**** JESUS?!

**** JESUS?!
I posted a tweet and said, “Interesting….ly weird.” I guess I will be the odd duckling for the discussion again, because I read some classmates’ tweets about how this book is interesting. I believe this book itself is weird; I personally didn’t like it because it had no sense of direction. Only after I read reviews and short plots about it did I even understand what this book was trying to do. One page Kathy disappears and then another page she magically shows up again. I was shredding my hair trying to read this because there was no PLOT! I dislike reading books without plots because I can get lost while reading, easily. After halfway through the book was when I decided that I don’t really understand what this book is trying to do, all of these “Hypothesis” and whatnot. So I resolved to the usage of the internet to help guide me while reading. Afterwards, I understood what these “Hypothesis” were which made me kind of like the book more, but not really. I see the relation to the Vietnam War and see what effect it had on the soldiers because come on, John is crazy.
The book didn’t really end off with giving me what I wanted, which was an ENDING. I’m trying to express my anger if you can’t really tell but yes, I’m definitely angry. Maybe I’m wrong; it did have an ending, but nowhere near relevant to Kathy’s disappearance. Instead, it ended off with another hypothesis! Tim really wanted to keep us guessing and questioning I suppose. I could look at it from another angle and how an argument could be proposed. After all, this could be Tim trying to sway us towards believing into one argument more than the other. If we all think about it, Tim wrote a lot about John’s insanity, his denials of insanity, and the way he copes with his insanity by talking to himself. A couple of the hypothesis was about Kathy leaving John because she was scared, another was that John poured hot boiling water on her face and drowned her. Those are two totally different hypothesis but both relevant to John’s insane behavior. The other hypothesis are just about her being lost and losing sense of direction, drowning, and something of that sense, but with the reader knowing how cynical John was because of the loss of the election and the war, the reader (me) will tend to think that the hypothesis that doesn’t involve John are false.
From the text, Tim recaps a lot, I remember him typing almost the same things in different chapters. I especially remember the part where John boils the hot water and pours it on the “Geranium” because Tim put that text in there numerous times. Who pours hot water into plants?! Not me, just something a cynical person would do. Tim also exaggerated and overused John’s phrase of “KILL JESUS!” which was pretty eye-opening for me. Who yells out that phrase?! Not me, just another something a crazy person would do. These are just examples of how Tim makes me think of why the hypothesis of Kathy’s, “Disappearance” had to have involved John.
P.S. I liked the book to some extent don’t get me wrong, but then again, it didn’t have a plot! =(
Hopefully I don’t become shunned in class because of my opinion. =)

Idea

My idea involves going around campus at first interviewing students on their thoughts on the war and what they know about the war. Maybe also enlighten them on certain facts that they did not know and line up some form of discussion if possible with different students. Besides going around campus also go around downtown or any other parts of Austin to get a different age group on tape. Also besides interview we could find old film footage from the period and combine it with the film to contrast beliefs from back then with ones at the present. Another idea through the interview process we could compare the war today to the Vietnam War and see if people think they are similar or not. Along with comparing the war we could interview actual soldiers on active duty and veterans of past wars, particullary Vietnam of course. This combination of interviews and maybe creating something along the lines of Hearts and Minds to me would be something really awesome to see and would also help to show some rhetoric of Vietnam or the rhetoric of the war today.

Idea!

I think after talking over ideas about the movies in class my initial idea about interviewing was not original and I had to think of something else. I think I agreed with Sara about how I wanted to incorporate rhetoric into the movie along with interviews but not want the film to be solely based on interviews. I think that interviews could be supplemental material that would prove our point or argument, but first of all, what argument? I think an argument that could be applicable and interesting would be documenting what students write about the war vs. what they can say about the war, because the two things, though you think about it in the same way, may come off differently through the two mediums. Therefore, I think we could do something in where we have public boards around campus (if that's legal) and have the board say something like "The Vietnam War What do you know?" and other boards that have like "The Iraq War What we're fighting for?" and we could use this as a backdrop in our film as we explore the way people write upon the subject and we could interview people who wrote on the boards and ask why they wrote what they wrote and how they made their sentences and who they thought would read it. Though I think the idea is really more of a backdrop idea, since a movie can't really center around this one event, I think this would really make the debating idea much more interesting since we have a public opinion thrown in the mix.

Another idea that I don't know if is really plausible due to our lack of resources, but if we could, we could document the stories of 4 or 5 different people who have been affected by the war personally or in some way and somehow mix it with rhetoric. I think the idea of a documentary documenting people would be not something new, but something that is interesting to think about, though I don't know how it's incorporation would work out with our rhetorical aspect, but it's just an idea.

Why arn't we better now that we made our mistakes?

What if we had ultimately demolished Vietnam? What if we had all together won with no struggle? What if the war crimes were never shown? We could get many students ((or even just us)) to write a paragraph about what they think would be different now if we had went into Vietnam and not only won, but completely demolished it. Made it one of our own “colonies.” What would change back in America? Have them shoot out to the year 2010. Where would we be now? If we write the paragraphs, we can manipulate them to say that if we had won in Vietnam, American pride would make us want to bully other countries too. American pride would give the American government the permission to go into any country they wanted and bullied them. We would not have learned our lesson. We could get random people to read these paragraphs on screen, and close to the end of their paragraphs, we could have them stare at the paper or drop the paper on the floor and cover their faces or something of that sort. They look at the camera and shake their head or say “shit.” The scene cuts to someone in the government talking about doing the same thing in Iraq or Afghanistan, or the scene cuts to a news video of clips of us killing in Iraq. My friend just gave me an idea that we can put a glass window behind the people and at the end of the documentary they can all get up and write how they can do their part to fix ignorance with politics and world affairs. To make it even more effective, we can put clips of the Vietnam War that are similar to the ones later in the documentary from the war in Iraq.

How about a call to action? (Movie Idea)

In class we talked about how there are many similarities between the Vietnam War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We might take this idea and project it further by doing a couple of things:

1) We could start out by briefly explaining the similarities between the government's actions in each war

2) If all of the cause for protest in the current wars is similar to the causes for protest against the Vietnam war, why aren't the citizens of the USA reacting in a similar way?

3) Explore the what exactly hapened during the protests.

4)Explore why US citizens aren't protesting now. If they are, why isn't it as widely acknowledged?

At the very least I want our film to reach many people. It has grab and keep the attention of our audience. It has to inspire them to think differently. A compilation interview can't possibly be enough for that to happen

Anti-War Culture

            Some of my favorite musicians come from the Vietnam era, so when we listen to Bob Dylan in class I am amazed to find out that many of his songs were about the war, because before this class I knew so little about it. I think it would be very interesting if we did the documentary on the Anti-War Movement and it’s impact on American culture during the 60’s and 70’s. We can highlight the key players of this movement, such as civil rights activists, musicians, and protest leaders and how they were able through rhetorical devices to acquire such a following. While at the same time, American politicians were trying to do the same thing, we can find out why they were unable to successfully capture and “brainwash” this particular group. We can then parallel it to the current situation in Iraq and the influences that cause opposition in our present day war.  

Documentary Ideas

My idea is like many of the others... I think we should interview students about what they think about the Vietnam War and America's position in it, if they know anything about it that is. We would also interview professors and see a different perspective since some were growing up during the whole thing and I'm sure we could even find veterans here on campus and compare and contrast what everyone has to say. Then we would focus on the war we are involved in now or the wars we have recently been involved in and see if those have any link to the Vietnam War and what they have in common and how they are different. A big aspect we could include is our government and its officials and see how they relate to the government officials in the other wars. Watching movies and documentaries and observing and analyzing them rhetorically is a big part of our class so I think we would learn a lot by creating our own documentary. Just thinking about movies in this way is such a new thing to me I can't imagine coming up with our own so although it is intimidating and I have no idea what to expect, it's very interesting and I have the potential to learn much more than I thought I was going to. 

Idea for Movie

Like others before me, I suggest doing a compilation of interviews. This can give an accurate view on how people at UT view the Vietnam War. We can interview the following people:

-average UT students: question what happened during the Vietnam War to point out any misconceptions and what they think of the current war
-Vietnamese UT students: ask the same as average UT students to show any differences and what they think of the current war
-faculty: ask what it was like in the war or what it was like on campus during the war
-ROTC students: ask what they think of the current war and how it relates to the Vietnam War

The movie can follow the same method as Hearts and Minds and mix the clips around to emphasize any contrasts. The interviewees should also be people of many different races to see what people of different backgrounds think. I'm not sure what the best way of attracting interviewees would be. I guess randomly asking people for their opinion would work but in the case of those who were around at the time of the Vietnam War, this might not work. Maybe we can even interview a professor who is very knowledgeable on the subject. To make the movie more interesting, we can try to incorporate related scenes from Platoon or Full Metal Jacket or any other effective movie or TV show. I guess the movie can be our version of Hearts and Minds.

MOVIE Ideas

So I've been reading everyone's ideas, and I think interviews are on everyone's mind. Which is cool, I think it will be historically accurate to find people that have lived through that time and see how the felt and what their position was during the war. I just think it'd be difficult to try to find who EXACTLY we could ask? We can't really go up to a stranger and ask if they can give us an opinion on the Vietnam war, we don't know if they have the time and we don't know if they're going to take us seriously, but if they do then hooray for us!
My idea for the film project was slightly different from everyone else's, that's probably because I think I'm mistakenly thinking about the direction of this project. Nonetheless, I figured we'd split up into two groups, half of the class act as the Vietnam opposition (Vietcongs) and the other half of the class act as the Americans. Each half of the class will put their time into researching exactly how to put themselves in the Vietcongs or the Americans shoes.
For example, if I were the half of the class on the Vietcongs side, I would research about what exactly happened in the war, (i.e. what did we do to the Americans? What did we do right? What did we do wrong?) Propose an argument and stick with it. Same for the half of the class that would be on the American's side.
When research is done/due, we will come up with a script to film the class basically proposing an argument favoring 1) the Vietcongs/communist; and 2) the Americans.

Then we film and hope to have a successful video at the end =)
If you are wondering about costumes and outfits, as the professor said, if we can get people with these items/materials then all the better to us, but I think the main point of this class is to learn how to deduce an argument. So, 1960's-1970's war outfits won't be needed, especially guns O_O.

But I have just ONE idea out of many of you guys, I like everyone else's too!

More Movie Ideas

I definitely think we should interview students on their Vietnam War knowledge, but I also believe we should interview them on their general military knowledge. For example, do the majority of UT students know about the brutal basic training like that in Full Metal Jacket? Many of us in the class were shocked by the intensity of the opening scene, and I would like to explore some other opinions from those who are not taking Rhetoric of Vietnam.

After interviewing maybe 50 people, we can compare what they know about the Vietnam War to what we now know from taking the class. This way we can highlight everything we have learned in the class thus far. Aside from asking them about the actual Vietnam War, we can ask them if they have seen either Platoon or Full Metal Jacket and what their thoughts are on both films. If a particular student has seen both movies, we can investigate why they like one more than the other. I think it would be interesting to see if most students go for the "Best Picture" or the intensely entertaining Full Metal Jacket.

Doc Ideas

I think a "then and now" approach would work extremely well for this film. We would have two core groups of interviewees: 'Nam vets in Austin (should we be able to find any who are willing to sit down and talk) and Gulf War 2 participants (I say participants because we could get both vets and future recruits/ROTC). We would ask them similar questions and compare/contrast their answers and experiences, using them to show the similarities and differences between the two conflicts. Much in the spirit of H&M, we could get public domain footage of politicians and actual fighting to splice in between the interviews to get the emotive responses we want.

Ideas for movie

My ideas are quite similar to everyone else's. I was also going to suggest interviewing people all over campus...I'm sure that's going to be a must. But also, I was thinking we could try to incorporate some past with the present. Ask people what the similarities are between the present situation with the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq, and relate it back to Vietnam. That way, we're not just surveying the general knowledge of the people, but we're also opening their eyes to the current situation of the wars as well. I feel that the only way to make this project relevant would be to try to incorporate the present situations somewhere in the movie. Only then can we make this movie more interesting to everyone, and not just students in general. Other than that, I'm totally fine with interviewing people and seeing what they think.

Ideas, ideas, ideas....

I feel that our movie project should be about student's opinion on the current conflicts in Afghanistan and what if they feel if the government is lying to them.
It would be interesting to see what everyone thinks and see how the war is affecting their current lives.
A different take to this would be to ask people what they think the current was is about. It's a good idea because many people have no idea why we are in Afghanistan. "I thought we were in Iraq?" "When did we go to Afghanistan?" "Are we fighting in two different countries?" Its crazy, but I've heard many different intakes on the conflicts because as U.S citizens, we are pretty uninformed.

Movie Idea

Ever since the idea of doing a film project came up I’ve just had this crazy picture of us almost re-creating the Patton speech…I know that sounds kind of stupid, but for me the Patton speech was the first time I really understood the Vietnam had it’s own rhetoric. It wasn’t till we discussed the speech in class that I really saw a connecting.

I also really think we should interview each other. In class our conversation is just so great and I think viewers would find what we have to say interesting. I also feel like we are really becoming experts on Vietnam and I feel like we have something to add to its history.

I also think the movie would benefit a lot if we interviewed some other UT students who maybe don’t know that much about Vietnam. It would help us get a better understand of what people don’t know and what our film should be striving to accomplish.

A bit more than interviews

One of my biggest concerns about making the documentary is not about the interviews or any of that, but what are we going to show the audience and how is it going to connect to what our audio is saying? The national archives might have some footage but I dont know how tedious that would be. Showing pictures of Vietnam and just plain interviews seems a little bland. We need an idea of what to convey, similar to Hearts and Minds: are we trying to spin the Vietnam War in a bad light, indifferent, or positive light?

I want to make a documentary about Vietnam and the effects it has had on military personnel and one of the most liberal cities in Texas. Interviewing military personnel in the Austin area and Vietnam Veterans along with scholars, students, and other people, this should give us a fairly accurate and possibly bias-free audio/movie. Mixing the interviews with possible movie footage about how Hollywood swayed the American public as well as newspaper clippings and other news source audio/video will allow the audience to not be bored with simple interviews.

Random Idea..

An idea for the class movie I had in mind was to interview random students and faculty members around campus and get their inputs about the Vietnam War. We can get a certain amount people from different year classifications and certain professors different departments and have them reflect over the questions we ask. We can also see how much information they know from the Vietnam War and compare that to what we knew before entering this class. I know during one of the discussions in class that we had was about how much did we learn about the Vietnam War during high school. We can ask them that and see if they find it important to teach students about that war. Also, we can relate to if we are in a Vietnam War situation right now with the war with Iraq.

Movie Ideas!

One of my ideas for our movie that we will be putting together would be like Erica said, the interviews. We can find random students our age and ask them about some of the history. Then we can interview teachers around our campus that have lived through that era of the war. We can ask some history and what their initial reactions are when they hear, "The Vietnam War". After asking their knowledge, we can move on to telling them the important facts and see how their reactions are to this new information. There can obviously be a wide range of questions or strategies to this idea.

My other idea for our film project would have a scene where we have students watch either a segment of Hearts and Minds or the entire film if they are willing (Tiffs Treats would obviously have to provided to get them to sit there) and have them fill out surveys and have a few interview to see thier reactions to the movie. But before having them watch the movie, we can have them answer a few questions on a survey or interview a few to see note their knowledge over this war. This way we can show how drastic their reactions have changed and see how they feel to be an American. We have a movie room here at my dorm and we can have an organized viewing. I feel that this could really add to our film in showing how naive our generation is.

Movie Idea

My suggestion for the movie would be to interview students and faculty, even history professors to see what people out there know about Vietnam and what their opinions are of the situations, how it occurred, and what they know of as the outcome. Do most people believe we technically came out victorious? If so, what is their definition of victory? Do those people know what really happened? Will we find out people who actually know the truth or ones that know nothing at all?

Asking people to tell us what they know and think will give us a look at a bigger picture in if we as Americans know what our countries history really is or even if majority of us have been brainwashed into thinking that one outcome happened that really didn't. I think doing this interviewing process will help us see what the average person and the scholarly professionals know, not just about the situation but about history. And then we can go further and conclude on whether or not America truly doesn't emphasize on this subject for reason. In this finding we can rhetorically persuade and share the information we find through the video interviews.

Vietnam through a different lens

In creating a memorable video that reflects both us as rhetoricians as well as our knowledge of Vietnam, I believe that our class should present the war in a way that people have not seen before. With the variety of films, documentaries and texts we will have learned by the second half of the semester, I feel we have enough evidence to be able to create a convincing yet original argument.

Additionally, I think our age would serve as a unique factor in the video while offering our own personal perspectives on an era we were not apart of. We could portray the war in terms of what it means to us and potentially make connections between Vietnam and the current war in the Middle East. We could consider similarities and differences among the two time periods and draw conclusions from certain points we find interesting. This would result in not only an interesting video for the public but also in something beneficial to our lives specifically by looking at Vietnam on a more personal level.

(Post for 2/18) "You ever fought a war with no draws? "

In George Orwell's 1984, one of the main themes stresses how the lack of a developed language can oppress the minds of the speakers. Hearts And Minds challenges Orwell's belief. The simplistic speech of the soldiers who fought in Vietnam was so much clearer and simply honest; compare their speech to that of of men higher up the rank and things aren't as clear.

Take, for example, William Marshall. When he spoke, one could understand what he was thinking. He was speaking openly and even though his English was so much less refined than, say, LBJ's or Gen. Westmorland's, he was still easy to understand. Marshall's speech was simple yes, but the listener gets the sense that he isn't hiding anything, that he is speaking from his heart. By giving us the truth, the soldiers relieve their audience of their ignorance and show them exactly how this war has affected them so deeply. They do this to try and keep us from allowing such a thing to happen again. It's just like Marshall says, "I'll make you hear about it everyday... you wanna forget so that somebody else can go do it somewhere else? Hell no".

Listening to the government officials and high ranking officers was a different story. They are trying to leave their listener's in the dark about what happened in Vietnam. In contrast to the soldiers, they rarely give a personal opinion on the War. They try so hard to maintain an image and keep the blame from falling on themselves. All of what they say is in a more refined form of English. Because of this, the audience has a hard time understanding. One could tell they were deliberately talking in circles, choosing their words carefully, trying to craft believable lies on the spot. If the audience only knew the officials' crimes, they would surely want punishment. By keeping the audience ignorant of the truth, these officials control the audience's minds and as a result, theyevade the consequences of their actions.