The Simpsons episode Essay Example for Free

The Simpsons episode Essay A similar cartoon to Itchy and Scratchy is Tom and Jerry the characters in both cartoons dislike each other. They differ however in their use of weaponry. In the cartoon Itchy and Scratchy, these battles are exaggerated and the violence escalates through the use of dangerous weapons and graphic imagery. This culture can be seen on the streets of America where the use of guns and knifes are regularly used. In this episode of The Simpsons the producers use parody as a technique to mock the TV culture of America by including the Psycho scene. Each time Maggie attacks Homer the creators adds tension and atmosphere by using the same music and camera angles. This is because Psycho is a well known horror film which is easily recognisable. From then on each time Maggie attacks Homer we hear the same music to show that she is about to do something bad. The shower scene from Psycho is made to appear shocking because an innocent woman is brutally attacked. The Simpsons use many of the camera angles to parody this. Some of the famous shots from psycho have been used for example, when Homer and Janet Leigh realise the attacker is behind them they use a big close up shots to show the emotion and fear on their faces. There is a close up of Homers mouth just as he realises that Maggie is about to hit him, in a similar way we see Janet Leigh scream as she sees the killer. Also when they feel the blow, Homer pulls the table cloth to the ground, we see the cloth rip in the same way that the shower curtain rips in Psycho. As Janet Leigh blood runs down the plug hole they use the same panning shot to show Homer lying on the floor and the red paint runs to the plug hole and then they use a fading shot into his eye to start the next scene off. The music adds tension because it stars off high pitched and gives you a sense add danger, as it goes on the pitch gets lower and slow down, the double base and cello are perfect instruments because they make sharp hollow noses building tension to make you wonder what gong to happen next. This technique combines to make the scene recognisable and easy to relate to. Once Marge realises the terrible effects the cartoon is having on Maggie she begins to wrights letters of protest to the creators of Itchy and Scratchy and Crusty the Clown. After a successful campaign the nature of the cartoon changes. The theme tune now begins We love, we share, we love we share we care , Itchy and Scratchy are now loving and caring. The cartoon Porch Pals shows them sitting on the porch and shared the lemonade with one another. Maggie is once again influenced but this time for the good. She goes over to Homer to give him a glass of lemonade. The other kids are disappointing with the changes to the show. Lisa said its lost its touch and Bart said this suck. Millhouse, Barts friend turned off the TV and the camera angle shows a disappointed expression. The fact that children apparently only enjoy watching TV violence is exaggerated by the creators, they make all the children turn off the TV and walk out side to play. As the children walk out side they rub there eyes to exaggerate the effect that the sun has had on their eyes. The music changes to Beethoven 6th symphony makes the atmosphere happy and joyful. All the children are playing traditional games. Homer sits at the table and his children are happy and polite. Attitudes to each other change. Homer shows an interest in his children by asking what have you done today and the children become polite by asking may we leave, Homer comes out with a comment this is the golden age but it might not necessarily be as perfect as they all think. One boy is shown watching paint dry and there is a saying that nothings more boring then watching paint dry. This indicates that everything is not perfect after all. The positive influence of not watching TV has been well presented ever though it has been exaggerated. The children are spending their time doing positive, worthwhile things, making friends, helping the community and being much more polite. Although TV can have a negative affect on children the creators are aware that too much censorship is also bad. When Michael Angelos David is brought to Springfield the parents begin to protest against it. Marge, on the other hand is in favour of the statue coming to Springfield. This makes Marge re-examines her own attitudes to TV violent. What one person finds offensive could be considered a masterpiece by others. She realises that censorship denies others the right of free choice. When answering the original question it would appear that the Simpsons does influence the behaviour of children. When violent cartoons such as Pokamon are popular the incidences of playground violence increases as children try to imitate their actions. However, as children grow up they develop the ability to distinguish between TV and reality. In certain cases seeing violent acts and the affect it has on victims may prepare people placed in similar situations to cope in real life.

Gay Rights Essay -- Equality Homosexuality Papers

Gay Rights Throughout history, homosexuality has been looked down upon and legislated against. The law has prohibited any type of behavior outside of the heterosexual relationship. This deviant behavior has included not only homosexuality butalso fornication, adultery, oral, and anal sex. Originally, religious laws prohibited these types of behavior; then civil laws followed suit. The reasoning for these prohibitions is that marriagebetween a man and a woman is the cornerstone of society. "The idea of a man,a woman, and children is what civilization is based on." Therefore, any acts outside of a heterosexual marriage are viewed by fundamentalists as an erosion of society as stated by the Church ofJesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In our group there is a consensusthat homosexuals should have complete equality with everyone else in this country to not only marryand engage in sexual activities, but also to raise children. This is the result of the factthat in the recent past homosexuals, as well as women, have challenged these restrictions in the courts as well as in the media. Their actions have had a tremendous effect not only on our group butalso on a vast amount of people in this country. Just twenty yearsago there would have been a much greater opposition to equality for homosexuals. Butas a result of their involvement, public awareness has been raised. This paper aims to deal with specific constitutional arguments, a number of court cases, the opinions of a few Hunter College students we talkedto, and the role that homosexuals play in the media. Challenges have beenmade on restrictions of same sex marriages as well as restrictions on adoption by a homosexual couple.Constitutional arguments such as ... ...ore acceptable topic to discuss in society due to the influence of the media and court decisions. As a result, homosexuals are no longer apprehensive to demand their rightful place insociety, along with their civil rights and right to equal protection. Withthe help of public figures and the open- mindedness of the courts and the general public, thequestion of whether homosexuals are entitled to equalrights will be relegated to history. Bibliography BOOKS The Challenge of Democracy, Janda, Berry,Goldman. Fifth edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997 The Law of Sex and Discrimination, J. RalphLindgren and Nadine Taub. Second edition. West Publishing,1998. Sexual Orientation and Human Rights, RobertWintemute. Oxford Press, 1995. WORLD WIDE WEB http://www.aclu.org/news/n061997a.html http://www.nonline.com/procon/html/gayadoptpro.htm

Case 1-3 the Coca Cola Co

Case 1-3 Coca Cola Co Coca-Cola is an iconic symbol of Americana that has deep roots in our society and a presence throughout the globe. The brand has permeated into clothing, household items, electronics and more, with brand recognition and customer loyalty rivaled by none. Throughout its history until the late 1990s the Coca Cola Company, based in Atlanta, Georgia, has put all its eggs into the carbonated beverage basket. With scientific advances and an increasingly health conscious public, Coca Cola has been forced to modify their product line to include â€Å"healthier† products and recipes.Ingredients in Coke products such as High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS/corn sugar) and aspartame are now being sold as a healthy alternative to sugar, when they are as unhealthy as sugar if not worse. Although promoted as healthier, independent health and nutrition experts, through peer reviewed research, have scientifically proven otherwise. The Coca Cola Company will need to continue to sacrifice short-term high profit margins for long term growth by re-examining their ingredients as well as further diversifying their product line to adapt to a more sophisticated and informed health conscious consumer.The Coca Cola Company was incorporated in 1892 by Asa Candler after purchasing the brand and formula from inventor, John Stith Pemberton, in 1889 (â€Å"The Coca-Cola Company†, 2012). Throughout its history the company has focused primarily on carbonated beverages with its flagship product, Coca Cola, developed to become one of the world’s most powerful brands (Abramovitch, 2011). In addition to Coke, the majority of revenues are generated from Diet Coke, Sprite and Fanta. Although they consider themselves the â€Å"kings of carbonation† (Cravens, 2009, p. 4, para. 3), in 1960 they began to diversify by purchasing Minute Maid and Belmont Spring Water Co. in addition to merging with Duncan Foods (â€Å"The Coca Cola Company†, 2005). Cokeâ₠¬â„¢s primary business model is to manufacture syrup and sell it at high profit margins to a large network of independent bottlers who in turn sell it to retail outlets. Although this model has helped them to show higher profit margins, it also worked to disguise financial troubles from debt and independent bottler relations (Cravens, 2009).Based on deceitful earnings facilitated by shady, yet legal, financial finagling, plus extraordinary income from buying and selling bottlers, Coke was able to exploit the exaggerated success of the business as exhibited both internally by a dysfunctional culture cultivated by a lingering false sense of success stemming from their glory years, and externally as a 3,500% increase of stock (Cravens, 2009) which in-turn stayed in decline between 1998 through 2007 (Coca Cola Historical Stock Prices, 2012).The profit margins attained during the glory years were predictably unsustainable; however the decline was not based only upon questionable business activities, but also changing consumer attitudes. Although consumer awareness between the diet-disease relationships really began to take hold in the 1980s with efforts by the American Heart Association (Teisl, 1999), due to the advent of the internet, by the mid-to-late 1990s consumers began to awaken to the health issues related to consumption of excessive sugar in the form of HFCS, and the dangers of aspartame (Fox, 2012).This has resulted in consumers moving away from â€Å"sugary, fizzy drinks in favor of drinks with a healthier image like water, teas and other noncarbonated beverages† (Soft Drink, 2010, para. 7) and carbonated beverage sales declining for the past six years (Fuhrman, 2011). Although the carbonated beverage industry is in decline the industry would rather divert your attention by telling you â€Å"the big news is not that the soft drinks category's sales are down†¦but that Diet Coke surpassed Pepsi for the No. 2 brand in the category† (Fuhrm an, 2011 para. 3).Digging further, the only reason Diet Coke took the number two spot is because its sales declined less the Pepsi’s did, and to add to that, this loss occurred in an overall loss of soda market share globally (Esterl, 2011). Both Coke and Diet Coke have shown decline sales. Why? The public is waking up to the dangers of HFCS and Aspartame, two key ingredients in regular and diet soft drinks. High Fructose Corn Syrup was invented in 1957 and was developed for mass production in Japan between 1965 to 1970 (â€Å"High Fructose Corn Syrup†: Production, n. d. ).HFCS is manufactured by extracting corn starch, processing further to produce corn syrup, then adding enzymes to convert glucose to fructose resulting in a mixture anywhere from 42% to 55% fructose (â€Å"High Fructose Corn Syrup†, n. d. ). The danger of corn syrup is due to increased quantity consumed versus ingestion through natural means by eating fruit or other foods containing fructose (M ercola, 2010). â€Å"Fructose is a major contributor to a) insulin resistance [diabetes]; b) elevated blood pressure; c) elevated triglycerides and elevated LDL [bad cholesterol]; d) epletion of vitamins and minerals; and e) cardiovascular disease, liver disease, cancer, arthritis and gout† (Mercola, 2010, para. 3). In addition to previously mentioned health issues a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition further makes the connection of fructose to weight gain, and insulin resistance syndrome (Elliot, 2002). The body process different types of sugar in different ways. Glucose, a much healthier form of energy, is processed mostly on a cellular level throughout the body, whereas fructose is processed completely in the liver and converts almost immediately into fat (Mercola, 2010).Although the corn syrup industry claims that at most, HFCS contains 55% fructose, independent researchers upon testing actual cans of soft drinks found they contained â€Å"as m uch as 65% fructose (and only 35% glucose)† (Kaplan, 2010, para. 6). According to the American Diabetes Association, Americans do spend $116 billion on direct medical costs related to diabetes, and with diabetes increasing by 176% between 1980 through 2010 (Crude and†¦, 2011), with fructose playing a major factor in the onset of diabetes someone is bound to take notice.Although HFCS has proven to be dangerous to consume, aspartame is worse (Mercola, 2011). Aspartame was created in 1965 by James Schlatter of the G. D. Searle Company, and took over 15 years to gain a very shady approval by the FDA (Mercola, 2011). Many researchers and top doctors have weighed in on the issue saying â€Å"aspartame causes headache, memory loss, seizures, vision loss, coma and cancer †¦ worsens or mimics the symptoms of such diseases and conditions as fibromyalgia, MS, lupus, ADD, diabetes, Alzheimer's, chronic fatigue and depression. †(NWV, 2004, para. 4).Board Certified Neurosur geon, Russell Blaylock, MD wrote a book documenting the connection of aspartame to macular degeneration, diabetic blindness and glaucoma (NWV, 2004). Due to the brand’s value and customer loyalty the company has been able to rely on its core carbonated products, however as their dedicated customer base ages and dwindles they will find it harder to attract new younger consumers who are more aware of the health concerns of HFCS and aspartame. For coke and the soft drink industry to rebound they will have to diversify and get away from HFCS and aspartame.First they have to get past Coke’s â€Å"Notorious Board† (Cravens, 2009, p. 46). References Abramovitch, S. (May 9, 2011). Apple Overtakes Google as World’s Most Powerful Brand. Gawker (Online). Retrieved from http://gawker. com/5799830/apple-overtakes-google-as-worlds-most-powerful-brand Coca-Cola Company. (2012). Historical Stock Prices. Yahoo Finance (Online). Retieved from http://finance. yahoo. com/q/h p? s=KO&a=00&b=2&c=1962&d=01&e= 21&f=2012&g=m Cravens, D. W. & Piercy, N. F. (2009). Case 1-3 Coca Cola Co, (A). Strategic Marketing. (9th, ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin â€Å"Crude and Age-Adjusted Percentage of Civilian, Noninstitutionalized Population with Diagnosed Diabetes, United States, 1980–2010†. Department of Health and Human Services: Center For Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from http://www. cdc. gov/diabetes/statistics/prev/national/figage. htm Elliott, S. S. , Keim, N. L. , Stern J. S. , Teff, K. and Havel, P. J. (November 2002). Fructose, weight gain, and the insulin resistance syndrome [Special Article]. The Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 76. 5, 911-922. Retrieved from http://www. ajcn. org/ content/76/5/911. full Esterl, M. (March 16, 2011).Diet Coke Wins Battle in Cola Wars. Wall Street Journal (Online). Retrieved February 20, 2012 from http://search. proquest. com. pegleg. park. edu/docview/857249434/13503185B037A9C16B2/20? accountid =28370 Fox, S. (2012). Using the internet for health information is not the exception. KevinMD. com. Retrieved February 20, 2012 from http://www. kevinmd. com/blog/2010/10/internet-health-information-exception. html Fuhrman, E. (April, 2011). 2011 Soft Drink Report. Beverage Industry. 102. 4, 22, 24, 26, 28 Kaplan, K. (October 26, 2010). High-fructose corn syrup in soda has much more fructose than advertised, study finds.The Los Angeles Times (Online). Retrieved February 19, 2012 from http://articles. latimes. com/2010/oct/26/news/la-heb-too-much-fructose-in-hfcs-soda-20101026 Mercola, J. (January 2, 2010). Sugar May Be Bad, But This Sweetener is Far More Deadly. Mercola. com. Retrieved February 19, 2012 from http://articles. mercola. com/sites/articles/archive/2010/01/02/highfructose-corn-syrup-alters-human-metabolism. aspx Mercola, J. (November 6, 2011). Aspartame is, by far, the most dangerous substance on the market that is added to foods. Mercola. com. Retrieved February 19, 20 12 from

A Look at Humor, Laughter, Tickling, and the Brain Essay

A Look at Humor, Laughter, Tickling, and the Brain Everybody smiles and laughs at some time or another. The first laughter appears at about 3.5 to 4 months of age (8)., way before we are able to speak. The average adult laughs 17 times a day (4). Even monkeys and apes have some facial expressions that are similar to human smiles. But really, why do we laugh? Why are we not able to tickle ourselves? What part of the brain is responsible for laughter and humor? Why do we say some people have no sense of humor? We never go to the doctor because we feel good or because we think something is funny. Therefore, it is not a clinical problem; that is why there has not been much research done on the topic of laughter and the brain.†¦show more content†¦Laughter also increases blood pressure and heart rate, changes breathing, reduces levels of certain neurochemicals (catecholamines, hormones) and provides a boost to the immune system (3). Can laughter improve health? It may be a good way for people to relax because muscle tension is reduced after laughing. Human tests have found some evidence that humorous videos and tapes can reduce feelings of pain, prevent negative stress reactions and boost the brains biological battle against infection (1). More studies are needed in this field to uncover whether humor or some other component such as distraction, is the predominant factor in these results. Researchers believe we process humor and laughter through a complex pathway of brain activity that encompasses three main brain components. In one new study, researchers used imaging equipment to photograph the brain activity of healthy volunteers while they underwent a sidesplitting assignment of reading written jokes, viewing cartoons from The New Yorker magazine as well as The Far Side and listening to digital recordings of laughter. Preliminary results indicate that the humor-processing pathway includes parts of the frontal lobe brain area, important for cognitive processing; the supplementary motor area, important for movement; and the nucleus accumbens, associated with pleasure (1). Investigations support the notion that parts of the frontal lobe are involved in humor.Show MoreRelatedVampire Diaries61771 Words   |  248 PagesSixteen Are you having a good time? Elena asked. I am now. Stefan didnt say it, but Elena knew it was what he was thinking. She could see it in the way he stared at her. She had never been so sure of her power. Except that actually he didnt look as if he were having a good time; he looked stricken, in pain, as if he couldnt take one more minute of this. The band was starting up, a slow dance. He was still staring at her, drinking her in. Those green eyes darkening, going black with desire