第９７回　WORKSHOP報告（１月２４日） / 参加者７１名

第９７回　WORKSHOP報告（１月２４日） / 参加者７１名

 

1

（１：新人の方から自己紹介です）

 

2

（２：新人のテーブルです。ベテランのメンバーがテーブルにつきます）

 

3

 

（３：ディスカッション中です）

 

 

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《　今回のworkshop　》

 

○workshop参加人数：７１名（うち新人の方：８名）

 

○【前半】：”Marriage in Japan”というテーマでディスカッション

 

○【後半】：” Release of the film The Interview”というテーマでディスカッション

 

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＜英語サークル　E’s club　第９７回workshopのご案内＞

 

みなさまこんばんは、E’s club幹事のKです。

１月２４日（土）開催の第９７回workshopの詳細をお送りいたします。

 

 

[今週のマテリアル]

＜FIRST HALF＞

Marriage in Japan

 

In Japan, lifetime non-marriage rate is getting higher and it recorded the highest in 2014.

It is because marriage is now one of the choices in life, and the number of people who are unwilling to marry is increasing.

The general concept of marriage has changed largely in the last few decades.

Today, I’d like you to share your ideas about marriage. Please read the articles and discuss the questions.

 

Questions:

 

1, Would you like to get married or stay single in the future? Why?

(If you are already married, why did you choose to marry?)

 

2, What is the meaning of marriage?

ex.) Children, financial stability, social status, peace of mind, etc…

 

3, What do you think of same-sex marriage? Please give your impression of the article.

 

4, What do you think of solo-kon? Please give your impression of the article.

 

5, (If you have time) Share your ideas about marriage freely.

 

Articles:

Zen Temple In Japan Becomes First To Perform Same Sex Marriage Ceremonies

http://huff.to/1wiTVzQ

 

Shunkoin Temple In Kyoto Helps Japan’s Same-Sex Couples Tie The Knot

 

A Buddhist temple in Japan is offering LGBT couples a place to have symbolic wedding ceremonies — even though gay marriage is still illegal in the country.

 

Japan allows same-sex marriage ceremonies within its borders, according to the Council On Foreign Relations, but these couples won’t be given the legal rights and privileges that heterosexual couples have. Despite these restrictions, deputy head priest Rev. Takafumi Kawakami claims five couples have come the Shunkoin Temple in Kyoto since 2010 to symbolically tie the knot.

 

“I am not specializing the gay wedding here,” the priest told HuffPost via email. “I am just accepting every couple who would like to have their wedding ceremony here regardless of their faith and sexual orientation.”

 

A Buddhist temple in Japan is offering LGBT couples a place to have symbolic wedding ceremonies — even though gay marriage is still illegal in the country.

 

Japan’s constitution defines marriage as “mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as basis.” This gender-based language reflects the opinions of the majority of Japanese people. According to a 2013 Ipsos survey, only 24% of Japanese people believe same-sex couples should be allowed to marry legally.

 

Kawakami said that most people in his country don’t understand that these restrictions have a profound effect on LGBT people:

 

Actually, most Japanese people don’t know about the LGBT issues in Japan. They think that LGBTs are only in foreign countries. But not in Japan. Just recently, Japanese medias started talking about the LGBT issues in Japan. But most of them talked about the LGBT issues in the context of economy, like LGBT tourism. Only few of them treat the LGBT issues as the human rights issues. So, I thought it is very important to make people think that the LGBT’s rights are a very important topic to improve in this country. I thought that performing the same-sex wedding can make this issue more visible to everyone in Japan.

 

This fighting spirit can be traced back to the origins of the Shunkoin Temple. It was established in 1590 to honor the memory Kinsuke Horio, a warrior who died in battle. The temple specializes in teaching Zen meditation techniques to English-speaking visitors.

 

Rev. Takafumi Kawakami at Shunkoin, a subtemple of Myoshinji Temple. The temple was one of the most important places for Japanese Zen Buddhism in the early 20th century.

 

Shunkoin is teaming up with Hotel Granvia Kyoto to offer special destination wedding packages for couples who would like to get married inside the temple.

 

“Japan is not recognized as a gay-friendly travel destination,” Shiho Ikeuchi, the hotel’s overseas marketing director, told HuffPost via email. “And I believe that it is important for us to inform our guests that we are LGBT friendly hotel and they can feel welcome here.”

 

女優杉森茜＆タレント一ノ瀬文香が同性婚

http://www.nikkansports.com/entertainment/news/p-et-tp0-20141220-1411278.html

 

BBC News – Japan: ‘Solo weddings’ for single women

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-30574801

 

A travel agency in one of Japan’s most beautiful cities, Kyoto, has started organising bridal ceremonies for single women.

 

Kyodo news agency reports that Cerca Travel’s two-day “solo wedding” package includes choosing your own special gown, bouquet and hairstyle, a limousine service, a stay at a hotel and a commemorative photo album. “This package boosted my sense of self-esteem… the effect was equal to a more extraordinary experience, such as visiting a World Heritage castle,” says Tomoe Sawano, one of the first to try out a “solo wedding”. About 30 women from across Japan have become “solo brides” since the service was launched in May. Almost half of them were married women who either did not have a wedding ceremony or were not satisfied with that experience, according to Cerca Travel.

 

The company’s president, Yukiko Inoue, tells Kyodo she created the package “to encourage women to have positive feelings about themselves”, but admits that “some people have said it would be ‘lonely, miserable and sad’ to use it”. “Nationwide, more Japanese are living alone for a number of reasons – among them aging, urbanization, later marriage age and rising divorce rates,”The Japan Times notes in a recent article. It quotes the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research as saying that the country’s population is expected to decline between 26% and 38% by 2060.

 

 

＜LATTER HALF＞

Release of the film The Interview

 

Article 1: Controversy over the film “The Interview”

http://huntnewsnu.com/2015/01/the-interview-spurs-controversy-with-north-korea/

 

“The Interview” spurs controversy with North Korea

Posted by news on Wednesday, January 14, 2015

 

By Anthony Formicola, news correspondent

 

Earlier this week at the Golden Globes, co-host Tina Fey hit the nail on the head when she referred to the controversy surrounding the film “The Interview” as “the biggest story in Hollywood this year.”

 

In response to North Korean threats of terrorism against any venues that showed the movie, “The Interview’s” theatrical release was cancelled-then revised and restored, setting off a national conversation about a variety of issues including censorship and new forms of entertainment distribution.

 

Back when it was first announced in March of 2013, the comedy, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, seemed to be nothing more than another joke to pile atop the heap of mockery that had recently been directed towards the small Communist nation.

 

The movie’s plot focuses on two journalists (Rogen and Franco) tasked by the FBI to assassinate North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un (Randall Park), after acquiring an exclusive interview in Pyongyang with the dictator himself.

 

However, in June of 2014, when the Korean Central News Agency declared the film to be a “blatant act of terrorism” and promised a “merciless” response upon its release, it was a sign of bigger things to come.

 

Sony announced in August of 2014 that the film would be delayed until Christmas Day, partly in order to make time for post-production alterations that would increase sensitivity to North Korea.

 

In a development that initially seemed unrelated, Sony’s computer networks were breached on Nov. 24 The hackers, who called themselves “Guardians of Peace,” leaked internal emails and sensitive employee information to the public. On Dec. 8, the Guardians demanded that “the movie of terrorism” be pulled.

 

The Guardians of Peace released a second message on Dec.16 that promised a “bitter fate” to anyone who planned to attend a showing of “The Interview” and encouraged them to “remember the 11th of September 2001.” Although the North Korean government denied ordering the hacks and issuing the terrorist remarks, US officials declared that they were in possession of evidence that North Korea was “centrally involved,” according to the New York Times.

 

On Dec. 24, Sony made the movie immediately available to rent for $5.99 and to buy for $14.99 on several streaming services including YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

 

As these final developments came to light, it became clear that the events surrounding “The Interview” would do more than briefly capture national attention. They also brought to the foreground several questions about the current state of American entertainment. One issue concerned the fear that this situation would begin to result in a greater amount of self-censoring in the movie industry to avoid the type of controversy and financial failure that Sony experienced.

 

On the other hand, history has its examples of filmmakers who stood firm in the face of “great personal and financial risk.” Nathan Blake, coordinator of Northeastern’s Media and Screen Studies Program, cited Charlie Chaplin and his 1940 satire of Adolf Hitler, “The Great Dictator.”

 

Blake also pointed to the Charlie Hebdo tragedy as an example of “the extent to which such satire can instigate real violence.” The events surrounding “The Interview” also led to discussions about the straight-to-streaming model for a big-budget film. Variety magazine estimates that Sony will lose up to $40 million on the film, which had an original budget of $44. As for the content of the film, reviews have been mixed at best. A frequent refrain for critics was to bring up the irony that such an average and potentially offensive movie was initially cast as a champion of the values of free speech and artistic courage. The film has a 52 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

 

 

Article 2: Some interesting financial information about the Interview

http://businessjournalism.org/2015/01/14/entertaining-business-controversy-help-hurt-interview/

 

Entertaining Business: Did controversy help or hurt The Interview

By Angel Cohn on Jan 14, 2015

 

Before the holiday, Sony said it was going to shelve The Interview and leave it to collect dust on a shelf for a while until the threats died down. The move caused an outcry over freedom of expression. Even President Obama criticized this decision.

 

The studio eventually decided to go ahead with the Christmas Day release, but due to the controversy, only a handful of theaters (331, to be exact) opted to actually screen the movie. Its theatrical box office total to date is just shy of $6 million. What do you think?

 

But that doesn’t mean that people didn’t get to see the movie. Sony decided to release the film digitally, on Xbox, iTunes, Google Play, YouTube and Video On Demand. The movie brought in $15 million in digital revenue during its opening week.EB logo

 

That $21 million in combined revenue was certainly not enough money to recoup the $44 million spent on making this movie, and nowhere near the amount of money that a typical Seth Rogen movie brings in opening weekend.What do you think?

 

However, with 2 million downloads at the end of 2014, it was the studio’s biggest online film to date. What do you think?

 

It is also the largest day-and-date release (meaning being released simultaneously theatrically and digitally) to date. And, a better sign still for the troubled film is that as of Jan. 4, the film had brought in $31 million digitally.What do you think?

 

This strong showing (being touted by the studio itself as its “#1 online film of all time”) could mean that we will slowly start to see a bigger shift towards more day-and-date digital releases in the not-so-distant future.What do you think?

 

Combined with in-theater viewings, The Interview is inching closer to covering its costs, and instead of being a Christmas turkey, Sony could end up with a Christmas present, after all.

 

 

Questions:

1.  What do you think of Sony’s reaction to the cyber attack and terrorist threats by ‘The Guardians of Peace’?

Did Sony do the right thing? Do you think Sony should not have released the film at all, or do you think the film should have been released normally, instead of in only 331 theaters (10% of the original number)and online? Was it a good idea to release the film online?

 

2. On Jan. 7, 2 gunmen killed 11 people in the Paris headquarters of the French magazine, Charlie Hebido, due to the magazine’s parodies of Muhammad, and Islamic culture.  As mentioned in the first article, both the situation surrounding the release of the Interview and the Charlie Hebido tragedy in France are examples of “the extent to which such satire can instigate real violence.” What do you think  of this issue?

What do you think of North Korea’s criticism and anger about this movie? Should some material in movies and magazines not be released? How should we respond to threats and acts of terrorism? Do you think it’s okay to make movies about assassinating existing world leaders? What do the words ‘freedom of speech’ mean to you?

 

3. What do you think of North Korea? Do you think North Korea committed the cyber attack?

 

4. Do you want to see this movie? Why or why not?

Have you seen many controversial movies? The American film director Michael Moore makes controversial documentaries criticizing American government, companies and policies, such as the films Bowling for Columbine (which criticizes American gun control) Fareheit 911 (which criticizes the Bush administration and the Iraq war) and Sicko (which criticizes the American health care system). Can you think of any controversial Japanese films? Have you heard of the film  ‘The Cove’ which won the Academy Award in 2010 for best documentary and is about dolphin killings in Wakayama, Japan?

 

5. What is your favorite movie and why?

 

6. Do you watch movies as a way of studying English? Can you recommend any movies for studying English? What do you think is the best way to study English through watching movies? Should you watch the movie in segments or all the way through? Without subtitles? With Japanese subtitles? With English subtitles? A combination of all three?

 

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私たちと一緒に英語コミュニケーション能力を鍛えませんか？

 

ご興味を持たれた方は、

入会申込フォーム

 

https://english-speaking-club.com/cms/?page_id=93

 

 

よりお申し込みください。お待ちしています！

 

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