Is Nike Taking A Gender Bias?

Nike, the longtime athletic clothing brand seems to have taken a new turn with their marketing and advertising plans. The sporting goods empire, which supplies equipment and clothing to major sports associations such as the NBA, NFL, MLB, as well as to professional athletes that play golf, tennis, or track and field has always portrayed men as the dominant, strong, and essentially the superior gender. Their use of women on the other hand has always been through the use of objectifying them and making them look "sexy", bombarding the viewers with amazingly fit women. Their commercials always involve the male doing acts, while the females in the commercials just... appear. Their ads constantly hold such strong gender roles, until one recent commercial was released, showing signs that their advertising campaign had gone through some changes.

Nike's new commercial which advertises their recently released shoe, the Nike Free+, uses completely different roles than what they previously have used. They take a couple that lives great distances apart, and they show the couple running to each other wearing their Nike Free+ shoes. The dominant and strong male eventually becomes unable to continue running because he is out of shape... not so dominant anymore. While the female in the relationship fights on, and keeps running across the country to her partner, who now lays weak and fragile in a hospital bed. Clearly Nike has flipped their campaign on how to approach the genders. Playing off love, they show a strong women who can run across the country purely off of love, and of course, her great Nike Free+ shoes, while the man lies pathetically in a hospital awaiting her. It's far from the usual Nike ads people are used to seeing, but it gives all those women out there a "cute" and "romantic" commercial, which is probably more effective towards the female Nike buyer anyways. After all, the female gender is where the money is at in the fashion and clothing industry, considering how quickly their wardrobes change and the constant need for new shoes. A great ad by Nike because of the removal of the standard gender roles that they usually would portray.

Hannibal Lecter: The Beloved Serial Killer of Our Generation

There is something about serial killers that seems to just draw people in, forming a deep sense of curiosity and intrigue. These villains, murderers, and in this instance, cannibals are recognized as unique people because they have done something the average person cannot achieve... They found a way to tap into their id and completely disregard the norms of society. Through this unusual achievement, us normal people flock to them and feed off of their rebellious acts. This behavior is known as abjection, and it is the sole reason as to why movies and books about murderers and cannibals are accepted in our society.

Hannibal Lecter, a fictional character that was created from the mind of a crime novelist named Thomas Harris, has become one of the most well known serial killers of our generation and possibly of all time, but why? Is it because Hannibal is witty and to some degree a genius? Or is it because of his dark, humorous, and oddly pleasant personality? In no way am I defending the lifestyle of serial killers here, but I am really just laying out the truth that everyone doesn't want to admit, which is that we all love a brilliantly charismatic murderer.

(Hannibal Lecter's humorous retelling of a human meal)

People love Hannibal Lecter due to a handful of reasons, the most important being his character traits. Peaceful, polite, and very much likable on the outside, but dig deeper to the inner most part of Hannibal is his id. This is where Hannibal is violent and dark and the real location of the mastermind murderer. I believe that Hannibal's intelligence is what makes him so captivating because it is a type of brilliance that cannot be compared to any other being's. The next reason people love Hannibal is because unlike most serial killers, Hannibal is NOT a sociopath. After being tested through and through by institutions and hospitals, he was considered to not have any psychological problems. What makes his mental condition even more intriguing is when he gives himself a personal diagnosis stating that he has no abnormal behavior issues but the real problem is that he is simply just 'evil'. What I always found so clever is that Hannibal always made his actions seem moral, offering justification for every instance in which he would kill someone, leaving the viewer to decide whether his actions were right or wrong. Finding out that Hannibal's psyche was affected by his past, mainly due to the terrorizing acts performed by the Nazi's on his family puts a nice twist on his mental condition as well. Another interesting reason as to why Hannibal is such a revered serial killer throughout our generation is due to his love for fine things. As noted in the movie and novels, Hannibal has a liking for classical music, ancient literature, fine arts, and elegant dining and drink. This sort of lifestyle is the type that most people in our culture salivate over.

(Hannibal Lecter's escape scene... Notice he is listening to Classical Music!)

My last reason is due to what I had previously stated, abjection. Our society is so intrigued by the grotesque, the strange, and the extraordinary that we grow to love it. Cannibalism is something that does not really exist in our real-life world anymore, therefore when it is put into film everyone goes crazy. Mix this gruesome eating habit with the complex character being Hannibal Lecter and you have yourself the most intriguing and well-known fictional serial killer of our generation.


Serial killers will always be frowned upon in our society, and therefore will never be accepted, but when it comes to fictional serial killers, thats a whole different ballgame. People will forever love the antihero that makes you question the good from the bad or the bad from the evil. Hannibal is extremely evil, and does 'bad' things, but he is balanced out by his intricate personality and willingness to 'help' in some ways, allowing for the viewer to perceive him as a 'good' killer. And it is this uncanny trait that truly makes Hannibal Lecter the most compelling serial killer character of our generation...

The Next Book Trilogy Phenomenon

Imagine living in a country that is essentially a dystopia, every minute you are controlled by a government that is constantly punishing you for a rebellion that occurred almost a decade ago. This country is comprised of 13 districts, one of which was completely demolished when the rebellion occurred, and in each district, the people are forced into slave labor, working to give the upper class a highly privileged life. The upper class of this country all live in the Capitol, the region that controls the districts and is also home to the government. Every year the government forcefully sends two people from each district, one man and one woman, to fight to the death in a televised event to serve as a reminder of what happened during the rebellion and that the Capitol controls everyone. This battle royale between the district citizens is known as....


The Hunger Games.

The book trilogy that has recently taken the pop culture scene by storm is based on this very country, called 'Panem' located in future North America. Panem's dystopian society uses the Hunger Games so that the upper class can find entertainment through the death of the lower class district citizens. The protagonist of this story is Katniss Everdeen, a citizen from district 12 that is strong, intelligent, and has gone through many hardships brought down on her from the government just like every other citizen. Her adventure starts when she volunteers to go into the dangerous hunger games in order to save her younger sister from going in. Katniss doesn't realize it, but her being put into the hunger games ends up being the best thing to ever happen to the 13 districts of Panem. Due to a sequence of specific events, plenty of symbolic moments, and a country filled with restless citizens who eventually all fall in love with Katniss during her time in the hunger games results in a building sense of rebellion towards the Capitol among the districts.

The Hunger Games book, and the two books that follow after bring about some very unique symbolic representations, if you have not read the books then this post may be a little hard to follow, but the symbolic representations mentioned should be familiar.

The Rebellion:
The people that live in the 13 districts work very hard to supply goods to the Capitol and the almighty government of Panem, but the people reap no benefits from their hard work. Their lives are also governed by the Capitol in that they get rationed food, are not allowed to wear nice clothing, not allowed to leave the fenced-in district, and have to abide by strict laws, rules, and restrictions. All of these factors are almost identical to the conditions of the original 13 colonies in America. The colonies were governed by the distant tyrannical British Empire and their lives were devoted to supplying the British with goods, living by their rules, and not getting the benefits from their hard work. The colonies ended up getting their freedom from the British through a rebellion, and with such similar conditions, it seems that the districts of Panem are on the verge of rebellion too... Wouldn't you say so?

Suicide:
During Katniss's time in the hunger games, she engages in a fake "love" with Peeta, the other hunger games tribute from her district, dubbing them the 'Star Crossed Lovers' of Panem. This love catches the emotions of the districts citizens and makes them all completely engaged in her and Peeta's lives, hoping so badly that they live. These two end up being the only two left, and rather than killing one or the other, Katniss and Peeta decide to attempt a double suicide by eating poisonous berries. An act of rebellion that would leave the Capitol with no victor, and the districts with outraged emotions of hatred toward the Capitol because their beloved heroes were dead. They wanted to attempt this act of suicide in order to completely defeat the purpose of the hunger games, and they did, because they were stopped before they could commit suicide and were allowed to both live. Romeo and Juliet anyone? Sounds familiar to me...

Allegory? Food = Wealth
All of the districts and their citizens live a life that is in the shadow of the districts. They don't have big meals, nice clothes, luxurious lifestyles, or anything that represents wealth. When Katniss is put into the hunger games, she is taken into the Capitol in order to prepare for the big televised event. During her preparation she is giving extravagant meals, beautiful clothing, breathtaking makeup, and a lifestyle unimaginable in the district. During all of this she comes to realize the horrible ideology that the Capitol has placed on the 12 districts. Her exposure to a luxurious lifestyle became the backbone to her wanting to destroy the Capitol because she was revealed to what life was like outside of her home. She quotes in the book, "What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears at the press of a button? How would I spend the hours I now commit to combing the woods for sustenance if it were so easy to come by?" In Panem, food is the divider between the rich, and the poor.

Reality Television
The Hunger Games is reality television, and it is the ONLY television that the district citizens watch for that matter. This reality show is similar to ours in some ways, but it is different in many ways as well. The Hunger Games is about teenagers... yes teenagers fighting to the death, it isn't about a bachelor living in a mansion with 20 women, or 6 overly ridiculous New Jersey natives, or a handful of housewives with nothing else to do but cause drama and be scandalous. This type of reality television is much deeper, it involves well-known and well-liked young adults killing each other because they are forced to. But even amidst this killing, there is still the question as to what is real and what isn't. Our reality television is for the most part, not actually reality, and is very much fake. The hunger games holds an element of this as well, particularly in Katniss's fake 'star-crossed lovers' act she had with Peeta throughout the entirety of the games. The tributes in the games are forced to feel like they need to put on a 'show' and Katniss even thinks constantly about how she has to hide her emotions because she is always on camera. The televised Hunger Games hold different meanings to the people of the Capitol, and the people of the districts as well. In the Capitol, the games are EVERYTHING to them, and they all absolutely are in love with the games. While the districts hate them, and see the games as one of the worst things in their lives. The people in the Capitol and the people of the districts don't realize the difference in what type of impact the games have on each other though. So it makes me wonder, is the gap between televised entertainment and human brutality and death closing? I think that the author is trying to point out that it might be...

All in all, the Hunger Games trilogy allows for a great read full of intense, nail-biting, edge of your seat can't put the book down moments. The symbolism throughout is brilliant, and the trials and tribulations that the protagonist (Katniss) has to go through make the reader want to constantly cheer her on in hopes that the Capitol and Panem will someday be obliterated. A piece of literature about a dystopian society that absolutely should be picked up because it offers some great themes and lessons, plus who doesn't enjoy a book that involves a one-on-one winner-take-all death match? If anything else you should read the first book due to the fact that the movie is currently in theaters and we all know the book is always better than the movie...

Follow the Yellow Brick Road!

Ah... The Wonderful Wizard of Oz... A timeless story about a girl named Dorothy who gets abruptly thrown into a dream world called Oz (a symbolic reflection of her current life situation) is forced to embark on an adventure to the unconscious. Dorothy's life in Kansas, one that is complete opposite of the land of Oz, is not the most ideal situation. Due to the death of her parents, she is forced to live with her aunt and uncle on a boring, lonely, dry, black and white prairie landscape with her only friend, her dog Toto. The adventure throughout Oz brings a new meaning to Dorothy's life due to its colorful setting, energetic characters, and mysterious yet magical atmosphere which all play out to help her achieve self-realization.


Right away she encounters a beautiful "good" witch, who explains to her that she must travel the yellow brick road to see the Wizard of Oz, a man who has answers for all of life's questions. During this journey Dorothy comes across companions who are all suffering from the same issue that she has, a loss of self and a feeling of loneliness. Starting with the scarecrow, who is missing a brain, and is strongly reliant on the Wizard helping him get one. Next she meets the tin man, who has no heart, therefore he is in need of traveling the yellow brick road with her as well. Lastly she comes across the almighty Lion, who actually is not so mighty because he lacks courage, a trait that all lions must have. And of course there is Dorothy, why would she want to see the Wizard? It seems to me that the Wizard, also known as Professor Marvel, is Dorothy's source for getting adult help with her life since she has no parents to go to, and she is not comfortable enough with her aunt and uncle to seek advice from them. Marvel serves as the father figure that Dorothy has been yearning for since the death of her parents, and is the character who can relieve her from an unconscious guilt (oedipus anyone?). While this journey to see the Wizard is taking place, there are many other conflicts that arise. Throughout Dorothy's time in Oz she is constantly harassed by the Wicked Witch of the West, who could symbolize one of two conflicts in Dorothy's life; the evil town lady who wants to have Dorothy's dog taken away, OR the Wicked Witch could represent Dorothy's "id" thoughts concerning her mother abandoning her at such a young age. I personally believe the latter, Dorothy is uneasy with her mother's passing.

All the major events throughout the movie have significant impacts on Dorothy's inner self when she comes back to real life in Kansas. First her ability to overcome the Wicked Witch was Dorothy's accepting of her aunt as an adequate mother figure and showed that she could control her unconscious emotional conflicts. Second, during the journey on the yellow brick road, Dorothy slowly starts to take on a responsible role for both herself and her three companions, resulting in her having the discipline to return home to the real life struggles. The third and final event that impacts Dorothy was her friendship with the three companions. I strongly believe that Dorothy's allegorical male companions, the scarecrow, tin man, and lion, symbolize the mind, body, and spirit of Dorothy herself. Their discovering of certain attributes that they had all along, was really Dorothy discovering those same attributes on a conscious level inside herself, allowing her to conquer her greatest goal... To achieve self-realization.

Living in Fear of the World Outside of Your Own

For as long as people have been on this earth, we have told each other fictional stories in order to form a sense of security and a feeling of protection. These stories all offer some sort of lesson, commonly taught in the bible, or in Greek mythology that are suppose to give meaning to our lives when the world lets us down, allowing for humans to stay sane. They could be told to others or just retold in our own heads, and when these protective stories are told to you enough times you start to believe them. Often these protective fictional stories can create strong ideologies amongst people, resulting in them denying what goes on in the real world or simply just not realizing what is outside of their own world concepts. M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village" is a perfect example of a group of individuals who are stuck in their own ideology of what the world should be like. The movie has some great themes, but mainly one theme concerns the stories of protection that are retold in this village from generation to generation.

The village is a community of people engaged in a simple, innocent life, surrounded by a forest that is filled with mystical creatures that the villagers fear but have set up a truce with so that the creatures won't harm them.

The movie starts out with the viewer assuming that the setting is in a pre-modern era probably around the 18th century, in the middle of a vast forest. You then come to realize that the village was set up by a group of "elders" who essentially had something dramatic happen in their past lives due to the cruel society they lived in. These elders retell the stories of the creatures and the forest to every single child that is born into their village, brainwashing them into believing this particular ideology. These creatures are protective figures that are meant to actually save their people from the real danger of the modern world. They believe that modern living is nothing but evil, producing things such as violence, pollution, disease, and industrial death or accidents. The elders create their own story of who founded the village, and also wrote their own morals, rules, and traditions for the village members to abide by and live under. If these teachings are repeated to generation, after generation, then long after the elders die their initial beliefs will become true and the future villagers will live free of modern dangers.

The main character, a blind young adult named Ivy who is the daughter of the head elder, falls in love with another villager, Lucius (Joaquin Phoenix) and decides she wants to marry him. Unbeknownst to Ivy or Lucius, another villager with supposed mental issues named Noah (Adrien Brody) is in love with Ivy as well and when he hears of the marriage he fatally stabs Lucius resulting in a serious wound. The elders may believe that their village can keep out all the evils of a modern world, but violence is still something that all humans are capable of, and it cannot be accounted for through fictional protective stories. Lucius' only way to live is through proper medical treatment. The elders deny the proposal of having someone go to the "other towns" which are deemed as wicked places filled with wicked people. Ivy's father, the head of the elders, goes against what the other elders say and allows for Ivy to travel through the woods to get the medicines needed to save Lucius. This is where Plato's allegory of the cave comes in. The village itself is the cave by which Ivy and her fellow villagers are bound to, while the shadows on the wall are the beliefs and stories told by the elders, their own "true world." Ivy is freed from the cave, and travels into the real world, which in the movie is a security building run by park rangers that is actually owned and operated by the elders who started the village.

Ivy gets her medicine and then returns to her village, where she decides to not share what she encountered outside of the forest. She falls into Plato's allegory of someone who is afraid of anything but their own ideology, even after realizing what is outside of what they truly believe. I have to ask, would she of had stronger opinions on the world outside of the village if she wasn't blind? How does a blind person fit into Plato's cave allegory when darkness is all they see on the walls, and there are no shadows. Ivy goes on to keep the village as it is, not speaking of the outside world, maintaining their lives away from the modern disgust, spoon-fed with the morals and beliefs that the elders had made. This film was wrapped around taking risks, breaking away from your ideologies, and then making a decision on what to do once you've broken that ideology; return to your sheltered fictional life, or break free into the real, true life. The love element cannot be overlooked either, because Ivy's love for Lucius is probably the most influential reason for Ivy going back to her village and fictional life filled with protective stories and fears of fictional creatures. Kind of like the lives that current generations live in now, constantly shown and told of what is good in the world, and kept sheltered from what is evil and dangerous. Ivy is blind, and cannot see what is dark in the world because she lives in a world that is constantly dark, therefore she is blessed with being blind to the evils in the world, whether they are real, or fictional.

Men Who Stare at.... ?

Conspiracies, Conspiracies... Whose plotting what and why? The general public wants to know what these unknown secrets are! Our current society has become obsessed with government conspiracies and also with the decorated secret society of... the Illuminati. The movie "Men Who Stare at Goats" is your cup of tea if you are one of those conspiracy people. A movie based on the American Government collecting a group of men and teaching them how to use psychic superpowers in order to stop war, and not start it, revolving around the human mind being the most powerful weapon of war. The sequence of the movie is interesting in that it follows a journalist as he uncovers this secret government program while constantly flashing back in time to when the program first started. A celebrity cast that includes George Clooney, Ewan Mcgregor, Kevin Spacey, and Jeff Bridges allow for very impressive acting to take place throughout the whole movie. The psychic power soldiers, the first super power to develop super powers, are a part of this secret program known as "jedi warriors" (Star Wars reference anyone?)  these warriors used love and peace to win wars. When one of the jedi warriors named Hooper (Kevin Spacey) decides to take his powers and use them for other reasons, another Star Wars reference appears, Hooper is proclaimed as a jedi warrior that is part of the "dark side". Throughout the whole movie, the viewer is consistently being switched between the jedi warrior training and the current situations happening in Iraq. The iconic symbol that is linked to the jedi warriors is the "All Seeing Eye", a common symbol that is also linked to the Illuminati, a "secret" society of individuals. This reference to the Illuminati is not unusual, in fact these kind of references are quite common, mainly because people are just so curious as to what this secret society is all about. (Kobe Bryant's recent shoe commercial has Illuminati references, and many great musicians in our pop culture have similar references to the Illuminati such as Eminem, Jay-Z, and Rihanna to name a few, also the founding fathers of our government have been linked to the illuminati as well, check out our own one dollar bill) Aside from Illuminati references, this movie has some great underlying themes, one coming from the mouth of George Clooney's character Lyn Cassaday "Whatever you fear most has no power over you, it's the fear that has the most power." How true is this in our everyday life? Some situations are uncontrollable when there is fear involved such as a random robbery, or a car crash, but we can control our fear that we display on an everyday basis. One of the hardest things in life is to face your fears, but when you do, you have power over yourself.

The clear protagonist throughout this movie is Ewan Mcgregor's character, Bob Wilton, an American journalist trying to find a story. Fate takes a hold when Wilton stumbles upon the jedi warriors amidst his search for action during the Iraqi war. He clearly goes through the most change throughout the film, eventually learning the ways of the jedi warrior, and realizing that he himself, is the story that he has been trying to uncover the whole time. During his adventure along side Lyn Cassaday he gets thrown into the jedi warrior clash between good and evil, Hooper vs. Lyn Cassaday and the jedi warriors mentor Bill Django (Jeff Bridges). The battle between these three men is brilliant. A mental dual, where their brains and psychic powers resemble (here comes another Star Wars reference)... light sabers! Yes, they are so nimble and quick with their mental powers that it is almost like they are having light saber fights with their intellectual minds. In the midst of the struggle against the "dark side," Lyn Cassaday starts to believe he is slowly becoming an evil jedi. This belief leads him to think that he has been stricken with cancer because during a training program he used his powers to kill an innocent goat by merely staring at it, hence the movie title. This death, according to Lyn is the only reason he is trapped in the "dark side" mental state of mind. Along with Lyn's battle with himself, the movie has its fair share of turmoil, ending with the good and evil jedi's along with hundreds of U.S. army soldiers engaged in an acid trip. Turns out, Bill Django the mentor put LSD in the army bases' water supply, resulting in Lyn Cassaday and Bill Django freeing himself, all his jedi companions, and the prisoners of war being held captive from the terrors of the dark side. Hooper, the dark side leader, is last seen happily frolicking throughout the army base, while Bob Wilton is left behind by Lyn and Bill. As Bob's two jedi companions are starting up their helicopter, they instruct to him that he needs to tell the world about what he had witnesses and all about the secret jedi warrior training. This left Bob with an amazing story to write about, although his story ends up getting no attention throughout the media. A common phenomenon in todays society, possibly because stories that get blown up in the media regarding military actions are controlled by the government...? Who knows, it's just a conspiracy.

(Journalist Bill Wilton's realization of the jedi power, and what it is capable of during the closing scene)



Men Who Stare at Goats, both the movie and the book cover common topics that our current society is always pondering such as; military conspiracies, secret training programs, psychic powers unveiled by the most intense mental training, Illuminati references, Star Wars references and the jedi ways (strange enough, "Jediism" is the fourth largest religion in Great Britain supported by UK census research, having over 300,000 followers! what??)... Back to the movie, and finally Men Who Stare at Goats is about getting away from your problems by conquering yourself within and becoming at peace with everything life has to give, and in return realizing what your place is on this planet. Or in other terms finding your destiny, because as Lyn Cassaday proclaims regarding finding ones destiny... "Your life is like a river. If you're aiming for a goal that isn't your destiny, you will always be swimming against the current. Young Gandhi wants to be a stock-car racer? Not gonna happen. Little Anne Frank wants to be a high school teacher? Tough titty, Anne. That's not your destiny. But you will go on to move the hearts and minds of millions. Find out what your destiny is and the river will carry you!"

A Hometown Blend of Music Genres

On February 11th at the Clubhouse in Tempe, a group of very talented musicians will be taking the stage. The band is called Katastro, and the members of this band all bring a different style to their performance. Blending hip-hop, jazz, reggae, blues, and rock, these guys bring the noise in an extraordinary unique way. All the members are born and raised in Arizona, and play from the heart. Katastro has previously opened for some more popular artists such as the Dirty Heads, 311, and Method Man.


The tunes bring on a romantic side while also making the listener think back to their roots and where they are from. Katastro has an uncanny ability to pull the audience into their music through the catchy lyrics and the constant transition between slow jams and upbeat rhythms. They are slowly building a great following, and day by day get more fans listening to their unique music. Katastro is definitely worthy of being deemed popular culture and grabbing the mainstream attention, and maybe after a few more national tours they will take-off into stardom, but until then, get lost in the music and support your local musicians!