Response to Character
My first reflection after watching Radio was that the movie focused more on the Coach and his character development than on Radio. Although Radio was a ‘main character’, his character was undeveloped and simple
In his writing, Ross uses many devices to relate the subject to the everyday reader. One of the most effective ways that Ross helps the audience relate to the subject matter is writing with a tone that many of the readers also feel for the sports. This tone portrays awe and genuine passion for both baseball and football. Ross is the speaker in the essay and being the speaker helps him express his opinions in the same way that the audience would express theirs. He begins the essay with a very interesting topic sentence that easily grabs the attention of the audience. He compares interest in the first moon landing, a onetime occurrence, to the Super bowl, an annual event. He then states his thesis, “I am especially interested in baseball and football because they are so popular and uniquely American; they began here and unlike basketball they have not been widely exported. Thus whatever can be said, mythically, about these games would seem to apply to our culture.” The body of the essay begins with baseball, and describes how Americans invented it during the Industrial Revolution. He describes the allusions that baseball has to society and then begins to make points about football stars and comparing them with baseball heroes. He contrasts many different parts of baseball and football. Finally, he describes football’s characteristics and ends with a comparison of…
The movie Radio is based on the true life story of James Robert "Radio" Kennedy, an African-American male with a slight mental disability, played by Cuba Gooding Jr.. The setting of this movie is in the small rural town of Anderson, South Carolina in 1976.The movie begins with the main character, Radio, pushing a grocery cart filled with his personal belongings and a radio, which he was affectionately named after, along a train track. During Radio 's frequent journeys through the small town, he frequently passes the practice fields of the local high school football team, the T.I. Hanna Yellow Jackets. During these journeys, Radio 's presence catches the eye of the head football coach Harold Jones, played by Ed Harris. At first Radio is hesitant of Coach Jones persistent good nature towards him, but their relationship begins to grow through a common love of football and the excitement it brings. As time passes Radio is integrated into the lives of the football team, and the entire high school. Coach Jones then begins to introduce Radio into his social circles, and Jones wife Linda played by Debra Winger, and his daughter Mary Helen, played by Sarah Drew become his family also. At first the community is taken back by this unusual relationship between Radio and Coach Jones, but soon people start to realize the sincerity of Radio 's presence and Coach Jones helping hand. The main opposing character of Radio 's presence in the school setting was Frank, played by Chris Mulkey, the father of Hanna 's football and basketball star Johnny. Frank believed that Radio 's presence in the school caused a distraction to the students, and his own son 's success in athletics. The sentiment of Frank wasn 't felt by the rest of the community and the subsequent controversy caused Coach Jones to step down as head football coach. The controversy of Radio 's presence soon ended, and Radio was embraced by the community and made an honorary coach and student…
School: Fortunately, Radio was able to attend Hanna High School as an eleventh grade student. Similar to other involvements, people often criticized Radio for being involved with the school. Thankfully, the students of Hanna High School started to accept Radio for who was, and ignored the disability he had. This opportunity allowed Radio to learn new information, such as writing his name, and developing social skills. In addition, this opportunity allowed Radio to become more socially acceptable. For example, Radio was hall monitor in the school, and he was able to make announcement over the intercom. This was a wonderful opportunity for Radio, as he was able to make many new friends, and develop connections with Hanna High School.…
As the movie continues some of the townspeople begin to accept Radio while others are very irritated that he is a part of the football program. Coach always supports Radio and teaches him many things throughout their friendship. The coach’s family also comes to appreciate Radio and supports the friendship of the two men.…
“What I really want from an adaptation is to feel the feelings I felt while reading the book, right?” (John Green). Paper Towns directed by Jake Schreier is a 2015 release, starring the actors Natt Wolf and the model/ actress Cara Delevinge, tells the story of Quentin Jacobsen (Natt Wolf) and Margo Roth Spiegelman (Cara Delevinge). This movie is the chronicle of Quentin Jacobsen and how he has spent his life up till then loving Margo, who was his front door neighbor from afar without being capable of telling her how he feels. So one night after she crawls into his bedroom looking for his help for a vengeful adventure, he goes to her aid.The next morning, Quentin looks for Margo and she is gone. Quentin…
Simon Thomas was at his final year at Richmond Hill public school. He was exceptional at studies and very talented at football. In fact, he was nominated for the best wide receiver for the previous football season. Scouts were already approaching Simon as if he was the Connor McDavid of football. Football season was around the corner and sign-up sheets were overdue. Simon was the only person left to hand his forms in. When Coach Billechek had come to confront him, he had told him that he was not going to pursue football anymore. “What do you mean you don’t want to play football anymore? Simon, I haven’t seen a talented player such as yourself in a long time.” Simon could tell his coach was disappointed. “Coach, honestly, football is not my passion anymore,” he replied. Coach Billechek had…
Stephen L.W. Greene. (originally published in Mass Comm Review, February, 1991). Who said Lee de Forest was the “Father of Radio”? http://www.geocities.com/lyon95065/Radio.html…
Radio cannot care for himself and is very dependent on others in the movie for him to survive. One example of this is on Christmas, he calls the coach and says “What pants do I wear?” because his mother is not home to dress him and he also ask the coach how the pants look over the phone.…
Any Given Sunday and North Dallas Forty, made over 25 years apart, are two of the most famous football movies ever made. Both of these movies focus on an examination of American values as seen through the lens of a professional sport, both on and off the field. Any Given Sunday and North Dallas Forty do indeed have many striking similarities. Furthermore, it seems that both movies try to give a detailed depiction on the corporate mentality of modern day professional football; while at the same time, still working to deliver a traditional, likeable sports flick. Though there is a large time gap between the two films, they have similar messages and much in common.…
more about the public image that they worried about. To make profit, the people being put on display have to look attractive enough to guarantee their movie sells. At 13 years old, however, Judy signed over to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as one of their few child stars and they didn’t know what to do with her. In fact, MGM was in a similar predicament with another child star around Judy’s age, Deanna Durbin, who had an exceptional voice, albeit more operatic. The studio even filmed the two girls in the musical short titled Every Sunday in 1936 as a “screen test” to help decide which one of the girls they wanted to keep by comparing their voices side by side to an audience (Clarke, 73). According to Judy in a Jack Parr interview, they were…
“Radio broadcasting is one of the greatest educational tools which has ever been placed at the disposal of civilized man. It is an instantaneous, universal means of communication. It is not a new art, but is a means of multiplying the efficiency of oral communication just as the printing press multiplied the effectiveness of the written word. In addition to that, it has certain decided advantages over the printed page which it in part supplants and in part supplements” (Tyler, 1935. p.115).…
In the poem Football by Louis Jenkins, the author makes a new affiliation between football and life. Jenkins juxtaposes the idea of playing the decision maker on the football field as a quarterback with daily decisions of life. The poem is about a quarterback who has taken the snap from center and now has to make a decision on what his next move is. As he is pondering through his ideas, he closely begins to analyze his how his signal calling on the field relates to his judgments that he makes off the field. After contemplating with his thoughts, he then concludes that the receiver downfield is not open and doesn't throw him the ball. An existential critic would announce that the translation of this poem is a journey of an individual's thought process as he faces…
The podcast Cruel and Unusual covers the issue of the death penalty and whether or not it should be allowed in the U.S. It discusses the controversy within this issue, especially the lethal injection and the constitutionality of capital punishment in regards to the ban of cruel and unusual punishment in the 8th amendment. Some of the cases mentioned were Wilkerson v Utah where the Supreme Court initially ruled to allow a firing squad to be used in the death penalty and Baze v Rees (2008) in which the Supreme Court ruled that lethal injection was not cruel and unusual punishment, and therefore not unconstitutional. The impact that the issue of the death penalty and the court cases regarding it have on the country is that people are easily outraged…
Set in 1971 Alexandria, Virginia; High school football is the town's most popular sport. The school board is under a court order to integrate the public schools. In the process of integration, tension amongst individual in school becomes high. This film is a perfect concoction of two elements: a coup of an underdog sports team and a successful assimilation of high school football team in general. The interaction of two coaches, a black and a white, is quite a challenging part. Both Coach Boone and Coach Yoast had struggle to overcome their personal dilemma and worked for the betterment of their team. Although reluctant at first, Yoast accepted the demotion and conspired with Boone to produce a winning team! The sub-story between Gerry Bertier, Titan's white team captain, and Julius Campbell, an aptitude black player is also remarkable. It confirms that strong friendship can be forged despite the racial hatred plaguing the community.…
Jim and Irene live in an apartment with their two children and maid. The both enjoy listening to the radio. One day the radio breaks beyond repair, so Jim tells Irene he is going to surprise her with a new one the following day. When the radio arrives Irene describes it as an ugly large piece of gumwood cabinet. After listening to the radio for awhile Irene realizes it has a lot of interference with the outside appliances which Jim has repaired. After the radio is repaired Irene begins to listen to it again and hears voices instead of music. It is in fact every station on the radio is a different room of their apartment. Irene hears a lot of terrible and harsh things about the people she is living around and becomes frighten, depressed, and upset with this. Once again Jim has the radio repaired. Irene is somewhat scared by what she heard from the radio and other couples around them thus making her act differently towards Jim. Jim comforts her and all is well until he tells her about their money issue and how they have to start being more careful with how they spend. They argue for awhile and Irene is afraid that the radio can hear them, allowing other people to hear them. The story was very odd. For me, I understood it to be about "what we don't know, don't hurt us". I believe that everyone hides something from someone. People can have personal problems the people Irene was hearing through the radio, for example ""I found a good-sized diamond on the bathroom floor this morning, a woman said. It must have fallen out of that bracelet Mrs. Dunston was wearing last night."". (p 535) We may view others differently by what we know or hear about them, when deep they are the same as us, good human beings. I don't think we should determine how someone is, based on what we hear. We should find out ourselves and not assume everything is bad.…