects like racism in America. An immediate problem with this is that David Cage is a white guy from France so he already has a disconnect with American history especially slavery and Jim Crow laws. Another problem is that he tried to do too much with too little time and resources. David tried to touch on Racism, Sexism, Homophobia, Anti- Semitism, Domestic Violence, Sex Work, and Xenophobia all in one game. These sensitive issues are too complex to be put together sloppy. But the biggest issue is that he tried to replace actual people with Robots. This is a big issue because these types of issues do not hold the same type of weight with robots because they are machines not humans. In this game they do look human but they run on computer logic and are made of wires, so when you are trying to do a side by side comparison to how white slave owners justified slavery and how people do not think robots are human it falls apart. It ends up with you looking like you are justifying slavery and downplaying it. You cannot try to talk about these real word issues using robots because they are inherently different on the inside unlike slaves who were always humans and will always be, they felt real pain and emotions and cannot just turn it off like a robot in this game can and does. 

       David Cage is a bad writer. He is really incompetent and honestly really should stop making games, but until he does we can always laugh about how badly written these games really are. 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-07-26-detroit-heavy-rain-developer-quantic-dream-loses-employment-court-case 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwVERl0OYjc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZJIzkMPVh4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ3D9xBqnLw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0WYk8SpJbY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi9Vyzd-w3U

me rambling about how much i love Iris West Allen without having watching season five yet

Iris West Allen is a character that I really connect with. She was one of the first black female characters I saw on T.V who wasn't the "strong independent black woman." In media that is all black women were portrayed as, we could never be love interest or soft and funny girls. Nope, we are only supposed to be strong and loyal. So when I saw Iris for the first time I was so happy. Do not get me wrong she is strong but that is not her only personality trait and I am so happy because of that. She wants to make it her own in the world and it is scary and she is trying her best. I think that Iris is the most realistic character on The Flash. She is not insanely smart and she does not have her entire life figured out by the age of twenty three. She makes mistakes and tries to learn from them, she does not completely understand her feelings but she keeps going. When she finds out that her first love was killed she breaks down and has a hard time moving on. From the beginning of the show it was destined that she would end up with Barry Allen but it took the three seasons for them to get together and even when they did it took a while for them to get comfortable with each other. Since she is married to Barry Allen, who is The Flash, her life is mostly eaten by dealing with that and being overshadowed by it. Even so, she tries to make a solid career out of Journalism something that she really loves to do. She truly loves Barry and is willing to jump of a roof to save him which she did. Iris is just a girl not a super genius or a superhero, a girl and that is what makes her so amazing.


                                                      Update: I finished Season five.

Let's talk about Miss Representation

We watched Miss Representative in class and it made me start thinking about how women are portrayed in media. I have already done a blog post before how black women are shown but overall women are shown to be sex objects by the mainstream media. I didn’t think much of it growing up, in fact I didn’t think about it at all but looking back it it’s evident. As a kid I looked up to Nicki Minaj. I watched all of her music videos and tried my best to remember all of her raps. So me being such a big Nicki Minaj fan, I watched all of her music videos and looking back at it now they were over sexualized to the core. The things that’s she wore and the things that she said all had something to do with her being sexualized. Looking back at this, this affected me greatly. I remember being super young and worrying about my weight because I didn’t want to be “fat”. I remember not eating when I was hungry due to the fear of gaining weight. I had the mindset that if I ate I would be less pretty and then people wouldn’t like me. Media taught me that. Media told me that the only thing that really mattered was how much I weighed. I watched an insane amount of Disney Channel growing up and all of my favorite characters were white and blonde two things that I am not. I remember thinking that I was ugly because I had kinky hair and my skin was dark. I remember being so jealous of my friends hair because they didn’t know what a hot comb was and that their hair was naturally straight. I believed that they had the “good hair.” Now I look back and wonder how much happier I would be if I spent all that time worrying about how I look and spent that time studying.  I have a friend who's parents would not let him watch T.V or play video games at all. I wonder if I grew up like he did I would be different and if so how. Media needs to know that the image that they put out had real world consequences. Girls need to know that we are more than our waist size. Media has made a good majority of women hate the way that they look, now it’s time to love ourselves no matter how we look.

The Midriff

So we watched this documentary called Merchants of cool and one thing I distinctly remember was the characterization of "The Midriff." Just in case you are unaware "The Midriff" is the idea of women being sexualized but it used as a power.To quote the video "They are saying we are sex objects but we know that." This idea is a weird one for me. I believe that women can do whatever they want as long they are not hurting anybody and I encourage women being sex positive and in control over their bodies but that is not what is really happening in these cases. My problem with the Midriff is that most of the time it is not women who are showing off their sexuality to feel empowered and beautiful but it is the system that they have to play to get on top. It's more of a marketing strategy than genuine female sexuality. This is apparent in movies where the Midriff is present. When a Midriff character is present more than likely written by men, men who are aware that the Midriff sells. Another problem I have with this archetype is how it affects young girls. In this documentary we spend some time with a thirteen year old year, Britney. Britney is someone who is affected by the Midriff. She goes around trying to find acting jobs, faulting her sexuality at the age of thirteen. The reasons she wants to do this is that she wants to be successful and become famous. This girl and many others are marketing themselves off to Hollywood producers and that is unsafe. 

The Defense of Daenerys Targaryen

Daenerys Targaryen also known as Khaleesi is a character that has been through a lot and still finds a way to keep her head up and her priorities straight. Despite this, Dany is called "Mad' or a "tyrant." I believe that this is an unfair assessment as I believe that Daenerys or Dany, is the most strongest and good hearted characters on Game of Thrones. Starting when she was a baby her entire existence was seen as a crime. Due to a war the Targaryen bloodline was supposed to be wiped out entirely, so when she was a baby not even old enough to walk nor talk her life was almost taken from her. The only Targaryens who survived were Dany and her brother Viserys. Her own brother was cruel to her, seeing her as something to sell to men who paid enough. He constantly manipulated her and was emotionally abusive to her. She was sexually abused after her husband's death and then was sold into slavery. After her escape from that she started to rise as a Queen. She started an army out of former slaves that she freed. Her best friend Missandei became her right hand as well as her translator. In the latest episode of Game of Thrones, the writers are trying to make her seem "mad" like her father. This does not make sense. In this episode she was first off grieving her dear friend Jorah Mormont who she just lost hours ago in their timeline. As well, she is watching Jon Snow, a man she loves, getting credit for all of her work that she put into the war against the white walkers. On top of that she watched her best friend, Missandei get beheaded and helpless to stop it. People are also insisting that Jon should be the true king of the seven kingdoms even though he has not done anything special besides being a man. To add insult to injury, Jon does not even want the throne. Dany went through a lot of trauma this latest episode so it makes sense that she is on edge that is to be expected. This does not change Dany's good heart no matter what happens she is still the girl who birthed dragons, freed the Unsullied, and ate the horse heart. Dany's entire purpose on the show was to get to King's Landing and take the Iron throne that was hers by birthright. Dany has a good heart and strong morals her feeling hurt about all of the things that have happened to her does not make her "Mad" it makes her human, a strong Queen.

Comics are Cool?? Since When??

So we watched this documentary in class called "The Merchants of Cool." In this documentary we learned what markets do to keep their product relevant is finding what teenagers find cool. And one way of doing so is talking to teenagers on a regular basis and understanding when the culture changes. A big culture change that has happened is how American society treats geek culture and specifically comic books. I remember the times where if you talked about comic books and superheroes people would laugh at you or just be confused, now since due to the popularity of Marvel movies it's cool to be a geek. It is cool to geek out over the new trailer Spiderman: Far from home. It's in style to talk about Game of Thrones, and argue why Daenerys Targaryen deserves to win the Iron Throne. The kicker is that the advertisers know this. I have seen many ads that has parodied Game of Thrones or the Avengers. It works because it is testimonial but it isn't a celebrity it's a fictional character, a characters that we attach to. So when we see someone parody it feels like that could be us as a lot of comic fans do cosplay so it is also appealing to plain folks. I think that geek culture has exploded because it's the idea of being weird and out there and being unique. Like I stated above it used to be lame to be in to comics but their was always a community behind it and I think as time passed people wanted to be apart of that, it's always cool to be an underdog. Comics mean a lot to me to say the least and I am glad that now more people know and can feel love comics and hopefully it affects them, as much as it did me.

The Legacy that is Harley Quinn

When I say "Harley Quinn" most of you already have a picture in your head. Whether it's Margo Robbie's portrayal, her comic book counterpart or her original appearance in the Batman cartoon, there's is no denying that Harley Quinn has made a big impact on geek culture. I am no exception to this love of Harley just in my bedroom alone I have two posters of her and two pop funko action figures. So why? Why is this certain comic book character is so adored my society. Well, I think it has to do with how out there Harley Quinn really was. She did not have a filter or morals. This wasn't seen much with comic book characters at the time so she was something unique. Another reason why she is so loved is that she is just a sweet character, even when she was killing people she was always saying something witty or just not making such a big deal out of it. Since she didn't make a big deal out of it, nether did us, the viewers, we just saw her killing red shirts not actual characters that we cared about. After her popularity exploded in the Batman cartoon she was added to the comic books, where she was given a back story. I cannot keep talking about Harley Quinn without talking about the man who created her, The Joker. Every iteration of this story is a bit different but all have the same following story points. Harley Quinn's real name is Harleen Quinzel and she was a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum here she met The Joker and he seduced her into a life of crime. Later they went to Ace Chemicals and ,depending on the version, Harley jumps into a pool full of bleach, and looses a bunch of her brain cells and her face becomes bleach white. Harley and Joker's relationship is not an healthy one. He is both physically and emotionally abusive to her. Despite this, Joker and Harley still have a bunch of fans and are one of the most infamous comic book couples ever. This also helped bring Harley to more of a popular fan base because she was connect to an already big character in the DC Universe. As well as creates sympathy and empathy for her as The Joker wasn't a good boyfriend to say the least. Harley is a character that makes me and others feel unstoppable. She is a character is so much herself and doesn't care what other people think about her that's what makes her so admirable today. 

Let's Talk about Starfire

Starfire or Koriand'r is a character that has meant a lot to me. Most people including myself know her from the hit cartoon, Teen Titans. For as long as I could remember, Starfire was my favorite character. I loved her so much because she reminded me of myself so much. While she was an actual alien, I used to feel like an outsider among my fellow peers as a child. As we both looked nothing like our friends and had different customs then they did. We both tried to be positive at any time life got to hard and we both loved pizza. I really loved Starfire, so once I got older I started following the Teen Titans comic, the 1980's one to be exact. When starting to read this comic I realized Starfire in the comics isn't the same one I knew as a child, while that Starfire was kind and gentle this one was powerful and snarky. I was in shock, my childhood icon was not who I thought she was for the longest time. It took me a while but I finally let myself enjoy this Starfire and doing so I found more reasons why to love Starfire. Starfire is a character that has been through a lot she was a slave and she was betrayed by her own sister and much other things. While Starfire is an amazing character one of the biggest issue is how for a long time, her biggest character trait being Dick Grayson's love interest. Do not misunderstand me, I love Dick's and Kori's relationship, I believe that they are very cute and they have amazing chemistry with one another, but I don't think that `Starfire's character should be reduced to the man that she loves. Starfire is a character that is still in media today. Thanks to the new DC shows, Titans, we get to see Starfire in a completely new light that most comic readers have never experienced before. I cannot wait to see the future of my childhood superhero and hope other little girls like me can grow up with her and look up to her just like I have done.

Female Kharacter's Klothing in Mortal Kombat 11

Let me start off by saying that women can wear whatever they want, as long they are not hurting anybody, women should wear whatever that makes them happy and comfortable with themselves. But in this blog post we are not going to be talking about real life, we are going to be discussing Mortal Kombat 11. Mortal Kombat is a series that I hold very dear to my heart despite all of the gore and violent spirited nature of the franchise, it is a franchise that makes me connect with the characters and for that I will have nothing but love for this series. While Mortal Kombat is special to me, there is no denying that one of its major flaws was it customization of female characters. Where we can see this take place is in the game Mortal Kombat 9.

This was the first game in the Mortal Kombat reboot and it has been praised for its Story Mode and game play but the female character designs were less than satisfying. For example, let’s take the character of Sonya Blade. This is a character who is supposed to be a General in the Special Forces. She does a lot of hands on fighting and is always on the for front when it comes to saving another. This outfit just does not make a lot of sense for a General. Also she is in heels, so it would be very difficult to fight in tournaments in said heels. The developers realized this how ridiculous this was as well. The art director Steve Beran states "Our design is just getting more mature and respectful. You’re not going to wear a bikini to a fight. You’re not going to be showing so much skin. I think it’s just what the game is about: You’re going in to fight for your life, and you’re not going to be wearing such scantily clad items." 
Going by their word, in Mortal Kombat 11 the designs of the female characters were a lot less sexy and the portions were a lot more realistic.

People lost their minds over this change. They said that Netherrealm Studios has gone too far and were trying too hard to be politically correct and that would be the games downfall. I disagree, Female characters looking like fighters, which they are supposed to be is not a bad thing. To go further, these new designs have so much more personality than the previous ones ever have. Take Scarlet, from her Mortal Kombat 11 outfit we can see she is some one who deals with blood, judging by the villas on her waist. That one thing is already better from what we can say from her Mortal Kombat 9 outfit, where she is basically a re skinned Sonya. A debate I see quite often with this discussion is 'what about the male characters, they are shirtless?" While, yes that is true. Male Characters are not shirtless because they are being sexualized but to show power.With these new designs female characters are projecting strength and power as well. So that is where the difference lies between the two. People are boycotting Mortal Kombat 11 over this and I find that really ridiculous. If you are only playing Mortal Kombat to see half nude fictional characters, then you completely missing the point of the franchise. Long story short, women are allowed to wear clothing, people need to grow up.

Lovemarks: The Marketing Strategy with Heart

Love marks is the use of making your buyers have a connection to what they are buying to be more profitable. It’s the idea of “They don’t understand what we have” the point of it is to make you think of a stronger emotional bond when you think about this product. This can work by not just having an emotional bond with the product but convincing yourself that you do not fit in if you do not have this or are associated with a certain product. This is a smart way of marketing because you are getting rid of just the surface level of what the product does or can do. Using love marks you are going deep of what the product or company means to you and how it has changed in you in one way or another. It's trying to separate itself from an intangible thing into a real emotional bond with you. I have been affected by this strategy through the comapny of Disney. It is no serect that disney holds a place near and dear to a lot of people's hearts. For some people it's the reason they get into animation as a career. Personally,   Disney was one the first things that I was exposed to. It was so bad as a kid I would refuse to watch Nickelodeon because I was so  dedicated to Disney that it felt I was cheating on a company if I watched anything else. Disney wasn’t just a show or toy it was my childhood. One of the traditions that my mother and I do is that the day before my birthday we go see Disney on Ice and each time I always end up listening to Disney soundtracks or re watching Disney movies. Even now as I have mostly grown out of my Disney phase, every time I see something with Disney’s name I want to go see it. It’s not just me either, there’s a reason why Disneyland is called the “happiest place on Earth.” I believe that Disney knows what they are doing as Disney is a something that a lot of people grow up with because it was everywhere on children’s Television and movies and knowing that kids are young and impressionable so they are aware that they will attach on to Disney and that emotional bound will never truly go away.

CNN vs Fox News: The Muller Report

             https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-declares-mueller-probe-win-tweeting-out-ny-post-front-page.amp

          https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/04/22/politics/democrats-trump-strategy-mueller-report/index.html

  Politics are a big thing in America right now. People have the argument that current political climate is the biggest thing threatening American democracy. So if politics are a big thing in American culture it makes sense that our news sources are a big influence on who we are. It should be important that the news we get unbiased and just fact based. This idea is mostly true but certain words change the meaning to pull it into a certain idea, this idea works both conservative and liberal. We are these idea through CNN and Fox News and how they reported the Muller Report.

Fox News shows the Muller Report as a win for Trump. They focus on this as a win for Trump focusing on the detail that this doesn’t exonerate him. They didn’t talk much about how this report didn’t say that he didn’t collude with Russia. They framed this has proof the entire thing was just a waste of American money and that Trump was innocent all along and that they knew it the entire time. They only focused on people who were on Trump’s side and praising the Muller Report and how it found him not guilty as well as talking about this framed the Democrats in a bad light. They take Trumps tweets as a statement against the democrats and think he is being a leader, we can see this by the use of the word “declare.” Which was in the title of this article.

CNN on the other hand took the Muller Report as reasons to be more suspicious of the Trump Administration and that we should be digging more into this as this is “suspicious” CNN used the idea that Trump wasn’t found innocent and that this was a reason to dig closer into this and find out why this happened. Even when accepting the fact that Trump was found “not guilty” they talked about how Russia still interfered with our election and how we should take that seriously as that is a very bad thing. They also talked about how Trump's answers were seen as "inadequate" which proves the idea that Trump is an idiot which some liberals believe so it keeps that idea of him in check.

The Representation of Black Women in T.V

        Black Women in Media has changed drastically over time in America. In America, around in the early 1920's black women were only shown as the 'Mammie'. The Mammie is the stereotype of black women working as maids under a white family and their job was to take care the white children.  They were shown to be happy, but more docile than anything. This is one of the stereotypes that deepened the idea of anti-blackness in America. Most if not all 'Mammie's' were shown to be overweight and dumb, this idea was shown everywhere and this was the idea of many White Americans had of black women. This stereotype was the only representation black women had in a while up until the 70's.
         The 1970's and 1980's was an amazing time for not just black women in media but black people in general. Shows like The Jefferson's, Good Times, Amen, 227, and Sanford & Son showed black families being normal people living their everyday lives. The Jefferson's even showed a black family being rich as well this show was one the first shows of it's time to show a healthy interracial relationship through the characters of Tom and Helen. When it comes to black women it was an array of emotions and feelings. No longer were the days of black women being the docile mammie we were shown as more. We were shown as smart and witty women who should not be messed with.This was true but it had a twist to it. Black women were shown as these things yes, but only on black shows. A good portion of America still had this warped idea of black women and didn't try or care to change it. The idea were changing but slowly. Black people still needed a way to reach white audiences in an effort to change their ideas. That's when the 1990's came along and changed the scene for ever.
           The 1990's introduced a new archetype for black women the black girl best friend. This was  in shows like Saved by the bell and Boys Meets World. The problem with this archetype is that these characters personalities completely revolted around their relationship with the white main characters. For example take Dionne from Clueless, who is she without her friendship with Cher? What is her hobbies? What are her goals in life? We do not know. Some shows do it better than others, Angela from Boys Meets World had a personality. We knew that her loved literature we knew about her home life because it connects to who she is. Boys Meets World was one of the first shows that showed an interracial relationship for kids shows. This was a bold move as she was in a relationship with Shawn, the shows heartthrob, and having him fall in love with a black girl was something never heard of.
       The writer Shonda Rhimes created a new area from black women on Television. She created the show Scandal which starred the now cultural icon, Olivia Pope. Olivia Pope was not just a black lead she was a black female lead, a black woman in power. She had everyone fall to her feet and she controlled everything. Olivia wasn't just powerful she was real she had her emotions cloud up her judgment. She laughed, she cried and she loved. This was important because it showed a complex character, Olivia Pope is not perfect, she is human that is what made her so iconic today. This launched more black women to be more prominent in Television. Shows like The Flash casted Iris West as black woman and Titans casted Starfire as a black woman so slowly we can see more black woman take more of a role in American television. The representation is not perfect but it is getting better. I am excited that little black girls can grow up and see themselves as heroes, artists or politicians, so they can now that they can do anything.
       

My Relationship with Media

I have always had a strange connection with media. For the longest time it has always been a part of me. From when I was a little girl I remember talking about my favorite Disney shows from Hannah Montana to Austin & Ally. I loved characters like Kim from Kickin't because she showed power and that women can be just as strong as boys. I remember dressing up like Draculaura from Monster High because I loved pretending that I was a pretty vampiress that could wear pink all the time. Still to this day I watch an insane amount of T.V shows that influence what I like and dislike. I watch movies like US and Get Out because I could relate to the message of what the movie is saying I liked seeing my own ideas and views being represented. I did not just watch these T.V shows as a kid, I analyzed them I theorized about my favorite characters before I even knew how to spell theorized. I love Media but it has not always haven the best affect on me. Due to consuming so much media my attention span has dropped. As well, I have a tendency to over think everything because as a kid I used to think about things that do not matter for fun.s

Unlike some of my fellow peers I do not use Instagram or Snapchat so I believe that when it came to social media I would not be affected at all. Although I have reached the conclusion that this thinking is wrong due to the amount of time I spend on YouTube. Last week I spent a total of eighteen hours on YouTube alone so needless to say I am on there quite a bit. Whether it is just listening to music or watching the news it is obvious YouTube has affected me. I get so many notifications a day I ignore them and I have been so used to that with video notifications I do it when my friends text me using excuses like "I'll talk to them later'' when I never do. I watch a lot of analysis videos on YouTube something that has carried over from my childhood so I have gone deeper into that as media has grew. 

A franchise I have always loved was the Mortal Kombat games. I loved playing as characters like Kitana, Sonya and Scorpion because I felt that I was powerful and could do anything because in those games, I could. In Mortal Kombat Universe I could save Earthrelm and look great while doing it. I fell in love with these characters and their stories but that is not what Mortal Kombat is notorious for. Mortal Kombat is famous for it's gore. I will not lie and say that the gore is not a part of the series but it wasn't all of it. I wonder if subconsciously I have become more numb to violence after performing so many fatalities. If so, that is another way media has effected my life. Media is a great thing and it has done some good things but it has also affected all of us for better or for worse.