“Is Paul an irritating and arrogant teenager who died for nothing or is he just a boy who can’t fit into society?”
First of all, the story was like to A Rose For Emily in terms of deep symybolizm the writer used however this story is more “readable” and not boring unlike “Emily” where we see the actually lots of things,lots of events but actually nothing. The writers intention does not look like writing sth,rather playing with readers making them confused. In this story we face a well planned structure and puzzles to solve ,like Pauls father was a gay or not. So then such unclear points could lead to different aspects about “Paul’s Case” , whether he was a really “idiot” guy or somebody rejected by society because of his indecent manners. Actually because in the story the narrator tells from the perspective of Paul, generally, then it is difficult to reach an argumen actually objective argument. We are just under the manipulation of Paul against the “others”; teachers, his neighbors and significantly his father. I think it is really natural that teachers behave differently and rejectively to odd students .A student who does not listen to lesson or smiling meaninglessly to his teachers , of course, could not be appreciated by teachers and most importantly, Paul does not give chance to his environment to what he really wants or what really he is. He is really introverted guy and why somebody will be wrong when he said Paul is schizophrenic? He is just thinking and assuming people know what he thinks and and demanding tolerance. Lying in many situations, he wanna be away from his truths. Actually, in briefly ,pauls is really complicated person with the successful writing of writer; however ı think paul is not a guy who is not understood by society; may be in some extent it can be said he does not obey norms of society and so being alienated , but what he should have done was expressing what he thinks clearly and not behaving to his environment as if everything surrounding is stupid and insensitive.

"Has the video changed anything in the way you think about yourself and the choices you make? In terms of Adorno and Fiske’s theories has anything changed?"

This is really a complex situation and to reach an exact argument or a thesis is really hard. We wanna criticize a vague structure built between producers and the consumers by just relying on a few resources. Of course we are not able to have a deep insight into this topic , so then making an argument seems neverthless useful.

ı think the matter of triangle of media , consumers and producers is somewhat appearing in our lifes. We all are affected this construction consciously or not. Scholars who analyse this matter are not actually being able to create a satisying argument, we see huge differences between their words as in Adorno and Fiske example. Although both side has its own truths, ı see benefit in making a "middle way". People are all the source of money in the eyes of producers and this means they have to consider what people think and want, the example of Sprite is really fitting here. Producers can not regard the consumers as ships who are being navigated by a herdsman because what consumers will buy or watch or listen etc is what producers will put in their pocket. However, here is the trick ı think,, this may lead people to assume they are really powerful and unique factor in this relation. especially by the globalization and capitalization world, the "money" or , in better words, pursuit of money may overwhelm some people ,which ı mean actually the producers, to try anyway to get money from "innocent" people. They may pretend being concerned about the needs of consumer or benefit of consumers however ı dont think that is the case. As we learn from the video, producers may implement crazy ways like cool hunting to have a better understanding of people or as sprite did , they may make themselves very "humane" giving the message "we consider you". Of course these all are the tricks of producers to satisfy the power(!) of people and in this interval making as much profit as they can.

May be in the article ı could not express my ideas clearly, ı just wanna warn people about the power of media and followingly producers. They are like wolwes:)

barbie

"barbie was a really simple toy until we learned what barbie did to history of humanity???"
actually barbie still looks very simple toy for me, may be many other students can feel as above..because what we did by barbie was not a exact investigation about it, rather making assumptions. we should know conditions of that time ı think...however, as far as ı understand by barbie, it was the reaction of femininity and the victory of them in some way. the women who had been under the extreme pressure of men beforehands were showing their reaction to that along with the other movements of 1960s.world was really experiencing a big change.with barbie, girls were prooving that they were not like how they had been before.they would wear however they want, they would do the jobs which are generally regarded as "men's job"..but this reaction was not a controlled reaction of women..women had just started to break all -or just intented to do may be - chains and they were very reactive and angry..so ı dont think the movement of feminism is not in healthy situation....so the unhealthy explosion of feminism reflected on barbies, ı think..with barbies humanity had "only girl's" toys not boys..women bought barbies for their daughters so ı think women contributed to division of men and women in another wa..may be this time they are not under the violence of men but they abstracted themselves from men.. they made barbies girl toys..this does not mean liberation, just triggering conflict..ı dont blame women actually ı just wanna explain the justifiable anger of women to men and how this anger led to also an unexpected situation ı think.

....."explotation" of body at advertisements....

In this presentation ,, the woman looked like a feminist but ı think her ideas about the structure of the societ y in terms of gender reflects the truth,mostly..Sexuality is the weak side of people which would be very effective at the advertisements. We see advertisements, especialll recently, which does not have any relation with sexuality; for example Pepsi with Aysun Kayacı. But it works in some way..Such advertisements are able to affect the inner structure of people tending to sexaulity and manipulate them...In Turkey, on the other hand,, there is a degree, limit where going beyond does not seem possible,,,you can not arbitarily use body of a woman unlike in other countries..The reason may be whether over conservatism or religon or disability of doing such thing,,does not matter...Whatever it is ,,,this boundary , ı think, provides safety on the brains..People are not under control of sexuality where they see its any kind of reflection...we have clearer views :)

Chronology

rejection of boys by the father of Emily
the death of the father
being exempt from tax paying by sartoris
the proposals demanding tax from Emily
getting out the officials
bad smells
the Homer Barron term
disappearance of Barron
the death of Emily and emergence of the truth:The murdering of Barron

Summary

People gathered for the funeral of Emily who has an interesting life.Throughout her life,what makes different the situation of Emily is actually his status in the society at that time.Her father was a respected person and this provided Emily with a distinctive place in the eyes of people....By the death of her father, the physological condition of Emily got worse, which can be realized in ehr behaviors.After his father dies, the committe of teh town wanted Emily to give taxes she did not pay during the presidence of Sartoris.She rejected this proposal and get teh committe members of his home in a rude way...Emily has a servant ,named Tobe who is actually black,for the house's problems.He was very faithful and did never disobey Emily.Here is the one of the distinguished features of the writer which aims to represent the society's situation by the people in the story as he used a black person as the servant of the home...one day people sensed bad smells from the house but noone wanted complain to officials about this topic since Emily was a lady.However, as the depth of the smells increased and disturbed more people , they decided to spread lime without announcing Emily.Although she realized, she did not reply...to the town workers came for the construction processes- one of them was homer barron.They felt in love with each other so that maked people happy.Until that time, Emily refused many young boys.The actual story begins here in terms of depicting the real side of Emily...She buyed poision claiming that it is for mices.Emily had some problems with her new darling homer at that times.After one day homer entered the house, nobody could see him again.At the end the end Emily showed shocking truth.Homer was lying in her bed and near there was a piece of Emily's hair.....

The type of story which was written in is actually so different what we understand by story.This is beyond the general ones and as you mentioned at your comment at your blog, the writer does not care about the message he wants to give.I think readers are not aimed to get sth like ethical message as did at typical stories.What i realzied during the reaidng book is also that writer does not complete all parts of history.He does not eve mention a certain time, place or any kinde of connection between events like the murdering of homer by Emily- the reason was not clear enough to manipulate the readers.The writer makes this way in order to get attention readers and therefore readers would be the accompanying writers.Different people can create their own Emily character for example.These all i told is the main structure of the filme Good Bye Lenin, as well.How i made such a conclusion is that in the film,there happened the end of the East Germany which represent communist idea and the new trend , after getting together with west, which represent the capitalist idea.The editor did not choose right or wrong.He movied almost in as objective way as can be.He has not a goal to direct people to a idea, just exhibit what he analyse and wants audience to make their own understanding.

Also there is another point ı want to share with you which is actually the similarity between the character Emily and Mrs Kerner.They are both like “satellites around the our planet” as said in the film.They are both still from our world but in what they created where nobody is allowed to enter.They also deal with the problems faced in their younghoods throughout their lifes.