The Breakfast Club

And another school essay which I got top grade on. I've been saying top grade a lot in my posts now (not to brag), so I might make a post about the Norwegian Grade System.

Brian Johnson is the brain among the five characters. His parents put a lot of pressure on him by expecting him to get top grades at school. Claire Standish is the popular beauty who is pampered by her parents, but they only do it to get at each other. Andrew Clark is the jock, and wrestling is his field of expertise. John Bender is the rebellious kid who commits felonious acts. He is treated badly by his father at home (e.g. he got a cigar burn for just spilling paint). Allison Reynolds is the crazy nut in the group. At one point in the movie she empties her purse for the others to see; it is revealed that she is a kleptomaniac and a compulsive liar.

To stereotype is to categorize somebody (or something) based on specific qualities and characteristics. So why do we stereotype? There might be several answers, but one of them is because it is easier. It is easier to categorize somebody by the first impression, rather than getting to know you better. We might be mentally lazy at that area or maybe it is something else. Even teachers stereotype their students, even though we usually just say that they have favorites. This is where we come to the question: is stereotyping good or bad? The truth is that it can be both. If we just look at teachers: some teachers give good grades to their favorite student even though they don’t deserve it and some give bad grades to students who deserve better. Here we see that for the student who does get good grades, stereotyping is good, while for the student who should have got better, stereotyping is bad. Another thing is that it is easier for us to decide who we want to associate with if we stereotype people. One thing that’s sure is that people will always stereotype others. It is like when watching a movie and you categorize people as jocks and nerds. Therefore, stereotyping is both good and bad. It depends on how we look at it.

I think most people would stereotype me as “a brain”. I myself don’t think I am “a brain”, because I would define “a brain” as a person who is academically strong on every subject, a person who gets top grades all the time. I do not get top grades in every subject (I almost do), and therefore I don’t define myself as “a brain”. Maybe I’m closest to that category, though, because I’m certainly not a jock or a basket case and there aren’t any other stereotypes I think I could fit as. Some may think of me as “a nerd”, but I think (and hope) that it is incorrect. People are good at mixing up “brains” from “nerds”. According to Wikipedia, a nerd is “a term that refers to a person who passionately pursues intellectual activities or esoteric knowledge rather than engaging in more social activities”. A brain does not need to be a person who pursues intellectual activities, rather than engaging in social activities. He or she may be very intelligent, but may also be very active socially. Therefore, I can live with people calling me a brain, but if they label me as a nerd “somebody will get hurt real bad”.

The two letters Brian wrote don’t have a big visual difference, but when they are interpreted you can see the development the five teenagers went through in the time they spent together. All of them are strangers to each other when they first turn up, coming from different cliques. As time pass on, they start opening up to each other, telling the others about their problems with their parents and how they ended up in detention. They find out that, even though they come from different groups, they do have some things in common, e.g. all of them have some kind of problem with their parents. This is illustrated as follows: In the first letter Brian writes: “That’s the way we saw each other…” (The students stereotyped each other). In the last letter Brian writes: “But what we found out is that each one of us is…” (The students get to know each other).
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Analysis of The Simpsons "Fear of Flying" episode

This was a homework I had. I didn't get top grade on it, but I got the second best.

The Simpsons is an animated American sitcom. It was made by Matt Groening. “Fear of Flying” is the eleventh episode of the sixth season. It was released December 18th, 1994. The Simpsons is an animated TV show (sitcom) and therefore presented in a visual medium.

Setting

The Simpsons takes place in a town called Springfield. As modern technology like planes and cars are included, we can say that this episode takes place in the 90s. Another fact that supports this statement is the movie titles that are mentioned in the episode (Hero, Fearless, Alive). These movies were released in 1992-93.

Construction

This episode of The Simpsons is told both chronologically and retrospectively. The story is seen by an outside observer.

Style/Tone

The story is comical throughout the episode, but there are parts where it is also sad. E.g. When Homer is kicked out of the bar. The tone is joyful when Homer gets the free tickets and when Marge gets through therapy. Marge’s tone is in a worried fashion when Homer tells her about the free tickets.
The bottom line is that the tone varies very much throughout the episode.

Characters

The Simpsons is about a family called, not surprisingly, the Simpsons, who live in a town called Springfield. The family consists of Homer (the dad), Marge (the mum), Bart (the son), Lisa (the daughter) and Maggie (the second daughter).
- Homer Jay Simpson is 34, 36 or/and 38 years old. Homer’s skin is yellow (as most of the characters in The Simpsons are) and he has two strands of hair on his head. You usually see him with a white t-shirt, blue pants and black shoes. Homer works at a nuclear power plant. He can be described as stupid, clumsy and thoughtless.
- Marjorie “Marge” Simpson is the same age as Homer. She has blue hair which stands straight up and she usually wears a green dress, red shoes and an orange pearl necklace. Marge is a housewife. Even though Homer does incompetent things, she always tries to help him out of the problem.
- Bartholomew “Bart” Jojo Simpson is ten years old and is in the 4th Grade. He is usually seen with an orange t-shirt, blue shorts and blue shoes. His hair is blond though you don’t really see his hair. Bart is known as the typical troublemaker and does everything to annoy people through mischief.
- Lisa Marie Simpson is eight years old and goes in 2nd Grade. She is usually seen with an orange dress, orange shoes and a white necklace. Her hair is blond. She is the typical smart kid and is very intelligent. She tries to help out her family as long as she thinks it is for the right reason.
- Margaret “Maggie” Simpson is a baby and is supposedly 1 year old.
Conflict
Marge is fighting her fear of flying which is within herself. She has suppressed it for so long and now it finally comes out. She agrees to attend therapy to find out what has caused this fear.

Plot

In this episode Homer gets kicked out of “Moe’s”, the bar he usually drinks at because of some stupid joke where he loosened the sugar jar, so that it got emptied all over the counter. Homer is disappointed and starts a search for a new bar. On his search, he is mistaken for a pilot and ends up in the pilot seat of a plane. Homer’s stupidity destroys the plane. To make Homer keep silent about this security flaw, the owner of the airlines gives him free tickets to anywhere he wants to go in the United States, except Alaska and Hawaii (which he calls “the freak states”). Marge doesn’t really want to fly anywhere, but agrees in the end. On the plane, just before take-off, she reveals her fear of flying. They get off the plane and Marge goes into therapy. They find out that the fear came from a childhood incident when Marge found out that her father was a steward (flight attendant). Marge is cured of her fear.

Theme and Message

The episode is about fear. Marge had suppressed her fear of flying deep down inside her instead of dealing with it. That didn’t turn out well. The message is that we shouldn’t suppress our fears. We should deal with them, so that we can avoid complications and situations which Marge met. Another theme is that things we go through in our childhood can affect our adult lives.

Intertextualities

There are several intertextual elements in the episode:
- The second bar Homer visits after being kicked out from “Moe’s” refers to the TV show Cheers.
- Homer’s favorite song is “It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls.
- The line Homer says to Marge when trying to convince her to fly (“I wanna shake off the dust of this one-horse town”) is from the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.
- The part where Abe screams on the plane refers to the movie Home Alone.
- The movies Homer rent involve plane crashes.
- Marge’s dream refers to the TV series Lost in Space.
- The scene with Marge and her mum on a cornfield is from the movie: North by Northwest.
- Lowenstein is the psychiatrist from the movie The Prince of Tides.
- The last scene with Homer and Marge on the plain is like a scene in the movie “Say anything…”
- The Mount Lushmore caricature of Homer refers to the mascot for the the magazine: The New Yorker.
- The part where Marge tears up a paper on a plane is from Stephen King’s The Langoliers
- Marge’s childhood trauma is when she sees her father as a steward on a plane. This refers to the novel Marnie.
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Sources:
Wikipedia

- Zlash

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Forrest Gump - A school assignment

This was a school assignment I had; I was supposed to analyze the narrative aspects of the movie Forrest Gump and find the historical and cultural references in the movie. I used more than 7 hours on the assignment, so the top grade (6) was highly comforting.

Part I – Narrative aspects

“Forrest Gump” is a drama with comical aspects. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis and released in 1994. It is about a man facing the challenges in his life. The story spans from 1951-1984 (which the historical references prove), and takes place in different locations of America, and Vietnam.

The story is mostly narrated retrospectively, but in the end it is goes chronologically.It is told from a third-person view, but Forrest narrates the story and his thoughts are revealed. The movie starts out in a comical and happy tone, but goes on to be sad further into the movie. Most of the characters have an Alabama accent.

The main characters in the movie are Forrest Gump and Jenny Curran. The story mainly follows Forrest, but it would be right to call Jenny the female protagonist.

Forrest’s mother: Mrs. Gump, Lieutenant Dan and Bubba are the more peripheral characters.

Forrest Gump isn’t the smartest guy on earth. He is on the slow side when it comes to understanding academic things and figuring things out, and that is not very strange when he is on the borderline of mental retardation. He is a loving and kind person, who tries to protect those he cares about, especially Jenny, the main female character in the movie, who is a childhood friend. Forrest is quite fond of his mother, who had a big influence on him as a kid, and shows this by recollecting what she used to say to him, throughout the movie.

As a child, Jenny Curran was sexually abused by her father. One can assume that her bad childhood greatly influenced her life, as she later takes drugs, becomes a prostitute, and tries to commit suicide. Jenny lives her life, by gradually destroying it. However, later in the movie she becomes more stable; maybe because of her child or the fact that she is dying. Jenny doesn’t really return Forrest’s great affection for her, though she does care for him. She lets him down throughout the movie, by leaving him several times.

Lieutenant Dan Taylor is a proud man, before he gets his legs amputated after his part in the Vietnam War. Forrest saves him in the war, but Dan, who did not want to be saved, becomes bitter because of this. Later his liking towards Forrest increases.

Forrest’s life is in disarray and his biggest drawback is his mental retardation, with his IQ of 75, which is discovered when he is a kid. Forrest was also physically handicapped as a kid, with his crooked back. Because of his disabilities he was bullied at school. Forrest’s main conflict is with Jenny, who was his only friend during his childhood. He is in a perpetual conflict throughout the movie, as he doesn’t know whether to be in love with Jenny or be her friend. Death is another aspect of life Forrest learns to cope with, as everybody he cares for dies, one after the other. First Bubba dies, then his mother, and in the end: Jenny. However, Forrest accepts death as a part of life, and therefore this does not become a conflict. His problem with Jenny is resolved in the end, when she accepts him and marries him.

The movie begins with Forrest Gump sitting at a bus stop, and a feather falling down to his feet. Forrest picks up the feather and puts it inside a book. Then he starts telling the story of his life to a woman sitting next to him. An interesting part of the movie is that throughout, the people listening to Forrest’s story keep changing.

Forrest tells about his childhood, when he went to the doctor with his mother. Since he had a problem with straightening his back, he had to use special shoes to make it right. Forrest’s mother, Mrs. Gump, used to tell Forrest that he was no different than anybody else, but this was proved wrong when it was discovered that his IQ was 75, which was below normal.

As a child, Jenny Curran was Forrest’s only friend. Because of Forrest’s disabilities he was bullied by other boys. Once, being chased by bike riders, he discovered that he could run pretty fast (this saves his, and others’, lives many times). This same incident occurred again a couple of years later: Forrest, being chased by cars, ran like the wind and he continued through a football field, where a match was going on. A football coach, amazed by his speed, made him join the football team, and this was how Forrest got into college.

Forrest, always trying to protect Jenny, once, beats up her date, because he misunderstands the situation. This happens several times in the movie, and not necessarily because he doesn’t know what’s going on. After graduation, Forrest joins the U.S. Army, while Jenny is kicked out of school because of some pictures of her in the Playboy magazine.

While serving his duty in the U.S. Army, Forrest is sent to the war in Vietnam. Here he makes a good friend, Bubba, who knows everything there is to know about shrimps. Forrest and Bubba makes a deal, that they will start their own shrimp business one day. However, Bubba never makes it back to America alive, since their squad is ambushed, but many other people survives because of Forrest and his noble act in running through the forest and carrying people out. One of these is Forrest’s Lieutenant: Dan Taylor, who does not want to be saved, and gets his legs amputated later. Forrest is the Medal of Honor for his deeds.

After some time, Forrest goes to Bayou La Batre, where Bubba’s family lives, and buys a shrimping boat, to start the “Bubba Gump Shrimp Company”. Lieutenant Dan joins him. After the hurricane, Carmen, their business becomes a big success, since their boat is the only one left. As a sign of kindness, Forrest sends money to Bubba’s family. Shortly after this, Forrest’s mother passes away, and Forrest goes back home.

After Mrs. Gump’s death, Forrest stays in the house, and is soon visited by Jenny. That night Forrest proposes to Jenny, but she turns him down. Later that night, they make love. The next morning, Jenny leaves Forrest…again. This is how Forrest begins his “three years-two months-fourteen days-and-sixteen hours-run” across America. People think he is doing this for some special reason and he becomes an inspiration for many, but Forrest just does this because he “felt like running”.

Now as Forrest is telling his story, an old woman is sitting next to him. Forrest tells her that he is here to visit Jenny and shows her a letter she has sent. The woman tells Forrest where the place is, and that he does not need to take the bus.

Forrest runs off to Jenny’s apartment, and discovers that he is the father of her son, who is not mentally retarded (unlike him). Jenny finally wants to marry Forrest and this they do, but not long after, Jenny dies, because of an unknown and deadly virus.

The movie ends with Forrest’s son, Forrest Jr., boarding the school bus on the first day of school. The feather from Forrest’s book falls out and soars through the sky.

The key theme in “Forrest Gump” is life and not to give up on it; it is about managing the obstacles on one’s path. Forrest faces all these challenges, but he pulls himself through them. It is like the phrase his mother told him: “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get”. Forrest handled things, as they came. Another theme is accepting yourself for who you are, and for what you do. The phrase: “Stupid is as stupid does” is important here. It means that you are as stupid as the things you do. Forrest Gump was not really stupid in this case. He was mentally dumb, but he didn’t do stupid things (maybe some, but who doesn’t?).

The movie also deals a lot with death, so accepting death as a part of life is another message.

Some symbolism is already mentioned, but the feather in the beginning and the end of the movie is important. It symbolizes destiny and luck. Forrest came across Jenny many times, after she left him. It was plain luck or/and destiny. Forrest says it himself: “I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time.”- Forrest Gump

The acting in the movie was incredible. You can really see that Forrest Gump is “special”. What else can you expect from Tom Hanks? The camera angles varied: sometimes there were close-ups, other times you saw the character(s) from slightly above. The lighting was a bit different for the different periods; Forrest’s childhood, with Jenny, was sunny and bright, while the Vietnam War was dark and cloudy. The editing was fast-paced at certain times, e.g. when Forrest’s squad was ambushed in Vietnam, but dwelling at other scenes, e.g. in the school bus, when Forrest was talking with Jenny.

The music played describes the scenes and time-periods in the movie, e.g. when Jenny is about to jump off the balcony ledge, “Free bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd is played (also referring to the fact that she had wanted to become a bird when she was little).

Some noteworthy special effects are the scenes of the different presidents and Forrest together, especially them handshaking. Let’s not forget John Lennon and Governor Wallace.

Part II – Historical and cultural aspects

There are many historical and cultural appearances in the movie and this text sums up many of them. For starters: Forrest Gump is named after the Ku Klux Klan founder: Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Elvis Presley is featured in the movie. He performed his famous “hip gyrations” for the first time on June 5, 1956. In the movie, he learns the dance from Forrest.

“Bear” Bryant was coach for the University of Alabama football team from 1958-1982. Forrest joins his team in the movie, and later meets President John F. Kennedy, as the All American Team is invited to the White House. Kennedy was later shot in 1963. The same year, Governor George Wallace blocked the University of Alabama school door for black people, as an opposition to the desegregation movement at the school.

The Vietnam War started in 1959 and ended in 1975. Forrest takes part in this conflict. President Kennedy was succeeded by Lyndon B. Johnson, who awards Forrest the Medal of Honor in the movie.

The hippie period started in the early 60’s and was popular throughout the 70’s. Forrest meets the hippie activist Abbie Hoffman at an anti-war protest, by the Washington Memorial, after the war. The Black Panther Party, which was active in the late 60’s and the 70’s, is included in the movie.

The moon landing with Neil Armstrong and “Buzz” Aldrin in 1969 is shown on television in the movie.

As a part of the American ping-pong team, Forrest meets President Richard Nixon, who succeeded Lyndon B. Johnson as President. Forrest stays at the Watergate Hotel, and complains about some flashlights in a window of another part of the complex. This incident refers to the Watergate Break-In in 1972, and it is ironic that Nixon was the one who offered Forrest to stay at the Watergate Hotel. Earlier in the movie, right after Governor George Wallace’s “Stand in the Schoolhouse door”, the assassination attempt on Wallace from 1972 is shown. He was shot five times, by Arthur Bremer, and paralyzed for life.

Forrest takes part in The Dick Cavett Show, after his part in the ping-pong team, and meets John Lennon, who is assassinated in 1980. Forrest inspires John Lennon to write the song “Imagine”.

When Forrest is in Bayou La Batre, he experiences the power of the hurricane Carmen, which lasted from August 29th to September 10th, 1974.

After Nixon’s presidency, Gerald Ford took over. The movie shows the two assassination attempts on a Gerald Ford from 1975 (where Ford was not hit in either attempts), in the news broadcast. The Ronald Reagan assassination attempt from 1981 was also shown; here Reagan was shot under the left arm, and his lung was punctured. Three others were also hit, before the final bullet, with the President’s name on it, was fired.
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Sources:
Wikipedia
Forrest Gump screenplay
Minor details were also found other places

- Zlash

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