Presenting real issues and its consequences

The movie Blood Diamond, set during the Sierra Leone Civil War, takes on serious issues of child soldiers and conflict diamonds. To more fully understand this issue, the term conflict diamonds needs to be better explained. Conflict diamonds are diamonds that come from war zones in Africa usually in civil war areas. They often include smuggled or illegal diamonds. In the case of the Sierra Leone Civil War, the diamond companies were driving and benefiting on the continuation of the war while reaping massive profits on both diamonds and gun sales. 

The ramifications for the viewer for taking on these emotional and controversial subject are wide ranging. The film's audience becomes limitedly informed about a very concerning issue, the death and destruction of people for diamonds. Very likely few of the films viewers have a broad base of knowledge of the Sierra Leone Civil War. The movie then plays a pivotal role in shaping the opinions of people about this conflict. The gives the film much power in a historical sense as it offers knowledge and gives people an event to think about and react to even though the movie is a not a documentary and is a hollywood narrative. It brings awareness to a problematic situation.

Picture of diamonds from the movie

Another consequence of using the African diamond trade in a blockbuster film is that is an easy vehicle for making money in the United States. Diamonds are a commodity in the United States, however, I know that before watching this film I knew little to nothing on the origin of diamonds. Knowing the origin and controversy of some diamonds would definitely intrigue me and possibly draw me to go to the movie. This also creates somewhat of a moral dilemma because by presenting and promoting the consumption of this movie for American audiences, the Sierra Leone incident is almost glorified as it was forever preserved as a piece of Hollywood even though also thousands of people died.

Truth or Fiction?

Historical inaccuracies in movies drive me absolutely crazy. I am under the firmest most staunch belief that if a filmmaker decides to include a serious subject or event, he should take on the research and present it in the most realistic way possible with the available information. I know, I know films are supposed to be fiction apart from regular and historical accuracies. Frankly, I don't care. It bothers me when I realize something in a movie isn't historical correct, it downgrades my view of the movie. Heck even animation movies, if something in it is too unrealistic, I get angry. For example, it drives me nuts that kid in the movie UP can catch a blimp on the back of a leaf blower. That's absurd and doesn't fit in with the way the rest of the narrative is presented.

This one of many reasons I love Zero Dark Thirty. It presents the Navy Seals raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound in a tremendously realistic fashion given the information that has been declassified and released. The length of the attack in the film, 27 minutes, even matches the length of the attack in real elapsed time, 27 minutes.

However, there are ways to draw off of history in ways that do not insult history in various ways. For example, The Dark Knight Rises uses terrorism in the main conflict of the plot. The villain, Bane, terrorizes Gotham mortifying its citizens. However, it doesn't take on historical events that have taken place in real life. Moreover, it also meets the serious issues in a serious way. An even though unrealistic things take place in this movie, it becomes all plausible within the world of Gotham. It seems realistic even when it is not.

Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty, the story of the manhunt and eventually attack that killed Osama Bin Ladin, begins with emergency response recordings from September 11th, 2001 with several minutes of just blank black screen. The beginning scene can be seen below.

This serves as a compelling and powerful frame for the rest of the narrative. This opening scene brings back a flood of emotions from September 11th, 2001. It was a tragic day in America where 3,000 innocent people lost their lives. The attack on that day is a moment where many people can tell you exactly when and where they were when the news broke. I was in 1st grade in Mrs. Nutterville's class, we were at lunch and one of the teachers had turned on a small TV in the cafeteria. Several of them stood around the TV watching in horror before shepherding kids away from the screen. I remember I was very very scared.

It is a day that remains engrained into the memories of the American people.

By starting the film in this way, it elicits all these emotions of fear and the desire for justice that prevailed after the attacks. It firmly entrenches the audience into the cause of the American CIA workers. Throughout the film, the audience seems to be pushed into willing to look past the torture and treatment of detainees of terror suspects. By framing the film with the 9/11 attacks, justice for the American victims becomes the primary focus for the viewer. It also sets the sequences of events into chronological order. 9/11 is the first event in the story of America's war on terror. The narrative builds from this point in sequence until Osama Bin Laden was killed in 2011. The physical content is also interesting. It is just a blank black screen as if it to suggest that the audio is so important that visuals were not needed for this portion of the film. . 

Another effect of the opening scene on the viewers is it sets up the film as almost documentary-esque. It brings in real emergency communications, not Hollywood script. The filmmakers would like to see this film as historical accurate, and this scene attempts to do that. Also, it frames the eventual idea that Zero Dark Thirty would become the average person's account and belief of what happened. The film wants to become a part of American historical culture.

Game week here.. A recap

Anyone who knows me well knows how big of a Notre Dame football fan I am. That means I consume essentially every piece of Notre Dame football media available between games. Between the various blogs and videos, I spend much free time on reliving and looking ahead to each weeks games.

This past week, Notre Dame hosted and beat Michigan State 17-13. Like most weeks WatchND, Notre Dame's official Youtube channel, posted a highlight video of the game.

The video above is clearly Notre Dame propaganda produced by the university. It serves a purpose to create a positive image of both the football team and its players.

For example TJ Jones' 2nd quarter TD catch, (beginning at the 2:09 mark) is replayed 4 different times. There are many reasons for doing this. Firstly, it was an important play in the game, the Irish's first touchdown of the game. Secondly, it was tremendous footwork by TJ to keep his feet in bounds. This is illustrated greatly in takes two through four as the camera angle changes to focus on the back of the end zone.

Another thing that is apparent while watching the video is who made it and who controls the narrative. Michigan State is shown making good or positive plays three times. All three times it was a single clip of the Spartan scoring play, two field goals and a touchdown.

A good play must be defined in order to discuss it. For my purpose, it means either a positive gaining passing or rushing on offense, a scoring play or return of either a punt or kick off of more than 20 yards, and either a negative play or forced turnover on defense. 

Besides the aforementioned three MSU scoring plays, every other play on the highlight video is a positive or good Notre Dame play. The plays that are shown multiple times are plays that the football program and video editors decided was especially important and notable. Plays shown more than once include a first down catch to the 2 yard line by Corey Robinson, a touchdown catch by TJ Jones, a 7 yard touchdown run by Cam McDaniel, and the game sealing first down run up the middle McDaniel late in the 4th quarter. 

By focusing solely on the Notre Dame plays, the Irish players are highlighted and focused on. The entire media clamor around Notre Dame football can certainly be a positive thing for the team especially in a format such as this video where the team holds the narrative. In recruiting, videos like these can be tools to help convince high school players to play at ND. Players get more exposure and notoriety from these highlight videos and a school like Notre Dame presents many opportunities like these to get your name and face out to the general public.

NBC also gets a lift from these videos. All footage that is used in the highlight reel is from NBC cameras and their logo is prominently featured throughout the film. As the main tv partner with Notre Dame, NBC telecasts all Notre Dame home games. Any advertising, especially cheap or even likely free advertising like this is certainly beneficially for them.

Notre Dame gets a lot out of these videos, but so do I. I had an easy access to replays of important plays of a game that I attended.

Go Irish! Beat Sooners!

A piece of me...

Every person has a unique identity. Each identity is molded and sculpted by a variety of different influences and experiences. Through their own identity, each person speaks in certain discourses. A prominent author, James Paul Gee, defines discourses as "a socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thing and acting that can be used to identify oneself."

Discourses changes the way people view the world. There are a number of discourses that I am a part of each day. Each of these mold who I am.

Among my discourses: (some of these even have subcategories)

-American
         -Southeastern
                  -Tennessee
                            -Bristol
-Male
-White
         -Polish, Scottish, English, Irish, etc.
-Catholic
-Student
         -University of Notre Dame
Fan
         -Basketball
         -Football
                  -Fantasy Football
-Golfer
         -Golf course architecture
-World Traveler



While many of the first mentioned discourse communities are arguably the most important, today I am going to break down and take a deeper look that is really special to me, golf.

Golf has been a hobby for me since I was a small child. I have been able to share this love with my dad my entire life. Spending this time with my dad has been incredible. Some of my dearest and most special memories have been on a golf course somewhere with my dad. In fact, the background of this very blog is my dad and me strolling along the fairway of one of the world's great golf courses. (A prize will be given to anyone who correctly guesses the name of the golf course)

(My dad and I when I was 5 teaching me to play at the Virginian)

The game of golf has taught me many valuable lessons that I take with me off the golf course that have helped shaped my identity. Golf is certainly a gentlemanly game, a game of high moral standing where each individual player must uphold the rules. It promotes integrity, responsibility and honesty. The golf course was one of the first places I had to practice the moral teachings that my parents gave me and continue to instill in me.

These ideals seem to be the universal code of parenting. They wanted to guide me and teach me so that I grew into a man of high character. I know I want to uphold these aforementioned qualities of honesty, integrity and responsibility.

As a high school golfer, I went through the worst drought I have every experienced in any athletic endeavor. My nine hole scoring average from sophomore year to junior went up six strokes. That is an astronomical change in score. It sucked. I couldn't understand it and neither could my coach. I was the brunt of jokes from other golf teammates. The entire season was a humiliating experience.

Through this bad stretch, I learned resilience and toughness. It taught me how to persevere through struggles in my life. It was also reaffirmed that hard work is rewarded. I had a much better and more enjoyable senior year. Golf in this sense has made me a tougher, stronger person.

(16th Hole-Cypress Point Club)

Golf is engrained in me, it has become a part of my identity. It is not just chasing a little white ball around a field. It has become the foundation of my character as a person in all walks of life, far off the golf course. But most of all, it is fun.

Twitter and why no one should care.

I have a twitter. I feel like that it is a fairly normal thing for people my age to have. I have had a small idea that the some of my tweets are absolutely meaningless, well at least that is what I thought, so I decided to take a closer look. Turns out that they are almost exclusively meaningless.

Since July 1st, I have tweeted (or re-tweeted) 176 times:

Of those 176:

42 were about football.
30 were me complaining, even though I have an amazing life.
22 were about golf.
22 were about soccer.
19 were conversations with my friends.
16 were on other miscellaneous topics (quotes, tv, music, etc.)
15 were about college life or attending Notre Dame.
8 were me being thankful or expressing happiness in my current mood.
2 were actually meaningful, seemingly thought out actually pensive true expressions of me that might be relevant to the outside world.

TWO. (One of those can be seen below)

OUT of 176. In case there is an online box score keeping track of my twitter batting average that means I am "hitting" a lowly .011. Exactly 1.13% of my tweets I termed meaningful. Roger Clemens, a now disgraced but former great pitcher, hit .173 in his entire major league career.

Meaningful can mean many different things for many different people. For the purpose of this discussion, I will tightly define meaningful for my use. To be deemed meaningful, my tweet has to have been original content, so no quotes. It also has to be personal to me, something that I think or believe in. So, not just a plain factual statement, there must be some personalization in the tweet. Finally, it must be at least marginally relevant to the outside world. From someone else's perspective, the tweet could be looked at as wise knowledge, a piece of advice or even just something to agree or disagree with.

Twitter was intentionally created for meaningless tid-bits. The 140 character limit discourages long, thought-provoking messages and instead focuses and promotes messages that are quick and shallow. These superficial messages have become part of the twitter culture. Rarely do people ever throw time and thoughts into their twitter, it has become increasingly discouraged.

Time to go inside the numbers of my twitter statistics.

I tend to tweet large barrages, especially of current events and sporting events that I am watching on TV.

These events have taken place since July 1st:

-PGA Championship
-Solheim Cup (this is the women's Ryder Cup)
-Notre Dame football's season began
-United States Men's Soccer team won the Gold Cup.
-I started college and began attending the University of Notre Dame
-I had multiple delays and cancellations in air travel, the wrath at which most of my whining was directed.


Another thing that is blatantly obvious in my Twitter feed is that I have no real actual problems. The whiny-ness, especially about missing flights, is all incredible petty and can exclusively be classified as 1st world problems. I never get into any true struggles of life. I don't tweet about gang violence or lack of food. I am blessed in my life; I do not have these most basic issues. I don't have to worry about drug wars or domestic disputes. Essentially, I should be smacked.

I also tweet about more or less about American life. However, I also tend to talk about white collar life; for example, golf is a white collar sport played by businessmen and upper class individuals across the country. It is the quintessential white collar game, a gentlemanly game of character and class. Soccer is also somewhat of a typical "white collar" game. The largest most recognized domestic league in the world is the Barclays Premier League in England. English are seen as distinguished and well refined from an American perspective, a white collar people.


The reality is that I probably am not going to change. I am perfectly content tweeting perfectly worthless blabber. If I enlighten or educate someone with my musings, that is great. If not, oh well. The people who "follow me" should know what to expect. I like what I post, there is no harm in it. Generally, the things that I post on twitter even amuse me.

A new beginning

I am Matt Bradley, I am a freshman at the University of Notre Dame. The Rock, The Warren and the JAC will be a blog that will be express my views and extremely biased opinions. Mostly it will be on a variety of subjects, especially the ones that I hold most dear: golf, football and basketball. Knowingly, I spend entirely too much time on the three aforementioned subjects and hope to pass a little of my knowledge, or if you will, craziness, on to you. I hope to enlighten or illustrate ideas or notions that have been ignored on these topics and bring them to light.

Enjoy!