Explore Some Of The Ideas

Explore some of the ideas, summary and reflection In Essays and Images from Popular Culture

BY KUNAKORN SUWANNARANGSRI

Why We Crave Horror Movies STEPHEN KING

THINKING AHEAD Do you like horror movies? Which ones terrify you? If they frighten you, why do you watch them? A horror movie is one of my favorite movies beside action, animation, fantastic movie. There are many horror movies that I like for example, SAW I-IV, The ring, the Exorcist, Dawn of the Dead. These all frighten me especially the exorcist because of the gruesome images and plot of the story. The reason I really like a horror movie because they give me an excitement feeling, give me a lot of imagination about ghost and gruesome stuffs. I like to watch the exciting movies. I think it fun when watching horror movies alone at night time, the dark and quite atmosphere always let me really into the movie. Responding To the Topic In the essay, Why We Crave Horror Movies” is King’s attempt to explain why we love it -horror movies”. He also gives many great examples support for his essay. At the beginning of essay, his statement “we are all mentally ill”, I totally agree with him because some horror movies tend to like the excitement they receive from experiencing extreme nervousness, disgust, panic and fear as several reasons supported ideas of craving behavior. First, he claims that we watch a horror movie because challenging ourselves and show that we are brave, not afraid like riding a roller coaster. He also implies that horror movies only appeal to the young. "And horror movies, like roller coaster, have always been the special province of the young". Second, he explains why we crave horror movies because we want to reestablish our feeling of essential normality like fulfill entertainment and excitement in our lives. According to Stephen King, "the horror film has become a modern version of public lynching." Some people think it sort of fun indeed to watch others threatened or killed. Horror movies can drive people, especially adult, to become like children again. I also agree that we might be insane because we like to watch the violence and frighten story to express fear and allow our emotion release. Moreover, because we all need to across the boundary lines between reality and imagination, and horror movies can let us see things that impossible in normal everyday life.

Summary Why We Crave Horror Movies

The article “Why We Crave Horror Movies” by Stephen King will be used as an example. In King’s essay, I learned that he attempted to explain why some people love horror movies. Since I also interested in horror movies, this essay grabbed my attention a lot. When I read throughout the text, I had been thinking what he claimed in the text, which some of them I totally agree, and some of them I didn’t even think about. He gave many possible reasons why we crave horror movies to support for his essay. At the beginning, his statement “we are all mentally ill” is very a good hook for me. I also thought about why we had to pay 4-5 bucks for watching a horror movie. Why people wanted to see the scary thing? Therefore I kind of agree with him that we are actually mentally ill. People like the excitement they experienced from the nervousness. He claimed that we watch horror movies to challenge ourselves and show that we are brave, like riding a roller coaster. He also implied that horror movies only appeal to young people. “And horror movies, like roller coaster, have always been the special province of the young”. In addition, he explained that we watched horror movies to reconfirm normalcy or to feel normal by fulfilling entertainment and excitement in our lives. In his turning point in his essay, “And we go to have fun”, which doesn’t make sense for me for the first time I read. However, in class, I learned that the rest of his essay conversed that the reasons we crave horror movies not only for having fun, but there were many reasons he considered. “The fun comes from seeing other menaced- someone killed”. He said that because people today never get chance to watch the public lynching or the public hanging anymore in real life. Therefore these people wanted to fulfill their excitement by watching horror movies. “It is true that the mythic, Fairy- tale.” What does it mean in this sentence? First I couldn’t analyze what its meaning, however I again learned from the teacher. Children feel and imagine things immediately when they heard the story, and horror movies allow us to feel like a child again. There is a continued people are on somewhere on the line between normal and insane, but people who place themselves under the line normal, they just actually hiding how insane they are. Our culture had been taught us what is good, what is bad? Parents tried to shape their child to behavior and become civilize. However, the anticivilization still in us, the horror movies allow us to get to depress, to feel fear without doing something wrong or illegal. It is a job of horror movies to lead and allow people to respond to their anticivilization.

Identity in a Virtual World MICHELLE JANA CHAN

THINKING AHEAD (p.123)

online alter egos are called avatars.

Do you have or would you like to have an avatar? Why? What would your avatar look like? Would it be human or nonhuman? What would be its gender, its name, its race, and its age? Why would you make these choices when you create your avatar? I would love to create an avatar that look like myself the most, just for show how I look, but it is not necessary exactly the same in real life, somehow I also wanted an avatar to express an appearance and a character in another world, online world. My avatar would be a human avatar and female, skinny, long dark brown hair; sometime I create my hair color differently than usual. Race is not very important however I prefer light brown so people can satisfy that I am an Asian girl. PROBING CONTENT (P.125) 1. According to the essay, how can online identity be more “flexible” than real identity? How do avatars usually differ from their real-life counterparts? Provide specifics in your response. In online world, people can create avatar to identify themselves but in virtual look for example, some people maybe fat but in avatar they can portrait themselves skinny or look even good than in real life. Moreover, Avatar generator also have many functions, items or even accessories for people to put in there avatars. 4. Nick Yee states that virtual worlds “trap us even more” (para.12). More than what? In what ways? He states that in online worlds, a lot of people put themselves in the online worlds; they see what they used to see and spend a lot of time in this world. The term “they trap us even more” refer to what people see and spend time either money in the online world, because in this world they don’t know what actually appear and what the truth is. ANALYZING THE IMAGE (P.127) 3. How does the layout of the photograph mirror the idea of an alter ego or a spirit personality? How effective is this visual composition? The layout of the photograph gives the idea of an alter ego in which people create avatars to express themselves in the virtual world in ways that cannot be done in the real

world. Many people do not want to show their identity to the online world or even the gaming world, so people create images that oppose their characters in real life. 4. How does seeing this photograph affect your reading? Pay particular attention to paragraph 4 in which Chan discusses Robbie Cooper’s impression of Choi Seang Rak and Uroo Ahs. The reading surprised me because the professor of public policy and law, who I assume should look like the professional, smart and imperturbable man but in his avatar, he portrays himself as an Uroo Ahs, a cute little girl.

Summary Globalization vs. Americanization ANDREW LAM

In the article “Globalization vs. Americanization”, by Andrew Lam, he argued that we are now seeing an Americanization of the world like eating at McDonald’s, listening to Madonna, and shopping at mega malls.”, meaning that the globalization by the U.S. had affected many people in the world. He stated his opinion that globalization is not the same as Americanization. Lam used to live in Vietnam, and he was raised during the Vietnam War. Later, the war ended, his family and him moved to America and learned something new. He examined that many cities such as China and France are no longer fantasies, but they look the same because of Americanization was spread over those cities. For example, in those cities we can see many signs of McDonald all over the places. In addition, he talked about the technology of communication which is now very easy for people around the world to contact each other. However, when he compared his friend’s view with his own, they were different. He resembled his differences with his friend with that of Disney and the novel “The English Patient” by Ondaatje. Disney borrowed world narratives and made the complicated story to be like happily ever after. On the other hand, the Ondaatje’s novel is a unique story that shows people struggling with life. Even though American company like McDonald and mega malls spread throughout the world, in returned, for example, Thai and Vietnam restaurants also increased in America as well. Also other traditions and cultures still resist and will not fade out, even though CNN and MTV are being a part of their multi socialization. However, we tend to forget that they have dramatically changed our life style toward Americanization.

Tyler Perry’s Money Machine Eugene Robinson

“Tyler Perry’s Money Machine” by Eugene Robinson. In the short essay I learned about the successful African American director, actor, and film-maker. He earned a ton of million dollars from his movies. Before he became successful and well know like today, he actually grew up from the very poor family. However he had a dream, and now he pursued his dream. His movie Madea’s Family Reunion, earned 30$ dollars million weekend. I think he is very clever guy since he rented the studio in Atlanta, where is a lot cheaper than Hollywood’s studio. Most of his movies, based on the African American lives, for example, Why Did I Get Married?, Madea’s Family, Girlfriends etc. which all of them had the strong respondents from black viewers.