TV Will Rot Your Brain

Watched the documentary Why We Fight last night with Josh. Many thoughts that have previously passed through my head were pretty much realized in this movie.

The themes of the movie were nothing new to anyone who has been following media or politics or any other related subject.. basically anyone that hasn't had their head in the sand for the past 65 or so years. However, the part that really got to me was when US propaganda footage was shown in the movie and Josh said something to the effect of "wow, those were so obvious".

Yeah, they seem very obvious to us and at the time of their showing, these films were very obvious to the adults watching them. Those movies, however, were never meant for adults. I believe they were geared toward small children to watch before they caught the Mickey Mouse Double Feature.

To me the angles of the propaganda films scream "CHILDREN'S POINT OF VIEW!" They were all low angle movies that not only heroized the "brave men" but also gave children the feeling of "hey, we are on your level looking up at tall adults with you".

In his book, Feeling Like a Kid (which by the way is bound like a children's story book), Jerry Griswold comments on themes, feelings and phrases that connect with children. Why then can't a film/movie use these same themes to connect with children, especially if all it takes is moving the camera a few inches/feet this way or that way.

Propaganda was aimed at children because they were/are the next generation of citizen and most importantly soldier. The movies gave them an idealized character, like Superman, to look up to. And although children could never be the man of steal (no matter how much they tried) they could definitely become a brave, proud soldier.

What does modern TV say? We are not so much told to idolize or heroize TV/Movie characters. There are boys and girls that idolize terrible role models from TV but thats really not media's main objective. Modern television is made to pacify us. Things like reality TV is made to shock us to the point of not caring about truly shocking things. It is currently more important to know who got voted off American Idol or who got bad mouthed on the Hills than to know what our foreign policy is. I mean, we are just talking about our safety.

There was a great line in the movie last night. I cannot quote is verbatim (or maybe I can) but the gist of it was this:

We are a nation that suffers from Amnesia, forgetting what happened last week every time a Monday rolls around.