Clark, Larry. Kids. 1995. Film. Web.
This is the part they never see. Well, this is the part that they don't want to see. They want to see orange trees, branches weighed down with fruits the size of softballs and so vibrant it almost hurts your eyes to look at them for too long. They want to see palm trees with stalks taller than the Tower of Terror and friendly fronds waving down at them, an organic welcome. They don't want to see the inner-city kids with nothing better to do than walk up and down the piss and trash-littered streets, formulating ideas amongst eachother about how to make today a little more interesting than the one before. They barely have enough change in their pockets for the bus, let alone for a ticket to gawk at a gawdy castle that nobody ever lived in. They speak in east coast tongues, slang so urban that the outsiders who might happen to cross their paths wouldn't even bother to try and translate for themselves. On the way to the park, they pass the usual: ragged homeless sitting outside run-down barber shops, a styrofoam cup by their feet, not even bothering to vocally beg for change; girls who look far too young wearing crop tops and cut-off overalls, licking melted popsicle residue from their fingers. It's so hot that that even the palm trees remain still, lost for words without a breeze.
The background image I chose is a vintage postcard with the words "Fresh Slices from Old FLORIDA" with the state's name in large, three-dimensional type letters filled with typical Floridian, tropical images. The postcard also features a young woman in a bathing suit, her arms open wide in a welcoming pose. Although this image is vintage, it is still representative of how non-Floridians view the state. I myself am a native of Orlando, which, to some tourists, might as well be the only city in the entire state. I am somewhat bitter about the rose-colored perspective most outsiders have concerning my city, and through this blog I would like to turn those assumptions upside-down in a sense. The image I chose to use in my first post is a still from the 1995 film "Kids" by director Larry Clark. Although the movie is set in New York City, the urban atmosphere and inner-city attitudes of the characters remind me uncannily of my own hometown.
ReplyDeleteWhile I have never seen the film Kids, the image used is appropriate to the blog topic because it appears that the kids are living in some sort of inner city environment as opposed to the background depicting an idealized Florida seen in postcards. The image of the two boys shows a more real depiction of how the author is portraying the area. I really like the contrast between the background postcard version of Florida and the photo of the real people who could potentially be living in the real Florida that is being described. It works because the purpose of the post is to contrast an outsider’s view of the state to that of someone who lives there. I also really like the descriptive language, because it gives a genuine sense of place that only a native would be able to describe. For example, “…girls who look far too young wearing crop tops and cut-off overalls, licking melted popsicle residue from their fingers.” That is an image that a reader can visualize, even without posting a picture of it. However, I personally would have played around with the font and text placement a bit. The text is currently all in one chunk, but I would have liked to see it spread out a bit more, maybe putting some space after the first or second sentence for some emphasis, and then between the descriptions of what a tourist would want to see and what is actually there. I just think that would be beneficial because then the text would be less intimidating because it would be in smaller sections talking about a central idea rather than one large text. As for the font, I just think it would make it more appealing if it were styled in a way that could make a reader have more of a feeling of inner city, or even just bolding or making larger some words such as “piss and trash-littered streets,” “ragged homeless,” or “without a breeze” for emphasis.
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