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.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Hooligans

I saw this movie by chance while on vacation, and didnt think i was going to sit through all of it, because it was about soccer. To my surprise this movie goes far beyond two rivaling soccer teams; it is about a man's self discovery and understanding of the world, through the lives of others.
The main character Matt, is a Harvard student who was mistakely expelled (im not sure why, i started watching in the middle) and couldnt get over his pride to come back to school. He decides to go visit his sister in london, just to get away from it all. There he meets the leader of a local soccer team, Pete, who introduces him to the thrill of street fighting. Turns out theres more to these london soccer teams, than matt thought. The teams call themselves firms, and have leaders and an entire govenmental system about them. They play against each other, and the losing team would often try to beat the other team up after the game. They go so far as to kill family members to enact revenge or justification of a wrong doin by the other firm.
The final scenes of the film play out in like a war on the back streets of london, where Petes team, the GCE, fghts their top rival, Birmingham City. The back story is that, many years ago, during the first fight between the two teams, Birmingham City's leaders' son ran into the midst and got accidentally killed, so naturally th e leader blamed it on the GCE for his death.
In the present, now that they two teams have crosses paths again, the Birmingham City leader sees that matt has a sister, with a child, who comes in the middle of the "war fight" to get matt and Pete out of the action and drive them away. the Birmingham City leader sees her and starts to go after her and the kid in the backseat of the car. This scene is similar to the theme of the scream movies where the female is to blame for everything that went wrong in the movie. The sister is to blame for trying to be a hero in someone elses fight and getting in the firm's business. By showing her face, the Birmingham City leader sees the opportunity to get revenge. Similar to how enemies enact revenge against each other in war.

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