Malachi Johnson

English 3

Visual Essay

Prince Scheme? Or Akeem?

Comparing The Taming of the Shrew  to Coming to America

In “The Taming of the shrew” characters prove that sometimes in order to successfully win over a lover one may sometimes have to undergo sly tactics, before eventually settling down. In fact during Act 1 of the play Lucentio and Tranio make a plan to roleplay identities in order to win over Bianca. Which is what also happens to occur in the 1988 Romantic comedy “Coming to America” in which, Prince Akeem and Semmi, ditch their status from their wealthy country in Africa, in order to pursue the likes of Lisa a girl a works at a fast food place in Brooklyn.

“Tranio: Nay then tis’ time to stir him from his trance.- I pray, awake, sir! If you love the maid, Bend thoughts and wits to achieve her thus it stands.”

Act 1  Scene 1 Page 43.

In this scene suggests that Luciento takes a different route in order to pursue Bianca. Luciento describes to him his feelings for Bianca from a first glimpse and for what the most part the feelings were pretty passionate, or better yet, “Love at first sight”. Yet Tranio feels as if since he feels so strong, taking the normal way wouldn’t be nearly as successful.

Prince Akeem has already settled down in America, after a searching for the “most beautiful” women in Brooklyn he stumbles across a girl named Lisa at his new job as a janitor at a McDowells.

In the movie Prince Akeem is from a extremely wealthy country called Zamunda that is ran by his royal family. Akeem has literally never had to work a day in his life, and it’s evident when the McDowells manager literally has to explain to him what a mop is. On top of this he even has bills with his face printed on them, meaning that by no means necessary is there a reason for him to be holding broom sweeping floors at a fast food restaurant, in the rough part of Brooklyn. Now originally his purpose for working at the McDowells was too get accustomed to the Brooklyn lifestyle. However his reason changed once he laid eyes on another employee named Lisa which he would describe as “Love at first sight”. Which he then decides to continue working at the job throughout the movie. This goes to show the lengths to how far Akeem is willing to go in order to pursue this idea of romantic love. To be able to drop your royal status, living in a palace and being treated by servants daily, to having to dress in a burger place uniform and sweep floors is a sacrifice that only someone in love would take try to take the risk. Not to mention the fact the Lisa is already seeing another man, which adds to the complications of the relationship with Akeem due to the fact that he’s never has to chase a girl in his life.

“ Hortensio: Petruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee and wish thee to a shrewd ill-favored wife? Thou’dst thank me but a little for my counsel and yet I’ll promise thee she shall be rich and very rich. But thou’rt too much my friend and I’ll not wish thee to her.”

Act 1 Scene 2 Page 53

In this scene Hortensio is discussing the reasonings to Petruchio as to why marrying Kathrine isn’t exactly the best idea, outside of the money. Petruchio being the only person in the story actually interested in getting Kathrine almost argues that the reason to why that is not a problem is because of the fact that there’s real love involved.

During this scene in Coming to America, Prince Akeem and Lisa have dinner over their bosses house Cleo McDowell at which Akeem finally decides to propose to Lisa. However she rejects him, and in comes Sweets bearing flowers.  Lisa finally realizes that he was not a lunatic in a sense that he was not lying about being a Prince in Zamunda, after he reveals a bill with his face on it and makes his exit back to Zamunda, in order for him to marry the woman his father has originally arranged for him.  

Akeem spends months in Brooklyn before making his final choice to propose. However before this heartbreaking scene there was multiple tactics he has to get the outcome he wanted. The first, and most common one was his usage of Semmi. Throughout the whole movie, who is supposed to be Akeem’s advisor is forced to also drop his status and undergo role playing as well in order to assist Akeem. The event that ends up triggering Semmi the worst is when Akeem forces Semmi to pretend to be amazed be Akeem’s royal presence in the movie line in order to convince Lisa of his greatness. Throughout the whole movie Semmi is against the idea of Prince having to go through such a process so different from his royal routine, not just for the his sake But because of the fact that it was the task given to him by the King himself Akeem’s father, meaning that if things were to fail Semmi would be the one to blame. Well Not only does he get in some trouble when the King decides to make an appearance in Brooklyn and is immediately disgusted by the lifestyle to two of them live. Akeem doesn’t even manage to get the outcome that he wants which for a moment puts the two in an awkward situation. Until the final scene of the movie during the wedding arranged for Akeem and his unwanted wife,he lifts the veil to kiss her, to find out that it’s Lisa instead of his arranged partner. The movie ends on a positive happy ending. Yet, the process to get there proves to be not as reliable as one would think.

Act 2

Lastly, there is a clear difference in what comes into play between Prince Akeem’s and Lucentio’s chase for love. However both share the same struggle of defying their father’s expectations. Lucentio’s having the expectation of going into a new city in order to study, yet instead he attempts to find love. On the other side Prince Akeem was born into a royal family so finding a wife shouldn’t exactly by the most difficult. However he’s forced to marry the women within his country who are all pretty much handed to him since birth. These women all clearly gorgeous, don’t interest him simply because it’s not the romantic love he’s looking for so he flees the country in search for love. Which clearly upsets the kings because he’s set everything up for him.

The fact that they both end up having to go against their father’s expectations, which is from the very start already schemish tactic. However looking at this through a deeper meaning of Love and romance. Both characters eventually become successful in their “love chases”  while also deceiving their lovers in order to win them over. Which is interesting because ideally honesty and trust fall under romantic love. Yet there’s something about hiding all the bad or unattractive qualities that doesn’t technically qualify is breaking trust.

I guess you can say I went through a phase during the early maturing stages of my life. Ideally I normally write about living in another country and not being able to identify where I grew up in because it was always somewhere different, yet at the same time I enjoyed the idea of being “different” because that’s what makes you standout from the norm right? However the thing that makes me different is the fact that different from everyone else with interesting lives I didn’t go through any hardships, or major drastic changes. And to add my parents always reminded me how perfect my life was and everything was basically laid out for me, which confused me because the words “perfect” and “fortunate” were the words used by parents so often that it really affects me the most. Anyways this perfect life style was actually the thing that caused the most mental damage to me because I was always messing up. Its funny cause this thought process is what my middle school teachers described as “suffering from metacognition”. However metacognition didn't just affect me in my classes, it was an ongoing thing in just bust everything I did.

The first time it came to light was in elementary school. I began my normally scheduled scan around the classroom. It was independent reading and everyone seemed so invested into their books for just fourth graders. I mean maybe I’m just slightly illiterate but even so there’s no way these kids are reading Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, those books probably weigh more than the kids themselves. Not to mention that I’m still struggling with the Magic treehouse….  The door opens… Everyone looks up from their books almost the same way a deer looks up when it knows it’s being hunted. It’s the school nurse,  I knew it was her just from the sound of the jingle from the lanard and the room keys because I practically live in her office due to a combination of being so clumsy and fragile. You would think that all my chubbiness would work as a protective shield from knee scrapes and bruises from gym class. Nope, Nurse Westbrook and I were with each other about four hours out of the school week. At one point it was so bad that as soon as I would enter her office she would already open the fridge with an ice pack ready without me even telling her what’s wrong. Even the office made jokes about it. Anyways, the nurse enter the room and my classmates stare as if it’s their first time meeting someone from the outside world. She smiles and strolls over towards my teacher who at the time was organizing the bookshelves. The nurse hands her a large pony folder, they chat for a moment, and uninterested as usual I continued in my struggle of reading the magic treehouse.  The two share a laugh like two moms watching their kids from a park bench. And just like that the nurse exits the room along with the interest the kids had in their books. Our teacher walks to the center of the room, folder in hand and brings the attention of the class towards her direction. She announces that we would all be called down to the office two by two in order for her to do check our height, eyesight and worse of all weight. I began to freak out finding looking for ways to get out of this activity. I knew it was not be any means supposed to show comparison of students but it truly felt that way.

I remember in 3rd grade going over my best friends Nick’s house everyday and playing split screen Online on Halo 3. It wasn't till Christmas of 2008 until I got my own Xbox 360, and became victim of the video game addiction. Unfortunately all of my memories on Xbox weren't positive. but although I stayed inside all day it was probably the fasted way I learned about the world. All I can say is that earth is full of extremely twisted people, and very reasonable people. And there's a very clear line between the two. It wasn't till I was 11 years old until I met my first "pro" gamer. He was 18 years old and his name was Michael, and at the time he seemed like the most intelligent and inspirational person in the world just because of his halo skill. He introduced me to the competitive world of eSports and basically taught me all my social skills in real life. From what I learned eSports is the exact same system as the MLS, NBA, NFL.... Just less physical work! Which invites way more people to compete. From that day I played with Michael just about every day of that summer of which I got my Xbox.

My friends were surprised that I still had social skills considering I haven't hHung out with them since I had my Xbox. It was really that bad. Especially once I found out that people considered me a good halo player... Life online was just so much better thant reality. It was like I was being worshipped by people older and younger than me. And I didn't even have to do anything except play the thing I was good at. A lot of people don't take things like that into consideration, when the first thing they think of when they picture a gamer, is some nerd or wimp that stays inside. Well, 50% of that may be true, but it’s not always in a negative directions. A lot of these gamers are very intelligent but just do not fully understand on how to apply their strengths to the real world. But becauses of this the “smart gamers” have more than enough time to structure their gaming hobby into a career making more money than any other regular job. To this day I don’t know how these gamers made it so far with what just appears like screaming at screen for hours. Until I realize how much work and sacrifice and dedication it takes to get that far with such an underestimated career, which for me could be considered “The dream job”.  

In the more ancient times of football, players like Diego Maradona, Edson Arantes do Nascimento, Johan Cruyf, and Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known as Pelé who is considered the greatest player in the history of football. These players have been considered icons not only for their unmatchable talent on the field but for their stories and inspiration on people with similar lives where things are not given to them. That being said nowadays soccer players still remain the most praised and talked about athletes in the world of sports. However, its for a different reason, players are playing football as a job rather than for passion. As a result, money has began to ruin the world of football, not only for poorer teams, but in the FIFA organization as well.

The debate over the corruption of the football world came to light soon after the 2014 FIFA World Cup.The scandal erupted in May, with a raid on a luxury hotel in Zurich and the arrest of seven Fifa executives. All of this was conducted at the behest of the US authorities and in December, 16 more officials were charged following the arrest of two Fifa vice presidents in at the same hotel in Zurich. Former Brazil football federation chief Ricardo Teixeira was among those accused of being "involved in criminal schemes involving well over $200m (£132m) in bribes and kickbacks". Then in May the US indicted 14 current and former Fifa officials and associates on charges of "rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted" corruption following a major inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Fifa is the body responsible for running world football. It has recently been dogged by accusations of corruption, particularly after awarding the 2022 World Cup to the tiny but rich and influential Gulf state of Qatar. This is important to know because it affects the nation’s full of fans who will be expecting their team to perform, however this league simply cannot be trusted due to bribes, and behind the scene deals, no one will know for sure which team really deserves what. Does winning the most praised tournament in the world have the same sensations when you’re able to cheat your way to the top.

The message that I attempted to get across was the idea that there will always be two opposing sides in EVERY situation. That being said, I also tried the emphasise the fact there can never be in any form a way of successful equality. In fact the closest thing that we have to being equal is fact that we are all mammals. Another lense that I attempted to look through was this idea on an “equalizer”. By this I mean leveling the central rights between both sides during the reconstruction era. And It may sound like a little much, but connect this topic to a more relatable instance in our modern society where something that is greater is being changed by an equalizer. The problem isn't whether or not it is unfair for the thing that is greater. The real issue is that fact that it's problematic on both sides because they are being equalized. So then what do we consider it? Is this really a reconstruction for the better? After doing this project I realized the radical perspectives in literally everything. In a sense it was almost troublesome looking at different situations and noticing the shift between good and bad (As cheesy as it sounds).

¡Hola! Bienvenidos a SLA. Nuestros nombres son Malachi, Chuckie y Savannah, estudiantes de SLA  ¿Dónde está SLA? Está en Filadelfia, PA, Estados Unidos. Hay quinientos estudiantes, algo pequeño para Filadelfia. Ofrecemos muchos actividades, fútbol, ultimate frisbee, básquetbol, béisbol, softbol, robóticas, y muchas otras deportes. Malachi y Chuckie juegan al fútbol en el otoño, mientras Savannah participa de robóticas. ¿Qué es la escuela como? SLA es loco, de escuela es chévere, tranquillo, extraño, y a veces aburrido. ¡Es una broma! Está cerca de 7-11, y más o menos cerca Franklin Institute. Franklin Institute es por lo general interesante y nuestro esuela pareja.

Nuestros profesores  en SLA son muy tranquila. SLA tiene mucho equipos, cada grado tiene cuatro equipo. Nueve grado tiene equipos ; azul , verde, rojo y anaranjado. Professora Dunda ella  para clases verde y azul . Profesora Dunda enseñara en de clase de  bioquímica , bioquímica es muy divertida. En bioquímica necesitamos Una computadora,una lápiz y  una bata de laboratorio. El Profesor Kay enseñara en de clase de inglés para clases  verde y azul . Professor Kay es muy divertida , cómico y chévere . Sacar buenas notas en clase de inglés necesitamos ser responsable, leer y trabajar duro. La profesora Giknis  enseñara en de clase de inglés para clases de anaranjado y rojo . Professora Giknis es muy encantadora, cómica , muy tranquila y divertida. Nuestros profesores enseña muy bien.

Nuestros classes depende en colour equipo. Nosotros son siempre con colour equipo. Depende del día tenemos advisory. sin embargo on miercoles tenemos TFI. La clase de el almuerzo, necesitas comer en el clase, pordemos estar de vago. pero de vez en cuando estudiar.  Cuando tengo tiempo libre. es importante estudiar, hace la tarea, ser responsable. sin embargo on miercoles tenemos. además benchmarks es súper importante pero SLA. y como si fuera poco depende del dia praticar deportes. Vosotros SLA Rockets. Tenemos  ser responsable hacer la tarea y deportes. de vez en cuando más o menos difícil. es por eso que necesitamos participar activamente para tener éxito. y como si fuera poco practicar deportes no importa.  

Nos encanta comunidad, comunidad es fuerte, abierta, y único. También nos gusta los maestros, maestros son súper divertidas, de costumbre chévere, y casi siempre simpáticos.  Lo que más nos gusta de SLA es muy tranquila y divertida. Nos favorito es la gente y nuestras profesorado. Todo el mundo es muy inteligente, simpática y creativa. Nos encanta la más es todo el mundo es muy muy trabajadora. también deportes equipo es muy divertida. ¡Tenemos somos todos bastante talentoso!

¡Hola! Bienvenidos a SLA. Nuestros nombres son Malachi, Chuckie y Savannah, estudiantes de SLA  ¿Dónde está SLA? Está en Filadelfia, PA, Estados Unidos. Hay quinientos estudiantes, algo pequeño para Filadelfia. Ofrecemos muchos actividades, fútbol, ultimate frisbee, básquetbol, béisbol, softbol, robóticas, y muchas otras deportes. Malachi y Chuckie juegan al fútbol en el otoño, mientras Savannah participa de robóticas. ¿Qué es la escuela como? SLA es loco, de escuela es chévere, tranquillo, extraño, y a veces aburrido. ¡Es una broma! Está cerca de 7-11, y más o menos cerca Franklin Institute. Franklin Institute es por lo general interesante y nuestro esuela pareja.

Nuestros profesores  en SLA son muy tranquila. SLA tiene mucho equipos, cada grado tiene cuatro equipo. Nueve grado tiene equipos ; azul , verde, rojo y anaranjado. Professora Dunda ella  para clases verde y azul . Profesora Dunda enseñara en de clase de  bioquímica , bioquímica es muy divertida. En bioquímica necesitamos Una computadora,una lápiz y  una bata de laboratorio. El Profesor Kay enseñara en de clase de inglés para clases  verde y azul . Professor Kay es muy divertida , cómico y chévere . Sacar buenas notas en clase de inglés necesitamos ser responsable, leer y trabajar duro. La profesora Giknis  enseñara en de clase de inglés para clases de anaranjado y rojo . Professora Giknis es muy encantadora, cómica , muy tranquila y divertida. Nuestros profesores enseña muy bien.

Nuestros classes depende en colour equipo. Nosotros son siempre con colour equipo. Depende del día tenemos advisory. sin embargo on miercoles tenemos TFI. La clase de el almuerzo, necesitas comer en el clase, pordemos estar de vago. pero de vez en cuando estudiar.  Cuando tengo tiempo libre. es importante estudiar, hace la tarea, ser responsable. sin embargo on miercoles tenemos. además benchmarks es súper importante pero SLA. y como si fuera poco depende del dia praticar deportes. Vosotros SLA Rockets. Tenemos  ser responsable hacer la tarea y deportes. de vez en cuando más o menos difícil. es por eso que necesitamos participar activamente para tener éxito. y como si fuera poco practicar deportes no importa.  

Nos encanta comunidad, comunidad es fuerte, abierta, y único. También nos gusta los maestros, maestros son súper divertidas, de costumbre chévere, y casi siempre simpáticos.  Lo que más nos gusta de SLA es muy tranquila y divertida. Nos favorito es la gente y nuestras profesorado. Todo el mundo es muy inteligente, simpática y creativa. Nos encanta la más es todo el mundo es muy muy trabajadora. también deportes equipo es muy divertida. ¡Tenemos somos todos bastante