Blog - Exit Through the Gift Shop

So, I just watched Exit Through the Gift Shop. Its main subject (street art) really captured my interest so I ended up just watching the entire documentary. I won’t ruin the ending or anything but, basically, it’s about this French guy, Thierry Guetta, living in Los Angeles who has this obsession of carrying a video camera at all times in order to film everything that he comes across. He ends up meeting a handful of famous street artists, films them doing their respective styles of street art, and develops his own interest in street art during the process. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the documentary because I knew very little about street artists to begin with. I learned a lot, spent a good 15-20 minutes just observing random street art pictures on google, and even read about some of the featured street artists from the documentary. It’s really fun to observe and analyze, but I’m still not convinced that street art is right. I guess stickers are admissible since they can, to some extent, be removed from surfaces but painting on an object that does not belong to you seems wrong to me. If a person purchases a building, transforms it into a grocery store or something, and then some street artist stumbles along and paints a “pink hippo wearing an ushanka and sunglasses” on one of the walls, I don’t think that’s really fair to the person who purchased the building. Yeah, it can always be painted over and erased but that still requires time, effort, and money that should have never been spent in the first place. I understand the street artist’s need and desire to express themselves but, seriously, would you want some stranger to paint their inside feelings on a valuable object of yours? 

Blog - Debate About Advertisements

So, I waited a few days to write my blog for this week. I usually type up my blogs on Monday so all of you can have the opportunity to read it (only if you want to, of course) and leave a comment but I altered my schedule a bit this week because I had a feeling that Wednesday’s debate would be an interesting topic to discuss on here. I chose to join the side with my fellow classmates who shared the belief that advertisements should NOT be regulated, controlled, or censored. Now, before I propound my thoughts on the debate, I just want to let the opposing side know that I learned a lot from all of you (much more than I thought I would upon entering the debate). You all did a wonderful job at expressing your thoughts to us and providing thought-provoking rebuttals to the thoughts we expressed to you. I also could easily discern that some of you were very passionate about your beliefs relating to advertisements which made the debate that much more exciting so thank you. However, I still remain with my anti-censorship buddies when it comes to advertisements. Freedom of speech is one issue that concerns me. All advertisers in the U.S. possess the right to express their ideas freely in order to amass profits (this was established in the U.S. Supreme court case called Bigelow v. Commonwealth of Virginia). It does not matter if you believe that advertisers evoke racism, sexism, degradation, vulgarity or any other negative sentiment since, in the end, they have the unique right to do so. Simply ignore the advertisements that you deem offensive and displeasing. Control the advertisements you encounter and do not allow them to control you negatively (if you succumb to the negativity of some advertisements then, unfortunately, that is your problem to deal with). The situation pertaining to children and advertisements is another issue that concerns me. I completely understand the opposing viewpoint about children being threatened, impacted negatively, and possibly abused. I just believe that it is the responsibility of the parents to control what their children see and do not see. True, they cannot be monitored all the time which leads me to my next point: parents need to be prepared to discuss important topics with their children (that is part of being a good parent). It is the parent's fault if their children become influenced negatively by advertisements. In the end, it is the parent’s duty to educate their children and not that of the advertisements. Parents need to mold their children and not allow the advertisements to have any influence. For instance, I remember a long time ago when I was a little boy that my mom and dad warned me of all the dangers related to smoking. To this day, I have not smoked despite viewing numerous smoking advertisements in magazines. So, as of right now, I still believe that any regulation, control, or censorship of advertisements is wrong and not needed. I’ll end this post with one of the many quotes relating to our debate topic: “The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.” – George Bernard Shaw