Take a second

In today’s episode of The Simpsons Homer learns how valuable listening can be. This episode begins with Mayor Quimby unveiling the new statue dedicated to the boxer Drederick Tatum, we then see Homer run into the fist of the statue and breaks his jaw. In order to let the bone heal in the right spot Dr. Hibbert has to immobilize his jaw and thus wires it shut. For Homer this is a big deal because of his loud personality, he likes to talk a lot and be heard but with his jaw wired shut he is forced to be quiet and listen to everyone else for a change. In the beginning it was rough for him he couldn’t eat all the foods he wanted because he can’t open his mouth and he cant even talk, so he finally realizes that there is no way out of this and he should make the best out of the situation. He begins to listen to people and learn new things about people. While building a model airplane with Bart tells his father that in class today they had a substitute teacher who’s name was Mrs. Duty and everyone in the class looked for him to make fun of the name Bart said he then realized that he became the class clown and he didn’t really like that. Homer then learned though listening that Bart does have feelings like everyone else in the family. For a while everyone is happier with Homer listening but eventually Marge gets so bored of Homer listing she does enters a demolition derby, and losses. So The Simpsons have once again taught you a valuable lesson, this one being that talking too much is bad but also talking to little can be bad too, so talk in moderation and take the time to listen to someone else every once and a while, it will be good for you and them.

Class and Virtue

In class this week we read an essay entitled Class and Virtue written by Michael Parenti. In this essay Michael talks about how movies reinforce different classes in America. If you were to watch a movie you would definitely see the rich or upper class and the middle or working class. In order to notice things like this you need to pay attention to the main ideas in the movie but the little details as well. If you were to watch a movie the working class person always seems to have bad or old looking clothes, while the upper class character always has the superior clothes. For example in George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead there wasn’t a subtle class distinction, there were totally two different worlds. In the lower/working class area they were literally living in the streets, people were all over the place and most had dirty old clothes. Now in the other hand all rich/upper class people lived in a beautiful gated community with nice up to date building and electric fences to keep all the zombies out. It seems to me that the people in the movie industry seem to think that people who are in the lower/working class are not as good as somebody who is wealthy, well it doesn’t matter how much money you have all that matters is what kind of person you are. Oh, and remember no matter how much money you have you will leave it behind for good one day.

A Good Friend

In this weeks episode of the Simpsons they aired an old Christmas episode for some reason, but it doesn’t matter it still has family/life values in it. Well in this episode Homer decides to go out to the auto show and check out some cars. While he was there he saw this big pickup truck with a plow attached really liked it but couldn’t afford it. So the slick salesman told Homer that if he was to purchase it he would be able to make the payments by plowing snow around the city. So Homer came home with that pickup truck that same night. Marge was upset, so Homer went out and made a commercial that would air on television. After people saw the commercial the calls started to come in, and he stared to make some good money. Later on Barney one of Homer’s friends also decides to buy a plow truck, before you know if Barney starts to put Homer out of business. Since Homer lost all his customer’s to Barney he decided to play a trick on Barney so he would no longer be any competition. Homer calls Barney and pretends to be a customer asking him to plow the snow at his house at the top of a mountain, so Barney gets up there and his truck almost falls off the side of the mountain, and he is hanging there for dear life. Later on Homer feels bad and decides to got to mountain and ends up saving Barney’s life. This shows that a good friend in life is not something to play around with, they are hard to come by and you should enjoy there company as long as you can.

Batman!

In class this week we had to read an essay entitled Holy Homosexuality Batman! This essay discussed how Batman was portrayed as gay in the film Batman Forever. This was shocking to me because since I was a little kid I always watched Batman. I watched the cartoons on Saturday mornings and the movies when they cam out on VHS at the time, but even though I am an adult I still watched the movie Batman Beyond when it came out on DVD. Now I can honestly say that through watching a lot of Batman in my lifetime I still don’t think that Batman and Robin are gay. Different people get different things out of a movie but I never thought that anybody was gay in the movie, but according to Freya Johnson the author of the essay I read, it was not only Batman and Robin the Riddler was also a character that was portrayed with homosexual qualities. I think essays that dig so deep into a movie like Batman put ideas in the viewers head, and changes the way they view the movie. I believe that most people who watch this movie wouldn’t notice any homosexuality, but if they were to read that essay and then watch the movie they would have a very different sense of what orientation Batman is. Even though the author had some good points like Robin was rubbing Batman after he got hurt, I still feel that this movie is being take for more than it was written for, movies like this should just be an enjoyable experience.

It's Almost Playoff Time

I am a big basketball fan so I will write about the National Basketball Association for this blog since we were allowed to write about anything we want. Soon the playoffs will start in the NBA and that’s my favorite time of the year because that is when the players take their game to the highest level, all the teams play to their best. Also, the playoffs are a sad times for some times because there are teams that don’t make they playoffs and thus their season ends at the end of the regular season. Now for most people this isn’t a big deal if you don’t make the playoffs you don’t, but you have to think like you are in the players shoes. You work your whole life dreaming about winning the championship and now their chances for this year has come to an end. My favorite team is the Detroit Pistons and I think they have a good chance to win the championship, but in recent news Gilbert Arenas the best player on the Washington Wizards has injured his knee and will be out for the rest of the season. So basically they will still make the playoffs but will probably not make it too far in the post season. Now as an NBA fan I am sad to see such a great player go down so late in the season but as a Detroit Pistons fan I am also relieved because this means that their journey to the championship will be a little easier. So we will see how everything turns out but hopefully the Pistons will come out on top and be champions once again.

Family Stays Together

On this weeks episode of The Simpsons the whole family decides to go and take a vacation to Itchy and Scratchy Land, and use family team work to overcome a obstacle. The episode starts out with Bart and Lisa bugging Marge and Homer to go to Itchy and Scratchy land, but they kept on saying no. So Bart and Lisa devised a plan that would surely make them say yes. So in the middle of the night Lisa bursts in their room with Bart lying in a buggy and shouts “Mom Dad Bart is Dead.” Immediately after that Bart springs up and says “That’s right dead tired of high prices on family vacations” Marge and Homer reply by saying No and go to bed. So tomorrow morning Bart and Lisa took a different approach and showed their parents the brochure for the park, after looking over it Homer and Marge decide to go. At the park the family see’s a parade of robots that have axes that are programmed to hit each other but not hurt humans, well somebody take a picture and the flash from the camera breads the robot, and Lisa notices what happens. It turns out that all the robots have went crazy and are going to kill all the humans, so everyone evacuates the park but the Simpson family are left behind. So the robots are coming and Lisa recalls seeing the robots go die after the seeing the flash from the camera. So the entire family works together to kills all the robots. So this episode is not different than any of the other episodes it teaches good and wholesome values to all that watch it, this weeks is that a family that works together can accomplish anything.