Thursday, January 30, 2020

The Women of Full Metal Jacket Essay Example for Free

The Women of Full Metal Jacket Essay In Stanley Kubricks Full Metal Jacket, it is difficult to determine the role that women play simply because of the glaring lack of female characters. In total, only three women actually appear in the movie, and two of those are prostitutes; the third isnt revealed as a woman until the final 10 minutes of the film, and none of them are given names. In fact, until the snipers gender is revealed, women only play a role as objects for the soldiers amusement. In all interactions between the genders, it is obvious that the male soldiers always hold complete power over the women, able to bargain their services down to a paltry five dollars per soldier. For one of the prostitutes, a soldier even effectively acts as her pimp, determining whom she services and for how much. In contrast, the role of the female sniper completely flips this gendered scheme of power-relations by using an intermediary, her rifle, to gain power over the male soldiers. For these G.I.s, the idea that women dont exist on the battlefield is hammered into them from boot camp. This process starts when the drill instructor marches into the barracks and instructs his soldiers that they should give their gun a female name and sleep with it at night because it will be the only female company they will receive during their tour of duty. In this manner, the soldiers are directed to receive the same sort of pleasure from killing and battle that they would normally expect from a full relationship with a woman. On a more abstract level, giving the gun a female name also establishes a mindset that women are tools (another name the drill instructor frequently uses to describe the rifle) in order to achieve pleasure for the soldier. In the battlefield, the soldiers subscribe to this philosophy wholeheartedly; taking their gun with them everywhere while leaving their transitory relationships with behind. Similarly, the complete lack of female soldiers in the army se ts up an expectation in their minds that all soldiers are male: all soldiers uses their women to kill. The introduction of the female sniper severely breaks all of these preconceptions for the American soldiers in several ways. First, she is a complete departure from the previous female characters in the film. Rather  than being subservient to the male G.I.s she dominates them, driving them away from an otherwise abandoned city. By using a rifle, she is in fact co-opting the tools of masculine domination that the American forces have relied on. By taking a tool that the men have identified as female, she is using her own femininity against them as a way of reversing the traditional power roles that the soldiers have come to expect. Secondly, her presence and the close proximity in which she is killed provides a more human and softer face than some of the soldiers had previously experienced. Joker in particular seems horrified by the facts of war once he is able to see the female sniper up close after she has been shot down. While some of the other soldiers are in favor of letting her suffer, Joker wants to effectively euthanize her. However, even when he makes the decision to shoot her one final time he has significant difficultly coming to grips with shooting a woman. In this way, the sniper once again demonstrates the power of her gender by forcing Joker, a self-described killer, to hesitate. Thus we can see that by making the sniper a female, Kubrick effectively utilizes her gender as a method of reversing the power roles established early in the movie and continued throughout.

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Kerry Group Case Analysis Essay -- essays research papers

The Kerry Group began over thirty years ago in the south west region of Ireland. Beginning as a dairy and ingredients plant the company has now flourished into a global leader in the food ingredients and flavor products area. Kerry Group is headquartered in Tralee, Ireland and through its manufacturing, sales, and technical centers around the world, employs over 20,000 people. The company supplies over 10,000 food, food ingredients and other flavor products to customers in over 140 countries. Kerry Group also has manufacturing and sales facilities in over 20 countries. When Ireland joined the EEC or European Economic Community in 1973 many small dairies began to merge in order to compete with the larger dairy producing companies. Kerry also participated in the mergers with help from the milk suppliers of the County. Kerry acquired the State owned milk processing company along with its creameries. The Group also held a 42.5% stake in the NKMP Company for a total of 1.5 million Euros. At the same time, six of the eight independent Co-ops, which owned the other 42.5% stake, were acquired and became a new subsidiary of the Kerry Co-operative Creameries Ltd, which began trading in 1974. Kerry began as the smallest of six agricultural co-ops, a position that was soon to change. As Kerry began growing they developed some key values in the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis that are the backbone for the success of the Kerry Group. The major strength of the Kerry Group is procurement. Procurement allows Kerry to use available global resources in specialty ingredients, seasonings, coating systems, sweet ingredients, nutritional systems, and specialty proteins; by doing this they are able to acquire the highest-quality raw materials. Another strength of Kerry is technological development. Through technological development Kerry is able to develop flavors and gain an advantage over the competition. Kerry gains this technological advantage through research and development and acquisitions. The weaknesses of Kerry Group include the firm infrastructure. The Group’s debt-to-equity ratio is inordinately high for a company of Kerry’s size. Another weakness is in Kerry’s Human Resource Management division. Management e ncourages the employees to think â€Å"Kerry† or in sense be â€Å"Kerryized,† if employees do not follow this style of thinking they are ... ...leader in its selected markets through creativity and superior customer service. The Group is continuing to focus many efforts to expand its presence in global food and ingredients markets and its consumer foods businesses in Europe and abroad. The Kerry Group has recently put into action plans to purchase a specialty foods company in China that is expected to reach an additional 1.3 billion new customers. This venture will be a huge step for Kerry Group because it will be completely localized (a multi-domestic strategy), in that all business operations are expected to be turned over to the new facilities in China by the end of 2006.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Today, Kerry has emerged into a leader in the food processing and ingredients business, reaching its goal set in the early 1980’s. The group has five basic areas of business; which include Kerry Ingredients, Kerry Bio-Science, Kerry Foods, Kerry Agribusiness, and Mastertaste. If Kerry group continues to build from their corporate and business level strategies and continues to evaluate their SWOT analysis they will stay ahead of the competition and continue to remain a leader in the food ingredients and processing sector.

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Dove Case

Describe the evolution of the dove brand? The origins of the Dove brand lay in the U. S. In 1957 the first dove product was launched that was called the beauty bar. This product claimed that it was different than soap and that it would not dry out your skin. The advertising campaign for this launch was created by the Ogilvy and Mather advertising agency. The main message of this advertisement was that Dove soap does not dry out your skin because it contained a quarter of cleansing cream. The message that Dove does not dry out your skin was expressed in billboards, television and print. As time passed by minor changes were made to the slogan. For example, the term cleansing cream was replaced with the term moisturizing cream. The Dove beauty bar was endorsed by dermatologists and physicians for the treatment of dry skin in the 1980s. In the year 2000 Dove was approached to become a Masterbrand. This meant that Dove would lend its name to Unilever entries in the personal care categories. Next to the beauty bar category there would also be other categories where Dove would have an active name. For example, deodorants, hair care products, body lotions, facial cleansers and hair styling products. Now that Dove became a Masterbrand it was no longer sufficient to communicate functional benefits. Just because now there were different categories and functionality has a different meaning throughout the different categories. It was important that Dove would stand for a point of view. Having this in mind, research led to â€Å"The campaign for Real Beauty†. The ideas for this campaign started in the year 2002. There was a search for an alternative view of the goal of personal care. The findings of the research of this campaign showed that only 2% of the respondents worldwide described themselves as beautiful. Following this research the first exploratory advertising executions were initiated. In these advertisements ordinary people were used in supermodel contexts. This was called the Tick-Box campaign. In 2005 the next series of Dove ads were known internally as the Firming campaign. Firming campaign because a cream was promoted that would firm the skin. The goal was to change the way how beauty is viewed by society by provoking discussions and debates about â€Å"real beauty†. However this campaign was rather risky because they did not knew whether consumers would be inspired to buy a brand that focuses on real beauty and that does not promise to make you more attractive. The risk for Dove was that it would be perceived as an ordinary brand and would not stand out among the other brands for beauty products. In 2006 Dove ran an ad in the broadcast of the Superbowl football game. The next stage in the Real Beauty campaign of Dove was developing a film concerning self-esteem. Unilever defined a mission statement for â€Å"The Campaign for Real Beauty†. Namely, â€Å"Dove's mission is to make more women feel beautiful every day by broadening the narrow definition of beauty and inspiring them to take great care of themselves†. Later that year, Dove announced a contest where consumers were aspired to come up with their own ads for Dove Cream Oil Body Wash. This was a new product that would be launched in early 2007. Dove came a long way and was now seen as a brand of great value. Dove had grown a lot and was identified as one of ten brands with the greatest percentage gain with regards to brand health and business value for in the previous three years. How do you asses Unilever's branding strategy (i. e. reducing the number of brands and building masterbrands)? When looking at Unilever's branding strategy the focus lies on building masterbrands. This is a good strategy because the number of brands is reduced. Hence the focus lies on one larger brand instead of several smaller brands. This is good because it makes the decision making process a lot easier for the consumer. On the other hand it is also easier for Unilever because it now can put its energy on one larger brand. This means that the developments around the brand can be more specific. Meaning that you could create brand awareness more easily because there are less choice alternatives available for the consumer. Secondly, because of the masterbrand different products belong to one brand. This means that consumers can buy different products from one brand. The brand is no longer specific for one product category. Therefore if a consumer is loyal to a brand it will also buy more products that belong to that brand and will not go to competitors. For example, if the consumer knows that Dove offers a good quality moisturizing cream the consumer is more likely to perceive other products of Dove as good quality. Furthermore, if Unilever would not pursue the branding strategy of masterbrands it would lead to competition among the several smaller brands. You could say that each brand of Unilever would operate as a separate business, meaning that it would compete with its fellow brands as well as with brands of other firms. The previous would only lead to a division of Unilever which is not good for brand development. Instead the brands should work together because they all are a part of Unilever. Finally, the branding strategy of Unilever also provides possibilities of growth for the brand. By reducing the number of brands which are for example not profitable enough. The focus lies on the masterbrands and this reduction in costs can be used for the more promising masterbrands and therefore lead to growth by expanding product lines and so on.

Monday, January 6, 2020

The Constitution Of The United States - 1872 Words

The Constitution of the United States has come to be known as the backbone of the American government and the supreme law of the land. For over 225 years, it has helped guide us through our nation’s darkest hours, through the evolution of governmental institutions, and has provided the foundation for political stability, civil liberties, economic growth and social progress (Edling, 2003). The American Constitution is also the world s oldest original written constitution still in power today and has served as the model for a number of other constitutions around the world. One reason our Constitution outlived others is because of its simplicity and flexibility. Originally, designed to provide a framework for governing four million people in 13 very different colonies along the Atlantic coast, its basic provisions were so soundly conceived that, with only 26 amendments, it now serves the needs of more than 240 million people in 50 even more diverse states that stretch from the At lantic to the Pacific Ocean. Nevertheless, its efficiency at guiding this nation and providing individual freedom, financial solidity, economic growth and social development has proven to be significantly enduring over the course of its legacy. However, despite its longevity and legacy our over 225 year old Constitution of the United States faces a time of increasing change and technological advancements and no longer sufficiently applies to our modern society (Singh, 2003). In order for ourShow MoreRelatedThe United States Constitution And The Constitution Essay1491 Words   |  6 PagesThe United States Constitution, this very detailed group of words was written in 1787, but it did not take effect until after it was ratified in 1789, when it replaced the Articles of Confederation. It remains the basic law of the United States then and till the present day of 2016. The first state to ratify the Constitution was Delaware; the last of the original thirteen to ratify was Rhode Island and since only nine were required, this was two years after it went into effect. When the U.S. ConstitutionRead MoreThe Constitution Of The United States Constitution Essay1185 Words   |  5 Pages(framers’ of the U.S. Constitution) position on the Presidency: The framers experienced the abuse of the English monarchs and their colonial governors. As a result, the framers were skeptical of the excessive executive authority. Furthermore, they also feared excessive legislative powers. This was something that the Articles of Confederation had given their own state legislatures. The framers of the constitution deliberately fragmented power between the national government, the states, and among the executiveRead MoreThe Constitution Of The United States885 Words   |  4 Pages In 1787, our founding fathers came up with a few principles that would establish what we now know as the United States of America. These principles were put on paper to serve as a guideline for how the United States would be operated and structured. This historical piece paper became known as the Constitution of the United States. In the Constitution, a Preamble is implemented at the beginning that essentially tells what the founding fathers set out to do. â€Å"We The People, in order to form a moreRead MoreThe Constitution Of The United States894 Words   |  4 Pagesthe substratum for that country. A Constitution can be defined as a document that is the substratum of the country’s principles. Elements in the Constitution may contain sundry information. Which can include: how many terms a leader may serve, what rights the citizens have, how the judicial system works, etc. The United States in no different from those countries. Every constitution is different, no country has the exact constitution as another. The U.S Constitution is a four-page document detailingRead MoreThe United States Constitution Essay1515 Words   |  7 PagesThe United States constitution was written in 1787 by the founding fathers of this country. Now it might be appropriate to question why a document that is the basis of the government for one of the most culturally and racially diverse countries in the world, was written by a group of heterosexual, cisgender, rich, white men. Some might think that a constitution written well over 200 years ago would be outdated and irrelevant to the American society of today but with some research, it is quite theRead MoreThe Constitution Of The United States756 Words   |  4 PagesPromulgation and Legislation in the U.S. Constitution: The federal system of government of the United States is based on its constitution. The Constitution grants all authority to the federal government except the power that is delegated to the states. Each state in the United States has its own constitution, local government, statute, and courts. The Constitution of the United States sets the judiciary of the federal government and defines the extent of the federal court’s power. The federalRead MoreThe Constitution Of The United States1007 Words   |  5 PagesThe United States of America has previously experienced failure every now and then. With trial and error, the country has learned to correct its ways and move toward(s) perfecting itself. Realizing the ineffectiveness of the Articles of Confederation is a prime example of the U.S. learning how to better itself. Subsequent to the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution of the United States was set as our new and improved framework of government. Possessing knowled ge on how America, although strongRead MoreThe Constitution Of The United States951 Words   |  4 Pageshappening again. Unlike the artifacts, The Constitution of the United States has not been forgotten, it is actually still very alive today. Unlike most relics, The Constitution still holds a very heroic and patriotic implication, freedom. With freedom comes self-government, freedom of speech, religious tolerance, etc. With all these things comes the great responsibility to adapt and fit to the wants and needs of the decade. Even though the Constitution was made for the interests of the people ofRead MoreThe Constitution Of The United States1338 Words   |  6 Pages The Constitution is the basis of law in The United States and has been since it was written in 1789. Since then it has been amended 27 times with the first ten amendments collectively known as the Bill of Rights. The US Constitution was preceded by the Articles of Confederation and supported by the Federalist Papers which we will touch more on later. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson all wrote or influenced The Constitution in a very important way. Alexander HamiltonRead MoreThe Constitution Of The United States1388 Words   |  6 PagesInterpretation of the Constitution is one of the biggest conflicts within the United States–the highly contentious issue of states’ rights resulted from two different interpretations of what powers should belong to the federal government versus what powers belong to the individual states. No issue has ever caused as much turmoil as the issue of states’ rights–but one side must have more v alid arguments. Should the federal government’s power be superior, or should the authority of the individual states be held