Thursday, April 14, 2011

#12- Revised #5 blog


I personally believe that this new Disney movie, The Princess and the Frog, does a great job of falling in line with the rest of the Disney movies that came before it. I can see parts of it relating to the Aristocrats, the Lion King, and Aladdin. The villain in Aladdin and the Lion King reminds me of the villain in the princess and the frog. The fact that it reminds me of my opinion of a Disney movie means that it definitely takes on its role of becoming a great Disney movie. This is because I grew up in the time of the original Disney movies. My generation has the best understanding of what a Disney Movie is because we were the first children that watched those movies. When comparing old Disney Channel Movies to the new ones, such as Princess and the frog, the only people that really can compare it are the viewers of the original Disney Movies, and if I was doing a real evaluation on this topic, I would be a reliable source.
Comparing the scene we viewed in class to the one in the little mermaid (an original Disney movie), they are very alike. There is a villain who tries to change the protagonist for their own agenda. The protagonist eventually has to find out that they were better how they were before but sometimes it takes them a while to figure that out. Disney movies, just like the little mermaid and the princess and the frog, all contain a princess who is in distress. The princess and the frog, as said right in the title, does this in a way that it follows all of the other Disney movie outlines. I love this new Disney movie because of that reason. I don’t like when good old movie theme’s change and I think I would watch this movie now because it doesn’t change much from the Disney movies I know and love.
The Princess and the Frog contains the traditional Disney animation and reminds me of my childhood, but it also shows characteristics that are better. It’s better because it has the experience of time to change things and technological improvements. For example, the colors are more vibrant than the 90’s Disney movies. Also, the Princess and The Frog has effects that were not possible in the old Disney Movies. It also can have new audio effects that interest the viewer as well.
One may argue that because of the technology change it may be a little too detailed and may scare viewers off. I do not agree. Children now will watch this movie and take away from it the basic theme’s of old Disney movies while gaining some aspects of the new Disney movie’s that my generation was not lucky enough to know during our childhood. I believe that there was a great balance between keeping the old Disney Movie features but also improving them for the new generation of children. When movie companies or any television programs try to improve this sometimes doesn’t happen, and this balance is very beneficial to the new viewers. All in all, the directors of this movie did a great job of making a new Disney feature film that is as entertaining and creative as its predecessors, but also kept old Disney features that my generation once knew and loved.

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Thursday, April 7, 2011

#11- My research so far


I have decided to investigate and critically review the effect of the media on teenagers. I want to focus mainly on the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area because that is where I am from. My audience will be the parents of teens in Pennsylvania but could be on a larger scale to the entire United States.

Focusing more on my research so far I began with searching in google scholar the effects of tabloids on teens. I found this article: http://ridge.schoolwires.com/1584201127144644770/lib/1584201127144644770/2010_senior_papers/StephensonBrandy-paper.pdf.
 After reading over it I realized that it may not be the most reliable source but it does have an abundance of reliable sources cited in it that may be helpful in my research.
            Next, I found, from those sources, an article about how celebrities influence the population. (http://www.aug.edu/~mduignan/Magazine/Influence_Of_Celebrities.htm). I think that this will be helpful because it talks about celebrities which have a major affect on teens in American because of their popularity and how much they are admired by the general public.
            Another source that I found in the initial article was an article about eating disorders in men. I think that is important to bring up and has a lot to do with my topic of teens. After all, teens are more than half male and they are equally affected by the media and our culture. (http://www.menstuff.org/issues/byissue/eatingdisorders.html).
            As I searched the sources in the initial article I was sure to find sites that were .org or .gov because they are more reliable and I wanted to begin my research with the most reliable sources before looking at any opinion pieces.
            I then went back to Google scholar and tried searching the same topic of media effects on teenagers for another article. This time I found a book. The book is called Tabloid Culture. It talks about how tabloid came to affect the United State since pre-Reagan. I thought it was interesting to use some history to see how media is affecting teenagers and when it started (http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=hsJsUZshs3cC&oi=fnd&pg=PP11&dq=teen+effects+of+tabloids&ots=wb3NPdycTR&sig=lHc1PWZ5GmVKg4SUSdztPa-ODl8#v=onepage&q&f=false).
            Another article that I found on Google scholar was an article about how the media influences sexuality. I think that this should be another important part of my argument because teen sex is a major concern in society in recent years and this topic will probably interest a lot of their parents (http://www.jstor.org/stable/3813422?seq=1).
            I think that so far what I read gave me a pretty strong opinion that United State media and tabloids are affecting children/teenagers in the wrong way. I want to find more sources that back up why media should be encouraging kids to be healthy and fit not skinny and tan. I have decided to write my article on the negative affects of Media in the United States today.