After watching part of the movie, Do the Right Thing I found some new respect and a little admiration for Spike Lee as a person. The movie depicted African American life in Brooklyn and all of the problems that the people face. The main character, Mookie, is played by Spike. Just from the part we saw, Spike made his character Mookie act like a good person. Mookie seemed to constantly "Do the Right Thing." This is interesting for me because I feel like Spike Lee usually just doesn't care. I figured Mookie would be a joker or somebody that constantly starts trouble. I thought Spike would mirror Mookie too who Spike is in real life. Which is a controversial director that always has something to say whether it be negative or positive. Spike once said the Senator of Mississippi was a card carrying member of the KKK. He also said Larry Bird was garbage and the only reason why Bird was a prominent basketball player was because of white supremacist media. His controversy and choice of words always kind of bugged me. That's why I found new respect for Spike. He could have created a lot of controversy as the character Mookie.
I really wanna examine the character Mookie. He faces racial problems when he kicks out his black friend from the restaurant. He understands that his friend is wrong and also just doesn't want to loose his job. Mookie also tries to inspire one of the Italian brothers to stick up for himself. I think that Spike Lee wants people to understand and see that sometimes the smallest of things done right, can make the biggest of difference.
After reading Janine Jackson's article about the Hub I wonder why she wrote this segment. Does she have children of her own? What does she have against marketing to children? Her piece on the Nicktoons show provided a lot of speculation and little opinion or background. I would have liked to here some background knowledge on not only who she is but also why her company decided to publish this piece. I feel it would have given this piece a little more credibility and depth. So I go back to my original question. Why did Jackson write this piece? I can kind of understand why she would write this if she had children of her own. As a parent she wouldn't want her children subjected to commercials and advertisements when watching television. Oh wait, this already happens to everyone on a daily basis. Kids are huge consumers of products and companies have been taking advantage of this for years. When I was a kid I absolutely loved the show Hey Arnold. There wasn't any product placement or things of that nature in the show, but I did watch plenty of commercials catered to my age. I remember Hotwheel cars constantly being advertised and every Christmas I convinced my parents to buy me little cars to race around. Toy companies constantly target children's television shows and this is nothing new in my opinion.
One part of Jackson's article about vertical integration did intrigue me. The Hub is partially owned by Hasbro toy company and Discovery Communications. Basically the two companies conglomerated to make a television network to not only sell t.v. to kids but also to sell toys to kids. This is a brilliant thing in my opinion. According to sources, the show does not violate the Children't Television Act. So basically Hasbro and Discovery Communications beat other competitors with this idea and partnership. Apparently they are the first to do this and I give them Kudos. This makes me wonder if Janine Jackson is a writer for another competitor and the company is just sore because they didn't get there first. I can see where this partnership could become a problem but that is just speculation. For now I'm going to just watch and see how Discovery Communications and Hasbro do compared to other competitors.
After reading Nicholas Carr's article I instantly wonder how much time he spent on Google or another search engine. He does start by saying that all of his information was primarily gotten by internet and the internet is much easier to work with rather than gathering a bunch of periodicals. I do not necessarily disagree with his point towards people and the internet. As a student I do everything he mentioned from simply scanning an unimportant article, to clicking on many links to find the most information. I also dislike reading long articles or long chapters in a text book. I have the ability to do these things but would prefer not to. I have never read the "Art of War" and I don't plan on reading it anytime soon. All of Carr's negative points towards the internet are fairly accurate in my opinion.
All of Carr's points are strong and concise but I feel that his resolution is partially wrong. Perhaps Google/Internet is making some people loose brain cells, but I think the majority of people are getting smarter and improving their knowledge. In today's world you have to be as efficient as possible. Competition for jobs and promotions are at an all time high. Most people want to be successful and I feel that the internet has created a more efficient worker. I'm not talking about the artificial brain. I'm talking about people with the ability to many things and quick read an article and get the main points without taking hours. Google is a service that has improved the way people think and the way they do business. Yes Google wants as many hits from a computer as possible because that drives their revenue. Nicholas Carr likes to quote famous philosophers like Socrates, but Socrates never predicted a wealth of information at a person's fingertips. I think even the great philosophers would be using Google because they would recognize the importance of efficiency. The world is forever changing and as individuals we have the opportunity to improve and grow or just stand still and hope for the best.
