shadows and the uncanny

Two major phycologists who explain the reasons for our sometimes unexplainable actions are Jung and Freud. Their concepts contradict each other in someways. I think we all experience both of their theories in our based on our desicion making. The Freudian concept is that everything may seem new and weird, but also strangely familiar, the uncanny. Everything around us that is ot natural is uncanny, such as new technologies that we use everyday. If we were to have a travel machine we would be freaked out but also intrigued because in aour minds we have dreamed of this before. Jung uses his theory of 'The shadow' to explain the part of us that is socially unacceptable. C.G Jung explained that the ego controlled this shadow which resulted in our negative yet passive actions. Examples of this attitude is conveyed in the fims we have watched in class. In 'Abre los ojos', Cesar's life is controlled by his thoughts, but his shadows overpower his ego and he only see's the negative side of situations.

Abre los Ojos

In class we watched the film "open your eyes" which was a great movie because it makes you think outside the box. As I was watching 'abrelos ojos' I made connections with the themes in the Matrix. The ideas of both films were very similar, in the begining of the movies we absorb the normal lives of the main characters. Both movies show how the real world was actually a virtualized world where your mind controls what is happening around you. In 'abre los ojos' we see that Cesar paid for a company to make him live in this virtual world voluntary, where as in the matrix, machines take over and trap humans inside this computerized world. In class we al=so discussed the allegory of the cave which holds similar beliefs to the theme of this movie. In general this film makes us question whether everything around us is real.

103 project

For our research project I am thinking that I should write about how we as teenagers in the united should be more involved in our society and be more up to date in our current events. I can research how different parts of the media sometimes grab our attention but for things that have no useful information and can sometimes isolate us from the 'real world'. I think that this is a very broad topic that will help to show us new uses of the media.

Comparing the Matrix, Star trek, and Farscape

Before spring break, we watched a couple of episodes that carried out
the same theme that was used in the matrix. First we watched an episode
from star trek "The Royale." I've never been a fan of Star Trek, but this episode holds a lot of interesting
ideas and the plot is very engaging. The crew aboard the Enterprise
discover a piece of debris in space and see that it once belonged to
NASA. They decide to send out three members into what seems to be a
storm, When they arrive there is nothing but a revolving door. After
much consideration the team decides to enter and they find out that
they are in a the casino Royale hotel. They begin to interact with
people but when they decide to leave, they realize that they are stuck.
With the help of a gadget they find out that the people around them are
not humans,there is only one human in the whole place but he has been
dead for a while. When the crew reads the mans diary they find out that
aliens have built this fake world based on a novel. They agree to
complete the plot in the novel and finally are able to leave the hotel.
The second episode we watched was the Farscape Episode "A Human Reaction" in this episode the same theme was applied. the main character named john, hears from the captain of their ship that they have discovered a wormhole that leads to earth. Desperate to get home john leaves through the wormhole. He land in australia and is arrested by agent that he knows. The officers arrest him because they think he might not really be a human and they find him as a threat. His friends from Farscape One come to rescue him but are arrested too. After two of his friends are mistreated John decide to escape with Aeryn. When they are walking in the streets John realizes that everything is strangly familiar to him and when he saw the newspaper, it had the date of seven months ago. When he confronts his father, they tell him the truth that everything around him has been simulated to see if he had a human reaction. The Ancients then let him go back to the Farscape.

Everthing in these two episodes are supported by the main idea that was brought up to our class by the Matrix. The idea that we realize that we are not living in an actual reality but that we are being controlled. In these episodes the main characters discover this because of the odd reaction of supposed humans. In the Matrix, Morpheus told him the truth about the Matrix and Neo decided to go against it. All these characters are just trying to either leave or destry the virtual world.