Love against the modern world

Student: Mariela Giribaldi

Love, love, love. Love is everywhere around the world and many of our daily things are connected to love. We listen to songs about it, we watch movies about it, we talk about it, we even have problems with it. But what is love? What does this four-letter word mean? I don’t have the answer. And probably nobody has it. But love is good for us for sure. If not, the world wouldn’t be surrounded by it. Love wouldn’t be as important as it is for our lives. The paradox for me takes place when I see that in a world that is dependent on love, in theory, it is hard to find people dependent on love, in practise. What I mean is that love is in the air, but not on the Earth.

I like love. What’s more, I believe in love. I always think about my grandparents’ relationships. Although when I was born one of my grannies was a widower and one of my grandfathers was a widow, they both talked about their couples with a feeling of loyalty, pride and honour that was almost worship. I would listen to their love stories for hours and hours. My granny’s story was about a long ship journey, a new country, a new life and a beloved man and my grandfather’s was about two political rival families somewhere inland Argentina, and two young people who escaped to get married. Both stories are worth being a romantic film each one.

That´s why I really enjoy a movie in particular: Up (2009). Ellie and Carl Fredickson are a couple and, when his wife passes away, Carl decides to make their dream come true: to visit Paradise waterfalls in South America. In order to achieve this, Carl ties thousands of balloons to his house to fly away and get to this magical place. With the company of Russel –an eight-year old scout-, Carl undertakes his journey and overcomes different kind of obstacles. He also meets new friends as Dug –a dog- and Kevin –a strange three-meter high bird-.

Carl and Ellie have some ups and downs through their common history. However, their feelings are never in doubt. Up portrays the kind of relationship that children need to see. In a world where everything is in crisis, endless love seems to be in crisis, too and for children, it’s not common to see couples that last for many years: most of them come from split families and they even do not believe that a person can choose another one to be his or her partner in life. I believe that those old values such as honour, loyalty and pride to people should be rescued and Up is a good example of them.

I think that there two main causes of divorce nowadays. The first one is the economic problems that people face. We have to work many hours to get the money we need for our life. Everything seems to be fine as long as the money is enough. But when we don’t cover our needs with our salary, problems begin and most couples are not capable of overcoming them. The second reason is the lack of patience of our globalized society. In a world where people have no time to waste, where everything takes place in seconds, couples do not give themselves the time they need in every sense. They do not spend time together sharing “common” things as, for example, dinner time. They neither give each other the time they need until the storm passes when problems arrive. They just separate and that’s it.

The two main characters in Up, Carl an Ellie, have the same problems that the rest of the couples have. They are not perfect, they are common people. But the good point is that they accompany each other, wait for the other and respect the other. And they choose each other again and again.  Although they do not have any child, they share the essence of a real family. That is exactly what modern families need. Because of all this, I think that this movie is a clear example of the lost values as loyalty, pride and honour to which we have to go back in our modern lives.

We should rethink all over again if we really think that those lost values are good for us. And that love is good for our society, too. I firmly believe they are and that they shouldn’t be lost anymore. They are good for us, for our families, for our children and for our future. Let’s place them on the Earth, not in the air!

A green hero

Student: Alvarez, Gilda

“... and lived happily ever after”

How many times have we read this type of ending in fairytales stories? The answer will probably be “a lot”. That is because since we are very young, stories like these have been told to us. Stories where everything and everyone are perfect. Stories where there is always a girl waiting to be rescued by a brave and heroic man. And this male character is always a beautiful prince son of a noble king, a perfect gentlemen, a brave hero living in an outstanding palace. In few words, this prince is always charming, or isn’t he?

If all the fairytales taken to the big screen have had a perfect male protagonist, surely Shrek is the exception that proves the rule. Shrek (2001) doesn’t portray the typically stereotype of a prince but quite the contrary: he is an ogre. Furthermore, the green creature has broken the dominant convention of hero stereotypes of traditional fairytales.

Probably the most obvious characteristic of a fairytale’s hero is how he looks like: tall, slim, most of the times blonde, with beautiful eyes and a perfect face. But do these adjectives fit into the description of Shrek? Absolutely not. He is an ogre! Ogres are not considered beautiful because they are supposed to be villains and villains in fairytales are always ugly or old creatures.

A perfect hero must live in a gorgeous palace surrounded by friendly and kind people. He is always part of the royalty and is beloved by everyone. Instead, Shrek is chased by everyone and rather than having company, the ogre prefers the loneliness of his wet swamp. He doesn’t like anyone but himself and even goes mad when, at the beginning of the film, hundreds of fairytale characters invade his sweet home and disrupt his peaceful life.

The behaviour of our green friend does not apply to one of the predominant rules of fairytales movies: politeness. It is hard to find a single scene in those films where the protagonist is rude or has bad manners. But it is definitely easy to find it on Shrek. The ogre is rude, disgusting and even grouchy. Besides, he doesn’t fit into the definition of a proper ‘hero’. In fact, he is an ‘antihero’. He doesn’t rescue the princess because he is in love; he rescues her to get his swamp back.

Maybe the only coincidence between Shrek and the traditional heroes is that, in the end, they both find their true love. A happy ending with quite different protagonists.

So perhaps Shrek is not the prince charming the princess has been waiting for. But she falls in love with him the way he is. And isn’t that what love is about? Yes, it is. It is to accept someone without wanting to change him or her. It doesn’t matter how that person or even creature looks like. It is not necessary to be perfectly beautiful like the characters of fairytale stories to have a ‘happily ever after’. Everyone has feelings, even an ogre. After all, you don’t have to judge a book by its cover.

Obedient children don’t go to Wonderland.

Student: Flavia Cruz

Honor your father and your mother is the fourth of the Ten Commandments. Obedience is its main requirement and dishonor means punishment. “Alice in Wonderland” is one of the many American animated features produced by Walt Disney and it is a clear example of this moral imperative. Obedience in the film is shown as an obvious instance of how a child should behave.

Alice is a little girl with huge imagination. She is sophisticated, educated and well mannered. She considers that the world is too boring as it is, so she often thinks in a different and crazy world. However, when Alice falls in a dream, in which the world she imagines comes true, she feels sad and sorry.

“Something terrible can happen to children if they disobey their parents” is the moral of the “The Walrus and the Carpenter” tale. At the beginning of the film, Alice is told a story. The story tells the misfortune of several little oysters. The little oysters, after disobeying their mother, are eaten by a fat walrus showing that the search of new adventures is not a good idea and it can take children to a fatidic end. It is clear that the moral of this tale cannot be another thing that a warning of what can be expected of those children who disobey their parents. The story demonstrates the importance of being obedient.

“I disobeyed and now this is my punishment”, says Alice after having a crazy teatime with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. Alice finds herself lost in the madness of Wonderland and she learns that her lack of obedience is the reason for being there. She sees Wonderland as the consequence and punishment for her rebellious acts. Alice thinks that everything she does is wrong and that the only way to escape from that crazy world is to be firm in the idea of obedience and honor.

“Alice in Wonderland” represents honor and obedience. The film fits in with the fourth of the Ten Commandments. So, Honor your father and your mother because there is always a Wonderland waiting for those children who disobey and go against this command.

No Crystal slipper for them

Student: Lidia Figueroa
           
Since immemorial times fairytales were told to children in order to teach them about values and appropriated behaviour to build their character and prepare them for life. By the middle of the 20th century film producers made movies from those traditional stories. Walt Disney, the famous producer, was one of them who transmitted the message of those stories through movies. Take as an example the film CINDERELLA many girls, who are now in their fifties, including myself, felt identified with the character and with the story. For this reason, we grew up bearing in mind that all the problems in life had a magic solution. But today, the eternal discourse is little convincing for the generations and the life of CINDERELLA is not a model to be followed by the 21st Century girls.

Girls over fifties, raise your hands if you ever dreamed about a romantic charming prince coming to marry you and to rescue you financially …why not? Do not feel guilty of your materialistic thoughts because you are not alone. I also did! Many girls of our generation grew up having in mind the traditional social commitments which meant to get marry to solve some financial problems, and to have children. That was life for…. or better still, that was the synonym of fulfilment or happiness for the society of the 20th century

But blame all this to the history and to the society in which we had to live, because they alimented our impossible chances of meeting our prince charming in vane. Experience now tells us that there were not enough princes for all the girls of that time not even for the ones of today! By the way, we also know that the closest moment in our life that we looked like a princess was when we had our 15th birthday dress on!

Let’s talk about the poor CINDERELLA.  In the story she is treated badly by her bossy stepmother and she also has to cope with the jealousy of her stepsisters. Her miserable life is full of punishments and authoritarianism. This situation is incomprehensible for these days.

However, she was a passive and conforming girl. Her only way out was her freedom through marriage. But the innocent girl did not know that her way out was also her complete dependency on men.

How fortunate are the girls of the 21st century! Why? Because they know already, with no experience at all, that no prince will come for them to try on their foot a crystal slipper with a guarantee of happiness! Girls, in general, feel free to choose their own way of living because there are breaking away old stereotyped roles related to women such as marriage and motherhood. Is not a coincidence the influence of the feminist movement with its beliefs of women liberation is present in this way of thinking. Young girls are now able to decide how bright or successful is going to be their future having in mind what they really want for their lives. Without any social commitment to follow they give priority to their needs no to the needs of somebody else.

It may sound a bit selfish for the ones from the last century but most girls are enjoying their lives, doing whatever they like without any kind of pressure from their parents, members of the family or from gossipy neighbours. The new generations do not wish to repeat the life of Cinderella. As Cindy Lauer sings in her song …   GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN!

The place with no happily-ever-after endings

Student: Busto Daniela

Is our world a "place where there are no happily-ever-after endings"? At least Susan Sarandon as the wicked stepmother in the movie “Enchanted” thinks so.

“Enchanted” is a 2007 American film, produced by Walt Disney. The plot deals with Giselle’s story (Amy Adams). She is a girl who lives in Andalasia (a fairy tale world) waiting for a man that truly loves her. Giselle’s life starts to change when she thinks she has met her true love, Edward (James Marsden) who fortunately is a prince. Queen Narissa (performed by Susan Sarandon) Edward's stepmother is committed to maintain the throne she currently occupies. So, in order to prevent Edwards’s marriage, she enchants Giselle and sends the poor girl to an awful world, where suffering and anger exist, and where there are a lot of problems. Well, what is that? That is our world.

After some misadventures in this crazy world of stress and shallowness, Giselle runs into Robert (Patrick Dempsey), a lawyer and single parent who lives in New York with his six-year-old daughter. Noticing Giselle so disoriented, the child asks her father to let the strange girl stay in their house. Once the girl from Andalasia is established in this new world, she realizes that she doesn’t like this awful place, so she tries to find the way to make it a better one and fortunately succeeds in doing that. In short, “Enchanted” portrays our world as a horrible place where problems and unfortunate situations exist but telling children, (and adults, why not?) that they can still believe in happy endings.

To the delight of optimistic people, the movie takes negative everyday situations and turns them into positive ones. We know, for instance, that there are big amounts of disgusting insects everywhere; but when Giselle recruits cockroaches to help her clean Robert's apartment, it makes you think they are not so bad. Despite the fact that you are not going to use these little creatures to clean your house, and you know that this is a typical fairy tale situation, you can feel that the film producers are telling you “come on, don’t be negative. Do your best and turn ugly things into nice ones”.

Take, for example, the scene when Giselle experiments anger for the very first time. She tells Robert that she is angry because people in “the new world” are negative and they don’t even try to find a solution to their problems; they just complaint about them. She concludes asking “Why are you like that?” and starts to laugh because she is felling something new. Although the felling is a negative one, she celebrates the fact that she can become more familiar with her current surroundings.

“Enchanted” second attraction is the parallelism presented between the Fairy tale world, Andalasia, and our real world. Every Disney Princess sings accompanied by her friends, which are lovely singing animals. Well, in this case Giselle is joined to street musicians who become her friends and help her perform “That’s how you know”, a song that tells us about the joy of being loved.

It can be said that beasts are compared to buses because of their size or the noise they make. But we can say also that this comparison is just a joke directed to buses drivers who feel that in the concrete jungle they are the most powerful. But, what about the fairy godmother? There’s no woman with sweet face, grey hair and shiny dress who is the person that makes the princess wishes come true. In her place, we have a flat plastic rectangle called “Credit card”, that is what helps Giselle to look amazing for the King's and Queen's Costume Ball. It’s well known that credit cards don’t grant us things just because; we have to pay for them when bills come. But in a way “the plastics” are what can save you in a fashion emergency just like fairy godmothers do.

Everybody knows life in our world is difficult. There are problems and very unpleasant situations everywhere and every day. However, it’s not fair to say that happiness does not exist. The thing is that our lives are quite different from the ones presented in fairy tale stories. Despite the fact that we can’t ask cockroaches to help us cleaning our houses, we can do our best to turn negative situations into positive ones in order to manage them as good as possible and to have our own happy endings. Yes, with problems and everything.

I think I’ve seen a cute kitten

Student: Graziano, Eleonora

In the 80’s, there were many television shows that children watched and enjoyed. Particularly, there was one that never failed to amuse them and keep them hushed for half an hour: Thundercats. The Thundercats abandon Thundera, the planet where they live, just before it is destroyed. Barely a few Thunderans remain. They set course for the nearest planet and they design a fortress there. Mumm-Ra who is the embodiment of evil, in companionship of the Mutants, becomes a constant threat for the Thundercats. But, the Thundercats’ leader (Lion-O) along with his weapon, the “Sword of Omens”, helps his friends survive.

This show was an original and dynamic series that was impossible to dislike. These heroic human-feline-like creatures fight against the evil forces with a fierce sense of companionship. Furthermore, the best bit about the series is that it had friendship as the central part of its adventures and it adopted many of the motifs predominant in cartoons at that time.

What’s good about this show is that all the events that take place in each episode are all related to the main idea in the series: the team members must trust each other to fight their enemies. The world that surrounds them must be explored but they must lighten their curiosity cautiously by working together. Every episode has a clear sense of friendship which is the main lesson the audience would get from the series. As in real life, what the characters find in the relationship with their friends is loyalty, comprehension, mutual interests, generosity and honesty which are the true values of friendship.

Taking into account the motifs which were predominant in cartoons in the 80’s, we could find that hidden symbolism was established at that time all through many series such as Thundercats, G.I. Joe, He-Man and others. The hidden symbolism is found through make-believe creatures, magical super powers, enchantments and astrological prediction. Thundercats are super heroes with a mythology theme. Motifs are symbolic and keep appearing to reinforce the main themes in the story. It felt like you were getting educated while watching it.

For instance, Lion-O in Thundercats owns ‘The Sword of Omens’ which makes him more powerful. Whereas in He-Man, Prince Adam has a sword (the Grayskull Sword) that magically transforms him from an ordinary man into He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe. As in Thundercats, the plot revolves around the noble forces battling against malicious creatures. These series allowed large, muscular characters and they also began to focus on advertising towards young children. Of course, from a business point of view, it was all to publicize toy lines

To be fair with the rest of the cartoons from that time, such as He-Man, Mazinger Z or G.I. Joe, we can’t say that Thundercats was the best of them but it was one of the most striking television cartoons ever. Thundercats was a great show with amazing characters and outstanding episodes. It was about the lessons each of the Thundercats, or we, learned along the way more than whom defeats whom. People who grew up in the 80’s would remember coming home from school and sitting down in front of the TV watching Thundercats and having so much fun. After all, “Thundercats are (still) on the move, Thundercats are (still) loose”.

“I will not waste chalk. Ay, caramba!”

Student: Valeria Muscato

What kind of Elementary School would you choose for your children?  Would you choose a behaviourist school in which the students have no participation and their errors are seen as a fail to the response after had received the same stimuli several times?

One of the most famous American TV shows, “The Simpsons” depicts how students at Springfield Elementary School are taught through the Behavourist Approach.  According to theorists,

“this theory is a worldview that operates on a principle known as ‘stimulus-response’. Behaviorism is caused by external stimuli (operant conditioning). All behavior can be explained without the need to consider internal mental states or consciousness.” (www.learning-theories.com) 

The Head of the school, Mr. W. Seymour Skinner, may be associated with the real B.F. Skinner, the father of modern behaviourism because both of them share the same surname. In addition to this, whenever “The Simpsons” begins, there is an opening sequence in which the audience can see Bart Simpson writing on the board the same sentence a hundred times. Due to his bad attitude, he is punished by Mrs. Krabaple, Bart’s teacher.  She thinks that through constant repetition Bart may change his behaviour. This shows a clear example of the belief that the more you receive the stimuli, the fastest you create an automatic response.

Another example of behaviourism is a scene where Lisa’s teacher, Mrs.Hoover, shows her limited knowledge as she constantly needs to check the answers on the teacher’s book (season 3, 18th episode) without taking care of learning. Lisa gets angry because of this situation and hides her teacher’s and all the other teacher’s books in her locker. As a result, the teachers get desperate to such a point that one of them quits because he cannot deliver classes without his prized book. This shows that many teachers at The Springfield Elementary School do not know how to teach to their students because their teaching is not creative and they do not care about their students’ needs or interest. As a famous pedagogue, Jim Shrivener (1994) points out “the explainer teacher has limited knowledge of teaching methodology and during her/his classes the students are not being personally involved or challenged”.

It is also important to point out that the teachers, who teach with this approach praise their students for being smart. As B.F. Skinner (1961), father of Behaviourism, points out this is called positive reinforcement. For example; Lisa is one of those smart students and she knows that good marks will always be congratulated by, the Headmaster of the institution, Mr. Skinner. This reward will make smart students to repeat the same action in order to reinforce the teaching-learning process.

In conclusion, it appears right to say that the teaching approach depicted in Springfield Elementary School in The Simpson is the bahaviourist and one could question the reasons why this is so, but that should be issue for another essay.