Modern Ireland: Past, Present, and Future
Hunger is a film written by Edna Walk and Steve McQueen and also directed by Steve McQueen. McQueen, an Englishman, is known in the art industry for having a very creative and detailed eye for identifying, capturing, and magnifying the slightest detail and assigning it a multitudinous of different contextual meanings. Hunger, McQueen’s first feature film, does not disappoint or deviate from his artistic fashion and as a result, Hunger brings to life the political, social, and disturbingly graphic conflicts that occurred in the Maze prison complex during the hunger strike of 1981. The historical context of Hunger, being released into the current media market, acts as an emotional thermometer for gauging how modern-day society remembers, learns from, and reflects on this modern-day historical event that is personal, yet, controversial to many people in the UK and around the world.
The film takes place in Northern Ireland in 1981 and follows the events of Bobby Sands, a Provisional IRA member who spearheaded and actively participated in both the hunger strike. During this time period of violence and tension between the Nationalist Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Northern Ireland, the Prime Minister to Britain, Margaret Thatcher, had withdrawn the rights of political prisoners five years previously. In 1981, she famously said in a redeclaration of withdrawn rights, “There is no such thing as political murder, political bombing, and political violence. There is only criminal murder, criminal bombing, and criminal violence.” The protests and hunger strike of 1981 were a successful but drastic attempt to regain the status of political prisoner, from a government who considered Irish Nat...
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...ing his life for what he believes in, it will instigate a new wave of Irish Identity that would encourage people to continue fighting for the betterment of Ireland. The film doesn’t seem to intentionally stir political debate or instigate further cross-national dispute, but instead, have audiences realize and understand what happened, accept it as history, and appreciate the powerful story of a man who willingly died for his beliefs.
Works Cited
"Hunger (2008) - Awards." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2010. .
Patterson, Henry. Ireland since 1939 . Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002. Print.
kinematographos. “ YouTube - "Hunger" - Steve McQueen interview (1/4) ." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2010. .
In 476 AD, centuries of amassed knowledge in science and philosophy, literature and the arts lay in peril of destruction alongside the physical Roman Empire. Thomas Cahill's book How the Irish Saved Civilization sheds light upon the role of the Irish people in the conservation and rebirth of civilization and the Western tradition after the fall of the Roman Empire. It is here that Cahill opens his book and after a brief description of classical civilization, that we are given a look at another people, far different from the Romans and Greeks- the vibrant and intriguing Celts. How these people came in contact with the civilized world and how they assisted in pulling the West out of the Dark ages is, then, the paramount of Cahill's argument.
Obesity and opposition are the two main issues of this film. The issue of obesity, treated lightly in the beginning of the film and then severely by the end, reflects society’s approach to weight loss. To ...
The book, “The Irish Way” by James R. Barrett is a masterpiece written to describe the life of Irish immigrants who went to start new lives in America after conditions at home became un-accommodative. Widespread insecurity, callous English colonizers and the ghost of great famine still lingering on and on in their lives, made this ethnic group be convinced that home was longer a home anymore. They descended in United States of America in large numbers. James R. Barrett in his book notes that these people were the first group of immigrants to settle in America. According to him, there were a number of several ethnic groups that have arrived in America. It was, however, the mass exodus of Irish people during and after the great famine that saw the use of the word “immigrant” being used to refer to them. Irish people descended to America fully loaded with their culture and religious beliefs that according to the writer of this book enabled them to assimilate faster into the American society more than any other group. Phrases and words like, Irish-American policemen, Irish-American teachers, Irish –American politicians were coined in social cultural set up of America. This wave shaped the process of assimilating other immigrants that came after them.
1. The Scotch-Irish were staunch libertarians, and acted upon their feelings. Sex ways and dress ways had close ties to each other in the backcountry. To talk about sex and sexual behavior was also acceptable in this culture. The dress women and men wore was meant to arouse the opposite sex. Anglican missionary Charles Woodmason wrote, “They draw their shift as tight as possible round their Breasts, and slender waists (for they are generally very finely shaped) and draw their Petticoat close t their Hips to show the fineness of their limbs– … –indeed nakedness is not censurable without ceremony.” Woodmason was appalled at how these women carried themselves, but to the women, they were sexy. Men even dressed in ways to show off their bodies. Men wore pants that showed their upper thighs and part of their hips. To be naked to the backsettlers was just as normal as being clothed. Families slept together and undressed in front of one another, and some children even ran around half naked according to Woodmason.
In the essay “Spare Change”, the author, Teresa Zsuaffa, illustrates how the wealthy don’t treat people facing poverty with kindness and generosity, but in turn pass demeaning glares and degrading gestures, when not busy avoiding eye contact. She does so by writing an emotional experience, using imagery and personification whenever possible to get to the reader’s heart. Quite similarly, Nick Saul writes, in the essay “The Hunger Game”, about how the wealthy and people of social and political power such as “[the community’s] elected representatives” (Saul, 2013, p. 357) leave the problem of hunger on the shoulders of the foodbanks because they believe “feeding the hungry is already checked off [the government’s] collective to-do list” (Saul,
In order to legitimise a regime or cause, traditions may be constructed around historical or mythological events, people or symbols that reinforce the image required to focus people’s conception of the past. People can be encouraged to invent a cohesive view of their shared ‘traditions’ by what could be called cherry picking bits of history.
Clearly the experts did not expect this, they even advised Spurlock to stop the movie over health concerns. Although Spurlock 's diet was very extreme, this film presented some hard to ignore facts regarding fast food. In addition to the physical side effects, Spurlock did an outstanding job showing the viewer how the fast food companies target children with their
HUNGER: An Unnatural History." Kirkus Reviews 73.12 (2005): 675. Literary Reference Center. Web. 6 Mar. 2014.
The Starving Games is a 2013 film directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. The film was created entirely to parody the ever so popular movie The Hunger Games. The Starving Games starred actors you’ve never heard of such as Maiara Walsh as Kantmiss Evershot and Cody Christian as Peter Malarkey. Maiara Walsh was possibly one of the only actors in the entire film who was actually known for anything due to the fact that production wasn't really that large and thus struggled to pull in anyone who had been in larger, more popular productions. One thing that was even more surprising about the inability to pull in any big names was that The Starving Games had a rather substantial budget of 4.5 million
The controversy over abortion has been going on for years. This movie portrays how the debate has changed over the decades in a befitting manner. It is about three different women who come upon having to make the choice of terminating their pregnancies. The setting takes place in the same house during the course of 40 years where a different women deals with the option of aborting her fetus. This movie shows the various reasons woman want to get abortions, each being a valid reason in a liberal point of view.
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