Friday, January 31, 2020

Nicki minaj and Michael Jackson Essay Example for Free

Nicki minaj and Michael Jackson Essay The Jackson 5 (also spelled The Jackson Five, sometimes stylized The Jackson 5ive), later known as The Jacksons, or simply Jacksons, are an American popular music family group from Gary, Indiana. Founding group members Jackie Jackson, Tito Jackson, Jermaine Jackson, Marlon Jackson and Michael Jackson formed the group after performing in an early incarnation called The Jackson Brothers, which originally consisted of a trio of the three older brothers. Active from 1964 to 1990, the Jacksons played from a repertoire of RB, soul, pop and (in the 1970s) disco. During their six-and-a-half-year Motown tenure, The Jackson 5 was one of the biggest pop-music acts of the 1970s, and the band served as the launching pad for the solo careers of their lead singers Jermaine and Michael, the latter brother later transforming his early Motown solo fame into greater success as an adult artist. The Jackson 5/The Jacksons have sold 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best selling artists of all time!!!!!!!! Nicki minaj Born in 1982, Nicki Minaj grew up with an abusive, addicted father. She attended La Guardia High School for the Arts, she was introduced to rapper Lil Wayne, who launched her career. Her 2010 debut album, pink friday,wit the single Your Love, topped the Billboard charts. A frequent cameo singer, Minajs voice was featured in seven songs on the charts. In 2012, Early Life Hip-hop artist and singer Nicki Minaj was born Onika Maraj on December 8, 1982, in Trinidad and Tobago, and moved with her family to Queens, when she was 5 years old. Minajs father was a severe drug addict with a long history of violence. At one point, he set fire to the familys home and tried to kill Minajs mother. Those early struggles, Minaj has said, helped fuel her drive to rise above the life her parents knew. Ive always had this female-empowerment thing in the back of my mind, she told Details magazine, because I wanted my mother to be stronger, and she couldnt be. I thought, If Im successful, I can change her life.' To reach that point, however, nicki developed personas for herself that would allow her to be a new person. An early incarnation was someone she called Cookie, then came Harajuku Barbie, before finally settling on Nicki Minaj. Fantasy was my reality, she has said. Minaj clearly had a knack for performance. At the age of 12, she authored her first rap, then went on to delve into acting at La Guardia High School of Music and Art, the school that inspired the movie Fame. Rapper and Singer Determined to make it in the music business, Minaj took on backup singing roles for local New York City rappers. Soon, she began writing her own material. She was eventually discovered by Dirty Money CEO Fendi, who came across Minajs MySpace page, loved what he heard, and immediately signed her to his label. That connection led Minaj to Lil Wayne, who collaborated with her on a series of mix tapes, the first of which, Playtime is Over, was released in April 2007. The recording, and subsequent mixed tapes, showcased Minajs female swagger and out-front style. By early 2010, considerable anticipation had built up around Minajs much discussed, much covered debut album, which was scheduled for release that fall. In April of that year, she released her first single, Massive Attack. Two months later she won Best Hip-Hop Female at the annual BET Awards. She dedicated the award to Lil Wayne.she later became an America idol jugde.

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

The Renaissance Essay -- History Renaissance Europe

During the 1400s and 1500s in mainly Italy there was a major change that took place in all aspects of life. This was called the Renaissance and was a movement that helped give rebirth to culture and the arts. This movement went away from the medieval times that had forced a feudalist system on its people. The Medieval times were a dark period in European history that saw a major decline in arts and government. This declining can be attributed to a number of different reasons. One of which was the Bubonic Plague that spread throughout Europe and Asia and killed millions of its inhabitants. This was the final nail in the medieval coffin. Throughout these times the major focus for government and the arts were all religion oriented. The Black Death killed with no discrimination and took the lives of priest and thieves alike. This caused many to question their religion. After all, how could one preach that good people will be held in high regards with their lord when they can die from the same vicious disease as hookers or evil people? The Black Death was also somewhat of a cleansing for many societies. Although it was a horrible epidemic it took care of the rapid population expansion and just like a with brush clear-cut the undergrowth to allow for more growth to occur. This in fact did happen and after the Plague has resided new ideas and policies grew from it. There were now more areas that people could be skilled in and housing and work were in great need which caused and economic boom. With this prosperity allowed more time for positive thinking and this thinking lead people to go back and study their humanity and to see how they could improve themselves. The rebirth started in northern Italy and gave rise to many great improve... ...eans saw it first in action during this time. The Renaissance saw many improvements in everything from conditions of living to ideals and perception. This time was exactly that, a shift in perspective. It demonstrated how growth is good and how crisis's can turn out to be helpful in the long run although they may see tragic at the time they occur. During the Medieval period, there were two focal points to European society: feudalism and the Church; the first to govern the material world, the second to govern the spiritual world. Both feudalism and the Church were highly-structured and rigid systems, intolerant of change, and both clearly supported the proposition that the rights of the individual be lower than the rules of society. The thing that eroded the power of these institutions, and was central to the Renaissance, was the rebirth of the individual in society.

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Live Theatre Review

The actors and director of The â€Å"Woman In Black† had complete power and control over the audience's reactions and emotions. For our Drama GCSE we went to see â€Å"The Woman in Black†, on Monday 1st December 2003. The play was showing at the Fourtune theatre and was based on a book by Susan Hill; which was adapted by Stephen Mallatratt. The â€Å"Woman In Black† is about a middle aged solicitor called Arthur Kipps, who years earlier had lost an infant son following some eerie incidents in an English town. In hopes of getting rid of his personal demons and ghosts, he approaches a young actor to turn his written account into a theatre piece (re-enactment.) It shows all of the happenings with a recently deceased woman called Alice Drableau and her remote, mysterious house. The play explores the issues of the supernatural and things beyond the human world, such as ghosts and things that are invisible to the human eye; created by mime and the actors and audience's imagination. I think that the play and the actors explored these issues very well, but I am not sure if they were explored in a believable way. I thought that the first half of the play was quite slow, tedious, and we weren't drawn in so there wasn't any control over us whilst watching it. However, when the play reached the second half the pace started to pick up, and tension was created, which drew us in and gave the actors control over our reactions. It was remarkable how far people in the audience were willing to go with their imaginations. They seemed to be really involved with the performance; I think that to a certain extent we all were. The play was structured with flashbacks and crosscutting which gave us a more in depth understanding of what had happened in the past to effect the future. The actors took us on a journey with them in whichever time they were in. We knew what time they were in, as the actors clicked their fingers towards the lighting technician each time. At first it didn't seem to be part of the performance, later on when it occurred again it was clear that this was a repeated action and was necessary to the play. When actually thinking about it they were actors, acting as though they were acting a re-enactment. Quite confusing I thought. The lights changed from being bright when in the present, to being dim; and almost seemed like sepia tones to give that more ancient feel when in the past. I don't think that this was done as well or creative as it could have been. The clicking to me just seemed odd and something that didn't belong in the play, even though I can understand what they were trying to do. The lighting technician brought us back to reality and removed us from the performance; it drew us back out from the tense gripping story. The tension that was built up before these points suddenly dropped and then tension tried to build up again after that point. The actual changes between times eras was very fast, it was almost like there was a sudden change in tempo for that spilt second. The structure of the stage also affected the amount of space used by the characters. In the first half of the play we only saw half of the stage. The basic layout of it was rather boring. There wasn't much space for anything and the layout just wasn't interesting or eye-catching at all. As the play moved into the second half, the other part of the stage was revealed to us. It was an exciting change that spiced things up a bit. They suddenly had so much more space to work with. The â€Å"Woman in Black† has two main characters. Arthur Kipps played by Paul Stewart and the young actor who is actor Matt Holland. There was also the shadowed â€Å"Woman in Black† (Who is Alice Drableau the deceased,) although she didn't have a huge role in the play. The two main actors portrayed many characters, with the usage of costume and their vocal techniques and tones of voices. I thought that they portrayed the different characters quite well but it definitely wasn't believable for me personally. The actors changed costume in front of us (the audience), which once again drew us away from the drama. In my eyes. Once again, I realise that this was part of the piece, and if you think of it as an actual play, it was a great technique to use. I just found it rather off putting when I was actually getting into the drama; I realised that we weren't seeing the story, we were seeing people tell us and re-enact the story. Some of the two men's movements were very interesting and engaged us in the performance. Mr Kipps didn't really use much movement when narrating. On the other hand when he took on the role of other characters and the young actor played a younger version of Mr Kipps, they used movement to the best of their ability. An example would be a simple motion of a horse and cart. The two characters mimed this very well in a believable way, showing how they would be when on a real horse. A great bit of movement that I found really effective, was when they pretended to be on a train. The actors were really aware of the space and objects around them. For example they used 2 briefcases as doors and a couple of chairs as seats, when walking through the imaginary train and we could tell instantly what it was. One of the men walked sideways along to show the compact space on a train, the two men also sat diagonal from each other which gave us the impression that there could have been more people on t he train. The woman in black definitely had the ultimate power over the other characters reactions, and over us. She moved silently in and out drifting along in an almost Godley fashion and She made it look as though the dark stage was her shadowed sky; she was swooping down and scaring the prey. We were the prey, and we were shocked, in fact some people did let their emotions get the better of them. She wore pinnacled headgear, under a black veil. The black costume seemed as though it was to symbolise death and possibly evil. I would say that the actors had partial control over the audience and controlled the tension and atmosphere. The blackouts and lighting also helped create the woman in black's fast movement on the rocking chair; she was furious, focused and very creepy in a psychotic sort of way. This drew us in further. A rocking chair normally moves slowly and contains a nice old person maybe knitting. It came as a huge shock when this happened, because it was such a huge contrast. There were two moments where there was a huge amount of control on the audience. The young actor approached a door this was concealed before and as it is now in light we are intrigued to know what is behind it. There was a lot of tension at this point and the use of pauses made the intense slow hand movements towards the door quite nerve-wracking. It was surprising how much this affected people. A great moment of tension which created a really strong atmosphere was when the young actor who was pretending to be Mr Kipps was sleeping. There was a long empty silence and a complete blackout. This was a moment that was really tense, we the audience were also in a total blackout, so they were putting us in the same situation. We were under control, as we couldn't see anything, so we didn't really know what was going on or what was going to happen. We were really involved. The actor also used a torch in the audience, whilst the whole room was black. The light was shone all around the audience, kind of like a spotlight. This whole moment, reminds me of childhood and being scared of the dark. Set, lighting, props and special effects I feel were all necessary to create a real sense of atmosphere. There were quite a few sound effects, to try and make the play seem as real as possible. Not only that, but some of the sound effects seemed to be symbolic. The sound of crows at the Graveyard, I'm sure this is a bad omen, death and a sign of evil. The sound of a rocking chair, which sounded like a heartbeat racing, to build tension and suspense. A double use. A music box in the Childs room, so innocent, yet the music seemed quite creepy when in the dark. Lots of them seemed to symbolise childhood, the innocence, and good. Because we knew what was going on and it was dark and tense, that goodness seemed almost possessed by evil. I thought that the sets were great and were concealed very well behind the gauze. It helped them to change the environment and setting quite efficiently without us knowing. From a graveyard which was furniture covered in white sheets maybe to symbolise ghosts, or when a person is dead them being covered in a sheet to be concealed. A sense of age and death. We saw the old house, which was covered in sheets again, kind of like an old house that hasn't been lived in for years, derelict. They created long stairs for the characters to run up and down, that for me seemed to create a gradual build to something. There must have been something at the top of the stairs. Also a child's room. A sweet little room, distorted from the innocence of it as soon as the woman in black steps in it. The play ended at a climactic cliff-hanger and it was gradually built up to a high point of tension. I personally didn't find it a fear-provoking piece of drama although I know others did, and I can understand how it happened. People were sucked into the drama and its world and certain things didn't remove them from it. I felt that all of the clicking and the people in the audience screaming just distracted me too much for me to actually enjoy it. I thought that they made a great effort with only two actors, it must have been a lot of hard work, and it used lots of great techniques. They definitely used role play a lot, when becoming different characters and acting out their situations. Marking the moment, using sound and light to emphasis something, such as the immensely tense movement towards the door; will he open it won't he? Clear usage of crosscutting to show us different times they also used different lighting to show this. Narration, this kept informing us of what was going o n, Mr Kipps was telling us the story. I think that the playwright wrote the play to make the audience think about death, how it is a time of isolation. Maybe to make us remember a time when we were scared, something that everyone can relate to. Fear. I think he also wanted to tell a story that would excite people and to bring the typical ghost story to the 2lst century. People enjoy being scared because they get to use their imagination. Most of the play just really reminded me of childhood memories, something that everyone in the audience could relate to. Being scared of the darkness, that children's room with the music coming from a doll, the excitement of discovering something, bag loads of curiocity.This was why we felt so involved, small parts of the play would have related to us as the audience. We all know it is safe environment/ atmosphere, and that the play isn't real life, but there is still that sense of danger. The thrill of not knowing something. The idea that we have all been scared in our lives, something that we can relate to. The thing is that I thought most things were just too predictable. We knew something was going to happen, we could kind of guess what would happen; we just didn't know when it would happen.

Monday, January 6, 2020

Gender Discrimination Against Bank Of America - 876 Words

Diversity Compliance There are many different laws set in place to provide equal fairness to the diverse workforce. Some of those laws are Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the American s with Disability Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and many state laws. Even with these laws, discrimination still occurs within the workplace. This paper will investigate a case of gender discrimination against Bank of America and what could have been done to prevent this from happening. Calibuso et al. v. Bank of America Corp. et al. In 2010, a group of female financial advisors filed a national class action lawsuit against Bank of America and Merrill Lynch under gender discrimination. The main plaintiff, Judy Calibuso, worked in the Miami, Florida office since 1995 (Lieff Cabraser Heiman Bernstein, 2010). In the lawsuit, Bank of America is accused of favoring male brokers in merit pay, allocating client accounts and referrals, partnership opportunities, and benefits. The plaintiffs had hoped to end the discriminatory practices and policies and be awarded back pay from retaliatory efforts (Lieff Cabraser Heiman Bernstein, 2010). After three years, they finally came to a settlement awarding $39 million to a possible 4,800 current and former employees (Stempel, 2013). The settlement also provided that Bank of America needed to hire an independent contractor to oversee the improvements of their practices and policies. Bank of America never admitted to anyShow MoreRelatedDiscrimination At The Modern Civil Rig hts Era Essay1539 Words   |  7 Pagesnondiscrimination policies and practices that prohibits against any and all various types of conduct based on certain characteristics when it comes to the hire, fire, and relationship with their employees (Canas Sondak, 2014). As a member of the workforce, we would hope and assume that we wouldn’t have to deal with discrimination anymore. Don’t get me wrong, our country has grown so much over the years when it comes to tackling discrimination in the workplace. It’s just unfortunate that it’s justRead MoreV. Bank Of America Corp Essay935 Words   |  4 Pagesprohibits discrimination in employment-related matters and is administered by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) (Canas Sonkak, 2014). In Calibuso et al. v. Bank of America Corp. et al. Judy Calibuso filed a complaint against Bank of America with the EEOC in January 2007. Case Law Overview Calibuso et al. v. Bank of America Corp. et al. was a gender case that was filed in U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York in 2007. Five women filed a lawsuit alleging that Bank of AmericaRead MoreThe Case Of Calibuso Et Al V. Bank Of America Corp Essay1563 Words   |  7 PagesThe case of Calibuso et al. v. Bank of America Corp. et al. began in 2010, when female financial analysts (FAs) filed charges in in several states and with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) claiming that the Bank of America (BoA) used discriminatory pay practices against them in violation of state laws and the U.S. Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (DiMarco, 2014; Calibuso, 2012). These laws forbid inequalities in pay (Schrimsher Fretwell, 2012)Read MoreDiscrimination in the Workplace1265 Words   |  6 Pages Why does discrimination occur at workplace? There are multiple explanation for the issue. It can be ranged from generational differences, lack of diversity training, absence of good behavior modeling, and many other reasons. In every workplace, it is consists of different cultural, religious, and social backgrounds. There are different perspectives and conversations that take place at the workplace. An individual’s aspect on race, culture, sexual orientations, gender, and political views is disparateRead MoreThe Movement Of The 1964 Civil Rights Act Essay1052 Words   |  5 Pagesaffecting employment and women’s rights today with some of the notable court cases summarized below: †¢ Muller v Oregon (1908) – limited women to work â€Å"no more than 10 hrs a day† – to protect women and unlocking the discussion of â€Å"women’s rights and gender equality.† †¢ Roe v Wade (1973) – balancing protection of life with â€Å"a woman’s right to privacy.† †¢ Adkins v Children’s Hospital (1923) – â€Å"women have same rights as men do when it comes to work wages.† †¢ Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) – â€Å"married womenRead More The Great Recession of 2007: Job Discrimination in the United States1403 Words   |  6 Pageslive during this horrific period in U.S. history. Millions of Americans are out of work, and U.S. companies are hesitant to hire employees. Lawmakers change financial policies to provide recovery to the country. The financial bailout is used to aid banks and states to build infrastructure. The Federal Reserve is printing money at an all-time high that affects the value of the dollar. To cope, many people turn to welfare for government assistance. People who do not rely on unemployment benefit or governmentRead MorePolicy Analysis Paper copy1430 Words   |  6 Pagessociety has in place regarding gender and sex roles. The very definition of what it means to be female or male is being challenged by this small portion of the population. In their fight for gender autonomy and gender equality in the education field, they have made great strides to be acknowledged and treated as the gender they identify with; instead of the gender that our society’s norms place on them because of their birth certificate sex. In several states across America, law suits stemming fromRead MoreThe Case Of Griggs V. Duke Power Company1047 Words   |  5 Pagesset employment standards in which the applicants must have a high school diploma or pass an intelligence test to be hired or transferred to a job in the plant. In 1964 the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 stated that it is against the law to discriminate against an individual because of race, religion, sex or national origin. The 703(a) of the Act is an unlawful employment practice for any employer to set perimeters, separate, or categorize employees to deprive them of employment opportunitiesRead MoreHouse Bill 2 : The Challenges For Equality And Equality In The Government1056 Words   |  5 PagesHow would you feel about everyone using the same bathroom regardless of gender association in a given environment throughout the day no matter what age group where to utilize it at any point of time? I can assure you that not all people would find it justifiable for a fully grown male, that claims to be a female, to use the bathroom when younger females by birth were utilizing it at the same time, and vice versus with young males utilizing the bathroom if a fully grown female that associates asRead MoreDiscrimination of Girls1678 Words   |  7 PagesDiscrimination against female children has been a topic of debate. It has been a subject of concern and sociological significance. This subject raises the cultu ral aspects about the role of a female child in society, what her human rights are as a human being and a number of sensitive issues.This issue is important because there is nearly universal consensus on the need for gender equality.[1] Gender based discrimination against female children is pervasive across the world. It is seen in all the