Second Life

The second life tutorial was a very entertaining experience. I did not know that Second Life was used professionally. The way it was advertised to me was a place to just make friends and be someone else, not as a place to conduct business meetings. It certainly changed my view of the entire game. I think I might use it on a regular basis to try to meet new people. The only thing i did not like was the fact that it had a lot of glitches and took a long time to completly load.

Reflective Post

1. I found a lot of the information covered in this class was useful. The most useful was all of the different methods of criticism because they will help me when writing papers later in life.
2. My favorite part of this class was being able to write about whatever we wanted.
3. The most challenging aspect was trying to use just one criticism when many could have fit into the paper.
4. I might use this knowledge when writing other papers in the future for either other classes or for future jobs.
5. One question that is pressing to me right now is texting while driving. Using my knowledge of rhetorical criticism and rhetoric, I can gain info by researching it or asking myself questions about this issue and then finding answers to them.

Fantasy Theme

The artifact I have chosen to analyse is the movie Coraline. This movie is about a little girl named Coraline. The movie starts off with them moving into a new house that has been divided off into different rooms and houses 3 other people. Coraline, not happy with this or how her mother has been treating her, goes exploring and finds a little door that has been wallpapered over. After begging her mom to open it, to her dismay she finds it has been bricked up. That night, Coraline is woken up to mice playing around her room. She follows them to the little door and it turns out it is now open for her to crawl through. When she does this, she finds out that it brings her to another world where everything is perfect. Her mother is extremly nice, people are fun and lively and everything just seems perfect. Sadly this isn't the case. Her other world mother tried to get Coraline to stay their forever. It turns out she has done this to 3 other children over the past years and it is up to Coraline to save their spirits from being trapped with the other world mother forever.

Setting: The pink lady (their house) and the other world
Character: Coraline, her mother, her other mother, her father, her other father, the cat, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible and their other world versions, The Amazing Bobinski and his other world version, Wybie and the other Wybie, and mice/rats, and the narrator
Action Themes: I am really unsure what this aspect is.

Amelie

The movie that I chose to watch at the film festival was Amelie. This film is about a girl named Amelie who works as a waitress and her adventures to try to not only find love for herself, but to try to play matchmakers for everyone she knows. Amelie, a quirky girl, was brought up by her parents who showed little affection towards her and each other. She, luckily, remains quirky yes shy for the rest of her life. The whole movie is about her using unlikely methods to bring people together.

Metaphorical criticism would be the best criticism for analyzing the film Amelie. Metaphorical criticism joins two terms together without obviously stating it. The artifact being analysed can contain many small metaphors or it can be one big metaphor for a larger idea.

I believe the method of criticism that best fits this movie is metaphorical criticism. This can be seen many times through out the movie. Amelie trying to play matchmaker and failing is a metaphor for how we should not try to mess with the love of others. She brings two people together who are extremely unhappy and depressed thinking it will cause them to fall in love and become completely happy with each other. This play actually backfires and causes the two to hate each other and become even more depressed. This can also be seen as she tries to run away from someone who might actually love her. The more she avoids it, the less quirky she seems to become until she embraces it and they become extremely happy.

Pentadic Criticism

The artifact I am analyzing is the website stumbleupon.com. The website is designed for the user to find websites that fit their interest. The user first selects what types of things they are interested in from a list and after using the site for a while, it gets to know the users interests more. You can discover artists you like, pictures, interesting facts, people, almost anything and all you have to do is click the stumble button.

Agent- the Stumbleupon site
Act- Discovering new websites and possibly new interests
Agency- Curiosity and boredom
Scene- Your computer and the internet
Purpose- To find things you are interested in and to be able to share them with friends.

scene-act yes
scene-agent no
scene-agency yes
scene-purpose yes

act-scene yes
act-agent no
act-agency yes
act-purpose yes

agent-scene no
agent-act yes
agent-agency no
agent-purpose yes

agency-scene no
agency-act yes
agency-agent no
agency-purpose no

purpose-scene no
purpose-act unsure
purpose-agent no
purpose-agency no

From the ratios, the most dominate element is the act.

Ideological Analysis of World War Z

The book World War Z is something that interests me very much. It is a collection of stories about the fictional zombie apocalypse brought together so people know about the emotions and hardships that were faced in the war against the undead. This book looks at every aspect of humanity dealing with the apocalypse from social status, jobs, cultures, and many more. Despite being an extremely well written story, it is an amazing social commentary.
The entire book is social satire. It shows what is wrong in every aspect of society and gives examples of how to change it. On of the my favorites of this is when the book comments on celebrities and people who are extremely rich. Their story starts off with everyone who is upper class staying in a mansion and having a party. The whole story starts off showing how excessively rich the people are and ends with showing that money is not everything and does not actually make you a better person. This is shown because they will not let non famous people into their party because they are beneath them. Also, they act as if they will live forever because of their social status. This ideology is challenged when one of their own becomes a zombie and actually ends up killing everyone in their party.
A huge ideology in this book is survivalism. This is shown in each and every story. Everyone is trying to survive one way or the other and just trying to excape the horrific events that are happening because of the zombies. Some people travel and end up being cannibals because of their situation while others try to end the war on zombies by serving their country but no matter what, the one thing that is on everyone's mind is to survive no matter what the cost.

Three Artifacts

One artifact I think that I could analyze using the ideological criticism is the stop motion cartoon "Robot Chicken." This will be a good artifact to analyze because it not only deals with many popular issues and items but it pokes fun at them showing them from different lights.

The second artifact I believe I would be able to analyze using ideological criticism is the book "World War Z." I believe it would be good to analyze because it is a criticism of humanity, the government, and many other things.

The third item I believe that I would be able to analzye using the criticism is the magazine Vogue. I believe this because it tells the reader what to wear, what to think is popular, and why they should wear it.