With this being my second class cluster I had a vague idea as to what I was getting myself into. I knew I was going to be in different classes with the same people all semester, whether I liked those people or not. Starting this semester I was kind of surprised by all the work that we did online (yeah yeah I know it’s a media cluster) because I didn’t have a computer at the time. I actually thought I liked movies before I took the film class, until I realized that I don’t like anything as much as Rhuben likes movies. I never bought the book for the American film class and I think that was a good decision because we have yet to use it. Overall in her class I learned there is a lot more to movies than just the story, not that I really care for much more than the story but now I’m just more aware of everything else. My English 101/103 classes were challenging for the most part. We watched 3 good movies and eXistenZ, which all had to do with the perception of reality and we did a lot of blogging. We also went on a few field trips which helped me get to know my classmates a little better. Before this class I’ve never read Plato’s allegory of the cave so I had no idea most of the movies we watched in this class were loosely based on that story. The blog assignments were fairly easy and I really wish I was a lot more focused to where I could have given them my all. Louie’s class had the privilege of being held at the worst possible time, Monday morning, and it was my only class that day so he’s lucky he kept it entertaining. We also never used the book in that class and I actually bought that one. But overall the cluster was a good learning experience and I got the opportunity to meet new people, so how can I complain about any of that.

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According to Freud, women recognize that men are typically more powerful in society and he believes that women think a man’s power stems from having a penis. From the moment a female realizes that their male counterpart has something they don’t, they begin to feel as if not only are they different but they are also missing out on something. Freud referred to this stage as Electra complex and breaks down the series of events that lead to penis envy in a girl’s life. It begins with the libidinal shift to the penis, the child develops her first sexual impulses towards her mother, and then the girl realizes that she is not physically equipped to have a heterosexual relationship with her mother, since she does not have a penis. From that moment the girl desires a penis, and the power that it represents. This is described as penis envy. She sees the solution as obtaining her father’s penis, she then develops a sexual desire for her father and blames her mother for her apparent castration (what she sees as punishment by the mother for being attracted to the father) assisting a shift in the focus of her sexual impulses from her mother to her father. The sexual desire for her father leads to the girls desire to eliminate or replace her mother, from that desire the girl identifies with her mother so that she might learn to mimic her and eventually replace her. Realizing that replacing or eliminating her mother would result in unwanted consequences the girl uses the defense mechanism of displacement to shift the object of her sexual desires from her father to men in general. Most women over compensate their absence of a penis by possessing or controlling their father or their mate, having a male child to control or I guess in some cases even resorting to blowing shit up. In movies such as The Book of Revelation where a man was abducted by three women and repeatedly raped and tortured over twelve days, Antwone Fisher which has a scene of an older woman forcing herself on Antwone fisher as a child, and shows like Oz where the female prison guard who was in charge of the solitary confinement block raped the male prisoner show women channeling their frustrations of penis envy through sexual violence.
In the movie The Sleep Dealer Luz Martinez defiantly had penis envy. It became apparent to me after she set Memo up knowing her would probably get robbed in the alley by The Star so he would feel more vulnerable, then stalked and found him afterwards to she can penetrate him with a node job herself. If that’s not a female’s way to show dominance I don’t know what is. With her aggressive attitude and her forward approach to most situations throughout the movie it just seemed to me as if she was over-compensating for the lack of something in her life, my guess is that something is a penis.
In the movie eXizstenZ Allegra Gellar’s’ success as the world’s greatest game creator could possibly be the result of over- compensation for not being born with a penis. Knowing that Ted was a “virgin” to the world of games like hers gave the perfect opportunity to control and or take advantage of him. She took him to the man that made ports. When they got there she told Ted to get the ports done after he told her that he was extremely afraid of needles. Allegra Gellar’s desire to control a man and assert some sort of power made her force Ted into doing things that he was afraid to do. Finally when his ports were installed she forced him to play the game on her controller which ended up blowing out. In subtle and blatant ways Allegra controlled Ted to get what she wanted. In one scene of the movie Allegra aggressively throws herself at Ted and blamed it on her “in game character”. Also at one point of the movie after Ted got his port she stuck her finger inside of it stating that it needed stimulation. So in the action of pure envy she tried to use her finger like a penis in order to penetrate Ted and emasculating him with her assertion of power.
In the movie The Matrix I believe Trinity, with her dominatrix style of dress just resorted to the “blowing shit up” approach. Since she never really tried to control Neo or any other male character she figured her best way to channel her aggression toward the penis was to kill. As the only female aboard the NebaKanezer she could have played the “mommy” role, instead she was just one of the guys.

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Although both films The Matrix and eXistenZ pose similar questions, they took different routes in asking them. There were many similarities between these films, for instance; both films made the viewer question what is real and how can reality be determined, both films were set in an unknown time, with a male lead character that was ignorant to the “truth” in the beginning until it was forced upon him and both films required a person to be “plugged in” to false reality. However that’s where the similarities end, while The Matrix involved humanities fight for survival eXistenZ was based on a very sophisticated video game.
The film existenz was a take on how connected society is to technology and how detrimental that can be in determining the difference between reality and fantasy. As opposed to the technology used in the matrix which was more machine-like, the film existenz used a more organic form of technology with its placenta-like game pods. With its ports plugging directly in the human central nervous system is easy to understand how confusing differentiating game life from real life would be. As seen in most social networking sites, people have an alternate personality while connected to sites such as facebook, myspace or twitter. While connected to existenz players have an overpowering in-game personality that they slowly learn to control. In the game there was a pre-programmed path or destiny for each character, other characters wouldn’t even respond unless you asked them the right question, therefore unlike real life there was a pre-set goal or ultimate conclusion. However as deep and thought provoking existenz was, it was still only a “game”.
In the film the matrix, the directors wanted to show that unlike in existenz we didn’t choose a fantasy world, instead it is unknowingly forced on us. This makes the viewer think more in depth about the reality of their own existence.
Although existenz was thought provoking and made me ask questions such as “if technology can become so organic is it still considered technology?” I still believe the matrix was more culturally relevant for the fact that unlike a video game where you have a choice of whether you wanted to participate the matrix was unavoidable. The matrix questions reality in a more meaningful way because everyone was a part of it not just those who purchased a port.

........

so today i decided to change my final completly im using a different meduim altogether i have to let louie know now

words

my goal is to figure out what medium i will use for my final

so i will diplay photos and some video over possibly the beatles song piggies or springsteens american skin

seventeen

i think im gonna make a music video..... so now im searching for a song

ehhhh....

Although it is a possibility that we do live in the matrix, that doesn’t rule out the face that we may also may not live it, because after all it’s only a possibility. I do not believe we are living in the matrix because for one, it hasn’t been proven to me and because some of the ideas seem a little farfetched.
I believe reality only extends as far as the limitations of my mind allows it to. With that being said many theories would have to be proven to me before I can believe it. I say many because there are still exceptions such as God and time. I believe the theory of a time exist only because I’ve been that it does. Since we can travel back and forth through time but only for an hour and only during daylight savings, who is to say it has to stop there? Since no one can be told what the matrix is and it hasn’t been shown to me I will have to remain a non-believer until I get that phone call. Being that anything is possible however not everything is probable some of the ideas from the movie see farfetched. Machines that have evolved to the point where they are not controlled by humans, or pills that alter your reality or change your destiny extend the reaches of my mind, therefore I can’t believe it. I’m sure at one point cell phones or flashlights seemed farfetched or out of reach for one’s mind, until they were proven to be real. Well that’s the moment I’m waiting for, when the farfetched is ordinary and theory is reality.
If all I know about reality is what has been shown and proven, is it considered belief, ignorance or skepticism? I think its belief but maybe because that’s all I know. So until I know that the matrix exist and has been shown and proven to me like it was to Neo and anyone else who was freed I will remain an ignorant skeptic.