The Deactivating Conundrum

I think that all of us, at some point in our Facebook lives, have faced the ultimate question: to deactivate? Or not to deactivate? One of the most difficult decisions of the modern age which plagues us all.
It takes some serious shit to make us go as far as removing Facebook from our lives. I personally just devoted a full twenty minutes hovering over the 'deactivate' button, questioning my decision. In doing so, it feels like you're going to lose contact with the entire world and perhaps your socialnetworking life might just implode. But really, what does Facebook offer us? Mind-numbing hours are spent 'stalking' people we once knew/haven't known ever and never will. New mums are posting never ending pictures of their babies, telling us what they weigh, what they just said and when they last puked. Pages that we 'liked' in year nine haunt us by posting cliché quotes and three second videos of cats. 

It's not breaking news that Facebook is a massive waste of time, and the classic 'I hate Facebook' rant is one that is seen on an almost weekly basis, right before the speaker caves in and re-activates (which I admit, I will resentfully do at some point) but why? In deactivating we are literally only temporarily removing Facebook, its easy because all we have to do is type in our user name and password and that's it, we're once again forcefully divulged into other peoples lives.

It's natural that people are curious about the lives of others. Entire companies rely on gossip to maintain their income. Magazines write entire articles about celebrities that have had a bit of a wardrobe malfunction and newspapers infamously listen to private phone calls then broadcast them to the world in the form of "news." But where is the line between an invasion of privacy and outrightly putting your life out there for the entire world to see. Discretion is clearly a thing of the past, pictures of people having sex pop up on an almost hourly basis in the form of 'after-sex selfies' and it has become something that people are just okay with. It becomes worse by the fact that we don't even need a computer to access Facebook any more. We occupy all of our time with it, it's on our phones, our tablets and our laptops. Even when the app is being painfully slow we wait for it to load. We actually sit and wait to see what pointless shit is happening to irrelevant people in our lives.

One of the worst things is that it can actually affect our opinions of ourselves. If we upload a picture that doesn't get any likes it feels like the cyber universe is calling you fugly. If your boyfriend deletes all of the pictures of you and him after you break up its like someone has kicked you in the face. It's fundamentally abnormal to be so involved in things that should be done in private. Imagine a world where you couldn't take a snap of yourself and put it on the internet for the approval of others. What would you do instead? Take a picture, get it developed then walk around the street asking people to say if they like it or not? If you were going through a break up and you couldn't incessently stalk your ex's Facebook page to see what they were doing what would you do? Would you ring and demand to see every single picture that has been taken of them since you broke up? No, you would drown your sorrows in vodka and watch Bridget Jones on repeat like you should.

The point is, that in a moment of self-realisation I have seen that Facebook (and all other social networking sites for that matter, I just particularly loathe Facebook) is toxic. Once you've seen something that you didn't want to, you can't unsee it. You cannot live your social life vicariously through Facebook. It gives a false sense of popularity or unpopularity through the volume of 'friends' that you have. I am about 98% sure that I will be eating my words in a matter of days when I eventually re-activate my account, but for now I say: If you ever find yourself hovering over the deactivate button, do it, you're there for a reason (and I doubt you'll miss much.)

Dallas Buyers Club

I watched Dallas Buyers Club at the weekend and I watched with high expectations. I must admit, that these expectations were met and I really liked the film. However, I didn't enjoy it for the reasons that I thought I would. After watching The Oscars, I felt really irritated that the lovely Leo didn't win the Oscar for best actor in his recent film The Wolf Of Wall Street. I felt even more irritated after seeing Matthew McConaughey's speech  about how he is his own hero (arrogant much?) But then I realised that I was perhaps just bieng biased because I am 100% in love with Leo and I hadnt actually seen Dallas Buyers Club at this point so I couldn't really say that McConaughey didn't deserve the Oscar. I needed cold, hard proof.

So I watched the film. I genuinely wanted to come away from it feeling like I was wrong and that McConaughey did genuinely deserve the Oscar. However, after half an hour of watching, I thought that McConaughey's acting and character depiction didn't really seem very different to the style he has adopted before. Don't get me wrong, I love Matthew McConaughey. Put How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days in the DVD player, bring me a bottle of wine and some popcorn and I'm yours; and I must admit it was nice to see him in a film where he isn't taking his shirt off every five seconds. Despite all this, I still was questioning whether or not his performance in Dallas Buyers Club was Oscar worthy. I don't think it was.

However, after watching two minutes of his co-star, Jared Leto, I was 100% convinced that Leto fully deserved his Oscar (despite my love for Jonah Hill's portrayal of Donnie Azoff in Wolf of Wall Street.) I hadnt seen the trailer for Dallas Buyers Club, so I had no idea that Leto would pop up as a transvestite - and a rather attractive one at that. Once I realised the character was being played by Leto I was impressed. McConaughey's performance when compared to Leto's lacked depth and insight.

I'm not saying that McConaughey's performance wasn't powerful because it really was. One of the most moving scenes in the film for me was a scene in the supermarket where Ron Woodroof (McConaughey) makes his homophobic 'friend' shake Rayon's (Leto's) hand. This depiction of Ron's transition from a homophobe to a defender of his gay friend sends an important message to the audience. The relationship that exists and develops between Ron and Rayon comes to be one of mutual respect of one anothers sexuality. When Ron contracts the HIV virus, he is verbally abused by his former friends because they assume that he is a homosexual and that is how he acquired the virus. This ignorance from his peers forces Ron into the shoes of homosexuals and he is forced to endure the same abuse that they receive.

Although this film has a strong story and portrays messages that all should respect, I still believe that McConaughey's performance was perhaps not as deserved of an Oscar as much as everyone thinks it is. I must say that I though his performance in the Lincoln Lawyer oushines that of his performance in Dallas Buyers Club. Sorry Matt.

Jane Eyre

After reading Frankenstein for one of my modules at university, and finding it shockingly dull, I was very hesitant to read the next text that they had set us. But alas, I begrudgingly continued and read Jane Eyre. I can now safely say that this novel by Charlotte Bronte is the most inspiring and empowering novel that I have ever read. it gave me almost as much girl power as listening to Beyoncé does (because really, who radiates girl power like Queen Bey.)

In this novel, we are introduced to Jane Eyre. Jane is a fiesty girl to say the least. The novel starts with Jane as a child and when told that naughty children go to hell, she responds with "Then I must keep in good health and not die." Even as a child jane is strong and stands up for herself which is refreshing coming from anovel of this time period. Women reading this at the time that this novel was written would have been facing oppression and they didn't even realise that they could do anything about it. Being stuck in a domestic role was normal and being rude to men (especially men of a superior class and position) was outrageous. So having a young Jane Eyre speak back to a dominant figure was a clear statement from Bronte that men are not superior and should not be treated as such.

Throughout this novel, Jane makes it clear to her audience that she is aplain young lady and that she will not be told otherwise. When Rochester attempts to compliment her, she asks that she not be lied to and that she be accepted for the plain, educated girl that she thinks herself to be. This transforms Jane into a fictional role model that young girls can admire. It puts forward the idea of self-acceptance as opposed to the self-deprecation that we are presented with in other novels, such as Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice.'

In actual fact, Kane Eyre is a novel that is dominated by female characters. The only men that we are introduced to in the novel all posess a huge backlog of flaws and unlikebale characteristics. Even Mr Rochester, the apple of our heroin's eye, is rude, foul tempered and tempremental. The female characters that we are introduced to are all strong and dominant. Jane herself is self-assured, wrong willed and independent. Jane's aunt is aggressive and the head of her household. Finally, the mistress at Jane's school is kind yet authoritative. As well as giving her audience plenty of strong female characters, Bronte also expresses the importance of the bond that can exist between women. Throughout the novel, Jane has a number of mother figures, sister figures and even an adopted daughter. Through all of these relationships Bronte explores the idea that women can and will form bonds easier than men will.

Not only did I find myself feeling impressed by Jane's integrity, I also found myseld getting a bit irritated by some of the more submissive female characters in the novel. It made me think that if Jane can stand up for herself then why can't they? It was this very idea that empowered me at the end of the book. So thank you Charlotte Bronte, for I am officially a feminist.

The Wolf of Wall Street...

Yesterday I visited James at university. I do like Canterbury, the cathedral is amazing and for some reason I just like a cobbled streets, it just looks so much prettier than concrete. The original plan was to go to pizza express then just go home and watch a film (because who doesn't love pizza and a film) but then we decided to go and see Wolf of Wall Street before pizza because it came out yesterday. 

So, we buy our tickets for the 10 past 4 showing and we're told by the cinema man that the heating in our screen is broken and it might be a bit chilly. We brushed it off and didn't think it would be that bad because how much can heating really affect a massive screen room anyway? The answer is, a fucking lot. I was sat there with my north face coat on, gloves and James (kindly) offered me his jacket to put over my legs. Cute right? No, it was only cute until 5 minutes later he took it back for the sake of his own warmth, selfish bastard. Anyway, The Wolf of Wall Street is what this post is about. Oh. My. God. It was amazing. 

 

Initially, we thought that 3 hours was a really long time to sit and watch a film but once you were into it, it went so quickly just because it was so good. Now firstly, the budget for this film must have been ridiculous because there were hundred dollar bills being chucked all over the place, helicopters, designer clothes and a massive yacht. When you think that this is based on a true story it really does hit home how rich this guy was, the yacht he bought for his wife was actually originally designed for Coco Chanel! And he bloody sinks it through pure recklessness. Coco wouldn't be happy. 

Anyway, the film was hilarious and Leonardo DiCaprios performance was crazy, his "motivational speeches" were the best parts of the film. The first appearance of Jonah Hill is striking, to say the least. His peroxide fake teeth immediately draw your attention and look wrong on him. But the further you get into the film the more you forget it's Jonah Hill and his appearance becomes more understandable, his acting was amazing and he was hilarious as always but it wasn't like in his other films. This guy is a really diverse actor. If you compare him to Seth Rogen you really understand how good he really is. Can you imagine Seth Rogen being nominated for an oscar twice in the last 3 years? No, me either.

 

It's totally understandable why the film was rated 18. There was cocaine being snorted every 5 minutes, pills being popped every other scene along with alcohol, boobs, sex scenes that leave little to the imagination and genitalia left right and centre. But none of this detracted from storyline. There are so many films that lack a good story and use nudity and drugs just to attract people into watching the film but The Wolf of Wall Street incorporated it well. The way this film was shot was good, Scorcese ensured that the audience was following the story throughout, this was done through the use of monologues. On several occasions DiCaprio spoke directly to the audience and explained what was happening.

 

If I compare this to American Hustle (which we saw a couple of weeks ago) it's so much better and American Hustle was really hard to follow. Although still a good film, I would recommend The Wolf of Wall Street for sure. But the fact that the Canterbury cinema had leopard print chairs did work in it's favour.