Hansel: District 9

I appreciate the social commentary of District 9 in their parallels with apartheid and xenophobia in general, but I think the filmmakers went about doing it in a way that almost took their credibility. The film gets a tad silly and hard to take seriously at times, particularly involving cat food for exchange. Silliness aside, I would like to address the message of the film that I enjoyed noting: xenophobia. The film shows how easy it is to despise a race of people because their customs and appearance. In the film, humans disown the aliens because of their appearance and behavior that humans found objectionable. This aspect obviously mirrors our idea of races and how cultural difference can separate societies. If we had looked past the differences, we would have cooperated with the prawns in order to better society in harmony with them. Instead, because of their ghastly cultural differences, we banish them and force them to a distinct part of the world. The parallels with the aliens fit well many a time, in my opinion. However, the Christopher Johnson story was hard to take seriously in the sense that he looks like a giant cricket but expresses sympathy, intelligence, and human body language and traits. In addition Christopher’s son was anything but cute and adorable. I realize that is the point the filmmakers tried to make, but I think science fiction writers must be careful when they make films that speak so much about society because they are bound by the fine line between silliness and respectable satire. Perhaps District 9 is supposed to be campy in some way, but they did not make it totally clear. The mockumentary style of film making was very creative and made the film much more entertaining to watch. It makes it more believable in a sense that if we were actually living through it, we would be viewing the story through media. In my opinion, this is one of the best formats for a socially topical film like this. It works for any film, however. I particularly remember from 2008, Quarantine being quite the scary film because of it's video camera plot style.

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Hansel: Restrepo

The way Sebastian Junger wrote the article made it sound even more personal, how it was directed to Tim Hetherington personally. It shows how serious war media should be. I’m not saying every journalist should go out and risk their lives to get the news to people. Obviously, someone like a fashion or sports journalist would not be expected to do so. However it took pure journalistic passion of the two men to deploy themselves in Korengal Valley, one of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan. I found it interesting that Junger mentioned the two journalists’ affinity for risk. It almost made them sound like soldiers themselves, like the guy who talked about how he does not know how he’ll make it back in America because of his love for shooting guns and the natural high that results. I imagine what kept them pushing through the terror they must have felt was the idea that they were going to get the truth to those whom have never seen what it’s like for soldiers in Afghanistan Media like this helps the overall mindset Americans have towards war, in my opinion. Through documentaries like Restrepo, civilians get a more accurate impression of what war is like now. This could affect their decisions in voting for a president that might be anti or pro-war. Regardless of how it makes them feel, it educates their standpoint more. Seeing numbers of how many soldiers died in a war has a temporary emotional impact, but not a lasting one. We see them as just numbers in a battle against the enemy. Through the documentary, we see them as human, not only in combat, but also eating and joking around with friends. The most affective scenes, in my opinion the ones in which the soldiers mention their family, like when the guy is working on his gun talking about his ranch back home. Also, when they are in the mess hall wrestling around with the cook, we get to see the human aspect of the soldiers. This might not be all too much of a change for someone whose family member is in the service, but for me the documentary provided a good outlook on men at war and the emotional effects that result.

Image acquired from 

http://www.clarksvilleonline.com

Hansel: Rendition

Torture is wrong legally, morally, and rationally. By legally, I mean that the United States government is not following due process with the law OR rules of war established in the Geneva Convention. One does not generally see countries doing this. It just fuels the idea of Americans feeling superior. Morally, most people would agree that torture is correct. Often, this is overlooked due to the fact that people claim terrorists should not be treated as human beings, but as thugs. We can see this by the look on Douglass Freeman’s face as he witnesses the torture. Rationally, torture does not work. The article titled “Outsourcing Torture” includes a section on it. We can even see it in “Rendition” by the fact that Jeremy El-Ibrahimi just listed names from a soccer team. Torture goes against the fourth, fifth, and eighth amendments to the Constitution. The fourth, against illegal search and seizure, is broken simply by them stripping the suspected terrorist of his clothes. The fifth, due process, is obviously broken by the fact that they are punishing suspect terrorists without due process. The eight amendment, forbidding cruel and unusual punishment, is broken simply by the fact that what the torturers are doing in quite cruel and unusual. One of my questions regarding torture was how did it come about. Admittedly by one of the men who instated it, Michael Scheuer, it was created out of desperation. The government simply did not know what to do with the terrorism problem. I try not to directly crucify those who established the program because I can not think of another way to fight terrorists. When a nation is at war against ideas, such as religious terrorism, the rules of war might not always apply, especially in the case of the enemy using tactics that ignore the rules of war, as well. For example, how do we stop suicide bombers if they believe that they well be martyred? The threat of death does not stop them. Neither does shooting the terrorist while he is strapped with a bomb because of the dead man trigger where the bomb deploys when the grip is lost.

Acquired from cartoonstock.com