"Arguing against globalization is like arguing against the laws of gravity.”

Being an international student from Panama city I have seen and felt the effects of globalization in my country. The good thing about it is that coming to America wasn’t such a big deal since Panama has adopted much of the American culture, specially in terms of media.

Globalization is an ongoing process in which flow of goods, services, money, and ideas are integrated across national borders through a global network of communication, transportation, and trade.

One of the globalization concepts is hybridization that is when you take and formula that was successful in one place and adopted it somewhere else. The new reality show “Latin American Idol” is an excellent example of hybridization. It is basically the same concept of “American idol”, only that with latin people. So if one day you feel like watching some sexy bootylicious latinas singing and dancing, this is definitely your show to watch. Ps. Panama won the first season, say whaaat!!! :)

Isnt globalization beautiful?

Xoxo

-MK

Fear Appeal in ADS

For some people advertising is a business. It is one more tool that is part of a bigger marketing plan to SELL MORE STUFF. For me as  advertising can be resumed in one word: ART. Advertising is known to use different appeals to deliver a certain message, the ad I chose uses the fear appeal.

CLICK HERE!

The ad starts as a typical cleaning product,  happy bubbles singing and dancing to a happy jingle. But later it takes a creepy turn and shows the residues of the cleaning product who basically say that they (cleaning products) trick you to think your bathroom is clean but its really not. I think it’s gets your attention because it is so funny, and it uses fear appeals to persuade people and im sure many people can relate to the commercial and that makes it even more powerful.

Fear appeals in advertising have been used for decades; listerine basically created bad breath by using this appeal in its ads. Fear appeals in ads are very persuasive mostly because consumers can relate to the message and want to buy the product to prevent anything bad from happening. For example, most deodorant commercials appeal to the social fear of fitting in, making good impressions and not being ridiculed. Fear appeals are a common theme in PSAS.

As I said before, this ad uses fear appeal by basically tell you that you are being tricked by your cleaning product, they just make your bathroom LOOK clean but it doesn’t mean it IS clean. It appeals to the fear of wanting your bathroom to be clean, germ free and I think it does creatively delivers that message in a funny way.

"One Man Wolfpack"

Introduction: The first act introduces the characters getting ready to go to Vegas to for their best friend Doug bachelor party. They are all excited to get away from their boring day to day life and have some fun in Vegas. Some funny stuff happens at the hotel they are at, they are having fun, and at night they all took a shot in the rooftop of the hotel before leaving for what was supposed to be the “best night of their lives” (one man wolfpack, anyone?)

The complication happens in the second act when they wake up the next day, the hotel suite is completely upside down, one of the friends is missing a tooth, theres a tiger in the bathroom and a baby (Carlos) on the closet and nobody remembers a thing. Later they realized their “wolfpack” is missing one wolf: DOUG. They trace their steps back with help of people they met that night, in order to find Doug and go back home on time for the wedding.

Resolution: After tons and tons of weird stuff, they finally find Doug in the rooftop of the hotel. The climax happens when they find him and have few minutes to get back home to be in time for the wedding. Of course they make it back just in time, Doug gets married, Stu leaves his wife for a stripper, and they end up realizing they took some pretty crazy pictures of that night.

Ill Be There For You

Were all different, therefore we all have different tastes about the food we eat, the music we hear, and the shows we watch.

I truly believe there is a sitcom for everyone. Sitcoms are our time to chill, time to laugh, time to forget about everything and just watch what out favorite characters have to deal with this time.

One of the characteristics of a sitcom is the three act structure.

This means that the sitcom 1) starts with a setup of the location and characters, 2) the characters o a character is faced by an obstacle that he/she/them have to resolve and it 3) ends with a resolution.

 

My favorite sitcom of all times is F.R.I.E.N.D.S. The story unfolds typically the same way every time. It starts with all of them (or atleast most of them) at Central Perk Café just hanging and talking when suddenly one of the FRIENDS starts to talk about a problem they might have and the rest of the episode revolves around that FRIENDs journey to fix the problem and how his friends are there to back him/her up getting them into more trouble than normal.

"A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it"

What a director most important role? While some may say getting along with the actors, others may say controlling a films artistic and dramatic aspects, and others will even say post production. Nobody can argue a director has a lot of responsibilities in the making of a film, but what makes a director's film stand out from the rest? Along with many other things, the SHOTS he uses to film different scenes have a huge impact in how the story is told to audiences.


I will be discussing one of the scenes in my all time favorite  movie 'The Little Rascals". In one of the first scenes where Alfalfa and Darla are having a date on a boat the director applies what its called "Reverse Order" and starts with a Extreme Close Up (ECU) and ends with a Long Shot (LS).




First shot:  Extreme Close Up Shot (ECU). 
We yet don't know who is singing, all we see is this strand of hair (Alfalfas Trademark). The Director wants us to pay attention to that detail.

Second Shot: Close Up shot (CU) 

We now see Alfalfas Face while he is singing to Darla.

Darla enjoying her lover's serenade her. We know who is there and what they are doing and feeling, but we yet don't know about anything that surrounds them.

Third Shot: Middle Shot (MS)

Here we can see both Darla and Alfalfa in the screen, sitting on a boat in a river having a date.

Fourth Shot: Long Shot (LS)

With this shot we understand that Spanky and his friends caught Alfalfa on his date and are not very happy about it.

"Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul" - Marilyn Monroe

What does Michelle Rodriguez, Anna Faris, Jennifer Aniston, Bruce Willis and Michael Cera have in common? Aside from being movie stars is the fact that no matter what movie they are in, they ALWAYS play the same role. From being a badass- I-can-and-will-kick-your-butt type of girl (Michelle R) to being a Ditzy blonde, even though she isn’t really blonde (Anna Faris), some stars cant seem to be able to play different roles.

Not so long ago, during the 'Classical Hollywood era' this used to be the case for ALL STARS. Big studios would discover promising actors, sent them to dancing, singing, acting classes and then made them sign a contract that would made the stars literally belong to the studio for the next few years of their lives.

Sounds fun? Not really.  Not only did the actors not get paid enough, but they would have to play the roles the studio demanded them too. They would always play the same roles, no matter what movie they were in. The studio created an image for each of their stars and obliged them to live up to that image, especially in front of the media. Their image was more important than their acting.

So whenever someone went to see a movie, they just had to look who stars in it to know what to expect the movie to be about. How boring right? Nowadays you wouldn’t know what to expect from a movie just by knowing who is going to star in it, if that was the case I would have been more than excited to watch Valentines Day which had an all A LIST cast, but a pretty boring script. If this movie had come out in old Hollywood people would have known what to expect from each character.

Placed among the 10 greatest female artist of all time by the American Film institute, Judy Garland, who’s real first name was Frances Ethel Gumm, would be an excellent example of the star system in Old Hollywood. Discovered by MGM for who she worked for from 1935 to 1950, her typical roles were drama and musicals. She had a hard time battling with insecurity since film executives would tell her she was unattractive and manipulated her on screen appearance. When people went to see a Judy Garland movie, they knew she would burst into a song in no time and im sure they would have been surprised if she didn’t. 

"I was born at the age of twelve on an MGM lot"- Judy Garland 

ALL IN THE FAMILY VS WEEDS

The shows I will compare are ‘All in the Family’ and ‘Weeds’. What both show have in common is obviously that they try to portray families in different eras. They are both funny in different ways, and deal with family related issues and how the deal with stuff that happens day to day.

In the “all in the family” episode we saw, Archie discovers one of his good friend is gay. In this episode the characters keep making gay stereotype references and jokes that honestly don’t even make sense to me. One example was when the bartender tells Mike “I don’t want my place to become no hangout, if you know what I mean” clearly referring to the fact that he doesn’t want his bar to become a “gay bar”.  Or when they do the “chair” experiment where only the girls and STEVE could lift up the chair while no other male could and Mike concluded that because of that Steve was gay, reinforcing a fake stereotype.

Nowadays shows try to portray in the best way they can this kind of issues, instead of just talking about them. Sometimes they even make jokes about them. But the big difference between both of this shows is the kind of humor that is used, and I am sure that if all In The Family was still on today people wouldn’t be laughing as much as they did back then.