Blog 20: Full Version of the Major Research Paper

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Anna-Maria Purpura
Professor: Luke Vasileiou
ENG 103
May 24, 2011
There are many aspects between real-life in New York City in the 1950s and a movie called Rear Window. One of the ways you can tell this movie is filmed in New York City is because of the apartments. The apartments are very close in distance, because the man in the movie can see into the apartment a crossed from his. Not only because of the distance between the two buildings but also because of the distance between the windows. You can even see multiple apartments at once. Another reason is the skyscrapers in the beginning of the movie when they scan down to show you the main characters apartment. Not just that but there’s also taxi’s driving passed the rear apartment. Also the same street being crowded which you can tell from the alleyway on the side of the buildings.
With all the information I have gathered, I have come to find out this movie does depict how it really was in the 1950s in New York City, except for a minor difference. The people in the movie and in real-life both share similar attributes of lifestyles. There were many similarities that I will provide the information for, between the things in the movie and the things in reality. Although, there was one difference but nothing big

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enough to say the majority of the movie does not depict how reality was in the 1950s. This movie was filmed in California, but the director Alfred Hitchcock had to make the town somewhere in New York City because of the way the apartments were. So that the viewers can assume the movie was really filmed in New York City. Even though other states had started to get apartment buildings, the windows and buildings weren’t as close as they were in the movie.
When it comes to employment there were many help wanted ads. There are many different wages for the various job listings. They list it by week, month, year, and hour. Hourly wages listed range from $1.10 to $3 an hour. Weekly listings were ranged from $20 dollars a week to $200. There weren’t many jobs that listed wages per month but with the listings it would range around $250 per month. Salesmen made between $6,000 to $10,000 dollars a year (“Classified Ad 7”), and photographers made about $10,000 to $15,000 a year (which is roughly $5.00 - $7.50 an hour).(” Classified Ad 40”)
In Greenwich Village during the 1950s the apartments that were a close match to the main characters apartment in the movie costs $124 for three rooms, which included a fireplace, and an overlooking garden (“Classified Ad 3”). The apartments that are similar to the ones in the movie vary in price anywhere from $110 a month to $145 dollars a month (“Classified Ad 20”). The apartments had lower ceilings and the sizes were smaller because it lacked closets and extra rooms. The encyclopedia of New York City states that the apartments in the 1950s were for the people who were considered middle-class ("Apartments" 39-40). In the movie by the wages they were making and
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the items they really could afford in their house, I would presume that they were either high-class or in between middle and high class. This was really the only difference I was able to find when it came to reality in the movie versus the 1950s.
When it came to women of the 1950’s they were still at the point of being housewives. Around this time the women were marrying younger, they started to date at a younger age as well. If the women were married, they would clean and cook for their husbands. The way they dressed was silk blouses and slim skirts that stopped at the knee with pearl jewelry, for when they just walked around the house. When they were to go out at night they would wear more flowing skirts that went down to their ankles. One key point to their style of dress was to wear any type of clothing that emphasized their curves, belts included. Fashions for men were just a simple suit and dress shoes and a simple wristwatch.
The popular music they played on radios at this time was pop, country and r&b. Although television watching was taking over radio listening. Television became a big hit in the 1950s where it became more popular and was selling more commonly. They had television programs that were broadcasting different kinds of shows especially stories that were based off of radio programs. Toys for children that were getting popular were hula hoops, toy guns, holsters, silly putty, and slinkies. In the movie you see a little girl playing hopscotch.


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In the Encyclopedia of New York City it states that between 1952 and 1955 the homicides that occurred were 4.3 percent out of 100,000 residents ("Crime" 297-298). Rather low then the past and upcoming years. It later states that most of the crime was formed in Harlem anyways. So since the crime was not around that bad around Greenwich Village that could explain how the people in most of the apartments had their windows open. Everyone in the apartment building had no shame and didn’t mind having the shades open at all times. There isn’t a “perfect town anywhere in the world, so even if Lars did kill his wife (which you’ll have to watch the movie for) it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary.
In the movie Rear Window they don’t really scan the city for you, it is a simple movie where you see only Jeff’s apartment, the apartments a crossed from his and the little alley way on the side of both buildings. In this movie, other than the main characters you can see the inside of about seven apartments. In this movie we are taken into an apartment in Greenwich Village in New York City in a movie called Rear Window. A man that lives in this apartment is named L.B. Jeffries, ‘Jeff’ for short. He is a photographer yet had to take some time off because he had broken his left leg. The magazine photographer confined to his mediocre apartment, which consisted of about three rooms. It overlooked a garden, along with all of the apartments to his rear.
He became bored in his home and couldn’t help but look out his window, he couldn’t take his eyes off of “Miss Torso”, the woman exercising in shorts (sometimes topless) with the windows and shades wide open. There is where he starts watching all
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the people in their apartments, in the building behind his. A musician with a huge piano in his living room, a lonely woman who pretends to have dinner with other people, a woman who you don’t see often other than to sunbathe in the backyard, newlyweds in the apartment to the side of his, a man who tends to the garden, and the salesman/murderer along with the bedridden wife.
While obsessively watching the building next door he spots a couple (Lars Thorwald – The wife’s name is unknown) and some weird things occur in the process. He sees that the wife may be faking her sickness and that the husband is hiding something from her. You see them argue. A few days later Jeff starts to analyze the actions of this man, Jeff has become convinced that this man has killed his wife. Because one day Jeff notices the wife is not in the house anymore. She could have gone away but then he observes more closely at this apartment giving it more of his attention. A freight truck comes to pick up a large trunk from his house. The shades get closed every so often. Jeff’s girlfriend whose name is Lisa suggests that maybe the woman went away but then Jeff and Lisa notice the husband with his wife’s purse and he is pulling the contents out of it. The contents in her alligator purse were a gold bracelet watch, her pearl necklace and her wedding ring. Lisa than states a woman would never leave without their wedding ring. When the next day comes Jeff sees that he has a suitcase, newspaper covered knives, and rope. Now he is completely convinced he has murdered his wife and tries to get the police to catch him.

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When it comes to Jeff, his career is a photographer. In the 1950s he would be making at least $200 a week (if he worked 40 hours). That would mean he got $800 dollars a month. His apartment type costs around $124 a month (“Classified Ad 3”). From what we see in his apartment he doesn’t have many things. When looking through other peoples apartments he looks at them from binoculars which cost $3.95 to $32.50 (“Display Ad 167” & “Display Ad 153”). One of the main things he owns is a 35mm camera, in which he uses to keep Lars away from attacking him. In the 1950s 35mm cameras cost anywhere from $19.50 to $199.00 depending on what features you wanted the camera to do (“Display Ad 24”).
Now if the man got $800 dollars and paid his rent he would have $676.00 dollars to spend. He would definitely be able to afford the camera and many other things. Along with eating exquisite candle lit dinners with wine and lobster tails. To go along with the exquisite dinner he had fancy dinner clothes which would cost about $5.49. (“Display Ad 22”) In the beginning of the movie you see his camera is broken, at this price and at the wages he makes like in my statistics above he would be able to buy another one.
The murderer Lars Thorwald is a salesman. As a salesman he would make around $1,200 a month. He lives in a studio apartment, which would be cheaper than the apartment that Jeff lived in. He doesn’t have much in his house so you can tell he seems to be a pretty simple man. He just has a lot of paintings around his house which would cost him anywhere from $5.00 to $100 (“Display Ad 22”). Lars also had numerous amounts of house lamps in his house, which could cost him $6.95 but only $4.95 on
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sale (“Display Ad 60”). For his line of work as a salesman he used what looked like a stainless steel briefcase to hold his products and that would cost him about
He is seen with suitcases when packing to leave, the ones similar to the one he has is either $27.50 or $32.50 (“Display Ad 35”). When Jeff was putting together the pieces that Lars had killed his wife there were partly from Lars getting having a number of items. A trunk, rope, big knives, and he had her purse and the contents in the purse were a gold bracelet watch, pearls and her wedding ring. For the knives they were $1.00 post-paid, so he might not have had to pay until after he uses it (to make sure it did the job) - (“Display Ad 264”). The rope was sold at a store called Johnsons fair for 1¢ per foot. At J. Jacobs rope cost $3.00 for 100 feet or $8.25 for 300 feet (Display Ad 153”). The other items costs were pearls anywhere from $14.95 to $150 dollars (“Display Ad 82”). Her alligator purse costing $200 more or less and her bracelet watch for $1105 which you could catch on sale and her wedding ring which may have been a diamond ring would have cost her (or the husband) 6,000 dollars (“Display Ad 76”). The husband did make what Jeff expressed to be a rather large amount of long distance phone calls which costs him about $2.00 at most (depends where he calls) for 3 minutes, which he didn’t ever call for much time anyways (“Display Ad 178”). So even if Lars did pay $120 dollars for rent, almost as much as Jeff makes, he would have 1,080 dollars left to spend. Which is a lot more money than Jeff has left over and Lars lives less elegantly as him. He would definitely be able to afford and financially take care of his sick wife.
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The women in the movie all had similar fashions, which were like Miss Torso, dresses, heels and pearls. In the 1950s they were known to be housewives, tending to their husbands; cooking, cleaning, always in dresses. Whether it’s daytime, cocktail, or evening dresses. When it comes to the clothing the women wear, the dresses would be anywhere between $35 to $155 dollars. (“Display Ad 5”) The pearl jewelry was just as expensive costing from $14.95 to $150 dollars (“Display Ad 82”). The shoes would be $23.95 if not a little more expensive for fancier shoes, for the less fancier the cheaper they would be (“Display Ad 93“).Also the women would often go to the salon and get a fancy hair-dos, depending on what you wanted it would cost roughly from $3.00 to $25.00 (“Display Ad 22”). The men always dressed up as well, in their suits, which would be around $90 to $175 depending on the design and brand (“Display Ad 5”). Their ties weren’t much, they only cost $1.50 but when they were on sale it would usually cost 69¢. (”Display Ad 13”)
Most of the apartments in the movie had alcohol in them, if not numerous bottles. Alcohol in the 1950s cost $3.44 - $5.59 if not more expensive (“Display Ad 13”). This is one of the main items almost every character had, and the ones that did have it, had a lot! One of the items is a piano which is in the musician’s apartment, he plays on it often but from the distance I am unable to tell what the brand is but I have found an article where it says you can buy one for $475 or rent it at $8.00 a month (“Display Ad 82”). There are other items seen in the movie. A woman was sitting on her lawn chair in her backyard. That would cost her about $14.88 for the chair. (“Display Ad 167”) A man was listening to his phonograph which would cost him $98.95 (“Display Ad “). On a rainy day
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you see people pass through the street seen by the alleyway, in the 1950s raincoats cost somewhere between $5.75 - $16.50 depending on which brand or kind of coat (“Display Ad 82” & “Display Ad 153”). There were many sales that went on daily. With all the sales there was and with the careers these tenants had, I do believe they were able to afford all of the above and more.
Out of all of this information it shows that New York City portrayed in the movie was more than less how life and peoples lifestyles were in the 1950s. The way people lived having windows open when there wasn’t much crime. It shows us how many different people could be living giving a few good view points, whether it a married couple or single people living. It even matched how they could afford their apartments and the items in their apartments on the wages they received along with the rent they had to pay. I can tell you this much, I was I was living like they were back then…having that much allowance to spend on anything I wanted – whether it be for alcohol and elegant dinners like Jeff, or simple paintings and lamps around the house like Lars.
Cited Works:
"Apartments." Encyclopedia of New York City. Yale University, United States: R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company, 1995. Print.
"Classified Ad 3 -- No Title." New York Times 24 Aug. 1953, Print.
"Classified Ad 7 -- No Title." New York Times 20 Jul. 1954, Print.
"Classified Ad 20 -- No Title." New York Times 17 Oct. 1954, Print.
"Classified Ad 40 -- No Title." New York Times 14 Nov. 1954, Print.
"Crime." Encyclopedia of New York City. Yale University, United States: R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company, 1995. Print.
"Display Ad 5 -- No Title." New York Times 30 Dec. 1954, Print.
"Display Ad 13 -- No Title." New York Times 27 Dec. 1954, Print.
"Display Ad 22 -- No Title." New York Times 29 Dec. 1954, Print.
"Display Ad 24 -- No Title." New York Times 30 Dec. 1954, Print.
"Display Ad 35 -- No Title." New York Times 8 Dec. 1954, Print.
"Display Ad 60 -- No Title." New York Times 24 Jan. 1954, Print.
“Display Ad 76 -- No Title.” New York Times 3 Jan. 1954, Print.
"Display Ad 82 -- No Title." New York Times 8 Jun. 1952, Print.
"Display Ad 93 -- No Title." New York Times 21 Mar. 1954, Print.
"Display Ad 153 -- No Title." New York Times 23 Mar. 1952, Print.
"Display Ad 167 -- No Title." New York Times 18 May. 1952, Print.
“Display Ad 178 -- No Title.” New York Times 15 Aug. 1954, Print.
"Display Ad 264 -- No Title." New York Times 10 Oct. 1954, Print.
Pendergast. U X L American decades. 6. Detroit: Detroit : UXL, c2003, 1995. Print.

Blog 9

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Anna-Maria Purpura
Professor: Louis Lucca
HUC 130
March 24th, 2011

Television has a large influence on society. It affects almost everyone in every aspect of their life, with everything that they do. However there is not enough evidence to prove that television makes a person violent. For someone to say that people will become criminals from watching too much violent television is like saying all smokers will get lung cancer. It is not a fact but it is a possibility. Television itself does not make a person become violent. I believe TV does have a contribution in some of the violence that has gone on in the world, as well as today. When it comes to television and violence, the repercussion of watching too much television especially when it’s violent can make one more violent but not create the violent person.

Many children watch television. A child can easily be influenced and tend to imitate things that they see. Children are like sponges, they absorb everything that is in their environment. I found a few aspects of a study called “The Bobo Doll” experiment. In an article called “Reel to Real?” written by Hugh Westrup, and in a YouTube video called “Albert Bandura, Social Learning and his Bobo Doll experiment”. A psychologist named, Albert Bandura from Stanford University did a study (in the 1960’s) called the

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“Bobo Doll” experiment. He conducted his study with two groups of children. One group was experimental – where they did certain tasks with the children to get the children’s natural reactions towards each task. The other group is controlled – where they control what the children see in order to see how they react without any influence.

The experimental group watched a short film of a woman being abusive to a blow-up doll called “Bobo”. In this short video they showed a woman and the Bobo doll in a room together where the woman started to punch and kick the doll around while yelling at it, for no reason. The women than picked up a toy hammer and started striking the inflatable doll with it. The kids from the experimental group were then put in a room with a doll that looks similar to the one in the video that they had just seen along with an assortment of toys. When the kids entered the room they started to punch, kick and scream at the doll, imitating the woman in the video. They again repeated her behavior by picking up the toy hammer and striking the doll. Not only did they mimic the woman but they also picked up a toy gun and began to use it on the doll, which wasn’t even shown in the video.

In this study Bandura even brought in a live clown to see what the children in the experimental group would do, and they even started to hit and abuse the clown. These children felt no difference in abusing an inflatable doll and a living person. He called it the “monkey see, monkey do”. (Albert Bandura, Social Learning and his Bobo Doll Experiment”) While the children from the controlled group who didn’t watch the video.

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Were put into a similar room and didn’t do anything to the doll. They just left the doll alone. A child will do almost anything it sees and finds interesting. If a kid grows up watching a lot of violent television they may just grow up being violent. If a child watches many horrific scenes in different TV shows, they can become terrified of something completely fictional. According to the website “Abelard” children who watch violence on television there are three major effects violence can have on a child. A child “may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others. Children may be more fearful of the world around them. Children may [also] be more likely to behave in aggressive ways toward others.” ("Abelard Teaching") Some children may even grow older still believing in mythical monsters. It depends on what kind of personality the child obtains and part of its upbringing.

If the child has a family the mother may curse, the father may throw objects, and the sibling may even smoke – that child might grow up and do those exact things as well. Just because a child might want to do certain things doesn’t mean it will grow up doing those things. Television can be very addicting for anyone of any age. With all the kinds of shows available to our viewing capacity, it has endless entertainment such as shows with reality, or fantasy, games, shopping, work-outs, psychics, anything you can think of. Growing into a world of fiction through a TV set can affect a child, but just because it’s a factor doesn’t mean it’s the real problem that causes crime.

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A child grows up with many different people in its life, people with different backgrounds and ways of life. If that child is brought up around a person who believes in something when another person doesn’t, the child will then have to decide which it wants to do and which it doesn’t. When kids get older they try out different things in order to see if it’s something they like or dislike doing. Along with knowing what’s right or wrong, accordingly to how the parents bring them up.

In the same article another man by the name of Brandon Centerwall came to a similar conclusion in the 1990’s. Centerwall believes that since the television was invented, the violent acts have gotten worse. He stated, “The murder rate in the United States rose sharply ten years after TV became popular.” (Westrup 10) I am sure that television wasn’t the only evil during those times. There have been a lot of things that are bad in the world. I don’t see how television could be on the top of that list of things that influenced people to commit violent acts.

“Reel to Real?” also talks against television being the factor to violence. Jonathan Freedman (a psychologist) says, “The rise in U.S. murders ten years after the introduction of television can be interpreted differently.” (Westrup 10) Which I agree with, nobody knows what was going on through the lives of the ones committing the crimes. Everybody has hardships and people deal with things differently, I just can’t see how TV is to blame for someone’s criminal acts. For the majority a person who commits a crime knows right from wrong. They should also know that television is not a reality and that they should not repeat what is on it. Freedman explains that the population was

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exploding due to the baby boom. He states, “The boom produced a large amount of young men, and young men are [known] to carry out most violent crimes.” (Westrup 10) Now if Centerwall’s and Freedman’s studies are accurate that would mean woman don’t watch as much violence as men.

On the Ripon College website there is a link to a page titled, “Media Violence and Media Influence” where it gives us statistics of television and the violence on it. An “average child sees approximately 1000 murders, rapes, or assaults on TV per year” (Petersik) with that statistic it would be common sense that near half of those children are female. If a child sees that much violence on television, an adult must have seen even more. That would mean an adult has watched more than 1,000 violent acts and at least half of them would be female, if not more. “57% of all TV shows contain some violent content”. (Petersik) More than half of the TV shows people watch have some act of violence in it. Men, children and woman are all watching a large amount of violence. If the crime was really because of television, woman would do more crimes. This does not need a statistic because even when we look at the news and they are talking about criminals, the majorities are men.

With children these days being brought up by television, who knows how the TV will influence a child. That is why parents should be with them, especially when they watch TV to tell them what is good or bad. Because statistics say, “54% of children have TV in their bedroom “, (Petersik) and that “46% of violence takes place in cartoons”. (Petersik) If children are watching these shows, they can start to believe that it’s more

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reality than fiction. If they start to believe that it is something that really happens, they might think they can get away with some of those acts. When kids are young, it is the time they have to learn to distinguish the different between real and fake. When they take in what they see and learn, to put it to use. Cartoons are what almost all children watch. In television shows statistics say, “Perpetrators not punished 73% of the time”. (Petersik) That is what they view on their own television sets! When children are brought up by television sets they tend to imitate what they see in cartoons and other shows. If a child grows up watching that much violence, of course there may be a chance that child will become violent. I believe it takes more than just a television show or multiple shows they grow up on to make them commit such acts of violence.

These men might have gotten some kind of result, but neither of them did a deeper research on the children. Until Leonard Eron and Rowell Huesmann, both psychologists, teamed up and followed viewing habits of 800 children who were 6-10 year-olds in the Chicago area. This information that I have gotten is from the websites; Abelard and American Psychology Association (APA), where they found out that the children who watched violent TV acted aggressive. Out of the 800 kids they viewed, they only went back to 329 of them. They went back all of those students 11 and 22 years later.

In the beginning of the study, they found out which violent television shows the children watched most. Eron and Rowell also wanted to see if their behavior was as aggressive as the characters in their favorite TV show. They even found out if the

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children thought these violent acts were real or fictional. When the psychologists returned to those same children now in their 20’s, they asked them about their favorite television shows now and how their behavior was and if they were still aggressive. Not to mention they also obtained their criminal record along with violations they may have received. They had found that the ones who had watched more violent television had grown up and were even more aggressive, especially compared to the student who had watched less violent TV. The men and woman who had become more aggressive had admitted to pushing around their spouse or people during the time of growing up, along with committing crimes and getting moving traffic violations. The research subjects, who watched less violent television, did not have as much aggression problems and didn’t commit any crimes.

In the article “Reel to Real?” there was another study conducted. A man named William Belson, who is a researcher, studied the behavior of 1,500 teenage boys. Belson broke the boys into four different groups, out of those groups one group watched each category, ‘very high’, ‘high’, ‘moderate’, and ‘low’ amounts of violent television. He gathered that, “the boys who watched ‘very high’ levels of violent TV were half as aggressive as the boys who watched ‘high’ amounts.” (Westrup 10) With this research you can see that the ones who watch the highest weren’t the highest in violence that it differs by person and how they are, not by the amount of violence they watch.

With the research that has been conducted in all of these studies, it is easy to see that the amount of violence seen on a television set does not determine the amount

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of violent behavior you will show. However there are too many factors that go into a human being and childhood to decipher what causes violence that can go into the studies being conducted. No one (other than the children) can really know why they acted the way they did in such studies. There are both negatives and positives aspects to watching television. Television is like a tool. You can use it to have an awareness of the disasters that are happening around the world, as well as political aspects, nature, senseless entertainment and more. Another thing you can do with television is that you can use it to escape from the realities of the world and to relax and enjoy the comforts of your own home. Another possibility is that you can become obsessed with television. For instance let’s take a knife. A knife is also a tool. You can kill with a knife, or you can use it to help you cut a sandwich. It’s all in how you choose to use it. Anyone can watch a television program, and think it is cool or they may want to try something like it. They may hate someone and by watching a TV show it could persuade them to do something violent towards that person. Yet it doesn’t always mean they will.






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Cited Works:
"Albert Bandura, Social Learning and his Bobo Doll experiment." YouTube. Web. 22 Apr 2011. .

"Childhood Exposure to Media Violence Predicts Young Adult Aggressive Behavior, According to a New 15-Year Study." Press Releases. American Psychology Association, 09 Mar 2003. Web. 24 Apr 2011. .

"Children and Television Violence." Abelard Teaching. Abelard, 1999-2008. Web. 24 Apr 2011. .

Petersik, Timothy. "Ripon College." Media Violence and Media Influence. J. Timothy Petersik, n.d. Web. 22 Apr 2011. .

Westrup, Hugh. “Reel to Real?.” Weekly Reader / Current Science. 17 Mar. 2000: 10. Print.

Blog 19

I am not sure if I really learned much from doing the archives project. It was definitely a challenge for me to do it. I wouldn’t say it was a waste because even though I did not learn anything from it, it helped me do something that was challenging that I wouldn’t normally do. I did not do perfect on the essay but at least I tried and finished it to the best of my ability.

The introduction by the archives project? I am not sure what you mean by that. If you mean the way you introduced it, than it was really confusing. I don’t normally follow the news so I had no idea about anything that was going on through this particular assignment.

I would say it was much much more difficult than the Major Research Essay. There were many reasons why. One of the reasons was, I had no idea about planned shrinkage and all the things they had talked about what was happening in the arhive papers. When I love the movie Rear Window. I knew what I was going to do, it was a little difficult at first but definitely not as hard as the archives. Not only that but the fact that we could only get the source from the archives room. I am not sure if I would have found much information on the internet but the information in the archives I felt wasn’t enough to help me write the paper, maybe if it was a page or two. The subject of the archives I wasn’t interested in like I was the one about the movie Rear Window. I know I am not a perfect writer but I do know that I tend to write a little better when it is on a subject I like better.

Blog 18

When I was doing the draft of my major research paper I had started with watching the movie and taking notes on what I thought was important. Once I did that I had gone to the library to look through some encyclopedia books where I found some of the information I am using. When I did that, I had looked on the computer through the library for old newspaper articles. I would say that is the most difficult of the project. Since I couldn’t find any books with prices of what stuff had cost back then I had to look through ‘display ads’ on the site.

Once I found the display ads to be good price references, I searched for display ad since there was no way I could shorten the search to how I wanted it. So I have been looking through each display ad from January 1st 1954 to December 31st 1954. After I did a predominant amount of research through that, I watched the movie again to see what I had missed. That is when I started to start on the paper. I switched back and forth from my notes to my research.

I knew I had to get cited works that weren’t from the web so the library was the next best idea. They had told me about the website online to look up newspaper articles. I had tried to go to the archives but the guy wasn’t there and then the time had gotten away from me so I couldn’t go. I really would have liked the web because they have a lot of good sites but its okay I was able to find things such as old newspaper articles via the web. I just had to turn them into ‘print’ cited works.

I don’t have the full complete draft yet, so to my knowledge I am not sure I used something from the class lessons. I was more free-writing. I still have work to do and I have what I want in there set-up and then I will go over and edit it, along with the conference I will have with you.

Draft of MAJOR Research Paper

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Anna-Maria Purpura
Professor: Luke Vasileiou
ENG 103
May 24, 2011
There are many aspects between real-life in New York City in the 1950s and a movie called Rear Window where there are similarities. One of the ways you can tell this movie is filmed in New York City is because of the apartments. The apartments are very close in distance, because the man in the movie can see into the apartment a crossed from his. Not only because of the distance between the two buildings but also because of the distance between the windows. You can even see multiple apartments at once. Another reason is the skyscrapers in the beginning of the movie when they scan down to show you the main characters apartment. Not only that but there’s also taxi’s driving passed the rear apartment. Also by the same street being crowded. With all the information I have gathered, I have come to find out this movie does depict how it really was in the 1950s in New York City, except for a few minor differences. The people in the movie and in real-life both share similar attributes of lifestyles.
When it comes to employment there were many help wanted ads. There are many different wages for the various job listings. They list it by week, month, year, and hour. Hourly wages listed range from $1.10 to $3 an hour. You can even get paid anywhere from $20 dollars a week to $200 a week. There weren’t many jobs that listed wages per month but with the listings it would range around $250 per month. Salesmen made between $6,000 to $10,000 dollars a year. Weekly wages for a salesman could be between $300 to $600 dollars, and Photographers made about $10,000 to $15,000 a year (which is roughly $5.00 - $7.50 an hour).
In Greenwich Village during the 1950s the apartments that were a close match to the main characters apartment in the movie costs $124 for three rooms, which included a fireplace, and an overlooking garden. The apartments that are similar to the ones in movie vary in price anywhere from $85 a month to $145 dollars a month. The encyclopedia of New York City states that the apartments in the 1950s were for the people who were considered middle-class. According to American Decades 1950-1959 the apartments had lower ceilings and the sizes were smaller because it lacked closets and extra rooms.
When it came to women of the 1950’s they were still at the point of being housewives. Around this time the women were marrying younger, they started to date at a younger age as well. If the women were married, they would clean and cook for their husbands. The way they dressed was silk blouses and slim skirts that stopped at the knee with pearl jewelry, just when they were around the house. When they were to go out at night they would wear more flowing skirts that went down to their ankles. Any type of clothing that emphasized their curves. Fashions for men were just a simple suit and dress shoes.
The popular music they played on radios at this time was pop, country and r&b. Although television watching was taking over radio listening. Television became a big hit in the 1950s where it became more popular and was selling more commonly. Toys for children that were getting popular were hula hoops, toy guns, holsters, silly putty, and slinkies. In the encyclopedia of New York City it states that between 1952 and 1955 the homicides that occurred were 4.3 percent out of 100,000 residents. Rather low then the past and upcoming years. It later states that most of the crime was formed in Harlem.
3. We are taken into an apartment in Greenwich Village in New York City in a movie called Rear Window. A man that lives in this apartment is named L.B. Jeffries, ‘Jeff’ for short, and he has broken his left leg. A magazine photographer confined in his mediocre apartment. He can’t help but look out his window. There is where he starts watching all the people in their apartments, in the building behind his. While obsessively watching the building next door he spots a couple (Lars Thorwald & bedridden wife), and some weird things occur in the process. Jeff realized the wife is no longer in the apartment. He starts to watch the husband and what is going on in that apartment. He starts to analyze the actions of this man and becomes convinced that this man has killed his wife. This movie was filmed in California, but the director Alfred Hitchcock had to make the town somewhere in New York City because of the way the apartments were.
4. In the movie Rear Window they don’t really scan the city for you, it is a simple movie where you see only Jeff’s apartment, the apartments a crossed from his and the little alley way on the side of both buildings. In this movie, other than the main characters you can see the inside of about seven apartments. That is how we know these apartment buildings stand in New York City, for the fact that you can see into so many apartments, from one window of an apartment next to the other.
When it comes to Jeff, he is a photographer. In the 1950s he would be making at least $200 a week (if he worked 40 hours). That would mean he got $800 dollars a month. His apartment type costs around $124 a month. From what we see in his apartment he doesn’t have many things. When looking through other peoples apartments he looks at them from binoculars which cost $32.50. One of the main things he owns is a 35mm camera, in which he uses to keep Lars away from attacking him. In the 1950s 35mm cameras cost anywhere from $19.50 to $199.00 depending on what features you wanted the camera to do. Now if the man got $800 dollars and paid his rent he would have $676.00 dollars to spend. He would definitely be able to afford the camera and many other things. Along with eating exquisite candle lit dinners with wine and lobster tails.
The murderer Lars Thorwald is a salesman. As a salesman he would make around $1,200 a month. He lives in a studio apartment, which would be cheaper than the apartment that Jeff lived in. He doesn’t have much in his house so you can tell he seems to be a pretty simple man. He is seen with suitcases when packing to leave, which costs about $4.95.
Some of the items seen in the movie are: lawn chairs at $14.88, a phonograph around $200 dollars, and fancy hair-dos depending on what you wanted from $3.00 to $25.00. There were many sales that went on daily. With all the sales there was and with the careers these tenants had, I do believe they were able to afford all of the above and more. On a rainy day you see people pass through the street seen by the alleyway, in the 1950s raincoats cost somewhere between $7.95 - $16.50 depending on which brand or kind of coat.

Cited Works:
"Classified Ad 3 -- No Title." New York Times 24 Aug. 1953, Print.
"Classified Ad 7 -- No Title." New York Times 20 Jul 1954, Print.
"Classified Ad 20 -- No Title." New York Times 17 Oct. 1954, Print.
"Classified Ad 40 -- No Title." New York Times 14 Nov. 1954, Print.
"Display Ad 3 -- No Title." New York Times 30 Dec. 1954, Print.
"Display Ad 22 -- No Title." New York Times 29 Dec. 1954, Print.
"Display Ad 24 -- No Title." New York Times 30 Dec. 1954, Print.
"Display Ad 153 -- No Title." New York Times 23 Mar. 1952, Print.
"Display Ad 167 -- No Title." New York Times 18 May 1952, Print.
"Display Ad 692 -- No Title." New York Times 15 Apr. 1952, Print.


*Note: The sites that I have added I got from the web, because the books I’ve been looking through don’t have actual prices… I still have the web cited works and I will put them in the paper. You had just said you don’t want websites as resources so I turned them into ‘print’ cited works, if they are not correct, let me know and I will put the ‘web’ cited works.

Ps. This is not a full draft but I do have most of the rest of the information I am going to add to finish it. I just have to organize it and research a few more things.

Blog 17

The movie Minority Report and the two passages Free Will and Determinism in the world of minority report and Oedipus the King all share a common discussion, if humans have free will when they know the future. Humans do have free will. It is their choice to find out about their future and it is also their choice to try to change whatever their future sentence may be. There are many different examples of knowing the future and deciding what to do about it in the movie and two passages.

In the movie a man named John Anderton works for the ‘precrime’ police. He is to stop people from murdering before it happens, with the help of three different humans with special powers (‘precogs’) to see murders being committed before they actually happen. They later find that the two of the three precogs thought one way of the murder and the other one thought another, later finding out that the one precog was seeing the correct murder. In the beginning of the movie the precrime police bust into an apartment of a man who they believe will murder his wife for cheating on him. They arrest him for the ‘future murder’ of killing his wife. John Anderton and the people who arrested the man don’t even know for a fact if he was really going to kill his wife.

While watching more of the movie you will see John Anderton with the more accurate precog. It has come to this part because the precogs had foreseen Anderton murdering a man, he didn’t even know. When he arrives to the place where he is supposed to murder this man, the precog tells John, he has a choice and doesn’t need to kill the man. He chooses to not kill the man. Right there you see that he did have free will, when the current events seemed to be his destiny in murdering a man.

In the passage called Free Will and Determinism in the world of minority report, they talk about how the only way to have free will is to have “two things: alternative possibilities and self-control.” It mentions how robots don’t have free will because they don’t have alternative possibilities, but when it comes to humans they almost always have alternative possibilities. They even have self-control it’s just their choice whether they practice it or not. If people were to be in a situation whether life or death, for example if someone is trying to shoot them and the only escape is to jump off a bridge into water, it’s his choice in which to make.

No matter if you get yourself in the situation or the situation comes to you, you always have a choice in the matter what to make. Like we mentioned in class, addiction can get out of control. When it comes to addiction, we have a choice to start it, than to keep going back to it, once we hit the addiction it’s your choice not to go to rehab. You may not want to stop or go to rehab but that doesn’t mean you don’t have free will. You might not like either choice that’s set upon you but you still have one, showing that people do have free will.

In the story of Oedipus and the King it starts out by Oedipus’ father going to an Oracle to find out the future about his soon to be born son Oedipus. The Oracle tells him that Oedipus will kill him, his father. With that the father goes to have him killed but the servant sends him away. There was no way to tell if he could stop Oedipus from killing him or not. So Oedipus grows up in a faraway land, to be nowhere near his father. The passage explains when Oedipus grows up he also goes to the Oracle to find out about his future. He hears the same thing his father had heard, that he will kill his father and because he does not know that he is ‘adopted’ he runs away to the land he was born to avoid killing his father. He enters the land he was born in and events occur in which he kills his real father. With these series of events it was all choice. He might not have known who his real father was but he chose not to stay where he was and make sure he did not kill the father he thought was his real father. That’s also when self-control would come into the picture, if he were to stay with the man he thought was his father. He would make sure that anger didn’t overpower him and kill the man, but because he tried to avoid it, it ended up coming true anyways.

People always have free will. With all the scenarios it’s uncertain if these things were to have happened, if they did things differently and if they weren’t so cautious, the previous events might not have come in play. When people know the future and they are not happy with it they try to change it and that’s what makes them achieve what was told to them. Even if you don’t know the future things may all fall into place or turn out bad depending on the choices you make. So when it boils down everyone has a choice in everything they choose to do. Which means that everyone has free will.

Blog 16

The movie I have chosen Rear Window is about a man who is stuck in a wheelchair and decides to spend his time looking out his window. When looking out the window he starts to spy on what people are doing. While looking out his window he watches many different people live their lives. When people come over to his house he constantly talks about what he sees. He starts watching this man and his wife. After watching them for awhile he realizes the wife is no longer in the apartment and that the man is acting suspicious. He puts all the clues together and tries to figure out what happened. So he keeps on spying on the apartment they live in and tries to see for sure if he did indeed kill his wife.

I cannot really say how the movie relates to NYC for the fact that it is filmed with one kind of view in such a small area. I wouldn’t be able to say that it is definitely based around a New York area or not because it doesn’t show the city at all. I would have to base everything on characters, their actions and objects alone.

In this movie we do not really see NYC. In Rear Window New York City is not shown at all. One of the characters is a young woman who is a dancer. She gets dressed up in her dress, heeled shoes and pearl jewelry and goes out. If she does not go out she has a little get together in her apartment. Another man who has a piano in his living room also has parties in his apartment. It portrays a lot of city aspects in the movie, such as the ‘night life’ and people are always walking around outside. There are little things like seeing children playing hopscotch on the sidewalk. You see the reflection of street lights on. The men are always dressed up in suits. There is a character that is a woman who plants and sun-bathes in her backyard. There isn’t even a lot of communication between people who live in the same building.

Blog 15

There are two choices in this matter. One of the choices is in order to have a so-called safe and secure world, you privacy must be taken away. The other choice is the exact opposite. To have an un-safe world where you can have whatever privacy you want. We live in an un-safe world today, but our privacy isn’t all ours. To have a completely safe world seems so futuristically untrue. Both options are not realistic. If I had to choose between either I would definitely have to choose to have an un-safe world where I have the amount of privacy I have.

In this world we live in now we do not have complete privacy but we still have a certain amount. A good enough amount to where we don’t have to worry about stopping in the midst of something so mechanical spiders can scan us. It is what everyone is used to. We have the freedom to say almost anything we want as long as it is not against the government. I don’t know about people outside of America but as far as American’s we do have a certain level of both. We have a neutral level of security and privacy.

We may be recorded on certain phone calls but there are not enough people to constantly listen to what we are saying over the phone. If someone were to call their phone company there is even a message that lets you know the phone call is recorded for certain purposes such as training. We are tracked. What we do on the computer, our phones, or even walking in person can all be detected. The computer keeps track of what you search of so that if you want to find it again you’ll be able to. Even with Facebook it keeps track of people you may know based on your computer code or calculates what you have based on your own Facebook. The phones that we have nowadays are easily traceable. With the GPS systems in them you can even find out what stores are closest to you. When you walk around you may not be tracked as easy but there is a application called Google Maps where it takes satellite pictures of different areas and you might get caught in the picture.

As you can see we don’t have the best amount of privacy but at least when we use the bathroom we don’t have a camera on us. There are certain rules that we have now that don’t invade our privacy. However our security isn’t a safe matter. There are people being murdered everyday. If you look deeply into that, we do have freewill. The people, who murder, choose to murder, whether it’s a crime of passion or not. The people who get murdered decide what direction they were walking in which they get murdered. Everyone has a choice. Addiction, you have a choice, just not once you are addicted… but you had a choice up until the point of addiction.

There is a flaw in everything as Danny Whitmore states in the movie Minority Report. If we had the system of a safe world, there could be something that may go wrong. We would definitely have to be safer than how Minority Report portrays how their security works. We would have to have more than having our retina scanned. There would have to also be a stronger system on finding the murderers. The ‘precogs’ are human and humans are imperfect. You cannot rely on something 100% to keep you safe if the system that is keeping you safe is imperfect.

A safe world is a perfect world, and that is impossible. If you’re okay with being strip-searched than I would assume you wouldn’t mind not having any privacy. However I would mind. I like the amount of privacy I am allowed. I don’t mind the un-safe world because it is what I am used to. We don’t have enough crime going on that makes me watch my back every second. I am just fine with how things are now because it’s realistically thinking.

Complete Archive Reseach Paper

There were many problems in the 1970s. The main problem was planned shrinkage. Many people lost their jobs because of this decision. These job losses were a disaster to the community of Brooklyn. A man named Roger Starr (New York City’s Administrator of Housing and Development) had something to say and do about the events that were happening in Bronx. He used a system called ‘planned shrinkage’. The proposal he conducted was to cut down the employment of public service employees. Such as: police officers, fire fighters, teachers, the people that help the city (sanitation, construction, plus other such occupations), and even the education field (teachers, and librarians). He may have helped the city become restored, but it was at a cost.

Roger Starr was someone who had an idea to fix this problems going on in the Bronx. He also had the guts to stand up about it and try to make his plan become a reality. He wanted to put in effect planned shrinkage. Planned shrinkage has to do with cut-backs on jobs. It also has to do with bringing people from where they live to a new town so they can fix up the deteriorating town they once lived in. The jobs that were cut were of: police officers, the fire departments, teachers, and the people that help fix the city.

On an interview with Roger Starr, conducted by Robert Fitch, Starr talks about his concern for the city. Starr began to speak about the problem with public housing. He thought rent control was a problem. Not just that but the problems of the people who were living in those apartments. His first problem is rent control. He stated that it was “destroying private housing stock” (Starr). Starr also believes that the problem was making sure the tenants that were in the rent controlled apartments, were good tenants, that would always pay their rent and take good care of the apartments by not destroying them.

Starr talks about the different programs (FAJ 236 program, Section 8, etc…) and mentions a man named Edward Brook, who was a Massachusetts Senator. Brook a man who had created the Brook amendments. This amendment consisted of taking people who couldn’t pay rent and move them into the rental controlled apartments. This affected the state of the houses and the neighborhood. This is because the people who were now moving into these places were destructive.

That made the ‘good’ tenants move out if they could. Because of that it made the problems escalate in the 70s. Starr also mentions that people are not alike and that Brook was treating them as if they were. In the fact that some people were good tenants (paid their rent and didn’t destroy property) and some of them weren’t and did the opposite. Some of the problems which was incurring was peeing in the elevators and doing drugs on the roof. Those problems weren’t the only ones. There were financial problems as well. With this project it took a lot of the cities money.

To fix the financial problems that they had lost from relying on all people to be good tenants, Starr suggested for a planned shrinkage to come in effect. When planned shrinkage finally came in effect there were many jobs that were lost. The statistics in a newspaper article called 3,432 City Jobs Cut in a Month state: “Police 4,879…, Fire 1,926…, Sanitation 2,612…, Board of Education 11,116…, and Health and Hospital Corp[orations] 8,130. (Lombardi) With all of those cut-backs in two years and two months, the town of Brooklyn was becoming even more destructive.

The city had the idea that they were spending too much money on areas of the city where people were constantly dying. The population of the city was devastatingly decreasing. People were losing so many jobs that there was a depression going around. When a person loses their job there can be many things that a person will do. A person can be depressed and mope about in the house. Most will commit crimes to get what they want or need. Some people may steal food because they can’t afford any, with families back home. Other people can just get vengeful and destroy property.

A devastating thing was going on in the Bronx. It was part of the reason Roger Starr wanted to make a change and start the planned shrinkage process. It was the Bronx fires. With so many people dying as it is, these fires were of no help. Whoever didn’t stay in the area, tried to help themselves in their money situation to be able to move out. The city was a disaster because all of the money they took to fix the city was borrowed. That is why Roger Starr had come up with the plan for planned shrinkage.

This situation became a domino effect. First they thought that they could change the city by moving people around and away from the area, than fixing up that area. They also felt they had to get rid of jobs to save money in order to do this fixing up. By taking peoples jobs away from them it created more deaths and crime. Along with that came the fires. All because the city wanted to save as much money as they thought they could.

By taking away the cops and fire departments, the city started to crumble even more. If there were crimes already why would they take these jobs away from people, who are supposed to help the situations if there were no law enforcements. I would think that they should have brought more into the picture, not less. The crimes just escalated from taking away these peoples important jobs. If there were multiple fires, like there was, going around with less firemen how would they be able to stop them all from happening. People were getting hurt or even killed and with these job services disappearing in front of their eyes, how could they have faith that it would eventually stop.

Roger Starr believes that this planned shrinkage will keep happening. People will keep losing their jobs as well as people gaining jobs. He says in his interview with Robert Fitch that “stocks don’t just go up.” (Starr) There will be a drought in the employment rates but then it will pick up and it will go back and forth. They were losing the people who were under the classifications of “middle-class”. People were either rich or they were poor. It was not a happy time for the people of the poor category. For they were having to find new places to live with the jobs declining and having to save for a new place.

In a statement by Mayor Abraham D. Beame he mentions that the president puts stockholders above the eight million people in the city. People were dependent on their pensions, life savings, and securities. Instead of President Ford and the government giving those who needed help, actual help they got a lecture. There is no good from just a lecture these people wanted real help. And they needed it fast! The people were turning to destruction. The fires that were spreading all over the Bronx were more than likely all arson. They were destroying the city themselves, over how Mayor Beame was treating them.

Many people believed it was a racial thing. I don’t think anyone will ever know if it was or wasn’t. It was said to believe that Roger Starr only cared about the people who were rich and wealthier. The city thought they were just picking on people from the poor neighborhoods or just the non-white American people. To take their homes away from them and just move them to another place to live like they were moving boxes. They wanted help but with emotion as well. They treated the people of the city as if they were inanimate objects. The wealthier people were able to get up and leave, while Roger Starr and Mayor Beame decided to fix the city. The poorer people didn’t have anywhere to go, especially with the shrinkage of jobs. They couldn’t save up the money to get a new apartment. It was difficult for them as it was and this just made things worse.

In the movie Taxi Driver they portray how the city was like in the 70s. Back then, the city was filled with drugs, violence, sex, prostitution. The world was highly corrupt. The people wanted a change, just because there are people who do wrong doesn’t mean everyone does wrong. The good people shouldn’t have to suffer for what the wronged people do. The city needed some cleaning up and the moment of being laid off from jobs weren’t of any help. I don’t know how the man, Roger Starr, did it and cleaned the city up… but he did it.

Roger Starr along with Mayor Beame did eventually help save the city from complete destruction. Things were done, such as the fires and things were also thought, like the people thinking it was about race. Now I am not saying these things aren’t true. Although it was recorded the thoughts and opinions people had, along with what went on. All we really know is Roger Starr wanted to fix the city by planned shrinkage and to move the people out of the damaged areas and for them to move to another neighborhood. Starr just wanted to create a whole new town by re-construction so that everyone could live more peaceably.

Draft Archive Reseach Paper

There were many problems in the 1970s. The main problem was planned shrinkage. Many people lost their jobs because of this decision. These job losses were a disaster to the community of Brooklyn. A man named Roger Starr (New York City’s Administrator of Housing and Development) had something to say and do about the events that were happening in Bronx. He used a system called ‘planned shrinkage’. The proposal he conducted was to cut down the employment of public service employees. Such as: police officers, fire fighters, teachers, the people that help the city (sanitation, construction, plus other such occupations), and even the education field (teachers, and librarians). He may have helped the city become restored, but it was at a cost.
Roger Starr was someone who had an idea to fix this problems going on in the Bronx. He also had the guts to stand up about it and try to make his plan become a reality. He wanted to put in effect planned shrinkage. Planned shrinkage has to do with cut-backs on jobs. It also has to do with bringing people from where they live to a new town so they can fix up the deteriorating town they once lived in. The jobs that were cut were of: police officers, the fire departments, teachers, and the people that help fix the city.
On an interview with Roger Starr, conducted by Robert Fitch, Starr talks about his concern for the city. Starr began to speak about the problem with public housing. He thought rent control was a problem. Not just that but the problems of the people who were living in those apartments. His first problem is rent control. He stated that it was “destroying private housing stock” (Starr). Starr also believes that the problem was making sure the tenants that were in the rent controlled apartments, were good tenants, that would always pay their rent and take good care of the apartments by not destroying them.
Starr talks about the different programs (FAJ 236 program, Section 8, etc…) and mentions a man named Edward Brook, who was a Massachusetts Senator. Brook a man who had created the Brook amendments. This amendment consisted of taking people who couldn’t pay rent and move them into the rental controlled apartments. This affected the state of the houses and the neighborhood. This is because the people who were now moving into these places were destructive.
That made the ‘good’ tenants move out if they could. Because of that it made the problems escalate in the 70s. Starr also mentions that people are not alike and that Brook was treating them as if they were. In the fact that some people were good tenants (paid their rent and didn’t destroy property) and some of them weren’t and did the opposite. Some of the problems which was incurring was peeing in the elevators and doing drugs on the roof. Those problems weren’t the only ones. There were financial problems as well. With this project it took a lot of the cities money.
To fix the financial problems that they had lost from relying on all people to be good tenants, Starr suggested for a planned shrinkage to come in effect. When planned shrinkage finally came in effect there were many jobs that were lost. The statistics in a newspaper article called 3,432 City Jobs Cut in a Month state: “Police 4,879…, Fire 1,926…, Sanitation 2,612…, Board of Education 11,116…, and Health and Hospital Corp[orations] 8,130. (Lombardi) With all of those cut-backs in two years and two months, the town of Brooklyn was becoming even more destructive.
The city had the idea that they were spending too much money on areas of the city where people were constantly dying. The population of the city was devastatingly decreasing. People were losing so many jobs that there was a depression going around. When a person loses their job there can be many things that a person will do. A person can be depressed and mope about in the house. Most will commit crimes to get what they want or need. Some people may steal food because they can’t afford any, with families back home. Other people can just get vengeful and destroy property.
A devastating thing was going on in the Bronx. It was part of the reason Roger Starr wanted to make a change and start the planned shrinkage process. It was the Bronx fires. With so many people dying as it is, these fires were of no help. Whoever didn’t stay in the area, tried to help themselves in their money situation to be able to move out. The city was a disaster because all of the money they took to fix the city was borrowed. That is why Roger Starr had come up with the plan for planned shrinkage.
This situation became a domino effect. First they thought that they could change the city by moving people around and away from the area, than fixing up that area. They also felt they had to get rid of jobs to save money in order to do this fixing up. By taking peoples jobs away from them it created more deaths and crime. Along with that came the fires. All because the city wanted to save as much money as they thought they could.
By taking away the cops and fire departments, the city started to crumble even more. If there were crimes already why would they take these jobs away from people, who are supposed to help the situations if there were no law enforcements. I would think that they should have brought more into the picture, not less.
Roger Starr believes that this planned shrinkage will keep happening. People will keep losing their jobs as well as people gaining jobs. He says in his interview with Robert Fitch that “stocks don’t just go up.” (Starr) There will be a drought in the employment rates but then it will pick up and it will go back and forth.
In a statement by Mayor Abraham D. Beame he mentions that the president puts stockholders above the eight million people in the city. People were dependent on their pensions, life savings, and securities. Instead of President Ford and the government giving those who needed help, actual help they got a lecture.

Special Activity: MOMI

On my visit to the Museum of Moving Images, everything our tour guide explained to me was completely new. I really enjoyed learning what I did. I don’t remember the names of the programs/exhibits we went to but I do remember what they do and what I learned from them.
I learned about the recording studio. There I learned that when actor’s lines aren’t caught on the microphone, dubbing for other languages, voice-overs for censorship, and for animation, they go into a similar place like we did to do so. They read their scripts while looking at their mouths to line up what they are saying so that it will look proper. We had a rehearsal try and then it recorded us so that we hear back and see if our lines matched up with the mouths. My line was from Coming to America where Eddie Murphy character says, “When you think of garbage, think of Akeem!” It was a bit confusing to hear his voice in the headphones but I got it right on the recorded try. I also learned that if they miss a simple word in their lines, they will have to re-do that line over again. I would say doing this can be very strenuous.
Another thing I learned was how live television works. We didn’t get to spend much time on this subject because it was a pretty simple concept. We saw two big television screens one with nine small squares inside of it and another with the cable viewing screen taking up about a third of the screen with the people in the office, doing absolutely nothing but looking at their screens. The TV with the nine small screens was to show us the different camera views of what the audiences will be watching. It also showed us of the people that were in charge of announcing what the people were watching, each person was in charge of their own square. In the booth we say the director giving direction to what was going on.
One of the things I found most interesting was the voice and sound effect area. We went over shots of the movie Titanic. We saw parts of the movie with no sound at all just moving images, with just the voice, than just the sound effects, after we viewed all of them separately the tour guide than played it all together. We learned that when there are distant scenes or shots of a movie, such as when they are in a swimming pool to do the scene of the boat sinking. The people will go into the recording studio to say their lines because at the distance that they are in and record the lines they may have. When it comes to the sound effects, the tour guide explained to us the people who find and put together these effects are called Foley artists. The reason for them is they want to amplify the sound so that the audience watching these movies can feel like they are really there and that it is more realistic.
She had us try to guess how they created the sounds before actually telling us. Some of the sounds they make themselves or simply download it from the internet. There was a shot where Rose jumped off a part of the ship and onto the wooden floor. That sound was created by an actually wooden board. There was another shot where the cords of the ship snapped off and hit the water, which was created by a whip. The last shot we saw was where the ship was breaking in half and slammed into the water. This sound effect I found most interesting. It was made with crushing a soda can and an elephant. When she played it back for us with all the sounds, it was a little disappointing because you can now tell what everything was and it sounded pretty fake. However I still enjoyed learning about this.
We than went on to see different props from different movies. Things like the sweater from Nightmare on Elm Street I believe the third movie from the series. This prop was used for when they had to get live people to stretch through the sweater in a gooey skin. Another prop was a doll from The Exorcist for when the character Regan (a little girl who was possessed by a demon) head turned in a full circle. Of course the actress Linda Blair couldn’t really do that so they got a doll with a rotating head for the movie. We also saw miniatures of houses so they can get close ups of really big buildings.
We also saw what people used to watch ten minute films in (forgot the name). It was a podium looking stand where it had a small piece to put your eyes through and inside of it had the reel of film. It was pretty interesting to see this because of how it was constructed. We then went into a room where we say the different make-up and wax they used to make young actors/actresses look older, like the mask Robin Williams used in Mrs. Doubtfire. Also the cut and stitched legs of Winona Ryder’s from Black Swan
In that room we also saw different pictures of actors/actresses – primary the white ones. This is where the tour guide explained to us that the reason why they had mostly white people on the wall was because the film (along with the rest of the world at the time) was segregated. That the three ‘colored’ people on the walls played parts like housekeeper. We also learned about an Asian actress named Anna May Wong. We were informed that she was a pretty famous colored actress who tried to get a part of an Asian woman but was turned down because she was ‘too Asian’. Instead they got a white woman to play the part and put makeup on her to make her look Asian.
The last thing we saw and learned about was video games. We learned about the first video game ever made. It was a simple black background screen with two squares (the players) and a line between them and a smaller square which was the ball. The controllers were bulky and it had two big knobs, a smaller knob below and a knob on the side. The games played on this console were rather simple kinds of games. This game was similar to tennis. It was pretty fun to play but I would definitely get bored of it quick.
Overall I really enjoyed and learned a lot from this trip. I will definitely be going again. As a media student I feel this will be really helpful for having some background knowledge if I want to get into the movie industry. Thank you for coming up with this trip.

Blog 12

In the passage “The Man on the Moon” by George J. Annas he discusses how people think they are the superior beings and that the people who are not like them are inferior. The ones who feel they're superior feel that they have all the rights. Annas writes about how the Nazis believe they are the superior beings and all the other people are inferior people. They set out to kill and torture the humans that are not German because they feel they do not fit with them. The Nazis believed in eugenics, the study to improve qualities of the human species. They felt that everyone had to look a certain way to their own standards and whoever did not look like them, they would try to do surgeries on them to make them look more like Germans. If they could not do such things they would torture and/or kill them.
In the movie “Gattaca” they portray how only genetically engineered people who are considered “Valid” beings are able to have a higher quality job and that they are more superior to the people who are not genetically engineered who are called the “In-valid” humans. An example shown in this movie is how in-valid Vincent was a janitor and how valid Anton was able to get a higher job status than Vincent just because of their genetics.
In both cases there are groups of people who feel they are considered “perfect” and have ultimate superiority of all humans. The people who think they are superior do not believe in equality. The higher beings think they have an advantage, and that the 'lower' humans don’t have a chance of having. I believe that the superior humans are the ones who are not genetically engineered. In the passage referring back to the Nazis they felt they were better only because of looks. Other than the example of Jesus in the bible, there isn’t anything written anywhere that describes a perfect human, not only that but Jesus’ looks can be interpreted differently. So no one can be sure of what one is supposed to look or be like. When it comes to the movie you can see that the valid humans don’t always go by what’s in their genetics. In the movie there is a part where the old director speaks of how he doesn’t have a violent gene in his body, yet he was the one who killed the new director, or how Irene has a heart defect, or even the fact that Anton wasn’t able to beat Vincent in the last swimming match. If they were genetically engineered to be perfect those instances wouldn’t have happened.
The humans who are not genetically engineered are better only for the fact that they achieved certain strengths on their own, which may or may not be in their genes but they made it possible. They can make things more possible like how Vincent out swam Anton by the carelessness of his life. He made a lot possible by just simply having the motivation. Other than that I believe they are equal because even though the genetically engineered babies are so-called programmed how the parents want them, they are still humans and have emotions and abilities of change just like anyone else.

Blog 11

An “other” to me is someone who lives in a fantasy world. These kinds of people believe the world revolves around them and that whatever they do or don’t do affects the whole world. In reality the world rotates along with everyone in it. These people cannot deal with things that don’t go their way, so they try to always make it their way. When that’s how life really is, not always going your way. They can’t handle not being the center of attention. There are thousands upon thousands of people in the world. You cannot always be the center of attention to a person.
I feel a large distance between those kinds of people compared to myself. I know the realities of the world. When you live in a fantasy world, you will eventually lose your grip of it, and you will be face-planted into the ground. You will get a shock so bad that you won’t know what to do. For myself and others like me, we will know what is coming and we will know how to deal with it. Not like our others who will be stuck in such a conundrum of circumstances that the world will throw at us.
Let’s say we have to do group-work with a person like this. It will be very hard because these kinds of people will not do what they are supposed to and will pile all the work on their “others”, like myself. They will goof off and try to play around instead of doing the work. If you try and tell them what to do, when they don’t want to do it that will also create a problem. The problem will be that the work will not be done and you are left with a headache.

Blog 10

The things I’ve learned in class that I have found most interesting is, how we got to watch a movie and write a blog about it. I believe you can learn new things by different forms of media. You just have to know how to go about it. The thematic concepts I have enjoyed are; illusion and reality, historical examples of illusions, and mythology in the Matrix. The allegory of the cave was not too bad. I like how it all incorporates with each other. I just wasn’t too fond of how the reading was written because I had read a passage about it and it was more modernized.

The concepts I did not enjoy learning was everything about Oedipus the King. I believe that the reading and how it was written was too hard. I am in an English class and I feel if I am to pass this class. This play we have read, and may also do on the pass/fail final, will mess everything up for me. The speech in this play is way too un-modernized. I don’t think many students can fully understand this. We should have something more modern so we can try to show our potential and not have to worry about also understanding a text that is too complex.

I would definitely like to do more assignments through movies. I can get more of an understanding of what is wanted when there is a movie right in front of me opposed to an idea, not that ideas are bad. I would think the only problem with writing about a movie is you can’t always remember certain scenes you want to talk about or certain lines the characters say you feel is important to have in the paper. It is harder to go back and watch the whole movie opposed to going to a website where you researched information. I have also enjoyed the examples of good versus bad parts of the essay. My professor had mentioned that you learn more from reading bad essays than good ones, and I have to agree.

I would like to learn a little bit more of how to get a good thesis sentence, even though I have seen examples I am not sure on how to come about getting a better thesis of what I am writing the paper about. I would also like to understand how to break down the jargon of “Oedipus the King”, so that if I do have to do my final based on it, I don’t have to worry that I am going to fail. I do know about the story and have understood what my professor has explained about it… but if I am to quote something from the play I couldn’t do such a thing for I do not understand where it would be.



I feel that I have grasped what it is to summarize, that even in my essay blog I summarized for the most part instead of writing a better essay. I have not practiced the MLA style yet but I feel it is an easy enough concept of how my professor has explained it, that I would be able to achieve a MLA formatted paper. My weaknesses are definitely my introductory paragraphs along with the thesis. I have always had a problem with them and can’t seem to get better with them. Whenever I have to write a paper the only problem I usually have with them, it’s starting them because I have such a problem with the introductory and thesis part of papers. I feel my conclusions are fine but they can definitely improve.

When it comes to blogging versus writing an actual paper, I don’t really mind the difference because as long as I don’t have to hand in a hand written paper. The thing I do like about the blog is it is easier; it helps me be able to get feed back from anyone, instead of trying to send a word document to my professor and just an email going back and forth. The one thing I definitely appreciate about this class, is that most of the work and writing we have to do, is in-class work. I know that if I would have had a lot of bring home, homework I might not have gotten in on time. I think the only good thing about not doing it in class is that you are not as timed and you have more ability to work on each aspect of the assignment. However that point is not so bad because the better thing about it being a blog is that you can revise what you have written previously.

Blog 7

Television has a large yet an inadequate influence on society. It affects almost everyone in every aspect of their life, with everything that they do. When it comes to television and violence, I believe the repercussion of watching too much violent television does make one more violent. Violence in society doesn't just have to do with violence on television, or even watching too much television. However it does have contribution in some of the violence that has gone on in the world as well as today.


I have many sources, in which Louie told me I should site everything just in case, even if I don't use it... I am just not sure at this time which ones I will use in order to put it in here. I am still assembling what I have for this mid-term.


Bibliography:
"Albert Bandura, Social Learning and his Bobo Doll experiment." YouTube. Web. 22 Apr 2011. -- I used this because it was a visual way to understand what exactly the Bobo Doll is.

"Childhood Exposure to Media Violence Predicts Young Adult Aggressive Behavior, According to a New 15-Year Study." Press Releases. American Psychology Association, 09 Mar 2003. Web. 24 Apr 2011. -- This just supported some of the information I have used. When it comes to the web, you are not sure what is true, so I thought that if I had information from this site as well as the sites where the information repeats it would be safer.

"Children and Television Violence." Abelard Teaching. Abelard, 1999-2008. Web. 24 Apr 2011. -- This website helped with other studies they have done besides the Bobo Doll.

Petersik, Timothy. "Ripon College." Media Violence and Media Influence. J. Timothy Petersik, n.d. Web. 22 Apr 2011. -- This website helped me with the statistics of information I have used in my paper.

Westrup, Hugh. “Reel to Real?.” Weekly Reader / Current Science. 17 Mar. 2000: 10. Print. -- This gave me good examples of what the positives and negatives are of watching television that could contain violence.

Blog 8

In the movie "The Matrix" the ignorance shown is that almost all of society is not aware that they are plugged into a system, that is called called the matrix. The people don’t know that they are stuck in the machine (Matrix).

The way they were portrayed to be blissful is by not having knowledge of what was really going on.

The knowledge they express in this movie is how Neo, Trinity, Morphieus and the rest of the gang found out they were in fact plugged into the machine. They find ways to become more knowledgeable about the system in learning new tactics. So that they can try and beat the agents, in order to save all of society. In hope that all of society become aware of what was really going on and how they weren’t really living their lives.

In "Oedipus the King" it shows a lot of ignorance in this play, basically by every character. One main point is how Laius goes to Teiresias and finds out that his not yet born son, will kill him and marry his wife. If he wouldn't have given the child to the messenger to have him killed, he wouldn't have grown up in a city, gone to Teiresias, and fled his city to end up back where he came from. Oedipus shows his ignorance by not knowing who his real parents are. The same ignorance that they are plugged into a machine. They are all blind and cannot see what is right in front of them, or something that should at least be obvious to them. Even if it may not be a simple thing to notice for them, they should have realized something was off, or not right.

When Oedipus goes to Teiresias, he tells Oedipus that he will kill his father and marry his mother. He then leaves his land where he had grown up and ran to the city where he was born. Oedipus didn’t have to move, since he thought those were his real parents he should have just been careful. He should have known that the course of action he would take next would eventually lead him to what the Oracle foretold. The reason he is ignorant is the fact that because he didn't know the people he lived with all of his life were not his real parents. Which made him travel to where his real parents were. Making what Teiresias had predicted for him a reality. The stupidity of these people that they walk right into these problems. They (from the Matrix and Oedpis) let other people control their actions.

The happiness expressed in the play is how Oedipus and Jocasta had lead a happy life while being unaware of the truth. The same with the people being controlled by the Matrix. They all were unaware of the truth and because they didn’t think anything of it, they were all happy.

Blog 6: The Prison-House of Language

I tried to do research on my own and in the library as well, I came to find out that I had no idea what the prison house of language is and neither did the librarian. So I had not known what to do for this short essay. So I will try my best and write about what I think it could mean by breaking it down.

When it comes to the words “Prison-House” and “Language” I would assume it to mean that Language is guarded. You can take that a few different ways. A Prison-House is a place where someone is confined, which I would presume is behind bars. When we add language in the same sentence, to me it would be a good assumption that you are confined by what you say or what is being said.

One way could be that when a person asks for an opinion from a friend or another person about something, the way to guard their language is by what we call ‘sugar coating’. Not telling the other person everything that you honestly think. By doing that you are keeping that person safe in the world of ignorance. Just like the prisoners in the “Allegory of the Cave” how they were kept from the truth to only believe a lie. Another way could be to censor what you say, like in my previous blog about Freedom of Speech; you might be confined from freely speaking your mind. For example by you being a ‘potty-mouth’ or by speaking so freely that you are offensive to another.

In the “Allegory of the Cave” the prisoners were confined in the cave, not knowing what was true. They were unaware of the truth, that was right there behind them. Just like people on earth they walk around being ignorant not knowing what the real truth is when they have a language to communicate with one another. They can use that language to ask people who know the information they are looking for, or even use your language to type into the keyboard to become more aware and gain knowledge about what is going on around them and to find the truth. In a world like this we have to fend for ourselves and search for the truth on our own because by walking around not finding things out you live in a world that is sugar coated. In this day and age we don't have to be in the Prison-House of language, we have the ability to use our language so that we are not safe-guarded that we can find out and know the real truth that lies out there.

Essay: Symbolism in The Matrix

The movie called the Matrix is about a man being informed that the life he has been living wasn’t reality and that what he will learn what the reality is. The references have a lot to do with religion, specifically Jesus (who is the Savior). For example the character in the movie The Matrix, Neo… is the ‘one’.
Neo is the person who is to save all the humans who are trapped in a world that is considered the ‘dream world’. The humans that walk around in what seems to be the real world are actually in a dream world, while their bodies are plugged into a system called the “Matrix” so that the machines can feed off of them, since they are in control of this world.
Neo was sent to visit a woman, who is referred to as the ‘Oracle’, who knows all. Neo was to find out if he was the ‘One’. A man named Morpheus who is to teach Neo his new abilities assists Neo along the way to the Oracle. Neo entered the house and was shown a group of young children doing supernatural things such as; spoon bending and making blocks float in the air, by using their minds. A female who resides with the Oracle introduces Neo to the children as potentials who may also be the One. When Neo goes to talk to this woman known as the Oracle, he was told that he was not the one. Which was a lie.
In a different part of the movie, Trinity explains what the Oracle had told her, which was that she would fall in love with a dying man who was the One. Morpheus also shares his insight from the Oracle saying that he would find the One.
There is a scene where Trinity and Neo are on the top of the roof and an Agent comes and starts to shoot at Neo, in which he dodges the bullets by falling backward and than springing back up in which Trinity states that she hasn’t seen anyone do that before only the Agents. Representing that he is the one who can battle and possibly win against the Agents.
Another scene where Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, and a few others were leaving the Matrix, they were in a building. They had to hide and leave by going behind the walls of the building. When Cypher made a noise, Morpheus was captured to save Neo from getting caught by the Agents. They all found a way out of the Matrix, but than Neo wanted to go and save Morpheus from the Agents. Along the route of Neo trying to save Morpheus, Neo was shot by the Agents and had a flat line back where his real body was laying.
A following scene, Neo awakens by a kiss from Trinity after flat lining. After awakening he notices Agents are down the hall from him in which they start shooting at him. He is now able to stop the bullets in mid-air, which is another sign that he is different and that he has the capability to be the One.
Therefore the One has to fight against and beat the Agents so that Neo, Morpheus, Trinity and the rest can slowly start showing people the truth. Unlike Neo the others don’t have the abilities he has gained and those abilities he has are the same strengths as the Agents, if not better. With all these different abilities Neo is gaining through out the movie and with the information Morpheus and Trinity share, is proof that he is the One. He will save mankind from being controlled by the machine called the Matrix.

Blog 5: Summary of Allegory of the Cave.

   In the passage “The Allegory of the Cave” that Plato had written, he tells us about men that are prisoners, who have their legs and necked chained in a cave and cannot move and how one man was let loose and explores what was beyond his vision in the dark cave. He realized everything he thought of his surroundings was a lie and he went to express his visions to his friends, who did not believe him, since they were stuck in their own perceptions.


   The man notices that the shadows him and his prison mates were more than just mere shadows but a fire and puppets, also that he discovered a whole new world outside of the cave. He was not used to it at first but than he became comfortable and got used to his surroundings. That man that was let loose had gone back to the cave (yet again not used to his surroundings – from being outside exploring), where his friends were. He tried to explain all that he had seen to his fellow prisoners, but they did not believe the man because they were comfortable in what they lived in all their lives and could not understand or believe the things they couldn’t see since they were chained in the cave.

Blog 4: The Allegory of the Cave through History

Freedom of Speech the definition means that you are free to speak without censorship. It is the First Amendment on the Bill of Rights. When it comes to television programs and movies on standard cable, they are censored. They can not use such words as, 'Fuck', 'Shit', 'Cunt', 'Cocksucker', 'Motherfucker', 'Piss', and 'Tits'. I'm sure there is even more than that.





First of all when it comes to words as 'Fuck' and 'Hoe' people changed them to become profanity. It used to mean 'To plant' and a planting tool, so for instance someone would say, 'I need a hoe to fuck in the dirt' and it would translate into 'I need a planting tool to plant in the dirt'.

Besides them changing the words meanings they also censor it from the public eye. For us to watch such television programs or movies without us being censored, we have to pay EXTRA in order to see such things. If we are supposed to have the freedom of speech and not have to be censored, why are these words taken out of regular cable TV shows and movies.

They have even been banning movies since 1895 and they are still doing so for various reasons. One movie that was banned ("The Vanishing Prairie" - a 1954 Walt Disney documentary, banned in New York¹) because it showed the birth of an animal, which is human (or should I say) animal nature.

Not only have they banned films or censored our eyes from programs on standardized cable but they have also removed scenes from movies. Spartacus (for the "flavor of homosexuality" shown), Basic Instinct (which the "feminist and gay rights groups protested the film for being homophobic and misogynistic") and other films such as; "And God Created Woman", "All quiet on the Western Front", "A Streetcar Named Desire", and many other films for various reasons².

When it comes to nudity scenes, it's not even something someone forced upon another human to get paid to do. It is also these peoples choice to turn down a roll, if they do not agree on what they have to do.

So therefore we are censored from more than we think. We do not really have the freedom of speech, certain things can not be said and/or seen. However if we do want to see certain things, we must pay extra for it.

¹- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_films#United_States
²- http://www.clpgh.org/books/filmlists/banned.html

Blog 3: To believe or not to believe...

Things I once believed, that I do not anymore:

1. Birthplace of President Obama - Professor Luke in ENG101/103.
2. A movie called "Some Movie" - Old co-worker finally revealed it was a lie.
3. I was made to believe my dad was in a famous baseball team, because he had a real baseball card in which he was on - My mom finally told me it was a lie after a few days.
4. I never realized that people were different colors until a little girl who was black called me "white" - My mom told then told me about race.
5. I didn't realize "I Love Lucy" was in black and white, until it was pointed out to me - when they were talking about her red hair.
6. That "The Fairly Odd Parents" heads were bigger than their bodies - A conversation with my friend and she mentioned it and I later noticed.
7. That if I swallowed seeds, a tree would grow in my stomach.


How I found out about the things I didn't know to be true:

1. I heard it on the news.
2. Two co-workers without talking amongst themselves started to tell me different scenes and actors in the movie and explaining what it was about, and the way they were talking about it made it seem true.
3. We were cleaning out the attic of his parents apartment and he had showed me the baseball card with his picture on it, and he had a uniform on, so it seemed pretty believable.
4. I grew up not being taught about how people were different colors because it didn't matter and I guess didn't seem important. I didn't think people were different colors, I never paid attention.
5. I never realized there was television that had no color to it - then I went into a diner and saw her hair was red and I didn't think it was.. and come to find out that the show wasn't in color.
6. Didn't pay much attention.
7. When I accidentally swallowed a few seeds, I realized trees never did start growing in my stomach because I never grew THAT tall and I didn't burst.

Assignment 2

The Allegory of the Cave

I believe 'Allegory of the Cave' to be a good story. It is about three men who are chained in a cave. The only thing in their view is moving shadows on the wall. They are out of reach with reality and the real world and they don't even know it.
The man than gets released and is able to move around. He is now able to see inside the whole cave and not just what the other prisoners are made to see. He notices the fire burning and the puppets moving on the other side of the cave and begins to understand the meaning of shadows, seeing how the puppets reflect off the fire than reflect on the wall to make the dark silhouette images.
After seeing these images he began to doubt what he was used to all of his life. Then he started to explore and wanted to know what was outside of this cave, wondering if there was more they hid from him in his life. "And he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away and take refuge in the object of vision which he can see" - when stepping out of the cave, he has to be in view of the sun, it is all around him...from being used to so much darkness his eyes could not adjest and they began to burn and I would presume he crouched over and clenched his eyes to take away such brightness he wasn't used to.
As time went by he became accustomed to his surroundings and how much he had missed by being locked inside the cave, chained to not even be able to move his head to see what was around him. Being that he was given the experience to wander around and see all these things outside of his old reality, he had wanted to go tell his fellow prisoners about such things.
When he goes to enter the cave, he is not used to the darkness from being in the light of the sun. His friends than think he lost his sight from his eyes not being able to adjust. Trying to explain to his friends of the 'upper world' that what they are in 'the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun' so that the cave is the world and that the fire behind them is like the sun and what I would like to add is that the puppets are like the people in the world, but they couldn't comprehend what he was speaking of.

'Whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effect' - that we are so accustomed to how we are and how we've grown up, that we are afraid and can't comprehend change. We as humans for the most part think INSIDE the box, when for us to grow as people & become more knowledgeable about the world around us we must think OUTSIDE of the box. We have to do what we have to and more to succeed and progress in things. If you think outside of the box and always push yourself to do more than what you originally plan. You might just get to full understand what everything is around you and not be naive to the occurrences that happen.