Politics in Modern Film (V for Vendetta)

The film I focused on for this essay, V for Vendetta, was filmed and produced in 2006 by Warner Brothers. The plot of the film circulates around a mysterious and charismatic masked freedom fighter being hunted down by the totalitarian British government in the near future. Although his full identity is kept a mystery throughout the film, audiences learn he was a victim of a cruel scientific experiment involving â€Å"unwanted† British citizens and hormonal drugs.He spends decades planning out his revenge on those involved. While making preparations for both his revenge and a nation-wide revolution, the character known only as V has a run-in with a young woman working for the broadcasting station he later taking hostage. The day he takes the station hostage, the woman named Evey recognizes him as the same man who rescued her one night from crooked British patrolmen prowling the streets. Evey comes to his aid as V is almost caught and she is knocked unconscious in the process.Th e rest of the film leads audiences into the ever-thickening plot as a detective investigates and attempts to track down the â€Å"terrorist† only to discover an even more sinister power behind the deaths of thousands of British citizens: their own government. Putting this film into a category based on its intended audience was a challenge. The film expresses values both of the mass and subgroup categories. The values shown are ones that indirectly praise American government for its constitutional rights of religion, press and speech, but it also promotes ideas of anarchy.Although both views have their strong arguing points in the film, I believe this film expressed more mass values. This is because the criteria for subgroup values demands that the public must be largely portrayed as being stupid and counter-active to the goal at hand. However, in this film, V must rely solely on the public‘s participation in order to carry through his vision of freedom. In a televised s peech to the populace, V makes claims that have resounding similarities to our Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Fairness, justice and freedom are more than words. They are prospectives. † He says. This is, in my mind, one of the most profound quotes in the film, behind his other statement that †people should not be afraid of their governments; governments should be afraid of their people. † The timing of the film and its statements on war point directly to America’s involvement in the war on terror and to President George Bush. The movie was filmed in 2005, only two years after the official war in Iraq was launched.The High Chancellor in the film, Adam Suttler, is described as being an ultra-conservative man with no understanding of political process. This parallel seems to encourage a commonly debated political theme pointed out in the White House by Americans opposed to the invasion and the war overseas. The film even makes a blatant statement about America being in an on-going war that deprived it of its wealth and resources. A line reads: â€Å"They were a country who had everything, absolutely everything; and now, 20 years later is what?The world’s biggest leaper colony. † There are still many Americans today who have strong aversion to the presence of American military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. â€Å"The Voice of England†, the a man revered as the biggest spokesperson in the English broadcasting sector, delivers a line in the film as he goes down the list of people unwanted and banished from the country’s boarders. This list, in addition to teens with sexually transmitted diseases and homosexuals, names Muslims specifically.In 2005, there was still unease in America about Muslim-Americans and risks they might pose to national security, much like the unrest about American-Japanese citizens that marked the time after the onset of World War II. Detective Finch, the detective working the V case to track him down before the revolutionary date, has a discussion with his partner after unearthing facts about the government. â€Å"If your government was responsible for the deaths of almost a hundred thousand people, would you really want to know? This observation has striking similarity to theories voiced by a small portion of society who claim the attacks on the World Trade Center were carried out by our own government. The number 5 is a common theme in the film: the number of V’s cell in the concentration camp, the fifth of November being the date of the revolution, and the number of branches to the British government [they call the branches the nose, eyes, finger, ear and mouth]. This is also the number of branches of our military: The Army, the Marine Corps, the Navy, the Air force and Homeland Security Coast Guard.Whether or not this parallel is intentional, it is one I noticed. A blacklist is also mentioned in the film after Chancellor Suttler demands the 1812 Overture, which played during the Old Bailey Statue’s explosion, be added to the back list so he may â€Å"never hear it again. † This is the only Cold War reference in the film which tells me is was intended to be a more general statement about government censorship and control of information made available to the public.One political, or even social, statement made in the film that I agree with is Finch’s statement about how this †terrorist† still has human emotions, shown by his taking and protection of Evey after she rescues him. I believe one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter and people will always be at odds with each other. It is important to remember that even the most violent people do have passions and concerns. When one fights that hard for something, it obviously means a great deal to them. People are quick to forget about the humanity element in wars.During the investigation, Finch and his partner watch V on a video monitor as he stands over Evey’s unconscious body. Finch’s partner says, â€Å"He’s a terrorist. You can’t expect him to act like you or me. † Finch, who sees that V took the girl to protect her out of compassion, responds with â€Å"some part of him is human†. Another statement made that I agreed with was one that also amused me. Detective Finch is searching for records of the concentration camp that supposedly imprisoned V years ago, but has little luck finding any.He says, â€Å"One thing is true of all governments; the most reliable records are tax records. † Isn’t that true? This movie used many effective avenues of media to reach its audience. It included and alluded to several other pieces of literature and music within the film itself, which was a very clever device used to influence audience members to explore those hints individually. Literature seen in the film like â€Å"The Count of Mote Cristo† and the theatrical play â€Å"Faust† may also hold clues to political statements made even more subliminally in the film if evaluated within the context.

Answer the question Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 22

Answer the question - Essay Example the male sperms develop to be small, swifter and have a short life span while the female eggs grow bigger, less mobile and have a long lifespan (Neal 336). The four alternative reproductive strategies include (Sloman, Rod and Balshine 300): (1) Reversible ART: this is where independent animals can change forth and back between patterns; (2) Sequential ART: the independent animals change from one scheme to another at a particular time in their life span; (3) Plastic ART: in this strategy, the independent animals can change the plan throughout their life; (4) Fixed ART: in this strategy, independent animals adopt a single scheme throughout their life. 5) The gross anatomy of sharks has not changed much over the last 360 million years. List five morphological or physiological characteristics of sharks that have made the shark form such an evolutionary "success". For each characteristic state the advantage that it gives - Sharks swim with their mouths open with gill rakers upright and enlarged across the openings between the gill arches to build a sieve. The sharks are able to feed on zooplankton, small fish and fish eggs (Fowler, Sharks, Rays & Chimaeras 253). 6) What are the problems with our current Linnean system of vertebrate classification? How have new cladistic and phylogenetic techniques helped us to improve our knowledge of vertebrate evolutionary relationships? The current classification of Linnaeu’s system puts reptiles and amphibians in different classes that indicate their maximal variety of biological characteristics and lifestyles (Schneider, Krasny, Morreale & Tolpa 7). The phylogenetic technique gives evolutionary trees that provide the basis for biodiversity or comparative of a broad range of evolutionary difficulties. The cladistics assists in the production of phylogenetic information utilized to generate the evolutionary trees (Laurin

Operations Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Operations Management - Essay Example The Concept of Operational Management The operations management as a business function has many issue related to it that needs to be satisfied to increase the efficiency and productivity of a business concern. These are capacity requirements, technology, facilities, workforce, supply and distribution, quality, production planning and organizational structure. According to Shim (1999, Pg.4)â€Å"Operation policy is concerned with setting broad policies and plans for using the production resources of the firm to best support the firm’s long term competitive strategy†. However, the four basic issues of operation management strategy are as follows. a) Cost : The cost of a product or service decides the profit or loss of a company. In every market segment, there is a class of people who opt for low -cost product or service. So to compete on this basis, a company should produce goods and services which are of low- cost. b) Quality : Needless to mention, quality is a prioritiz ed element of any industry. Quality is classified into product quality and process quality. Product quality ensures better customer satisfaction and process quality make sure that products are defect free and is produced with total quality management. c) Speed of delivery : The speed with which a company delivers products and services to its customers decides the purchasing decision of a customer. The capability of a business firm to deliver products and services on a fast basis decides the price of their product and the company reputation. d) Flexibility : By the term flexibility, we mean that a company should offer various types of products and services to its customers. It also means how quickly a company can convert old products to new one to meet customer demands. These issues play an important role in understanding the challenges an operational manager can face in this competitive world. Challenges faced by Operational Managers a) Absence of Capital – Capital is the mai n resource of any business and this strengthen the foundation of a business. Capital is required from the launch of a business firm and al the strategic plans and operation of a business largely depend on capital availability. An operations manager needs enough capital to work in a full fledge way. An absence or lack of capital can restrict an operational manager in many ways. An operational manager with less available capital will contribute inferiorly to a business. Absence of capital can restrict an organization from many perspectives. A company with inefficient capital can offer fewer choices and solution to an operations manager. If a company is financially weak, the managers can dwindle on decision- making and planning proposals. b) Lack of efficient planning - Planning is crucial to business as it starts with proper intelligent planning. If planning is not proper, managers cannot align their functions with the goal of the firm. Planning needs to be extensive and if organizati onal leaders do not plan ahead of execution, then the business can doom to failure. If the basic decision - making is defective then an operations manager can do less about organizing and operating a company. An operations manager has the full responsibility of business functioning, if the planning is not well versed then the flow of business is interrupted

Astronomy As a Natural Science Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

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Award Winning Books Annotated Bibliography Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Award Winning Books - Annotated Bibliography Example As an immigrant he experiences both failures and triumphs as he continues to hope that his mother is alive. Written in free verse, the book highlights the importance of attitude to the achievement of goals for young readers. The year 1845 in Ireland, when overnight a mysterious blight attacked the potato crops turning them black and threatening food supply of 6 million people. The blight continued on for the next 5 years causing 1 million deaths and 2 million Irish fleeing their homeland. Ethnic and religious prejudices are tackled in the book as well as references to present crises in society. The book also features black and white sketches gathered from contemporary newspapers during the period. The author portrays how the young people of Germany became loyal to Hitler including interviews with surviving Hitler Youth members. It highlights Hitler's tactics for dominating the young people who were "a powerful political force". The book includes stories of young heroes who dared to oppose Hitler as well as those who opted to support him. M.L.K. is Marthin Luther King, Jr. and this book is his biography as told by Bolden in words and scrapbook pictures. The book focuses on MLK's principle of selfless love for one's neighbor as he expounded in his sermons, his daily life and his support of nonviolent protests, and is very inspirational for young readers. Genre: Biography, Nonfiction Suggested Grade Level: Grades 5-8 Awards/ Honors: NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children Winner 2008 Burns, L. (2007). Tracking trash: flotsam, jetsam, and the science of ocean motion. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Company. Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer is an oceanographer whose attention is drawn to ocean trash in the form of Nike sneakers appearing on the beaches in Seattle. With volunteer beachcombers and supportive fellow scientists Dr. Curt tracks ocean trash while studying ocean currents. Frightening accounts about trash destroying birds and sea creatures form the climax, which is resolved by the work of the scientists which prevent further destruction. The book is about marine environment conservation and the science of ocean currents and includes a glossary and lists of related books and

Family Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Family - Essay Example ther hand, says the definition of what a family is depends on who is going to provide the definition, a social scientist, the State, a conservative society, or a libertarian society. Anthropologists define family by a cultures biological and marital kinship rules and patterns of reciprocal obligations. Different cultures have different definitions of biological and marital kin, and the obligations kin have to one another. Some cultures use the father’s biological line, or the mother’s or both. Kinship obligations, too, end at different levels for different cultures. As examples, Diem says that brothers, sisters and cousins are distinct in the American culture but not so in African societies. From the point of view of structure-functionalists, families are defined by the needs of the greater society. The definition of family changes when society’s needs change. Examples include those when greater society needs rapid population growth such as after a time of war when procreation is emphasized, as against a period of over population when childless couples are supported. For institutionalists, a family is the "traditional," biological, procreati ve and child-rearing structure. For interactionists, the definition is based on the assumption of family-related role behaviours. For economists, the family is a production and consumption unit, thus defining a household slave in an African or Arabian household or the indentured servant in an early-American household as part of the family. Further, according to Diem, the State’s definition of family follows the structure-functionalist approach, where the State’s needs dictate how the authoritative and legal definition of family shall be formulated. In a Conservative Free Society, as envisioned by Nisbet (1953), where the role of social institutions such as church, economy and educational system, are enhanced and those of the State reduced, the social institutions define family. Church may not recognise an unmarried

The problems associated with the Blockbuster company Essay

The problems associated with the Blockbuster company - Essay Example The firm that is analyzed in the paper is Blockbuster. It was started in the year 1985 in Dallas as a single movie-renting store. With its aggressive growth strategy, the company managed to grow to nearly 7,265 stores in 24 nations around the world. Though the company remained as the world leader in movie rental during 1990s, problems emerged as new technologies developed in the area of entertainment distribution. New technologies that allowed online booking and online delivery of content developed as time passed, but the company management was adamant to give up its basic brick and mortar movie renting stores. As a result, while its competitors like Netflix effectively shifted to, and excelled in, methods like online booking, mail delivery and VOD, Blockbuster went on struggling with the already declining in-store movie renting systems and fell into debts. This resulted in a lot of issues in customer service that again made many existing customers leave the company. Firstly, the num ber of titles on offer declined dramatically, and secondly, popular items often went out-of-stock. Also, the delivery system was too slow as compared to that of its rivals. Thus, the company closed its year 2007 with a net loss of $ 85.1 million. This work looks into the various reasons behind the existing issues and tries to suggest ways for improvement in the future. A look into the performance of Blockbuster proves that once glamorous Blockbuster where everyone stopped to pick up a few movies has become a shadow of its past. There are a number of issues ranging from stiff competition, indifferent and doubtful management, lack of clear objectives, and finally, the continuously changing industry dynamics. Until the end of 1990s, Blockbuster was at the top of the rental business, and it never considered Netflix or any such other companies as consequential competitors. So the company paid little attention towards the emerging technologies and the changing customer preferences. Soon, the company found that its profits were going dramatically down. Thus, the stock price of the company fell from $29 to $2 per share. This was mainly the result of the emergence of other forms of entertainment delivery like rental by mail and video on demand. As these technologies emerged, a significant proportion of customers found them more convenient than in-store renting. It was at that juncture that the company made the most terrible mistake in its history. Instead of adapting itself to the emerging trend, the company decided to strengthen its in-store business. However, as the in-store business was destined to fail as technology allowed more convenient renting options, the effort proved futile. On the other hand, its rivals like Netflix who successfully adopted rental by mail and video on demand technologies found significant improvement in business and profit. As the company found itself in trouble, it started new strategies like kiosks, rental by mail and video on demand. How ever, each of the new strategies had its own defect too. For example, the rental by mail offered by Blockbuster was not as effective as that of Netflix. While Netflix managed to deliver the order in a single day, Blockbuster took one to three days. Also, while Netflix ensured successful delivery in more than 95% of the cases, many of the Blockbuster visitors found their favorite titles out-of-stock. Admittedly, the company has taken beneficial steps that will improve the position of the company in future. First of all, it has widened the product array in its brick and mortar stores by adding electronic appliances and video games. Secondly, it has started VOD though it has not been seriously explored. In fact, most of the problems faced by the company are associated with the lack of a specific objective. The management goes on changing its strategies in very short intervals, and hence, the customers get too puzzled to take a decision. Also, even the company representatives find it