Dramaturgically Speaking

In my previous post about the film "Fresh," the topic of organic vs non-organic food is heavily discussed. Many proponents of non-organic produce push the cheaper cost and higher efficiency in debates on whether organic food is feasible. In "Fresh," we learned that medium-scaled organic farms are more profitable than industrialized mass farming schemes but do lead to higher prices for organic products for consumers. In this post, I decided to share this delightfully funny comic that touches precisely on this economic debate over the high cost of organic foods. In the comic, a farmer tells his cow he is only switching his farm from dairy to organic crops. Atop a tractor in a field, the cow looks incredulously at the farmer as he says, "You'll have to work a lot harder to earn your keep." The joke of the comic works on two levels: on the one hand, it plays into the fact that organic farms and organic produce cost more for consumers. The farmer plays into...

As the holidays are upon us, there seems to be a particular jingle in the air. The sound of yule-tide logs burning, Christmas carolers caroling, and hot cocoa warmly being sipped only gets better for me with a good old musical on. My family has a traditional "List" of holiday movies to watch from the end of Thanksgiving until Christmas Day. One of my favorites we watch, and the film I've picked to dissect in this post, is The Sound of Music . Not traditionally a "holiday" movie, the film is a favorite of my grandparents and thus ended up in our Holiday List each year. Americans have been consumers of musicals long before the days of Julie Andrews. Being one of the genre's progenitors, the United States has birthed many great musicals in her day. From  Hello, Dolly!  To  Hamilton , these musicals have soared to immense heights of popularity. They weave storytelling, music, and dance while immersing audiences in a live performance that emotionally excites them...

In my English 101 class, we are covering "Topics in Food" for our final essay of the semester. In preparing to write our last essay, we were tasked with watching the film "Fresh" by Ana Sofia Joanes as an introduction. In the film, "Fresh", director Ana Sofia Joanes shows multiple perspectives of farmers within the food industry as well as economists, professors, and industry professionals advocating for a more sustainable food industry. Watching this film really opened my eyes to how large scale of a problem our industrialized agriculture sector has become.  In the film, we are shown multiple perspectives in the food industry. The first is of Joel Salatin, a sustainable farmer who advocates for an organic, natural way of raising livestock. We see Joel allowing his pigs and other livestock to roam free before we cut to the second perspective in the short film, Mr. and Mrs. Fox, who are industrial chicken farmers. Against the Fox's advocating the increa...

If you couldn't tell by my Batman post, I've been on a film kick lately. Outside of reading scripts and seeing live performances, film is one of the most encompassing art forms. In this particular post, I'll be discussing one of my favorite films: Pulp Fiction . In my opinion,  Pulp Fiction  is one of the greatest films ever made. At a young age, probably younger than I should’ve been, I was exposed to Quentin Tarantino through his film  Kill Bill Vol. 1.  I stumbled through my grandpa’s living room as he and my older brother were watching, and shooed me out of the room. I was petrified by the amount of blood I saw and wasn’t properly reintroduced to Quentin Tarantino until high school. I started with  Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2  and then went to  Pulp Fiction . Through its groundbreaking and iconic non-sequential storytelling, immaculately dense dialogue that is anything but succinct, and use of soundtrack and sound design as its own storytelling device, ...

     We are side-stepping from dramaturgical analysis into rhetorical analysis. In my English class (which this blog owes its reason for existence), we have been working on what makes something effective, engaging, and enticing for an audience. We all can think of popular spokespeople/mascots in advertisements. Flo from Progressive, The Geico Gecko, and The Aflac Duck... each impart their unique flare to make them easily recognizable to viewers. Above the rest sits a poised and clever trickster of a mascot: Mayhem.     Mayhem is the name and physical embodiment of chaos in the form of actor Dean Winters. Mayhem is a character frequently used in Allstate Insurance commercials. In this particular ad, we see Dean as Mayhem wreaking havoc on various people in the household as a cat. Mayhem literally says, "I'm your cat. Ever since you brought me home that day, I've been plotting to destroy you," as he turns on faucets, rides Roombas, and lounges on the couch in all ...

    It is quite difficult these days to go to the cinema without seeing a film that was once previously a comic book. While I shudder at the idea of a multiverse of endless sequels, prequels, and mashup franchises, never seemingly drawing up any resemblance of a “new” idea, I’m taken to this quote from Mark Twain (one of absolute favorite writers):   “There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.” Mark Twain portrait, 1907         From Shakespeare, to Colleen Hoover; from Chaplin to Tim Burton; artists of every generation are constantly influenced by the work of those who came before, and those who are working alongside them as peers. The stories...