Tag: black friday

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Opinions

The Beloved Discount

Every year, shopping malls, department stores, and megastores alike are swarmed in the early hours of the morning after Thanksgiving with millions of shoppers eager to capitalize on limited-time offers on nearly everything. To me, this day embodies two very troubling conceptions of worth: the value of a sale and the value of time.

Connor VoganOf the people I have talked to who go Black Friday shopping, most go not because they need anything, but because they saw an ad for something and couldn’t resist taking advantage of the great deal being offered. Or, they just go without anything in mind, and see what deals they find. I have a friend who got up at 4 a.m., went out, and purchased a flat-screen TV on Black Friday several years ago. I remember being intrigued by his purchase. I asked him why he bought it, and he simply responded, “It was on sale for only $70. Normally this TV is $200!”

I didn’t think much about it then, but in hindsight it strikes me that there was no real reason he had for buying that TV. You see, the rest of my conversation with my friend revealed that he hadn’t actually been looking for a new TV; he didn’t need one. But a Black Friday advertisement caught his eye and lured him right into BestBuy to get it. He may have theoretically “saved” $130 in this transaction, but in reality, he spent $70 he could have just as easily kept in his pocket. He didn’t actually save any money at all.

My friend’s story is certainly not unique. It is not uncommon to see or hear of an item on sale and think, “wow, that’s a great deal.” But when that thought isn’t followed up with something like, “do I really need it though?”, the risk is run of valuing that item more for the money theoretically saved than for its potential to enrich one’s life. This is a dangerous trap to fall into, especially habitually, and needs to be recognized.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a great deal. And I know many people have saved a lot of money on Black Friday by purchasing needed items at huge discounts. It’s not the discounts I disagree with. I simply think we tend to buy too much and spend money on things we could – and in this age of overconsumption, should – go without. We ought to at least stop to consider what kind of added value an unnecessary purchase would have in our lives, because the deal should not be the only reason we buy.

One factor we really should consider is time. Getting up early on Black Friday, scrambling through a store filled with people to then wait in line for who-knows-how-long before finally getting to finalize the sale, you might think you’ve come out on top of the whole ordeal. But is the money you save on the purchases worth several hours of stress?

Consider the value you place on your time in relation to the value of your money. I’m not saying that it’s all about time and not at all about money. I’m just saying that I think it is important for us to realize how much time we can spend in the process of making holiday purchases for the sake of saving a few bucks. There are plenty of other things we can do with our time during the holiday season. Our time is valuable, and we should hold more value in it than in pocket change.

It is easy to get wrapped up in the spirit of our society’s holiday spending sprees given the discounts offered for our taking. We are quick to be distracted by obtaining new stuff if the price is right. I wonder how much time we spend viewing holiday advertisements, shopping, or thinking about shopping. Not every moment we spend shopping and the like should be thought of as a waste, but there certainly can be excess that we should watch out for. There is a lot more in this world to see, experience, and do besides shopping for the best discounts.

So before you set out for Black Friday shopping this year, and approach the whole holiday shopping season in general, I want to challenge you to consider two things: What do you need, and how do you want to spend your time?

Categories
Stories In Focus

Film Review: “The Book Thief”

The recent release of the enthusiastically anticipated film, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, completely overshadowed what I thought more worthy of enthusiastic anticipation: the Thanksgiving night debut of The Book Thief. When asked about my plans for break, after expressing my excitement towards seeing my family, my bed, and The Book Thief, I often faced the question, “The what?” Nevertheless, Black Friday found me not in line to buy that seventy-five-percent-off sweater, but rather waiting to purchase that full price movie ticket.

And the film proved well worth the anticipation along with the sacrifice of the sweater, even if my affection for Black Friday shopping was questionable to begin with.

Courtesy of imdb.com
Courtesy of imdb.com

Based on a book published in 2005 by Markus Zusak, the movie shows us part of a young girl’s life in Nazi Germany. The film generally stays true to its novel predecessor, leaving out, as films often must, only the unnecessary. Descriptions of both the book and the film include the setting of The Book Thief in WWII Germany, the hidden Jew in the main character’s basement, and the hobby of the book thief herself: stealing books from grave sites, Nazi book burnings, and a wealthy man’s library.

Though the excitement may initially sound thrilling and the plot may appear dangerous, the movie in fact points more toward the lover of a simple story, not an action-oriented or passion-inspired audience. It rather targets the sort of person that probably enjoyed the book before seeing the movie; more than half of the occupants in the theatre I sat in looked to be older than 60.

Still, the slow-moving plot gains appeal through lovable characters and clever scenes. We meet the Book Thief, Liesel Meminger, as a child of about ten, introduced to us by the surprisingly enticing, velvety voice of the film’s narrator, Death. We first encounter Liesel sitting on a train, lifting her enormous blue eyes to discover her just-dead brother. At his burial we watch her steal her first book, a neglected handbook for gravediggers, which she keeps as a memory of the one buried.

From the graveyard we move to Heaven Street, where Liesel spends the rest of her movie-life. We learn that her mother entrusted Liesel to the foster care system, and as a result, the child meets her new parents. Rosa, a secretly softhearted woman encased in a hostile, insensitive shell, and Hans Hubermann, a large-nosed, winking, immediately lovable father figure, form a duo dubbed “Mama” and “Papa.” The pair repeatedly provoked chuckles from the audience, through Rosa’s witty nagging and Hans’ silent expressions and gentle retaliation.

During her time at Heaven Street, Liesel forms loving relationships between the two foster parents, the Jew, Max, whom the Hubermanns harbor in their basement, and Liesel’s new best friend, the neighborhood energy-filled, “lemon-haired” boy, Rudy.

Though I found the film as a whole enjoyable, many aspects of the story seemed too beautiful for the plot and subject matter they surround. One scene in particular shows Liesel and Rudy just after the latter receives news that Nazi authorities selected him to enter into an early elite training program for the military. We see the two inexpressibly adorable fair-haired children laughing and yelling, “I hate Hitler,” across a clear lake, before a screen of bright green trees and sunshine.

In another more sober scene, following a shower of bombs from foreign planes, the camera focuses on burning rubble, shattered buildings, and a lineup of intact bodies, the occupants of each dismembered home lying peacefully on the ground, simply sprinkled with a little dust.

Overall, I suppose this lack of realistic representation also appeals to the same story-loving audience, who may in turn cringe at accurate gore or the expression of depressed emotions. Nevertheless, for those who crave a spirit-lifting tonic every so often, I found The Book Thief, with its charming protagonist and touching performance just the film to do so.

Categories
Opinions

The Irrelevancy of Cheerful Intentions

With the close of another Thanksgiving season, I am excited to begin celebrating all things Christmas. I want to sing cheesy Christmas songs, eat lots of Christmas cookies, and wear wonderfully ugly Christmas sweaters, every-single-day. While this may actually be rather child-like, I have also come to appreciate the Christmas season’s emphasis upon giving unto others with the intent of selfless appreciation. Unfortunately, living in a consumer-oriented context, the bargain-hunting aggression of ‘Black Friday’ has come to more readily define ‘Christmas-like’ giving. The influx of consumerism during this season has simultaneously translated into innumerable opportunities for material charity amongst citizens of the Global North. It is initially daunting to challenge consumer-based charity, specifically with its popularity among respectable citizens. However, there persists a need to re-conceptualize consumer-based charities popular during this

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holiday season. A needed shift in perspective specifically highlights the lack of depth, cultural relevance, and disregard for recipient perspectives. At the core of its shortcomings, however, consumer-based charity needs greater understanding for the complexity of human-related issues.

At the forefront of consumer-focused charity during the Christmas season is an initiative facilitated by the Samaritan’s Purse named Operation Christmas Child (OCC). Since 1993, OCC has collected shoeboxes from its participants in North America, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Each participant is to fill a shoebox with hygienic items and toys that Western children typically see as essential or enjoyable to play with (i.e. toothpaste, socks, crayons, coloring books, kazoos, etc.). Through OCC, participants are encouraged to label their toy-stuffed shoebox with a sticker indicating a preferred age and sex of the child who will receive the box. According to the Samaritans Purse website, these boxes are intended for children of the Global South who are ‘living in difficult situations’. Through participant’s shoebox donation, OCC mobilizes ‘privileged’ families of the Global North to ‘share the good news of Jesus Christ’ with ‘underprivileged’ children of the Global South. Unfortunately, introducing Jesus Christ through toys and knick-knacks promotes a simplistic view of Christianity in association with Western consumer culture. As a result, the nature of Jesus Christ adopts attributes of our capitalist society rather than the magnitude of his humanity, divinity, and relevance.

In addition to its non-contextualized approach to evangelism, OCC promotes a one-way relationship between the ‘giver’ and the ‘receiver’, lacking parameters for reciprocity or consistency from year-to-year. In narrowing its concept of charity to a linear flow of western materials, OCC has missed potential for deeper impact through long-term relationship building. Further opportunities involve the development of healthy relationships among consistently participating communities, while better engaging the voice of OCC recipients to define such relationships. Never accessing the capabilities of mutual relationships undermines the diverse expression of opinion amongst both donors and recipients, further hindering the determination of relevant outcomes. Just as one would wish to give a gift relevant to a family member’s indicated ‘wish list’, the voiced desires of OCC recipients need be better involved in determining the outcomes of donor strategies.

Operation Christmas Child currently represents a Westernized view of Christmas, evangelism, and the Global South. As members of the Houghton student body, it is critical that we better critique the premise of OCC and its campus-wide participation. From this perspective, we each are challenged to re-conceptualize the intents, means, and effects of how we choose to give. Moving forward into this holiday season, let us contemplate the wonderful attributes of Christmas, while also reflecting upon its increasing focus on consumerism. In doing so, may we continually contemplate our well-meaning intentions with the valuable humanity of our neighbor, both local and abroad.