A place of Beauty

http://www.starvedrockstatepark.org/

The link above is about a place in Illinois called Starved Rock; I have been here several times. It is a place to immerse yourself in nature to enjoy the beautiful scenery of Mother Nature. Once this home page is says, “Welcome to the most BEAUTIFUL place in Illinois” and then further done the page it states that “Starved Rock State Park is a world apart from anything else in Illinois”. These two phrases and the multiple images of canyons, flowers, and waterfalls set up the romantic ideology.

When I see this link it bring back memories of happiness and peacefulness. The romantic ideology of this is that I know longer care for the rest of the world as I am immersed in the beauty and the feelings of this place; it is just myself and nature blending together. Now when I think of Illinois I immediately think of Chicago or the suburbs, which is where a majority of the people live. So Starve Rock offers a place to get away from all the people and pavement and just relax and connect with your prehistoric heritage burning for a beautiful sight. This place also offers a chance to reconnect with your inner child playing in the dirt, climbing trees, and going on hikes with Dad. The romantic Ideology of Starve Rock State Park calls to all people by saying come here to relax, enjoy name, see beautiful sights, get some exercise, and see what the world looked like many many years ago.

As I look at the photo’s on the website I see that if you come to Starve rock you will see love will be revealed through couples and nature, the pureness of mother nature, and the sense of adventure that is in everyone. Starve Rock is a place to escape reality and enjoy the dream.

water mountaineering

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe3St1GgoHQ

There was an advertisement I found a while ago that I thought would be perfect for this assignment. It depicts a group of sport fanatics who try to run on water. The thing that interested me most was that after watching the video I noticed all the emotion that the video creates into the readers of the advertisement. It does a great job of using romanticism to get the readers of the video to connect emotionally to the ideas presented in the video. Specifically the romanticism of the scene, music score, and actual actors in the video all help to implant feelings of happiness, exploration, determination, and awe to the viewers. Even before reading the rest of this article I would suggest to watch the video to see the video’s effect on those who watch it.

The romantic cinematography of the video plays a great deal into creating the feelings that the readers of the advertisement experience. First of all, the scenery of the video takes place in a very natural looking area. It depicts a completely natural lake surrounded by mountains and green trees. This helps convey the idea of the romantics rural over urban and nature over civilization. By using this romantic ideology the reader gets the feeling of awe. Furthermore the cinematography of how the people are filmed in the video also creates romanticism in the film. When they introduce each member of the team the cinematography shows a short black and white picture of each person with their name and them talking about the sport. This camera effect helps convey the romantic idea of the individual over anything social or collective and develops the emotion of anticipation. This is because the semiotics of black and white pictures correlates to important individuals and greatness about to be discovered.

Furthermore, the music score for this advertisement also has a very romantic sense about it. The video begins with some rural music that has a very natural feeling to it, which goes along with the ideas of mysticism and romanticism. Moreover, the video cuts in short moments of rock music whenever people are successfully running on the water. This creates a feeling of excitement and happiness into the audience of the commercial, while also developing the idea of emotion over fact. The reason behind this is because it doesn’t seem very factual for humans to be able to run on water; however, the emotion built up in the video causes us not to think about this and makes us believe what we see. Even the lyrics of the song promote romanticism and build more feelings into the audience. In one of the songs the lyrics state “no matter how hard you try, you cant stop us now”. This is a clear romantic idea of individual over society. And the tone of this song moves the audience to become determined to do something great themselves.

The actors in this video also portray the romantic in action. The actors themselves have a very optimistic and simple view on the world, which gives the reader of the advertisement the feeling that the actors are childish. Thus the actors portray the romantic idea of child over adult. Similarly, the actors portray the romantic idea of intuition over knowledge because of their free spirited personality and because of their wording. Even one of the actor’s claims that they found out that water repellant shoes would cause them to run on water by accident. Moreover the actors constantly talk about having belief in oneself, persistence, and confidence in order to walk on water. One of the actors even quotes its “Me my boots and I, were gonna make it”. This not only plants the romantic ideology of individual over society, but also builds the emotion of determination into the audience.

The video follows a very romantic ideology. It constantly plants feelings and emotions to get its point across. Mainly it demonstrates the following romantic ideological thoughts to develop enough emotion in the video to get one to buy Hi tech water proof shoes: emotion over reason, individual over society, rural over urban, nature over civilization, and mysticism.

In all, although this advertisement’s main political position was made to promote Hi tech water proof shoes, it also promotes the similar ideology of what the romantic in action would promote. Thus many of the same beliefs that occurred in the romantic era after the age of enlightenment were used in this video to create emotion in the video. Overall, the advertisement was very successful and is able to leave the audience filled with emotion and wanting more.

Twas the Month Before Christmas...and Corporate's Reports Due

“His eyes, how they twinkled! His dimples how merry! His cheeks were like rosees, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth as drawn up like a bow, and the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.”

Now what is more romantic than that image? Saint Nicholas is indeed one of America’s most romantic figures, especially during the most romantic holiday of the year, Christmas.

The idea behind Santa is so romantic; he epitomizes equality, love, and giving. The day that every child receives a toy, despite their economic situation, family life, race, age, or location reflects justice in the most pure form. This jolly, red-clad man with a beard receives each child’s wish, packs up the reindeer, flies to each roof, slides down every chimney, and produces that child’s wish in a nice little package; it’s almost too much to bear. He creates stability and sense of hope, that each Christmas there will be joy. “A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.”

The emotions a human feels for this mysterious man completely overthrow the facts that one man cannot produce the billions of toys it would take to give every American child their wish, reindeer can’t fly, and chimneys are not built to have overweight men sliding down them. However, he is doing a good deed, making children happy, and maintaining peace throughout the world for one night, and so we completely overlook the realities at hand.

Not to be a buzz kill, but Santa Clause is in fact a romantic figure produced and replicated to maintain political and economic forces.

Santa in America was produced by corporations as the poster "child" of Christmas spirit; Christmas spirit in corporate eyes being equivalent to how many diamonds, choo-choo trains, and silk ties were sold for that quarter. The economic push behind Santa is that if a parent has enough cash to make their little kid’s dreams come true for one day, they can embody the mystery and wonder of the man in red. Each parent strives to have that adoration from their child and maintain a sense of innocence and wonder in them as long as possible.The political realities are, that if a child does not receive at least one gift from "Santa", they were bad that year and do not deserve a gift. Santa's romantic image produces joy, equality, and a warm fuzzy feeling as reflected in poems such as "T'was the Night Before Christmas". However, as much wonder and mystery he produces, Santa in America is an outlet for creating economical gaps and disappointed children on a day created for appreciating family and celebrating religious values; and away he flies "like the down of a thistle."

Now as to not kill everyone’s holiday spirit,

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

The Vow- A very anticipated romance movie

http://youtu.be/dMjW295hFCY

This first trailer I watched of "The Vow" was way back in the summer when it popped up on my tumblr blog newsfeed. I'm not exactly sure how cheesy or dramatic or realistic it is but it seems to have a little bit of everything- love, drama, action, romance, and just how every love story has an issue that usually leads to a happy ending. However, this trailer did not make the movie seem so, to have a "happy ever after". The trailer starts out with the scene of which the couple, Rachel McAdams (main actress) and Channing Tatum(main actor) wed in a museum, with what seems to be friends and very spontaneous and in a museum or private area and has this very cheery happy-like piano song play in the backgroud. It then goes into a dialogue of where Tatum states, "Life's all about moments of impact and how they change our lives forever. What if one day, we couldn't remember any of them?" and low and behold, a tragic accident occurs- a semi truck strikes the back of the car of which the couple was kissing in on a dark snowy night and the trailer then shows the scene of where McAdams is in the hospital, loses her memory and thinks Tatum is her doctor, not her lover. Once Tatum realizes this and has to rebuild his wife's memory, the music suddenly changes to a dramatic song, however a continuation of the piano, happy-like song from before, and plays until the end of the trailer with a "hopeful-bittersweet-no-maybe-happy-ending tune" and lyrics that say 'everyone is in love...' (something close to that). While this shows up, the trailer has a screen question, "Can a once in a lifetime love, find a second chance?," and ends with Tatum's "vow," 'I vow to love you and no matter what challenges might carry us apart, we will always find our way back to each other' and as his monologue ends, the trailer song ends with the female singer singing "we are one..." (or something along those lines). Not only does the trailer hype up an extremely sad, bitter-sweet romantic-drama for women who are so into "chick-flicks" because the ending is unknown but easily predicted by the typical "happy ending" predictions. When the the main actors are introduced in the trailer, many more romantics are drawn in by the fact that the main actors are from the two all-time bestseller novels that were made into movies from reknowned author, Nicholas Sparks, the trailer reads "The Notebook's Rachel McAdams" and "Dear John's Channing Tatum." This moment in the trailer alone draws in captive audeinces because of previous works and successful "romances" these actors/actresses have played, they message the audience then receives, "of course it's a romantic movie worth watching, it includes great actors/actresses from previous romances" and leaves you wondering whether or not, the individuals does end up together, and the music and the sequence of the scenes really helped set that up.

Despite this however, the second trailer I just viewed, as I was wondering when the release date would be, did not deliver the same message when I watched it the second time. Everything was predictable, it was not as strong and dramatic as the first one I initially viewed and the "unique romance" was lost- they played a Taylor Swift song and the sequence of scenes was quite different. There was also a change in the initial monologue Tatum spoke and an added statement of the trailer "what if 5 years of your life disappeared?" and "inspired by true events" and more comical scenes. The song "Enchanted" includes lyrics of a typical love story and the sequence of events just makes it a typical romantic movie that has a tragic accident that deters the love of a couple and in the end, ends up together, as the sequence of scenes view Tatum helping McAdams re-live their love so she can recall him as her "husband" and the "Enchanted" song ends with "I was enchanted to meet you." Having knowing the song already, knowing the lyrics behind the song, killed the message of the movie trailer and/or the movie itself, it automatically tells of a happy ending because the lyrics of the song would continue to "I was enchanted to meet you...please don't be in love with someone else...repeat repeat..." and Swift songs are known to signify happy endings, at least that's how it was with "Letters to Juliet" and the Swift song and the trailer just gave the whole movie away. Apparently, it was a new intern of the company who made the trailer but despite that, the second trailer of "The Vow" was definitely a no go and had I saw that first, I would not be anticipating the story of the movie and just be "another typical romance novel movie". See for yourself and compare to the first one: http://youtu.be/aN68cu-NW48.

As Cheesy as it Gets

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFlAvFo7EzE

As I was watching football today, I saw a Kay Jewelers commercial and thought it would be perfect for this week’s blog post. Kay commercials always go WAY over the top to try to romanticize their ads. The particular commercial I decided to look at is from Christmas a couple years ago. A new mom is awake late at night holding her newborn baby that was having trouble sleeping. The father comes into the room with a big smile on and says that it’s Christmas morning and hands his wife a big, shiny watch from under the tree. The wife’s eyes go big and she smiles as she looks lovingly into her husband’s eyes. Finally, the commercial ends with a shot of the two kissing while the mom is still holding their newborn baby, as the “every kiss begins with Kay” slogan plays in the background.

Most of the scenes in this commercial would be categorized as “special moments.” Every new mom feels that special connection with her new baby and can be caught staring at their new loved one for hours, which is exactly how the commercial starts. Then, when the husband comes in and says it’s early Christmas morning, this depicts another special moment. Everyone can remember how excited you used to, or still do, get when you finally got to open your presents Christmas morning. The commercial is clearly trying to get this same effect as the Christmas lights on the tree light up and light up the husband’s smiling face at the same time. The special Christmas morning idea continues as the wife’s face then lights up as she sees her new watch. Then, the scene with the two parents kissing while the mom holds their baby shows another special moment, their first Christmas as new family. This is another moment that is held near and dear to many family’s hearts. So why does everyone see these commercials as so cheesy and over the top when many of the scenes should evoke loving emotions?

One reason is the music that is always played in the background. The music slowly builds until the Kay’s product is finally revealed and then all the bells play in the background for the big moment. On top of this, the two parents don’t talk in a normal voice. Everything they say is with a big smile on their face and sounds wispy and airy. No one actually talks like this. They try so hard for the commercial to be special and show a loving moment between two people, but because they try so hard it is seen as a joke. They actually do a decent job at identifying special moments in people’s lives, but by putting so many of them back to back, it loses all of the effect. The commercial tries to display the typical signifiers of love and romance, but the emotions are not successfully transferred to the audience.

Ain't No Rest For The Wicked

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBgp5aDH23g

This song, "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked" by Cage The Elephant can display a variety of different meanings. The song speaks about people doing some bad things, and all for mainly the same purpose, money. In the chorus, ain't no rest for the wicked, wicked being referred to the "bad people" never seem to get a break from the struggles in life; they have it worse off in comparison to others when it comes to paying bills and supporting a family. Everyone needs money in order to survive in this world, and there are many people that strain over the simple daily needs that the people that are better off do not have to be concerned about. These people are obligated to end up stealing from others out of desperation to make it through life. A good example of this from the song is, in the second verse,

"He put a gun up to my head

He made it clear he wasn't lookin' for a fight

He said give me all you got

I want your money not your life

But if you try to make a move I won't think twice

I told him you can have my cash

But first you know I gotta ask you

What made you want to live this kind of life"

The lyrics further describe how someone can't slow down and hold back even though there is a great desire to get away from this life style. They are born into this and struggle through life attempting to find a way out. Towards the end of the song, the artist talks about a preacher who stole from the church.The reasoning behind this seems like they want people to realize, that not everyone is what they first give and impression of, and that not all bad people appear to be bad on the outside. Some of these people can just be normal people walking down the street and you are unable to tell the difference between them. The line “But even still I can’t say much, because I know were all the same, oh yes we all seek out to satisfy those thrills”, resembles how, in general, people are striving for some of the same goals in life, and some people have to pursue a different route in order to accomplish those goals.

WristCutters: A Love story

Something about this movie keeps bringing me back, maybe it has to do with the idea of we never know what we want, or act of suicide can be a bit humorous and can lead us to the right path.

But before we jump to it, lets start at the beginning and answer "what is wristcutters: a Love story". Wristcutters was a independent movie that came out a few years back that told the story of a man who commits suicide, because of he killed himself he didnt go hell nor heaven but a special place made for suicides. The reason he killed himself is because the firl he loved left him. And in this place he meets a group of people and one of them he ends up falling in love with, yet he still doesnt accept it till the very end.

We can first start with the idea of the "feelings or emotions over reason or fact", in the first 10 minutes we see the character kill himself. He is following his feelings over reason, he doesnt care about the world because he saw only the that one girl as the world. He didnt see any other possibility for happiness after she left, so he offed himself. And this is a strange and murky area of Romanticism. We dont see it much often. We are often fed the stories of an individual doing great things to achieve the love of their life, but what happens when that love leaves? Is killing oneself to show your feelings for another considered romantic, or does that person need special help?

But the biggest message about romance, life, and fate that I think that this movie tries to convey and push is we dont know what we really want until we finally have it. Even though we may think we have what makes us happy, we have that special someone, those things or that person may not be it. Even to the last breath, were the person has died and we are still holding on to that idea of that is what we need to make us happy we will find that truth. And even after death there still may be hope of what will truly make us happy. The main character is very reluctant to let her go, even after death he doesnt realize that he found someone better, someone that loves him back more.

Now I feel like I made this movie very dark and dramatic, it isnt, its quite funny and one of my favorite comedies.

Valentine's Day- The movie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Hp7npquUUk

As I was reading the directions for this blog post, I was thinking of one thing and one thing only, Valentines Day. I thought that the topic of Valentines day just in general was a little bit too broad so I narrowed it down to the movie Valentine's Day. I decided to use the clip from the movie where Taylor Swift's character is being interviewed and being asked questions about how her and her boyfriend in the movie, played by Taylor Lautner, met. Taylor's character says at first that she was not into her boyfriend and that he used to shoot spitballs at her during spanish class. Later in the day she found a spitball that was stuck in her hair and it said "whats up?" She thought that this was really cute and then she decided that she liked him. After she says this, the clip goes on to show Taylor Lautner's character, her boyfriend, practicing his hurtles on the track and he sees her and ends up tripping over the hurtle and falling. Taylor Swift's character yells "oh my god baby are you okay???" and she acts like she is very worried and concerned. She goes on to tell him to just walk it off and that he is still hot!

This entire movie and this clip especially I think are so cliché. The whole idea of Valentine's Day is a big joke to me. Valentine's day is a "greeting card holiday" and I think it is just an excuse for girls to act like prissy spoiled little brats and expect their boyfriends to buy them flowers, chocolates and diamonds. I think the meaning of what Valentine's day should be has been completely lost. Valentines day should be about spending a day with the person you love and being with that person should be enough in itself. Stressing about gifts and making the day perfect shouldn't be the focus of Valentine's day. The movie Valentine's Day just portrays all the wrong things about what Valentine's day should be.

Sandals Resorts

Perhaps one of the worst offenders when it comes to over the top, cheesy romance is Sandals Resorts. Having several beach resorts in the Caribbean, Sandals is made out to be the most romantic getaway you could go to. The relaxing music in the background and the low soothing voices of the narrators make you feel at ease, as if you’re already there. They gush about the beautiful water, the food, and the great service while showing images of sunny beaches. This makes you envision a vacation where everything is perfect and there is nothing to complain about. They convey a feeling of romance throughout as well. In many scenes you can see a beautiful couple on the beach sitting next to each other and sipping on drinks. The couples can also be scene playing in the water and feeding each other in the restaurant. The romance of course is blatant at the end when the narrators realize that the reason they came here was “lying right next to them” as a couple lays on a single recliner. Also to make the mood more romantic, when the couples are on the beach or by the pool there are no other guests in sight. If you were to actually go to Sandals you probably would not find yourselves the only ones on the beach.

The advertisement’s purpose of course is to entice you into coming to their resort. They do this by making the ad as full of romance and relaxation as possible. By all of the above aspects they are able to make it seem as if going to Sandals resort would be a getaway for you and your significant other, a vacation all to yourself. By not showing other guests except for in more social settings (the restaurant) they convince you that the vacation will be very private and focused on you. It seems like the perfect getaway and the ad convinces you to take a vacation there.

Romanticism in Gifts

Romantic can mean a lot of different things, for different people and for different types of relationships. The type I’m going to focus on is the type of romanticism in gifts (like the upcoming holidays) to loved ones.

I thought of this idea from thinking about the differences between my best friend and me; what she finds romantic vs. what I find romantic in gifts.

Her “wish list” of gifts for her birthday, graduation, and Christmas each year always contain the same things (not in a bad way, but seriously). She has a pair of really expensive Uggs, really expensive necklace, very expensive perfume, and a few other expensive accessories she would like to add to her room on the list. Key word: expensive. She finds a lot of value and personal satisfaction on name brand items that require a lot of money.

My wish list is always personal, and different depending on the friendship/relationship. I don’t just want a gift card to target – that’s great and I’ll use it – but that doesn’t have nearly the sentimental value of per se getting me my favorite movie Baby Mama on DVD, or something that is my favorite color of teal, or a soccer poster.

The sentimental value is what’s important to me – I would rather have a home made card than a cliché Hallmark one written and given to thousands of people each year. A loved one for Christmas last year got me very cute cheap earrings, a scarf with my favorite colors, silly bands, Miranda Lamberts new CD, and a stuffed Tigger. Each one of those items had a personal connection, or inside joke with him and those gifts were much more important to me than an expensive watch or pair of shoes. It was the best gift I’ve ever received. It means a lot when you see the gift five years later and still know exactly whom it was from and what it relates to; that’s romantic (to me).

Adorable Owls; Have they ever looked so cute?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/18/lovely-owl-video_n_1101488.html

For this scavenger hunt I found a video about owls, showing a variety of owls being pet or just sitting turning their heads. I went searching for ads or commercials on AOL because I figured I could get something interesting there. The title of this video is: Lovely Owl: Cute/Ridiculous Animal Thing Of The Day. With this title including the words lovely, cute, and ridiculous already your mind is shaping what you think these owls will look like. They start with the cutest little owl that looks like a little stuffed animal you should find on a shelf at Target. It’s almost too cute to be real. They then continue on showing many beautiful owls. In this video they use the romantic quality of feelings or emotions over reason or facts. For example, no one we really know, besides Harry Potter, owns an owl as a pet. But this video shows you a lady’s hand petting these adorable owls, making us watching this think, wow I would love an owl as a pet, how do I not have an owl yet? It tricks us by their completely adorable selves, their stuffed animal, plush likeness that makes us all ignore reality and want one for our homes. It also uses the romantic quality of the beauty of nature over civilization. I truly think that is why so many people are infatuated with Harry Potter’s owl. Because we typically forget about owls when we think about nature and forests and hiking trails. They are always not always seen either, so they can also be a rarity. The music is I think a whole other story to make us get this adorable, cute, cuddly feeling. It is the type of music that reminds me of the happy, sweet, cheery, make-believe world of the hobbits. Like the sound of a hobbits child’s birthday music when they are all happy, celebrating, you know, in movies, when people are looking around smiling and happy and laughing. It just makes you feel happy. Even listening to this music alone, without the owls, you would feel all happy and lovey inside. The social construct of this overall makes you just completely happy, like hearing Christmas music for the first time of the year. In this video I think this is politically advancing wild life conservation. It makes us love the owls and want to keep the earth healthy, clean, and keep process green so we can preserve this cute fluff ball forever. Conserving our wild life will make is so future generations can pet these cute little owls when they have the chance, rather than learning about them in history class about how they have become extinct. I’m quite happy I found this cute video though.