All Blade, No Handle: A Survey of Asian and Western Victim Blaming Acculturation
How would you attribute blame in these research questions? If you had to distribute a total score of 100% between the characters, how would you split it? Do you think that males and females would distribute the total score differently?
1. Jiyoung is at her first membership training. While at the party, her seniors pressure her into drinking many shots of Soju. She groggily wakes up later in a hotel room with one of her male seniors. The senior is having sex with Jiyoung, but Jiyoung does not say anything.
2. Suji is upset because her boyfriend, Jake, of seven years has to work overtime. She knows that he just bought her an expensive handbag and new earrings, so has to work more to pay off the credit card bills. Suji goes out to the club and then goes to a hotel with a man to have sex. Jake’s friend tells Jake about seeing Suji go into the hotel with the man. The next night, when Jake comes home, he is in a rage. He screams at Suji who admits she had an affair. Finally, Jake slaps Suji one time across the face.
3. Hyemin is at a dinner party with her schoolmates. She has been enjoying her conversation with her senior named Taehoon. They have known each other for over one year. Hyemin tells Taehoon that she is tired and too drunk, so she wants to go home. Taehoon offers to bring her to a nearby motel. Hyemin is worried at first, but Taehoon promises that he will be the perfect gentleman—besides, he says, he is like her older brother. Hyemin goes to the motel with Taehoon; however, while she starts to sleep, Taehoon makes sexual advances. Hyemin says she only wants to sleep and keeps rejecting Taehoon until Taehoon becomes frustrated and angry. Hyemin asks Taehoon why he tricked her into coming to the hotel. Taehoon counters saying Hyemin knew his intention all along and knew what was going to happen. Taehoon reminds Hyemin that he paid for the motel room and then tells Hyemin to stop pretending to be innocent.
A Voyage in a Film Time Machine
Although I have seen more films than any person ought to see, my lack of film culture is lacking. I have to be honest with myself that while I have viewed films, I have not given them enough respect by actively watching them. This is therefore why I have decided to trek into those very films that everyone talks about, but that I take for granted. My new mission is to go back and watch influential films critically. This means that I will not simply look at the screen passively with some drool dripping from my chin, but instead to look at the film in historical context, its relation to films by the same director, and all of the visual grammar. I have so far been too foolish; therefore, even though I must drop the front of some cultured erudite, I dedicate my first foot to the first step.
I'll keep a minimal log of the films here and use the information for something larger later. I hope to reach the point of working within themes.
What are Your Favourite Self-Reflexive and Meta Films?
These days I am on a self-reflexive cinema kick. I have becoming increasingly fascinated by metafilms and metafiction in general. As I explore the differences of film, theatre, and literature, I am ever more intrigued when an artwork draws attention to itself. What caught me in the television show, Modern Family, was the constant breaking of the fourth wall as the characters glance up at the camera at opportune or infortunate moments. This technique seems to reconnect with an audience in a why not too dissimilar from how actors perform in interplay with the audience. Similarly, Abed and Troy's In the Morning segments from the show Community just do something so right. I am trying to expand my repertoire of films and programmes in this genre; therefore, I would like to put it to you, Hivemind, for your own favourites. Which self-reflexive films have you enjoyed and what scenes stuck out to you?
Here are a few to get you started:
- Adaption
- Stranger than fiction
- Synecdoche
- Tropic Thunder
- 8½ (1963)
- Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005)
- Vanya on 42nd Street
- Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
- Blazing Saddles (1974)
- Spaceballs
- Inception
- Barton Fink
- The Hudsucker Proxy
- Breathless (1960)
- Inglourious Basterds
- eXistenZ
Should Females be Excluded from the Military because, on Average, they are Physically Weaker?
In Korea, military service is mandatory for all males. Some have suggested that females should be excluded due to average physical differences i.e., strength. Given that the basic training of the military is heavily physical, is it a legitimate argument to discriminate women? For the sake of his discussion, let us focus on mandatory duty instead of optional duty. Also, remove the possibility of segregated positions such as having females being given desk jobs or other non-physical labour. I have discussed this topic before; however, I am curious about what you all think about this aspect of the topic. Korean friends, please do not hesitate to give your opinion on the issue. This is a gentle discussion because I am curious ^_^
Martin Luther King, Jr. — Letter From Birmingham Jail
"In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society".
A Letter to the Religious
By my own interpretation of the world through logic and rationality, I am forced to be a non-theist; however, at least today, in my current thought, I am also pro-religion. I am not pro-religion in the sense that various religious organisations and individuals are righteous in all of their motivations, I am pro-religion in its highest values. I am, for example, not anti-Christian. Quite the contrary, I am entirely pro-Christian. For those that subscribe to a religion, I instead demand that they embrace the highest ideals and follow the main tenants. I urge the religious to know anything and everything about their religion. I encourage them to pick and choose which passages to obey; however, not out of convenience and personal justification. If you are religious, be religious in the highest sense. Follow your path truly. As a non-theist, I would not want to take this passion away from you, I know of the many treasures that await you, instead I want to inspire you to know and love your religion well.
It is when you do not know your religion well and when you reduce it to the lowest common denominator that I will be ready to pounce upon you, surgical instruments in hand, keen on spiritual dissection and autopsy.
Mental Malware: The Psychology of Korean Advertisements
Author: Knigel Holmes
Abstract
On the basis that current psychological research into mass media gives more representation to Western than Korean cultures, this project uses Western research theories alongside Korean studies to investigate persuasion techniques in 10 Korean advertisements. If Western psychological research on mass media is valid across cultures, then the concepts, theories, and studies will apply to Korean mass media. The collection includes personal photographs taken in Korea as well as Internet videos of commercials played on Korean television and in New York City’s Times Square. The methodology restricts the samples to subtle advertisements not derived from a Western view of a strange or exotic Korea. The results find instances of peripheral routes of persuasion that use various appeals and tactics related to Western media. This project discusses cross-cultural and cross-border tactics as well as ageism, sexism, and gender roles. The results suggest that while there are differences, Western theories are applicable to Korean mass media; however, the implications emphasise further mass media research from a Korean perspective and an increase of media literacy.
Defrocking Pornography: A Peepshow Into Pornography, Erotica, & Freedom
"It's red hot, mate. I hate to think of this sort of book getting in the wrong hands. As soon as I've finished this, I shall recommend they ban it." ~Tony Hancock
Pornography. This unsightly, yet arousing word has an ambiguous nature of which provides legal force to moral judgements or untethers social taboos. This term imprisons or emancipates depending on the momentum of the social pendulum. Joining the fray to define, Britain A. Scott, in ‘Women and Pornography: What We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us’, argues that females should have legal recourse if pornography harms them. To give legal footing, pornography needs a definition that protects females from abuse while not restricting sexual freedom. We should, therefore, disentangle sex from violence while defining pornography so that people have legal recourse if they feel that pornography has harmed them; however, at the same time we must be cautious that we do not degrade our freedom of speech and expression.
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Twitter Updates
- 5 of 5 stars to To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee http://t.co/1NxznrYx 2012-03-11
- 4 of 5 stars to Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse http://t.co/RXKWI6Es 2012-03-08
- My Siberian chipmunks, Bean and Walnut or usually "Kong" 콩 and "Hodu" 호두 http://t.co/pGTB0ZbP 2012-02-21
- 5 of 5 stars to Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury http://t.co/dI00xda7 2012-02-14
- 5 of 5 stars to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn http://t.co/3iIHhuZo 2012-02-10
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Introduction
Email: i@knigel.com
Phone: 010-7277-1979
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Recent Posts
- The Kangaroo Panopticon
- Please, I Want to Go to Prison
- Oldboy for Little Girls and Little Boys
- On Pico Iyer’s ‘Where Worlds Collide’
- We are God, and God is Dead: The Deaths and Resurrections of the comedic genius, Kim Jong-il
- The Many Names: A South Korean Folktale
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- Swimming in Charcoal: Following South Korean Streams into Culture, History, and Memory
- The Obituary of Billy Capra
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- George Carlin — Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics
- George Orwell — Politics and the English Language
- Horace Miner — Body Ritual among the Nacirema
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. — Harrison Bergeron
- Shirley Jackson — The Lottery
- Ursula K LeGuin — The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas
- Willa Cather — Paul’s Case: A Study in Temperament