V for Vendetta

One memorable quotation from the movie V for Vendetta  is "The people should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."

I agree with what V is saying here. He makes a good point, because a society should not have to live in fear of the government, as is the case with the characters in this movie. Since they have a totalitarian government where police have no limits and control almost every aspect of public life, people were terrified. This is shown in the opening scene of the film, where Evey is out after curfew and V saves her from rape at the hands of the police.

 V proves the second part of this quote throughout the movie, because he makes the government afraid of him and his power. It is apparent that V believes "governments should be afraid of their people." He is an anarchist revolutionary, who stands against the government. The government is afraid of V because he evaded and outsmarted police easily, killed many people, and blew up the Bailey courtrooms. The government was afraid of V also because of the number of people that were joining his side, and rebelling against the government.

This quotation is relatable to parts of the world today. There are still some countries that have totalitarian governments, that make people afraid. For example, the government in North Korea can be related to this.

See more about V for Vendetta here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0434409/

Pirate Radio

The movie Pirate Radio has a theme of breaking corrupt laws in order to do what is right. It is set in 1966 in the North Sea, where a group of DJs on board a ship broadcast non-stop rock music to Britain because of the law that says there can only be a limited amount of rock played in a day. They don't agree with the law, so take matters into their own hands in order to do what they believe is right, which is as much rock music as possible available for everyone.

The British government is after the members of Radio Rock, and wants to shut them down. They work to find legal loopholes in order to shut down the station. They end up making it illegal for British businesses to advertise unlicensed radio stations. They figure that if Radio Rock can't make money without profits from the advertising, then they will be forced to shut down.

"That's the whole point of being a government. If you don't like something, you simply make it illegal." That is indeed what the British government did, and it was wrong of them. People should have the freedom to be able to listen to whatever they want. The DJs thought so too, and became activists who took a stand against the government so they could do what they thought was right. Since this film is historically based, I think the real DJs who went against the government in the sixties for the sake of music were great activists for supplying the United Kingdom with the freedom of listening to their own choice in music.

"Governments loath people being free."

Teen Stereotypes- The Breakfast Club

This past weekend, I watched the movie The Breakfast Club from 1985 for the first time. The five main characters are seen as typical stereotypes in high school like the jock, the princess, the brain, the criminal and the basket case. By the end of the movie, each one had proven that there was something about them that went deeper than the stereotype, that there was more to them than what others saw.

I think this is still really relevant today, because people are judged and put into certain social categories by others who may not know the first thing about them. I'm sure we can all think of at least some one who fits the label of a jock, brain, princess, criminal, or basket case, but what do we really know about them that allows us to apply that label?

After the five teens spending eight hours together in detention on a Saturday and uncovering different secrets and details about each other's lives, they developed totally different perspectives towards each other. There was more to them than what met the eye, and I think that's a key lesson. We shouldn't be stereotyping people before we really get to know them.