Mel Gibsons The Passion of the Christ Essay -- Reflective The Passion

The Passion of the Christ - The Pathetic Appeal of the Death of Jesus In February 2004, one day after the release of The Passion of the Christ, my girlfriend and I took our seats in the crowded theatre. I came into the night prepared to watch the death of Jesus Christ. However, I had no idea that I would actually be watching the death of Jesus Christ. For ten or more years prior to this night, I had always been told that Jesus had died on a cross for my sins. My parents, my Sunday school teachers, my friends’ parents, and my extended family had, at some time in my youth, told me the story of Jesus from the Gospels of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). From the moment I matured enough to understand these stories, I had believed Jesus â€Å"died and rose again† just for me. I took this belief and put it in my dresser drawer so that I could return to use it again in my adult life. As we all know, things do not happen the way we plan. The lights in the theatre faded into a nervous darkness, and scripture, from the Bible that I knew so well, lit up the screen. â€Å"But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities . . . Isaiah 53:5.† This was no surprise to me. I had been taught this all my life. Jesus died for me. The movie progressed with Jesus being arrested and sentenced to death. Then, I was punched in the gut with a new perspective of this story. The Roman guards stripped Jesus of his clothes and whipped him several times in an extremely bloody and intense scene. This man’s flesh was ripped off his back and flung into the crowd. It was absolutely disgusting, but it was absolutely effective. Up until this point, Jesus had just been a dignified man who had saved me from my sins. Now he was a beaten and broken man who suffered the most excruciating pain to save me from my sins. I never had a visual image in my mind that showed me what Jesus had gone through for me until this movie. And even though it is just a movie, it painted a picture for me that changed my views about Jesus Christ. He wasn’t the guy in my dresser drawer anymore; he was my Savior. This change of view spawned from the use of rhetoric. The pathetic appeals that the director, Mel Gibson, used were very effective. The images he created on the screen led many people to tears. Almost everyone turned their head away in as... ...something that is wrong. This fear can be a good thing when it comes to talking with other people about their religions, but it can also be a bad thing because it’s harder to trust the most trustworthy people. Discovering rhetoric this semester has changed my view that I can believe the claims of those people I trust. Now I have to convince myself that these people I trust are not trying to lead me astray even if they are using a rhetorical appeal. Most of them probably don’t even know they are using rhetorical appeals. I am not yet sure if I like this revision of myself. It has definitely proved helpful when reading texts for other classes because it separates learning from believing. I can learn something and not necessarily believe it unless I think it’s the truth, as opposed to believing everything I learn like I have done in the past. However, this new understanding of rhetoric has caused me to question everyone. Eventually, something will come along and convince me that questioning everyone is a good thing or an evil thing. One of these opposing views will dominate the other one, but until then, I will have to wait for the appeals of rhetoric to lead me to what is â€Å"right.†

The Rattler

Eva Wambura 8/29/12 Period 2 The Rattler Rough Draft In the passage â€Å"The Rattler† the writer uses details about the man, details about the snake, and details about the setting to lead the reader to feel sympathy for both the man and snake. The detail that shows sympathy for the man is when he’s out for a walk and he unexpectedly comes across the snake. The man’s first instinct was to â€Å"let him go on his way† and he would go on his. This shows that the man wasn’t really aggressive and really did not want to hurt the snake. The man then goes on to decide if he should kill the snake or not.But he â€Å"reflected that there were children, dogs, horses at ranch, as well as men and women† and his â€Å"duty, plainly, was to kill the snake. † His indecision leads you to have more sympathy for the man because he came on to his decision only because he thought it was his duty and if it wasn’t for that he would have let the snake go. Even after killing the snake the man didn’t â€Å"cut off the rattles for a trophy† and imagined seeing the snake â€Å"as he might have let him go, sinuous and self-respecting† showing that he felt guilty of taking the life of the snake.The details of the snake show more sympathy for it than for the man. When the man first comes upon the snake the â€Å"head wasn’t not drawn back to strike† and â€Å"was not even rattling yet, much less coiled. † This was a sign that the snake wasn’t going to attack the man but was merely watching to see what the man was going to do. When the man got his hoe to attack the snake with it â€Å"shot into a dense bush†. The snake’s action shows his nonviolent behavior by defending itself another way then just attacking the man. Then the snake â€Å"shook his fair but furious signal, quite sportingly†.It’s warning the man that if he continued further he has no choice but t o attack. But soon the man â€Å"hacked about, soon dragged him out of it with his back broken. † The details of the setting show sympathy for both the man and the snake. The man was just having his â€Å"first pleasant moment for a walk after long blazing hours† and thinking he was the â€Å"only thing abroad† encountered the snake and thinks that it’s endangering his people. In sympathy for the snake the man is the one who stepped into the snake’s habitat. The man not only trespassed but also ended up killing the snake in its own home.When the man and snake crossed paths the â€Å"light was thinning† and â€Å"the scrub’s dry savory odors were sweet on the cooler air†. The beauty of the setting makes you think that the snake was on its own walk through the desert. Even though man killed the snake for the good of others you can’t help but feel sympathy for both characters due to the details of the setting, the man, and the snake. The man doesn’t want to kill and doesn’t take satisfaction in taking life but goes on instead and kills the snake because of his duty even though the snake was minding its own business and wasn’t bothering anyone.

Gender Roles in the Media Essay - 3973 Words

From the moment they are born and wrapped in a pink or blue blanket, a childs gender is unmistakable. From this point on, they will continuously be bombarded with the socialization into their gender by many sources. One of the main sources of this socialization is media, more specifically television. The purpose of this paper is to describe gender roles and stereotypes, and to take a closer look at how the medias representation and portrayal of males and females affects children. Gender differences are the sets of attributes socially and culturally constructed on the basis of birth assignment as male or female (Creedon, 1993, p.5). When a baby is born and wrapped in a colored blanket based on their gender, one of the first†¦show more content†¦They are also more often portrayed in employment than females, and more males are shown in higher status occupations than females (Durkin, 1985, p.26). For female viewers, especially young females, this depiction of women as low ranking in society can be detrimental to their self-esteem, and can also lead females to be more self-critical. This idea is one that is easily understood when thought about through the perspective of Cultivation Theory. For girls growing up, the only role models they have, initially, are their mothers. As they become older and are exposed to media on a more regular basis, they begin to develop associations with the characters on TV. Girls, more so than boys, begin to base their ideas of who they want to be according to the characteristics of their role models. Because the character roles shown on television are so stereotypical according to gender, too much exposure to media can be dangerous for children. Research suggests that heavy television viewing contributes to sex-role development and/or reinforcement among youth (Craig, 1992, p. 112). This is because, as girls and boys watch television, they begin to believe that the characters they view are based on real life, as Cultivation Theory predicts. Children, especially young children, begin to gain their life experiences through the television instead of experiencing lifes lessonsShow MoreRelatedGender Roles And The Media867 Words   |  4 Pagessee women in the media have many roles that men have, such as, police officer, doctor and running to become president, while a nurse and teacher have emerged as both men and women jobs. Over time, the media show how gender role had changed but are what the media is showing the truth about the gender roles in the United States. Historian and scholar had written about this subject of gender roles and how the media affect our view. 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Current media does not openly express the continuous oppression of womenRead MoreThe Media s Influence On Gender Roles1042 Words   |  5 PagesThe media is a well-known, influential aspect on gender roles that broadcast negative messages to society through television by the images that are mainstreamed, which has an effect on people’s thinking process. Television brainwashes both men and women to believe they are not perfect, unless they have the body image of a celebrity. Though it is just a fantasy and not reality, â€Å"81% of 10 year girls are afraid of being fat, half of those girls believe they feel better about themselves when they were