The Dark Knight

I have personally always thought that the Dark Knight was an exceptional movie. I usually am not into the superhero movies, although I do fondly remember that my first PG-13 movie was Spiderman. I remember that when the Dark Knight came out in theaters a few years ago, I saw it the first weekend and ended up purchasing it when it came out on DVD because I enjoyed it so much. The screenplay, the actors, the incredible points of action and suspense, I'm all about it!
Tood McGowan's article, called "The Exceptional Darkness of the Dark Knight", was really interesting to me. Well, the parts that I could understand. He opens up with saying " the mask that superheros wear indicates their complex reaction to the law". I found this statement with such truth, because the reasons superheros wear their masks is because the actions they are doing are against the law, and they want to hide their identity to the public and/or  enforcers of the law. McGowan goes onto explain a German philosopher's, by the name of G. W. F. Hegel, view on superheros and thier uneasyness by saying that he sees them as "antithetical". Hegel also rejects the idea of a modern hero. This surprises me, but at the same time makes sense becuase of Hegel's views on superheros. McGowan then explains the movie in further depth, focusing on Batman and the Joker. The joker was actually one of my favorite characters in this film, even though he was technically the bad guy. McGowan states, "Both are figures who devote themselves to an ethical principle and follow it to its endpoint. For Batman, this is fighting injustice, and for the Joker, it is creating chaos." I think this is a great example of how ethics is involved in these types of superhero stories.
Another great quote I got out of the article was that "the problem of evil isn't the extreme criminal but the way that evil insinuates itself in even our good acts." This aspect of the movie and the one of hiding of the identities can be applied to our lives today I believe. Yes, these are superhero movies, but we can read much more into it. McGowan also points out the differences of the concealing identities of Batman versus the Joker. Batman conceals his identity by a mask so that people cannot tell who he is. On the other hand, the Joker is just wearing makeup, so it doesn't conceal who he is, but rather shows the absence of an identity altogether. This was such an interesting way to look at the two characters in a way I haven't before! This movie is primarily about heroism and evil, but by reading McGowan's article, I can really see more things that one can take away from it, that it almost makes me want to watch it all over again.

Pop Culture Readings

I think Steven Johnson's book on "Everything Bad is Good for You" is a very interesting title and really draws you in. He mostly focuses on how technology and social media is actually beneficial and intelligent for us. This would be something that I would like to read more of. In this excerpt of the book, he speaks first on books and how these are beneficial. He also speaks on video games and the progress they have made over the years. A quote that stood out to me says, "It's not what you're thinking about when you're playing a game, it's the way you're thinking that matters". Johnson then goes onto explain this is not only pertaining to video games. This can relate to any time of learning that we are doing. It is through our experiences we learn, not only during the the time, but after as well. The learning goes beyond the actual experience. Johnson explains how games force you to make desicions. They force you to choose characters, choose moves, places, things, etc. The list goes on and on. No other form of "pop culture" makes you activate your desicion-making in the brain. This part of the article was extremely eye opening for me. I have a 16 year old brother, who is a video gamer, and I always looked down upon the fact that he loved it so much. I thought how boring, all you are doing is clicking buttons. After reading further in Johnson's article, I realize that even though it is just a video game, it is helping him to open his desicion making abilities, and for this I can come to terms with it easier. I also dated someone recently who loved playing Super Mario Smash Brothers, and I would get extremely annoyed when I was at his place and he would be playing and not paying attention to me. (Typical girlfriend reaction). Although, I can look at it at a better light now. I think this article was very interesting to me and actually one I understood!
The second part of the readings was a study done by Angeline Lillard and Jennifer Peterson. It was about the impact on different TV shows on young children. As a babysitter, this was very interesting to me because I was intrigued to know if what the paretns are letting their children watch are actually beneficial to the children. I wasn't suprised, although, when the study showed that the children that were tested who watched the fast-paced television show did worse on the tasks that the other children.I know we have talked in class before about how Spongebob isn't good for children, so I enjoyed reading about this study and learning as well. This is definetly something I can apply to my life.