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Back to Baghdad: “Nice Bombs” Targets Life During Wartime
In January of 2004, just as dawn was breaking, Chicago-based filmmaker Usama Alshaibi bribed the guards on Iraq's Jordanian border and drove back into the country he hadn't seen in 24 years. He brought along his American-born wife, Kristie, and a video camera. "Nice Bombs: My Journey Back to Iraq," an award-winning documentary, is the result of his journey.
Fall Out Boy’s Biggest Faggot Fan
While I want to welcome Fall Out Boy with open arms, something about FOB Culture feels too calculated and commercial. Who are these boys, and what do they want from us?
The Whitman (Walt not Slim) of Popular Culture
Poetry is not generally thought of as a vehicle for posing the eternal question, "Ginger or Maryann?" or to contemplate the centrality of "Hawaii Five-O" within the cultural milieu of our postmodern existence. For David McGimpsey, however, these are just the sort of subjects that are most suitable.
Brewing Globalization With a Local Flavor
It would seem like a real blunder, maybe even cultural insensitivity, for Starbucks to market a new food product just for the month Ramadan -- the month Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. But Starbucks executives seem to think this caffeinated version of "think globally, act locally" strikes the right marketing balance.
Haunting Our Homes: Nightmares of Gentrification
The modern haunted house film is fundamentally about gentrification. Again and again we see fictional families move into spaces from which others have been violently displaced, and the new arrivals suffer for that violence even if they themselves have done nothing wrong.
Virtual Victories: Hezbollah’s “Special Force 2″
Last year's July War between Israel and the Lebanese Shia militia group, Hezbollah, ended on the ground after a little more than a month. For Hezbollah, the war continues with the Aug. 16 release of the video game "Special Force 2: Tale of the Truthful Pledge."
What America Wants
“I don’t want to watch a gay man tell me about the war.”
This odd admission of stultifying prejudice was spat out boldly and proudly by a friend of mine during a speculative conversation about rumors of Anderson Cooper’s supposed homosexuality. His argument failed to “close the loop,” to borrow a term from electricity. The point [...]
Dog-Fighting Is Bigger Than Michael Vick: Exploring the History and Culture of the Latest American Blood Sport
It's difficult to know what to say about the Michael Vick story, and it might be wise to say nothing just yet. It does, however, bring to the forefront some interesting bits of history concerning what constitutes sport; the relationship of sport to gambling; the confluence of sport and masculinity; the evolution of what is seen as civilized and barbaric behavior; and the ways in which people react to that behavior.
Tell Me What Democracy Looks Like: John Mellencamp Negotiates an All-American Voice
When John Mellencamp and Dan Rather sat down to film an interview, they could probably already hear the derogatory denunciations from the Fox News cult: "Two crazy, anti-American left-wing liars in conversation? I'd rather attend a lecture on evolutionary biology."
What May Come: Asian Americans and the Virginia Tech Shootings
Like many, I was glued to the television news yesterday, keeping updated about the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech University. I was trying to deal with my own disgust and sadness, especially since my professional life as a graduate student and college instructor is tied to universities. And then the other shoe dropped. I found out from a friend that the news channel she was watching had reported the shooter as Asian.