Author Argument

The argument that makes this movie a success is that the author thinks that a serial killer is considered to be mentally ill. Therefore, he should not get the death penalty but must be remitted to the authorities for treatment. To do so those authorities will assign the same sick person to a doctor who will try to cure him. M supported the same idea when he was in trial by stating that his motivation for killing these young girls were involuntary and it was impossible to control his eager to kill. The author argument makes sense in a country where the democracy is applied. No one is allowed to take another person life which the assassin did. However, he did not do it voluntary and the justice should take time to evaluate his state of health before sentencing him.

The author also touches another point that deals with authorities in time of crisis because most of the time the government violates civil rights when there is a war or a social crisis. We saw in the movie how the Police handled the problem. When the population was terrorized by the serial killer people were not free to go out at that time because the Police would not let them do it. For instance if a citizen did not have a proper identification he was sent to a precinct to be checked. A similar situation happened even in the U.S during the civil war when Lincoln violated the first Amendment by not allowing the Press or citizens to criticize the war. For example Newspapers were not authorized to print out certain information. In addition, the government had the same attitude after September 11^Th2001 when terrorists attacked the U.S. Right after the attack more laws were passed by Congress giving more power to law enforcement to search people’s houses without a warning once they were suspected to be “terrorists”. This aspect that the author talked about in the movie was one of the best subjects because it tells us that history repeats itself.   

A Specific scene

  The last poor performance of the magician and Rath was a result of Lola’s dominance on Emmanuel in the movie. Once on scene Rath could not perform because he was more focus on how other men were talking to his wife Lola. His jealously made him speechless and crazy. Moreover, Rath did not care about the audience and the magician even frightened him to break his neck. At certain point the ex-teacher could not take the pressure anymore and decided to walk away from the scene because he saw a man who was kissing his wife. He attacked his wife and the man and Lola almost got killed. People rushed downstairs to save Lola from a catastrophe. Ruth was chained and put in a little room like a prisoner. Rath was later on freed by the magician decided to leave the cabaret for the school where he was a teacher. Ruth was found dead a moment later.

  The interpretation that I can give to this particular scene of the movie is that the pressure that the teacher got from Lola is similar to the oppression that Germans received from their government during the two world wars. Ruth who did not want to perform or do anything could be assimilated to a Nihilist attitude. The teacher looked lost and nothing made sense to him at that moment. Freud was right by saying that an individual attitude is a result of a social pressure. Ruth could not handle this kind of life because he came from a middle class that had different values. For instance a wife should be respectful and loyal to her husband. But it was not in Lola’s case because she was from another group of the society that allows certain behaviors in life. For example it was normal for Lola to have more than one man at the same time. The opposite values could not help Rath’s marriage as well. The life in the cabaret was a mess because it was a place where most men of that town were going to find a woman who could fulfill their sexual needs. In counterpart this activity was a source revenue for women that worked in the cabaret. In addition, when the teacher fled from the cabaret to the school was one of symbols for Nihilism. We can refer this act to “le voyage dans la lune”. Rath left his middle class society once he got fired for the cabaret thinking that he could have a better life with Lola. However, he had to run away from the cabaret to his old world like these people who went to discover the moon had to run for their lives also. 

Summary

   This paragraph indicates that the middle class and working class from Germany were not friendly to each other like the ones from England. Moreover, the middle class did not want the working class to be able to move up to the middle class.There was also a fight for equality between the sexes. One group (left-wing political parties) wanted more equality between man and woman but the conservatives did not want change. However, the constitution was able to mandate gender equality.

   We can see the same different social classes in the movie. Rath belongs to the middle class and Lola was for the working class. However, it was clear that these two classes were not mixed because Rath got fired once the principal found that the teacher was hanging out at Lola’s cabaret. This meant that middle class people were not allowed to go out with those who belong to the working class in Germany at that time. Rath confirmed the same idea when he runs away from the cabaret because he refused to die in the working class neighborhood.

Lyric

"Chuck Out the Men" 

The battle for emancipation's been raging since history began
Yes, feminists of every nation want to chuck off the chains made by man
Hula girls and housemaids and wives in Maribou
hear all our voices thunder in protest
Anything that men do women can do too
and more that that we women do it best

This lyric talks about sexes equality and it reminds us that man and woman were born equal. The inequality was created by men and it's time now to end it. Women proved that there is no such thing as man job because a woman can do whatever a man can do. For instance there are female politicians that are doing better jobs than men.

I chose this topic because there are certain parts of our world that still do not believe in sexes equality. Therefore, million of women are tortured and are not qualified for certain jobs.                 

Lyrics

"The Lavender Song" (Das Lila Lied), music by Mischa Spoliansky

"What makes them think they have the right to say what God considers vice
What makes them think they have the right to keep us out of Paradise
They make our lives hell here on Earth
poisoning us with guilt and shame"



This lyric talks about the oppression of German government on its own people. It means that people felt that they were not free to enjoy their lives. Moreover, some civil liberties were taken away from them and they were seeking for justice. For instance people were put in jail or killed because they did not agree with the government or had a different opinion.

I chose this song because it reminds me that the freedom that we have today was not and is still not available for certain human been. Therefore, we should protect it and more importantly enjoy it. We cannot be one hundred  percent free but the one that we have in the U.S is the best so far in the world. 

A trip to the moon/ Le voyage dans la lune

 "A trip to the moon" is a fiction movie that was made by Georges Melies in 1902. The movie starts with a group of people that seem happy behind a project: go to the moon. A moment later a decision was made by the same people. Then they started constructing a sort of plane that will take them to the moon. Once their plane was ready they had a kind of ceremony before departing to the moon.

 
The idea behind this movie was that they were people (Nihilists) who wanted to escape from our real world which  was infested by violence and unhappiness in order to find a "better place to live." To do so Nihilists thought that the moon would be a better place to start a new life. Nihilists had in their mind that the only way to find peace was to leave the real world the way it is and find a new one that is full of joy and peace. That's why those people who were leaving in the real world in the movie were content. However, they were sadly surprised to find that they were other lives in the moon and did not welcome them. Moreover, they had to fight in order to survive.
 
 At the end of the movie we saw that the same people who went for a new world had to run for their life. Was it a sign for Nihilists to realize that there was not a perfect world?
Based on the movie running away from the moon and coming back to our real world demonstrated that they were not welcome to the new world. Therefore, Nihilists should stop hating their world and try to find solutions to their problems because they belong to the real world.
  

Max Horkheimer

Biography of Max Horkheimer

"Horkheimer was born in the Zuffenhausen district of Stuttgart, which at the time was the capital of the Kingdom of Württembergwithin the German Empire, the only son of a wealthy orthodox Jewish family on February 14, 1895. Due to pressure from his father who wanted Max to take over the family business, Horkheimer left secondary school at the age of sixteen to work in his father's factory. In 1916, his manufacturing career ended when he was drafted into World War." 

Quote: "Critique, in this Marxian sense, meant taking the ideology of a society – e.g. the belief in individual freedom or free market under capitalism – and critiquing it by comparing it with the social reality of that very society – e.g. social inequality and exploitation. 

Max in this quote means that the social ideal (individual freedom) and free market (capitalism) should be treated the same in the ideal world. However, in the reality capital owners want to keep the lead of our economy and society. We know for the fact that to maximize their profit capitalists have to minimize their expenses which include salary expenses. By doing so social inequality will increase and workers will be exploited. There is no easy solution to this problem because capital owners need workers and vice versa. Now the question is what would be our society if everyone were rich? At this point society would not be an excited place to live because each person would have what she/he needs. In addition, there would be less innovation because creativity is motivated by making profit.

These ideas fit in with my own conception of mass culture today. The mass culture is consider today as one of the biggest industry in the world. The main motivation is the profit but it also treats and reveals stories of our society. For instance, a movie that talks about the killing of Osama is one the great jobs that mass culture can benefit us. Documentaries also talks about certain problems in our society and we can be aware of these issues. For instance, the docmentary on Columbine shooting helped us to understand how guns control is complex. I do think that we cannot live without mass culture because it integrated in our daily life. Besides the role of information and education it also plays an entertainment part. For example, we go out to see a movie or stay indoor to watch movies on TV when we do not want to hang out. We do agree with Max that mass culture should treat all problems of our society with the same priority. For instance, mass culture should be able to bring up a problem either it concerns poor class, middle class or rich. However, this inegality contnues to grow every day because most of the time the mass media pick and choose the subject that they want to talk about it and specially the one that will generate more profit.