Well guys it looks like my fifth blog post for the ASTU 100A is here!

Personally I would like to talk about three things rather briefly but enough to get you all interested and so you can get the gist of it. First of all I would appreciate it if I could communicate with you all about a tragic moment in Canadian history. I am indeed writing about the Ecole Polytechnique Massacre that occurred in Montreal. To give you a clear understanding of what I’ve read about the event itself, it is almost equivalent to a school shooting that you have seen being featured on certain occasions on the US news. What happened was that one man felt the need to express his infuriation as to why there are woman in engineering majors. Because of this he whipped out a gun and shot about fourteen girls dead, 6 of them being in his class and the others just being random students minding their own business on a bright sunny day. Needless to say he just murdered 14 innocent female students as well as injured some other students, some of which included the presence of men within their wake. This news just outright shocked me not only because a few girls who obviously were just there to pursue their dreams of becoming an engineer had just dropped dead by the hands of a madman, but the fact that the killer was stereotyping the female gender. Even to this day there are still people who believe that engineering is men’s work and that no girls should even be allowed to participate in their majors. I therefore always view stereotyping in a very negative light because anyone should be given the opportunity to pursue their dreams. Nobody should be killed just for wanting to pursue a career that a certain gender does not usually follow. If women can be wrestlers and bodybuilders then they can also take on the role as an engineer.

To be honest with you I have never heard of the band Pussy Riot. However just hearing that they have been jailed just for voicing their opinions on women’s rights in Siberia struck a chord in me. No one should be sent to prison for voicing their personal opinions, that’s what the freedom of speech law is for. However in reality, freedom of speech is sadly very complex and complicated. Even if you’re given more flexibility to voice opinions, one still must be careful about what their opinion is geared towards or against. Issues like politics and felony are still forbidden in most nations. This in my belief is probably due to paranoia. I will not mention anymore on this topic since it’s not my intention to discuss politics but I’ll tell you that if I were a member of government I would not jail the band for just voicing their personal views.

Finally I’m going to talk about Peeta Mellark from the Hunger Games. I still have not seen Catching Fire yet and am halfway through the novel so I don’t know his treatment within the sequel. What I can say however is that at least in the first movie, he is indeed portrayed almost as a girlfriend. While he does have his moments, most of the time he as a character in the films relies on Katniss to help him and is even taken hostage by Cato at the climax, a situation most suited for damsels in distresses.

What do you guys think? Feel free to leave a comment.

Well here is my fourth blog post for the ASTU course. As always this will be focused around the topic of law and society and yes, it is going to be on the movie District 9 by Neil Blompkopt and Peter Jackson. So here are my feelings on the way the film changes Wikus’s character gradually after getting infected, the music and the theme of xenophobia.

First of all my thoughts on the movie. It’s a good movie with an engaging storyline and a soundtrack that will appeal to your personal emotions. The way Wikus’s character was handled was done exceptionally well as we the viewers get to experience the gradual shift from a man who patronizes and is ignorant of the alien’s culture to basically becoming their life saver. This change is evident within the second half of the film. In the first half, Wikus is naïve and rather patronizing towards the aliens which is further proven by the scene where he makes a remark about one of the aliens being sharp, as though he thought the others had low intelligence. The fact that he made the remark based on the fact that the alien realized his plan to evict them shows that he was almost surprised at the creature’s intelligence therefore presenting his naivety. Within the second half after he gets infected with the black fluid and has to trust Christopher the alien in order to be able to get his arm back to normal, we can see that he actually starts to develop compassion after finding out the ship that Christopher had built and his feelings for the experimented aliens in the labs. Of course we all know he is only helping Christopher because he wants a cure for his arm, but we can clearly see in the lab sequence and when the ship is shown that Sharlto Copley’s acting as Wikus in those scenes almost make us believe that he is changing emotionally and taking on a new approach to the aliens. This shows at the end of the film where Wikus almost smiles when he sees the two aliens depart and it is clearly one of compassion.

Some of the shots within the second half of the film are also an interesting and effective addition by the filmmaker. For example the emotional African style music played during the more dramatic scenes such as the ending and the scene where Wikus is captured by the MNU along with Christopher. The music is really effective because it appeals to your emotions during the latter half and really makes you feel for these characters and the hardships they have gone through. The fact that it sounds almost like something that would be played in a movie set in Africa or the Middle East is also effective because it emphasizes the fact that the film takes place in African territory.

The underlying theme of xenophobia is also present throughout the film from the first half to the second half. During the first half we as an audience have already seen the effects of this on the South African population through documentary style footage during the first few minutes. The use of interviews from them almost make the film seem almost realistic and the fact that I’ve heard that the filmmaker actually interviewed these people just makes it feel like the movie is trying to present to us that some people in that country actually experience xenophobia in reality. The fact that these people are the ones that start the riots in the city and are presenting throwing a hefty cheer at the end when the mothership departs only confirms this. The MNU themselves also display xenophobia which is clearly evident in the scene where Wikus and Christopher find out that these men have been experimenting on the aliens in their headquarters. It’s almost as though the MNU want to find out what the aliens are made of and is experiencing curiosity, which makes sense since xenophobia is the fear of the unknown so as a result they want to challenge that fear so as to make sense of the unknown. This aspect of xenophobia also extends to the Nigerians who battle the MNU forces at the films climax. Both men are not afraid to use weaponry against each other and it’s made clearer by the fact that the Nigerians are living almost in the same conditions as the aliens. Xenophobia is also shown by the way human beings reacted to Wikus’s deformed arm; they reacted with shock.

However this is only my opinion of the film though. I enjoyed it and found some nice parallels with another film by the same director called Elysium which I thought was really enjoyable.