Murakami/Spielberg/Lucas: Sheep Concludes;Indy Enters

I first wanted to address the conclusion of the Wild Sheep Chase. I was floored with how it ended. First, Boku found his friend, "The Rat" and had it out. I found interesting how they hardly looked at each other or was back to back and in the dark. Is this a way of saying that society is a thin line between normal and abnormal? Boku's sense of isolation drove him a bit crazy, but it also drove him to a n sense of enlightenment that help him see what had to be done with this sheep. He DID found the sheep. I know people in our class question this, but he did. I believe he found its essence, if you will. The sheep's spirit did not or did it? I think there were some signs it did sense the isolation alone I did not thought trigger this madness that Boku was suffering from. The "Sheep man" was his friend trying to tell him something. I was lost with what though, other than to make him understand how selfish he has been and that this was his fate. We as a society tend to not change until we are force to and Boku I believe was. I know there was a Devil's advocate question you had and lets say he did not learn anything, then what? Does Boku go about his life the same way until something else happens that triggers his feelings again? Do we as a society have to wait until something like 9/11 before we get it? One more thing about this book, Murakami's view of Boku is a view of society as a whole. If you believe that, I believe that there is hope because Boku showed signs of change of at least attempted change. His crying was a purged of what happened to him and maybe what he needs to do to evolve. Maybe not physically crying, but some form of purging is needed with our society to change. Yes, I know that word has been used a lot this election year, but its true. BTW, loved this book and will try to reread it to better understand what its trying to say, if I'm way off.

Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom, in a word.......creatively offensive. I never thought of this movie in the way we talked about it in class today. Now looking back at this movie there are some very bad stereotypes, but was this intentional? Was Spielberg and Lucas(you can not forget about him in this part) trying to make a statement about our society? Was their point more than making a lot of money? Oriental ism, from Edward Said, suggests that we examine the literary and culture that we live in. Our culture tends to have us thinking that we(USA) are the superior country and that we alone can help those in dire need to be "rescued" from there primitive lives. Like Murakami, are we so use to these stereotypes that we can not be offended by them? I agree that with this being a movie that depicts the Orient(Middle East) in bad manners that we should be outrage by it. The trouble is that Spielberg/Lucas get a way with this because as it was pointed out in class, this could be looked on as a comedy. The one question that was not answered was when you asked about when you look at this movie, why do you laugh? Is this not offensive? The question is are they being so over the top with this that they was sending a message about the times of movie cereals like these were made? Believe me, looking at this movie and being African American, I can find numerous accounts of stereotypes that I was mad at. I would like to think that these guys were merely making a movie like they remember it growing up, but if not........then there is something wrong.