Description Unit 1: What are your thoughts about... History and Pop Culture Prior to reading the a ...

---

Description Unit 1: What are your thoughts about... History and Pop Culture Prior to reading the articles, please think about the intersection of popular culture and history. As a prompt, consider the following: John F Kennedy wrote, "The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." With this thought in mind, how much of history do we know from watching movies "based on a true story"? For example, does our knowledge of Martin Luther King, Jr come from "Selma", NASA from "Apollo 13" or "Hidden Figures", the Iraq War from "the Hurt Locker"? As a result, how well do we know the difference between our history and our national mythology? Who ultimately writes our past- the historian or the film director? In your forum thread, I ask that your 300-word posting specifically and thoughtfully quotes another student’s posting, using their name (unless of course, you are the first to post).  Please note that 'I don't agree with my classmate when she says that advertising is "evil" '  does not constitute a thoughtful quotation.  Aim instead for something like this: While Jasmine is right about the manipulative nature of advertising, from my experience it is overstated to say that "advertisers only ever have their own profits in mind and thus are a force for evil in society". I will never grade your work based on what your ideas are; I welcome and encourage all ideas and perspectives. Unit 2 Application Discussion: What contemporary medium- film, TV show, video game, advertisement, music video, etc- contains some of the elements of a Western (even though it may not be set in the traditional West)? This can include physical elements as well as attitudes or behaviors. Are these elements still presented as being distinctly American? What might be the differences between the cowboys you have just read about and those who appear in pop culture today?