Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Xbox one vs ps4 compare and contrast essay
Xbox one vs ps4 compare and contrast essay
Ps4 and xbox comparison essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Xbox one vs ps4 compare and contrast essay
Michael Stainbrook
Star Wars in American Culture
5-1-14
Term Paper
Fanboys
What is it that characterizes people who love a series of film, fiction, video game, video game console or any other works of the like to be deemed the all-encompassing term of “fanboy?” Fanboys are most known on the internet for passionately supporting their particular fandom and therefore consequently denying all forms of logical argument to support their claims, or better yet, known simply as “trolls.” So whenever you jump on reddit.com and see a particular post about how PS4 is better than the Xbox One, you can see that there is clearly going to be a large fan-boy war over which of the two consoles is better. But why is it that we as fan-boys seem to take anything that criticizes our particular series of interest as a deep and personal wound? Why do we feel the need to argue with someone else because they do not feel the same way that we do about our certain object of idolism? And how does all of this pertain to Star Wars in American Culture? In this paper I will discuss how about what constitutes a fan-boy, some of the psychology behind fan-boys and how all of this pertains to Star Wars.
Thorin Klosowski from lifehacker.com defines a fan-boy as “a fanboy (or fangirl) is someone who defends their favorite phone/politician/city/OS/game/console/genre/etc. while attacking everything else” (Klosowski). Thorin goes on to say that the fanboy puts their complete blind trust in whichever side that they have chosen and then stubbornly sticks to that side. He also goes on to say how this is not only obnoxious to everyone around us, but it also means that we tend to attack ourselves to a certain series or brand and possibly lose all critical thinking choices wh...
... middle of paper ...
... it for the fear of negative emotions related to loss if our investment of money or time wasn’t “worth it.” The Choice Supportive Bias theory explains how we create false realizations about our purchases, consequently tricking our brain into viewing our purchases as the best on the market. Star Wars is a multibillion dollar franchise that has had a major impact on our different aspects of culture in today’s society. One of those aspects is fanboys. With such an overwhelming amount of Star Wars fans it is undeniable that Star Wars has had a huge impact on the way we identify ourselves with other like-minded individuals who make up memberships of our fanboy community. Finally, Star Wars is only one example of how fanboy culture has been influenced by a popular film. And for all of us who tend to identify with Star Wars fan culture, J.J. Abrams better not screw it up!
John Leo is a columnist and contributing editor that has been writing for U.S. News & World Report since 1988. Prior to that he worked for Time magazine and The New York Times covering topics such as social sciences and popular culture. The thesis of John Leo’s latest U.S. News & World Report article, “Fu Manchu on Naboo,” does not leave the reader any room to guess what his discussion is going to be about. He drives the point home from the beginning of the article. The central idea is very direct and easy to locate. It appears at the end of the first paragraph and simply states “Episode I: The Phantom Menace is packed with awful stereotypes.”
In society today, we are conditioned to believe certain sets of ideals. We use these ideals to interact and get along with the other people we surround ourselves with. These ideals are often the societal norms that form common ground amongst individuals. However, living life based off these basic and unchanging beliefs is not beneficial to humanity, nor does it make life any easier to live. In fact, holding on to the most accepted beliefs holds back society as a whole. Judith Halberstam, in her essay “Animating Revolt and Revolting Animation” challenges these societal norms through the analysis of animated movies and, in doing so, carves a path for a new way of thinking.
The movie, Cool Hand Luke, tells a story of a man named, Lucas Jackson, who is confronted with the challenges of authority after being wrongfully convicted of crime too petty and insignificant to equate to the large sentence he had received. Throughout the entire length of the film, Lucas is faced with tremendous physical and emotional torture in numerous and inhuman ways. Despite the astounding punishments Luke is able to endure throughout the film, he manages to gain the respect of the prisoners and guards’, as well as utilizing his tenacity, charisma, and wits to not only influence the prison chain-gang, but to gain the power in order to unmask and expose the authority around them. In the following essay, I will analyze and describe how
Many people who grew up in 1960s and 70s with watching the Japanese animated television series by Tatsuo Yoshida would be very familiar with Speed Racer by Andy and Larry Wachowski in 2008 (American Film Institute Catalog, 2008). As a big hit in the summer of 2008, Speed Racer was considered as a box office bomb because it failed to break even at the box office and received generally negative reviews from film critics such as A.O. Scott and Jim Emerson. The Wachowski brothers were criticized in the conventional sense of cinema; however, it did succeed in its technological innovation and digital novelty (Emerson, 2008). As the rise of subculture in the American popular culture, Speed Racer did appear to satisfy and entertain the certain group of people who enthusiastic about the film including fans of Wachowski and gamers. Therefore, this refers to the reading of a film. Different approaches to read a film will result in different perceptions and conclusions. The French New Wave director Francois Truffaut argued that the authorship should be presented in the works of the best filmmakers. Nonetheless, this essay will focus on why the semiotic approach to read a film offers a better way to understand the American popular culture than the auteur theory even the semiotic theory may contain bias sometimes.
In his article “Star Trek Rerun, Reread, Rewritten,” Henry Jenkins addresses the function of fandoms, more specifically the writing of fan-fiction, and further in the context of the Star Trek fandom. He claims that fans are “textual poachers” who take pieces of the original text that they deem as worthy, and rework, or improve areas that they find problematic or contradictory to the overall purpose of the piece. This “poaching” that is transformed works into fan-fiction are heavily written by females, at least in the Star Trek fandom. Jenkins states that this is due to the fact that women have a rather limited and highly stereotyped portrayal in science fiction. Thus, in writing fan-fiction, women are able to express themselves and their own
Motion Pictures have always had a strong influence in today’s culture, but maybe none as prevalent as Star Wars. Originating with Episode 4 A New Hope, the series boomed from 1977 to 2005 with yet another addition coming in 2015. The strongest of the series was the original trilogy episodes 4, 5, and 6, all generally released in the 1980s. As one of the strongest film francaises still today, it’s impact within the 1980s was only the tip of the iceberg. Children and adults alike still anticipate the new edition of this seemingly endless journey. If any singular film series still holds prevalence in its future decades it is Star Wars: Original Trilogy.
Most avid comic book fans would agree that they were less than enthused when Marvel Studios decided to reboot the Spiderman movie franchise in 2012 – just 11 years after the quasi-successful run of the original trilogy (Proctor). As one of the aforementioned avid comic book fans, Marc Bernadin, writer for “io9” (a technology and lifestyle website), rightfully questioned this decision by stating, “in this day and age, does Spidey have to be a white guy?” (Bernardin). This question fueled an Internet phenomenon that forced creators and fans alike to re-evaluate the way that they see the characters they love so much in terms of their race. Media makers and content creators have an ethical responsibility to “represent the many facets of humanity” (Petrou, Jan. 27). ‘Race-bending’ is when a content creator dresses a character as someone of a different race, or changes the race of the character entirely from one race to another (Ibid). In this paper, I aim to explore the influence of social media on race-bending, as it applies to comic book culture and its meaningfulness to the fan community. My principle arguments will draw from an examination of the Marvel comic universe, the #donald4spiderman campaign and the “Amazing Spiderman” movie franchise in order to show that through the power of social media, we are changing the way we root for heroes regardless of their race or ethnicity– moving society forward as a progressive culture.
Imagine flying through a ice covered planet or zooming through the sand plains of tattoine or battling against the dark side next to Luke Skywalker well sounds amazing right? These are the things that make the Star Wars universe so fascinating in the upcoming paragraphs about how Star Wars has elements of story, that make Star Wars so popular. Star Wars is a cultural institution of immense proportions. Its impact on Hollywood alone has been incalculable. It’s impossible to imagine Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., The Matrix, or The Lord of the Rings without Star Wars. Yes because all these movies have been impacted from Star Wars they all transfer you to a different era from you fighting off Nazis to walking into mordor.
In today’s culture psychologist, sociologist, and scientist investigate several types of personalities. Personality is the pattern of behavior, though process, emotions, and reactions to the people that surround us on daily basis. Several test have been developed for testing personalities. Some test can be simple and short while others lengthy and complicated. Scholars demonstrated knowledge about personalities looking back many thousands of years. The Greeks published a well documented history in profiling people according to personality traits. Two interesting character personalities are conformist type personality and manipulative type personality.
When putting the three articles together, you can see exactly how Disney is able to control popular culture and the media. Disney controls the media and uses propaganda in order to influence beliefs that shape society’s culture. Part 2. After going through the first semester of First Year Seminar Deconstructing Disney, my viewpoints on many things have changed and how I watch and perceive films has also changed. However, the way I perceive the film Wall-E has not changed much.
Star Wars (1977) is one of the world’s most successful films of all time. It has made a terrific impact on popular culture since its release. Furthermore, Star Wars changed the narrative and aesthetic style of future Hollywood films. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, illustrates how cinema has evolved since Fred Ott’s Sneeze (1894). Ultimately, this essay will explain the set up of Star Wars and how it connects to cinema history, in the point of views of the: narrative and cinematic style, genre, auteur theory and the global film industry.
This journal article is entirely credible and written by two women who know what they’re talking about. This article discusses how video games form stereotypes about both genders and that they impact both gamers and non-gamers. Men are portrayed as aggressive and women are unsurprisingly portrayed as sex objects. A main issue with this is that video games are mostly played by the younger generation meaning these are the ideas being imbedded into the youth of the world. The...
Fandom is a term that refers to a subculture that consists of fans who share a feeling of camaraderie with other fans who share a common interest. Those that consider themselves to be part of a fandom are typically interested in even minor details of those interests, spend a large amount of their time on their interest and are usually members of social media sites that allow them to discuss this interest in detail. This is what differentiates them from those who only show a casual interest.
Masculinity is changing today as society requires not just a skill set of something that a man should have, but rather certain characters that they should uphold. It is a development of motivating character that stems to actions that define masculinity. Masculinity does not tie to certain set of skills and the process of retaining masculine identity in society today is evolving around one’s knowledge and character. In society today, the concept of masculinity can be possessed in both men and women, depending on certain types of characters that he or she acquires. I this essay, I will discuss about masculinity that embodies in the role of heroes in the two films, Star Wars and The Matrix.
Fan Culture is something that has been around for a while, but it the last twenty years, since the introduction of the Internet, it is also something that has changed dramatically. A fan is an enthusiast of something and now the Internet is a good home for fans to gather and build together a community of fans, a ‘Fandom’. The turn Fandom means a community of a group of people who all enjoy them same thing and the Internet has created a place for online communities. Fan Culture has irreversibly changed the media industry because of the ability share information and fan made created content. The creation of these online based communities have meant that people from all over the world can talk about the latest TV shows, movies, books, comics and other forms of content and create groups dedicated to them. The Internet has also become a platform for the creation of a collective community, where individuals who all have shared interests can go. “Fans uses of technologies bring a sense of playfulness to the work of active reading” (2010; 12). Digital Fandoms are user-led forum of content creation, the fans create a number of things; fan fiction, fan blogs, fan made videos, fan art work, wiki leaks. The fans create a whole new life, another side of the TV show, film or book, that is complicity run and used by the fans. These fan made creation do not have to stick to what is canon in the show and can do what they wish with the character and the storylines. However is this an okay thing to do, Henry Jenkins refers to the fans who create these things are ‘Textual Poachers’. Those fans are now active interpreters instead of passive consumers. In this view the fans are poaching the created content of the writer. The fans have power to create t...