The Fault in Our Stars and Papertowns

John Greene is the author of The Fault in Our Stars and Paper Towns. Both novels have been popular with students and teachers in the classroom and have been made into major motion pictures. Both works connect to the readers because the story and plot are realistic and are human problems. For The Fault in Our Stars, the theme is about living with flaws and how we cope with it, such as the two main characters with their diseases. As for Paper Towns, it is about finding out what we want to do with our lives and doing things outside of the box, such as when the main protagonist Quentin sets off on a journey to find his mysterious lover Margo. Both novels have large connections with the struggles and lifestyles of young adults. Even though they may not be the same situations are the books, but how the character deal or solve their problems can be related to many teens across the United States. We learn that everyone has flaws in our lives, but we either deal or live with them which can define or determine who we are. John Greene has made perfect example of the struggles young adults face in life, anything from what we want to do after high school or living with cancer. Many teachers admire John Greene's work and use it in their classrooms to try to compare the characters' lives to the students' lives. This has made large impacts in the readers because they can relate to the characters in The Fault in Our Stars and Paper Towns. People like to read something that they can relate to, and John Greene has made these two novels to do this.

9-11

Reign Over Me is a very sensitive movie about a dentist named Alan Johnson who helps his friend, Charlie Fineman, recover and coupe with his families death after 9/11. Charlie lost his wife and three kids after the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers, and lives his life afterwards in a seclusive and immature lifestyle. He tells Alan he does this to forget what has happened and not to remember the old times. Charlie does things that he liked to do before his marriage and kids, such as playing video games and the drum, collecting ablum records, and remodels his kitchen constantly. Charlie refuses to see help, and refuses to talk to anyone about his old life. When Alan tries to help Charlie by making him see a psychologist to talk about his problems, but Charlie is slow to adjust. The film shows how people were affected after the attacks on 9/11 by showing how a widower like Charlie Fineman lives his life, trying to deal with the shock of what had happened to his family. Charlie was a broken man who couldn't face the reality of life, and exhibited many symptoms of mental trauma such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The film really moved me personally because how the branching affect of the 9/11 attacks which affected the families and friends of the victims worldwide.      

1941 and Saving Private Ryan

1941 and Saving Private Ryan are both movies about World War II. Steven Spielberg directed both these movies with different goals to reach the audience.  Though both are about the conflict of WW2, they are very different in their content. 1941 is about the following days after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. After the attack, the American people were shocked at terrified by the aggression the Japanese had taken against them, and panic soon spread through the western states fearing that another Japanese attack would happen. The movie 1941 shows the paranoia that ran rampant throughout the American people. Steven Spielberg approached this topic and turned it into a humorous and comical movie. In 1941, there is a wide variety of goofy characters who approach a not-so-threatening Japanese attack of "Hollywood". Blind fear and misunderstanding leads to the greatest threat to the American people which was themselves. Steven Spielberg wanted to show how hysterical people were about a Japanese invasion which probably would of never happened on the mainland. Saving Private Ryan is entirely different in its content. Tom Hanks plays an American Ranger Captain who storms the beach of Normandy. The first thirty minutes of the movie is a brutal and an eye opening to the reality of war, and the viewers know instantly that this movie doesn't hold anything back to show this. When news that a mother lost three sons to the war, the Captain is ordered to take his squad deep beneath enemy lines to find the fourth son and to bring him home. During the treacherous journey, viewers watch as the mission takes lives and harsh combat to the already battered team. When they finally reach Ryan, most of the original squad including the Captain, die protecting a vital bridge from German control. Ryan is able to survive and live out his life with his family, as he remembers the sacrifices that men took to save him. This movie hits the viewers hard with the reality of sacrifice and brotherly bonds. Steven Spielberg directed and told these two movies perfectly and showed the audiences the different points of war.

Racism in Film

The matter of racism is a very sensitive in the film/movie industry. Many directors have different approaches when confronting it. The lives of the directors themselves play a key role in addressing racism. Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List is the story of a German business man named Oskar Schindler who saves the lives of 1200 Jews during the holocaust by convincing Nazi members that he needs the people to work in his factory. Though a Nazi party member himself,  Schindler knows the value of a human life, Jewish or not. Spielberg has great knowledge of this event in history, but what makes him more connected than most is that his family were oppressed by the holocaust. His Jewish background helped him direct what it would be like for the Jewish workers at the time. Another example of a director with background to the movie is Spike Lee and his  work, Do the Right Thing. Spike Lee set up an average day in the streets on Brooklyn, New York. In this setting, people of different ethnic backgrounds such as blacks, Hispanics, and Italians interact with each other. When some problems happen around the community, racial tensions start to build up. Spike Lee new of this problem himself because grew up in Brooklyn. He himself had similar experiences with racial tensions when he was a child and adult, so he used that personal background in his films to bring up the problem with racism.

Sports in Racism

I am disgusted with calling myself an American after watching 42, Glory Road, and Remember the Titans and how racism ruled society. Throughout our nation's history, there has been racism towards all races, especially towards blacks after the Civil War. An example of this has been in sports. The sports of America in the past was highly segregated, with white (being the major form of entertainment and professional standards) and black leagues. Baseball was one example of a segregated sport. The professional teams were made up of white men, whose teams were well managed and funded by wealthy backers. However, there was an underfunded league for blacks, whose games were not taken seriously and just served as a means to play baseball for Negro players. This was the way of life in America until a player named Jackie Robison, a negro player who played in black leagues, was drafted into the major league on the Brooklyn Dodgers. This was the first case of a black baseball player on an all white team. This was taken seriously by crowds of baseball fans whose views still discriminated against blacks. They believed that blacks were not capable or fit enough to play with white players, and Robison had to take not only racial slurs and hateful shouts at games, but being threaten and pressured to leave the game. However, Robison pushed on and in 1948, helped win the World Series for his team. Similar cases of mixing blacks with white teams happened in other sports too, such as football and basketball. Overall, the change between two different leagues separating blacks and whites and joining the two was a long and challenging process. During present times, there are still racial tensions in sports, but mostly because of a player's performance and not the color of their skin. There is still more effort to be done with the total destruction of not only racism in sports, but in our society as well.

451 Blog

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is a story in which a future is controlled by censorship, where firefighters burn books to keep the population from reading about the truth of things. However, Ray Bradbury's work isn't the only example of censorship and how it controls people's thoughts and actions. History has a handful of times governments and groups of people have censored certain areas of people's freedom.

Hugh Latimer was a bishop in England during the 1500s. However,  Latimer resigned in protest against the King's refusal to allow the Protestant reforms that Latimer desired. Soon after, Latimer and his friend Nicholas Ridley were arrested and burned at the stake. This is an example of censorship in early history that did not allow men to express their thoughts freely. Another example of censorship in history is the book burning in Nazi Germany in the 1930's. Much like in Fahrenheit 451, Germany was going through a major reform and government change in which much literature was thought was hurting nationalistic pride and German culture. This was a huge example of censorship denied the German people to read world literature and to allow reading what they wanted to. In both Fahrenheit 451 and Nazi Germany in the 1930's both had disturbing similarities with men forcing taking books and creating huge fires. Censorship has also come into modern history as well. In 1947, Hollywood made a "Blacklist" that checked directors and actors backgrounds if they had any ties or dealing with communist. If an individual was found guilty of this, Hollywood would refuse to publish their works. This is an extreme form of censorship since the privacy of a person is broken because of a government tie-up. This corresponds with Fahrenheit 451 since the government knew each person's background and denied them work opportunities if it was a problem.

Censorship in a whole isn't necessarily bad, however extreme versions of it have hindered humanities furtherance towards achievement. Both in the past and in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 has used censorship as a weight or weapon to control the minds of people as a whole.

Dark Literature and Censorship

Chris Crutcher's Deadline is a piece of "Dark Literature" that has been censored and even banned in some schools. Dark literature is real life experiences, usually evolving teens and problems with early adulthood. In the book, the main character has around one year to live since a deadly disease is found in him. When he lives out his bucket list live style, he discovers many problems of his town and people he has gotten to know. His girlfriend has been raped by her uncle when she was young and is raising her child in secrecy. His mom is an alcoholic who has trouble with maintaining her life. He has befriended the town's alcoholic bum who was once a priest. All these problems are very personal and can be related to teens who read the book, making it a difficult but inspiring read. Despite its strong contents, it helps readers come up with an understanding that everyone has a troubled past or is facing some sort of trouble. Teens more than anyone think that this relates to their lives the most. Schools have acknowledged this and have encouraged many students to read the book. However, since there is some language and situations that some find disturbing or unsettling, some schools have banned the book, leading to the argument of censoring it. Though some language is pretty rough, it hits the reader straight on and confronts the point directly, which is an excellent way in proving Crutcher’s point about the problem with racism, relationships, and most importantly, deciding to keep something from someone or telling the truth.