What leads people to suicide? How is suicide represented in media?

*Professor, before you read this, I want you to know that writing about my personal experience was very careful and hard decision. thank you  and have a great vacation!! :)

            For me, suiciding is the last way to get over from bad situations. People often judge suiciders as trouble makers or socially isolated people. Well, I partly agree with that. However, I've got a different point of vie for the suiciders. I almost killed myself when I was 21, and that was last year. Before I talk about my experience, you should know that I'm telling you as one of suiciders. I tried to kill myself because I thought no one in this world could understand me. So, I didn't try to talk about my feelings until I jumped into the water. I thought everybody is happy, but me. I thought I'm the only one who's going through the hardships. But, shoehow I was rescued and that was the moment when I decided to change my thoughts toward world. So, my point is the selfishness in people's mind lead to suicide. The suiciders only think about themselves because they don't know how much people around themm actually care about THEM. They also don't care how much people around them are going to be sad when they actually committed suicide. They just think that is the best choice. Same for sam in the movie. He thinks everybody doesn't understand  him while people were actually doing their best to understand him and help him to fit in the society. If I were Same, I would go to talk to dad when he suggested Sam to come over and talk to him. If he thought about his father's word more carefully, he wouldn't go that much far - bothering his family. I think because he was in army, chaing his thoughts might more difficult for him than any others. However, as I already said, changing your thought is very important when your head is full of suiciding. And the suiciders need to think about people around them once more before they kill themselves.

            These days media is very close to us, and we are able to know what's happening world out there at least within a day. There was time that many many Korean actresses committed suicide. I don't know why they did that so, but I think I can understand their feelings. They might regretted when they realized they are really about to die. Howeer, I remember netizens talked about them very bad ways. I saw some of them saying that they are really stupid and crazy. I watched news broad casting about them. They seemed like they pity the suiciders. But when I listened more carefully, some of the news broad casters sounded like the suiciders killed themselves just because they were going through lots of stress, and I could catch the actual meaning - "they committed suicide because they were not strong enough to handle their situations, and that's shame." I don't know if this is only my idea, but I could tell they were saying that way. Not really-feeling-sorry-for-them way.  Before we make judgements, we should try to understand them. How much would they suffered from the stress that they chose the last, and worlst method to get over it? But in media, people don't seem like they care about it. People are just busy to judge the suiciders as socially isolated ones - and I think that's also stereotype. So, the media's role in this kind of situatioin is very important. Because media has the biggest part of the communication world, it needs to try to convince people to think about the suiciders more pity way. I think that's the least thing the media and we can do - to pity and understand them, not judging them.

Documentary vs. Mockumentary

Semiotics

                Semiotics for these two videos are very various. Let's talk about the documentary. The backgroudn music of this video is very grand, loud, bass focused, and heavy. This means that the video is not taking any easy topics. Even though the history of the airport isn't really serious, the music made us to think that the video is noth the thing that we could watch without think. The tempo of the music also made the watchers to be tense and pay more attention. Therefore, I think the semiotic of the background music in the documentary was very powerful, and it affected the audience's mood well.
               Then, let's talk about the mockumentary. For the mockumentary's background music, it didn't made watchers to be very tense compared to the documentary's. The sound was actually funny. So, I could watch it without thinking so deeply. It was quite fun videos. The tempo was pretty slow. I think since the mockumentary was made to be give audiences fun, the music makers did their job well.



Globalization

                The globalization for the both videos are vivid. Because the videos were about airports, it gave us the message that airport is really important part of globalized society. If you carefully watch the documentary, the system of airport aren't from just one airport. Each of system is from lots of airports even from other countries. And if there was no globalized passengers who planned to go abroad, there wouldn't be a signal system(systems that makes airplanes not crash into eachothers) for the air crafts.
               For the mockumentary, I can only think about the woman from somewhere in Africa. The officer doesn't know where the country is she's telling. However, this was the fun point. He was acting really funny, and I think the passenger, the African, was the only actually woman in that video. Anyways, if a person from Africa is in London, that means people from any part of world is in London in that airport. Isn't this also a globalization?

Tools used for the Firefly

Semiotics for Firefly.

The big thing you can notice in the show is the "culture." When a show decides a background for itself, most of them don't have much change. Or usually only one background exist in a show. However, in this show named Firefly, two different culture coexist. Well, that might be considered as "one culture" if the audience considers it as a "mixture of cultures." Then, what do you think is the semiotics or signs of the background in this show? First of all, the main character can speak BOTH Chinese and English. The more interesting thing is that he's not the only person speaks both languages. Also this series is set in the year of 2517. That means in the future, English would be the first language of people which means we need to be fluent, and Chinese would be the second language. If you watch more, you will find that western people are wearing Chinese custumes. They not only just speak Chinese, but they also are used to the culture. That would mean the "mixed culture" will be OUR future. I think I need to start learning Chinese as well. :)

 Genre for Firefly
Well, the genre for this show is SF, and since I don't watch the whole show, I cannot tell there are more genres. I thought this show is very silmilar to the movie Star Wars; the effects, the color of their clotehs, etc. However, I couldn't tell that it was SF drama at first. I thought it as a western cowboy movie or something else. By the holographic window, I was little confused. However lastly, by the spaceship, I could tell that it was a SF show. I think guessing what kind of show was it was kind of fun. But in my opinion, the effect for the spaceship wasn't so good even though the show was filmed in 2002. And the science related words was very hard to understand - this helped me to realize that the show is really a SF drama.




P.S.  Professor I thought I did publish this post, but it was saved as a draft. I'm really really sorry :(....
And you were gone for a week!! I hope everything is fine... I will drop by your office!!

Tools used for the Arrested Development

Narratives about George Micheal Bluth

   For this tool, I decided to talk about not the main narrative. I will talk about a small narrative of George Michael Bluth.
   George Michael Bluth is the son of Michael Bluth. In the first episode that we saw, he reunites with his cousin Maeby. At first they talk about their family's problem and they decide to make out on the boat right in front of their family. George was not so aggressive about it, but after Maeby forcibily kissed him on the boat, he started to have crush on her. However, George's crush on Maeby didn't really revealed in this episode. Only two scenes showed his actual feeling - asking Maeby to kiss him again, and listening to her song nervously while she was taking a shower. This was cute and I could tell that he liked Maeby at once. But in reality, it's gross. I thought about it as if it was the story of mine. Ew...... I'm throwing out. It's like making out with your great grandma!! But it's only a show, and I won't be so serious about this problem. Even though the show didn't focus on George's feeling, he might have worried while we were focusing on his family problem. Or may be he was so frustrated that he was Michael's son. BUT.. WHAT CAN HE DO? He was born that way. So, this is my opinion about the narrative of George Michael in this show.



Ideology in Arrested Development

     In my opinion, the ideology of the show named Arrested Development could be very brief. It shows how a typical family should "look" like, but it also shows the change in American society. In people's ideology, a large family should contain father, mother, one or more daughters, one or more sons, and grandparents. Yes, in the show, they have the exact number of how a large family should have. I think that's all for ideology of a typical family "look." Let's think more seriously then. When you think about a mom, what do you think of? For most of the people, they might think a mother should do houseworks at home instead of running a family business. However, in this show, Michael Bluth's mother takes his fathers position as a president of the company instead of Michael Bluth. That's impressive! Mother running the family business! It borke my expectation. I thought Michael will definately take his father's chair. So, I think it kind of shows the changes in American society. If you go to America, you can see that more women are working than in Korea. Also when the father is in jail, you can tell that the mother is the most powerful person in the family. That means women are becoming more powerful in the society! So, I think this showed the ideology of a large family, but it also broke people's ideology of a woman's job both in family and society.

Semiotics in the Arrested Development

I watched this episode twice to find a secret semiotic in it. Well, it's not very secret, but I did found something. Did you see the scene that the first son, something Bluth, hiding his father from the cops ?

He is a magician and he had a magic box that could "trick" people. And he hid his father in that box.

I think the box was one of the semiotics in this show. The box could meant "jail", and that might already made us to think that thee father will be arrested. 

You might think it was just for fun, because the reporter said "He couldn't hide his smell from the dogs." The way the reporter said was quite funny. So I guess the director tried to show the "jail semiotic", but he didn't want his show to be very serious that put the reporter to make people laugh(or less than laughs). No matter what we thought from seeing that box, father was arrested eventually. Therefore, in my opinion, the box meant jail, and
he was meant to be arrested! Don't you think this can be part of semiotics? :)

What Do I think of an Ideology?

1.Definition of Ideology

           According to Wikipedia, an ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things (compare worldview), as in common sense (see Ideology in everyday society below) and several philosophical tendencies (see Political ideologies).

 2.How does it affect media?

        In the First Amendment, it says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." On the second line, you can see that a American society has freedom of speech, of the press. However, I heard that there is cooperatism in one of the TV channels. That could be the news channels even though they have to be objective.

3.2 Examples of ideoogy of how it affects media

       For example, if you watch the drama Gossip Girl, there are lots of scandals in Mehattan's ellite society. It's not only just teenagers' love scandals. If you think little bit deeper, you can see that their parents also have power to control the University or media. Once the main actress Serena gets into trouble, her mother takes control of the news. Then news or reporters wouldn't  press about her scandal. I think that's unfair. And because the gossip girl agrees with me, she presses the scandal on her blog, and that's end of the story.

 

Gender role advertisements? Or Our role to fix?

  Well, I tried to watch my words while writing this assignment. However, since this assignment was about a sexual related advertisement, I want you - prof.Ben - to be generous about my words in this assignment. Sorry for that :(.. This is the only way I can get A in your class!! ..haha :)

<- pictures from Prof.Gross'  blog. :)

  OK, first of all, I don't think there's a gender role in that pictures - well I don't want to THINK that there is. I once heard that all human beings have sexual desire unconciously.  I think this unconciousness causes this kind of advertisement. Then what do you think brought us to think like that? What do you think built the unconciousness?

     The way she's under his legs,  it looks like they are about to have an oral sex!! It kind of feels like we - women- are treated as a "tool" for their sexual satisfaction.When girls first see the AD7 picture, we are supposed to be upset - but most of us are not. This feeling told me that I also already have stereotype of gender role. In this case, I think a porno culture contributed a lot. If you see most of pornos, you can tell that women are treated so... dirty or.. as if they were animals that were made to satisfy men!! Do you think women's role in pornos is THIS? I don't think so. So, I want to say out loud! THERE IS NO GENDER ROLE! WAKE UP GIRLS!  BUT, unfortuantely, most of the porno audiences are teenagers and that is the way they learn. That is the way their unconciouss sex desire was built. The wrong knowledge from pornos and the scene made a "gender role" in advertisement. So, the gender role you think is the one in your mind, and the role is wrong! If there's a gender role in that advertisement, the role that woman has is to give her body. Do you think God gave mission to Eve to suck the Adam's THING?  But it's true that advertising company abuse our sexual desire which is the weakness. And everytime they win.

     This is the picture of a soju glass. And the woman inside the glass is Lee Hyo Ri, the sexiest singer in Korea - people say. Well, you can just say "Wow, this is so cool!." This was my first reaction, too. But, why do you think the company put her picture INSIDE of the glass? The actual meaning of this, was to let the men who drink soju with that glass to unconcioussly think they are EATING her - not literally. Maybe the men don't realize this purpose, but the men's unconciouss desire of sex make them drink more. That's how the company is selling soju - using our unconcious sexual desire.

  
     So, my point is ....there's no actual gender role - neither in pornos nor in this adavertisement.. We can't put our fingers on it. However, a gender role does exist deep down inside of our mind, and the role of a female is to be a PREY of a male. Isn't it sad?  We need to wake up! We need to fix that! These are the ROLEs that we need to play!

Gender in Korea

5) International Comparison of Gender and Unpaid Labor

For a pleasant change, Korea is only slightly worse than the OECD average for the extra unpaid labor women do compared to men.

Also, for a very interesting new book on the subject that I look forward to buying when it’s available at WhatTheBook? (hint hint), see Shattered: Modern Motherhood and the Illusion of Equality by Rebecca Asher.

     Well, the post above is the topic that I chose : International Comparison of Gender and Unpaid Labor. If you read the cartoon, it's about why women get less paid. Then, the left one says that it is because women do houseworks, they have only a few time to work and the women get paid less than those of men who work as full time! Now there's a problem. When the left one says "I'll let someone else raise my kids", but the other suddenly yells. What kind of situatioin is that? Does he mean that women are too busy doing housework for men and kids to work for pay? I don't think that makes any sense, AND that is a stereotype of women.

      Everybody has stereotype- even if she/he is a kid. Think about this. There's a girl in a class and she is very quiet. She doesn't hang with her friends, doesn't like to be a naughty girl. She never makes noise during the class. Then, everyone has the IMAGE that she's very quiet, not a problem-causing girl. OK, let's make few changes then. Few days later, the girl becomes talkative, hyper, and finally naughty. What do you think people around her would think? I'm sure her homeroom teacher will try to talk to her and say "I want you to behave as you are." What is AS YOU ARE? Don't you think it's also stereotype? Like this, I think that the gender role is also part of a stereotype. Because most of women are naturally born as a more caring, polite, and delicate than men are, we have this IMAGE that causes stereotype. But, here's a question. SO WHAT? If there are naturally caring,polite, delicate women, there are also powerful, strong, un-delicate women! We all should know the EXCEPTIONs or DIFFERENCEs. I think the way we are reacting to them causes most of the problems. That is causing "International Unpaid Labor upon Gender." There are no such things like 'gender role'. In my opinion, it only matters who's good at it. My dad is really good at cooking so he cooks every morning even though he's a man. My mom is really good at hammering, but cooking so dad calls mom whenever he found the place to be nailed. Do I tease them for these? Do I feel awkward about this situation? Definitely NO! OK I talked too much. So, my point is..... let them just do what they want! Let them get the money as long as they they worked enough!  Don't over react even though you are desperate for your different gendered coworker is keeping up.  Isn't it a world for the both genders?

Comparision Of the Movie "If Only"

Naver

http://movie.naver.com/movie/board/review/list.nhn?st=code&od=goodcnt&sword=39440

Yahoo
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808493518/info

MSN

http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie/if-only/

1.Compare and contrast how the classifications affect how we approach that film.

    

 If Only can be classified as fantasy, drama, and romance. Well, I only thought about it as a romance, because I focused only on the tragic between the two couple. However,  if you just change little of your point of view and focus on the "taxi driver" and "the time", it's definitely a fantasy. Those who classified it as a romance could consider it very painfully sad love story, but for the others might think it as a "what-the-heck" movie. Just a person's point of view can change the numbers of "stars"!! 

2.what role does gender play?

     I could see the definite difference reviews and ratings between male and female.

Briefly to say, it was the saddest movie for most of females. However, I think it wasn't at all for majority number of males. I've seen a guy even saying "it was waste of my 96 minutes of my life." In my opinion, because it's a very sensitive love story, the movie's aimed for women!

3.Are there any other ways that film can be classified?

    I saw a website classified this movie as a comedy. I didn't know why they classified this way. However, as I looked up for a dictionary, I found out that it was a matter of meaning! To Koreans, comedy is more like a popular entertainment composed of jokes, satire, or humorous performance. But when you talk about "comedy" in movie field, it's more like a work that is light and often humorous in tone and that usually contains a happy resolution of the thematic conflict. I don't really agree with this classification, but I guess it's one of the answers for the question #3 - the comedy genre was wildly unexpected one for me!! :) 

5 from Barthes for the Life is Wonderful

★Enigma Code :

 When I first saw this movie, this movie made me so curious. "What kind of movie is this?" "How am I supposed to react? Can I laugh? or Is it OK to cry?" I remember myself cried with the scene he was caught by a Nazi soldier at last, but ended with laughing. His face was so funny that I couldn't stop laughing eventhough it was so sad story!!! So, I googled it and found out that this movie's genre is called black comedy. And I also couldn't understand when Dora went WITH them even though she wasn't a Jews, but Guido's love of his son gave me a clue. That was because they extremely loved each other that without them, their lives weren't even so worhty!

★Action Code

 When Guido and his son Joshua were caught by the German, Guido tells Joshua that this is a game especially made for them, and whoever gets the 1,000 points of the score, he/she will get a real tank.

This action makes us understand that Guido is trying to save his son doing his best. With his effort, he almost survived. However, when he heard that the U.S. army is coming to save them, he went out to find his wife, but eventually caught by a German soldier. But when even he was about to kill, he pretended like this is not so serious situation to let his son not to be nervous. This kind of action code makes me think a lot. Well, he's very humorous person. With that character, he did his best to protect his son, and that revealed his love of his child and his wife.

★Character Code

 In this movie, Guido is very humorous, positive, and he loves his person with all his heart and life. When he first bumps into his girl, Dora, I couldn't find any surprise on his face. He just kissed on her knees saying "I'm sorry! I think you have pain here, here, and here!." I thought he was a playboy at first, but when he bumped into Dora for the third time, I saw his nervousness in his action - hiding behind his friend and asking him what she's doing with HIM(her fiance). I don't think he's never serious because I somewhat can read his mind. He seems like he doesn't really care about things happening around him, but that's not true. He does his things and he does his duty. The first 20 minutes of this movie shows he came to the village to run a bookstore business and it tells us that he has thoughts!! Therefore, with his not-so-serious, humorous, positive, and giving up-his-life-for-his-son actions tells us that he is very dumb on the outside, but forethoughtful person on the inside.

★Symbolic Code

There were lots of symbolic code in this movie, but I'd like to talk about a "tank". The tank fianlized all the heppenings that made the family seperated. Because Guido told Joshua that all the situation happening here is a GAME, Joshua is eager for the prize - a real tank! When he was hiding inside a box, everyone including his father was killed. However, since he didn't know what was actually going on, he came out from the box and wandered to look for some help! And suddenly a tank of an American army approaches him and takes him to his mother. Tank maybe a symbol of a war, but in this movie, it meant a peace to the audience. And because Guido's white lie that the prize would be a real tank was literally real to Joshua, it made this movie very touching.

 ★Cultural Code
 This movie has somewhat serious cultural back ground - Jewish extermination policy. The Nazi carried out the extermination policy because they wanted to let Aryan have supermacistism.(The majority of high society in German at that time was Jewish. That's why German didn't like Jewish people!) If you look at the inside of Hitler's policy, you will find out that he tried to exterminate the Jews because they were the chief obstacles for the step to German to become the best nation.

Commercial Comparison

I've Compared Mc Donald's snack wrap commercial in three different countries - Korea, America and France


Korea
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwp8acT5a_A
In this ad, it says every set menu in McDoanld's is only 3,000 won between 11A.M. and 2.P.M which is a lunch time for workers. As you know, we Koreans LOVE  "for free" or "cheaper". This kind of ad certainly irritate Korean workers because they are really really busy and try to save their money as much as possible. I think it's sort of an unconciousness. I'm positive they made good progress with this term "3,000 won!"


America
http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/GpwGN1HYXuQ?fs=1&amp;hl=ko_KR

This video is from the U.S. If I were a guy in America and play basketball, I would love to eat a snack wrap when I'm too busy playing basketball and have no time to eat. You should know most of American guys love to play basketball or other sports and you should also know that most of American basketball players are blakc!! However, if I were a guy in Korea, this ad wouldn't move my mind a bit because basketball isn't  really as popular as in the United States.


France
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI8nPBOZZIU
In the spot, a teenage boy sits in a McDonald's booth, looking at his class picture, when his phone rings. "I was just thinking about you," he says, with obvious affection. "I miss you, too" he replies, and then says that he has to go. His dad is coming to the booth with their food. Father sits across from son and comments that he was "quite the ladies' man" when he was his son's age. Dad then looks at the class picture and remarks that "it's too bad" that his son's class is all boys. The son can only smile.


The point, of course, is that the son is gay. Following that reveal, a tagline reads "Come as You Are" in French. "We wanted to show society the way it is today, without judging. There's obviously no problem with homosexuality in France today," Nathalie Legarlantezec, a McDonald's spokesperson, told French media. The ad airs only in France, but thanks to online video sites, it quickly went viral. It already has well over one million views on YouTube.

This is an explanation below the video on YouTube. I think even though this commercial focused on a society problem - homosexualism, it's also a cultural difference! I'm not sure you can air this kind of commercial in Korea since we are not yet allowed to have relationship with a same sex legally. I'm not saying that airing this social problem is bad. I think it's cool, and nice of them to speak to people that "since it's okay in France, just reveal yourself!"

My Expectatioins for Media English Class.

       Since this is my first Media-related class, I've got some expectations.
       First of all,  I'm hoping to get knowledge of media as much as possible. I didn't know what exactly media is, but eversince I took the first day of this calss, I started to get to know it.
       Second of all, I want to get an A!! I love computer, and I love designing something. So I think this is a really good opportunity to get an A from English-related class.
      Last, but not the least, I'm hoping to get close to Prof. Benjamin!! I think he's really wonderful teacher because he smiles at me a looooot - I think. haha. :D

my chihuahua

she's very sexy.