Humanities

Are You The Monster?

Sam

Here we go again everyone. The last but not least movie reflection post of our Monster in the Mirror unit.  If you haven’t see my other two posts, I reflected on the horror in the films Halloween by John Carpenter, and Jordan Peele’s Get Out. Both are horror movies, but from very different times. And I wrote about what the actual horror each film was trying to get across, and if it commented on today’s society. And today, I’m going to wrap up all the films we’ve watched in this unit.

Halloween Is Kinda Scary

I Wish I Could Get Out

Since watching Get out, we have seen Frankenstein, the original film by James Whale, and God’s and Monsters directed by Bill Condon. In this post I’m going to be combining the content of the most recent two films to answer one question that our whole unit is based off of:

“Who Is The Monster?”

Frankenstein and God’s and Monsters are both very different movies, but they are definitely connected. I’m going to be using these movies to explain what the real monster in Frankenstein is. The average person would believe that Frankenstein is the true monster in the story, and the average person probably thinks that Frankenstein is the name for the monster. But the average person is wrong on both accounts. The real monster of the story is anything but the creature created by the mad scientist Frankenstein.
The real monster is society. More specifically, how society treats someone or something who is different. And I’m going to prove that point, so just you wait.

First off, this statement is true because the creature is not an evil being. He is treated like a disgrace right off the bat, as his own creator flees from his house after seeing the creature wake. Just because the creature is ugly, he is treated as an outcast. He must learn how to function in society from the outskirts, looking in on everyone while hiding himself away in the forest. He has done nothing wrong, or given any reason for people to hate him, and yet, as soon as he tries to connect with humanity, he is immediately judged as a menace. He does not seek to harm or destroy anything, but as the story unfolds the creature kills and takes his revenge. This is supposed to reinforce the false idea that the creature is the monster, because he never would have committed those crimes if he was actually accepted by society.

Looking at the whole story this way shows us that the creature was never meant to be a monster, even though today he is an extremely popular Halloween costume. Another character who you could misinterpret the monster for is Dr. Frankenstein himself. Why did he do what he did? Shouldn’t he be blamed as the monster? But this is also not correct, as Frankenstein is subject to society’s judgements too. He is written off as crazy because he pursues something that’s never been done before. And he knows of their opinions, but he doesn’t care, telling us that “If I can just do one of those things, I won’t care if they call me crazy!” (Frankenstein 1931). Society sees him sitting up in his tower for days on end and decides that he must be crazy, rather than taking interest in his research or treating him like a person. The town is quick to judge and this is our society’s problem. This is the monster, and the story of Frankenstein, both the book by Mary Shelley and the original film prove it to us.

To further delve into this topic, we will look at it from a whole new perspective. Through another film, but this one is different. This film is about the life of James Whale, well after he directed the Frankenstein movies. He is an elderly man, living in a humble home with nothing but a caretaker and a paintbrush. Throughout the movie, we see he is just a bored old man, and eventually get insight on his thoughts about his famous movie. And he basically flat out proves my point about the real monster being society. He says in the film, when someone brings up the monster in his movie, he replies with, “The only monsters are here” while gesturing to his head. He obviously knows the meaning of his own movie, and some of the meaning is lost on the average person. Because the real monster is not the creature. It’s not Doctor Frankenstein. It’s us.

In our class right now, we’re making a mini horror film. We needed to tell a horror story that reflected and commented on an issue in our society today. I think that the Frankenstein book and movie have a very strong comment on today’s society, and it’s shown very well in the story. How we are afraid and act out towards those that are different, even though we create the people who we consider monsters in our society. By judging people by how they look and treating people like outcasts we end up just like doctor Frankenstein, where we only realize what we’ve done when it’s towering in front of us. As a society and as individuals we need to realize our negative tendency to judge others and really try to change how we treat people so we don’t end up creating worse monsters than us.

 

And with that, I think I have proven my point.

see you

I Wish I Could Get Out

Sam

Hey all y’all, welcome back.

Recently in PLP we watched another movie. Movies instead of schoolwork sounds pretty great. And I guess it is definitely better than regular work. But it is because we are going to be making our own movie and we want to actually make a good one. A horror movie to be exact, as this whole unit revolves around horror. We know that these movies we are watching fall into the horror genre, but while watching them we are supposed to be analyzing what exactly makes them horrifying. And so, today, I’m going to be explaining what the horror of Get Out by Jordan Peele really is.

This movie is different from the one we watched last time. John Carpenter’s Halloween is from another age of horror movies. Get Out is definitely more modern and comments on our society in many different ways. Jordan Peele, also a comedy actor and director, takes us through this story to scare us, and also provoke thoughts about the African American race in North America. It was exceptionally well done, leaving viewers formulating theories upon theories debating the events in the movie and their significance.

What I believe to be the horror in this movie are the many crazy turns away from typical societal behaviour. In this movie, there are multiple points in the story where Jordan Peele has you confused as to what is about to happen next. You never really know what the characters are thinking or what their true motives are until near the end of the movie. The main plot of the movie is the main character, Chris, and his girlfriend, Rose, go on a weekend trip to Rose’s parents house in the woods in the middle of nowhere. The idea of this should be totally okay, but Jordan Peele makes us think that something is really off, which we will later find out is true. But we are first teased at the idea of something horrific, then awkwardly reassured that everything is okay. But in the back of our minds we know that something is wrong. This right here is the real horror of this film, in my opinion. For example, while Chris and Rose are at the family home, it turns out that the weekend is a large family gathering. And Chris is the only African American person there, other than one strange fellow.

But as Chris is walking around talking to the older family members, he gets some odd looks, and even stranger comments. People try ask him what sports he plays, how fast he can run, and comment on his bicep size. This type of behaviour is exactly what Peele wants to show us. Somehow, it’s so incredibly strange but we can’t really put our finger on why. We then are whisked away from the situation and onto the next one. These encounters are meant to make us really uncomfortable, and for a few brief seconds, believe the worst is about to happen. But then, in this examples case, Rose comes in and says they will go for a walk, and we are left thinking maybe everything will be alright.

This movie is definitely a different type of horror movie. Only a handful of jump scares, and only mild violence and gore, and yet it’s still a horror movie. I believe it’s because of the intense feelings of terror that Jordan Peele makes us experience. He gives us a fright, and also makes us realize the negative stereotypes of African Americans in our everyday lives. There was some debate on the genre of this movie, as it had to be in a genre to receive awards. Some people don’t think it’s a horror movie, and more of a comedy. But Jordan Peele disagrees, and commented on it. I found what he said quite interesting. “Call it what you want, but the movie is an expression of my truth, my experience, the experiences of a lot of black people and minorities. Anyone who feels like the other. Any conversation that limits what it can be is putting it in a box.” (Jordan Peele, on an interview with indiewire.com). He really didn’t feel like calling his film a comedy to be appropriate, as there was nothing to be laughing at. I do agree with him, and think the controversy comes from minimal typical horror tropes, and the nature of the dilemmas in the film. This movie is really a masterpiece, and I think it combines multiple genres to create something better. It is a really great movie that I could go on and on about, as it has so many metaphors and double meanings that only make it better.

To summarize this analysis, this movie is a new type of horror. It has a stronger societal commentary than the typical horror film. The true horror comes from the divergence of societal expectations for a plot that terrifies us to our core. We as the viewers are constantly put on the edge of our seats through extremely strange encounters with characters, and we question their mental state and motivation constantly. Peele also gives our imagination lots of space to grow out of control, filling our minds with the worst possible scenarios, which causes us to constantly be in fear. All of this, and more, combines to make a truly terrifying experience.

And to finish off the post, a brief connection to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. These two stories are quite different, literally one year from being 2 centuries apart. And yet, they both impact our lives. Both stories are commenting on how we judge and treat an individual who we consider to be an outsider. Mary Shelly mainly comments on judging someone by their outward appearance instead of what is inside, which I’m sure everyone has heard of. Get Out comments on how life really is for African Americans. We take on the perspective of Chris, and we’re forced to see white society as a terror as it truly is. In Frankenstein, the creature is not the protagonist or the main character, and yet we feel it’s pain and struggle throughout the whole story. Chris is our main character, and we go through everything he does on the edge of our seat. Overall, the two stories do have both strong and subtle similarities, even 200 years after each other.

thats all,

 

see you

Halloween Is Kinda Scary

Sam

Well folks, another spooky season has come to an end. It’s already November, and soon people will be cracking out the Christmas decorations and putting up their trees. But not us in PLP. Because we are working through a unit based on the element of human fear. The focus of this unit is horror, and how horror comments and reflects on our society. We are studying the history of horror by watching horror films, and then as a class, we will create our own horror movie from scratch.
To start off this unit, we first began reading a famous text, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. This book is known to be one of the first science fiction novels ever, which would eventually lead to horror fiction. Frankenstein is a big deal to say the least, as the horror that the story wrestles with are still relevant to today. But I will get to that later, for now I have another topic to discuss. Our final project will be our class movie, and we have a lot to learn before we even pick up a camera.

We are watching and analyzing a series of horror films in class to break down the strategies and tropes of horror. The first film we watched in class was John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978). This film is known to be one of the first of many slasher films that would come in the decades following this movie. This film has been haunting people’s dreams for almost half a century, and there are good reasons for that. In this post I will analyze why this movie is important, and what the horror of Halloween really is.

So, what does make Halloween so horrifying? John Carpenter as the director made many crucial decisions that all came together to make a masterpiece, but what are they? First off, the way the camera tells the story. In this film, there are a lot of long, slow shots following the main characters. This is used extremely well, as it builds tension little by little until the climax near the end of the movie. These prolonged shots are used to make us feel uneasy, as we get used to what’s in the frame, and then have lots of time to think about what could jump out at us at any time. The director is playing with our imagination, even though nothing bad is happening to the main characters, we are always on the edge of our seats expecting the worst.


Another example of the camera bringing out the horror is in one of the first scenes. It is shot in the first person, and it’s quite a long shot as well. This shot is filmed in the first person, and we don’t know who’s eyes we are looking through as the viewer. Having no context to this shot and not seeing the face of the character withholds a lot of information from the viewer. This in itself is scary, not knowing the identity of the character, or as the shot goes on, the mental state of the character. We are stuck in what turns out to be Michael Myers body as he walks mysteriously around and in his house. Having the camera see what Michael sees strikes fear into the hearts of the viewers, and forces us to do whatever actions he does. The camera is literally the gateway from the audience to the town of Haddonfield, so using this tool well was essential, and it’s something John Carpenter did extremely well.

The next factor that made Halloween truly terrifying is the character Michael Myers. You would think that’s pretty obvious, but I want to focus on why he is as terrifying as he is. The main reason he horrifies everyone is that he has no motivation. He is just a  psychopath on a killing spree, and there’s nothing more frightening than someone who just kills for no reason. In the movie, we only see one scene from Michael’s childhood, and it doesn’t do much to explain why he does what he does. Because in that scene, even though he is only a child, he still resorts to killing meaninglessly. We want to associate Michael’s actions with some sort of trauma because it would help us as the viewers to understand him. But we never get that understanding. Michael is a human that just isn’t human. The director chooses to withhold the Michael’s motivation from us to make this masked murderer even more terrifying than he already is. Add the fact that he is seemingly immortal and impossible to kill, and you have yourself the perfect horror antagonist.

I think my biggest takeaway from studying this movie is that the antagonist of the movie is extremely important. The essence of the character must be well thought out, and portrayed in our own movie perfectly. We can use the camera and different filmmaking techniques to bring out the horror of our antagonist, but the character itself must be terrifying to us as humans. Michael Myers is an amazing example,  because we literally don’t know why he kills. His character scares us as much as his actions. Maybe even more. But I learned from this, for our movie we can’t have an antagonist who just looks scary. They need to either have no motive, or a motive that makes no sense at all to a sane person. I also learned a few more camera techniques to really increase the tension and dread in our viewers. Having long, drawn out shots let the audience squirm and begin imagining the worst situations possible when nothing bad is actually happening. I am looking forward to creating our movie, and I’m learning more and more every movie we watch.

 

that’s all

Conceptual War

Sam

The end of grade 11. We have just finished another year of high school. I can’t really believe it’s over and that summer is here already.

To finish off our year, we were tasked with yet another end of the year exhibition. And this one was like no other one we’ve done before.

Let me tell you all about it.

To start off this unit we took a trip to an art museum. The Vancouver Art Gallery, to be more specific. This was just an afternoon excursion, we were only there for no more than 2 hours. But those two hours were actually very helpful for me. We saw things like this, hanging from the ceiling:

We were expected to accept that it’s art, even though they suspiciously look like giant blue testicles. Art like this was all over the museum we were visiting, and I really saw how the visual element of the art did not have to be related to the idea that was behind it at all. This is the greatest impact left on me after going to the museum. And it really got me thinking.

The next part of the final project was to learn as much as we could about the Vietnam war. And to do this, our teachers prepared us with really deep, content-packed packages documenting different aspects of the war. The information was split up into themes, and was filled with questions, thinking prompts, and video. We would work through it for a full two weeks while our teachers were away, and when they got back, they tested our knowledge with a test. Half multiple choice, half open ended written questions. I definitely feel I could’ve tried to retain a bit more information, which then I could’ve used to deepen my understanding on my questions responses. But I was already thinking about my art piece.

We had to start with a thesis. I knew I wanted to focus on a certain ideal that I discovered while researching. It’s called “American Exceptionalism.” When I read about it, I was a little baffled because I didn’t know this was an actual thing. I knew Americans thought they were great but I mean, I didn’t know it was a full on accepted ideology. Now I just had to relate this to conceptual art.

After looking at more examples of conceptual art like the ones above, I started getting ideas. At first, they were pretty bad. Boring and way too literal. I knew I really didn’t want my piece to be really literal, where people could figure it out on their own. I wanted them to be confused, and then blow their minds when I explained it. My ideas were getting better and better, but before I knew it, the exhibition was 3 days away. I planned on making a tape man, a life size soldier filled with fake American dollars and little green army men, symbolizing how the idea of American Exceptionalism was filled with billions of Americans dollars and thousands of Americans lives. But, then I walked into school on Monday and saw that Robert Gary Wharton had beaten me to the tape man idea.

So I just needed to represent American Exceptionalism another way. And then I struck gold. This is what I found:

And that’s what brought me to my final product, which is below:

The Explanation

Now I’m sure you’re probably wondering what the heck that wooden bow-tie looking thing has to do with the word hubris, and the Vietnam war of course. Well, let me enlighten you. The brown object on the pedestal are wings, and as a whole they represent American Exceptionalism (AE), the idea that America was the greatest country ever, with a duty to protect freedom anywhere on the globe. They are wings because of the second definition of hubris, relating to Greek mythology. They are the wings of Icarus, who was too confident in his wax wings and flew too close to the sun, just before plummeting to his death. The burn marks on the wings represent how the idea of AE was taking damage during the Vietnam war, since the guerrilla fighters were winning. The American money was patching those holes representing how the American government poured billions of dollars into the war just to keep the idea of AE “flying,” even when they knew they couldn’t win. The newspaper wrapped on the stand signify how the American government was twisting the truth on the war progress, telling the public that the war was going in their favour through media, when in reality, their idea of AE had flown too close to the sun. And lastly, the backpack straps and handles represent how this idea could be picked up and worn by anyone, and could result in dangerous consequences if not worn carefully.

Phew, that was a lot to take in.

This project started out not too exciting for me, but as it went on, I realized how much learning I had done. I learned way more about the Vietnam war than I had thought, through our research package and just my own curiosity. I also learned a lot about conceptual art, something I knew incredibly little about, but it opened my eyes to the minimal limits of art. It also taught me how to connect detailed and specific ideas I had based on creativity, understanding, and research. I’m really glad we did this unit and I was really proud of my final product.

 

Thats all,

 

see you

 

We Shall Overcome

Sam

Welcome back, it has been a while.

 

Before spring break started 2 weeks ago, we were just wrapping up our Civil Rights Movement unit. This unit followed the events in American history during the 50’s and 60’s concerning the Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. So, for the last few months, we’ve been studying the many events that took place during the movement, how it all started and how it relates to today’s time.

In this unit, there were 3 main parts. First step, a blog post comparing a person or event from the civil rights movement with one from today. I decided to compare the actions of Martin Luther King Jr with P.K. Subban, a NHL player. Below is my post about the topic.

The Civil Rights Movement, Today

I actually really liked writing this post, as I found I was really interested in my argument. I found some good research that interested me outside of school in a way, as in it’s something that I would have looked into even if it wasn’t a school assignment. I looked into P.K. Subban standing up for a younger hockey player  who was experiencing racial taunting and felt discouraged. I compared his public actions to MLK and argued that for a change to come, an individual must publicly voice their opinion for a change. I learned a lot about how history can repeat itself, and that there are obvious similarities between events in history if you look hard enough.

The next step of our unit was to read a novel. This we started near the beginning of the unit, and then read through 8 chapters a week for 3 weeks. I found this book really interesting, and sort of eye-opening. It was called Dear Martin, written by Nic Stone. This book followed the life of an African American student who is in his last year of high school, and set for the Ivy League. Justyce McAllister goes through a rollercoaster of emotions as he experiences firsthand the effects and prevalence of racism in his community. He documents his feelings of frustration and lack of motivation to keep pushing through in a journal written to Martin Luke’s King Jr. This book is a must-read for a different perspective on racism in our life today.

This book impacted me through showing the other side of the story in a way. I have always known about racism, and police bias and brutality but I’d never really read about or seen it at all. I learned about how much the system can be manipulated by people in control and how the way the story is told on the media effects the public perspective.

 

Moving on,

 

The next in class assignments we did were these things called Socratic Seminars. After hearing the name, I was a little confused because whatever these were already sounded boring. But, as it turns out, they were really fun. Basically, every Friday for four weeks, we would sit in a circle of 9 students, with a partner sitting behind everyone in the inner circle. The inner circle would be given 20 minutes to talk about a text or video we have been studying in class. The talk was totally free, and our teachers weren’t involved. As a group, we’d ask questions and respond in ways meant to further and expand our understanding of the text/video.

For the first two weeks, our seminars were based on the first 16 chapters in Dear Martin, and the last two weeks were based on movies we watched about the Civil Rights Movement. These Socratic seminars, something I thought were going to be boring, were actually the opposite. I learned a lot more about the aspects of Dear Martin than if I would’ve just read it on my own. Even though I wasn’t the #1 speaker all the time, I enjoyed listening to everyone’s ideas and just where the conversation went. My biggest takeaway from these were that no matter what the topic is, you can deepen your learning just by talking and asking questions with other people.

 

And finally, the main event. Our goal was to create, in a group of two, a video around the driving question of how an individual can change a system. In this theme, we had to have at least one link to Canada. I was paired with my man Robbie Wharton. And after knowing this, we got right down to work.

We started off our thinking with finding a our answer the the driving question. We first thought that in order for a person to be able to change a system, they must be influential. Then we thought about who some of the most influential people in society are. And we thought of celebrities, and musicians. We also connected this back to how music was growing during the Civil Rights Movement time period. Our next step was to find some musicians that battled racism in the 50’s and 60’s.

The three people we came up with after more-than-average amounts of research were Sammy Davis Jr, Sidney Poitier, and John Legend. These three men were our main evidence on proving our thesis. Me and Robbie filmed and edited our first draft, and then realized we didn’t have any Canadian connection in our video. We went back and researched more into this. The connections we ended up finding were through Sammy Davis Jr.  It turns out that Sammy Davis had hosted a TV show in Canada on CBC. This is actually more important than it sounds. That is because he, being a black man, wasn’t allowed to host any tv shows in America! This is just one of the many hardships that African Americans had to deal with in this time period.

After recieving critique from some grade 8s, we added in our Canadian connection and changed a few other bits. Then, we were done.

Right away, I wasn’t happy with our video. It was boring, repetitive and didn’t really get our point across. I found that me and Robbie just tried to take the easy way out with this video and do it really simply, without being smart or creative. We didn’t really have strong evidence or research and definitely didn’t execute it in the way I wanted to. It wasn’t a great end to a great unit, and I wish I had put in the time to make it great. Part of it was I got really sick right around the time we would have been making our second draft. Anyways.

This unit was overall really interesting. I’d always heard of MLK and the Civil Rights Movement but never really understood it. This unit really helped me understand what really happened in that time in america, and how our lives are affected by it today. I learned about the lunch counter sit-ins, the Montgomery bus boycott and much more. This all showed me how people can gather together to make a difference, and how one person can change a system. It is definitely up there for one of my favourite units of all time, even with a mediocre final product on my part.

 

Thats all,

 

See you

The Civil Rights Movement, Today

Sam

Welcome back to another post.

Recently in our Humanities class, we have been studying the events of the civil rights movement. We’ve looked at people like Emmet Till, Rosa Parks, and of course the famous Martin Luther King Jr. himself. Overall it has been a great unit so far, and to demonstrate our learning and our understanding of the historical perspective, I’m writing this post. It should be very interesting as I will be comparing contemporary events with that of the civil rights movement in America from the 1950’s to the 1960’s. If you already haven’t read about our recent PLP exhibition, go ahead and read it here, because it shows the learning we were doing right up until the civil rights movement. But let’s get started.

First, what was the Civil Rights Movement? I won’t get into too much detail, but if you wanted to know more, click below to find out the basic summary.

The civil rights movement was a struggle for social justice that took place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for blacks to gain equal rights under the law in the United States. The Civil War had officially abolished slavery, but it didn’t end discrimination against blacks—they continued to endure the devastating effects of racism, especially in the South. By the mid-20th century, African Americans had had more than enough of prejudice and violence against them. They, along with many whites, mobilized and began an unprecedented fight for equality that spanned two decades.

- History.com

For this post, I’ll be comparing the actions of two people and the events that took place because of those people. I’ll do this with the driving question of our unit in mind: “How can the actions of an individual change a system?” This post will try to solve this question, with evidence from today, and some from 60 years ago. And the two people I’ve chose to compare to solve the driving question are Martin Luther King Jr. and P.K. Subban.


I’ll start this off by talking about P.K. Subban. Pernell–Karl Sylvester Subban was born on May 13, 1989 in Toronto, Canada. He played hockey all throughout his childhood, and made it into the NHL in the 2nd round, 43rd overall in the 2007 Entry Draft. He was then recognized as the best defencemen in 2013 among other rewards. But how does an African American NHL player be considered similar to Martin Luther King? Well for one, P.K. is known for his colourful personality and his intensity on the ice. A lot of people think he is arrogant and self-absorbed but I think he’s just really outgoing and confident. So, he’s not afraid of the public opinion. In an interview with ESPN, he was asked about what he thought about the opinions of others, and he’s quoted as follows:

“I try to get better every day and continue to do good things, not just for myself, but for the people around me, and just create good energy around me wherever I go, because that’s the only way to live, in my opinion.”

P.K. Subban is also known for his philanthropy. In September, 2015 he announced that he would raise $10 million for the Montreal Children’s hospital by 2022, which was the biggest philanthropic commitment by a sports figure in Canadian History. He was also awarded the Meritorious Service Cross in 2017 in recognition of his generous gift.

And now I’d like to explain the current events concerning P.K. that support my thesis for this post. To answer part of the units driving question, I’ve come up with the following thesis: “For an individual to change a system, they need to have the courage to step out and voice their opinions with the world to make a change.”

Recently, as in early January, P.K. Subban heard about something that upset him. A 13 year old boy from Detroit named Ty Cornett, was playing hockey and was experiencing a lot of racist taunts and harassment as he played through his season from opposing teams and even coaches and parents. This African American boy was very confused and his dad was quite saddened. The harassments were getting increasingly worse as Ty played through three years of hockey, but never wanted to quit. Even when the opposing teams would mock him, beat their chests and call Ty a monkey, Ty kept playing. This was a lot for a 13 year old kid who just wanted to play hockey. So, when he received this video, it meant the world to him.

PK Subban, who had heard because Ty’s father, Matthew, reached out to him, made this video before one of his games to encourage and support Ty. Coming from another black hockey player, this made Ty so much happier and confident. P.K. is now working with hockey organizations in the US to look over the problems and to try to end them.

Around this same time, P.K. heard of another story similar to Ty’s with another black 13 year old hockey player who was going through the same thing.

 

But how does this compare to Martin Luther King? Well, in this case, I see P.K. as someone who saw a problem, and knew it wasn’t right. He then decided to make a change, and voiced his opinion publicly. He sent the video to Ty via text, and his dad shared it with the world, and it went viral. P.K. was challenging a system, forcing people to think about their actions towards other people. This is similar to the actions of Martin Luther King Jr.’s, and I’ll tell you why.

Martin Luther King, born on January 15, 1929 was the most visible spokesperson for the civil rights movement in the United States. He was an African American reverend who led the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955, the nonviolent protests in Birmingham in 1963 and organized the 1963 March On Washington where he delivered his famous I Have A Dream speech. He also won a Nobel Prize in 1964 for combating racial inequality with nonviolent resistance. He was then assassinated in Memphis on April 4th 1968 by a man named James Earl Ray.

How does this relate? Well, when he was appointed the official spokesperson of the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955, he became the face of the civil rights movement, and gave hope to thousands of black Americans. Martin Luther King saw that there was a definite problem, living in Montgomery, the epicentre for the struggle of civil rights. He stepped up and took on a role that put his life, his families life and many others in danger. But he did it because he wanted to make a change. He was just one guy who was in the right place at the right time in a way. He was living right in Montgomery, with lots of preaching experience, and already had the courage to voice an opinion to the masses. This man was challenging a system – the whole American society at the time. Because he was courageous, intelligent and driven, and because of this he made a change.

Just like P.K. Subban, in a way. P.K. Subban publicly announced that what was happening with Ty wasn’t ok, and even though the video was only sent to Ty, P.K. gave hope to hundreds of other people like Ty. Just like MLK. Martin’s actions made numerous legislation pass to end racial segregation, giving hope to people across all of America and the world.

So I guess you could say that in some ways, P.K. Subban, just a famous hockey player, is inspiring and changing a system like our friend Martin Luther King Jr, even if they live in different times.  Through courage, perserverence and the drive to do what’s right two different individuals made a change in a system. Where MLK changed the laws surrounding racial segregation, P.K. has raised awareness and recognition of a problem that still occurs today, and because of him a youth organization called “Players Against Hate” is now in effect. This organization is raising even more awareness for racism in youth hockey, and being recognized by NHL teams and Sports Illustrated.

Overall, these two men have had the courage to stand out and voice their opinions to the masses, and so I think that both of them have changed a system, or are starting to.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

See you.

A Carousel Of Communism

Sam

Welcome back everyone, today is my first post of 2019, a brand new year for a brand new post.

But what I’ll be telling you happened on December 20th, 2018. It was our PLP Winter Exhibiton. And was it ever something.

It started way back when we began this unit watching one episode of an old TV show you may know of, called “Leave it to Beaver”. It was an American sitcom show, and it idealized the perfect suburban family of the 1950s in America. After watching this video we realized in a small sense how life as an American after WW2 really was.

We had also read through the entire play called “The Crucible” as you may know from my last posts, and this will tie into our main project as well. This would be another form of historical perspective we would use in our end product.

Project Brief

Our class would be working as one big team to create an interactive and immersive experience for an audience. The audience would be anyone who came to our Exhibiton, and the location was our schools gym. We would design and write a script that had an acting role for everyone in the class, and it would tell a story about life in America during the 1950’s. There would be about 6 different stations/scenes that would continue the story from the last scene until there is full 40 minute experience. We would plan and execute the entire project on our own as a class, without help from our teachers.

So, we got right to it.

First we started brainstorming as a class, with our teachers there to point us in the right direction, and we wrote down multiple ideas we had for the actual story of the Exhibiton. After that class, we would come back and put our ideas into action. Unfortunately, I was away for the two classes where our class chose an idea, planned out the 6 scenes, listed all the acting roles, and drew out a basic floor plan for the gym. When I came back, I was extremely surprised to see how much they had done, and I realized just how motivated our class. I thought that I needed to get up to speed real quick.

The next stage was to write out a script and get it approved by our teachers so we could move ahead with memorizing our lines, and building our props and sets. So, we split the class into the 6 scenes and wrote out a script for each scene. Once we were all done, we compiled them all together, and our main script writers looked it over. We then presented it to our teachers, who overall really liked it but made a few changes for us. We then moved ahead.

The next thing we did was decide who got which part for the “Carousel Of Communism”, which we did by asking if anyone wanted specific parts. Another big part of the story is that we would have 4 “guides” who would take groups of 15 audience members from station to station, and also play a character throughout the story. These people would need to be able to think on their feet, and be prepared to have lots of lines. And I did something I didn’t feel super comfortable doing, I signed up for a guide. I did it because I knew it would be a challenge and I knew I would be proud if I did do it well. So that was my role, and the other three guides were Adam, Claire and Sofia. And rather uneventfully, everyone else got assigned a role and we moved onto building all our props and designing detailed floor plans.

We worked hard for the remainder of our time, about a week and a half, to design and build each and every set and prop. I was really proud of our class as everyone communicated really well and was always on task. Overall it was a lot of fun to work with people who were motivated and good at what they were doing. I really enjoyed this stage of the project, as it was fun, and I realized the full potential of  our class.

Then, the time came. It was the day of the Exhibiton, and every grade of PLP was working furiously to get the final details ready for the Exhibiton. Then it was time for us to bring all our stuff into the gym, and so we did. There was one thing we couldn’t build, and it was something everyone was relying on. It was the gigantic mechanical wall that comes across the gym in the center, and we were planning on using it for separating our scenes. But, of course, it would not move no matter how many times we tried. So we had to improvise, and we hung some super heavy choir curtains from some rope Alex brought, and it looked… great.

Other than that setback, the entire gym looked amazing. Everyone was in their costumes, the sets looked exactly how we wanted them to look, and everyone had some nervous excitement.

During the exhibition, we worked as a team to read cues from each other when we needed to improvise, and act off our script in our character to strengthen our story, and I thought we did this really well. It made me happy to see improvisation by any of my classmates because it showed that we were comfortable in our roles, and having fun as well. As a guide I was doing a lot of this, and more specifically, one time I totally forgot what I was supposed to say in our Hollywood scene, and since I was supposed to be acting in a movie, I stalled, and told the cameraman, Parker, that we should cut here because I forgot my line. To the audience, it looked like it was part of the script, but in reality I legitimately forgot my line and had to think on the spot.

Overall, this was my favourite project in my entire PLP career. From working together as an entire class, to learning the actual material, I found it both interesting, entertaining, and extremely rewarding. After the whole night was over and I had slept for 12 hours straight, I felt really proud of the work we had done, and feel I learned a lot about the 1950’s and the ties it has to today. This is because we also tied the Crucible to the 1950’s, and to today with Donald Trump. We related the “witch hunt” aspect from an actual witch hunt in the Crucible, to the McCarthy trials, and to Donald Trump crying witch hunt all the time about political issues today. All this was shown in our 20 minute interactive experience. Here it is below for you to watch:

I think I speak for my whole class when I say I’m really proud of what we accomplished and I went home satisfied with what we did as a PLP team.

Thats all for now.

 

See you

The End of a Great Trilogy

Sam

Well,

You may or may not know from my other posts, #1 and #2, that our class has been reading the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller. It’s a pretty interesting play that relates a lot to today’s society. In this play, the characters deal a lot with the concept of the devil, and God and Heaven. They have strict rules of what is Godly and what is the work of the devil, and you must avoid the devil at all costs. And so, for this post, I will be talking about my concept of heaven.

Now we’ve all seen the cheesy edited photos that are designed to look like the gates or entrance of Heaven, and these are supposed to give us an idea of what Heaven looks like. Everyone has a different picture of what Heaven is in their head, and I believe that is correct.

I have grown up always being a Christian, and so I have a different belief about the afterlife. I believe that when you die, if you believe in God, and want to be with Him, to put it simply, that you will go to Heaven. And if you don’t, then you will go to hell, the complete opposite, where the Devil rules. I believe that God wants everyone to come to Heaven because he cares for and created everyone specifically in His own image, and doesn’t want to force us to believe in Him. So, Heaven will be a place where you can be with God, and also people you loved or miss, and it will be different for everyone as everyone has a different perception of Heaven. Heaven is completely and purely happiness and joy for eternity, which I find is extremely hard for our minds to think about.

I also don’t think Heaven is a physical place, it is a spiritual location that we cannot see here on earth. I believe we all have a spirit inside of us, which is what makes every single person on earth different and unique in their own ways. Then when they die, their body stays on earth and their spirit goes to heaven, or hell.

To help you visualize this complicated topic I’ve made my own cheesy photo of what I think Heaven will look like, and how I got there:

The first photo is my tragic and peaceful death mountain biking at age 89. I crash doing the sickest trail ever, I die immediately upon impact. The next photo represents what I see when I get to Heaven, with God and my family and friends waiting for me.

I enjoyed writing this post as it got me thinking again about what I think will happen. People in the Crucible definitely had strong views on Heaven and Hell, and this caused them a lot of moral suffering as people sorted through their actions and if they’re considered “Right” or “Wrong” and which afterlife they will end up in.

Overall, it’s an interesting topic for sure.

 

Thats all,

 

See you

Creative Crucible #2

Sam

Welcome back,

 

Today will be a continuation of our creative Crucible blog posts we are doing in PLP Humanities right now. Currently in class, we are reading a play called the Crucible, a dark, creepy play written about the Salem Witch Trials in 1690. We had a list of tasks to complete, and so in this post I’ll be doing my second one. You can read my first post below.

How to Spot a Witch

For this post, to answer a question, I thought I’d make a map slideshow. About my entire childhood. And then… post it on the Internet…

Whoops.

Here is my final product:

This is for the question on our task sheet that asks us to describe a time we felt isolated.

the process or fact of isolating or being isolated. "the isolation of older people"

I decided to make this map because I thought it would help show my life so far, since it has been in multiple locations with lots of different memories. And as for the isolation part, it is explained in the map slideshow. I have definitely felt isolated, like when I moved to Vancouver. This is all explained on the map, so make sure to check it out.

This all relates back to the Crucible because in the play, a man named John Proctor was isolated in his house for 7 months due to bad weather and I also think some personal choice. It is a little crazy to think about being in one house for seven months in today’s time, and so this relates back to the feeling of isolation John Proctor must’ve felt.

I actually really enjoyed this project, as I hadn’t used the map maker site before, and it’s a very powerful tool I plan to use again.

 

Well, that’s all for this post.

 

see you

How to Spot a Witch

Sam

You’re probably pretty confused at the title, or you’re actually wondering how to spot a witch. Well stick around and you might find out.

Lately in PLP we have been reading act 1 of a four act play called The Crucible. It’s set in Salem Massachusetts in the 1690’s but written by Arthur Miller in the 1950’s. It’s main idea is about the Salem Witch Trials, the largest and deadliest witch hunt in America’s history. We are reading this play in class, and it gets pretty interesting, in many different ways.

As we read, for two more Friday’s from now on, we will be doing a “Creative Crucible Blog Post” from a list of ten prompts given to us. We need to take these prompts and write about how it relates to us, and then have a creative product that goes with it that we made ourselves. Our prompt was as follows:

“Read “How to Spot a Witch”. Write a paper or create something similar to this essay on how to spot a _________. You fill in the blank: example: How to Spot a Liar. How to Spot a Surfer. Etc.”

I teamed up with Simon and Calum, and we made a short video on “How to Spot a Mountain Biker”. Here it is below:

I had a lot of fun making this video. I enjoyed it because mountain biking is something I love doing, and filmmaking is another hobby of mine. This video was supposed to be short and sweet while explaining some common factors and characteristics that mountain bikers share. This relates to the Crucible because in the play, many people are accused of witchcraft, and need to be tried to see if they truly are witches. And if they are, they are hanged. This video is a little different, but it’s supposed to be.

We also took a few behind the scenes photos of while we were filming, using our atypical filming strategy of Simon on my handlebars holding the massive camera stabilizer. Have a look:

 

We were worried about bad lighting as winter just started and it’s really dark at like 5:30 already, but we managed to film the shots we needed before the sun went down.

Thats all for today, I look forward to making more creative posts like this one in the future.

See you.