Moving Image Culture Mid-term Essay

 

Film is considered to be one of the most powerful mediums to convey a message to the masses. Discuss how films could help in making the society better. Give examples of the films that had a strong impact on the society and on your own life

                                            "Ascendancy of Media Over Man"

    If you are ever watching a film and begin to strongly dislike a character or end up believing that an extremely toxic and vile one is the best character in an entire production, it is usually because that is how the character is written to be perceived. If after watching a film, you feel the urge to go and support a cause that has been mentioned in it, then the film has completed its purpose. This tactic has been applied to films for eons and in cases of propaganda films, they are the main theme.

    In his 1924 publication “The Birth of Kino-Eye” filmmaker Dziga Vertov states that “the cinema-eye is cinema-truth” (Resina. J. R., 1998) to paraphrase Hilmar Hoffman, in films, this means that the viewers only believe or perceive what is shown to them, what the camera is showing them, which leads to the viewer's perception of information being distorted or “conventionally taking the image for reality”.

    When the first motion picture was filmed by Eadweard Muybridge in 1878, it would be normal to assume that he would never have predicted the entire industry that would be built upon the foundations of his work in photographic studies of motion. (A. Adam et al., 2020) From silent shorts to the blockbusters we see in the 21st century, the progression of film to the level we see now is something no one could have foreseen. Like most inventions or discoveries, films are also a victim of fierce scrutiny by the general populous, despite their many admirers (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1994). Mats Bjorkin stated that the progression of those technologies would lead to paranoia in people, referring to them fearing constantly being recorded or being watched by someone without their consent, also known as “electro-hysteria”. (Abel, Altman, 2001, 33)

    The first couple of years of moving images was known as the Cinema of Spectators, which meant mass production of short silent films with no storyline. After 10 years of those, filmmakers began to add some narratives to their shorts to continue attracting crowds and similar progressions took place year after year, leading cinema to the state it is currently in. These narratives are also what eventually led to better characters, storylines, and plot progressions in general.

    Around 1917, the Russian leader, Lenin, began to emphasize the importance of films and believed that propaganda was just a means by which you could educate people. He applied the tactic to sway his people towards political movements and to invoke certain emotions within them. Film was the preferred method of spreading propaganda in the Soviet Union and slowly became a method used worldwide as WWII approached. For the Russians, it was slightly easier to spread their propaganda films and have people believe them because as much of the population was illiterate (Behrent, M., 2011) which made it easier to believe things since the thought of the government lying to them had definitely not crossed their minds.

    Due to higher literacy rates in other countries, the propaganda films needed to be a lot more believable and send their message more subtly, for the audiences to be impacted by the film without them realizing it, which is why instead of focusing on speeches released by Government or the President speaking upon an issue, the crowds were garnered towards decision making through films.

    During the war Animated films were used as a way to boost soldier's morale, most notoriously, Tex Avery cartoons. On the top, they seem like funny cartoons with exaggerated reactions and female characters wearing revealing clothes that would make most soldiers happy but if one were to look deeper, there are Anti-Nazi themes that are used to "motivate" the soldiers. Amid all the humour, the audience is unaware that they will leave the cinema with a different perspective on certain topics.

     Although a majority of the films that were used to influence people were propaganda films, nowadays it is also common to find films that promote a good cause or to make audiences perceive certain illnesses or a situation under a more serious light.

    For me, the 2012 short documentary KONY2012 was one of the most impactful and memorable films. The director Jason Russell brought light to the Ugandan cult and militia leader, Joseph Kony. It brought to light his war crimes and told the world of his army filled with children that he had abducted from their villages during the night. The film called for him to be arrested so that he could atone for his crimes.

    After its release, instant support reeled in towards the cause, funds were raised for Ugandan villages, support was sent out to the families of the abducted children and although they failed to catch Kony and the initial support that the cause garnered had died down, if you ask anyone about the cause in the present day, the lasting impact of the film is quite evident in their replies.

    When the short was released, I was just 12 years old and I had not seen too many films that had ever influenced me that strongly towards a cause before and many others that were much older than me would agree, as the short was one of the first few viral YouTube videos and the first video to reach a million likes. It is an important film for me as it sparked within me a love for activism and I know that I am not alone in that sense as it led me to find a circle of friends that had a similar passion, friends that also realized that if we do not speak up about issues or act, the oppressed would stay oppressed and the oppressors would continue their tyranny. It led us to realize “Without conviction, nothing is ventured, and nothing is gained.”

    Other films, that are not necessarily documentaries, have had huge impacts on society as a whole. This statement is backed by the fact that catchphrases and words from films have integrated into regular vocabulary, initially starting out as informal slang words but slowly finding their place in dictionaries. Words such as “Gaslight” which means to “manipulate (someone) by psychological means into doubting their sanity”, it was derived from the plot of the 1944 film of the same name. Similarly, films such as The Bucket List (2007), in my opinion, had an impact like no other. Although the entire concept of planning a list of dreams and activities before reaching the end of your life had existed before, it was given an official name.

    The film, which was based on a true story, completely embodied the narrative of “life is too short, live it” and made viewers take a step back and examine their own and act upon it before it got too late. Statistics from 2011 show that 63 percent of the people in the world have a bucket list (G. Tonya, 2011) and with rising populations and more people being exposed to the film, I am sure that the numbers have increased since then and that the term can be considered as one that is commonly used.

    Growing up with 3 older siblings that had quite large age gaps, led to me getting a lot of exposure to American films targeted towards the teens of the ’80s and 2000s, It was normal for me to hear catchphrases from films such as the Star Wars films, “Clueless” (1995), “The Breakfast Club” (1985), “Mean Girls” (2004), “John Tucker Must Die” (2006) and “Dude, Where’s My Car” (2000). When I entered Highschool and started making friends, I found myself the victim of many odd stares as I would quote lines that other people in my generation were unaware of. Only after that, I realized how much of an impact film had on my life, and after introducing my friends to certain classics, that they began to get influenced too.

    As teenagers, I felt that it was quite common for my friends and me to get influenced by the films we had recently watched. With every film, I noticed a small change in our group's dynamic. Whether it was Tim Burton films that influenced a whole generation towards the grunge and dark aesthetics depicted in his films through Winona Ryder or our increase in the use of profanity after watching films like The Godfather together. The joint yearning of wanting to be a “Regular teenager” like the ones we saw in movies, waiting for similar social and romantic experiences in schools, completely ignoring the fact that we lived in an Islamic state and went to an all-girls high school. It was evident that the Cultivation theory, which states that extensive exposure to media shapes people’s views and perception of reality, was clearly correct. “Media sources are the dominant symbolic environment for many people.” (G. Gerbner et al., 2001) and I believe that as children we were quite impressionable and movies and media in general melded into our personality. It helped in integrating different art forms and cultures into our minds, reflecting societal issues and making us more aware of the world we were growing up in.

    While on the topic of childhood, I feel that films had a huge impact on the concept and mindset of parenting. With each passing generation, the content of films began to change and, in most cases, became a lot more explicit, whether it was regarding profanities or nudity. My mother recalls the 1970s and how she was scolded by her parents every time a film would have a scene with characters who would kiss. Further down the line, when I would watch movies with my mother, her reaction towards me watching those sorts of scenes was more relaxed as her parent’s overreaction made her realize that she did not mind me being exposed to media like that as she was desensitized to the scenes her parents deemed “explicit” and as a result, it impacted her parenting.

    The impact of films making society more open-minded is most evident in the way we progressed from fining films like Gone with the Wind (1939) for including the famous line “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” as it included profanity that went against the censorship board, (Pyron, D. A., 1983,) to current films like The Wolf of Wall Street holding the record for 569 uses of the word “Fuck” and not having as much societal backlash. (Byrnes, P., 2014) The influence continues into every aspect, movies like Gone with the Wind (1939) which depicted an outdated form of chivalry that most would look down upon today, or films with blatant racism such as The Littlest Rebel (1935) which reflected the thoughts of that generation and influenced the ones that were raised by them.

    Unlike previous generations, we have the advantage where our history is being filmed and more accurately tracked and recorded, with multiple views. Mockumentaries such as Death to 2020 are humorous takes on actual events that are taking place in the world, the Movements that will change the world, and as more animals go extinct, chances are that our greatgrandchildren and other descendants will only know about certain animals only through them being mentioned in movies or shown in documentary films. I do believe that films have an enormous impact on society and will continue to do so as the industry continues to grow. I feel that they also serve as a sort of time capsule for future generations, It is said to be a reflection of society and I feel that future generations will use them as a way to track mankind’s progression as a whole, the changes society goes through is a lot more evident after a few years, so only when we reminisce upon the past and think of all the small changes, we tend to realize how all of them impacted us and made us into completely different people. Whether it influences us to make more positive or negative changes, only time will tell. 

(2000 words – final word count) 

Bibliography: 

• Altman, R., & Abel, R., 2001, The Sounds of Early Cinema, (33), Indiana University Press. 

• Byrnes, P September 6, 2014. "Well, I swear: A brief f---ing history of profanity in the movies", The Sydney Morning Herald. 

• Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Morgan, M., Signorielli, N., & Shanahan, J. (2002). Growing up with television: Cultivation processes. In J. Bryant & D. Zillmann (Eds.), LEA's communication series. Media effects: Advances in theory and research (p. 43–67). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers. 

• Behrent, M., 2011, Education, literacy, and the Russian Revolution | International Socialist Review, Iss82, https://isreview.org/issue/82/education-literacyand-russian-revolution (Accessed 14/01/2021) • Pyron, D. A., 1983, Recasting : "Gone with the wind" in American culture / edited by Darden Asbury Pyron, University Presses of Florida Miami 

• "Gone with the Wind ." Novels for Students. Encyclopedia.com, (accessed 12/01/2021). https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/gone-wind 

• Garcia, T., 2011, https://www.adweek.com/performance-marketing/research-travelingis-onmost-peoples-bucket-list/ (Accessed 13/01/2021) 

• Laing, D., 1994, Scrutiny to Subcultures: Notes on Literary Criticism and Popular Music. Popular Music, 13(2), 179-190, http://www.jstor.org/stable/853211 (Accessed 14/01/2021) 

• Resina, J. R., 1998, Historical Discourse and the Propaganda Film: Reporting the Revolution in Barcelona, New Literary History 29: 67 - 84.

• The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eadweard-Muybridge (Accessed 14/01/2021).