Analyzing the film “Gran Torino”

Gran Torino is directed and produced by Clint Eastwood and focuses on challenges with multiculturalism. Clint Eastwood also play the main role in his own movie.

It is classified as an action movie, with several action-filled moments. There are also traces of tragedgy, and a lot of the movie is based around earlier war memories.

The movie takes place in a small american town, where an old veteran from the korean war lives by himself - surrounded by Hmong immigrants in a somewhat sketchy neighbourhood. It probably takes place around the eighties, with elements such as old fashioned barbershops and gang raids (this may as well be happening today, but I’ll take a wild guess here).

The plot surrounds an old man living by himself, disgusted by the behavior of his own family and relations. His world rapidly changes the day an Hmong family moves in next door, as they bring a lot of trouble with them. A gang of asian thugs roll by his house as they begin recruiting the next door Hmong kid, who is too weak to defend himself. The kid is pressured into stealing Walt car, but in a bold attempt to steal the Gran Torino , he is chased away by Walt himself.

As time moves on, Walt realizes his neighbor Thao is not the person he thought, rather a misunderstood, shy kid, with small chances to make it in this world. Following is a build-up of events, as Walt discovers an unknown side of himself and attempts to train his kid into becoming a full-grown man.

The plot is structured in a linear way, with regular chronological time progression. Suspension builds up as we know Walt and Thao is working their way towards revenge on the neighbourhood gang. This pays off in the end, as Walt heads off alone to deal with this gang of his. No further spoilers!

The main conflict is Walt’s choice between supporting and accepting the Hmong neighbors (the same kind which he killed in the Korea war), or rejecting them and keep for himself. In the beginning, he is acting naive, closing himself off from the rest and denying their acts of friendship. As a young Hmong girl living next door explains their situation to him, he slowly realizes these people are having a rough time living in the US.

This movie shows a strong affection and understanding towards the multicultural society, showing the different sides of a community consisting of entirely different cultures and traditions. It tells a story about accepting change, letting others into your life, and managing to live with entirely different people at your side. Some may say this is an action movie with a good plot, but if you read between the lines, you will find an entirely different world of cultural acceptance.

-u

World news, and how the major news giants differ from each other.

World news, and how the major news giants differ from each other.

In this task, I studied what similarities and differences the biggest news agencies in the world share. I found this topic very interesting, as the research I did provided a nice view of how the different agencies operates. Some focused a lot on ads and propaganda, while someone focused specificaly on solid information. Here is my thoughts;

1. cnn.com

-The most important news placed at the top row with quick access to cases

-Breaking news and related articles placed on the left hand side

-Ads, stocks, weather and facebook/twitter links on the top, right hand side

-Autoplays earlier TV broadcasts on news cases

2. BBC.com

-Only one news header which shows important news at the top

-Filled with regular, not-so-useful newspaper fillings (such as information about toilet seats and birds)

-More widespread news margins; Not only world news, but sports / business / science further down

3. Foxnews.com

-Only one news article at the top, more tabloid material further down

-A lot of viral videos with content such as police beating people, and peoples reaction to other viral cases

-Higher amount of tabloid articles with misleading titles (the kind that has pictures of boobs and other irrelevant material)

4. Al Jazeera

-Much more serious interface with no unnecessarities, such as commercials, stocks, weather and such

- Clearly marked articles with serious themes

Comparison of the news articles (about the IS bombings)

1. CNN.com:

• Lots of information about what got hit, why they got bombed, and the effects of it.
• Summarizes earlier cases about the same theme

2. BBC.com

• Provides different tabs in the article with different points of information (such as UK role, analysis, and an overview map)
• Very clean and readable layout of their page
• Integrated video player, with their latest reports on the situation (kind of irritating, but useful for some, I guess.)

3. Fox News

• Clear, well explained information about the happenings
• Maybe too much bent over to the pro U.S side of the case (several links to pro-US videos, with celebrities singing about it for example).

4. Al Jazeera

• The article contains heaps of information about present and earlier relevant articles, which gives insight

• Provides a lot of information. Maybe too much.
• Stands very neutral to the situation, with none or some infliction from the US.

I think peoples opinion about these can be highly different. For the average american who would like a side dish of gossip and interesting non-related stories, Fox News may be the best option. This site provides a wide selection of techonolgy news, celebrity articles, and “local” news.

On the other hand, the average person would prefer sites as BBC.com. Here, you get a sleek layout with plain news, and a handful of interesting articles which sustains a more serious structure.

At last, people which want a wider aspect without picking sides should check out Al Jazeera. This news site provides an entirely different view on the news story. Even though there is a lot (no really, a lot) information which may seem bloated, but there is still a lot of interesting read. After reading one of their articles, you will be left behind with a more open image of the situation where you can self reasonate what you think.

-u

Social solitude

Since the beginning of the 21st century, social media has been a huge thing. Hundreds of millions go online every day to socially interact with their friends in several distinguishable communication platforms. This daily action has flushed out the regular, fysical interaction by meeting people face to face. Is this a positive developement, or will this be the end to close friendships?

Endless entertainment

A social media is a meeting place which people from around the globe can experience multiple social activities. The most popular one, Facebook (with over 1.3 billion users), presents each individual with an enormous universe of ways to connect with people. There is no limit to how much content you can access and share. This makes Facebook, as many other social medias, what is called an infinity machine; It gives you endless scrolling trough endless streams of content. Therefore, these medias are enormously time consuming.

Starved or stuffed?

Of course, social interactions has two sides. You can not expect something without giving something else away. In this case, you recieve an amazing world of online experiences, not to mention the small-scale interactions with your most loyal friends. The downside of all this is the fact that people are simply ignoring the “old fashioned” face-to-face interactions which has passed on for several human generations. Therefore, we are met with a dillemma whether the humanity should preserve the old fashioned forms of communitaction, or if the modern should prevail.

In the end,

..there really is not any excuse for not using social medias now a days. You will find mostly everything you are looking for there, and the fact that the society expects you to be there, most people are. As the world grows, so does the need to explore. Therefore, the social pressure is something we all will have to adapt to.

(I realized afterwards this may not answer the task, but rather something exam-like. Sorry about that)

A tour at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo

As we started the tour, we were presented with a sort of “hall of fame”-wall with famous quotes from famous people. You could see several meaningful bits of text written or spoken by meaningful people - some more known than others.

The other part of the tour consisted mostly of the world’s democratic values. We were shown a heat map which provided information about how democrazy is spread troughout the world. Some parts of the world still has mainly autocrazy ways of steering, where there is nothing but one party which leads the entire country. A few examples is North Korea and China, whereas there is few or none ways for people to vote or participate in political conflicts and debates.

Raging on the top, Norway along with the other scandinavian countries and Canada are some of the most democratic countries in the world. With open, free elections and very few restrictions of free speech, Norway stands proudly as a fully developed democratic state.

The last thing we were shown was a video about Edward Snowden; a man widely recognized as a major whistleblower for the NSA. This stately owned corporation have for several years done surveillance at U.S. citizens without their acceptance. Therefore, this discovery has been highly controversial in the media all over the globe. This also inflicted on the US international relationships, as Snowden had proof that the US did surveillance at the German rikskansler.

Hello!

Welcome to my blog! I will post different writings with everything from A to Z here. Be prepared for either interesting and deep meanings, or kind of boring things without any form of context.

The best photo of me. It doesn't have to make sense, right?

-u