Drama Costume & Makeup Assignment Essays - Theatre, Entertainment

Drama: Costume & Makeup Assignment Discuss the costumes and makeup in the movie you watched. Did the costuming and makeup match or clash with the place and time of the story? Was costuming and makeup a major part of the story or just secondary? How did the costuming differ for different characters? Did the color and style of the costume reflect the character's personality in any way? The costumes and makeup were very well done in this movie, the costume designer even received an Academy Award nomination! They fit the setting very well and I think they had a lot to do with the story and characters. In the beginning Kate always looked like a queen (in dress, not so much the hair) but she often behaved like a maniac however when she began to mellow, she dressed more casually which was interesting. Throughout most of the film, she just about always wore green I think because green is the opposite of red and red would indicate love. She really disliked Petrucchio (and everyone) in the beginning but by the end she grows fond of him and that shows when she wears the red gown. I noticed that Petruchio, on the other hand, almost always wears red. I think it's to represent the determination that he has to marry Kate and then to "tame" her. He also wears very elaborate clothing which accurately reflects his very over the top attitude and personality.

The use of Diffusion of Innovations in a Mass Media Campaign essays

The use of Diffusion of Innovations in a Mass Media Campaign essays Diffusion of innovations is a theory that describes how new ideas, opinions and behaviors spread throughout a community.(Valente, p.34) In this paper I will show how this theory was applied in the reproductive health campaign in Bolivia. Diffusion theory is used to study the way in which new information is spread throughout a certain population and how innovation is adopted. To begin with, there are five stages in the adoption process: The first stage is awareness of the innovation in the case of the Bolivia campaign it is the introduction of family planning. People have to become aware of the new idea and the diffusion of this idea takes more or less time according to the media used to spread it through the population. Usually the mass media are used to spread awareness but it can also be done through primary social networks, i.e. word-of-mouth. The next stage is persuasion. After people become aware of the new practice they have to be able to learn more about it in order to potentially develop a positive attitude towards it. Different persuasion strategies are adopted according to the sub-population that is targeted. The goal is for this population to accept the new idea as a solution to an existing problem. Persuasion then makes possible the third step, the decision. Individuals will then make a conscious decision to try a new behavior. This is a vital step in behavior change as is represents a transition from conception of an idea, acceptance of the idea to motivation to take action. The fourth stage is the implementation of the behavior. The stage represents a transition from processes that are uniquely cognitive to processes that are behavioral. This is therefore the most significant stage in behavior change. The cognitive processes that proceed this stage provide the population with the means to practice/implement the new behavior that had hitherto been advocated. The last stage is behav...

Sustainability and Competitive Advantage Article

Sustainability and Competitive Advantage - Article Example Stakeholders and executives are greatly worried about the impacts of sustainability efforts on their corporate bottom line. The evaluation criteria are based on a company’s business strategy developed to establish sustainability and a competitive advantage to the company. This report demonstrates what companies have done to capitalize on sustainability-driven transformations in consideration to the MIT Sloan Article by Berns et a; (2009) on Sustainability and Competitive Advantage. It seeks to analyze the kind of strategies that the companies have attempted to pursue in order to position themselves competitively in the future. In the examination of this, the study has based its examination on the Wal-Mart Stores Inc (Amann, 2011, pg.11). Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is among the companies in the retail sector that have demonstrated the achievement of sustainability in the competitive advantage over a long period of time. In this report, there is much focus on how Wal-Mart has maintained sustainability and achieved competitive advantage by providing good at lower prices and adopting a cost leadership strategy as suggested in the MIT Sloan Article by Berns et a; (2009) on Sustainability and Competitive Advantage. Wal-Mart is seen to take lead on environmental sustainability by offering environment-friendly products and investing in solar power plants in its various stores. The company has also encouraged recycling of various products. Their business strategy has helped in reduction of power consumption to a great extent and in the company’s future plans to go green (Bamford andWest, 2010, pg. 90). MIT Sloan Article by Bern’s et. al (2009) emphasizes on cost leadership strategy which is very helpful in businesses in achieving a competitive advantage in the market. Companies that seek to enhance their profile in sustainability should begin by undertaking self-evaluation. Sustainability, as discussed in the MIT Sloan Article, entails the development of a prà ©cis business strategy that seeks to maintain the business in a competitive margin and uphold its sustainability in their future.   

BUSINESS ETHIC POSITION PAPER Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

BUSINESS ETHIC POSITION PAPER - Essay Example Ethics are not related to feelings of right and wrong nor are they related to a particular religion. They are not defined by law and they are not based upon the norms of a given culture group. Finally, ethics are not based upon scientific evidence of what constitutes ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. In order to try to determine what constitutes the concept of ‘ethics’, there are five general ethical standards by which one can compare personal and group ethics in prioritizing responsibilities. While corporation leaders have a responsibility to the shareholders who have entrusted them with their company, they also have a responsibility to their stakeholders, the common good of the people within the communities in which they work. From the viewpoint of three ethical standards, it is clear that the corporation must maintain a level of responsibility toward both their shareholders and their stakeholders if they wish to conduct business ethically. In general, most people understand corporate social responsibility as referring to the practice of corporate investment in community related projects, often projects that will bring no direct, quantifiable benefit to the corporation itself. In respect to these types of practices, it is often argued that the corporation is acting irresponsibly toward its shareholders when it elects to invest corporate funds into charities that do not directly benefit the shareholders themselves. â€Å"The company’s owners – its shareholders – can certainly donate their own assets to charities that promote causes they believe in †¦ But it would be irresponsible for the management and directors of a company, whose stock these investors purchased, to deploy corporate assets for social causes† (Atkins, 2006). Because shareholders don’t have direct control over how these funds are spent, which charities they contribute to or how much they wish to invest,

Social Work with the Elderly Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Social Work with the Elderly - Essay Example A challenge is a fact that it is common for the social workers’ clients to be afflicted with different kinds of diseases and disabilities: physically, mentally, or emotionally. This paper aims to give an in-depth discussion of the challenges involved in working with the elderly, and how the clients’ identity issues affect their relationship dynamics with the worker. First, let us explore the clients’ perspectives and situations from the beginning of things – as they enter the residential home for the elderly. Some have existing and financially capable relatives by they themselves choose to stay in a residential facility so as not to burden their family members with their needs. It could due to reasons of pride, or perhaps a deeply ingrained sense of independence that spurs them to instead opt for professional and paid help. It could be a defense against possible future rejection and the hurt that would succumb from it. Others would have preferred to stay with their children and/or grandchildren, as is in most cases in Asian countries for example, but the family members are either too poor, too disgusted at the prospect of being solely responsible of taking care of an elderly person, or too concerned with having their own lifestyles cramped. Many times the older persons in these cases are admitted to residential homes despite wanting to stay with their families or remain in their own homes. They perhaps just weren’t given a choice. The majority of the elderly have been placed in residential homes because of a physical or mental disability and/or because they do not have anyone around to take care of them anymore. These factors, one way or another, have a crucial impact on the clients’ psychological state and invariably affect their responsiveness and cooperation during the course of case management. As each and every human being has unique identities and personalities, the dynamics of an elderly person and his or her identity is profoundly affected.

Eat Pray Love Moving Metaphysical Journey English Literature Essay

Eat Pray Love Moving Metaphysical Journey English Literature Essay This paper considers the contentious space between self-affirmation and self-preoccupation in Elizabeth Gilberts popular travel memoir, Eat, Pray, Love. Following the surveillance of the female confessant, the female traveller has recently come under close scrutiny and public suspicion. She is accused of walking a fine line between critical self-insight and obsessive self-importance and her travel narratives are branded as accounts of navel gazing that are less concerned with what is seen than with who is doing the seeing. These tales of inward journeys, which are typical of New Age travel writing, necessitate thinking about representations of the other, as they call into question the conflicting aspects of authorship, privacy and the subjectivity of truth. The recurring emergence of these themes in womens travel not only reflects an absorbing feminist interest in questions of identity and existence, but also highlight continued anxieties about ontological questions such as Who am I? and What am I to believe? In reading these questions against the backdrop of womens travel, the possibility arises that the culture of narcissism is increasingly read as a female discursive practice. Following the backlash against Elizabeth Gilberts best-selling travel memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, the polar responses to the text from its female readership exemplify this problematic. The novel, which has been praised by some as the ultimate guide to balanced living and dismissed by others as self-serving junk, poses questions about the requisites in Western culture for being a female traveller and for telling a story that focuses primarily on the self. At present, womens travel writing is intersecting new spatial hybridities that have not been crossed before. The genre of travel is still considered a suspect site of exclusionary practices in which masculinist ideology has dictated the formal and epistemological terms of the genre. The genre of self-help, however, is increasingly read as a female discursive practice that is more concerned with ontological questions of being. What we are seeing increasingly, however, is not a separation of the two, but a blending and stretching of the rules and conventions of both. The result of this fusion is the emergence of new kind of hybrid writing, which one academic from Park University calls, the middled-aged narrative (Wood 2006). The middle-aged travel narrative follows the traditional quest of the male hero who leaves home as a rite of passage, except the prototype of the protagonist has changed. The narrator is now a restless female who is writing at mature age and usually, in the midst or aftermath of an existential crisis. This crisis is often knotted in the restraints of domestic duty. Her narrative, which emphasises a desire for personal growth and balance, employs travel as the register for this self-realisation. She typically embarks on a travel adventure that is based on undermining the decisions she has made in the past, in an attempt to facilitate activism and change in the future (ibid). The obvious implication of this, as Wood explains, is that if gender is a performance which defines identity, then identity can be changed, or redefined by new performances that may or may not still have the same gendered meaning (2006, 4). On leaving home, for example, the female travel writer assumes two positions that have traditionally been cast as male roles-the traveller and the writer. While travelling, she may perform multiple roles in an attempt to resist the self that has been previously imposed upon her. In doing so, she attempts to develop an autonomous female identity, and then, to give voice to that process afterwards. In considering this trend, and its social and cultural implications, it is difficult to move past the recent global success of Elizabeth Gilberts travel memoir, Eat, Pray, Love. At the time of writing, the book has sold more than 8 million copies world-wide on a seemingly simple premise: One Womans Search for Everything in Italy, India and Indonesia (Gilbert 2006). The memoir, which spent 155 weeks on the number one spot of the New York Times bestseller list, found its success on the story of a once happily married woman, who reeling from a contentious divorce, takes off around the world in search of what Bitch magazine calls an international safari of self-actualization (2010, par 5). The work, which has been translated into thirty languages, has spawned multiple lines of Eat, Pray, Love merchandise, including goat pillows, prayer shawls (which retail at $350 dollars), a Republic of Tea blend, a digital reader which comes preloaded with the book, a collection of fragrances and a fas hion line by designer Sue Wong. The film adaptation, directed by Ryan Murphy and starring Julia Roberts, opened in August this year to mostly unfavourable reviews. The film also has its own official travel partners, namely Lonely Planet (who sell pre-planned Eat, Pray, Love travel packages) and STA Travel, who advertise various trips to the cities featured in the film. For high-end travellers, there are also invitations from more luxurious tour companies, such as Micato Safaris Inspiration Tour, which encourages Eat, Pray, Love pilgrims or true devotees, to trace Gilberts steps in India for just under $20 000. The memoir then, which has become a global business phenomenon as well as a tourist mecca, appeals to a readership that is just as interested in self as with other. In the opening chapters, the novels narrator, Liz, a professional American woman in her mid-thirties, begins to question the performative roles that have defined her. She tells the reader, I dont want to be married anymore. I dont want to live in this big house. I dont want to have a baby (Gilbert 2006, 10). She explains that she is tired of being the primary breadwinner, the housekeeper, the social coordinator, the dog-walker, the wife and the soon-to-be-mother (ibid, 11). Similar to Rita Golden-Gelmans travel narrative, Tales of a Female Nomad, Gilbert also opens with divorce (Wood 2006, 8). She writes, On September 9, 2001, I met with my husband face-to-face for the last time, not realizing that every future meeting would necessitate lawyers between us, to mediate. We had dinner in a restaurant. I tried to talk about our separation, but all we did was fight. He let me know that I was a liar and a traitor and that he hated me and would never speak to me again. Two mornings later I woke up after a troubled nights sleep to find that hijacked airplanes were crashing into the two tallest buildings of my city, as everything invincible that had once stood together now became a smoldering avalanche of ruin. I called my husband to make sure he was safe and we wept together over this disaster, but I did not go to him. During that week, when everyone in New York City dropped animosity in deference to the larger tragedy at hand, I still did not go back to my husband. Which is how we both knew it was very, very over (Gilbert 2006, 5). Newly single, though not for long, Gilbert brands herself as a woman on the brink of becoming a self-governing individual. She decides she would like a spiritual teacher and constructs a fantasy about what it would be like to have one. She writes, I imagined that this radiantly beautiful Indian woman would come to my apartment a few evenings a week and we would sit and drink tea and talk about divinity, and she would give me reading assignments and explain the significance of the strange sensations I was feeling during meditation (ibid, 7). From the outset then, Gilbert articulates a desire to use (or misuse) travel as the vehicle for what she believes is her search for spiritual fulfilment. She decides she will spend a year travelling in three countries and goes onto establish an explicit reason for visiting each-Italy (to explore the art of pleasure), India (to explore the art of devotion) and Indonesia (to learn the art of balancing both). It was only later, Gilbert writes, after admitting this dream, that I noticed the happy coincidence that all these countries began with the letter I (ibid, 10). In Gilberts case, this constant reference to the e/motional I is particularly telling of the preoccupations of New Age Travel. Increasingly, women are using travel to pose questions such as, Who am I? Why am I here? and What am I to believe? These questions not only reflect an absorbing feminist interest in questions of identity, but also highlight continued anxieties about a collective female experience, which Bitch Magazi ne describes as wealthy, whiney and white (2010, par 5). The hybrid text that arises is more concerned with a search for self than with a search for an authentic travel experience. That is, the travel writing is less preoccupied with what is seen than with who is doing the seeing. What we are finding repeatedly in the work of Western women travel writers, is a resurgence in the obsession with the self which has less interest in the other. At its worst, this kind of writing can be self-obsessive, self-important and self-serving, but at its best it can create a richness and intimacy which is lacking in more objective travel texts. The middle-aged travel narrative, in particular, focuses on travel as a metaphor for a spiritual journey. It is rarely, if ever, framed as an objective investigation into an unknown culture. As the travel that emerges then, is imagined rather than reported, and creative rather than journalistic, the inward looking eye becomes more important than the outward. The central problematic then, in many books sold as travel memoirs, is that they actually minimalise and even dilute the travels they seek to voice. In Eat, Pray, Love, this usually happens in one of two ways. Either the place Elizabeth Gilbert ventures to (for example, the Balinese village of Ubud) is romanticised as an exotic other, or it is reduced, in the case of Naples and Mumbai, to a backdrop in her personal dramas. As a result, the memoir pushes the boundaries between self-insight and self-preoccupation. The consequence of this pushing is that the female travel writer has come under close scrutiny and supervision. She is dismissed as a pulp producer, a pawn under industry pressures and an over-exuberant performer whose work emerges, in what Jonathan Raban calls, literatures red-light district (1987). The consequence of this surveillance for the travel memoir, is that its reception draws polar responses from the reading public. Since its debut, the novel has been accused of being self-absorbed and sexist, and even branded by the New York Post as narcissistic New Age reading, curated by [Oprah] Winfrey (Callahan 2007, par 13). According to Karlyn Crowley, in The Oprahfication of American Culture, Winfrey is a mainstream spokesperson for this kind of writing, as she marries the intimacy and individuality of the New Age movement with the adulation and power of a 700 Club-like ministry (2010, 35). In recent interviews with guests, Oprah announces to her audience, Live your best life! She promotes the message again on her website, in her magazine and during her book club. But according to some critics, much of Oprahs advice actually moves women away from political, economic, and emotional agency by promoting materialism and dependency masked as empowerment (Barnes-Brown and Sanders 2010, par 3). Much of the backlash against the book then, is tied up in what readers perceive as Gilberts own privilege, as well as annoyances they have with her everyday travel complaints and her preoccupation with sacrificing everything for David-a New York actor who she dates after divorcing her husband. On a trip to Bali, in which Gilbert is commissioned to write a story about Yoga vacations, she is invited to visit a ninth-generation medicine man. Gilbert, spends significant narrative time grappling over what she will ask him. She writes, Our Yoga teach had told us in advance that we could each bring one question or problem to the medicine man, and he would try to help us with our troubles. Id been thinking for days of what to ask him. My initial ideas were so lame. Will you make my husband give me a divorce? Will you make David be sexually attracted to me again? (Gilbert 2006, 9). Later, Gilbert admits, I was rightly ashamed of myself for these thoughts: who travels all the way around the world to meet an ancient medicine man in Indonesia, only to ask him to intercede in boy trouble? (ibid). Many readers (who obviously agreed with Gilbert on the matter) voiced their own complaints online. Who does this woman think she is? one blogger asks, Anyone should be so lucky to eat a pizza in Naples off their publishers pay check. If she thinks she has something to complain about, writes another, (under the alias Eat, Pray, Shove), then she should try raising a child alone. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Gilbert told how she has stopped going online to read her reviews. All you end up doing is defending yourself to people who you dont know, she said. Two weeks later youre on a lovely walk in the woods with your dog and youre having an argument in your head with somebody from Amazon.com (Valby 2010, par 6). Perhaps the most gender-specific retaliation to Eat, Pray, Love is Andrew Gottliebs travel memoir, Drink, Play, [emailprotected]#k, which sold itself on the premise of One Mans Search for Anything Across Ireland, Las Vegas and Thailand (Gottlieb 2008). In the book, Bob Sullivan, a jilted husband, embarks on a quest to find meaning amongst the glitz and glamour of Vegas, rediscover his passion for drinking in Ireland, and finally, to experience the hedonistic pleasure palaces of Thailand. As the blurb reads, After a life time of playing it safe, Mr. Sullivan finally follows his heart and lives out everyones deepest fantasies. For who among us hasnt dreamed of standing stark naked, head upturned, and mouth agape beneath a cascading torrent of Guinness Stout? What could be more exhilarating than losing every penny you have because Charlie Weiss went for a meaningless last-second field goal? And what sensate creature could ever doubt that the greatest pleasure known to man can be found in a leaky bamboo shack filled with glassy-eyed, bruised Asian hookers? Bob Sullivan has a lot to teach us about life. Lets just pray we have the wisdom to put aside our preoccupations and listen (ibid). Others, however, praise Eat, Pray, Love, as an everyday womans guide to balanced living. A shared message that many female readers seem to distil from the novel is that a woman should not have to apologise for writing a travel story that is primarily about herself. As one bloggers explains, Gilbert has written about what she feels is the most important and defining time of her life, and millions of women like me, have found it useful and stirring. Despite this sense of belonging, or collective appreciation, Gilbert constantly wonders throughout the novel, how she will fit into some sort of community after she returns from her travels. Much of Gilberts angst seems to originate from a sense of alienation from both herself and those around her. As her mother explains to her, You have to understand how little I was raised to expect that I deserved in life, honey. Remember-I come from a different time and place than you do (Gilbert 2006, 29). According to Wood, Gilbert then attempts to answer the difficult questions of her life with the knowledge that, unlike Cinderella, she can choose not to go the ball (2006, 11). It seems her struggle is, essentially, one of choice. In India, she finally finds a place for herself, not at a physical location, but in language-or more specifically, in the Sanskrit word antevasin which Gilbert translates as one who lives at the border (ibid, 70). She writes, When I read this description of the antevasin, I got so excited I gave a little bark of recognition. Thats my word, baby!Im just a slippery antevasin-betwixt and between-a student on the ever-shifting border near the wonderful, scary forest of the new (ibid). In a recent interview with the Borders Book Club, Gilbert also describes how many women have attempted to follow her journey, literally. Every once and a while, I get a letter from somebody who says, Okay, so I went to Italy, I found the gelataria where you ate that gelato and then I went to Naples and I found that pizzeria, and I had the pizza, and now I want to go to India. Can you tell me the name of your Ashram? (2010) This idea that happiness can be packaged through anothers travel experience is not without consequence. Should readers of Eat, Pray, Love fail, the genre holds them accountable for not being ready to get serious, not wanting it enough, or not putting themselves first (Barnes-Brown and Sanders 2010, par 7). Gilbert herself seems to acknowledge this, and affirm it, with a proclamation of what she calls The Physics of the Quest. If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared-most of all-to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourselfthen the truth will not be withheld from you. Whether or not the book is the ultimate spiritual guide to balanced living or just self-serving junk, the central question that the memoir poses is perhaps more important than its reception. What is the requisite for being a female traveller and for telling a story that is focussed primarily, perhaps even extravagantly, on the self?

Spanking is NOT Child Abuse :: Corporal Punishment, Argumentative Essay

â€Å"My father liked me, when I wasn't being an idiot. And he loved me, too -- enough to spank the daylights out of me when I was being an idiot.† -- Diana Gabaldon, Outlander "There is a great difference between spanking a child and abusing a child. One is an act of love; the other is an act of hostility" -- James Dobson, MD There is a great deal of outrage from people who are reading stories about the misconduct of professional athletes and connecting them to a crusade against child abuse. I'm against child abuse. Isn't everyone? However I'm not against spanking.    We have all encountered this situation: A small child is standing in the middle of a department store throwing a complete temper tantrum demanding a toy. His mother, exasperated threatens him with time-outs and other deprived privileges, but the stubborn child continues to kick and scream. In the "old days," a mother wouldn't think twice about marching the defiant child to the bathroom and giving him a good spanking to straighten him out, but these days, parents have to worry about someone screaming child abuse. Whether or not to spank a child has become a heated issue in today's society. Many authorities and psychologists believe that spanking breaks a child's spirit and only leads to violence. They think that it causes the child to become depressed, angry or hostile and they have conducted many studies to prove these things. This type of harsh punishment occurs often, but it is called child abuse. There is a great difference between abusing a child and properly disciplining a child. "One is an act of love; the other is an act of hostility, and they are as different as night and day" (Dobson 35). First of all, spanking does not lead to violence. Our surrounding world and media do. "The average sixteen-year- old has watched 18,000 murders during his formative years, including a daily bombardment of stabbings, shootings, hangings, decapitations, and general dismemberment" (Meier 34). It seems unjust to blame parents who are trying to raise their children properly for today's violence. If a child touches a hot stove he does not become a more violent person because of it, he just learns not to do it again because he learned a valuable lesson from the pain (Meier 34). Many anti spanking researchers have tried to conduct research studies to consolidate their beliefs against