The Comedy Genre: You're Welcome

I knew about this way before it was cool. Heck, when I showed it to people, they thought I was a weirdo. I really hate people sometimes. So fickle, so cruel.
I apologize, I could not place all of these videos in one post because I am terrible with technology, but they are supposed to be one giant post that has all of these genres for a fun Friday send off.

This is my favorite Ylvis video along with I will never be a star

Not as funny but needs to be seen if you are to understand little brother's video.

You really need to understand the politics in the United Nations to really understand the humor in this. If you do know about it then you will appreciate how clever and fantastic this is.

This is one of my favorites next to Stonehenge. The genre of Comedy. Happy Friday :)

Resurrection and Rebirth: Penguin Style

I have recently gotten into the tv show Gotham and I have to say, I absolutely love it. At first it started out a little slow and I was annoyed how they tried to make an Al Paccino godfather in the form of Fish Mooney. She is way over done and trying too hard to be this great mob boss but seriously dial it down a notch. However I am pleasantly surprised by the breakout character Penguin (Oswald Cobblepot) and his rebirth/resurrection. In the first episode he is a spineless grunt who holds Fish Mooney's umbrella. He was supposedly a faithful dog of hers when in reality he was a snitch for the major crime unit. When Fish found this out, she sentenced him to death alongside the heroic detective Jim Gordon who wasn't playing by her rules. Thankfully for Gordon, Don Falcone stepped in and stayed his execution as a favor to Gordon's late father. To show that he was now in compliance with the Falcone crime family, Gordon was ordered to kill Penguin. Now if you are familiar with the DC comic universe, you know that Jim Gordon is one of the only people that Batman can trust because Gordon is so pure and so good. It is because of this that Gordon shoots his gun next to Penguin's ear and shoves him into the harbor to make it look like Penguin died in the eyes of Falcone's men. This causes a lot of problems for Gordon later on, but this post is going to chronicle Penguin's rise from the moment Gordon "killed" him to him becoming one of the most powerful and dangerous men on the show at this point.


After Penguin emerged from the harbor, he left Gotham to start over. He brutally murders one teenager and torchers the second teenage boy for their vehicle and tries to ransom the survivor but is unsuccessful, so he kills the teen. This is almost a complete 180 from who he was before Gordon "shot" him. Before, Penguin had psychotic tendencies, but he was never so bold as to kill someone. Now, he is more confident and goes out and takes what he wants. Unlike the old Penguin, the new Penguin's first instinct is not self preservation, but  ambition. He now has a thirst for power and so surviving and playing it safe outside of Gotham is not enough for him. He returns to Gotham and gets a job washing dishes for the second mob boss Don Maroni. Penguin uses his silver tongue that he always had but brings it to another level. He manipulates the Don into thinking that he is exactly like Maroni when he was younger. He convinces him not to kill him when the Don finds out that Penguin used to work for his arch nemesis Falcone, and instead Maroni starts to call Penguin his golden goose.

After Penguin became Maroni's main man, he decides to let the world know that he is alive. He does this in the most climatic moment in the series when Jim Gordon and his partner Harvey Bullock are being arrested for Penguin's murder by major Crimes within the station. As they are being cuffed, Penguin appears letting everyone know that Gordon did not do what Falcone asked creating a violent atmosphere between Gordon and the GCPD. This also gets back to Fish Mooney and the rest of the Falcone family quicker than quick and she erupts into a fury because Penguin knew all of her schemes to overthrow Falcone. This shows Penguin's resurrection for he was never bold enough to orchestrate any of this and was too much of a coward to take on Mooney but now he welcomes destroying her to her face.


Of course, Penguin is smarter than he was before and manipulates everyone around him by pretending that he is still that coward that carried Mooney's umbrella. He works and manipulates from the shadows and has evolved from being a snitch who did not see the bigger picture to the most intelligent person in the mob game. He kills off any who get in his way in a manner that could never be traced back to him. He kills Maroni's skeptical number 2 killed in a raid against Falcone and blames it on Falcone's men. He also kills Mooney's lover/ conspirator in the same raid killing two birds with one stone. He is also declared off limits by Falcone in the peace agreement with the Maroni family, making it impossible for Mooney to kill Penguin outright.

 SPOILER ALERT!!!!!! IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ THE BIGGEST MIND F OF THE SEASON DO NOT READ I REPEAT DO NOT READ!!!!



The greatest moment of the rise of Penguin is the fact that he is Don Falcone's spy. He has been working for Falcone all along and is Falcone's ultimate weapon, making the once weak and pathetic Penguin the most powerful man in both the Falcone and Maroni crime families. At this point in time Penguin is the most dangerous criminal because he has both Dons in his pocket and is in the position to manipulate them in any way he chooses.

Dysotopian Genre: YEA!!!

I love the Dystopian genre, it is right up there for my love of medieval fantasy novels. I love how it critiques society and shows how the individual can be oppressed due to the "perfect government" we strive for. My all time favorite dystopian novel is Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. The following is my own analysis of the novel and its underlying themes.

 

              To instill a sense of perpetual happiness among the masses, personal freedom, individualism, and feelings need to be terminated; however in the process of making everyone in the society consistently blissful, free will and the experiencing of true emotions would have to be sacrificed. As shown in the dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley, Brave New World serves as a warning of what could happen if society continues its reliance upon pharmaceuticals, unrestrained sexual encounters, psychology, and science. Not only do these four areas lead to totalitarian rule, they allow the enslavement of the consciousness of the individual. They increase society’s dependence on the state, giving the government the ability to control its citizens as the world controllers oppressed their subjects without their knowledge. Through the conditioned idea of consumerism, the people within Brave New World lost their identity’s and, as one character described it, were slaves. Everything that made the individual unique and separate was banned, and a person was conditioned to oppose individualism and find it ridiculous or repulsive. As a result most books, poetry and plays were outlawed, nature was to be abhorred, and any thoughts of God or gods were eliminated. Civilization’s need for progress and societal perfection extinguishes individualism which leads to the enslavement of the mind.

Huxley’s Brave New World has been met with controversial reviews ever since it was published. Some took it as prophesy; others, like George Orwell, took it as complete and utter nonsense. However, most critics agree that the novel is a symbol for what happens to the individual when the state takes absolute control over the lives of its citizens. To destroy the individual, the Central London Hatchery within the novel conditions people to hate nature, replace the idea of God with the idea of consumerism, and make them dependent on being identical to those in their caste. By combining consumerism and the concept of utopia, the individual is rendered superfluous. As an important member of the totalitarian regime in Brave New World, Mr. Foster states, “Murder only kills the individual and after all what is an individual?”. The individual becomes a thing of the past in Brave New World. However some critics find problems with Huxley’s “Bleak” conclusions and find his satire to be too heavy and dismal. Although Brave New World can be intense and grim at times, the novel becomes more realistic, and divulges a depressing but truthful reality about humanity, making it more credible than it would have if the theme had been one that was more exultant, praising the human psyche for its perfection.

Everyone within Brave New World is to be exactly similar to promote the government’s slogan of “Community, Identity, Stability” (BNW 1). However Bernard Marx, an Alpha plus, finds himself to be different and alone from everyone in his society. He is constantly brooding (which is abnormal for a citizen in this world), he is shorter than any Alpha, and he never takes the drug soma, which everyone takes to cancel out the negative emotions. His only friend and confidante is Helmholtz Watson, who is the complete opposite in looks (for it’s said he had intercourse with 640 different girls in the last 4 years) but is also different from everyone else in that he wants to find deeper meaning in his writing. Watson serves as Bernard’s foil, for in looks they are complete opposites as well as in personalities. Bernard also has a connection with the beta-minus, Lenina Crowne, who is all society wants her to be. They go on a holiday together to a reservation, a place that is not a part of the World State, and discover Linda, who was a beta minus, and her educated and Shakespeare enthusiast son John. Bernard takes John back to civilization to show him what society was like. John’s initial awe of what he called the Brave New World quickly turns to disgust towards the enslavement of the mind via Soma and the promiscuity of the society. Ultimately Bernard and Helmholtz are sent to an island by the world controller Mustapha Mond, the somewhat antagonist of the novel, for their mental excess and individuality, and John escapes to a lighthouse for solitude, only for the state to find him, make him an amusement, and sedate him with Soma.  This horrifying event results in John hanging himself, ending the novel with his untimely death.

It is through the characters within Brave New World that the truth is revealed that consumerism demolishes individualism. Bernard Marx is the protagonist as well as an antihero within Brave New World. His name derives from the socialist Karl Marx, representing the corruption of the socialist’s beliefs. He begins the novel as an outcast because of his physical deformity that he is smaller than the average Alpha. Through this sense of loneliness, he develops an identity of his own, allowing him to produce mental excess. He prefers to feel all of his emotions instead of taking Soma which makes him odd and moody to his colleagues. He deplores the way men treat Lenina Crowne saying, “Have her here have her there. Like mutton. Degrading her to so much mutton” (BNW 46). Even though the social norm is “Everyone belongs to everyone else”. In the beginning he is what the individual should be, having his own thoughts on how life should be and how his own society is corrupt. However, much like Marx’s ideals were corrupted by society, Bernard too falls victim to conforming to his society. After visiting the “reservation”, a place where people have not been “civilized” and practice the old way of thought, Bernard finds the son of a stranded Beta-Minus, something unheard of, and takes John the “Savage” to London. He becomes successful after introducing the “savage” to society, and as a result, develops an arrogance that now he is an accomplished member of his society through the exploitation of John. Bernard is a typical antihero because of his flaws. He is cantankerous at times and is always feeling sorry for himself. He feels jealousy towards men who are thought his betters, and is unable to bring aid to his friends when they are in trouble for fear of opposing the society, as a slave fears his master’s wrath, all traits unbecoming of a hero. He is eventually shipped off to an island, after he reverts back to his original state where, he can live as an individual, uncorrupted by society and consumerism.

            Another character that serves as a protagonist throughout the novel is John the Savage. His name deriving from the idea from The Conquest of Granada by John Dryden, the Noble Savage. John was born the Beta-Minus Linda, after she was abandoned by the Director in the reservation. He grew up learning about the utopian “other place” always dreaming of what it would be like to be in such a glorious industrialized world. Through his childhood he was considered an outcast due to his family never originating from the reservation, and so he was unable to participate in various rites of passage and dream quests. His mother Linda also refused to recognize John as her son for having children was taboo in The World State. John was utterly alone and the only solace he found was in God and Shakespeare. When Bernard Marx and Lenina Crowne discover him on their vacation to the reservation, Bernard decides to take Jon with them to see London. As a response John recites Shakespeare’s the Tempest “Oh brave new world that has such people in it” (BNW 139). His initial awe of London and the World State, and his tragic love for Lenina quickly changes to disgust and loathing. It is through his eyes that the truth is unfolded. Everyone within The World State is a slave to the government and is nothing more than living corpses, for to be alive would be the components that make up the individual, and the individual is dead in The World State. John is in love with Lenina, but because they are from such different cultures, it is a doomed relationship. John cannot overcome the grotesque promiscuity within Lenina and within the population, and in an insane tirade uses Shakespeare’s Othello to testify what she and The State she symbolizes are. “O thou weed, who are so lovely fair and smell’st so sweet that the senses aches at thee. Was this most goodly book made to write ‘whore’ upon? Heaven stops the nose at it…”(BNW 194). After the death of his mother, and his failed attempt to free the enslaved minds of the population and reason with the World Controller, John retreats to a lighthouse, a Christian symbol of God’s love and guidance, to escape society and be an individual. But in the end society finds him, leaving him no choice but to commit suicide to escape from the insanity that is a world without individuals.

The use of symbolism throughout the novel reinforces the theme that uniform society and modernization destroys the individual. Lenina Crowne is an upstanding English girl who tries to do whatever society tells her. She also represents the society itself within Brave New World. She does what she has been taught to do since an early age.  The State promotes promiscuity, and Lenina is described as one of the most pneumatic women there is. Society also wants there to be class distinction so that everyone is content within their own caste. Although it had been explained to her, Lenina cannot grasp that through conditioning she despises any caste below her, for society cannot grasp that it has been conditioned to have a difference in class. Society also cannot understand other cultures outside of it. Lenina is infatuated with John the Savage, however she does not respect his wishes that he remain celibate, nor does she comprehend the notion that making love is a bond between man and wife in John’s eyes, not just an animalistic ritual that only fulfills the sexual gratification of that person. Society in the form of Lenina cannot understand any of these concepts because to understand them, like John and Bernard did, would mean that society is composed of individuals, which would threaten the “stability” of The World State. John’s hatred of society is shown when he descends into madness when Lenina tries to entice him. On a more symbolic level this scene represents society trying to seduce John into giving up his individualism and conforming to the state. Not only does it fail, but it leads to John declaring war upon society, even though he secretly is attracted to the concept. Also when Lenina and Bernard take a vacation to the Reservation her disgust for the individual is so apparent that she wishes to take soma to try and ignore that there are individuals, just like society tries to rid itself of individuals so that it can operate without having to deal with the individual people and do whatever it wants regardless of one person. Through Lenina, society is shown as a deadly enticer that tries to seduce and destroy the individual at the same time, without the capability as to what it is doing.

Another character that serves as the symbol of modernization is the world controller Mustapha Mond. Not only does his name derive from the founder of Turkey, Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, and the industrialist Sir Alfred Mond, Mustapha Mond is the symbol of innovation and the master of a slave. Just as his name implies, Mond brought the World State into a more modern form. Through him, the individual remained unable to resurface because he sacrificed high art, God, and true science. For the State to be modern, the individual must be eliminated. Mond does so for he sacrificed his own individuality to become modern. To be modern is to be happy, and to be happy the individual must be sacrificed. As Mond states,

“Because our world is not the same as Othello’s world. You can’t make flivvers out of steel-and you can’t make tragedies without social instability. The world’s stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get. They’re well off; they’re safe; they’re never ill; they’re not afraid of death; they’re blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they’re plagued with no mothers or fathers; they’ve got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they’re so conditioned that they practically can’t help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there’s soma.” (220)

By sacrificing the individual for modernization, the society becomes enslaved, and Mond and other World Controllers become the masters. Individualism, when modernization and slavery take over; becomes decrepit, worn down and a whisper of the past, like John’s composition of Shakespeare’s works on the reservation.

Along with symbolism, Brave New World has many motifs that emphasize the idea that through social stability and consumerism, the individual is lost. One motif is the idea of conditioning. Everyone throughout the novel is conditioned to do whatever the government wants them to do from a young age. This limits the possibility of anyone actually being their own person, and creates a community where all minds are the same page. Thus enslaving all minds to create a perfect society where no one gets into disagreements and everyone is content. By being conditioned, consumerism is upheld for conditioned ideas “Ending is better than mending” (BNW 52). prompting people to go out and buy more clothing if there is the tiniest thread out of place, making anything remotely old undesirable and stating that “the more stitches the less riches” (BNW 50). Conditioning also allows the state to decide what occupation a person has, what they’re attitudes are in life, and how they want to be like everyone else within their caste. No one questions the government’s decisions; no one can quit their job or choose to be something other than what The State wants them to be. There is no free will, for free will is against the conditioning, and can threaten the government’s absolute control. People are even conditioned to feel whatever the government wants them to feel. If a person feels depressed or is moody, they’re conditioned to take the drug soma to take that feeling away. They are also conditioned to never feel love and to practise free sex whenever and wherever. Close bonds like family, friends, and lovers are prohibited, while citizens are conditioned to love the community and the government.  Through the use of conditioning, people are more like zombies, enslaved to the government’s wishes, devoid of any true emotion, and easily controlled by The State.

Another important motif is the idea of stability. To promote stability, the individual is destroyed through conditioning, and society is to be happy. To promote a generalized happiness, high art was eliminated because to produce something of that magnitude would require raw emotions, pain, anger, passion, etc. This mediocre happiness produces the ultimate stability in the mind of The World State, for no one is angry at the government, no one is depressed from the death of a loved one. But no one can feel anything deeper. No one can feel excited, love, accomplishment, the feelings that let a person know their life means something. However, Mond justifies the expulsion of emotions in his sarcastic statement:

“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn’t nearly as spectacular as instability. And being contented has none the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.” (  BNW 221)

Anything and everything can and will be sacrificed in the effort to instill permanent stability within The State. For when consumerism and stability are the end goals, the government and society have no qualms in destroying the most vital thing that makes a person human, their individualism.

Brave New World alludes to many different pieces of literature throughout the novel. One being the most influential is Shakespeare’s The Tempest, where the title of Brave New World originates. Like John the savage, Miranda, in The Tempest, grows up away from her birthplace in exile. She too listens of tales where she derives from. John, although his diction is like that of everyone else within the novel, constantly quotes Shakespearian dialect like that of The Tempest to express his inner feelings. However, Huxley uses the many allusions and quotes from this work in a sarcastic manner towards the end, calling London a “Brave New World”. John constantly asks himself if this place is truly what Miranda had in mind. Miranda’s wonder and amazement of a world she had never known, through the eyes of John, changes throughout Brave New World as John comes to realize how horrible of a place London truly is. This prospect promotes solitude within John’s mind, for a perfect society corrupts and absorbs the individual.

Another sustained allusion is to an additional Shakespearean piece, Othello. Like Othello, John is being used, but unlike Othello, he isn’t just being used by Iago as Othello is, but is being used by the World State as some sick form of entertainment. He searches for solitude, as Othello searched from release from his pain. However The World State finds him and watches him in his misery torturing him as they laughed at him, much like Othello was tortured through the constant scheming and plans of Iago who convinced Othello to kill his beloved. Both men, through the anguish they are put through by their tormentors, find only one way of reprieve from their distress, suicide. Othello kills himself by sword while John hangs himself. Johns hanging proves symbolic for his dangling feet point in every direction showing that no matter what direction a man heads there is no escape from the torment, and no saving the individual. Also like Othello, John renounces his lover naming her a “whore” and hurting her, like Othello did his wife when he was under the idea that she had committed adultery with another man. The link to Othello greatly enhances the theme of Brave New World for it conveys such deep emotions that members of The World State are unable to comprehend, for only the individual can feel the wide range of emotions like John did when he read Othello.

Brave New World not only stands as a satire, mocking those who actually believe that complete government control to instill stability is a good idea, but also shows all of society’s faults that may even make Brave New World a reality as Huxley, in his foreword, believed it. People are always searching for a way for escape. For some it is through alcohol and for others it is through the use of drugs, making room for a person to become dependent upon a drug like soma because as time continues, and the stress of living increases, so do people’s dependence on such substances that makes a person forget and help modify their mood so they never have to experience unpleasant feelings. Also, sexuality is shown to be a growing problem in society for there are more and more one night stands and less human connection that should be involved within the act. Huxley also believed that as science and technology should “be used as though, like Sabbath, they had been made for man, not (as at present and still more so in the Brave New World) as though man were to be adapted and enslaved to them.” (BNW ix) As the demands for more advanced technology increases, so does consumerism. Consumerism in itself isn’t horrible, but when a new model comes out daily, and that is all that society cares about, then it is a problem. As progress is made, society loses its individuals and as time continues, free will is a thing of the past and the mind becomes enslaved.

Consequently, Huxley re-examined his work years later and wrote Brave New World Revisited in response to modern times. Within it, he concludes that the world is heading towards The World State much faster than he had originally expected. In the chapter named What Can Be Done, Huxley makes the argument that the only way to avoid the destruction of the individual for totalitarian reign, is through education. (BNW Revisited) he believed that an education of the mind to avoid being conditioned and imprisoned was one way of preventing a person from allowing oneself to be conditioned to what the government wants that person to be.  Another idea Huxley thought would prevent complete government control is the education of freedom. He believes that from an early age the individual should be taught that they are allowed to have certain rights and emotions that cannot be taken away. Huxley even goes so far and asks for a writ of habeas mentum, however he concludes

“There will never be such a thing as a writ of habeas mentem; for no sheriff or jailer can bring an illegally imprisoned mind into court, and no person whose mind had been made captive by the methods outlined in earlier articles would be in a position to complain of his captivity. The nature of psychological compulsion is such that those who act under constraint remain under the impression that they are acting on their own initiative. The vic­tim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him, the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people. His servitude is strictly objective. No, I repeat, there can never be such a thing as a writ of habeas mentem. But there can be preventive legislation -- an outlawing of the psychological slave trade, a statute for the protection of minds against the unscrupulous purveyors of poisonous propaganda, modeled on the statutes for the protection of bodies against the unscrupulous purveyors of adulterated food and dangerous drugs.” (BNW Revisited)

Through education and legislation, Huxley believed that mental slavery and the destruction of the individual can be prevented. Education can prevent a person from being ignorant to being a slave, and legislation can prevent psychological enslavement and protect the individuals mind. Ultimately, the individual must be preserved by taking preventative actions against the government or others enslaving the individual’s mind, the dissolution of freedom, and a person’s ignorance toward his own enslavement.

            Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited reveal how easy it is to mistake slavery for societal perfection. The reliance on drugs for personal happiness and the attempt to be everyone else with one’s caste to please the government, only led to the destruction of the individual. To renounce negative emotions for that of a state of perpetual happiness is to give up the emotions that make life truly worth living; love, the feeling of having close bonds, and feeling important. To be like everyone else to preserve The State is to sacrifice the individual, the very thing that the government should be trying to protect. To heed Huxley’s message within both Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited, is to preserve the individual within civilization which will prevent the enslavement of the mind.