Hello all and welcome to Demented 4 Ever (just warning you now a name change might happen at some point). As it stands, this is a blog created by a college freshman for his composition class. I will be using it as a means of sharing my thoughts and opinions on the topics we are exploring in class. There will be a lot of discussion in this blog around rhetorical analysis. Being a college student this skill is probably one of the most important skills to have because if you learn it early on you can use it for practically every class you take. It is also something that even though we all (hopefully) use every day, we don’t really discuss it outside of our classrooms. That’s why I think it’s important to make this blog public-that way anyone can chime in, and as our lives start to revolve around internet things like social media, we need to get used to talking to anyone, including strangers. I also think this will be good practice to be able to use rhetoric to our advantage for any arguments we are making but to also learn how to be critical to the rhetoric we are receiving.
I know the first question you are probably asking is why is this blog called Demented 4 Ever. Our theme this semester revolves around cults so what better theme to have for this blog than Cecil B. Demented. For you who are unaware, Cecil B. Demented is a movie from 2000 about a Manson Familyesque group of film-lovers who are trying to revolutionize the world by trying to make a movie out of the terrorist acts their group is committing against the mainstream movie world. For anyone who finds this blog outside of our classroom I am a major film buff. If I can find a way to make a film connection I will, but depending on what we are assigned this might be hard to do. What my classmates and professor don’t know is that for the last six or sevenish years I have been workshopping a screenplay that might explore the main character starting a cult. I hope to use this blog not only to publicly record my opinion on cults but to also record any changes in my opinion. As it stands I would say I’m pro-cults. I am by no means saying I agree with the behavior, beliefs, or actions of any cult past or present. All I am saying is I think it is possible to start a well meaning cult that can succeed at changing the world for the better. My hope for this class is to either be able to build a strong enough argument to convince my classmates (and the rest of the world) that I am not crazy for having these beliefs or to be open minded enough to have my mind changed.
All are welcome here. We chose to use the blog format to draw our conversations into a public space, so comments and feedback are encouraged (once I figure out how to set that up).
Demented 4 Ever 