Final Portfolio

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gRiwZgWQ-f7yua8giMbTIqPlZrzazvLliDjvUC14uxQ/edit#

Response of "Parody or Form of Retaliation"

                            Parody rather than Copy

    The article "Parody or Form of Retaliation" shows that  Jeffrey Katzenberg, once employed by Disney and Disney’s chairman, Michael Eisner. But Katzenberg and his former boss have a dispute, so Katzenberg leaves Disney’s studios and quickly teamed up with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen to form another company DreamWorks.
    Rather than copy Disney's movie, Katzenberg parody and create the form of Retaliation to compete with Disney.  The sentence in this article "Katzenberg skillfully and successfully used an entertaining, animated fairy tale that became a blockbuster hit, to attain sweet justice on a long time rival."shows that how creative Katzenberg is and how good parody is.
   In China, there is a culture of copycutting. Copycutting products are the vast array of knockoff name-brand products. Copycutting will cast terrible influence on the manufacturers, the customers and the social atmosphere of innovation. So, parodying with our creativity is important rather than copying.

Explaining quote

Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development Corporation and the designer of Lotus 1-2-3, said, "Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.” Kapor said that acquiring information from internet can help people get what they want immediately. People get knowledge and learn a lot because of the internet as well as technology. If education combine technology, people can be educated better by technology and education can be improved by technology.

Response of "insights from a Cinderella story"

    Jonathan Young  had a good film review of  the current film "Ever After - A Cinderella Story". From his reviewing, we know that this movie  departs from the familiar story in significant details, while maintaining the spirit of the original. In this movie, some elements are some, such as the death of Cinderella's father, the step mother, Cinderella face of all the chores, Cinderella meet a prince and so on. Although some elements are same, some plots are different. Ever After-A Cinderella Story show  different and original  plots. In classical Cinderella story, Cinderella's step mother is evil, the step mother is villain and people don't like the stepmothe at all. But in this movie, the bad of the step mother make sence, because stepmother's stern behavior has some legitimacy and she is in a tough situation as a single mother with a household to run, and three girls to raise. As for the helper, Cinderella is helped by magic and the prince rescues her. But in thiis movie, Cinderella solves her own problems.
    "Insights from a Cinderella story" is a good analysis. Jonathan Young looks for meanings lurking beneath the surface in this movie and he analyse the plots in detail. He has a comparision between the classical Cinderella story and the Ever Afer-A Cinderella Story movie to let his audience understand easily. I think it's a good way to analyse by comparing.

Response of "marriage plot"

    Marriage is one of the most things in our life. Marriage have a  huge impact for a person, such as change his/her life, change his/her characters, change his/her family and so on. As what the English professor siad: "In the days when success in life had depended on marriage, and marriage had depended on money" I totally agree with it. Money means stable, and a happy life. Most of people hope to marry a wealthy.
   For the title, the question which the author asked: "Why the Marriage Plot Need Never Get Old",I have my own idea. Marriage isn't a thing which only involve two people. Marriage involve two families, and marriage concern the society, money, and interest relationship. Such as the Madame Bovary, her broken marriages reflect her character and the society. Marriage is life, and the marriage plots will never get old.

Response

          Make femininity mainstream

We have learned the masculine and feminine in class, and we define masculine is brave, aggressive, capable, dominant while feminine is passive, domestic, subordinate. It seems like men are always in dominant position but women are in subordinate position. Fetterley said: “American literature is male. To read the canon of what is currently considered classic American literature is perforce to identify as male”. People want to be men, and to be capable, dominant, and powerful.

But Rupaul breaks with tradition. He is a man but he performs as a woman. He hosts the reality television show RuPaul's Drag Race to show the beauty of men who perform like women. He brings the spectrum of male-to-female performance and femininity into mainstream popular culture. I think his behavior and his TV show change the traditional thought which feminine is subordinate and submissive. He looks feminine in other way, and he finds out other characters from feminine by performing as a woman. When they perform, they are beautiful, confident, sexy, aggressive, active…They want to show the dominate feminine, not subordinate anymore, and they make femininity mainstream.

I think Rupaul is creative and he has a good idea, and I support his behavior. Feminine should be changed in people’s traditional mind and feminine can be mainstream.

 

 

 

Response of "Cinderella and feminism"

    I used to think fairy tales just are unreal stories and just for entertainment. But after reading the article “Cinderella and feminism”, I change my view about fairy tales, and I believe fairy tales play an important role in children’s life. Fairy tales are very useful and I think it is very scientific that teaching children by telling fairy tales. The characters in stories can help children set up their gender identification, make them distinguish masculine or feminine and let children know which characters women should have and which characters men should have. When I was a kid, my mom told stories every night. Girls (princess) in fairy tales are beautiful, quiet, kind, grace, nurturing, and subordinate, so I believed girls should be these. In a word, fairy tales taught me how to be a girl.

I totally agree with the author, fairy tales not only teach children genders identification, but also tell the principle “Good will be rewarded with good, evil will be published with evil” These plots in fairy tales tell children they should do good things, they should be kind rather than be evil.

Response

    The article talks about the reason why women smile, and show us some examples to explain why women smile. Women smiles not only express their feelings truly, sometimes they hide their  motivations by smiling.What is  on the surface may have little connection to what women are feeling. Sometimes women smile is to fake. Women fake themselves to be happy, beautiful, charming, content, and whole. These fake smiles just want to hide their true feelings such as painful or sorrowful. Women act to be happy when the commerical adversements need these smiles.
   I agree the Rainer Maria Rilke "Her smile was not meant to be seen by anyone and served its whole purpose in being smiled.", Women should smile for theirselves, no faking, no trying to please someone, just smile naturally. I agree women should smile truly, to express their feelings from their true heart, not according to what someone else needed, she would smile more spontaneously, without ulterior, hidden motives.

response to my partner's argument

LiuKexin

Dr.Marquardt

ENG1430 W10

         March 29, 2015

I disagree with Amanda’s view that “the villain [in Kung Fu panda movie] is not fit the definition of the Cinderella story”, I think villain is fit and accordant. As for the definition of villain in Cinderella story, villain is evil character who prevents the main character succeeding .It is obvious that Tai Lung prevents Po being the Dragon Warrior. Tai Lung prevents Po being successful as Cinderella’s step mother and sisters do. I totally disagree with what Amanda’s argument that “He [Tai Lung] doesn’t aim at one person” Po is the hero who is chosen by Master Oogway to defeat Tai Lung and protect their valley. In this battle, Po is the only opponent of Tai Lung. Only defeating Po can Tai Lung lay waste to the valley. So Tai Lung does aim at one person---Po.

  Amanda’s argument is based on faulty evidence, so Kung Fu panda qualifies as Cinderella story.

Response for "Faking it"

The author narrates his experience as a father and a husband. He says that when he meets differences and he can’t figure out these problems, he pretends he can do these well. He always “fake” or “behave” as if he can do everything, because he wants to show his strength in front of his wife and his children. He always let his family trust he is a powerful man who they can rely on. For example, when he put up a second towel rack, he doesn’t know how to use electronic drills. But he said “No biggie” to his wife in order to behave a “man”. When his family was trapped by the snowstorm, he was also trying his best to feign that he can conquer this accident. The author’s behavior is self-respect. Men want themselves be strong and reliable to protect their families.

As far as I am concerned, “faking it” has two sides. There is a saying said: “Fake it till you make it”. As what is the saying means, if you pretend to do something properly, some day you can do it actually. But if you flaunt your superiority, it may cause some troubles. In that case, faking is irresponsible for your families.

 

Response

LiuKexin

Dr.Marquardt

ENG1430 W10

March 20, 2015

                          Response of “Mutant rights”

 

   The podcast talks about an interesting topic: the mutant rights. It seems like a debate about whether the mutants are human-being and whether they have rights. They talks about differences between dolls and toys. But I think it is ridiculous that dolls are charged more tax. They take an example about X-man, and talk about the differences between mutant and human by judging their heads, eyes, nose, the color of skin, the behaviors, the intelligence… It’s a smart way to define or judge mutant by basic elements.

  In my opinion, we should judge whether mutants are human by science. In our biology class, we have learned that two species are judging by whether they have reproductive isolation. That means these two species can’t have babies which can have babies. If there is no reproductive isolation between mutant and human, mutant must be human and they have the human rights.  

Summary of “Rhodopis”

Group4

ENG1430
Dr. Marquardt
March 4, 2015
                                                               
                                                          Summary of “Rhodopis”

Rhodopis(author unkown) is a story about a female Greek slave. After the story was first recorded by the Greek historian Strabo in the 1st century BC, this story was widely spread around the word. And the story is considered the earliest known variant of the "Cinderella" story.

Rhodopis is a beautiful Greek girl who was sold to an Egyptian in a young age. Rhodopis was beautiful and she loved dancing and singing. But other female slaves were jealous of her and no one wanted to be her friends. So Rhodopis was lonely.

One evening she danced and sang lightly near the river, and her master listened to her singing. He admired her dancing and felt that one so talented should not be without shoes. He ordered her a special pair of red slippers. After that the servant girls teased her even more, so jealous they were of her beautiful red slippers.

One day, Pharaoh held a big party in Memphis and all in the kingdom were invited. Rhodopis wanted to dance in the party but any other female slaves went to the party that night and gave her more chores. When she washed clothes sadly, the water wet Rhodopis’s slippers. When she dried her slipper, a falcon snatched one of the slippers. Pharaoh got this shoe and thought that was God Horus’s sign. Pharaoh asked all women in the kingdom to try to put on this slipper. Finally, people find out that no other women can fit in this slipper expect Rhodopis. Then the pharaoh married Rhodopis, and Rhodopis lived happily from then on.

 

source:https://litscribbles.wordpress.com/fairy-tales/rhodopis-the-egyptian-cinderella/