October 29th Homework

Craven, A. (2002). Beauty and the belles: Discourses of feminism and femininity in Disneyland.
The European Journal ofWomen 's Studies, 9(2), 123-142.

Do Rozario, R. C. (2004). The princess and the magic kingdom: beyond nostalgia, the function 

of the disney princess. Women's Studies in Communication, 27(1), 35-58. 

Giroux, Henry A. ―Memory and Pedagogy in the ‗Wonderful World of Disney‘: Beyond the 

Politics of Innocence‖. From Mouse to Mermaid: The Politics of Film, Gender, and 

Culture. Ed. Elizabeth Bell, Lynda Haas and Laura Sells. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 

c1995. 

October 8th Homework

"Paradise" by Coldplay

Original Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G4isv_Fylg

Fan Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1nwdQRBCTs

The song is about a young girl experiencing difficulty somewhere in her life, but at night she is able to dream of a better life. The fan video exemplifies this as a girl whose home life is turbulent, with fighting parents and an angry father. She escapes to a fantasy world where her family was happy and it was "paradise". The song is all about her escape to this special place.

The beginning of the original music video shows a person in an elephant costume in a cage at the zoo. He then escapes and he rides his unicycle to meet up with his three other elephant friends. This visual could mean that we are all caged in some way looking for escape, and the unicycle could symbolize loneliness, and therefore the paradise is being with friends and those that love you. The setting is mostly in Africa, which is very much deserted in the video, once again signifying being alone. At the end there are a rainbow of colors as the elephants play a concert showing unity and happiness.

The colors in the fan video are very similar to this in the sense that when the girl is alone the colors are very musky and dark until the "paradise" brings in light and at the very end when she sees her once happy family it is brighter and happier.

While the original video is more abstract, and the fan video is much more relatable, they both carry the same sort of message. They begin with a sense of loneliness and end on a happier note.

October 3rd Homework

In the video, it begins with Bonnie Tyler in all white is in some sort of dream, and a quick image of a young boy with bright eyes is shown. She is mostly just singing and roaming through hallways, but through the whole video is images of teenage boys. All the boys are dancing, and one of them has wings, insinuating that it is an angel, and he hugs her. the video ends with her in a classroom talking to what seems like her students and then one grabs her and he has "bright eyes". All of these images lead me to believe that the video is some sort of tribute to a school teachers dream or fantasy about her male students.

Light:
The light is dark, yet light in some places. It reveals that the video is dream like because it is blurry and has high exposure. The spotlight on Bonnie in all white makes her look innocent, eve though the theme of the video is fantasies about teenage boys. There are shadows around the young boys in all the frames, except for the one with  bright eyes making him stand out.

People in Portraits:
Making Bonnie the main character in the video surrounded by young boys, eventually in a school is what shows us she is a school teacher at probably a private school. Her clothing is all white insinuating innocence, and the different big room settings and hallways make the audience believe this is older times when older women and younger men being together was more taboo.