"Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow"

Dear Childhood Books,

My emotions for you run deep and long and overflowing.  We have spent so much time together in the past twelve years of my life.  You have been with me since the first spouting of knowledge invaded my mind.  It is hard to forget our shared experiences in the secret shadows of quiet places and in the isolation under my covers in the still of night.

Those were the times of pure innocence and wonder in which you broke the hardened seed of my mind and allowed me to grow with the warming glow of your sunshine.  For many years, you fed me and hydrated me with your words and pictures, twisting and transforming me until I sprouted with life and vitality.  I still get giddy with nostalgia when breaking open your cracked binding and gazing at your yellow pages and reveling in your stories. You have done so much for me, but I continue to grow.  My mind searches out for the fix it's rewarded after delving into intricate plots and revealing elements.  It pains me but the facts must be faced.

I read Amelia Bedelia and you are nice.

I read Junie B. Jones and you are funny.

I read Charlotte's Web and you are sweet.

No longer can I settle for nice and funny and sweet.  No longer can I take a trip to the shelf, find you, and get my simple satisfaction.  Your empty plot lines and elementary structure used to leave me in contented bliss, but now I long for more adventure.  More hidden meaning behind the perplexing mysteries that are words and sentence structure and poetry and themes about life and love and death and sadness and history.  I long for those books that leave your heart out on the table, open and raw for the onslaught of words put together on a page.

I swear when I entered middle school that I didn't mean to find this new love and I didn't, it found me.  I would walk past the library and they would tease me and taunt me, calling out my name like a sweet caress.  My first time was with John Steinbeck who taught me the ways of human existence and friendship and living the American dream.  Then came Edgar Allen Poe and soon after, the one who stole my heart: William Shakespeare.  I found myself cast under the spell of their lyrical phrases.  They surrounded me and helped me grow and understand life, the universe, and everything.  Going to libraries became a new experience.  There were new genres unheard of to me like young adult, fantasy, historical fiction, romance, and classic literature.  Every meeting was something new and exciting and I discovered that certain books had the power to make me laugh, contemplate, and even weep.  Emotions and experiences came alive to me like never before.  Words soon emulated movement and were loaded with hidden meanings.  Once I started, I couldn't stop.

What I have done is not something I regret and this blatant betrayal was the only way to free myself from the darkened cage you trapped me in, and it has become a way into the morning light of day where I can continue to grow and be nurtured by great men and women like Walt Whitman and Jane Austin.  Parting is indeed such sweet sorrow and while I head into this new life, you will continue to have a place in my heart and on my shelf.

Isabella

"Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold"

   "Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold"

      The Hollywood film industry is stocked to the brim with vengeful movies full of war, drugs, violence, betrayal, and the ever-famous love affair gone wrong.  Every day, hoards of movie goers flock to see these films, which are soaked in action and violence.  When thinking of violent films that are hell bent on revenge and are coupled with the expected blood and gore scenes which supposedly provide entertainment, the top name that comes to mind would be the most influential director of the revenge genre, the King of Gore:  Quentin Tarantino.  Many praise his movies as being creative genius because they combine humor and violence as well as unique and influential style.  However, many critique the characters in his films because of the eerily unnatural way they kill with ease.

       Just the very mention of the famous Tarantino's name is enough to invoke a smile on the faces of some of society's more carnage-hungry men, while causing many a delicate soul's stomach to churn.  While not all of his movies are centered around revenge, people can be sure that as soon as the credits start to roll, they will be faced with some of the most violent scenes imaginable encased in a movie that sometimes lasts for three hours or more.  The three most popular revenge flicks of Tarantino's are Kill Bill (volumes 1 through 87...), Inglorious Basterds, and his most recent creation, Django Unchained.  The main purpose of all the main characters in these films is to kill the ones who have done them wrong without any remorse or qualms whatsoever.  Kill Bill is a story that surrounds an assassin, who is known to the audience as "The Bride," and her plot to kill her ex-lover in a vengeful escapade that started the day he attempted to murder her on her wedding day (Kill Bill vol. 2).  Viewers are well informed in the beginning of the movie that the story will be purely based upon revenge (as seen in the very first line: "Revenge is a dish best served cold").  

        Many critics rave about Tarantino's quirky style which combines humor, violence, and modern day settings with out-of-place elements and soundtracks, such as spaghetti western themed music and comic book scenes.  However, there are also those who criticize his works saying he has gone too far.  Film critics comment on Tarantino's overwhelming use of violence and the almost soullessness of his characters.  In his movie, Inglorious Basterds, (Inglorious Basterds) a band of Jewish U.S. military men, who are fueled by  revenge, go on missions to kill Nazi officers.  Many have seen this work as over the top and offensive because they believe it paints a bad picture the Jewish people (Tarantino Analysis).  Jeffery Goldberg, journalist of the Atlantic, says that oftentimes Quentin Tarantino's works take revenge to the next level where people enter into the realm of  inhumanity.  

        To counter Tarantino's main characters (who are often described as soulless, vicious killers), one can compare Inglorious Basterds to the unforgettably timeless play, Hamlet, by William Shakespeare.  The Jewish military men in Tarantino's films viciously scalp and mark their victims with swastikas with no feelings of remorse while having fun.  This characterization makes this band of men seem almost inhuman.  On the other hand, in Hamlet, Shakespeare manages to convey scenes of bloody violence while still relating to his audience.  In the play, Hamlet is seen in many cases to have inner conflicting thoughts about killing his uncle and avenging his father's death.  He is afraid to take action against the King and makes it known in one of the most famous soliloquies in all of literature.  Hamlet says, "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; /And thus the native hue of resolution/, Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought" (3.1.84-81).  The fact that Hamlet is voices these inner conflicts allows the reader to relate to Hamlet and even justify his decisions.   This contrast between Hamlet, who is plagued with uncertainty about committing murder, and Tarantino's main characters who coldly kill without batting an eye.   
       The uncontrollably disturbing violent acts committed by the characters in the works created by Quentin Tarantino take away from any kind of thematic elements used in films and literature.  Tarantino's movies are based solely on violence, and oftentimes do not go into much more depth.  Unlike Shakespeare's Hamlet, where the human nature is explored in the form of revenge, Tarantino's characters just take part in violence and critiques and audiences alike are unable to pull out much in the form of morally deep themes.

Sources:

Goldberg, Jeffery. "Hollywood's Jewish Avenger." The Atlantic. N.p., Sept. 2009. Web. 14 Jan. 2013. 
<http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/hollywoods-jewish-avenger/307619/>.

It's Your Weekend Updates with......Seth Meyers!

Satire

When addressing the topic of satire one needn't look any further than NBC's Saturday Night Live. SNL is a late night T.V. show that has specialized in comedy and satire since the 1970s. Much of SNL uses satire to ridicule and point out the flaws in pop culture, advertising, politics, religion, famous people, groups of individuals, or just daily life. In the past couple of months, SNL has used the very current topic of the 2012 election. Many skits surrounding the election have been created not only for comedy, but also to inform the public about the underlying imperfections of politicians and the ideas they support.

One such example of this is the skit done by Seth Meyers on his weekend update.  Meyers’ weekend updates consist of news reports, which are not always factual and at times are largely exaggerated).  His newscast often uses satire to critisize current events in politics and pop culture.  In his news casting, Meyers does an interview with presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, and asks him about his past comments about cutting the budget of FEMA (a government agency that deals with natural disaster relief) after hurricane Sandy recently destroyed much of New Jersey and New York. In response, Romney made a satirical comment about nobody should ever take what he says seriously or believe any promises that he has made or will make in the future. The skit also makes fun of supposed comments about how Romney's views and policies did little in favoring women.  The premise of this skit was to point out flaws in presidential candidates and how they make empty promises to win the Peoples’ votes.

In satirizing the election of 2012, weekend updates on SNL is able to inform the public about different sides of politicians that might night come to light on the normal news. They don't just depict political figures as what they claim to be at face value, they delve into other sides of politicians and government that people might not realize and at the same time, create humor in our American system.

The same type of political satire is addressed in the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Twain writes of a thirteen year old boy, Huck, who makes observations on southern society through his experiences as he travels down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave, Jim. One such government policy that Huck notes is slavery. Twain shows the hypocrisy and inhumanity of slavery through the very humorous and superstitious character of Jim. Although Jim might be uneducated, as seen in the scene when Huck is trying to explain the French language to him, the reader still sees him as human through scenes where Jim is reminiscing about his wife and children. This funny character still is able to display the serious issue of slavery despite the overlying humor.

This similarity in political humor makes Huckleberry Finn much like SNL's weekend updates. They make fun of the American government and its policies yet both still succeed at conveying the serious issues that plague the country.