The E-news article written by Zach Johnson presents typical Hollywood characters, it shows their busy acting careers and how their careers affect the decisions they make. Liam Hemsworth and Emily blunt are trying to adjust to their new lifestyle in the USA and are plunged into a tradition that they are not used to, they are, however, very receptive and adjust to the change. Liam, although not excited about thanksgiving, accepts that he has celebrated past Thanksgiving Holidays. Since the article is about a public holiday which is seen in positive light by many people, the writer digresses into a more cheerful topic when one of the characters, Emily Blunt, shows no interest on thanksgiving. The writer does this, so as not to undermine the theme of happiness associated with the holidays. The world of the actors is full of traditions and cultures depending on where they come from, despite the fact that the characters in this article are not big fans of Thanksgiving, all of them admit to subscribing to other holidays.
The article by Scott Mendelson is a film review that brings out issues from the movie and how they are connected with reality. The writer highlights the major technical failings of the movie which are brought by compromises that are as a result of its ‘crowd-pleasing’ antiques as it tries to conform to Hollywood’s expectation of good and evil. The writer compares the themes in the movie with real world’s issues. The corporate elite control the masses and use the hunger games to distract them from the suffering they are undergoing, this distraction is similar to the marketing techniques employed by Lions gate. The writer brings out several views of the movie; his own, the fans (influenced by the media) and the movie’s franchise. He tries to reconcile thesedifferent worlds by reflecting how theactions of one party affect the other. The film’s unique outlook is also discussed in the article. The film introduces a female action figure which is seen as a commendable act; however, the film’s predecessor is highly criticized. To shed light on the conflict, we must explore the audiences. Most people enjoy the fight between good and evil and because the film is mainly about the hunger games, they tried to create the good and evil phenomena by branding some fighters as good and others as evil forgetting that all the fighters were facing the same fate and had all come from similar backgrounds. This compromise highly negates the film’s expectations. This Article highlights the audience’s expectations of the film and how this expectations were either met or not met.
The language used in the text
The first article on Thanksgiving has a happy tone unlike the second one which is critical and judgmental. The tone on the first article is supposed to reflect on the Holidays since they are generally considered as happy moments. The writer uses the characters own words so that the reader can associate with them at a personal level.There are no bad characters in the first article only good characters. Despite the fact that the characters don’t fancy Thanksgiving, they are not brought out in a negative light; in fact, the writer includes other activities that the characters participate in so as to maintain a light and happy tone. A few jokes by the characters are even included in the article.
When it comes to the second article, the tone changes completely and we can see the writer adopting a professional tone. This helps him take a neutral ground and critic the film. The writer highlights his personal opinions, some of which are positive and others aren’t. He tries to counter any biasness that would be reflected in the article by including the audience’s reactions to both films. This professional tone helps the writer dissect the Hunger Games films and bring forth several themes and failings of the movies. The tone also gives the writer a platform to critic the franchise’s greed of rushing into branch off projects that do not reflect the correct ideals in the movies.
The participants
The first film includes three High profile actors and their take on Thanksgiving. Emily Blunt, a British, states that her culture regards Turkeys as a meal for Christmas. Her efforts to have turkey on Christmas instead of Thanksgiving, shows that she is on one end of the spectrum. She insists on cutting off Thanksgiving, despite the fact that she currently lives in America and has an American Husband. However, so as not to seem too harsh, the writer brings out a funny and positive comment about her love of food. This is a strategic move to maintain the tone in the article. Liam Hemsworth, however, is shone on a different light. His lack of interest on Thanksgiving is due to his Australian roots where Thanksgiving is replaced by other similar days. He acknowledges that during his stay in the United States, he has celebrated a few Thanksgiving holidays. Therefore, Liam is the opposite of Emily since he does not have the enthusiasm reflected by Emily to avoid Thanksgiving. Julie Bowen, on the other hand is in the middle. Despite her conservative past, she has a desire to move forward and concentrate on other holidays. She has nothing against Thanksgiving, in fact, she is an ardent Thanksgiving follower as reflected in her past, The only thing she wants is to do something different from Thanksgiving.
Characters in the second article are divided into several categories depending on the role they play in the production, release and marketing on the film. The first character is the Hunger games’ franchise, the article demonstrates its psych fancy and how it has affected the honesty of the film. The unnecessary creation of “good versus evil” characters in the hunger games and subsequent commercialization is a big blow to its credibility. Its focus is also termed as lost among fans as they try to put emphasis on the sex appeal of the leads and the fashion sense of the characters. Other characters found in the article are the fans of the movie. These characters have an important role in the article since their behavior is compared to the characters in the film. The fans are too distracted by the controversy surrounding the movie actors that they forget to focus on the movie itself. It is however noted that the fan’s opinions are influenced by another character in the article and that is the media. The media is used as a marketing tool by the franchise and also relays information about the film. All in all; the media plays an integral part in forming the fan’s attitude towards the movie.
The intertextuality of the text
The first text on Thanksgiving is very different from other celebrity articles. Articles of this kind usually contain ‘juicy’ gossip on the celebrities they are about by highlighting intimate details about their lives and where such details are not available, their writers are only too happy to rely on assumptions. This is fuelled by the reader’sthirstfor intricate details about the celebrity in question. This article however is one sided and only tries to focus on the topic at hand and rarely digresses. To compensate for this, the writer involves first person tools to personalizing the massage. This helps the article to be captivating since it becomes more of an interview rather than an informative article.
The second article however is a typical movie review. It includes the writer’s opinion, the media’s side of view and contains a lot of relevant information to support the writer. The article, however,delves deeper than contemplary movie reviews and focuses on the irony of the film and its application on the society. Despite its similar nature to a movie review, this article stands out due to the writer’s choice of tone and the massive amounts of information present on the article.
The medium of the text
The internet is used in both articles. This means that a lot of rules that would be followed when writing books are thrown out of the window. However, this gives the writers a great deal of freedom to express themselves. The first article on Thanksgiving employs various techniques to personalize the articles so that the readers can enjoy the article. On the second article, the writer is able to express freely his own opinions and bring out a multi-faceted view on the film. This freedom, however, makes the articles shallow. The freedom the writers have liberates them from the responsibility of explaining fully what they are on about. This leaves the readers with a couple of unanswered question and thus somewhat reducing the influence the articles may have.
The intention behind and interpretation of the text
The writers of the two articles have very different intentions, one is to entertain by providing celebrity news while the other’s intention is to dissect a movie and provide an informative review. The first article on Thanksgiving is very short and does not really satisfy the reader’s curiosity. However, this kind of articles are supposed to be short and interesting since the target audiences are usually looking for entertainment and are not ready to invest their time on reading long articles, nonetheless, this has restricted the writer making themprovide scarce information that does not stack up to the headline. In addition to the article being short, the writer also assigns a lot of focus on the characters’ background which is not necessarily related to the topic.
The second article, on the other hand, achieves its purpose. It has abundant information and is very dynamic in its presentation. Despite its obvious biasness, it gives the reader an opportunity to make their own impression on the subject topic.
Works Cited
Pearl, Judea. Heuristics: Intelligent Search Strategies for Computer Problem Solving. New
York, Addison-Wesley, p. vii. ISBN 978-0-201-05594-8
Pólya, George. How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method, Princeton, NJ: Princeton
