Word: tragic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...This completely fictional figure is, of course, intended to symbolize all the freaks who preoccupied Arbus for the rest of her short life (she is one of those artists whose brief stay among us adds tragic resonance to a relatively modest body of work). Arbus herself is presented as a shy, somewhat dithering, woman, working as an assistant to her successful fashion photographer husband, whose powerful need to make some sort of artistic statement of her own is thwarted by her lack of a subject, something that might mobilize her compassion and engender a style with which to express...
...catalog them. Launched in December of 2005, MyDeathSpace.com displays a MySpace.com user’s cause of death and any related news articles alongside a picture of the deceased linked to their MySpace.com profile. Because MySpace.com is most popular amongst people college-aged and younger, the deaths are usually tragic (suicides, automobile accidents, and murders) or completely abnormal (a kid killed by a rare cancer, two teens found dead with their heads inside an 8-foot helium balloon). According to the site’s founder, Mike Patterson, there are more than a thousand deceased listed. “It?...
Tears welled up in myeyes beforeI could finish reading about Perez. Where do we get such dedicated young people to serve us without reservation? A life so special should not have ended in a far-off land away from family and friends. From the beginning of this tragic war, I have maintained that we had no right to be in Iraq. There is nothing there to warrant the sacrifice of our finest young people. Not oil, not the Iraqis and not the unlikely hope of spreading democracy. It is time to bring our finest home...
This is more than a coincidence: the quotation gets to the heart of the cultural moment. Both movies demonstrate that powerful leaders’ human flaws inevitably instigate tragic consequences that cause succession. As their respective countries turn against President Bush and Tony Blair for overreaching their authority on failed quests—particularly the “War on Terror”—these films seem perfectly timed. But the relationship between the political reality and the cinematic representation of leadership uncertainty seems surprisingly elliptical for Hollywood, particularly during the last few years...
...first glance, it seems as though we might have reached the point where our leaders’ plight has become so pathetic that they are no longer demagogues who provoke our anger, but tragic figures that engender our sympathy. These characters’ actions are too destructive to be completely sympathetic, leading toward a more cynical interpretation. Humanity is inevitably going to produce human leaders who will provoke terrible consequences, usually due to their mistaken assumptions regarding the necessary actions to preserve their rule...