Response to “Shrek: Parody or Form of Retaliation？"

The essay “Shrek: Parody or Form of Retaliation” mainly discusses the birth of Shrek. The author puts forward a question at title, catching readers’ attention soon. Parody or form of retaliation, these two words have a taste of gossip, which are the most popular topics on the table. The author does not give the answer quickly, on the contrary, encourages readers to find themselves. The author mentions Jeffrey Katzenberg, the producer of Shrek and the founder of DreamWorks, he once worked at Disneyland for Michael Eisner. However, they did not get along well with each other obviously when Jeffrey Katzenberg claimed that Disney owed him over two hundred and fifty million dollars in unpaid bonuses from his tenure as one of the chairmen of Disney studios. Thus he left and set up DreamWorks, and with the help of Hollywood and media, Dream Work was known to the public soon and a competitive race between Dream Work and Disney land also began. By providing many facts and figures, the author support his argument that Shrek is a parody and a form of retaliation and convince his readers.For an example, he mentions "a particular ridiculing scene": Lord Farquaad’s kingdom, Duloc, which is inspired by Disneyland.In a word, the author really puts forward a interesting point and makes a good argument.

Explaining Quotes

quote:The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.(Steve Ballmer)

explanation: Ballmer suggests that technology not only empowers people to do what they want to do, but also lets people be creative, productive and learn more things than before, which contributes to stimulating people’s potential as well as promoting education.

It support my thesis.

It expands my thesis and riches my essay’s content.

Response to “Insights from a Cinderella Story”

First, the author claim that some movies are so rich with symbolism and then mentioned a movie Ever After-A Cinderella Story. She takes a different view to read Cinderella again, in her stepmother shoes, giving many interesting and fresh information and thoughts. She reminds us, stepmother is in a tough situation as a single mother with a household to run, and three girls to raise while Cinderella still hardly deserves the fall from the good life she had with her father.Then, the author thinks and explores more deeply that she suggests the Cinderella Story shows us how it feels when the shelter of childhood ends. When this warm and safe shelter ends, we are supposed to grow and take more responsibilities than before. Hence, “There are always step-sisters within--inner critics ready to find fault with everything we do. It is easy to project this--so that we imagine that others think badly of us. Dealing with the mean step-sister voice within is a struggle for most people.”

Response to "Why the Marriage Need Never Get Old"

  Just as the author said, "as long as marriage and love and relationships have high stakes for us emotionally, they have the potential to offer rich subject material for novelists, no matter how flimsy or comparatively uninteresting contemporary relationships seem on their surface." I agree with her opinion that love is an eternal theme for art.

  At the beginning, author mentioned an English professor's argue, “In the days when success in life had depended on marriage, and marriage had depended on money, novelists had a subject to write about. The great epics sang of war, the novel of marriage. Sexual equality, good for women, had been bad for the novel. And divorce had undone it completely. What would it matter whom Emma [Bovary] married if she could file for separation later?”His argue seems quite reasonable at first. However, after several read and thinking, it becomes laughable.The contemporary social conditions can never become the excuse for contemporary novel's ordinary, for art art is the deposit of life.

Response to “RuPaul, Big Freedia, and the Mainstreaming of Gender Performance”

Response to “RuPaul, Big Freedia, and the Mainstreaming of Gender Performance”

 RuPaul is a brave person who dare to challenge artificial production “gender” and to break stereotypes. Pursuing her own heart and voice, she ignores worldly prejudice and shows her beauty in drag dance incisively and vividly. Almost no one would believe that incredible woman is a man by physiological after watching her performance because she is even beautiful than many true women. Unlike some men or women who would like to hide their real thoughts and voice, accepting “gender model” compliantly, RuPaul chooses a totally different way. Facing others’ doubt and taunt, she never shake to budge from her opinion.
  When babies were born, they have been decided to become what a person already. Without their own identities, they are limited to a cage called “gender” and they are expected to have proper behaviors just like assembly line products with signs of woman and man. However, everyone has his or her own identity which can not be constrained and copied.

Response to Cinderella and Feminism

When I was a little girl, my major reading material was fairy tale. Not only me, almost every children will start their reading of fairy tale with cute pictures. However, I did not connect these fairy tales to feminism then. I accepted the figure of man and woman naturally as my first rough gender identification. “Cinderella is the perfect example of a beautiful, quiet, nurturing, and subordinate woman that girls relate to.” The image of Cinderella prompts the exception of female and male; Girl will form a kind of subconscious mind that limit herself to become a Cinderella type girl while boy will dream to marry a girl with good qualities like Cinderella. These two consciousness may not exist very long, but do have a huge influence to children as their first rough gender identification. Just as writer wrote in article, “little girls who identify with Cinderella will wait for their prince charming to fulfill their life and accept subordination and domesticity as their nature role.”

Response To Why Woman Smile

Mona

Dr.Marquardt

ENG1430 W10

Apirl, 1,2015

Amy Cunningham mentioned in her article Why Women Smile, “Despite all the work we American women have done to get and maintain full legal control of our bodies, not to mention our destinies, we still don’t seem to be fully in charge of a couple of small muscle groups in our faces.” In that case, women’ smile is constructed to a social product which is cheap and fake rather a real emotion reveal and an affective way. In general, bona fide smiles will make people happy , comfortable and have a good impression. However, it can not be the legitimate reason that enforces women to smile whenever.

Most people always associated smile with joy, relief and amusement, however, smiles also contains negative emotions like frightened, embarrassed, angry, sad or miserable. Hence, when a woman smile, it can not have a hasty conclusion that she is happy; a smile can become her stranded protection to hide her real emotions.

Response To My Partner's Argument

Response To My Partner's Argument

Response To My Partner's Argument

Mona

Dr.Marquardt

ENG1430 W10

March 30, 2015

Although in many Cinderella type stories, hero and heroine will get married, marriage still is not an essential element in traditional Cinderella story. Accordingly, love is the key element that no matter which movie will never lost. Marriage is just the harvest of love, the easiest proof of love. In WALL E, WALL E's love to Eve is conspicuous which does not need the marriage to tell audience that they love each other and have a happy life after. Additionally, if they married, this movie will be ridiculous and finally falls into stereotypes. In other words, many movies try to avoid to be defined as Cinderella type movies because it may takes a risk to lose audience’s interest and enthusiasm. Most audience is familiar with traditional Cinderella story and they can even know what will happened so if WALL E follows traditional Cinderella story precisely, it would not have such a big success and became a excellent movie. In a word, WALL E and Eve they do not get married can not be the reason that WALL E is not a Cinderella type story.

Response to “The Losers’ Club”

Zhu Mengna/Mona

Dr. Marquardt

ENG 1430 W10

March 25th, 2015

Response to “The Losers’ Club”

The Loser’s Club mainly talks about a frustrated thing happened when author was a child which had a profound effect of his life. The author wanted to open a comic book club called COLUMBIA COMIC BOOK CLUB. With the help of his mother, he rented a place, bought a tables and many folded chairs and even put up a poster. However, no one came to his club expect for a boy who looked like about same age with the author. That boy seemed very disappointed without concealment. Maybe this is the first time for the author tasted failure bitter that made him unforgettable. Just as the author wrote, “Though I derive a sense of strength and confidence from writing and from my life as husband and father, those pursuits are notoriously subject to endless setbacks and the steady exposure of shortcoming, weakness, and insufficiency——in particular in the raising of children. A father is a man who fails every day.” Life is not easy for every one; behind a few perfect days always hide some kind of trouble. The Losers’ Club is a respite opened to every one who feels tired and frustrated.

Project.2.2

Zhu Mengna/Mona

Dr. Marquardt

ENG 1430 W10

March 12th, 2015

WALLE, a cinderella-type robot

After watching a lot of Disney movies, it is not difficult to find that traditional Cinderella story always has these main elements, unattainable potential mate, transformation and happily ever after and etc. The movie WALL·E(2008) directed by Andrew Stanton mainly talks about an outdated and abandoned robot called WALL·E who finally reaps a sweet love and save the earth. The story happens in A.D. 2007,  although human civilization has highly developed, the earth is not suitable for human to live because of heavy pollution and excess waste. Before human leave the earth,  they entrusted Buynlarge company to clear the rubbish which prompted the birth of WALL·E, Waste Allocation Load Lifters – Earth. However, with the passage of time and bad environment, these robots gradually  were worn out expect for the protagonist WALL·E. He still continued this seemingly never ending work without complaints who also have good qualities like Cinderella. One day the heroine Eve,  a beautiful and high-tech newest robot appeared in earth when she was sent to explore signs of life, which totally break WALL·E’s peaceful but lonely life. A series of things happened in coincidence. Eve was “broken” and WALL·E took care of her. They adored each other day in and day out. But not for long, Eve was called to go back to the ship. Transitions happens when  the little WALL·E began a breathtaking trip of space for saving his lover and recalling her lover’s memory. Finally he made it and simulated human to go back to earth and have a new, green, real life. As for WALL·E and Eve, they lived happy ever after.In fact, WALL·E also follows traditional Cinderella form because it has qualities that unattainable potential mate, transformation and happily ever after.

Unattainable potential mate means that a person who is handsome or beautiful and compared to main character in a more advanced position. In Cinerella, prince is a handsome man who will inherit the throne and rule the contry while cinderella is ill-treated as a servant girl by her step-mother after her father died. In reality their marrige is almost impossible because they have such a big gap. The same incredible thing happrens in WALL·E. WALL·E, it means Waste Allocation Load Lifters, they are birth to clear the rubbish in the abandoned earth. WALL·E is a low-tech, old and miry robot who lives with garbage all day while Eve is a high-tech, new and clean robot who lives in fancy spaceship with other robots. These two different robots one day meet in the earth, have been through a lot together, and then have found love with each other.

Transformation equals to promote plot development and finally will  make improvement of hero’s or heroine’s position. In traditional Cinderella, with the help of  fairy, cinderella gets a chance to attend the dance and then found love with prince. In the traditional Cinderella, with the help of fairy, cinderella got a chance to attend the fancy dance and found love with the prince. Although at the stroke of midnight it all ends and magic was lost, cinderella left a glass slipper in a hurry to leave. That glass slipper as an important identifying object which helped prince to find the cinderella. Cinderella’s life totally changed at one night after the transformation happened. Similarly, in WALL E transformation happened when Eve was called back to the spaceship. WALL E chose to follow his lover and start a breathtaking adventure. WALL E’s appearance in spaceship broke the dull, regular life in spaceship. Human began to aware and think about their current lifestyle. After transformation, After transformation, WALL E from a low class robot to a key character who saved human and earth.

Happily ever after is an essential element in comedy which gives people faith and optimistic mood to pursue a better life. At the end of story Cinderella, cinderella and prince married and happily ever after. Cinderella jumped out of the “hell” and reached the heaven where she never would worried about food and clothes. More important, cinderella harvested a full love and had a stable life. Cinderella encouraged people to believe life and keep good qualities. Although something in Cinderella seems like impossible and far away from realistic, but without denying, it has its value to purify WALL E also people’s soul. WALL E also has a happy ending that WALL E and Eve finally lived happily together. At first, for saving the plant, WALL E was broken and lost his memory of Eve. However, Eve found the chip of WALL E which helped WALL E recollected his beautiful former memory.

Response of “Mutant rights”

Zhu Mengna(Mona)

Dr.Marquardt

ENG1430 W10

March 20, 2015

Response of “Mutant rights”

In this podcast short, it mentioned an interesting and controversial topic: mutant rights. Recently, superhero movies become a wave of all-pervasive and accordingly many super hero toys and dolls appear in shops. However, at a book of tariff classifications "Dolls," which represent human beings, are taxed at almost twice the rate of "toys," which represent something not human - such as robots, monsters, or demons. Just because of this inaccurate definition, it may lead to a big difference for toy manufacturers. Sherry Singer and Indie Sang are two international trade lawyers and they found this legal loophole. They wanted to help their clients, Marvel Comics, who was importing its action figures as dolls. Hence they took the X-MEN for instance and tried to persuade  US government that these mutants are NOT human. They compared mutant to human by judging their physiological features. To my perspective, it is ridiculous to argue these artificial figures whether are humans or not. Everyone has his or her own definition about human and own views of world. To investigates the reason, profit and money maybe are “perpetrators” for this farce.

Movie Introduction

Zhu Mengna/Mona

Dr. Marquardt

ENG 1430 W10

March 12th, 2015

WALL·E, a Cinderella of robot

The movie WALL·E(2008) directed by Andrew Stanton mainly talks about an outdated and abandoned robot called WALL·E who finally reaps a sweet love and save the earth. In fact, it also follows famous Cinderella form.

The story happens in A.D. 2007,  although human civilization has highly developed, the earth is not suitable for human to live because of heavy pollution and excess waste. Before human leave the earth,  they entrusted Buynlarge company to clear the rubbish which prompted the birth of WALL·E, Waste Allocation Load Lifters – Earth. However, with the passage of time and bad environment, these robots gradually  were worn out expect for the protagonist WALL·E. He still continued this seemingly never ending work without complaints who also have good qualities like Cinderella. One day the heroine Eve,  a beautiful and high-tech newest robot appeared in earth when she was sent to explore signs of life, which totally break WALL·E’s peaceful but lonely life. A series of things happened in coincidence. Eve was “broken” and WALL·E took care of her. They adored each other day in and day out. But not for long, Eve was called to go back to the ship. Transitions happens when  the little WALL·E began a breathtaking trip of space for saving his lover and recalling her lover’s memory. Finally he made it and simulated human to go back to earth and have a new, green, real life. As for WALL·E and Eve, they lived happy ever after.

link

Response1.2

The transition of the story Yeh Hsien is from the death of the golden fish. The wicked step-mother took an  rude way to crack down on Yeh Hsien; she  killed the priceless golden  fish and cooked it as her dinner. Yeh Hsien soon found out that the fish was died but she could not do nothing expect for crying before the bones. Despair, helplessness, loneliness, all negative feelings suddenly encircle her which made her world fell into darkness once again. However, a kind god showed up and told Yeh Hsien the secret of the golden fish in a soft voice, “ Good girl, no more cry. The bones can satisfied whatever you asked. The only thing you need to do is tell it.” With the help of the bones, Yeh Hsien finally married with the king and they lived happily ever after. I like this kind of transition not only because it makes people full of hope and like to embrace life but also about Chinese belif. Most Chinese they don not have a certain belif, however, they believe there is a kind god who will watch them and judge everything. Whatever you do, the god will give the judgement in your life.It will provide derrence and fear, which will encourage people do good deeeds. Just like the heroine of the story,Yeh Hsien, who was a weaker in life while she had good quality, like kind and forgiveness so that she finally had a happy life. Such similar transitions are very common in Chinese stories.