One Tree Hill

One Tree Hill is probably my favorite show. I have been watching it since the first episode and it is now in season 7. The show started out focussing on two half brothers, Nathan and Lucas, through their high school years. Their relationship evolves from the two being heartless enemies to caring brothers. The basketball drama and all the relationships in the series create a very interesting drama show. After the first 4 seasons, the series skips ahead 4 years and shows the lives of all the characters after they have gone to college. Then in season 7 the series skips another year forward. In season 7 two of the main characters, Peyton and Lucas, left the show. Now the show focuses more on Nathan and the rest of the gang from high school who has now all returned to One Tree Hill. Even though 2 of the main characters are gone, it is still a great show. There are always new plot twists that keep the viewer guessing what will happen next. It has always kept me on my toes and kept me interested which is why I like this show so much.

commonplace paper problem

The problem with my paper is that I don't know where to start. I have a paragraph explaining the show Next by MTV and I'm not sure if I should start with this or if I should introduce my topic more first. I want to talk about how magazines and television degrade men and women and how people try to change themselves to be like those people they see. This can cause serious health issues.
Another problem I'm having is where to put Buffy back into my paper. I seem to base a lot of it on the show Next and I'm not sure where buffy fits into my paper anymore.

Commonplace Proposal

For my commonplace paper I am thinking about writing about how guys want the kind of girls that they see in magazines. They have this idea in their heads about the perfect girl, and they won't except anything less. Instead of guys liking a nice girl, they would rather lust after an unobtainable girl. Girls should not have to change their bodies to look like the girls in the magazines to get a guys attention. You see tv shows like MTV's Next, where a guy can look at a girl and simply say next, and another girl will come out for a date with him. This is degrading to women, because this is based purely on looks. If the guy would have stopped to have a conversation with the girl he may have found that she was very smart and had a great sense of humor. I want to relate this back to my analytical research paper by using supporting evidence from my episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Xander's lust for Buffy supports my thesis that guys want what they can't have and have an idea of the ideal woman that they want.

Non-Intigrated Quotes

Here's a paragraph from my paper:

The external sabotage of the relationship comes from other girls most of the time. Jealously is a major concept in high school relationships, and it has ruined many before they even get started. As stated in aggression and adaptation: the bright side to bad behavior, “social aggression among some girls may emerge as a function of increased feelings of competitiveness towards other girls-particularly for the attention of males- during the transition to heterosexual relationships in adolescence”(Hawley 160). Jealousy can also have a sort of “domino effect”; meaning that if one girl ruins a relationship between two other people, the girl in the relationship that was ruined will most likely want to seek revenge. “Their competitive strategies in this regard include the humiliation of other girls, the collection of boys who admire and worship them, and managing their image with others so as to be perceived as successful in the social realm” (163). This can be an endless cycle with no clear winner.

Problems with My Paper

One of the problems I'm having with my paper is just the introduction. Yesterday in class I came up with part of an introduction that said, "Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a great portrayal of the typical high school relationship. The episode, "When She Went Bad", shows the viewer, by using metaphors such as vampires, all the different kinds of tihngs that ruin high school relationships such as the one between Xander and Willow." I want to talk about internal and external conflicts in my paper but I'm not quite sure how to add that in to the introduction.

Another problem that I'm having is length. I'm not sure how to make my paper 7-8 pages long without repeating myself and adding irrelevant information. I think if I find another source and add it into my paper it might help a little bit with this issue. I haven't had much time to revise my paper yet, but once I work on it more I think most of my other problems will be solved.

Axe

This was the first Axe ad that I looked at. It shows a man and a woman on top of a wedding cake with several women trying to climb up to the top. The man is wearing the Axe and every other girl wants him even though he is married. This ad, I believe, is sending a negative message to the public. Although the point of the ad is to say that Axe will attract women, it is saying that no one is off limits. People could look at this the wrong way and be turned off by this ad. Married men should not be included like they are in this ad. I believe that in a way this could be promoting adultry because not only is the man married, but all the women that are climbing the wedding cake are in white dresses. This shows that they are also married. I believe this ad could turn off married men to the product because they do not want that kind of attention from girls other than their wives.



This is the next Axe add that I looked at. I believe this is a better ad than the first one that I looked at for this product. It uses the can of Axe and a story where they took a bunch of words out of it and wrapped them around the can. The words that they used to put up next to the can were names of many different girls. By wrapping the names around teh can of Axe they are associating all of them with the can of Axe. It's saying that if you use the product all of those girls would be attracted to you. The names being wrapped around the can represents all of the girls being "wrapped around your finger", as the saying goes. This could be saying that girls would do anything for a guy wearing Axe. This is a good add because it uses this picture and incorporates the words with it.

The World's Greatest

The song The World's Greatest, by R Kelly, is probably one of my favorite songs. I had never even heard the song before about April of this past year, but once I heard it once, I was hooked. Seeing as I was about to graduate at this time, it really seemed to apply to my life. With lyrics like, "Im that star up in the sky, I'm that mountain peak up high, Hey I made it, I'm the world's greatest" it really seemed to be about my life. Graduating from high school is a big accomplishment and a huge step in life. The song also applies to the next step that we take in life, whether its college, the armed forces, or starting in the work force, the lyrics, "I'm that little bit of hope, when my back's against the ropes" are very motivational. I think that these lyrics apply to the people that you have in your life. They can give you hope and strength when you're going through hard times, like adjusting to something brand new, like college. I can really relate to this song because I am going through a new experience like this. I'm in a brand new place, with all new people and I'm trying to adjust to everything. This song makes me remember that when I'm going through hard times I can't give up and that people are always there to help me through those times.