LDS General Conference

I always love conference weekend because it is a time when I have an excuse to get away from my responsibilities so that I can listen to the leaders of our church. I also love the feeling that members around the world are all watching the same thing and are sustaining the leaders of the church at the same time. I always get a bittersweet feeling at the end of conference because on the one hand, I’m glad that I enjoyed a spiritually uplifting weekend, but on the other hand I know that it is over for the next six months. I’ve decided that I am going to be better about listening and reading talks between this conference and next conference so that I can feel like I am getting the most out of the talks. Here is a picture of the conference center during conference, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the LDS General Conference. The talks are given by church leaders and broadcasted over TV.

Media Letter

So this week in my media class we had to write a letter to someone with some influence in the media. I decided to write to Nicholas Sparks. Here is what I said:

Dear Nicholas Sparks,

            I am studying Human Development at Brigham Young University and would like to say thank you for keeping your books so clean. You probably get a lot of pressure to do otherwise, but I personally am glad that I can pick up one of your books without worrying about the kind of romantic detail that might be inside. The movie industry is definitely not concerned about this kind of thing when they uses your stories, but I think it really says something that you are able to make popular clean stories before the movie industry even gets a hold of them. I feel like you are a pretty influential figure in a lot of teen girls’ lives, and your books teach girls that they do not need to have sex to have a successful romantic relationship with someone. I think that your books also teach girls that they do not need to settle for someone who is only interested in them for sex because your books show them that there are guys out there that could be more interested in their personality than their body.

            The only thing that I noticed in your last book was that there was quite a bit of violence. I can’t blame you because violence sells books and is very realistic in the story you depicted, but it still has an influence on the way teen readers perceive reality after reading your books. Safe Haven obviously teaches teen girls not to tolerate abusive situations and teaches guys to avoid becoming abusive, but readers are exposed to a lot of violence in the process. This may lead teen girls to think that there is a good chance that they will become involved in an abusive relationship and to fear relationships and men as a result. Obviously the effects of this would not be life changing, but could add to other life experiences they’ve had to create a stronger cumulative affect. This is just a small thing that it might be nice to take into consideration. I am a HUGE fan though and I appreciate all you’ve done to help girls better understand romantic relationships.

                                                                                                Sincerely,

                                                                                                Jessica Morrell

Need for Sound

I got to thinking today about my need for constant sound from some kind of media, usually the TV. I think this is something I’ve developed in the past few years because I don’t remember feeling this way when I was a kid. It’s almost as though I need the TV to distract me from the stress of things I need to do, but in the end it just makes me feel anxious about putting things off. I keep telling myself that I don’t want to have one of those families that report that they have the TV on during the majority of the time, but it is so easy to fall into that! My goal this week is to do homework without the TV on and to do more enjoyable things than TV in my free time.

Rediscovering Worms (It's an old video game...)

My family came to visit this weekend and my brothers were glued to this video game called “Worms Battle Islands.” They were pretty much rediscovering this game, as we used to play it about ten years ago. I was torn in classifying it in my mind as to whether this was a good game to be playing. It’s a little violent because each person has a team of worms (sounds weird, I know…) and they try to kill all of the worms on other teams, but it was also so ridiculous that I wondered if this countered the aggressive aspects of the game. At any rate, I thought it was funny that these teenage boys were so attached to a game about worms.

Once Upon A Time: Strong Female Character

So I’ve been waiting for a lull in the semester to post about one of my favorite shows, Once Upon A Time (there isn’t really a lull… I finally just decided to post about it). There have been a few big revelations in the show the past few episodes, so I’ve been really into this show lately. After the first season I didn’t think they would be able to continue the show with interesting and original ideas, but they have certainly surpassed my expectations.

There are a few things I love about this show. The first is that it is family friendly for the most part and the star of the show is a cute young boy. I had my doubts about it during the first season when the focus of the show was an affair between two of the main characters, and the affair was presented as justified because it was true love. However, they managed to straighten this out with a little drama and magic eventually (insert faint sarcasm here). Aside from this though, the show has pretty much been family friendly.

I also enjoy this show because of the strong female lead character. My husband was joking the other night about what a pansy Prince Charming is because he always manages to get knocked out during the action scenes. While I agree that this is a little silly, I think it’s also nice to see a strong feminine character. This has been on my mind lately because we have been talking about feminine portrayal in the media in my Media class this week. Women are often portrayed as ditsy, catty, love obsessed sex objects in the media, so I feel like it is refreshing to see a level headed and independent female character. Here is a picture of this character, Emma, with her new-found son, Henry (I'll admit, their relationship is a little strange...)

Wreck It Ralph: Prosocial Bad Guy

So I recently saw Wreck It Ralph and am just getting around to blogging about it. At first it was just slightly strange to wrap my mind around the idea of a movie of a video game, but I really think it was a unique and clever idea.

I really liked the idea of the guy who was programmed to be the bad guy wanting to be one of the good guys. I think it gave the movie an overall prosocial feel to it. My favorite quote from the movie was when one of the other bad guys at Bad-Anon, a bad guy support group, said: “Ralph, you are bad guy, but this does not mean you are bad… guy.” It was just kinda funny because it showed that the bad guys in video games and movies are programmed to be bad, but could really be nice people (similar to the idea of actors).

My husband particularly enjoyed this movie because it reminded him of his childhood and presented videogames in a family friendly way. He actually downloaded the game “Fix It Felix Jr.” (it was made after the movie, not before it…) on his ipod touch after seeing the movie, so we are now experiencing this movie through other methods of media.

Oscar Award Dress Nonsense

So I watched the Oscars Awards last week and I just wanted to blog about how silly the interviews about the outfits were before the awards actually started (I’m not sure what this is officially called… the pre-ceremony? The red carpet ceremony?). It just seemed so strange to me that there was nothing else to talk about and that people love the stars so much that they enjoy hearing them talk on national television about the clothes they chose to wear to the event, as if it were a substantial subject. Maybe clothing is something that you have to appreciate as an art and I just don’t understand it enough to appreciate it. To me, most of the dresses looked nice but did not look unusual enough to deserve multiple interviews. Can anyone explain this to me? Or is it something that can’t really be explained?

Jessica Chastain won one of the best dressed awards this year. I like the dress but I'm still not so sure about the concept.