Comment 5: in response to Linda

I don't have any experience in internet dating but I do when it comes to social sites such as myspace and facebook. I do agree that these sites are a great way of meeting new people (even those who don't live in your area). But at the same time, you there are some disgusting people on there. You just have to remember to be careful by checking the person's profile before confirming them as a friend. But to be honest, perveted/weird men are never a big deal(one even wanted to marry me)- just delete them and they'll get the message. No harm is never done when meeting these people.
http://formybeingbad.blogspot.com/

Comment 4: in response to bad blogs

I completely agree that shoplifting isn't as serious as mugging an old lady or breaking into someone's house with a knife. At the end of the day, you are not traumatising a person or causing them to live in fear and paranoia.But isn't that the reason why people shoplift in the first place?? Because the item they are buying is over priced, so they steal an exrta item or two??? So if the prices continue to raise due to items going missing, wouldn't that encourage more and more people to shoplift???
http://mattward502.blogspot.com/

Comment 3: in response to Musings of a Miscreant

I partly agree with your second point. Its dead annoying having smoke floating into my face everytime I walk past a pub on the way to the bus stop. Plus, it gets onto my clothes. But then, I’m only in their presense for a split second, before I walk away (a little smoke not exactly goingto kill me), whereas if I was sitting in a bar, I’ll probably be absorbing more of the smoke while Im socialing for a few hours. And I can’t exactly tell the person to stop smoking, can I? So in all, I’m kind of glad they banned smoking in pubs. But to be fair, some heath advice is necessary in order to look after ourselves, eg the wearing of condoms as well as the dangers of smoking. However, people like Gillian McKeith I do disagree with! At the end of the day, people are given a choice in whether they want to follow the health advice or not. Besides, isn’t that what makes Britain democratic???By the way, I think Natalie and Scarlett are equally pretty lol
http://musingsofamiscreant.blogspot.com/

Comment 2 in response to r3615

I think thats where teenagers' bad behavoiur comes from..lack of communaication between their parents as well as eduacation. When parents either don't care or turn a blind eye to the activities their children get up to, the children will continue to indulge in this sort of bad behaviour. Although, I don't think locking them up inside the house will do them any good either, because they will rebel eventually.

Comment 1: in response to angellimp

You bring up a good point, celebrities do lead a privacy-free life and they can't enjoy good moments for grieve during the bad because the pap are always stalking them. However, when you sign a contract to feature in a major film, you'd be foolish to think that your life would be the same after that. Everyone knows the lifestyle of a celebrity and some people become famous for the attention anyways. So if someone chooses to be stalked, surely that type of stalking is acceptable, compared to an average person who recieved unwanted attenion from a weirdo???
http://naughtyornice23.blogspot.com/

Infidility in About Adam

Last week, I went to a friend’s house and watched ‘About Adam’, a romantic comedy written and directed by Gerard Stembridge and starring Kate Hudson and Stuart Townsend. It was a weird coinsidence as it relates to one of the topics in this module, infidility. But it was its strange ideas of the subject that struck me.
Basicly the films about a waitress who meets a handsome stranger. While seeing her, the guy seduces her two sisters, her brother and his girlfriend. Since it’s not worth watching, I won’t feel guilty in giving too much away, but heres the deeper stuff. The two sisters and the brother all have something lacking in their lives. The first sister wants a guy who shares her love of poetry. The second is in a humdrum marriage and wants excitement. The brother is sexually frustrated as his virgin girlfriend doesn’t want to do it. But when Adam starts an affair with all of them, they all find the contentment they want. The first sister has found a companion, the second sister has her excitement and the brother has a love life with his now non-virgin girlfriend.

Although they all got what they wanted, the fact that they had to get it from their sister’s boyfriend, seems disgusting to me. Very rarely would somone get away with sleeping with their best mate’s partner, let alone their siblings’. But I guess the message of the film was that as long as the cheated doesn’t know about it (which she doesn’t), then its OK. But what Stembridge has added to make the infidility more justifyable was Adam’s motives. At the end of the film, he confides in her married sister that all he wanted was to give everyone what they wanted and make them happy. Well, no selfish reasons there on the cheater’s part. But does it make it right? Or is it the risk that the cheated might find out that makes this sort of infidilty wrong?

I personally think that sleeping with your partner's brother/sister is chav territory. For me, trust and security in the family environment is very important and I think behaviour like this only shows disrespect to the sibling who has so much faith and trust in the person they grew up with. It doesn't matter how miserable or lonely your partner's brother or sister may feel, its the principle. The partner's siblings are a now go area.

For more info on the film, check:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199314/

Cinema Gone Too Far

I found this article with regards to the Bad cinema topic. It seems that cinema has gone all hardcore porn as real sex are depicted in arty films such as ‘9 Songs’ and ‘Baise Moi’ (oh my god, there I was thinking that Bully and A Clockwork Orange were bad!). Are they showing us relaistic glimpse of real issues that we turn a blind eye to because we want to live in a world full of daisies and sunshine? Or is this just a ploy for ‘nobody’ film-makers to grab headlines?
With regards to the first question, I do think that some sex scenes in films are integral to the plot. For example, the sex scene in the film ‘Don’t Look Now’ is important to show love between the couple and it is this depiction of love that helps the audience understand the ending (won’t give too much away, but do check it out). However, that wasn’t real sex. There is a difference between simulated sex where the bits are covered (eg the Trinity and Neo sex scene in the Matrix) and unneccessary sex where there is too much being shown and done. I don’t mean to sound pedantic about this, but with the wide spread of HIV and AIDS, should the film industy be more sensible as opposed to letting attention seeking filmmakers show stuff that doesn’t add or contribute to the plot? What difference does real sex make to the film compared to simulated sex, other than to shock? To be honest, I think this sort of cinema has gone too far. According to the directors of French film Baise Moi, the sex scenes were “used to celebrate female sexuality rather than to excite men”. But if this was the case, why was actaul sex neccessary when simulated sex would have achieved the same effect??

Another thing that shocked me in the link was that the French film Irreversible featured a nine minute rape scene. Apparently, "250 people at a screening in Cannes were so sickened that they left before the end, some needing medical attention!". Being a Creative Writing student, I have to bare the audience in mind when writing a story. But it seems that filmmakers ignore that rule, as they seem to depict what they want as opposed to thinking about what the audience view as acceptable.
Apparently, director Gasper Noe wanted to tackle the issue of rape. However, we all know that rape is a disgusting crime even when watching soaps that deal with the issue, the Moe and Trever storyline in Eastenders being an example. Even though the actual rape isn’t shown, we understand the distressing impact it has on the victim afterwards when we see them crying or having difficulty in dealing with the ordeal. So why Noe had to feature a nine minute rape scene to tell us that rape is disgusting when we already know this is mind boggling to me. Not something I would watch, even if the cinema ticket was free.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3725545.stm

Smoking

The media, especially cinema, have been projecting images of sexy smokers for years, Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct being a classic example. A single ciggerette has connotations of glamour, cool and seduction. So what makes a thin white tube full of nicotine and other stuff sexy??? Or is it the person smoking it that makes it so sexy??
If a haggard old tramp was smoking a ciggarette, would it make us think smoking is sexy? Probably not. The fact that Sharon Stone is beautiful and dressed in chic garb is what rubs off on the cigarette. Its that "if that ciggarette makes her look sexy, then I want one" sort of thing. At the end of the day, its the way tabacco makes its money.

However these connotations are becoming less common as more and more anti-smoking adverts are being bombarded on telly. But has it put people off smoking? Or are these pedantic ads only encouraging smokers to continue in rebellion?? According to BBC News Health, it hasn't. Apparently, ads that glamourised smoking in cinemas encouraged young people to smoke. And most people on a forum agreed that the anti-smoking adverts didn't encourage them to stop (check links at bottom).
I don't think any ban or advert will encourage smokers to stop.Smokings an addiction and addictions are hard to break out off, despite how many images of clogged up arteries and large warnings they push in smokers' faces. The only way someone's going to give up is by will-power and personal choice alone.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6741707.stm
http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-6860.html

"Stalking? I call it love"

The closest I’ve been to having an encounter with a stalker was at school. I met this boy who was a year below me (year 7) whilst waiting in the sick room for my mum to arrive and take me to the hospital for an injury. After a long while of sitting in silence, we eventually started talking. He asked me what form I was in an after telling him, he then asked me if I knew a girl called Louise, whom I did know because she was an acquaintance of who occasionally hung around my mates and me. He told me that he had a major crush on her since he first saw her and that he had asked her out several times despite her constant rejections. Ignoring her contempt for him, he continued to call her and send her love letters and presents. I asked him why he felt this way and he told me that it was because she looked like his ex-girlfriend and that he wasn’t going to give up until she agreed to go out with him.
At the time, I thought he was just plain strange, but looking back at that, I think there was more it to. It wasn’t Louise he couldn’t get over. But his ex-girlfriend. To be honest, I find this sort of mentality is pretty sad. At the end of the day, there’s a choice when a relationship finishes. You can either cry over that broken heart or re-cooperate. Unfortunately, some people choose the former option, probably because they can’t control their emotions, or don’t know how to deal with intense heartbreak and unrequited love. But why would someone be so desperate for love?? Are they lacking it at home or in their lives in general?? Do they believe that by pestering the one they like, it will lead to that person eventually saying yes, in the case of the boy I’d just mentioned? Speaking of the latter question, there is an element of selfishness to that kind of stalking. The stalker is clearly more concerned about gratifying their own needs and filling that void in their hearts, as opposed to thinking about the anxiety that they are causing to that person they are obsessed with. But to go to extremes such as sending threatening messages, bizarre gifts and disturbing phone calls in order to fill that void isn’t understandable, not to the sane mind anyway. Clearly stalkers of any type have a mental or personality disorder, such as erotomania and depression. So should we put all the blame on them for their actions, when they are not in the right mind to judge whether what he or she is doing is bad??

No I don't think they deserve all the blame, however, it doesn't make the mental and physical harm they inflict on the person right.

Link

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/crime/stalking/victims.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1158559.stm