Exit Through the Gift Shop Assignment

     Wow, this documentary is amazing! I honestly am not into art nor am I very artistic, but Banksy is highly talented. It is inspiring that he just began showing his talent in street art and is now selling his pieces for thousands of dollars. His talent is truly original which is proved by the millions of people who have fallen in love with his art. I think a lot of the reason why Banksy is so famous now is due to Guetta who always carried around his video camera. Another fascinating thing about this documentary is that we never discover who Banksy is, but we do know that Banksy gets away with displaying his art wherever he may choose and that his painting may disclose who Banksy really is. 

Debate Points on Censorship

    First of all,  I feel like the debate on Wednesday had no resolution considering neither side listed to the opposing views points and both sides kept interrupting each other. I do realize that people get heated in certain situations, but in order for everyone to get their point across we must listen to each other and have an open mind.    Concerning the topic, I agree that advertising should be censored to a certain degree in order to protect the corruption of children, the inequality of races and communities, the pornographic view of men and women, and the customers from the exaggerated claims of certain products. It is the older generation's job to protect the younger generations in order for them to continue to build a striving country but if our advertisements continue to corrupt the younger generations what will our country be like in the future? What will our country be like if certain races continue to be shown inequality in ads? Will we begin to see fully naked people in ads around town? It is moral to lie about your product? These are some questions we as a society need to be thinking about for our future.

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     Are advertisements pornographic? 

     In my opinion, most of the advertisements shown in today's society use sex appeal to persuade the customer to buy or use their product, but to determine whether or not the ad is considered pornographic depends on what is being revealed on the person and also the gender of that person.  I also think a society's view of "normal" contributes to the opinion of whether ads are pornographic or not. For example, if a man were to have his shirt off in an ad selling cologne I do not think that is considered porn because it is normal for a man to be seen without a shirt on. Now if a woman was in an advertisement with her shirt off selling perfume, that would be considered porn because our society is not used to seeing women walk around without their shirt on. These circumstances could be different based on where you live, how you were raised, and many other factors.

State of Oregon v. Jesse Caufield

     In the case of Jesse Caufield, Jesse was wrongly accused of holding Cooper Chase at gun point and stealing her car and wallet based on officer Nighthorse's stereotypical view of African Americans. Officer Nighthorse already had a preconcieved notion that the suspect must black because the victum said the man with the gun appeared to be Afican American so he immediately excluded out every race except for African Americans even though other races have darker skin that could resemble an African American in the dark. The officer also had a negative attitude against this specific race because he said, "these kinds of kids have no respect for the law' and 'it was crap- just people hiding behind race." Based on these two examples Jesse Caufield fell into the trap of stereotyping. Caufield was automatically made into a criminal in Nighthorses eyes because he was an African American, when in reality Caufield was a hardworking college student going to school to be a social worker. If the officer looked further into the case without immediately making judgments, he would have realized that Jesse was an innocent person trying to be a good citizen. Unfortunately stereotyping is everywhere even in our legal system where everyone is supposed to be treated equally.