Leah's Blog

 Up until a few days ago, I'd never heard of the movie Little Miss Sunshine . Originally, I was under the impression the movie wasn't going to be anything phenomenal, or anything that blew me away. But after completing watching this movie, I was proven utterly wrong--and not just because Steve Carell is in it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS7GzRivYoM In  Little Miss Sunshine, we see a dysfunctional family come together in order to support their young daughter/granddaughter/niece, Olive, as she strives to win the Little Miss Sunshine Pageant. Despite not winning and ultimately getting kicked out, she is joined on stage with her family alongside her for one last big hoorah. It is honestly a much happier ending in my opinion than Olive winning. In the film Little Miss Sunshine,  directors and husband and wife Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton portray societal norms and standards like the prevalence of depression, body image and mental illness/issues in society. They do th...

 Argumentation and disagreement are prominent factors of society. Everybody argues and disagrees with another person at some point in their lives. However, there are some people who do not know how to argue healthily or responsibly, and this can often result in negative outcomes that resort to means of brute force or violence. As stated in Arguing in Communities  by an Associate Professor of English, Gary Layne Hatch, "A lot of conflict that results in violence, terrorism, and manipulation could often be avoided if people learned how to negotiate their differences".  One prominent part of arguing healthily and responsibly is agreeing to disagree and utilizing the ability to negotiate with someone, as well as try and work to persuade someone. When we acknowledge the other party's argument, it can strengthen our own and maybe open our eyes to a point we may have otherwise not seen or recognized before. Once again in Arguing in Communities, Hatch states: "When people ag...

  Leah McBarron SUPA Wrt 105 Schilly Block 2 3/18/21 An In-Depth Look At What Analysis Means If you asked me a few months back what it meant to analyze someone or something, I’d simply give the definition of inspecting or looking at something with a close lens. While this is part of the importance of analysis and what it means to be analytical, whether it is in terms of writing or not, analysis is much more and goes far beyond just closely inspecting something. Over the course of the past few weeks for the duration of Unit 2 for my writing class, I have worked closer and practiced writing analytically firsthand, ultimately changing my perception of what it means to analyze something. From my experiences and practice, a common relationship among all pieces I worked with or wrote analytically is that analysis is a lot of breaking down a question that is being asked, as while shifting your lens from “what?” to “how?” and “why?” all while suspending any judgement. Primarily, I want...

  The Blacker the Berry           1,127 people were killed by police officers in 2020. Of those 1,127 people, black people made up 28% of those people, despite only making up 13% of the population. There were only 18 days in 2020 where police went without killing someone. This alone is enough evidence to come to the conclusion police brutality and inequality still exists, and black people and other people of color are still forced to face such inequality on a day to day basis. Award-winning music artist Kendrick Lamar has touched on the topic of inequality and police brutality through the poetic lyricism in many of his songs. One of these songs, The Blacker The Berry really focuses on this. He talks about how he came to an epiphany at the age of 16 how he is distinguishable based on his race, and looked down upon/oppressed for his race and being black. In his lyrics he includes traits that many oppressors and uneducated stereotypers use to attribu...

The New Yorker is a weekly magazine that leans more towards the liberal side. Throughout the years and as the New Yorker publishes their weekly issues, many of the written pieces are accompanied by cover art and illustrations. In this case, the focus of this post is going to be directly on one piece by Cristoph Niemann, titled "Evolution". In this piece by Cristoph Niemann, we see 4 different quadrants, all including the same man in each quadrant. In the top left quadrant, we see him staring at a large machine of some sort with various amenities and what appears to be a bright, large screen. In the second (top right) quadrant, the same man is slightly hunched over and looked into a slightly smaller but still large bright screen. The machine in this quadrant is still large, but has far less amenities and is slightly smaller than the machine in the first quadrant. In both of these quadrants, there is a plug connected to an outlet in the wall, and such outlet presumably leads to...

The other day, I was watching multiple different videos, referred to as Op-Docs, that explore societal issues/focus in on important topics. I clicked one after another, as the thumbnails became more and more intriguing the farther down I scrolled. I became lost in watching these, but ultimately shortened my list of favorites down to two of them. The two I found most intriguing involve the discussion of a woman living in China, and her standards for the men she decides to date, as well as what it is like to live in the Narco-Zone. I'll begin by discussing the first one regarding a Sheng nu living in China. In "China Doesn't Like That I'm a Single Woman, Here's Why", Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia, award-winning directors and producers explore the topic of what it is like to live in China as a "Sheng nu", or "leftover woman", a coined term that refers to any single woman over the age of 27. They explore this by providing insight into the life ...