Sunday, February 22, 2009

Ooops She did IT again!

The greatest human emotional need is to feel appreciated and worthy. There are many ways for humans to achieve this in their daily lives. They gain these needs from their work and from stable relationships in their life. But what happens when a human being doesn’t feel needed or appreciated? What happens when emotions start to take over logic? What kind of emotions does Britney Spears feel whenever she goes out and is swarmed by paparazzi? What goes through her mind when she is doing outrageous stunts like buying a donkey and then driving around town with it in the back of her open car? Does she truly have a mental illness or does she just love to be in the spotlight too much?

Over the past couple of weeks, we have focused on Britney Spears’ lifestyle and analyzed her private life more than we wanted to know. As more research was conducted, a better thesis was developed; Britney Spears is an attention seeker. As her singing career slowly started disappearing and everything was settling down, she became “much more famous for things other than her singing career” (Spectacle). The first intriguing incident we heard of happened in 2004 when she married her childhood friend Jason Allen Alexander just “for the hell of it” (Judge). Five months later after her divorce, she announced that she was engaged to her back up dancer Kevin Federline after only knowing him for three months (Britney). A year later their first child was born and she joined a religion called Kabala with Madonna that was purely based on motherhood but quickly left it saying that “my baby is my religion” (Forget). As we’ve become less interested with her singing career, we’ve become more interested in her private life; Britney soon realizes this and plays the cat and mouse game, maybe just “for the hell of it”?

One of the first controversial photos we see of Britney is her kissing Madonna during a performance at the 2003 MTV awards (Kiss). The photo of her son sitting unrestrained on her lap while she is driving to get away from the paparazzi created a lot of chatter towards Britney’s parenting skills (defiant). The next photo is probably her most famous, which is of her shaving her head and then getting two tattoos.
After this incident, she checked herself into rehab for the second time in two weeks (Rehab). As the year 2007 arrived, Britney’s bizarre events started to escalate from her hitting paparazzi with an umbrella to her becoming an exhibitionist and showing the world what she’s got under there (Hit).

After everything Britney has been through, we still criticized her for her figure even though it was unfair. She had two kids, a divorce, and had checked into numerous psychiatric medical centers. The people and society should be criticised for finding entertainment in the sick or the weak. We take enjoyment from watching another human beings downfall and that say’s society is cruel and uncompassionate for those in need of help. I agree with the celebrities that are fighting back to protect their privacy. Celebrities are human beings and all human beings deserve equality and privacy rights. Celebrities should have to expect that their daily lives are newsworthy though to their fans who worship them. All of their fans are simply “star struck” and it is now a phenomenon that is bigger than life and this fascination with celebrities is a substitution for real life (New Age).
Paparazzi go too far when they are going at high speeds, willing to force stars off the road and are running red lights for a photo. They are willing to sit outside the celebrities houses 24/7 just for a photo and wear camouflage at night time so they won’t be seen. They are not putting just the celebrities’ lives in danger but also everyday citizens. When there is a safety risk involved with innocent civilians or anyone for that matter then that is already too far.
Britney Law- a 20-yard "safety bubble" around celebs considered to be "paparazzi targets."
What status do you need to require special legal protection that is only available to a limited amount of society? Britney Spears has met this status and the new Britney’s Law was proposed by Dennis Zine because of Britney’s psychiatric emergency, when her ambulance was swarmed by an army of paparazzi. Her ambulance had to be surrounded by policemen and helicopters just to get her to the hospital (Britney Law). Many celebrities would benefit from this law like Lindsay Lohan, Brangelina, and anyone else considered to be “paparazzi targets”. A-list celebrities like Lohan, Diaz, and Timberlake are joining together to turn the tables on the paparazzi (Push Harder). The worst incident caused by paparazzi was back in 1997, when Princess Diana died from a car accident as her driver was trying to get away from hounding paparazzi. Britney’s Law will help create some more freedom and more privacy for celebrities who are constantly being followed by paparazzi.
The media has finally lightened up and started praising Britney for recovering after everything she’s been through. They went through the years of what Britney did at the VMA awards from dancing with a snake to locking lips with Madonna. Fans are anticipating positively for what she’s going to bring this year and like Perez Hilton says “That's what people want; they want to see her smiling. Even if all she does is smile and wave, I say that's mission accomplished” (Official). After all, she has won over 157 awards ever since she came onto the scene and was an instant hit starting in 1999.

It’s weird how the media can create or destroy your image. You can become a celebrity over night like Kelly Clarkson but have it all taken away from you like Chris Brown. The paparazzi can be both positive and negative. It allows the fans to see what type of human beings they are idolizing which can show whether or not they are truly good people or show some of the skeletons in their closet. As long as there are fans in the world who worship these celebrities, there will always be hounding paparazzi that will do nearly anything for a unique photo. The best thing that any celebrity can do is just learn to be patient and learn how to become used to this constant heckling and chaos. This is the price of fame and anyone willing to seek it should be prepared to deal with whatever comes with it.


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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Electronics in the Classroom

Today was just another classic example of how cellphones or ipods are not complete negatives to have in the classroom. We had a shortage of computers today and yet about 3 students were able to follow along and create their blog site on their phone or ipods.