Anonymous-The Final Stop on the Search for Cool

When the subversion of the government is entangled with the question of coolness, cool becomes entangled in a debate of methods and results. In Fight Club, the actions of Project Mayhem are not very cool. Instead, the true coolness comes from the interactions between the narrator and Tyler Durden. A real-life organization that attempts to achieve goals through chaotic means is Earth First!. Earth First! is an environmentally friendly group that wishes to preserve the environment at any cost. Although one of their principal beliefs is non-violence, they have absolutely no problem disrupting the progress of businesses and governments in order to stop the destruction of the environment. Additionally, there is an offshoot group of Earth First! known as the Earth Liberation Front. The people in the ELF take their quest even further, using ecotage to destroy anything they see as a possible hinderence to their cause(please watch this). Unfortunately for Earth First!, most people do not buy into their message of environmental protection because of the strange nature of its members. Because they are so extreme, their members are not made up of normal people. Instead, the group tends to be populated with all kinds of strange folk.

A group that is on the opposite end of the spectrum of groups that attempt social change is Anonymous. This group, originating from web sites such as 4chan, is made up of a group of nameless and faceless computer users who attempt social change at their own unpredictable whim. Although there have been protests in the real world, the primary methods that Anonymous uses are virtual attacks. A very popular form of this kind of attack is a DDoS attack, which prevents people from visiting the attacked Internet site. One particular group that Anonymous attempts to disrupt on a regular basis is the Church of Scientology. Their biggest assault on Scientology came with Project Chanology, the primary goal of which was to protest Scientology with live protests, DDoS attacks, and by spreading information to people. However, not all of Anonymous's attacks come about for legitimate reasons. They have also been credited with causing a great deal of chaos on the Internet for no particular reason. When digging into the sites that house Anonymous, only one semi-true answer can be found: They did it because they thought it would be funny.

Overall, coolness has been found just about everywhere. However, coolness itself seems to be very subjective, and the question of whether or not anything is cool is a matter of perspective. For example, members of Earth First! are probably much more likely to think that the Earth Liberation Front is cool than most normal members of society. Cool is definitely an abstract concept that everyone has a unique opinion on, but by tracking the views of what groups of people think is cool over time, we can come to realize that our own perceptions of coolness were influenced by the past. Ultimately, our average ideas on what is cool and what is uncool will change over time, and our little search for cool will have its little place as cool continues to change throughout the distant future.

The Meaning Behind Violence

Fight Club provides a very interesting movie experience. Throughout the entire film, men are beaten, bruised and bloodied as they fight each other to the point of needing hospitalization. However, there is more to the fighting in Fight Club than sheer violence. Unlike Reservoir Dogs, where violence was excessive and unnecessary, the violence in Fight Club is a direct result of the repressed emotions of the fighters. For example, the main character has been forced into a cookie cutter life where he is only a cog in the corporate machine. The most expression that he has is his furniture, but even then, his furniture is also a product of the corporate world that he cannot escape. Because he feels he cannot escape from his problems, the main character and the imaginary personality Tyler Durden create a fight club. The fight club is a place where oppressed men can release their true emotions through fighting. In coming closer to death, men can feel more human than they ever could by remaining white collar workers. At first, the heavy fighting of the men is nothing more than an emotional outlet, but as time goes on, it starts to devolve into a kind of sinister insanity aimed at destroying the corporate world. However, whether its part of emotional expression or insane subversion, the violence in Fight Club is necessary to truly see the motivations behind the characters. Through their illegal acts, viewers of the movie can feel what the fighters feel and think. This kind of connection makes the ending of Fight Club extremely intense, as the main character's actions are both seen and felt.

Another aspect of Fight Club that is important is the way that it targets the corporate world. In the view of the main character, corporations are the most horrible thing that has happened to the world. He believes that the best way for humanity to proceed is to abandon our reliance on modern life and simply return to a state of primal harmony. Although the methods of the main character are quite clear, I must question the reasons for why he wishes to destroy the modern world. It is true that living as a white collar employee has done a large amount of damage to the main character's emotional state. Because he is treated like a small part of the corporate machine, he has no individuality, making him feel entirely alone and unnecessary. These feelings of worthlessness is what prompted his mind to create Tyler Durden. Although the creation of a fight club as an emotional release is a rational decision, the main character's descent into corporate subversion is not. Corporations do indeed make people into cold machine slaves that toil to maintain the modern world. However, by destroying the order of the modern world, the main character simply makes white collar workers slaves to his decisions. Another more rational decision for the main character to make (although it would have made a very boring movie) would have been to escape the city world and move into a more rural part of the country. By leaving, he would have been able to live a life of perfect nonconformity. Luckily, the film follows a path that allows us to see both Tyler Durden and the insanity of the main character, making Fight Club a truly excellent movie.

So What if he Can't Draw, it's Still Cool!

Reservoir Dogs brings with it the concept of cool literacy. While being able to read is an almost certain thing within our society, I feel literacy has moved beyond its basic definition to simply mean that being literate is having an understanding beyond the aesthetic in multiple areas while being able to see the connections behind those areas. For example, a mechanic may know the intricacies behind how a car engine works, but without knowledge of other diverse subjects like science, literature, and politics, he would have a low literacy level. In Reservoir Dogs, the main characters all know the way that crime works. In addition, in scenes that are spliced throughout the film, we see the characters talking about various other subjects like pop culture that add depth to their personalities. For viewers of the film, a certain level of literacy is required to understand the film beyond the seemingly random conversations and violence. Having the ability to see the cultural understandings that the characters make through their conversations makes the film much more powerful, especially in terms of the betrayal and Mr. Orange. The betrayal goes from an undercover cop performing his duty to a scene of a friend completely destroying his relationships and condemning his friends to death.

Literacy is cool for a very simple reason. Without literacy, only aesthetic observations can be made about things, meaning that content that would otherwise be known is lost through the fog of illiteracy. XKCD requires at least some literacy in order for it to be funny. The comic strip, in the words of the creator, is "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language." Because XKCD assumes the literacy of the reader, it can make jokes about anything including current politcial news, pop culture trends, and even math. Because the comic strip transcends all areas of knowledge, it becomes funnier with the more things that the reader knows. For example, before becoming versed in technological jargon, this strip would be meaningless. However, when it is known that sudo is a command in Linux operating systems that forces the computer to do something regardless of the circumstances, then the strip becomes a quick laugh about Linux. Overall, I highly recommend XKCD to anyone who can read English and has at least a little bit of literacy. It is a very fun experiance.

Unfortunately, a lack of literacy amongst most people has caused our entertainment to decline in recent years. Although we have not slipped back into the practice of bear baiting, our entertainment is growing considerably more vulgar as a result of a lack of literacy. One example of this is the cartoon Family Guy. While Family Guy does have some funny moments, it is plagued by a type of humor that is characteristic of the rising vulgar movement. However, even though vulgarity is on the rise, there has also been an increase in literate entertainment. The Discovery Channel boasts many programs designed to entertain and educate the audience. Shows like MythBusters, How It's Made, and multiple specials on everything from science, art, and history are far from vulgar, but they can retain their quality as good television shows. My hypothesis to why there is both a rise in vulgar and literate entertainment is the diversity of entertainment sources. Because of cable television and the Internet, anything that a person wants to watch is available. Therefor, because the source is unlimited, it is ultimately up to people to make the decision to whether or not they wish to have literacy co-mingling with their entertainment.

Cool and Uncool, Brought to you by 8-tracks!

Here are a few pairings of things that are cool and things that are not.
Cool/Uncool
Stephen Colbert/Larry King
Facebook/E-Mail
Moderates/Extremists
Marijuana/Tobacco
Soldiers/The Army
Metal/Emo
Wikipedia/Encyclopedia
President Obama/Speaker Pelosi
Christian/"Hardcore" Christian
Evolution/Intelligent Design
Internet/Computing
Socialized Medicine/Socialism
IHop/Waffle House
Hacking/Network Security
Pirating/Buying
Star Wars/Star Trek
Spending/Saving
Gay Marriage/Gay Sex
Fluent Spanish/Mandatory Spanish
Promiscuity/Male Virginity
Contraceptives/Unplanned Pregnancy
Windows XP/Windows Vista
Linux/Windows and Mac
Cassettes/.mp3
World of Warcraft/Dungeons and Dragons
Indifference/Obsession
Retirement/Work
Pride/Humility
Relaxation/Ambition
Power/Submission

This list of cool and uncool things shows something about the state of coolness in America. Much has remained unchanged for coolness in the past few decades in the realm of cool. Extreme socialists and hyper-conservatives are still uncool in politics, however, despite a distaste for socialism, people want the government to provide health care as a universal service. In addition, having sex with multiple partners is considered cool while boys who are virgins past the age of 16 are uncool. Power has maintained itself as a necessity for cool, but this power is especially cool when it allows a person to delegate tasks while relaxing on a boat. However, there have been some changes in coolness that are mostly due to the education process. For example, while having a lot of sex is cool, unprotected sex has become uncool. This is a result of increased education over sexually transmitted diseases and sexual education in general (except for abstinence programs). After seeing videos of men and women with herpes, unprotected sex suddenly becomes much less cool. Another aspect of coolness that has changed because of education is the acceptance of evolution as a valid idea. As more school children learn of evolution, they begin to shun the idea of intelligent design as wrong. Regardless of the actual truth behind the past (which is hard to uncover without one of these), evolution will continue to be cool as long as it is taught as correct.

One part of cool that will always change but be cool in the same way is new technology. Ever since the widespread use of new technologies past World War II, every piece of new meaningful technology has been adopted as the coolest thing to have for that time. The easiest way to see this is the evolution of musical storage and playing devices. Records and record players were around for long enough to simply be considered a static presence in the method of listening to music. However, with the introduction of the cassette tape, people began to get rid of records and replace them with the newer, smaller format. With a cassette deck in a car or a boom box on a shoulder, people could listen to music while traveling around. This trend continued further with the introduction of the Compact Disk (CD), and in recent years, CDs are being replaced with portable media devices capable of storing entire discographies and hours of videos while being smaller than a CD case. Ultimately, new technologies are cool because they offer a greater capacity for more fun and less work. E-Mail was very cool in the 90's because it offered a quicker way to send information than with a phone call or letter, but Facebook is now cooler than E-Mail because Facebook allows people to communicate socially with even less effort than E-Mail. As we roll into the 2010's, our current technologies will be swept into the realm of uncoolness as newer technologies give replace them as material representations of coolness.

Its Really About Determination

Although the documentary Paris Is Burning is about the struggles of transvestites in the late '80s, I believe that the coolness that is generated by the characters in the movie is truly a result of both their struggles to remove themselves from poverty and to be accepted by mainstream society. Like I said in my last blog post, people like Willi Ninja are cool because they use their own skill and determination to make their lives better. Because coolness can be directly generated by working hard to achieve a good goal, these people are cool. One movie where this kind of effort is seen is Pursuit of Happyness. In this film, Chris Gardner is a poor man who spends his family's life savings on bone-density scanners in an attempt to sell them and turn a profit, but because the scanners are not in high demand, his family is brought into poverty from the resulting debt. The financial stress that this brings leads Chris's wife to leave him, leaving him to raise his son by himself. Soon, without a source of income, Chris and his son find themselves to be homeless, but they are not without hope. By a stroke of luck, Chris makes it into an internship at a stockbroker firm. Throughout six months, he balances homelessness, daycare for his son, and his unpaid internship in order to get a better life for him and his son. At the end of the film, Chris finally finishes his internship, and as a result, he is finally able to provide from him and his son. This kind of determination and effort makes Chris Gardner a very cool person. Although Chris is also black, his ethnicity has nothing to do with his coolness. Instead, his coolness comes from him working hard and achieving against all odds to make him and his son rise out of poverty. It is this kind of tenacity at working at a just goal that can make someone cool.
Another aspect of the transvestites' coolness (although not as cool as those who were attempting to work out of poverty) is the fight to become more accepted in society. Throughout history, both black and homosexual people have been outside of the mainstream white culture. However, the fight to become accepted as equals is also a fight that gives these two groups coolness. One film where acceptance is prominently featured is Blazing Saddles. In this movie, Bart, a black man who becomes sheriff of an Old West town, struggles to become accepted by the town, as most of the townspeople would rather just hang Bart than have to deal with having a black sheriff. However, over time, he is able to win the townspeople's trust as sheriff. In a way, the coolness that comes from overcoming racial injustices is the same kind of coolness that is generated from overcoming poverty. In both cases, people use hard work to overcome horrible problems to reach a much better state in life. Ultimately, the kind of coolness that is shown in these three movies can be broken down into a simple formula: Coolness can be made by determinately working hard at improving the life of the self or of others.

Groups of People are not Cool

Although there are a few cool people within Paris is Burning, no one is cool because they belong to a society of people. Homosexuals and African Americans are not cool because of their sexual identity or their ethnic heritage. Although both of these groups have been historically oppressed by the white mainstream, they do not become cool simply because they are oppressed. I do not mean to say that the oppression of any people by another is right, but an oppressed group is not cool simply because they are oppressed. Take the example of Pepper LaBeija. Although LaBeija is both gay and black, he is not cool for either of these qualities. The coolness that comes from LaBeija is generated by his power and strong motherly qualities. By controlling the House of LaBeija, he is in command of a large group of baller queens. Additionally, he uses this power to spread his help amongst his daughters in the House. Whenever one of his daughters needs advice on anything from clothes to dancing to life related issues, LaBeija is there to provide help. Another person from the film that is cool because of factors other than race and gender was Willi Ninja. Ninja's coolness had nothing to do with him being either black or gay. Instead, Ninja's coolness came from his path in life. He started out as a very poor man. However, through hard work and determination, he took his personalized version of vogue dancing to the mainstream. Before he died in 2006, he had even made television appearances and owned a modeling agency. The way that he rose from poverty and became a wealthy and well-respected man is what made him cool-not being gay and black.

Documentaries themselves are not very cool. Although the people within documentaries may be a little cool for their own personal achievements, documentaries and the people who make them are generally considered to be very uncool and boring. The reason for this is the lack of entertainment in documentaries. Movies that are cool like Star Wars, Terminator, and Casablanca would not be cool if we came out of the movie theater thinking, "Wow, that movie was boring." However, documentaries are not without merit entirely. Through using investigative techniques, important issues can be explored and introduced to the public through the easy to digest medium of film. Unfortunately, the boring nature of these films often means that people are not willing to see them because the primary reason to go to a movie theater is to be entertained. As a result, people who make documentaries are often either completely ignored or looked upon as uncool. For example, Michael Moore is not a cool person. Even though he is well known for his work in making documentaries, he is not cool because he does not have the kinds of determination that we consider to be cool as a society. Willi Ninja is cool for rising out of poverty and becoming a successful person through his own sheer will and determination. Michael Moore is simply a documentary maker who is arrogant enough to feature himself in his own films, and there is no way a combination of arrogance and documentaries is cool at all.

Action Coolness

Although the topic for this week is cool satire, part of the coolness that is generated by RoboCop is the action that permeates the film. Although the satire definitely delivers a compelling message, action is an exclusive part of RoboCop that is cool regardless of a person's ability to understand the satire that is in the movie. Scenes of explosions, gunfire and car chases are cool because they allow the viewer to experience a world of excitement and danger from the safety of a movie theater seat. RoboCop is designed as a great action film. By discarding the normal conventions of science and technology, machines like RoboCop and Ed can battle each other with maximum explosive power. If this scene was to be reproduced in real life with a viewer of RoboCop as a participant, the viewer would most likely be scared and run away in horror. However, because of the safe barrier of fiction, any viewer who suspends a little bit of disbelief can revel in the exiting scene.

One film that masters the art of the action film is Terminator 2: Judgment Day. In this film, the shape shifting robot T-1000 is attempting to kill John Connor. In order to save his life, another terminator and John's mother flee from the T-1000, but upon realizing that it needs to be stopped, they arm themselves to the teeth and destroy it in a blaze of fire. The coolness from this movie is generated through the sheer amount of action that is present throughout the film. For example, in one scene, John Connor and his terminator guardian free his mother and narrowly escape from the steely death of the T-1000. Although the evil machine is very powerful, the three heroes are able to escape when the T-800, John's protector, uses his body as a shield against bullets. In a very similar way to how RoboCop and all action movies entertain us, the coolness of action films is generated by incredibly exciting scenes that would be horribly frightening in real life. I can guarantee that if most people saw a real T-1000 advancing with quasi mercuric limbs shaped as knives, then they would cower in absolute fear instead of handling the situation in an exciting manner. Another aspect of Terminator 2 that is also mirrored in RoboCop is the use of special effects. Although special effects are nowhere near our current level of computer-generated special effects, the use of explosions and robots in both films adds to the coolness of the action. Without special effects, the action becomes closer to real life, and as a result, the movie becomes less exciting and cool.

Ultimately, action films serve as more of an escape than anything else. By presenting us with incredible scenes of action that would normally strike fear into our hearts, we are able to enjoy the excitement and thrills that can never enter our own lives without also introducing tragedy. Without action, our lives would be horribly boring. Because we are able to sit back and experience the kinds of excitement that we can never have in our real lives, action movies are definitely cool.

We Interrupt this Blog to bring you...

Although the movie RoboCop is filled with an extreme amount of satire from beginning to end, the commercials and news breaks that occasionally occur throughout the film are the most concentrated source of commentary on our society. The news break itself is definitely a foreshadowing to 24 hour news dominating America as our primary source of news. In the short news breaks in RoboCop, significant information is quickly spewed out at viewers for a quick burst of information, and it is usually paired with an irrelevant but entertaining news piece to balance it out. For example, in the start of the film, the news break starts out by showing a rebel insurgency in Acapulco, but a humorous piece on the president floating in space quickly follows it. RoboCop's portrayal of the news has come to pass in recent years. A great example of this is the coverage of the death of Anna Nicole Smith in 2007. Another important element of the news clips is how the manner in which the anchors speak. Showing absolutely no empathy in their voices, they report the deaths of hundreds of people in nearly the same way as they talk about RoboCop visiting school children.

In the middle of news breaks, commercials advertising the futuristic products of RoboCop's Detroit are the norm. Verhoeven packs more concentrated satire into these commercials than anywhere else in the film. Each one stands alone to provide a look into the things that are wrong with America. The most powerful commercial throughout RoboCop is the commercial for a new line of artificial hearts. On the surface, the technology of artificial hearts is a noble endeavor that could save countless numbers of people. Unfortunately, in both RoboCop and the real world, research for artificial hearts is driven by the desire for profit. In the dystopia of RoboCop, the capitalistic market for artificial hearts is incredibly similar to the market for buying automobiles. Hearts are produced by a number of different companies, and with a little extra cash, the heart can be covered by an extended warranty in case it happens to fail. The selling of artificial hearts for profit creates an interesting conundrum. In a society where medicine and by extension artificial implants are not driven by profit, then the primary drive defaults to saving lives. In a system driven by profit, the companies that own the technology to produce artificial hearts can charge whatever price will generate the most profit. In essence, it requires money to purchase the ability to live and even more money to guarantee it with a warranty. Ultimately, the heart commercial is a warning against pure capitalism. In a world driven by profit, only those with money can survive.

World of Escapism

World of Warcraft has become a gaming phenomenon that has captured an audience approximately the size of Ohio. With so many followers, it has become a part of our culture, but how did this video game sneak into the hard disk of so many Americans? The primary culprit is the game's use as an escape from real life. While playing World of Warcraft, users suspend disbelief as they are whisked away into the magical world of Azeroth. Inside this world of fantasy, players act as elves, dwarves, orcs, and even humans to slay dragons, find treasure, and protect the kingdom. However, just as in the similar world that is associated with the Lord of the Rings, players must bind together with their allies to accomplish amazing feats of valor.

The entire experiance of World of Warcraft is very fun. However, because the world is a game, a set of rules govern it just as the real world is governed by rules. For example, just as we must save thousands of dollars to buy a new car, players must save gold coins in order to buy a horse. Because the game is carefully constructed to allow players enough freedoms to have fun while having enough restrictions to make the world at least partially mimic the way the real world works, many people slip into Azeroth as a way to escape from their normal lives. In Saturday Night Fever, Tony slips away from his mundane life by disco dancing to his heart's content on Saturday night. In a very similar manner, World of Warcraft players play the game in order to leave their regular lives behind. For most players, their normal lives are nowhere near as interesting as a life of using ancient magic and enchanted weapons to slay horrible beasts. At its core, disco dancing and World of Warcraft do almost the same thing for people; they both provide a setting where all participants are living a much better life filled with fun.

Although Tony definitely used disco as an escape from his life, he was willing to admit that disco could not completely replace his normal life. Unfortunately, many players of World of Warcraft let their playing experience turn into an addiction. At this level of escape, the real world ceases to be important as Azeroth becomes the only thing that the player cares about. Regardless of the source of escape, completely running away from the real world is a horrible thing. Although escape such as disco dancing and World of Warcraft may not be directly harmful to the person engaging in these activities, when a person's life becomes consumed by these things, the people that are close to that person can become hurt. Whenever a person becomes so engaged in escaping from the trials and tribulations of real life that he begins to neglect his responsibilities to others, then legal and safe forms of escape become just as dangerous as drugs and alcohol. Although everyone needs to have an occasional escape from real life to unwind and relax, a complete escape is a horrible thing that should be avoided at all costs.

Why I like Star Trek

I have always been infatuated with Star Trek ever since I was a child. However, throughout both my childhood and my experiences in college, I have found that most people frown upon Star Trek as a horrible television show that symbolizes the idea of a 35 year old virgin living at his parent's house while fantasizing about having sex with Uhura. Although there are definitely some Trekkies who fit this stereotype, Star Trek and the culture that surrounds it is not how most people perceive it to be.

Star Trek itself fills a spot in the mind that is completely vacant in the current world of realism in television. At its core, Star Trek is a completely fictional universe. Created completely from imagination, the universe of Star Trek does not follow the normal constraints of our real universe. Within the outer space ream of the Enterprise, travel to distant alien worlds and interaction with the inhabitants there provides stimulation to the minds of the viewers. Even though the personalities of the aliens are often simple and one-dimensional, the strange and exotic nature of these aliens can provoke imagination. Another aspect of the show itself that is unique to Star Trek and its lesser known cousins is futuristic technology. While some advances in technology that are presented in Star Trek are based on real science and engineering to some degree, other technologies are completely based on fiction. However, regardless of an origin of either science or imagination, the technology in Star Trek is very fantastic and can provide hope for the future in a world filled with inefficient technologies like coal-fired power plants, internal combustion engines, and Windows.

The culture that surrounds Star Trek is not quite as bad as its portrayal by most people. For the majority of people who like the television show, it is nothing more than an entertaining television show that is much more imaginative than most television. Unfortunately, Star Trek and its fans have gained a bad reputation because of the few fans who have taken their love of Star Trek too far. Instead of simply enjoying a television program and delving into the fantasy of the future only occasionally, some Trekkies become so infatuated with Star Trek that their lives are consumed by it. While Star Trek can be a very entertaining show that is can provoke the imagination, an entire life dominated by Star Trek is definitely uncool.

Being completely consumed by a pop culture genre is never cool. This holds true for groups of people other than Trekkies as well. For example, Tony in Saturday Night Fever is uncool for his complete obsession with disco. Although he is cool at first for his extreme skill at dancing, the dance floor completely dominates his life. Because he is inept at all other areas of life, he will always be a complete failure outside of nightclubs. If Tony had the ability to do reach outside of his closed life and make something of himself, he would have been a very cool person, but because his only skill is dancing, he is doomed to only be cool amongst his fellow dancers in the same way that extreme Trekkies are only cool amongst fellow Trekkies. Ultimately, although the average Star Trek fan or disco dancer may simply enjoy a cool slice of pop culture, the few extreme members of a group can turn a cool idea into a horribly square pastime.

What Makes Minorities Cool?

After watching Shaft, I have been trying to figure out whether or not minorities have some kind of innate coolness that exists simply because they are minorities. Take the example of John Shaft. His coolness comes primarily from the way he has to overcome great obstacles to protect the innocent people of Harlem. Because he is an African American man, he must overcome racial boundaries in addition to his struggles for justice. From this, it can be deduced that the effect of being a minority on Shaft is that it increases the difficulty of his primary struggles, and because he overcomes these harder struggles, he is slightly cooler than he would be if he was white.

Another minority that is cool is the Russian cosmonaut Lev Andropov from the movie Armageddon. When the space shuttle crews meet the cosmonaut on board the Russian space station, he is very eccentric from living alone for months with little contact with other humans. As a result of a lack of interest in space travel in recent years, Lev believes that he will be in the shadow of the heroes that are flying to take out the asteroid. However, when his space station explodes due to an accident, Lev must act to save the astronauts. From this point forward, Lev performs heroic acts selflessly to help the astronauts destroy the asteroid. Lev's Russian heritage also helps to amplify his coolness. Because he is not American, he must overcome the cultural barrier that exists between him and the astronauts. This increases the amount of work that is required for Lev to reach his goals, and because these goals are reached, he is cooler as a result.

As a general case, minority coolness is not generated as a direct result of being a minority. In all cases where a minority is cool, the ethnicity of the cool person is simply another obstacle that the person must overcome. In effect, the only cool minorities are the minorities who transcend their ethnicity in order to reach an ultimate goal which is independent of their original minority. A few more examples of this are T E Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, Bruce Lee and his promotion of Jeet Kune Do, and Dr. Foreman from House.

Minority coolness is opposed by sheer minority stereotyping. When done tastefully, stereotypes can be explored through satire to produce comedic effect. However, when done without taste, there is nothing more uncool than stereotyping. A perfect example of uncool minorities is the movie Soul Plane. When characters act in a way that does nothing more than promoting generalizations about a race, there is no way that the character can be cool. However, when minority characters overcome racial differences and fight for a good cause, they truly become cool.

Why Shaft is Cool

Shaft is cool. I wish I could leave my analysis of Shaft at that, but I must delve deeper.

Throughout Shaft, I kept questioning whether or not minorities have some kind of inherent coolness. In comparison to the majority race of white people, do the minority races have some underlying trait that causes their coolness to be multiplied? In the case of John Shaft, coolness is not generated through his race. It is instead generated by his kindness, sense of justice, and his dominance in every situation. Although he is equally harsh to both his associates and his enemies, he shows an incredible sense of kindness to the innocent citizens of Harlem. When traveling the streets, he kindly converses with both white and black people equally, and he openly gives away his money to help people out. For example, when a small child is cold and hungry on a doorstep, Shaft gives him money to buy a hot meal. His sense of justice is intertwined with his sense of kindness. Shaft acts kind only towards people who are innocent. When dealing with his allies in both the police department and the black liberation movement, he treats them nearly the same way that he treats his enemies. He does this because every member of these groups has done some wrong in trying to achieve their goals. This is why Shaft still talks Bumpy with a strong, insulting voice when he sincerely wants his daughter back; Bumpy does not have any innocence, so Shaft treats him harshly regardless of his intentions.
Another component of Shaft's coolness is his dominance. Throughout the entire movie, there is rarely a time when Shaft does not have control of the situation. From the start of the film, Shaft disregards traffic lights as he strolls across busy streets while oncoming cars are forced to stop for him. Additionally, he treats authoritative figures like Bumpy and the police as if they were subordinate to Shaft's will. The coolness that originates from his dominance is tied to the general concept of power being cool. Without power, a person's will is subject to the whims of superiors. It is nearly impossible to be cool while still being subordinated to other people. As long as freedom in personal choice is nonexistent, then all choices, regardless of their intentions, are bound by the rules of superiors. With enough power to have complete control over personal choices, coolness cannot be bounded by rules. Ultimately, this freedom of choice is an almost necessary component of cool, and Shaft, with his complete dominance over every situation, definitely has the power to project his kindness and justice enough to be an incredibly cool jive-talking cat.

Drugs...cool or not?

Throughout Easy Rider, Captain America and Billy constantly use drugs. The pair of Captain America and Billy is cool, but I believe that their drug use has little to do with their coolness. Furthermore, their use of LSD near the end of the film definitely detracts from their coolness. When they enter their acid trip, Captain America and Billy become completely imprisoned in a world of hallucinations which, instead of freeing their minds, strips them of their American freedom. Because their coolness originates from this freedom, and because acid causes their freedom to fade, LSD is definitely not cool.

Drug use for anyone is not cool. In most stories, any character that uses drugs is portrayed with a shade of uncoolness because of their drug use. For example, Dr. House in the television show House is horribly addicted to vicodin, a prescription painkiller. Even though he has the opportunity to take physical therapy in order to mitigate his pain and perhaps even back off of the vicodin, he is too attached to his drug to leave it. This ultimately leads to a lessening of House's coolness when he is brought before a trial for his drug use. During this trial, his friends are forced to risk their careers in order to falsely clear his name. The amount of pain that his addiction causes for his friends leads to a lessening of his coolness. If he had instead went through rehab and suffered through attaining a drug-free life, he would have been a much cooler person as a result.

A unique case where drug use is portrayed as cool is the movie Drunken Master. In this film, an old drunkard is a kung fu master who relies on being constantly being drunk in order to perform amazing martial arts feats. Throughout the film, he trains a young Jackie Chan into taking his place as a new drunken master. Eventually, the student slips into alcoholism, and combined with rigorous training, he surpasses his master in the art of fighting. However, even though the old drunken master and Jackie Chan are both require alcohol to fight, their coolness is a result of their fighting skills. Even though their alcoholism is cool, it is only a small shard of their overall coolness. However, in most cases, drug use of any kind is not cool. Drugs only separate people from the true coolness that lies at the heart of their personalities.

American Freedom: Cool

Easy Rider was definitely a cool film. However, I would argue that Dennis Hopper's character Billy was much cooler than Peter Fonda's character Captain America. Captain America lacked coolness because of his constant striving to reach an ideal. He did not see the real life in front of him. Instead, he was striving to reach the same kind of life that the farmer and the commune were trying to achieve. Also, instead of taking advantage of the commune's offer to join them, Captain America decided to leave the commune to continue his search. Ultimately, his lack of coolness stems from him not seeing what he really wants. When he descends into New Orleans, he is furthest away from the life he wants. Nevertheless, he decides to use acid at an absolutely horrible time in a continuation of his search. This is what leads to his bad trip-instead of using it in good company at the commune, he uses acid in the synthetic happiness of Mardis Gras with bought friends. Captain America himself proves that his path for truth is wrought with failure when he says "We blew it".

Conversely from Captain America, Billy was a very cool person. Throughout the film, he only wants three things: drugs, money, and freedom. Normally, I do not find people who are entrenched in drugs and money to be very cool. However, Billy has an almost transcendental quality about him. Instead of reveling in decadence, Billy just wants to enjoy life as much as possible, and because he sees the conventional ways of living in America as a roadblock to happiness, he simply chooses to live in his own way. Furthermore, although Billy has the mainstream want to retire in Florida and relax for the rest of his life, he is still retaining his transcendental qualities. Just because his goals and the goals of mainstream America interact, he sees no need to change his ways to match some goal of nonconformance.

Regardless of the coolness of Captain America and Billy, the absolute coolest idea in the movie is the road trip across America. The road trip symbolizes the epitome of freedom in America-the ability to travel anywhere in the country without being impeded by laws or traditions. In a way, this is a continuation of people traveling west to live in the lawless frontier. No matter when the time, the idea of being able to live without rules will always be cool.

This is the movie you should show instead. Seriously.

When I first started watching Blowup, I could not help but think of the Austin Powers movie series. Honestly, during the uselessly long stretches of Blowup where nothing happened, I was sitting on the couch reminiscing about Austin Powers. Strangely enough, there are many parallels between the two films. The first thing I noticed was the photography that's present in both films. Austin and Thomas both follow similar patterns when photographing things that they find to be good. However, while Thomas uses photography in an attempt to find some kind of greater truth, Austin uses it both a fun escape from his espionage filled life and as a tool while spying on Dr. Evil. Another great similarity between the two men is their sexuality. Austin and Thomas use their sexual appeal to have sex with many different partners. This is definitely a stereotypical characteristic of 60's coolness for both men. By having a life filled with unprotected sex with multiple non-committing partners, both Austin and Thomas are able to easily fit into the mold of coolness for the 60's.
Although there are definitely many similarities between Austin and Thomas, I do not believe that Thomas is a cool person. Ultimately, this is because the underlying qualities that fill the two men are different. Austin a very joyous and carefree person that stands up for just ideals, and although he wants to maximize the amount of sex he can get in life, he ultimately cares about people and does not want them to come to harm. Thomas does not come close to this way of life. He cares only about his photography, and he only wants to get better and more intense photographs in an attempt to find the truth that he is searching for. Additionally, he wants to control the people that come into his life to fit his ways. For example, when the two girls come in wanting to be photographed, Thomas uses their innocent desire to take advantage of them and practically rape them with no remorse. This attitude towards life is not cool in any way, and because of it, Blowup shows viewers a gilded view of the 60's: While we normally see the 60's portrayed as the carefree and sexually fun times that we see in the Austin Powers series, there is also a core of lead that is made up by the much more serious and questionable actions that take place in Blowup.

Presidential Coolness

The place in space-time that exemplifies my generation's aspirations to coolness is Washington D.C. on January 20, 2009. With the election of President Obama, our entire generation has gained not only hope, but we have also proven that we have the capability to actually make changes if we dedicate ourselves enough to a cause. I would argue that our generation, in contrast to the generations of the past, holds the ability to forge the country to fit our ideas of morality and proper policy as a cool ideal. The previous generation believed in using anarchy and subterfuge to slip through governmental oppression. This ideal of coolness was succeeded by my generation' s idea of working towards changing the government itself so that there is no need to walk around the laws.
The reason that I lock my generation's location of coolness on inauguration day in Washington is because that day is the vertex of our feelings for change. From that day forward, the momentum of change will inevitably loose steam as information about President Obama and his administration is filtered through the corrupting factor of 24-hour cable news. However, there is little that can be done to change the idealistic day of the president's inauguration. Even though there was no real policy change made on January 20, the change in administration serves as an idealistic point for my generation to look to for political coolness.
Aside from this single point of coolness, which only covers a single shade of my generation's coolness, I cannot find a single place that fits my generation like London fit the 1960's. I believe that this may be a result of the merging of Western culture through the medium of the internet. The mass linkage of all information has made the transmission of cool almost instantaneous, making something that originates in New York lose its origins as soon as it is posted on the net. In a way, this has caused the internet itself to become a place for my generation to look to coolness. Web sites like Youtube and 4chan* are used by people to get their ideas of coolness to the entire world at once. Almost simultaneously, Facebook and MySpace allow people to discuss and send people to view the cool things that are found in other parts of the internet. In essence, this creates a quantifiable sense of coolness: More views equals more cool.

Love does not Necessitate Coolness

While I found the movie Jules and Jim to be completely devoid of coolness, I have found that love is often accompanied by coolness. Love itself is not cool. While it is a wonderful and beautiful thing, love does not necessarily have to be cool. By itself, love may lack the qualities of coolness. For example, in Jules and Jim, Jules is deeply in love with Catherine. However, he is not cool because he lacks any intelligence in dealing with Catherine. Although his love is deep, he does not have the sense to leave Catherine despite her constant affairs with other men. Because of this, he is not a very cool person.
An example of love that comes with coolness is the love between Amber and Wilson on the show House. Through a series of coincidences, the couple slowly finds out that they are deeply in love. However, their love is not enough to make them cool. What makes them cool is their just resolve to maintain their love despite Dr. House's measures to break them apart. Throughout their relationship, they are able to resist House, and over the course of a few weeks, force him into a position where he is all right with their relationship. Additionally, when Amber is hurt in a bus crash and subsequently succumbs to amantadine poisoning, Wilson does everything he can to save her as she fights for her life. Unfortunately, there is nothing that Wilson or the other doctors can do to save Amber, and as a result, Wilson must turn off her life support.
Although the couple of Wilson and Amber are cool, they are not cool because of their love. It is their resolve and dedication to each other that makes them cool. If Amber and Wilson had been friends, their coolness would have remained. Without the deep romantic connection, the pair would have retained their coolness because their strength in handling their conflicts with House and her fight with death would have remained. Because of the way that people retain their coolness if love is removed, I would argue that love is in no way correlated to coolness. I do not mean to argue against love; it is a wonderful thing. However, when love is taken out of a situation, the actions that people take can still be cool. Just as the situation with Wilson and Amber retains its coolness without love being applied, any situation can have love removed and, as long as similar situations persist, coolness will remain.

I would have liked it more if Jim and Jules had hooked up

In our class discussion over Jules and Jim, we discussed the idea of women and coolness. Donna raised the question, is it possible for women to be cool unless they share the same qualities of coolness that are stereotypically assigned to men? Personally, I believe that the things that make people cool are not gender-specific at all. The qualities that I have outlined throughout my previous blogs can easily be applied to people of both genders. Qualities like intelligence, kindness, justice, and authority primarily make up coolness. Unfortunately, I have not seen may women in popular culture who have these features. I apologize if I offend anyone by saying this, but women in most current television shows or movies are merely sex symbols who use their sexuality so seduce men into doing what they want them to do. However, there are women who perfectly fit the same cool qualities that make men cool. Women like Kate Mulgrew as Captain Janeway and Maggie Smith in almost every role she plays (but especially as Professor McGonagall) are able to take universal qualities of coolness and perform as incredibly cool characters. Additionally, if the gender of their characters was switched, then they would still retain their coolness.
In any case, I did not find any amount of coolness in Jules and Jim. The entire movie was about a two friends who fall deeply in love with a very sexy and fun woman named Catherine. When first posed with this premise for the movie, I thought to myself that the film could turn out to be a moderately enjoyable experience, but as the film went on, I found the relationship between the three to be very uncool. The uncoolness is primarily generated by Catherine, who is a free-spirited woman who cares only for shallow and trivial pleasures like playful games and sex. In addition, Jules and Jim flock to her because of her beauty and personality, and the two men fall deeply in love with her. However, even though Jules and Jim are absolutely enthralled with Catherine, she does not truly return their affection. Although she claims that she is in love with both men, her "love" is nothing more than sexual desire disguised with sweet words. In addition, I cannot find Jules or Jim to be cool either. Because they do not have the sense to see through Catherine's shallow persona, I can only look at them with scorn and discontent.

What if Keyes was Batman?

As I said in my last blog, Neff is not a cool person. So, I chose to look for other cool people that fit the same kind of detective archetype that Keyes fits. Almost immediately I thought of Batman from The Dark Knight. Throughout the entire film, Batman uses the powers of deduction and modern technology to track down both the Joker and the Falcone mob in the same way that Keyes uses wire taps to keep tabs on those who he thinks are committing insurance fraud. In addition, Batman likes to do most of his deduction alone in his temporary Bat-cave just as how Keyes investigates people from his secluded insurance office. Keyes and Batman also share a similar way of speaking to people. Aside from Batman's horribly raspy voice, both men speak with absolute authority regardless of who is talking to them. For example, Batman speaks to Commissioner Gordon as if he was a civilian just as Keyes speaks to his boss as if he was an insurance amateur. Strangely enough, both men also have a strong sense of compassion towards their guilty friends at the end of their movies. In The Dark Knight, Batman looks on the dead body of Harvey Dent and turns the attorney's face to the light as he decides to sacrifice his own reputation as a hero to make sure Dent's work is successful. Similarly, Keyes calls an ambulance and lights Neff's final cigarette in a show of justice and compassion for his friend turned criminal. Although Keyes does not go as far as sacrificing himself for the reputation of Neff, I believe that the factor in the situation that generates the coolness for both men is their compassion for their fallen friends.
In a final thought about Double Indemnity, I have begun to question why detectives are cool. Is it their skill in using deduction and intelligence that is appealing, or is it simply their determination in trying to bring justice to evil people? I am curious to see why others believe why detectives are cool, but I believe that Neff's apparent uncoolness can answer the question. Neff has fairly decent intelligence for being able to construct a moderately solid plan for cheating the insurance company. However, his evil intent caused him to become instantly uncool. Therefore, I would argue that the only way to be cool through having deductive skills and intelligence is to use these powers for good purposes.

The "Keyes" to Film Noir

During our watching of Double Indemnity, I decided that I may have a skewed view of what coolness is. Although the target of coolness of the film was Walter Neff, I did not think he was cool in any way. In fact, I believed him to be very uncool. The first inkling of uncoolness that I found in him was the way he instantly fell into a shallow relationship with the obviously bad Phyllis. Additionally, Neff was willing to be an adulterer without having any true romantic love towards Phyllis. This adds to the uncoolness of Neff because he was willing to desecrate the solemnity of marriage without anything except sex and the want to exploit the insurance system. As for Neff's want to beat the insurance system, I found his actions to be incredibly unnecessary. If Neff had accepted the desk job that Keyes had offered him, he could have satiated his intellectual appetite by handling insurance claims, but because Neff did not think this through very much, he chose the much more immoral and uncool path of actually killing a man in an attempt to break the system. Another factor of uncoolness that plagues Neff is his inability to control the greed of Phyllis. For example, when Phyllis was offered the settlement, if Neff had simply convinced her to take it then both of them would have been able to get away with the entire scheme.

Personally, I found Keyes to be the only oasis of coolness in the entirety of Double Indemnity. Throughout the entire film, he retains his morality and genuinely acts to bring justice to those who attempt to thwart the insurance company's policies. In addition, he uses the powers of deduction and math to sniff out the smallest flaws in the carefully constructed lies of fraudulent customers. The combination of intellect and doing the right thing is what generates Keyes' coolness. Also, despite his initial appearance as a cold "detective", his final actions prove him to be a caring person. When Neff is vainly trying to get away from his fate, Keyes both calls the police to take him in and the ambulance to save his life. The true moment of compassion comes when Neff lacks the strength to even strike a match and Keyes lends a hand to light Neff's final cigarette. Ultimately, coolness can only exist when the person in question is truly kind at heart.

I don't care what you say, Don Quixote IS COOL

While watching Play it Again Sam, I could not help but think about Don Quixote idolizing the ideas of chivalry and knighthood. I realize that Don Quixote may have existed in a time where cool had not quite come into existence yet, but from my modern perspective, I believe him to be a very cool "knight". Throughout Woody Allen's movie, he is constantly idolizing Bogart as the epitome of cool. In an attempt to have sex, Allen emulates him, but even though Bogart is a very cool guy, Allen simply does not portray any amount of coolness. In fact, through emulation, he ends up making a fool of himself because of his extreme clumsiness. However, through his whimsical clumsiness, Woody Allen is a very funny person, and I believe humor through failed imitation to be a cool trait. Don Quixote is cool for similar reasons. Although he attempts to emulate the pure idea of being a knight, he horribly fails, creating many humorous situations. For example, when he comes across a windmill, Don Quixote inflates the situation by acting like the windmill is a horrible monster. From Don Quixote's eyes, he is performing a heroic act as a powerful knight, but from the eyes of onlookers, it would look like a man swinging wildly at a device used to grind grain.

I have begun to question why people like Woody Allen and Don Quixote are cool. Is humor a necessary component to the kind of cool that these two men have? Furthermore, is it really the failed imitation that generates their coolness, or is it just that these individuals are cool only because they are funny. I am starting to agree more with the idea that humor is the primary driver for the coolness of these people. My primary motivation for believing this is that I cannot think of anyone that is both funny and uncool. For example, Rick Rolling was once a very cool activity. The act of sending your friends fake links (see first link) that sent them to the video of Rick Astley singing Never Gonna Give you Up was cool because it was hilarious to watch their reactions to the song. However, now that the joke of Rick Rolling has become stale, Rick Rolling (and poor, poor Rick Astley as a result) has become very uncool.

Because of the relationship between coolness and humor, I would suggest that a more appropriate title for this movie's coolness would be "Cool Humor". Even though imitation is a definite part of Allen's performance, I believe it to be only a component of the humor that makes him cool.

No, I'm not Schizophrenic at all...

The person who I try to emulate to be cool is Captain Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I do not honestly know when I began looking up to Picard as a cool person. As long as I can remember, I have listened intently to the words of Picard so that I could try to emulate the presence that he has in the universe of Star Trek. His coolness comes from his control of any situation that arises. He has a kind of cool intellect that makes his words flow as if he was constantly speaking in prose. From the title of the show to the most stressful situations, he always speaks in a way that makes everyone listen and respect everything he says. In addition, although Picard is alone in his love life, he has a way with women that makes them nearly faint at his appearance.

Until recently, I have never questioned why Picard's voice resides in my head. However, when thinking about it, I quickly realized that Picard has qualities that I lack. For example, people do not generally listen to what I say. Whenever I try to make a point or discuss something with someone, people tend to either completely dismiss what I am saying or ignore me, but when Picard speaks, everyone listens whether they like him or not. Although Picard's voice is not in my head all the time, I tend to hear him whenever people start ignoring me. I try to use the way he speaks to make people actually listen to what I say, regardless of if they agree or disagree with me. I am not sure why I emulate Captain Picard over other cool people like House or Will Smith. I suppose it is because I have been watching Star Trek since my early childhood. Because of this, Picard has been a constant presence of cool throughout my life.

Unfortunately, much like how Woody Allen finds out that following Bogart is not always the best idea, I have discovered that emulating Captain Picard does not help my life much. Regardless of how I try to talk like Picard, people still ignore me because much of what I say is about esoteric topics like chainmail and computer science. Ultimately, for people to start listening to me, I must simply talk about things that are more interesting to more people.