Avatar

      For all of you who don't know this is the movie Avatar.  The reason i chose this movie is because it relates to imperialism perfectly.  Here's a brief review of this movie. Marine Jake Sully, decides to take place on a mission in the distant world of Pandora when he find outs his brother has been killed in a robbery.  While being there he discovers this greedy corporate figurehead Parker Selfridge's plan on driving the native humanoid "Na'vi" in order to mine for their resources and precious materials scattered throughout their rich woodland.  However while being there, Jake begins to bond with this native tribe and quickly falls in love with the beautiful native girl. Leaving the Colonel no choice but to send in his soldier to fight back in a battle for the fate of Pandora.
Now the you know the gist of the story you can get an idea of how this movie relates to imperialism. So there is this land that these native humanoids live on and a group of humans are trying to take control over their land for their own benefit. They want the natives land for their resources and decide the best way is to just knock them out, destroy their land and take over everything they have.  This relates greatly to the idea of imperialism, considering imperialism means "the policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire or nation over foreign countries or have control over another country." In this case you can consider the native humanoids as the "foreign country," who we are trying to rule and take control of.

    
     Of course no one says that Imperialism has to end with the country that's trying to take control actually getting what they want. In the end native humanoids fight back and take a stand for their land. Causing an epic battle between the "countries." If you want to know who wins, well then your going to have to watch the rest of the movie to find out.


                        
          

Chocolate can be bitter....

 The Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat are both related to Charlie and the Chocolate factory in more ways than one. Consider the Bourgeoisie acting as Willy Wonka or the whole company in general, and the Proletariat as the workers, otherwise known as "Oompa Loompa's." Willy Wonka claimed to have "rescued" these Oompa Loompa's from the jungle, when in actuality he found them to use for his own benefit. They represent the working class, the Proletariat, whose basic function is to manage the machinery, and act as a lower class having no real power. Willy Wonka represents the Upper class, the Bourgeoisie, whose a much higher class than the Proletariat and usually has power over them. So as you see you can easily relate the two and see how they connect with each other. 

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a missile!

    Yellow Journalism was not only misleading during the Spanish American War, it is  something that can still be seen today through todays news outlets. Whether it be the newspaper or tv, our society loves to take what we see and spread it to the world, with out even knowing the true facts, or any facts at all. One channel, Fox News, is a good example of yellow journalism today. The recent story on the "missile" in California made headlines everywhere. "Mystery Contrail Off California Coast", is the headline used by Fox News, who in particular blew this story out of proportion. This headline, grabbing viewers attention, helped Fox New's ratings go up, while in reality they weren't reporting anything substantial at all. Just as during the Spanish American War they were using sensational headlines to get people to buy there newspapers, Fox News as well as other News channels use sensational news reports to help their ratings go up. News reporters are still following the method of yellow journalism from years ago.

Life was harsh

After reading the song lyrics from The Song of the Shirt I believe that life for these factory workers, mainly all women was harsh and depressing. In the song it mentions that their eyes were heavy and red, due to their hard work they didn't have much time to sleep at all. Let alone rest, or eat, plus their food supply was very slim. It is very sad to think how hard these women were worked. These women had worked through all hours, day and night which must have been exhausting. Their bodies were feeble and weak. Their fingers, cut up and bleed due to the endless stitching. They're hungry and dirty. These machines were often dangerous for women to work with because they were so heavy and big, therefore women tended to get injured. These conditions would never been seen today, these conditions known as slave labor was such an abuse and torture to all people. This had to be a a harsh and difficult time for workers in the factory.

"Rocky Racoon" Just another sterotype...

The song Rocky Racoon by the Beatles portrays a steroytype of how the west was, much like any other song or movie you would listen to today. In the song they talk about this guy who lived in the black minded hills of Dakota, who was dating this women, and she ran off with another guy. Rocky planned to get this guy back because he wasn't happy with him taking his women from him. So he talks about how he got a gun, just like any other cowboy has and was ready to fight his rival. Then it goes on to the typical stereotype of cowboys showing up at the bar walking through the swinging doors ready to draw. Now it's all a matter of who draws first as they stare eye to eye with their hand on their gun ready to fire! These piece is not really accurate at all, it's just a regular stereotype as how all people of today view cowboys and the west. We never really focus on the bigger picture of the west, like what cowboys really did and why they did those things. Many of the things they did was their way of living. In the west there were many great job opportunites but we would never have imagined that.

six word story

West is where opportunities lie unseen.

Being a Cowboy isn't just saying "Howdy Partner"....

Roping - Part of a days work for a Cowboy

  Many people believe that being a cowboy, is just like we see in Hollywood films. You know, the dry dessert land with the dust ball blowing around, and that western music, that has a similar sound to a whistle, the one we all imagine. Then the two guys square up to each other, look eye to eye, pull out their guns and it's on! We all have our own images of our  "Hollywood cowboy", but in reality that's not how it was.
  Watching the short clip of Gun Smoke you would look at it and consider that as a general idea of how cowboys were. However there was a lot more to it. In this photo to the left, is one of Erwin E. Smith's many photo's. I chose this photo mainly because my perspective of it can be looked at in two different ways. This photo may fool you to think of your average "Hollywood cowboy", you know, riding horses and swinging a rope around their head yelling "Yee-ha!" But if you looked further into it was that actually what they were doing? No, not at all. This picture represents a cowboy Roping, which for them was a part of a days work. One reason they would do this is to heard all the cattle. But things weren't just all fun and games for cowboys, they had much work to do out on the ranch. 
  As you can see cowboys aren't exactly what you thought they would be. In fact, being a cowboy was like having a job. There was much work and effort you had to put forth to your daily jobs you were required to do. Im sure many struggles and hardships came along with being a cowboy. So although being a cowboy seemed to be all brave men fighting, that's only in the films. But don't let that take your interest out of the real cowboys in reality because they did things that were just as cool!