Thoughts by Wheeler

  Objective Review The movie "Identity Thief" provides and accurate depiction of the Lacanian psychoanalytic concept of the collapse of the symbolic through the character of Diana. This depiction is portrayed most explicitly when her and the character Sandy are having dinner at a high end restaurant in Saint Louis. In this scene, Diana is pressed by Sandy to tell him her real name, leading her to confess that she does not know. Diana reveals that she was abandoned as an infant, leaving her without a name or ultimately an identity. This abandonment created a lack of the symbolic, causing her to rely heavily on the imaginary making her a petty but effective identity thief. This revelation through a Lacanian perspective transforms Diana from simply being a thief to a vulnerable and fragile person that survives off of her utilization of the imaginary to earn a living. This scene is further illustrative of the collapse of the symbolic as Diana abruptly resumes the imaginary person...

 The movie Brazil  was filled with poignant critiques of modern society and even more specifically economic systems. There seems to be infinite rabbit holes one could go down exploring all the messages that were delivered throughout this movie. Most prominently, Brazil was illustrating a society that was uninspired and oppressed by an authoritarian regime that comprised of ineffective procedure centric institutions, namely the Ministry of Information. Coinciding with the time  Brazil  was released in theaters, was the rise of the New Public Management movement   (Callen & Austin, 2016 ) .. The NPM movement heavily utilized technology while employing private enterprise methods in the attempts to provide vital services to the public in an efficient manner.  Just behind the obvious motifs of an oppressive authoritarian government, is the depiction of economic systems and how the pursuit of a utopic society solely through technology can ultimately resu...

The mention of nuclear disasters conjures the recent memories of the Three Mile Island incident, Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters. While watching the movie The China Syndrome, it is easy to fall under the false notion that this was a fictionalized version of these events. The fact of the matter is that the movie predates all of these events. The China Syndrome was released only a mere several weeks before the Three Mile Island incident occurred for which the plot of the movie was shockingly similar to how the actual timeline of the near disaster unfolded (Sarkar, 2022). This only seems likely to have occurred through the production staff having been acutely aware of the current atmosphere surrounding utilities companies priorities at the time. The priority directly influenced the technology and procedures in order to achieve it. Nuclear disasters and near disasters can be categorized as human-caused disasters as there is a belief that mankind can create a failsafe technology that will...

Wheeler's Thoughts: Entry #1.       It never ceases to amaze me the poignancy of a message that can be delivered through a children's book or movie. This is gathered even when not looking at it through a highly critical lens. On the other hand, it does make sense that there is a deeper message rather than it just being purely simple entertainment, especially in a Dr. Seuss inspired story as it is trying to instill values with an audience that is primarily children through an easily palatable plot. These values, displayed in the movie The Lorax challenge societal norms that can lead to uniformity and not only introduce, but often celebrate concepts that encourage creativity and uniqueness. These traits need reinforcement as they can often be mischaracterized as problematic under the current approach of general systems theory. General systems theory has the tendency to over simplify the analysis of societal behaviors that ultimately stifles collective behaviors that ar...