Titicut Follies

Not only in my media prof a Nazi, she's also very demented. For the past week she's been telling us about how she didn't think we were going to have a movie screening tonight because the film we were supposed to watch was very disturbing. This is all she's told us for a week, but low and behold, we had the screening tonight.
I wasn't so much disturbed by the film, as it was that I just don't know how I feel about what I just watched. I'm also not sure what the point the film was trying to was. Its a film about a mental institution in Massachusetts in the late 1960s. The state actually got it banned for about 25 years before it was finally screened in 1992. I really just didn't get it though. Here are some of the highlights of the movie: (1) a large room of naked men rambling to themselves, (2) a naked man being force fed with a tube down his nose, (3) a man drinking bath water for three minutes, (4) a guy talking to his psychiatrist about violating his daughter, (5) a mental guy preaching for communism, (6) the wardens strip searching inmates and (7) random naked people walking around mumbling. Don't you wish you could have watched this too?
We get it. The mental institutions in the 1960s sucked, but I'm pretty sure that they've improved over the past 40 years. Sucks for those guys, but people are better off now. I just really don't get the whole naked thing. I mean, did the state not have enough funding to buy them all uniforms? They only had five outfits to go around or something? It was really weird and I'm just having a little trouble processing it. I mean, I know what I watched but I really just don't get the point of it. I'm not entirely sure their was a point.
Ok, time to go to the Pryz for my philosophy study group session. Then back here to keep studying and maybe catch the president's "state of the nation" address.

Triumph of the Will

I think my media prof is a socialist. No, I'm not kidding. I really think she is. She emailed us this movie and told us we had to watch it before class tomorrow. Which is fine and no big deal really. But that movie was "Triumph of the Will", the Nazi-made propaganda film from 1935. It was 1 hour 45 minutes long and I think about an hour of it was just watching Nazi soldiers march around and yell "heil Hitler". I felt like looking up "Yankee Doodle Dandy" afterwards and watching the soldiers march off singing "Over There" while James Cagney tries to sign up to kill Germans. It just seemed wrong to have to sit and watch Hitler preach about all the good things he was going to do for Germany when we all know how it ends up.
When I'm bored and have nothing else to do (like when watching pro-Nazi movies) I have this tendency to make plans for the far off future. And by far off I mean about two years. Like, last summer I would get bored and plan out how I was going to live in DC after I graduate. I'm not like some people (who shall remain nameless) who plan out there entire life and then expect it to all work out that way. It's more of like a "gee I wish I could..." type thing to keep myself entertained. Well, while watching "Triumph of the Will" I had another one of these planning sessions and I actually think I may try and follow through this time. I've decided that when my sister finishes high school I'm going to take her to Europe as a graduation present. Either London or Paris, I think. Maybe both, what with the Chunnel and all. I'll be out of college and, in my mind at least, I'll be able to afford it. It would be a good bonding thing for us to do before she goes away to college. So that's my "gee I wish I could..." for the day. Completely unrealistic and unatainable, but it kept me entertained during my 2 hour dose of 1930's socialism.
I should get to bed because it's 1:30 in the morning and God knows we'll be the only school on the entire east coast with class tomorrow. Its not like Catholic would give us a day off because of dangerous ice and snow conditions. And its not like every other school from DC to Boston had off today. Damn you Victor Nakas!!