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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Mass Media Molds Our Brains Like Clay |
Current rating: 0 |
by P. Gregory Springer
Email: editor (nospam) 8am.com (unverified!)
Phone: 217-239-4800
Address: 206 Wood, Urbana, IL 61801 |
08 Jan 2001
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Too bad. Critically acclaimed movies -- like Traffic and The Contender -- offer some alternative perspectives on politics and public policy, but those efforts rarely have much impact on the popcorn eaters. |
Declaring war on the war on drugs underlies Traffic. But popcorn viewers have been conditioned by popular criticism to evaluate movies according to other, often meaningless standards, such as screen presence and camera work. Overtly political works have no impact in the real world, because -- when everyone is a critic -- these works sublimate themselves into aesthetic games of thumbs up and thumbs down.
Ever since "Z" I've been waiting for the great work that would cause audiences to rise out of their seats and carry the revolution into the streets. Still waiting.
This is just my test of the Independent Media format and I wish thee well. |
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"Traffic" May Help |
by Mike Lehman
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
08 Jan 2001
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Gragory,
It's good to have you here on our site. I just saw "Traffic" yesterday. While I share your pessimism about citizens marching on local city halls to demand the abolition of the cretinous and racist "Task Force X", I thought the movie did a good job of making the drug war look like the silly, but evil exercise in futility that it is.
One sign that it is somewhat effective in doing so was the first few sentences of Roger Ebert's 4-star review of "Traffic" in Friday's News-Gazette.
"Our laws against illegal drugs function as a price support system for the criminal drug industry. They do not stop drugs. Despite billions of dollars spent and a toll of death, addiction, crime corruption and lives wasted in prison, it is possible today for anyone wants drugs to get them."
Pretty strong truth for the mostly excreable News-Gazette to print. So the movie may make its point best by being subtle in building a case gradually, but clearly, that we are definitely on the wrong path by "being at war with our own family", as the would be drug czar, that Michale Douglass plays, says as he walks out of the White House, rather than take his post. Many other points were made the same way, such as when he's on the plane on his first junket and asks where the treatment representative is among all the cops and military that are aboard-there simply isn't one.
So I hope it has some effect on the public, even if it is subliminal.
Mike |
