How Many Of My Opinions Are My Own? Realizations on Richard Nixon

I was privileged to grow up in the information age, the first time in history when your views on the world around you didn’t have to come solely from your family, friends, and immediate interactions. I’ve always viewed the internet- and the ability to access new viewpoints from a very young age, as an obvious benefit of my generation. The capability to form my opinions off of information I have found myself has always felt liberating- however, in the past few weeks I have found that historically, my opinions may fall short. The facts I thought I had absorbed may have not have been facts, just ill-advised perceptions I had made based on popular opinions of people I thought were generally agreeable.

Out of the many examples of this phenomenon I could pick out, it was our lessons on Richard Nixon and the Watergate Scandal that really brought this idea to my attention. I thought I knew everything I needed to know about Richard Nixon, and as I had never heard a single positive thing about the man, I automatically assumed that he was a terrible president who never accomplished anything. As it turns out, that really was not true.

While I can say that I still wouldn’t agree with Ol’ Dick Nixon on- oh I don’t know but probably a lot of things, and his personality does leave something to be desired…Richard Nixon wasn’t a bad president. That’s the complete opposite of the impression I had been under my entire life. I thought that Richard Nixon was known as one of the worst presidents of all time, but weirdly, in the CNN special on Watergate, one of the experts said that before Watergate, Nixon was on his way to becoming known as the best president of all time.

When I bother to look at the actual facts rather than the common jokes at his expense, Nixon accomplished a lot in his time in office. He opened up US-Chinese relations, desegregated schools, limited nuclear weapons production, and had to deal with the war in Vietnam the whole time. I don’t think I have to like Nixon to respect the number of things that he did to further America.

While it’s unfortunate that he tainted his entire legacy with his paranoia, it may be even more unfortunate that I’ve been basing everything I know about him solely on one aspect of his life. This has opened my eyes to realize I do this with so many things in history- and I’m pretty sure almost everyone else does too.

Nixon, whether he be the best or the worst president of all time (although I’m pretty sure worst is already claimed), taught me a very important lesson. It’s okay to take our opinions from other people, that’s just how we learn. But if we do that, we should know the facts of what actually happened into consideration and try and see all the sides of history before making a decision.

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Iranian in North Vancouver

For the first time in my 4 years of this program, I didn’t go on the big trip! Why you ask? It’s simple; it’s not simple. Basically, for the first time, I got to find out what it was like to be at home during those faithful days where most of the class is living it up in exotic locations!

All in all, it was better than I thought it was going to be. The ten of us who stayed behind managed to get quite a bit of work done during this time, although to be honest, I think I did most of my work outside of class. Doing work while you’re actually at school is kind of a hard blow to take.

Or at least, it is in the last three months of high school.

Our assignment faced some interesting challenges to say the least. Part of the reason why we were assigned a project on the Iranian Revolution is because there is a very large Persian population right here in North Vancouver! Our teachers, and by extension, we, thought that it would be easy to get first hand accounts of living in Iran before, during, and after the Iranian revolution.

As it turns out, there has been an Iranian spy problem in Canada in the past. This problem seriously hindered our ability to get people to speak with. We did manage to get sources and conduct interviews, but all of those interviews ended up being audio only and all of our sources remained anonymous. Getting interviews took a lot longer than we thought it would, meaning that our entire first week of classes was spent trying to coerce people into talking to us. Although, in the end, I think we got some interesting perspectives.

We completed our chapters for the most part, but when our teachers came back and told us we had to re-format to make our chapters look….somewhat similar, we fought for a bit over what that would look like, but eventually just went with the chapter that our teachers thought looked the best. We were all going to re-do our chapters, make the last chapter together, and then be done quickly. Except, we didn’t really get any class time for this project after that. This project kind of went to the back burner for all of us. It was May of our grade 12 year, which means about half our classes were doing their final assignments and exams because they don’t want us to have to do them during grad season.

Essentially, the actual coming together of this book….took awhile. But I think it’s ended up looking nice, and it’s probably good that the chapters look the same.

(SO I DON”T HAVE THE ACTUAL BOOK YET BUT LIKE…..YIKES I HOPE I WILL!!)

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Talking about AIDS -> Facilitation Friday

I decided to pick the topic of AIDS because I felt like it was something I knew a little bit about, but could definitely stand to learn more. Although we’ve come a long way, AIDS still has a stigma because it is a disease transmitted mainly through sex. On top of that, it has always disproportionally affected gay men more than any other demographic. When I was growing up, AIDS wasn’t something that the general public felt it really had to worry about anymore. With increased sexual education and more awareness on how to combat STDs, most people believed that AIDS was a thing of the past. With AIDS being a “non-issue”, a sex issue, and an LGBT issue, it wasn’t something 21st-century kids like me were talked to about. Even growing up in a socially liberal household, I don’t believe I knew what AIDS really was until high school.

On top of that, I don’t think I knew the issues behind AIDS until a year ago. I’ve gained small bits of information over the past year, but the majority of what I know about AIDS I have learned in the past week, both in-class and through a couple documentaries so that I could better understand my topic.

It was hard to choose the questions to ask my class about AIDS, because I knew I couldn’t just ask them “was it wrong to ignore the AIDS crisis?”. There were a lot of really basic questions like that which came to my mind, but I knew those wouldn’t come up with any real conversation. I wanted to make the conversation polarizing, so I had to find questions that would rely on people’s perceptions on history rather than moral dilemmas that most of us would probably be on the same side with. I eventually ended up with these five questions, and with each question, I’ll go over how well it went.

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An Ode to Roy O. Disney: The People We Don’t Remember

The Walt Disney Company is one of the most recognizable brands in the world. Walt Disney, by extension, has become the epitome of a household name. Walt took the dreams and imagination alive in American children and brought them to screen, stage, and in the summer of 1955, theme park. Walt was a complicated man, although when we simplify his story, it becomes inspiring.

A young man comes from nothing. He does so poorly in school that he drops out. When he comes back from helping with WWI cleanup he starts his first animation company as a teenager. That company fails, but this man preservers and moves to California where he starts again. He struggles but works hard. Eventually, the young man proves how valuable animation is. He creates the first full length, animated feature film. Everyone loves it. He continues to defy the odds, and thirty(ish) years later, he opens the world’s first true theme park. Walt Disney creates the American dream.

That is the story we are told, and at the end of the day, it is not untrue. However this narrative ignores many key factors of The Walt Disney Company, more specifically the people other than Walt who greatly contributed to the company’s success. The most significant of these people can be summed up in Roy O. Disney, Walt’s older brother, and co-founder of the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, a company now known as The Walt Disney Company. Roy was eight years Walt’s senior, and would remain his most important relationship throughout his lifetime. Though only his older brother, to Walt, Roy functioned as a best friend, business partner, and a surrogate father.

However, it is not only Roy’s relationship with his brother that made him so valuable to the Walt Disney Company. If Walt was the heart of the company, Roy was the brain. Walt constantly worked on films and other projects, but it was always Roy who ran the company from the practical standpoint. Roy dealt with money, employees, board meetings, and all the other things Walt didn’t have the attention span for. When Walt had a crazy idea, Roy almost always agreed with everyone else that it was insane. Roy was with being fiscally responsible, and Walt never was, which lead to a lot of conflict between the two brother. However, in the end, Roy would always give in, and do everything in his power to make Walt’s dreams come true. Some might say while Walt was a dreamer, Roy was a realist, although it can be argued that both brothers were dreamers. The only difference was only one understood the reach of their budget.

This difference in attitudes may have painted an image of a cold, fiscal Roy as the opposite to the warm and loving uncle Walt that many Americans grew up with on their TV screens. In reality, this could not be more different from the truth. While Walt projected an overly friendly persona in public, his smiling face didn’t always translate behind the scenes. Walt was often described as a hard and cold boss. His perfectionism usually got the better of him, and an end product was always more important to Walt than the feelings of his employees. This was Walt’s world, and everyone else was just living in it. A boss to be admired but feared, Walt was in no way how people imagined him.

Roy, however, was often described in a way we might have expected of Walt. Roy was charismatic, and had a sense of humour about things. He had more interpersonal skills than his younger brother and got along much better with employees and people in general because of it. Animator Frank Thomas said of Roy that “You could put your arm around [his] shoulder.” followed by “Not with Walt.” Roy wasn’t consumed with the ideas of perfection like his brother was, and really cared about the well-being of his employees. He was said to have had a hard time firing or laying people off, at some points sacrificing his own paycheck and having Walt sacrifice his so that layoffs could be avoided. This lead to the people who knew the Disney’s, or at least the people who worked for them, to usually harbour a favour toward the elder brother.

When it comes to the “big stuff”- meaning the accomplishments Walt Disney is most famous for such as Snow White and The Seven Dwarves or Disneyland, none of them would have been possible without Roy. The creation of Disneyland began as a “personal project” of Walt’s, although quickly spiraled into something very real when Roy got a phone call from the bank asking for more information on this “theme park idea” that Walt had just secured a loan for. Walt would say he did it this way because Roy refused to seriously talk about it, but many (including Roy) would say that Walt liked to over-dramatise these conflicts with his brother to make himself seem like a genius that nobody ever listened to. These unclear reports may outline the problem of running a business with your brother.

Roy’s problem with Disneyland was the same as his problem with so many of Walt’s other ideas, the Disney company could simply not afford it. However, once the ball got rolling there was no stopping it. Begrudgingly agreeing that in case of absolute failure, the lot could be used for studio space and filming, Roy began working on getting Walt’s park paid for. Using Walt’s fascination with television and desire to start their own programs, Roy suggested a fifteen minute program that would promote Disneyland among the other shows that were being planned. ABC eventually bought this idea, a decision that they would benefit from greatly. Walt Disney’s Disneyland beginning to air on the network in 1954, a year before the park’s opening. However, this alone would not pay for the park, which was looking to cost a good 5.25 million dollars- nearly 50 million dollars by today’s standards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkwAvBuXZKs

To combat this problem, Roy began working on selling shares and making deals with companies small and large. Although the ABC show cost more to produce than it made, the network itself had invested in Disneyland, and the show garnered attention from other companies who were looking to invest in the recently marketed amusement park. At the same time Walt was hard at work making sure Disneyland was being built exactly to his specifications, Roy was doing the equally heavily-weighted job- making sure this wouldn’t send the company into bankruptcy.

The park had its shortcomings in those first few years, but was an ultimate success. Of course, with hindsight over a half-century later we know what a massive phenomenon Disney Parks became, but at the time it was unprecedented, and an absolute marvel to see. With the success of the park, Disney was able to buy back all its shares in Disneyland in the next ten years, assuming full ownership. What had been Walt’s dream became a reality, allowing him to move on to envisioning Disney World. Disney World became a project actualized by Roy, as Walt died 5 years before the park’s opening. Roy would spend his dying days re-living the days of twenty years before, making sure every rock was laid in the manner his brother would have wanted. When the parks first opened in 1971, it was Roy who gave the dedication speech. It was also Roy who renamed the park from Walt’s original plans- Disney World became Walt Disney World, as a dedication of Roy’s admiration of his brother.

Roy was never one for the spotlight, which largely contributes to the reason that he’s not widely talked about like his brother. Roy never aspired fame the way Walt did. Despite being co-head of Disney for years one end, there aren’t many public photos or videos of him. Roy was rarely shown to the public, and while it is hard to remember what you do not see, it feels like we have forgotten Roy entirely. When searching for Roy O. Disney, most of what you will find are things named for him, buildings, concert halls, and trains, instead of records from his actual life. He is almost a foil character of his brother. In goals, strengths, and weaknesses, the two never quite matched up. This seems to have left us, almost 100 years after the Disney company was formed, worshiping one brother and ignoring the other. We may even run the risk of rendering Roy Disney completely unremembered.

Although at the end of the day, Roy built one of the biggest companies of all time from the ground up and stayed in the shadows while doing so. When that company is a media empire, it is clear that this was a conscious choice. Perhaps we haven’t done Roy a disservice by letting his memory stay in death how he liked to live his life- unbothered.

To commemorate his life, I completed a short timeline of some of the most important events in Roy’s life, while many are outlined by Disney, it was interesting to dive into his life before the mouse consumed his family name.

Sources:

Building a Company: Roy O. Disney and the Creation of an Entertainment Empire by Bob Thomas

Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler

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Alternative History

A long time ago, we did an assignment on the beginning of World War One. Even though there have been historians studying the causes of the first world war for- oh, I don’t know, 104 years, we had to come up with our own theory. How did World War One start? It’s a convoluted question, and the answer is just as messy.

Luckily, World War Two’s causes lend themselves in a much more understanding way. Essentially, you can tie it back to the consequences of the first World War. Lingering anger, disappointment, and fear came back on a European scale and slowly went global. Old alliances stayed the same, old enemies fought again.

But what if they didn’t? A million causes fed into the full-blown fighting spirit of the war, and just one change could have tipped everything to end up differently. We can take a key event- say the Munich Agreement, and twist it on its head, tracking where it might end up. Would we end up here, again? In the case of my reimagining of the agreement between Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain, the answer is no.

Our story starts with the Munich Agreement. In 1938, the prime minister of Britain met with the chancellor of Germany. These two men, Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler, signed a very loose agreement heavily implying that Britain and Germany have no intention of ever going to war against each other again, although never doing so much as to promise it. Britain was trying to protect themselves, but at the same time, they were not looking to condone the behavior of Hitler and his regime. In a balance between these needs, the Munich Agreement came to be.

But what if it didn’t?

When coming up for options for Britain, I thought of one that is so opposite of history that it fascinated me. In a desperate effort to protect themselves from another devastating war, Britain allies itself with Germany. This is a decision that doesn’t include France. I made this a Britain-only historical change because it’s out of my realm of belief to even pretend there is a world where 1930’s France and Germany could have become friends. However, I do not find it unbelievable that a fearful Britain would abandon their morals in place of safety. Even after the First World War, Britain still had a “Britain First” international policy. Despite their unsettlement with Hitler’s actions, I don’t doubt that there is a reality where an Anglo-German alliance would exist. To show how this would have changed from the actual Munich Agreement, I took an old New York Times article from 1938, and altered it to reflect my alternative history.

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Thnks Fr Th Mmrs

How do we remember the past? This question is key when it comes to history. Like, obviously.

The first past we’re looking at is apparently our own. At first, I thought this was kind of redundant. You know…I’m 18. Nothing that interesting has happened to me yet. Although I realized that we didn’t have to write the biography for the most interesting person in the world, we just had to come up with what about our history matters to us.

We had to come up with four events and present them visually. Not going to lie, it took me a LONG time to figure out how I was going to present these. Although the way I ultimately chose may look…like kinda weird. I like it, although I’m not sure everyone will. I went for a scrapbook style, and it looks messy, and kind of unfinished. I did it this way because I think that better represents how a memory feels than a bunch of typed text.

What I did to create these memory card things was kind of complicated but actually not at all. First I would write what I wanted to say, headlines, and drawings on blank paper with sharpies. Then, I would scan what I had written on to my computer. Then I would proceed to send those scans to my iPad, where I would make the writing transparent without any backgrounds or borders. I would then send it back to my computer, where the photos were (some of which I had to scan in as well), and overlay the text on the images until everything fit properly.

This is how that turned out, and a little bit about why I chose each memory.

First: My Birth.

Well, I chose this one because it was mandatory, but I think it actually has a kind of interesting story behind it…or maybe not but it happened either way. I was a pretty cool baby, though. I went to Vegas three weeks later and got turnt. Just kidding.

I still haven’t got a clear answer as to why my mother took a 3 week old baby to Vegas.

Second: The Day I Broke My Leg.

So, I wasn’t thinking about doing this memory until I asked my sister if she would record an interview about the day I was born, and she suggested she do this day instead because she thought it was funny that she got to eat ice cream and pizza while I was in the hospital. I obviously don’t have photos from the day I actually broke my leg, but I have a lot of me with that bright yellow cast. Breaking my leg really did change me, so I do think it’s a good defining memory about myself. I wasn’t allowed to play for an entire summer because of that broken leg, and it has made me a less active person. Before I broke it, I loved running around, but because I spent 8 weeks getting in trouble when I did it, that love faded. If I could go back and change that day…I honestly probably would.

Third: The Day We Got Baden.

This one was a no brainer for me. My dog, Baden, changed everything in my household. The family dynamic was altered by this tyrant, but it was me who was ultimately changed by this dog. He was an untrainable anxious mess but I spent his whole life taking his side even when I shouldn’t have. Having Baden put me through a lot but I also learned a lot. What I really learned from this dog was what it means to love something for more than it’s worth, and that illogical love will sometimes make you fight a battle that you will never win.

Lastly: My First Trip To Disney World.

I know, I know. This one is kind of…really? But I really did go on this trip sobbing like a five year old because I was really scared of the rides. To me, this marks the first time I would fight one of my fears and win. That’s important for me, cause I had a lot of fears coming later that I never would have suspected. Sure, I didn’t go on every roller coaster, but I went on enough that when I went to Disneyland a year later, I was able to go on everything (except Tower of Terror, that one would take a few more years).

My “podcast” is um…a loose interpretation of a podcast. Honestly, I’m not sure if this counts but I decided that I’m going to take the risk of handing this in, mostly because I won’t be able to take academic risks next year…so like, why not?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z4ygVSbsQk

(it did kind of take awhile).

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Wikihow: How to Understand a Historical Event in 6 Easy Steps

For the past 6 classes, we’ve been preparing for our History portion of the year. Of course, our teachers were chilling in SoCal for these 6 classes, so we had to teach ourselves. To be fair, we were actually teaching each other, and then playing a kahoot to make sure we got it. (shout out to the one group that didn’t make a kahoot for following their own path). We proved to each other that we understood, but now we have to prove it to our teachers that we understood (or at least took notes).

I decided that to show my understand, I would make a comic. I’ve been reading a lot of comics lately, so it seemed appropriate. I’ve mostly been reading Spiderman comics. As a tangent, I will rank all the Spiderman series I have read so far. I added links so you can read them, if you want to. (Disclaimer: I haven’t read every issue of every series, but enough to know how much I like it)

Spider-Man (2016)

This is the current “Spider-Man” comic. It features a teenaged Miles Morales, rather than Peter Parker (who still exists in this universe, this takes place alongside The Amazing Spider-Man (2015), and is very relationship driven. It doesn’t have as much action as some of the other comics, but it’s interesting as it’s very different from a lot of the other comics. Probably because it has a different main character who, while has many of the same mannerisms and goals as Peter Parker, has a different backstory that allows for the character to work outside of the limits of orphanisms.

2. Spidey (2016)

Spidey is fun. It’s very classic “teen Peter Parker” and has the same basic storyline as people expect from Spiderman (i.e the storyline from the Tobey Maguire movies). The difference is that this one is modern, which is basically why I like it the most out of all those basic storyline Spiderman comics. It’s not dated, and there’s a lot of jokes that are actually funny. It’s very humor based, and it doesn’t get too serious.

3. Spider-Man/Deadpool (2016)

This one is just funny. It does get a little dramatic, but it’s mostly just funny. I don’t think I would say anything insightful about this comic. Deadpool makes a lot of sexual innuendoes. But don’t worry, Peter Parker is an adult here so it’s not weird. It exists in the same universe as The Amazing Spider-Man (2015) and Spider-Man (2016).

4. The Amazing Spider-Man (2015)

This exists in the same universe as a lot of other Marvel Comics, and because I usually only read Spiderman ones I sometimes get really confused. This is Peter Parker where he’s basically Tony Stark in that he owns a massive company, but nobody knows he’s Spiderman. And he has a complicated relationship with the Avengers. This is a really good comic, but it gets to be in the middle because I get confused a lot.

5. Ultimate Spider-Man (2000)

Ultimate Spider-Man (2000) is incredibly iconic. It’s basically the Tobey Maguire movies in comic form, with a lot extra. I guess I just don’t really like Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker, or maybe it’s too dated for me. This comic is dated in the worst way. It’s like when you watch a sitcom from the early 2000’s and can’t stop cringing cause it’s kind of offensive. Nerd Peter Parker is just so boring to me, and I don’t like reading it.

6. Spider-Man 2099 (2015)

This comic is very different from any of the others I read. It’s like….the year is 2099 and…it’s very science fiction. I don’t really like science fiction in comics. Sorry, not my thing.

7. Spider-Verse (2015)

There’s like, a million spidermen (and women) in this one. It was only two issues, but I still don’t really understand it. Cool concept, though.

Okay, now that my tangent is over, I can show you the comic I made. Although I tried my best, I stuck with very basic art, because I am not an artist. I thought about using clipart, but I thought that stickmen were more authentic and easier to make emote. I think I got across all the information. I didn’t want to go into too much detail because I thought that would be boring and nobody needs that much. Anyways, here is my comic.

Although, now I have to show that I can actually apply these concepts to an event. I picked Columbine because I think it’s an event that can be applied to everything and I find it to be interesting and decently specific. Columbine was the tragic shooting of Columbine High School on April 20th of 1999. Two students when on a shooting spree, killing 13 people and wounding more than 20 others. The students then killed themselves, making the total death toll 15 people. It made a huge impact on America, and fuelled a national debate about gun control that continues to this day. Below are pictures of the two students who carried out the attacks.

Image result for columbine

The Columbine school shooting was historically significant in way of culture, politics, and economics. It sparked a national debate on gun control, both in and out of politics. Columbine changed how schools ran in many parts of America, turning many schools, mainly middle schools and high schools, into places of incredibly high security. Culturally, it marked a shift in teenager’s views on certain subcultures. The grunge and goth cultures that grew to prominence throughout the 1980’s and 90’s were now criminalized. Columbine could be pointed to as one of the reasons for the shift of teenager subculture towards a more preppy style in the early 21st century. At the time, the 15 deaths marked it as the deadliest school massacre to occur in modern history (often considered the deadliest, as many people discounted the Bath School Disaster in 1927 due to its nature and lack of historical significance). In 2018, Columbine is the 4th deadliest school shooting in modern history. However, it is often considered to be the first domino that fell in the ongoing struggle that is American school shootings.

The evidence from this event, at least the evidence prevalent at the time of the massacre, is varied in its factuality. There were many factual errors in the New York Times article published after the attack, such as claiming there were “at least 25 deaths”. As the days went on, more evidence came out that was backed up by witness recall and the school security camera footage. The evidence we have today is considered very trustworthy, as it has been backed up by both hard footage and the accounts of dozens of people who were in the school at the time of the attack. The events that occurred on April 20th, 1999, are rarely disputed and widely accepted. I have included the footage in a video below. The video is very graphic and highly disturbing, so watch at your own risk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCqlcG_ZmwE

America has both changed greatly and been at a standstill since 1999. While preventative actions have taken place such as high security at high-risk schools, America has stayed at a standstill for the actual issue of gun control. However, many people believe America’s stance on gun control was cemented in 2012 when a school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary killed 20 first grade children and there was nothing more than a continued debate on gun laws. While some actions have been taken to stop school shootings, 4 shootings similar to the Columbine shooting have taken place within the last six weeks.

What caused these two young men to massacre their own classmates has been disputed since the day of the event, and because the shooters killed themselves on the same day, the causes will likely never be fully understood. At the time, many people but blame on goth culture and violent video games, however, that narrative quickly turned to bullying and mental health. The type of people that the perpetrators were, their reasoning, and simply who they were as people continues to be disputed, and many people believe we will truly never know. However, In some class photos they can be seen pretending to shoot the camera with their friends, which has indicated this attack to be a highly thought out plan.

Image result for columbine

To put myself in the shoes of the people of 1999 receiving this news is both difficult and incredibly easy. I will never be able to understand the horror of such horrific events happening in my own country, as they rarely do to the scale that these events occur in America. However, I feel that I can understand the horror of seeing the events unfold. The five worst mass shootings in American history have occurred within my lifetime, two of those being school shootings. Of all these shootings, I remember all but Virgina Tech. While the shootings in 2016 and 2017 have had less impact on me after each one due to the frequency of these events in past years, I do remember the horror of Sandy Hook in 2012. At 12 years old, and a student in an elementary school, I could not help but wonder if this could happen to me. This reaction, I would imagine, was fairly similar to how many children, teenagers, and parents would have felt after the 1999 Columbine shooting.

It is obvious that this event was not ethical, there is no debate on that, and any sane person would tell you that they are horrified by the mere idea of a school shooting. The more important ethical discussion lies in the issue of gun control. I am fully and completely opposed to guns on an ethical level. I believe that a higher amount of gun control is always the best option. While I understand that this is a combination of where and how I was raised, I also believe in looking at the facts. The countries with the highest gun control have less murder and suicide per capita, simply by removing the easiest option. While I understand that there are other arguments for the allowance of guns, I believe that none of them compare to the need of having a safe country for everyone.

UPDATE: ONE WEEK LATER

The attacks on Columbine high school have shown to have an incredible amount of significance carrying through to today. In the past week, there has been a highly deadly massacre at a Florida high school, very similar to the attacks on Columbine. Many students across America feel unsafe, and want to take a stand against gun violence.

Whether it will happen or not, an idea of students walking out of schools on April 20th, the anniversary of the Columbine attacks, has been gaining traction online. Although it is an ambitious plan, and may be more effective in some areas than others, it looks like it may very well happen. Even CNN is reporting on it.

This proves that this event has lead us somewhere. Columbine changed America, in some way. Hopefully, it’s memory can help be the thing to repair the state of gun laws in America.

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I Am Your Host Julie Chen. Welcome To The Big Brother House.

Before I start this post I want to mention that my geography class takes place in the same room as my English class, and today we were sitting in geography when my friend pointed to these projects taped to the wall and said they creeped her out. When I told her that they were made by grade 12, she was seemingly even more creeped out.

That’s all the proof you really need that my class isn’t really full of artistic types.

Anyways, for this assignment, I worked with Stanfield, Spencer, Maria, and Luciano. When tasked with picking a character to do our metaphor man on, we picked quickly.

And then other groups picked our top 3 choices, so we got stuck with Mr. Charrington.

We actually had a benefit in this project, that both I and Luc had already read 1984. That means we should have avoided the second mistake that we made in originally building. We made two large mistakes.

I’m not really sure who to blame the first one on. Basically, we used green paper for a green screen project. Although we didn’t know it was a green screen project yet, so…. more on that later.

Anyways, we when we first started this assignment, we hadn’t finished the book and didn’t know Mr. Charrington was actually a member of the thought police, so when we had the second class period, we had to erase everything and start again.

What we ended up with was splitting Mr. Charrington in half. One side shows his fake “prole” side that we see for most of the novel, and the other side represents his secret identity as a thought police member.

What Each Part Represents

Cane: Mr. Charrington is passing himself off as a frail old man.

Outturned Pocket: He has no money.

Patches on Clothes: He cannot afford nice things/they’re not available to him.

Cutout on Hand: This was supposed to be the blue antique paperweight Winston buys, however, we had to use a blue screen so it cut out.

Cutout of Heart: This has a few representations. The heart is on the wrong side of his body because his heart is “in the wrong place”, and Big Brother is peaking out because his heart shows his true self.

Tears: Mr. Charrington is lonely because his wife died.

Ball and Chain: Like the rest of Oceania, Mr. Charrington is trapped in his boring routine of life.

Red Fist: The red fist of oppression.

Face: On the left side, Mr. Charrington has a kinder face, and on the right, it’s much more stoic and somewhat resembles 1940’s and 50’s dictators.

IMG_1148-recs6g

The video is shaky and kind of awful, but it’s because we had to make a tiny blue screen….I am sorry.

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Reviewing a “Movie” I Wrote Myself: Locked In

What makes horror horrifying? In the case of Locked In, the movie created by our Grade 12 English class, I’m surprised it’s there at all. But, somehow, somewhere, we do find moments in our no-budget student film that make you jump. The production might have been a low-key failure, but the movie ended up having some hidden greatness in it. Some of the camerawork and shots are especially incredible, and I want to give props to the people that made that happen (directors, cinematographers, and storyboarders). Look at how great some of these shots are that I snagged from the movie.

We do also find some horror in the horror movie (thank god) that actually works. But why does it work?

Let’s look at the Elements of Aversion, as written by Elizabeth Barriette. They’re split into two categories: Absence and Presence.

In absence falls all of the questions: what we don’t know and how these questions haunt us. What are those things? Are they human? and Can they be stopped? are all questions you’ll find yourself asking when watching Locked In. Although you may also ask yourself “What in the world is going on, and why do none of these characters do anything that makes sense?” on a few occasions, the core questions come out, and we are scared of these “figures” in the masks because we can’t really be sure what they are. They seem to appear and disappear at an inhuman rate, and do not act or move like a person would. This choice in making them inhuman was integral to making these elements of absence work properly. To fear them, we cannot know too much about them, and I think this is accomplished well, especially in a few key scenes where they seem to appear out of thin air.

We then have the elements of presence, in which what we know and what comfort us is intruded upon. Here we must face helplessness, urgency, and we find our horrific rhythm. I think in certain scenes, this has been done quite well. The helplessness that each character feels when faced with the deaths of their classmates translates relatively well, and once the rhythm picks up, it is balanced quite well with the releases of death.

I think that this movie shows more than we give it credit for. While it may not be a masterpiece, it does show, in small parts, that we do understand horror. And we learned that it’s a lot harder to translate on to a screen that it seems to be.

Especially within a two-week time limit.

If you’re interested, here’s a low-res version of it for your viewing…uh…pleasure?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwD8aCgTo30&t=1s

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Make a Movie: $0 Edition

When we first got assigned this project my only thoughts were “What the hell are my teachers thinking?”

That sentiment hasn’t changed much. Over the course of this assignment, I came to realize one thing more than any other: my class does not work well as one big group. We are good a group work, but once the group exceeds about 5 people, everything goes out the table.

Our teachers wanted us to become a film crew. The problem with this is that we are not a film crew. We are seventeen year olds. Seventeen years olds who aren’t passionate about filmmaking, in most cases. And more than that, we are headstrong. All of us. Everybody has opinions, and nobody wants to give up on theirs, because theirs is obviously the best. This may serve us all well in the future.

Needless to say, it didn’t here. We had power struggles, scheduling issues, and creative differences. If you want to know how it went just go read my post about the Macbeth video from last year, and dial it from 11 to about a 9.

Our class doesn’t not work well in a large group.

This is why I’m glad that I was on script. I was the DRI (aka the boss) of script, and Matthew, Gabi, and Tom were working with me. In the beginning, it was kind of nerve wracking. We had to come up and start ASAP a script that would

be realistic
won’t piss off our class
please the teachers
could be written REALLY FAST

After about half a class and two spares of discussion, we decided that not pissing off our class didn’t matter as much as the other three, because we only had about two weeks to do this whole project and nobody could do anything until we had a script.

I think the hardest part about writing the script was that our teachers wanted us to use emojis. That and making sure all of our script made sense/would be possible for the class to film. Our locations, number of actors, costumes/props were all limited because our budget was approximately zero dollars.

Although none of these issues mattered, because we had a time crunch. Teva, the producer, wanted us to have 6 scenes done in 4 days.

We finished the whole script in 5. I’m actually proud of this part. The four of us worked really hard to get this done, and while the script is obviously not perfect, I think it’s okay.

Okay, I honestly think it’s better than the movie. I’m not blaming anyone for that, I just think the scene that makes the story

make sense
have a sense of horror
MAKE SENSE

The movie’s production obviously involved our input as well, and I worked with the directors about rewrites a bit. Once production begun, I ended up stepping back a bit. This isn’t because I thought it was better for the movie (it wasn’t), but because I figured if I stepped back and let the directors do what they want, the movie would at least get finished. When the directors and producers told me they wanted “one at max” scriptwriter on set, I obliged because I know if we spent any time arguing whatsoever, it would eat into the filming time. And lord knows we didn’t have enough of it already. There were a few occasions where the scriptwriters on set got into arguments with the directors, but I just had to remind everyone and myself that once a scriptwriter hands a script over, the studio and directors can do whatever they want to it.

Even if it doesn’t make sense.

Not my problem anymore.

In all honestly, this could have gone better, but it could have gone worse as well. Personally I think if we had been able to film the teacher scene, which was the one thing I begged them to do that didn’t get finished, the movie would just be…..so much better.

So despite that failure, I think I did pretty okay.

For good measure, I’m taking that script on the end here.

HORROR SCRIPT FINAL REAL-2372kij

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