Film Constructs Reality

LINCOLN 

   I believe that the film, 'Lincoln' did a very good job at constructing reality. Although it may not show all of the reality of how many people fought for the change rather than just Lincoln and the politicians making the entire change, I feel as though it really represents the reality of Lincoln as a person. The speeches he made, his sentiments towards the issues and his drive all seemed very real and genuine. The costumes were also extremely realistic to the time period, as well as the house and everything in it. Those details were very well done, even the accents of the actors fit the time period and location. For example, the scene where they host a party, everyone's attitude, their high class dress and their actions of each lining up to say hello to the President and his wife all appeared to be something that would have happened many times in the White House. The large monuments in Washington like The White House and where the congress debated were all constructed very realistically as well. Throughout the movie, I never doubted the events that took place throughout the film, even though I was unaware of the real history. All of the battle scenes had very authentic looking uniforms for the soldiers, in the large battlefields in large groups, and on horses, which all certainly took place at that time. Even the tension between the politicians while debating seemed real. So was the tension between Lincoln and his son when he did not want him to go to war, and the frustrations between Lincoln and his wife, who to me, felt like a real couple who were experiencing those family issues. 

The School of Rock

     I do not believe that the film, 'The School of Rock' did a good job of constructing reality. I feel as though such a prestigious private school would pay a lot more attention to the credibility of their substitute, and would realize Jack Black's character was not the real Mr. Schneebly. Also, I do not think that it would be possible to sound proof an entire class room so that no other classes could hear that they were playing loud rock music everyday. The students, although mostly realistically presented, would most likely confess to their parents at some point that they were not learning anything and were just playing music everyday. It would be hard to convince them all at that age to lie to their parents continuously. The parents would also surely realize that their children were never bringing home homework, and would probably be strict about their school work because of the large amount of money that they pay every year for their children to go to that school. 

   I also think that in the end, the parents would not have acted the way they did in real life.  Especially because all of the parents were presented as very uptight.When they finally all arrive at the rock concert that their children are playing at, after freaking out that Jack Black's character had 'kidnapped' their kids, they are happy in the end. All of the parents are just proud of their children for playing so well. Although it is an accomplishment, their school year was wasted and the education that the parents payed a lot of money for was never received. It also does not seem very likely that the entire group of children could walk in and out so often with instruments and leave school for the day with no one seeing them leave. 

#6 The Source

1. Every morning and night my dad has CBC Radio 2 on. He uses it mostly because he always likes music playing, as well as for the news. It is usually left on for me in the morning, or I am told to turn it on during the day. I don't purposely listen to CBC Radio 2 to be informed of what is going on in the world, and I do not really enjoy watching the news or reading the newspaper. Although I do turn on the radio sometimes myself, it is only because I do not always enjoy complete silence, and it does usually play good music. I enjoy the fact that it plays newer music as well as classical music, and that when they tell news stories, they do not always take a long time to do it.

2.
a) CBC Radio 2 is owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which is owned by the government.

b) The CEO and President of CBC is Hubert T. Lacroix. Hubert has now been appointed for two, five year terms as President and CEO. He recieved a Bachelor of Civil Law, as well as a Masters in Business Administration. At CBC, Hubert oversees the management. He was also the senior advisor at the Montreal office of Stikemen Elliott, and a senior partner at McCarthy Tétrault law firm for 20 years. From 2000-2005, he was also the executive chairman of Telemedia Corporations.


c) CBC makes money by its government funding, advertising revenues, specialty revenues as well as other revenues. The government funding is close to one billion dollars. 20% of their source of funds comes from advertising.

d) Since the government give CBC so much money, they are responsible to Parliament as well as the people of Canada. They report to Parliament through the Minister of Canadian Heritage, and their Corporate Plan summary. For that, they have to make annual public meetings as well as annual and quarterly reports. This would affect the media they show because it cannot be extremely offensive towards the government, or going against the government because they would most likely not give so much funding money if there was a conflict that arose between CBC and Parliament. I would assume that CBC would most often take Parliament's side of world events, or support their actions because of the financial connection between the two. Although, they do want to stay true to Canadians seeing as the funding from advertising supplies CBC with a lot of money as well, it seems like the Government has the most power.

Exploring Media Ownership

http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/visualizations/8aff56ca4c9b11deae82000255111976/comments/e0b0b1b4513611de84c7000255111976

Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan, Torstar, The Woodbridge Company, Bell Canada Enterprises all own CTV Globe Media.

Pink Triangle Press, Score Media, Shavick Entertainment and Peace Point Entertainment Group all own OUT TV and HARD TV.

RNC owns many french stations like CHOT-TV (Gatineau), Planète 97,1 (Outaouais), but also along the line many other different stations like The Christian Chanel.

CBC/Radio Canada own an extremely large amount of channels, some of the main ones that lead off into smaller ones being; Canadian Broadcasting Corporation including CBC.ca and CBC newsworld. They also own CBC Radio 1, CBC Radio 2, CBC Television, Système Radio Canada and Espace musique, just to name a few.

Think About The Themes

   With the constant creation of war films, the American society will most likely get the idea that when there is an attack on the country, whether it be from aliens, transformers or another country, the Army of strong men with guns will protect you. In all of these films there is a male lead, and there are most often only men soldiers fighting. It is not likely that you would see a female lead saving the day in those films. In almost all of the films, the men also are very confident in themselves, which can influence the 'tough guise' because of their attitude and their large use of weapons.
   When they see how well the American soldiers protect their country in these movies, Americans will most likely believe in them and support them even more. They might do this by giving them even more money which the government in America would love, or by never questioning the governments decisions about the army's actions because they have so much faith in their ability. People may also sign up to fight because they look up to the soldiers in the movie, and want to fight like them, which the government would also like because he would be gaining more soldiers. Although, using movies as your inspiration to join the army would be bad. That is because in the movies the hero who average people signing up for the army would most likely aspire to be, does not usually ever die, because he is often the big name of the movie or the main character. They also usually show the Americans winning the war. Both of those factors create a false reality that would be bad for someone enlisting to assume, because in real life anything can happen in war.
  I also believe that with the creation of so many war films, it puts Americans in fear, because they see what their country could become if something like that were to happen. Although it is not very likely that zombies or aliens from another planet will come and attack us, it is a thought that is being pounded into everyone's head with this constant steam of movies of our country being terrorized.

Movie Ratings

Little Miss Sunshine

  The film 'Little Miss Sunshine' is about a family driving their daughter to a beauty pageant. Everyone in the family has issues; the son doesn't talk, their uncle tried to kill himself, the father's book is not selling, the mother was divorced and the grandfather snorts cocaine. Olive is the daughter who got into the beauty pageant by default, and is not up to standards with the rest of the pageant girls at the Little Miss Sunshine competition. Before they reach their destination, the grandfather overdoses and dies. He is then unable to watch Olive's dance routine that he coached her on at the pageant which turns out to be practically a striptease. It is a very funny movie, but also a very inappropriate one.

   It was rated 14A by the OFRB. I was a bit surprised, because I thought it would be rated 18A. I could also see, though, why they rated it 14A because they added content advisories such as; coarse language and substance abuse, as well as many detailed observations; coarse language, slurs, sexual references, occasional upsetting or disturbing content, substance abuse, restrained portrayals of limited violence. Even though there is no nudity, brutal killings or gory scenes, there are many parts of the movie that are extremely blunt and in your face rude. The grandfather swears continuously throughout the entire movie and does drugs very often. It also deals with the fact that their uncle tried to kill commit suicide which is an intense topic. It's a great comedy but with a lot of sexual crude humor. I watched this movie before I was 14 but I do not think many parents would allow the same thing, which is why I disagree with the rating given by the OFRB.