Welcome...and initial guidelines...

This blog will be used in the spring of 2008 by 80+ students at Drexel University to investigate the effects of Iraq on culture and the reverse. Our goal will be to better understand why the US is in Iraq, and to question whether literature can help us on this journey.

Weekly plans and other materials will always be posted in Vista, not this blog. So go to Bb Vista to get the discussion prompts and other instructions.

I intend this blog to manage our discussions and track our collective investigation.

You should have received an email from me inviting you to become a contributor to this blog. The email was sent Monday afternoon to your official Drexel email address.

Friday, April 18, 2008

A Happy Working Song

One movie that I have seen recently and really enjoyed was the movie Enchanted. Enchanted is about a fairytale princess who gets banished by an evil Queen to New York City so that she will not marry her son. It may seem like a bit of a stretch, but I believe that the making of Enchanted was motivated by the war in Iraq.

One scene in the movie includes the princess, Gisele, cleaning the apartment of a man living in New York. She recruits an “army” of little animals to help her. She sings to them and tells them orders and what needs to be cleaned. She acts as a sergeant or leader in the war, while the little animals play the roll of the other soldiers lower in command. In the end, they all work together in order to achieve the common goal which is cleaning the house. This part of the movie could mirror that of the ranks in a war.

There is also a scene in the movie where everyone marches through Central Park as a group singing a song. Although soldiers do not march together for the sole purpose of singing happy songs, they do march together and travel in groups while traveling and possibly even when in battle.

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