Post 4: Group C -- The Veldt : Family relationship and Technology, Weini W.

When I first think of writing a blog post from the discussion we had in class, the first thing that came up to mind was the "The Veldt" which was written in 1950s by Ray Bradbury. In "The Veldt" the parents George and Lydia with their two kids Wendy and Peter live in a tecnologicall driven house that does everything for them, from cooking their food, putting on socks to transporting upstairs. The nursery is the most interesting room of the house. It can project the landscape and environment of any place that the mind of the vistor wishes. The room was built in order for their children to use it for releasing their feeling and provide information when they visit different places. The extreme attachment with the technolgy in the nursury room resulted in stopping the kids from doing what regular kids do(like going out to play). Instead they were playing with the new gadget and started ignoring their family.

Problems started to arise within the family when the kids started to set the nursery to veldt (a country in Africa where the lions have returned). This resulted in causing fear, because Lydia thought the veldet was dangerous place for their kids to be in. She was not wrong, as we all know the story ended Both George and Lydia being locked in the nursery by their kids.
what I want to focus from the story is on how the advancement of technology replaced the relationship between the kids and their parents. In the story, the children fail to have any positive communications with their parents. Many of the interaction with their parents was unhealthy and depends on threatening their parents on getting what they want. Since the parents had stripped from their parenting duty, they forgot on how to respond and communicate with their children. These negative interactions emphasize the importance of inter-family communications. This can relate to the problems we have now a days, with electronic devices interfering the relashionship between parents and their children.
In the story the major advantage of the house was to fulfill their needs and desires, but it became a point of stress than happiness. Both George and Lydia struggled in finding happiness in their everyday life since the house replaced their traditional roles as parents. At one point of the story we can see Lydia expressing her fear and wanting to go back to a regular life by saying, "I feel like I don't belong here. The house is wife and mother now, and nursemaid. Can I compete with an African Veldt? Can I give bath and scrub the children as efficiently or quickly as the automatic scrub bath can? I cannot". We can see from that statement that they wanted to go back even though it would require them extra work and tasks. Parenting is more than simply providing your child with everything he or she would like. They both belived the house would solve their problems and ease their duties instead it caused more problems.
I also believe both George and Lydia struggle on finding their identity as couple. Lydia as a parent was concerned in finding a way on fixing their relationship with their kids and was asking her husband on turning off the house, but instead of listening his wife he was waitiing in get confimation from psychologist David on turning off the house. This shows us on how George puts more trust on the psychologist than his own wife.
The other main thing that we observe from Bradbury short stories is, his fear of technology taking place over human responsibilities. If we look into one of his stories we discussed in class ,"There will come soft rain", the house does everything for the family as the nursery did in "The Veldt". Both stories features similar themes regarding the danger of technology. On both stories technology was intended to make life better but it ended up in having the opposite effect on both physical and emotional level. Bradbury's stories are a reminder for us to set boundaries when it comes on using electronic devices.

Work cite:
Bradbury, Ray. “The Veldt.” The Illustrated Man. New York: Random House Publishing. 1951. 

Bonus 9: Who has the right? By, Weini W.

I feel like everyone has the right to write about anything. But in my opinion when it comes on writing tragedy events, anyone who have a good intent and had made research thoroughly can write tragedy events. It is undeniable for us to want to hear the story from those who were actively involved or who saw the tragedy happening on firsthand in order to relate or to know what the tragedy feel likes. But the reality is, those people who were in the tragedy might not have the knowledge on how to write and the ability to put what they went through in words. This might result for the tragic events on remaining untold. Those people who go out on their way to meet up and learn what went on, might be able to hear the story from the people life experiences. Those life experiences are the fuel for authentic and powerful writing. Those people who put their self in new, even challenging situations absorb and understand different types of people and this may result in building the readers empathy muscle. Life may sometimes imitate art, but more often, life inspires what humanity and meaning of life is.

If we look at the discussion we had in class where the story provides the structure for narrative flashback and personal commentary “The Third winter”, the author Martha Gellhorn visits and interview a family in Barcelona. If we focus on whether she had the right to write the tragic event or not, I would argue that she does. At that specific period of time the people who were suffering from the war, their voice could only be heard through a third party who have been watching what they have been going through and that is what the reporter Gellhorn did at the time. Even though she wasn’t suffering as much those people did in first hand she was able to show the readers what their situation was and that they were living with hope and faith.  

In my opinion those people who  have the right to write are those people who read widely beyond the confines of their subject or genre, watch film and television in a variety of genres – fiction and non-fiction, listen to talks and podcasts on a wide range of topics and have a clear knowledge of the tragic events. Those unusual influences will make their writing stand out since they have a good intent and research it thoroughly. There might be times where those tragic events might not be acceptable by the readers due to the lack of putting all the detailed information. But the bottom line is those stories need to be told. If we have to wait for those people who were actively involved or who saw it first hand, the story will remain untold and people might end up not knowing what people had gone through. Those tragic events need to be told in a right way in order to get the justice and peace what any human being deserves.

Blog post 3, Group 3:"The Shining" Fear and Family Relationship, by Weini W.

The first thing that came up to my mind when I started thinking of writing about a movie which was made before I was born was " The Shining". The Shining is a masterpiece of a modern horror, labelled "the first epic horror" in the history of film. The Shining is a 1980 film produced and directed  by Stanley Kubrick based on the 1977 Stephen King's novel"The Shining". It's a film that affects fear and obsessed viewers long after the last of its ending. It is a movie showing the horror that can not be escaped. It is a movie without any hard answers and it left the audience wondering what exactly you just saw.
The story follows Jack Torrance (Jack Nicolson) as he goes on an interview for the job of a winter watcher of an isolated, old, huge and beautiful "Overlook" hotel in Colorado, planning to write a new novel. During the interview, the hotel manager told him that the previous watcher of hotel, Grady had lost his mind, massacred his family and committed a suicide with a shotgun. Ignoring this story, Jack brings his wife Wendy(Shelley Duvall) and his eight-year-old son Danny(Danny Lloyd). It turns out Danny has a mysterious power that shows him events from the past and future. Some of the visions comes from Tony - "a boy who lives in Danny's mouth".

When they arrive at the hotel, Danny meets Dick Halloran (Scatman Crothers), a chef, who has the same power and calls it "The Shining" and warn him about the hotel and the dark room 237. But Halloran leaves the hotel over the winter, so Danny remains without the only real friend.
As the days pass, Danny experiences the visions of previous guests and staff who dies in the hotel several years ago and ghosts starts haunting the family. Meanwhile, the huge blizzard hits the hotel and cuts the telephone wires, leaving family isolated from the rest of the world.
Jack, meanwhile, begins to go crazy, becoming more and more aggressive, to the point that Danny and Wendy become convinced that Jack could try the same thing as Grady _ to kill the family. He starts chasing them through hotel with axe, Wendy and Danny manage to escape outside, with help of Danny's vision, and Jack is left in blizzard storm to freeze to death.
The film has provoked considerations, interpretations, researches and documentaries, trying to reach the essence of the film itself. The film has acquired a huge cult of companion, and below its free content lies much darker foundation than the mystical situation in the hotel, which is a picture of deprression, alcoholism, domestic violence, uncertainty, which represents a much darker tone of the film than the simple mystical circumstances that are happening to the family at the hotel. The beauty of The Shining is within its multiple interpretations. You can watch it, you can understand it, and you can feel like having a closeness to it and again you still have a feeling there is something more into it. (Zboril,2013)
The film is tense, and tons created such sense that I felt stuck in my chair till the end of the movie in the uncertainty of what will happen next. Tensions are so great that at one point of the movie I desire to make something happen because tensions lead to the limits of unstoppable. The atmosphere of the film is so vigorous and real that there is no moment in which felt safe. I was constantly on hold that something will happen next.

To my point of view the movie was a work of art. The movie gave me the unique feeling of the tension, from the beginning to the end, and you cannot feel anything else than to sympathize with the Torrance family, especially Wendy and Danny. I didn't know what was the scarier in the movie, the supernatural activity that happened inside of the hotel or Jack's state of mind, and how he begins to sink into the state of his own madness. The final twist is something that left me speechless for few hours after I finished watching the movie.
The idea behind the movie was more threatening and darker. You can see one destructive family unit, the abuse and psychological disorder of the main character, Jack. (Balick, 2011).
"The shining" is not a story about ordinary and everyday loving father who slowly goes insane due to the circumstances around him. From the start of the movie we can see that Jack doesn't care about anybody except himself. As a viewer, I could not shake off the feeling that Jack character is being entirely psychopath. His behavior changes when he is surrounded by other people, as we saw in the interview, when he is charming and when he is with his family, where he is aggressive and abusive. On other hand Danny has all the characterstics of being an abused child. He is completely isolated and alone. He lives in a fantasy world with his imaginary friend Tony, and at the beginning of the movie, they discussed the incident where his father broke his arm. From the start of the film onward, Jack verbally insults both Danny and his wife, Wendy. This shows typically domestic violence situation, and it reflects of cultural atmosphere that we currently live and where victims are left to fight for themselves.
Stunning camera shots, where every scene is in place and each is absolutely necessary and important piece of art. Everything its to perfection, where scenes are served from time to time, which throw us deep into the film, Danny's and Jack's subconscious minds, or the evil that is in "Overlook". The incredibly real river of blood piercing the door of Danny's strange pronunciation of even more strange things, is quite vivid and it stays in your memory long after the film is over. Axe is just a cherry on cake and while the music simply cuts deep into the brain, you realize that you are in the movie, from which it is very difficult to get out of as it works as a maze.

References:

Zboril, J. (2013). The Shining: A Comparative Analysis of the Original Novel and its Adaptation (Unpublished master's thesis). Masaryk University Faculty of Arts. Retrieved March 26, 2018, from https://is.muni.cz/th/217034/ff_b/The_Shining.pdf.

Zboril, J. (2013). The Shining: A Comparative Analysis of the Original Novel and its Adaptation (Unpublished master's thesis). Masaryk University Faculty of Arts. Retrieved March 26, 2018, from https://is.muni.cz/th/217034/ff_b/The_Shining.pdf.

Post 2 , Group C - Love and disability By: Weini W.

I watched my all-time favorite movie "I am Sam" few days ago.The movie is about a man named Sam Dawson who is mentally-challenged father. Sam had his daughter Lucy with a homless woman, who wanted nothing to do with Lucy and she abandons them as soon as they leave the hospital. He started raising Lucy with the help of his wonderful group of friends (developmentally disable men). They all try to help him out anytime he needs their help. Sam is such a strong and loving father who will do anything to keep from losing custody since he loved her so much. Although, he is mentally challenged, and the court argues whether he should keep Lucy. As Lucy reached age 7 herself, Sam's limitation starts to become a problem at school. They say he only has the ability of a "7-year old" and doesn't have enough money. Mr. Turner in the court who claims that Sam's mental disablity would be a hindrance in his child's learning process. He loves his daughter a lot like every father loves. He fails to prove his ability to take care of his child because autistic people are distinct in nature and due to this reason, they are unable to convey their thoughts and feelings to others. Mr. Turner wins the case against him due to his weakness. As a result, his daughter Lucy was taken to the foster home.

Sam's friends recommend that he hire Rita, a lawyer to help him get Lucy back. He shows up at her office and told her his story and after few days she offers to help him for free under the pressure of being seen by these women who gossip about her at work. she was supper annoyed with him at first but eventually starts to understand and be nicer to him what to say at court. Over the course of the trial, Sam helped Rita with her family problems and helps her to realize how much her son really means to her. Sam also convince her to leave her husband, because Rita told him that he cheated on her. While Rita works with Sam on helping on what to say at the court and to keep his parential right, chaos arises when Lucy convinces Sam to help her run away from the foster home she is being kept in during the trial. During the trial however, Sam breaks down, after being convinced that he is not capable of taking care of Lucy. They didn't put under concideration how the lose of her father would affect Lusy.
In the end, the foster family who planned on adopting Lucy lets Sam have custody of her because they realized that she has deep love for her father and couldn't live without him. Sam says that Lucy still needs a mother and asks if the foster mother would like to help raise Lucy. The movie ends with Lucy's being with her father, spending time with friends and Rita being divorced and renewing her relationship with her son.
The foster family decision to be supportive to him in the reunification is a best-case scenario for foster care-reunification with ongoing support from a family that has come to love the child. I love the collaboration relationship that developed by the end of the film. He also expresses one of his reasons for wanting to be reunified with Lucy: "Long term foster care is a bad idea because the foster parents don't know her. I know her, Lucy belongs with me". The foster family is also portrayed as an unrealistically high level of power, they are able to choose whether to adopt Lucy or whether to return her to Sam.
On the negative side, the film never explores Lucy's mother, and we never earn how Lucy feels about being abandoned, except that she asks once whether her mother will come back. Sam does try to find a motherly influence for Lucy.
Above all he had his love. He had a certain understanding of life that "normal" people don't have. He doesn't deny how different he is. But he also knowns how great he can be, and he would die for his love. On the book "Parenting and disability" Jean says disabled parents need to access support both formally and informally and how their children involvement in caring for their parents could change in life-course of a disabled parent.
We also see how judgmental society can be when it comes to developmental disabilities in this movie. People usually look at your capacity to think. But Sam in the movie showed us his struggle that ended in something we might label "unrealistic" and "incredible", that all of us are retards in one way or another. And it also showed us that sometimes it is your capacity to love that matters the most. Sometimes it is all it takes to win or keep living after you've lost.
I do believe there's the reward in parenthood that one looks for, and there's the suggestion to look differently on what beauty is and what suffering means. I also believe even before taking away a child from disabled parent, assessment of parenting capacity should be based on specific evidence rather than speculation.
Sam was born to live with the true quality of living. He had his daughter, who was everything he could never be, but who gave him an extra something to fight for, no matter how unqualified people may think you are, no matter how early or how late, to forgive the mistakes that are huge, and there's the suggestion to look differently on what beauty is and what suffering is.


Reference:
Jean, C 2003, 'Parenting and disability: Disabled parents' experiences of raising children (Book)', Family Matters, no. 65, pp. 76-77.

Post 1, Group C: The purpose of life and death, BY: Weini Weldsilassie

A 2008 movie "Seven Pounds" starring the amazing 'Will Smith' which was directed by Gabriele Muccino is one of the must see categorized movie that I watched over the weekend. You don't actually know what the movie is about until you see it till the end, so it holds the mystery all the way through. The movie delivers a very powerful message and leaves you thinking about what your mission in life is and how it would change if your life is suddenly changes in a matter of seconds.
The movie begins as mysterious suicide reporting made by an anxious man Ben Thomas(Will smith) to 911 under unknown reason. It is instantly clear that the movie addresses matter of life and death, but the mortality that the story has to say can't be revealed. Ben who acts as an imposter IRS agent by stealing his brother IRS badge visits a variety of people to find people with special needs. His contradictory character of being merciless when insulting and criticizing a blind man and later him being helpful to rescue an elderly woman in a nursing home confuses you where the direction of the movie was going. From that point on, you see the order of the unexplained and a little puzzling events unfolding and leading us to the final minutes of the story.

A flashback throughout the movie reveals that Ben Thomas, will Smith, was in a terrible car accident that he caused and took seven lives including his wife. Ben's outlook on life changes with the accident. This tragic memory haunts Ben, and his grief compels him to seek out and test the character of seven individuals to see if they are deserving of gifts(his organs) he wishes to give them. In this way, he hopes to atone for the seven lives he ruins. Along the way, Ben Thomas falls in love with Emily Posas, who has a rare blood type and needs a heart transplant which requires his own life. The movie more focuses on three strangers where he changes and improves thier rare situations.
His search and helping people starts with Ezra(a blind call center worker). Ben calls Ezra to try and yell and make fun of his blindness in order to make him upset. But Ezra was calm and tried to be helpful throughout the conversation. Ben was impressed by his response and decided to help him. The other individual he went and talk to was Connie Tepos, who has two kids and was brutally beaten by her boyfriend. Ben signs the deed on his beach house over to Connie so she can escape with her kids from her abusive boyfriend. Then Ben finds a girl (Emily) who has a heart disease. When he starts to get to know her, he learned that her heart disease was getting worse and has to wait for a heart donor or she will die before a heart becomes available. Ben kills him self allowing other seven people to be saved. The movie ends with people finding out Ben was their donor.

The movie focuses on Ben's redemption through the giving of his important organs to different people. Ben finds peace and lost his feeling of guilt through his love and relationship with Emily. Ben didn't die for nothing, the people who helped started a healthy life because of him. There are so many lessons to learn from this movie. Ben's deed will leave almost anyone with sympathy at the end of the movie. I feel like the most important and central message of the movie is for us to think deep down into one's own life and discover for what purpose we are here on this world. Does something tragic has to happen as what happen to Ben for us to be aware of our surroundings and knowing people in need and providing some help? The physical act of giving is the one part of the story which was shown in the movie on fulfilling one's personal purpose on this earth. Even though the movie has a sad ending it leaves you satisfied seeing other people lives changed.

The Lady in Black

When I was young I had a a dream where a very old women who was trying to kill me and my whole family. Her very scary image still remains in mind. She was wearing a very long dark dress and carried a knives while she was chasing me and my whole family. What I really  find very funny about my dream is that I did know what we were chased for. One day after a family get together this women showed up from no where and was able to kill my dad. The pain and sorrow that I had in my dream seemed so real.

Right after she killed my dad, I was not able to bear the pain and tried to kill her back. Unluckily she was untouchable and she kept vanishing when I tried to do something to her. me and my family tried to report her, but she end up killing the people who got involved. One day when I got off school she was chasing me trying to kill me. That is when I woke up from that scary dream. Even thought that was a big relief, she kept appearing on my dreams for few times since then. It was a big relief not having in my dream anymore.