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Burned Up and Burned Out by Politics

By Rosie O’Donnell

Internet as the “new media” eliminated the middleman such as publishers and editors, who is in turn serving the interesting of the institution that hired them. Blogs, through the internet have provided a ground for a more direct and free form of speech. A blog is made effective and engaging when its author injects his or her own voice into the article. However this is also when subjective is lost and all you get is a good laugh or whatever you wish to hear. I have recently read the post “Burned Up and Burned Out by Politics” by Rosie O’Donnell in the Huffington post. She has constructed successful persuasive essay through strategic use of metaphors, dictions, and word choice that “really gets to you.”

In the first sentence, Rosie wrote, “President Bush almost killed me. It’s true, and I have the scars to prove it — multiple scars that are part of the public record.” Such exaggerations instantly established a stage for her to build on. She then rambled on to say that “It was 2000, and the Republican National Convention was on television. The whole affair felt something like a home invasion, with a chronically smirking and arrogant George W. Bush as ringleader.” All of these drove her to turn off the TV and go fishing. She bought gears and a knife to cut off the price tags which also stabbed her as well. This well placed metaphor contributed to Rosie’s image as a humorous, yet zealous blogger who really wants to get her point across. And she was very successful at that.

Further more, Rosie unleashed a frenzy of statistics that gives her accusations credibility. These includes “…935 documented lies told by the Bush administration”, “an unjust war, killing thousands of Iraqi civilians and nearly 4000 Americans.” “$9 trillion dollar debt,” and “$10 billion dollar third-quarter profit Exxon recently reported.” Such information instantly established a strong tone, a tone that is against what this administration has done during its reign. But more importantly, Rosie calibrated her words carefully like a skilled swordsman stalking its pray. Why? Since the majority of her readers despise the current president anyways, she knew that we will go for whatever she dishes out. Though certainly chances are the readers would have agreed with her even without these statistics, however providing such details would attribute to her image as a creditable source for future news events. Essentially, it pays for her to be subjective, however, can we afford it?

Diction was also an important part of Rosie’s strategy in gaining our likening. Just like all movie stars, it’s not really about what they say but how they say it. This is perhaps the most successful aspect of this particular post. First, she described President Bush’s presidency as the “demoralizing Bush years.” This accurately expressed her view, and probably the view of most of the audiences. Secondly, she said that Bush’s speech is surrounded “with all that cocky, cowboy arrogance.” Which doesn’t really describe half of the things that bothers me, but we can let it slide.

Last she drove her point home in saying that “I have felt burned up and burned out by politics.” This further relates to the mind set of many people, who feels helpless under an administration dominated by corporate interests, and no long feel the zeal for political endeavors. However, the brilliance of this post is not to leave everyone in despair, but to say take advantage of our vulnerable mind sets and revealing the true purpose of her post. She suggested that Hillary and Obama if teamed together, has what it takes to turn the country around.

Successful construction of a persona is vital for the success of a blog because it is one of the most effective ways in getting in touch with your reader. Although internet as a medium does offer ways such as video streaming, however sophistication in constructing a not only logical, but appealing argument is required. And this could possibly be accomplished through give your blog a strong persona, a voice that the readers could relate to. In Rosie’s case, she first reminded us our feeling of hopelessness in face of the Bush administration then brought up hope is in sight. This is lot more effective than to speak of “hope” in the very first sentence, because getting the readers on the same page is half of the battle.

http://www.christandpopculture.com/film/the-dangers-of-film/#comment-554

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Recently I have read an interesting blog titled “The Dangers of Film.” It offered insightful concepts that are very similar to what I would like to cover in my future posts. To say similar is probably an understatement, it is more like a perfect foundation for me to build on. This particular post addressed some fundamental aspects of cinema influencing our culture today. The writer Rich Clark covered topics such as how film discourages critical thinking, and many times trap us in a giant waste of time. They certain very valid points in many cases like the recent release “Meet the Spartans.”

The article itself is very well articulated and scholarly. The writer shows extensive knowledge as well as comprehension of the current state of U.S cinema. He offered personal encounters to illustrate his point effectively. Use of humor was also employed. Overall it was a well conceived piece of literature with clear intentions and substance to achieve them.

The writer’s focus was primarily religious film goers who presumably loath the current state of the movie industry and wishes for a change. They are relevant to the field in the sense that many references were made to verses in scripture as well as the general idea that religion should compose an important part of personal life. This is best described under the topic “Film can tempt us to sin without warning.” I must agree in the sense that the overpowering among of violence and nudity in movies might not be the best influence on youth today. However, such a important topic is perhaps best left for future discussion.

This particular post not only provides me with a starting point, but also materials that I could expand on. I have much to express about the content which the article covered. However, one distinction is that I wish to broaden my focus outside of the realms of religion but simply how a film makes up our society as a whole. It is important to me thought that the influence of religion on our vantage point be discussed.

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The world is a strange place, filled with unanswered questions and endless debates. Some of those debates might even be about how to answer those unanswered question. We work to death everyday all for illusive dreams and the hope that we could hold on to them. Unfortunately, none of this hard work is truly fulfilling. So after work, we fill the still and empty passage of time with popular entertainment. Thus under this grand stage of leisure, Hollywood was born. We hunger not only for Hollywood but for its stars. We thirst for the latest gossips, we want to know what they do, wear and eat. Such fetish became a way of life. Inevitably, the booming movie business contributes to our society more and more each day.

As you can tell from the title, my blog is going to be about different aspects of U.S cinema, Hollywood, and most importantly how it influenced our culture in recent years. It is not a movie review blog because I want to do more than those people. It is definitely not a space where I complain such and such movie studio took my $10.50 and two hours of nap time. I want to demonstrate the roles of cinema play in our society today with example of new releases as well as classics. I want to show you in detail how movies such as “Psycho” revolutionized the horror film genre, or how “the good the bad and the ugly” redefined acting.

I believe it is not polite to impose my values unto others, however we are all entitled to our opinions. We all have a value set of their own, so please don’t tear down the pixels of my image just because I hated your movie. All I am trying to so is to provide in depth analysis of different films in order to illustrate their cinematic brilliance and why they have a place in the cinematic history. Let begin!