blog 24

According to Danahay and Rieder Coppertop is an average working class Americans under capitalism. These people are often exploited, paid less than they should have earned. To make sure they are producing worth their salary workers are under constant surveillance. The Matrix amplifies this ongoing system of capitalism very well. Human beings are workers producing energy source in exchange for a delusional world (The Matrix) to mentally live in. The reason Human being are compare as workers under capitalism because they do not recognize the relationship between their labor and the capital that they produce. They don’t have the knowledge that they are forced to work, believing that they sell their labor voluntarily. They are exploited because they are not able to choose how and when they work. Human being in The Matrix is like factory workers or office clerk working roll by roll, in a dead end job that will get them nowhere. In this chapter Danahay and Reider state that the film fall short of convincing the audience to resist the Matrix. They claim that the directors use cinematic technique to made The Matrix seem like an acceptable place to live. The directors made The Matrix appear as colorful, lively and full of life. As we could see that in the Matrix the crew dresses in good clothing, they have beautiful hair and no hole in the back of their head everybody look their best. They also equipped with all the weapon and gun they desire, just by simply uploading of programs. Not to mention the ability to fight like jet li which of cause they were not able to in the real world. In contrast, the director made the real world seem as a burn out city from the result of war between human and machine. People on the ship eat tasteless food that look like whole wheat. They wear old clothes, head shave with a hole in the back of their neck. The colors in the real world were shot in black and white to give the viewers the feeling that life in the real world is harsh and unpleasant to live in, unworthy of fighting for. In the movie Sleep Dealer, The issue of capitalism is also play well. The movies give us a sense that one day it could all be real. Illegal immigrant can be exploited right in their own land without having to cross into United State. Technology can be a scary thing because it keep people isolated, less human interaction.

blog 22

The matrix and existenz had the same ground. Both movies play with the ideas of virtual reality vs reality. But the take on these ideas are different. The matrix had lot of guns and existenz had goo lot of goo. although both film engage viewers in its illusory reality, The Matrix give more insight about whether we live in computer generated dream world. By reading Penetrating Keanu (Cynthia Freeland) I disagreed with her and felt like Matrix had more thought and much more complex. In this section the author seem to be focusing on gender and the role of the male and female in the movie. In The Matrix Keanu Reeve/Neo is a male leading figure aid by a subservient female, whereas Existenz had a woman as a leading role by making a woman a computer whiz and decision maker. The author judge the movie base on role of gender because she thing the Matrix is sexist. After watching Existenz I do not feel its was culturally relevant at all. The entire movie base on game within a game, confusing, hard to understand and does not leave any thought. Ever since the beginning of the movie I already know that the movie was a game. The same bone like gun used to shot Allegra was later see in the game as Ted used it to kill the Chinese waiter. The Matrix had more meaningful insight of reality because machine and human coexistent are something we all could relate to. The matrix made us wonder if we are living in the Matrix or what we see,feel,smell,hear and taste are real. The Matrix show us that human are different from machine because we have freewill. Neo willingly choose to see the matrix for himself and what he see is billion of human body, floating in a pod of pink goo nurturing by robots without consciousness. The thought of myself being floated in those pod is really scary, am I really have no control over myself physically and mentally? Could one day we be unplug and free from the Matrix? In the book Cynthia describe the Matrix ending scene where Keanu reeves is flying on the as typical cinematic movie and had no point, but there is. Neo ability to fly like superman show us that the Matrix is just a computer generated program, being a psychokinetic computer hacker Neo is able to unlock the matrix codes and do the impossible.

blog 21

In the beginning of class I think I am going to do slide show clip about pitbull. Why the breed got a bad rep. I did some research on the background of this particular breed. I found out some information which are really interesting. I'm not sure if this is a good idea though.

final project blog 17

As i spend time looking at videos, i still can't come up with idea for the project. I am still looking for subject, to do a video about the media is kind of hard especially when you don't have any experience.

blog 16

Are we living in the matrix? I think is question lie upon a person's personal believe. We are free to believe anything, that is what separated human for machine. A free will to believe what we chose is a greatest gift one can possibly acquired. Human being chose what they believe is logically true, but how can we justified what is true? How do we defined real? In the book Nixon claim that we are probability living in the matrix. I have to disagree. How can an opinion of one man apply to million others. As a child we are taught to believe a certain things exist like Santa Claus, Tooth fairy etc. But as we grew older we come to realize that they do not exist. Some people believe in god but how do you prove that god exist, that he is real. People said that god is watching over us. Their are 6 billion people on this planet, how can god have the ability to watch over everybody? The same principal apply to Neo and Morpheus. Before offering Neo the blue and red pills, Morpheus tells Neo,"No one can be told what the matrix is. You have to see it for yourself." Morpheus knows that even if he told Neo about the matrix he would not believe him. Neo have to acknowledge and justified his knowledge and believe on his own that the matrix is real. Morpheus also said "some people are so build to the system they are not ready to be unplug or that they will fight to keep it alive".
This is another evidence of how people so possess in their believe they will fight for their believe regardless of what is right or wrong, real or artificial. If we do believe we are living in the matrix we might as well be. There really are no actual prove whether we are living in the matrix or not. It's all in our heads.