Unit 5 Post #3

The Cold War was a state of political hostility mainly between the United States (and other democratic nations) and the United Soviet Socialist Republic (and the other communist nations it had control over like Cuba and North Korea). The Cold War brought the US and the USSR into a game of nuclear chicken, and the world watched with bated breath, wondering which country would be the first to push the button. The Atomic Cafe was a documentary created in 1982, right after the violent Vietnam War and traumatizing Watergate Scandal. Covering the span of the era of nuclear warfare, The Atomic Cafe is a compilation of archival footage from the 1940s to early 1960s showing the misinformation the American government gave its citizens about nuclear weapons.
     One of the claims that the filmmakers make in The Atomic Cafe is that in times of crisis, it is the role of the government to unite the people. Most of the footage came from propaganda and army recruitment videos, including the "Duck and Cover" video, which came from the Federal Civil Defense Administration. Although we know that ducking under a desk isn't going to help save you from an atomic bomb, the government attempted to make its citizens feel better, safer, and more confident, instead of living in constant fear of a nuclear attack. As you can see, the video itself is ridiculous, because covering the back of your neck won't protect you from a nuclear explosion, it was necessary for the government to create a video to help children understand.
The government has an obligation to protect its people in times of warfare and help them prepare for foreign attacks, a point that the filmmakers made in The Atomic Cafe. I hope the "Duck & Cover" jingle gets stuck in your head for a very long time- it is in mine.

Unit 5 Post #2: The Atomic Cafe

The Atomic Cafe, a documentary film produced in 1982 by Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty, and Pierce Rafferty, displays life in mid-twentieth century America. Beginning with the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end war with Japan during WWII, the documentary covers the beginning of the nuclear era from the 1940s to the early 1960s, a time filled with anxiety, paranoia, and uncertainty. The entire film consists of archival footage including presidential speeches, military training films, newsreels, pop songs of the time, and American propaganda film. The documentary depicts the end of American innocence as the United States entered a new age of atomic warfare and fear that the Soviet Union would soon destroy the war. The film is also riddled with dark humor, which helps to show the absurdity of the nuclear propaganda films of the 1950s. For example, in a clip from a civil defense film, the narrator says, "Man will eventually evolve into a race of bald-headed people. Just imagine yourself with no hair! They'll call you old skin-head, old chrome-dome! The treatment, if you insist, would be a toupee. But it's only temporary, for your hair would come back: same color, same cowlick." An entertaining film, The Atomic Cafe showcases a time when nuclear warfare affected not only the military, but the American family as well, completely changing American society.
     The entire documentary consists of achieved footage taken from various sources from the 1940s to the early 1960s. The footage from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan as well as from Bikini Island helps to show the audience the destructive nature of the atomic bomb. The final scene of the film was part of a propaganda video that showed an atomic bomb exploding and destroying planes, cities, forests, etc. The family that was in their air-raid shelter got up (unharmed) at the end of the explosion and the father said, "All in all, I think we've been pretty lucky." This footage shows how hopeful America is for a brighter and better future. The soundtrack consists of pop songs from the '40s and '50s, which are a great accompaniment for the documentary, because many of the songs written during the Cold War were political. Whereas some where anti-war/bomb and others were pro-war/bomb, it gives the viewer another opinion of the Cold War. The film also uses pathos when it covers the Rosenberg Trial and execution. The Rosenbergs, accused of giving nuclear secrets to the Soviets, were given the electric chair, but Ethel Rosenberg didn't immediately die. The humane method turned into an inhumane murder of a person that may or may not have committed any crime. This was effective in showing the Second Great Red Scare in America and how it blinded the government's eye towards civil liberties. Surprisingly, McCarthyism was barely covered in the documentary, which was interesting, considering that it was a large social effect of the growing Red Scare. The Atomic Cafe very effectively used rhetorical devices to display effect the Atomic Bomb had on the Cold War.

       The Atomic Cafe. Dir. Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty, and Pierce Rafferty. Libra Films, 1982. DVD.

Unit 5 Post #1

My posts have significantly improved since the beginning of the year. My very first post,  In Standoff, Latest Sign of Unions Under Siege, wasn't very good, mainly because I wasn't really sure what I was doing. Instead of writing a cohesive argument, it was very choppy, because I treated the guidelines like a check-list. Instead of writing a smooth post including a summary, analysis of rhetorical devices, etc. the post was more like a sentence or two about one point before moving onto the next point without a transition. It was also really short, because I thought that I needed to strictly adhere to the 200-250 word limit.
     I have gotten very good at analyzing paintings, as seen in The Scream Re-Write. In this post especially, I understood how the colors and lines helped the painter to achieve his purpose of conveying human emotion. The genderless face in the foreground of the painting helped to keep the viewers eyes from getting lost in the swirling background. However, I still need to work on analyzing written rhetoric. For example, in my post Health Insurance In America, I had difficulty understanding the author's purpose and how he used rhetoric to get his point across (although to be honest, I didn't really understand the point of the article in the first place, because it was from some fancy economist magazine).
     The purpose of the TOW assignments is to help us analyze a variety of texts, both written and visual, to make us better writers as well as readers. I think that I would have benefitted from this assignment more is if we got a little bit more time to work on them during school. Sometimes I waited until the last minute to do my TOWs, and they were not as good as I could have made them. If we had a little bit more time to work on them during class, I feel like they could have been a little bit more sophisticated. Also, it would have been very helpful to get some specific feedback on our posts, this way I would know exactly what I needed to work on to make my posts better.

Rachel's Moving Journey

Riding The Bus With My Sister is a memoir by Rachel Simons where she tells the story of how she braved the Pennsylvania city bus system for a year with her sister. Beth, who has a mental handicap, has a boyfriend, a way of life, and a loving community on the bus whereas her sister, a writer and college professor, uses her incredibly busy life to camouflage her emotional isolation and has much to learn about her sister's extraordinary world.
     One of the most interesting concepts of this book was the idea of "People's First Language," which is a form of linguistic prescriptivism in English aimed to avoid perceived and subconscious dehumanization when discussing people with mental or physical disabilities, an aspect of disability etiquette. Basically, the idea is to put the person first: for example you would refer to someone as a "person with a disability" as opposed to a "disabled person." It puts a little more humanity into the disability.
     The memoir was very moving, and it was delightful to see Rachel and Beth becoming closer as sisters, because prior to this year, the two had grown further apart as each of them developed their own identities and lives. A film adaptation was created in 2005, which I have yet to see. Although some aspects of the movie deviate from real life, Rachel Simons believes it to be "Poignant, moving and a powerful film."

The Great Depression: An Artist's Interpretation

The Great Depression, the longest and most terrible period of economic instability in American history, began in October 1929 and finally ended in November 1929 as the United States entered World War II.  The American farmers, plagued by the Dust Bowl, were among those most affected by these hard times, and their plight is illustrated in Grant Wood's iconic painting, "American Gothic."

     Although the name is not commonly known, almost everyone can identify the stereotypical painting of the farmer holding the pitchfork and his grim-faced wife. This painting, a result of a 1930s movement known as Regionalism, attempted to depict rural American life. One of the most profound aspects of this painting is Grant's attention to detail. The deeply etched wrinkles on the man and woman's face stand out as well as the intricate dot pattern on the woman's traditional 1930s-style dress. 

     There is also a sharp contrast between the faces of the farmer and his wife. During the Great Depression, it was not uncommon for farms to fail and for farmers to be evicted from their property, or to leave and try for a better life out west in California, like in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. The man has a much more confident expression on his face, like he has absolutely no inclination to leave his beloved farm, whereas the woman has a much more sombre expression, like she has given up hope and is worried about the future. One of the great things about this painting is that Grand Wood left it open for a wide variety of interpretations, and it will always be a treasured American classic. 

I Have A Dream

We have currently been studying oral rhetoric in AP English and the Civil Rights Movement in AP US History, so I thought that I would combine the two subjects and analyze Dr. King's famous I Have A Dream speech.
     On August 28th, 1963 during the famous March on Washington, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his speech to the large crowd assembled by the Lincoln Memorial. He argues that although Abraham Lincoln delivered his Emancipation Proclamation one hundred years ago, black Americans are far from being free, and although they are no longer slaves, America still has yet to keep its promise and they demand justice. Dr. King wants significant changes and refuse to let their oppressors to quit procrastinating, and he urges blacks to continue to fight for freedom and equality.
     Dr. King uses many rhetorical devices to help get his point across. The most prominent is his use of anaphora, or repeating words at the beginning of neighboring clauses. Dr. King repeats the phrase "I have a dream" in eight successive sentences, and this emphasis through repetition makes this phrase much more memorable, and, by extension, make Dr. King's speech much more memorable. Dr. King also uses metaphors to highlight contrasting concepts. For example, he says, "joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity," and contrasts segregation with racial justice.
     You can see Dr. King's I Have A Dream speech below:

Starry Night

Surprisingly, Vincent van Gogh only sold one painting during his life; however, Starry Night has become one of the most iconic works of art of the nineteenth century. Van Gogh painted Starry Night in an Asylum at Saint-Remy in 1889. Art is something that means different things to different people, but this painting has many universal symbols in it.
     The viewer is immediately drawn to the swirling night sky, and although some of the features are exaggerated, a starry night sky is something that everyone can identify with. The painter's use of curving lines moves the viewer's eyes along the painting keeping the viewer captivated.
     The cool dark colors in the night sky as well as in the peaceful village below have a calming effect on the viewer. Near the center of town there is a large church steeple sticking up from the town as if casting a sense of religious stability.
     Lastly, there is the large, unavoidable black structure on the left side of the painting. Although I am unsure as to what the structure is (it could be a mountain, or a fortress) the structure is indeed gigantic compared to the rest of the buildings in the painting. Its curving lines mirror that of the sky creating dramatic depth in the painting.
     Although no one will ever know what Vincent Van Gogh had in mind when painting Starry Night, after all wasn't exactly sound of mind at this point in his life, this painting will continue to mystify and amaze future viewers.