This is my Photo Story involving Captain America and his position in World War II. I think the main goal for the creators was create a character that was identifiable, and morally strong. They simply wanted to persuade neutral America that Hitler was an enemy to the U.S. and that his actions should not be tolerated. Their success created a legend that continues to reflect America's best interest. I hope you enjoy it.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Captain America Fights for Justice and Rhetorical Discourse!
Captain America was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby during World War II to voice the creators disliking toward Nazi Germany in the 1940's. They knew that the war would be inevitable, Joe Simon stated that, "The opponents to the war were all quite well organized. We wanted to have our say too." The creators of Captain America were trying to persuade the audience to support the war and to boost morale by showing Captain America as a good guy against the bad guys.
During World War II there was a spirit of "can be done" and I have never seen this in any other war era and I really think a huge supply of that support came from Captain America readers. Captain America sold one million copies per month after the debut issue, and lots of those issues were sent to soldiers on the war front in care packages. Imagine a soldier reading a Captain America comic and thinking to himself that he is a hero or patriot, or a child who recycles used tin and paper and thinks himself as a hero as well because Captain America said he was. This makes ordinary people present themselves with the reality that they are heroes doing their part for the war.Joe Simon and Jack Kirby wanted to insight support for the war from its audience by showing a positive moral character. Captain America never killed anyone, which is hard to do in a war, but I think this made Captain America more likable to the general public. It is hard to make anything about a war seem appealing but mothers and school teachers thought that Captain America was a positive influence towards children. Again, the spirit of "can be done" was created by the stunning use of art by Jack Kirby. In the first issue of Captain America, the cover shows Captain America as a one man army punching Hitler in the face. With his American flag motif and shield he represented the Allied Powers while Hitler represented the Axis. This was such a powerful image in the 1940's that showed the wonderful use of rhetoric in order to alter peoples perception that the Axis could not be beat.
According to the collective conscience of my 1312 English class the definition of rhetoric is, "an epistemic art (creates knowledge) that forges a reality for an audience by a persuasive and informed rhetor, who wants to incite action or further discourse in order to alter perceptions for change." The creators of Captain America were both Jewish so they were of course outraged by the actions of Germany, so they definitely wanted to encourage action and support for the liberation of the Jews in Concentration camps. Over the years Captain America has sold an estimated 210 million comic books in over 75 countries and he was created out of great use of rhetoric.
According to the collective conscience of my 1312 English class the definition of rhetoric is, "an epistemic art (creates knowledge) that forges a reality for an audience by a persuasive and informed rhetor, who wants to incite action or further discourse in order to alter perceptions for change." The creators of Captain America were both Jewish so they were of course outraged by the actions of Germany, so they definitely wanted to encourage action and support for the liberation of the Jews in Concentration camps. Over the years Captain America has sold an estimated 210 million comic books in over 75 countries and he was created out of great use of rhetoric.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Hilla"r"y for President
Last night I was at the Don Haskins Center to see Senator Clinton give her Texas rally here in the great city of El Paso. We were waiting in the rafters and the lights dimmed; I really felt like I was at a rock concert. The crowd went totally berserk. When she started speaking she had everyone's undivided attention except mine. When the lights came on I was looking at all the banners people made for the rally. "Clinton's Country" "Latinas for Clinton" "El Paso heart's Hillay" The last banner was not a typo, it was a fucking disaster. The thing that made it so miserable is the fact that the font was in blue and they decided to squeeze a little red "r" in between the "a" and "y" as if saying to the whole coliseum, "Look at me I take no pride in my work, it's to hard for me to flip this poster paper over and write this inspiring message to Hillary Clinton over again." She seemed to say.
Anyway the speech aside from that abortion of a poster was exciting. I really think that Hillary really respects border towns because her experience over thirty years ago. I think she knew the audience very well and had an excellent choice of topics and use of language. The rhetoric was very flowing and the ethos was an ethos of change and I really think Hillary definitely won over the city of El Paso. I suppose we will have to wait and find out on March 4th, until then be safe be sane and be sanitary.
Anyway the speech aside from that abortion of a poster was exciting. I really think that Hillary really respects border towns because her experience over thirty years ago. I think she knew the audience very well and had an excellent choice of topics and use of language. The rhetoric was very flowing and the ethos was an ethos of change and I really think Hillary definitely won over the city of El Paso. I suppose we will have to wait and find out on March 4th, until then be safe be sane and be sanitary.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
The Green Manalishi
I was head banging to one of my favorite Judas Priest songs in my underwear when I asked myself, "What on Earth is a Green Manalishi?" So I made a vast journey to the information superhighway or the internet. I found out the song composer, Peter Green, felt guilty for all the money he was making and tried to give away to the less fortunate as he possibly could. Green later left the band because he could not bear the guilt.
So I got to thinking about money and how people use it today and it kind of made me gag a little bit. It's funny how you can buy something and say to yourself , "Wow! I'm just so thrilled right now I could die happy." Then a week later you see something else you want and your mind is telling you to buy it and so on and so on. Of course I do this too, it is just a general mental affliction. I go over to my friends house often and she is loaded, no joke she's got twenty dollar bills sticking out of her ears. So I was talking to her step mom and she's telling me about all of the renovations she wants to do with the house right after they just bought brand new furniture from half way across the world. Like I was saying we all do this but all I'm trying to say is don't have a dependency on material things. As my teacher use to say, "Work to live, don't live to work."
I guess I'll conclude talking about another song called "The Pretender" by Jackson Brown. When people ask him who the pretender is he says, "maybe it's a lot of people of a certain generation who sort of embraced a very material lifestyle in place of dreams that they had that sort of disintegrated at some point." So don't try to fill this void with material things because I think you'll only be let down and also when you die that stuff doesn't travel with you. The only real sad part of this blog is that I never found out what the hell a manalishi was.
So I got to thinking about money and how people use it today and it kind of made me gag a little bit. It's funny how you can buy something and say to yourself , "Wow! I'm just so thrilled right now I could die happy." Then a week later you see something else you want and your mind is telling you to buy it and so on and so on. Of course I do this too, it is just a general mental affliction. I go over to my friends house often and she is loaded, no joke she's got twenty dollar bills sticking out of her ears. So I was talking to her step mom and she's telling me about all of the renovations she wants to do with the house right after they just bought brand new furniture from half way across the world. Like I was saying we all do this but all I'm trying to say is don't have a dependency on material things. As my teacher use to say, "Work to live, don't live to work."
I guess I'll conclude talking about another song called "The Pretender" by Jackson Brown. When people ask him who the pretender is he says, "maybe it's a lot of people of a certain generation who sort of embraced a very material lifestyle in place of dreams that they had that sort of disintegrated at some point." So don't try to fill this void with material things because I think you'll only be let down and also when you die that stuff doesn't travel with you. The only real sad part of this blog is that I never found out what the hell a manalishi was.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
The Best Job I Ever Had
In the summer I used to work at the El Paso Zoo, it was inspiring because I was still on the fence about what I should do with myself, and the moment I stepped on the zoo grounds it was official. I told myself while I was watching the zoo keepers that I could, "totally picture myself doing this." It wasn't always pretty though of course I had to clean pens and shovel scat, but I didn't care. Since we as Americans live in such a capitalistic world people always ask me how much do zoo keepers get paid? I don't know and I don't care because I would do it for animal crackers ever though I'm a vegetarian.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
