This post is due by Tuesday, January 28 @ midnight for full credit.
Email late posts to rwilliamsATchamplain.edu for partial credit.
1. Read Dr. Williams' "Screening the Homeland" chapter from the new Censored 2014 book. (He will email it to you as a PDF).
2. Share THREE SPECIFIC observations from the chapter at the blog thread below - how do Hollywood movies like "Argo" and "Zero Dark Thirty," the Arab Spring movements, and U.S. goals and policy in the Middle East all intersect?
• One of the most important things about Hollywood is that it produces movies that can influence the opinions of millions of people. When the enemies are based upon a stereotype that Hollywood has used time and time again, it only serves to reinforce the belief moviegoers have that most people sharing the demographic that the stereotype targets actually act like it portrays. Because of the change in perspective that these movies cause in the population, there is less opposition from the public when the U.S. decides to make strikes in other countries under the pretext that it is fighting the same bad guys as portrayed in Hollywood movies. The actual primary goal of the U.S. in these cases is normally something less noble like obtaining control over oil resources.
ReplyDelete• Movies like Argo and Zero Dark Thirty modify parts of the films in order to appeal to the masses. In the case of Argo, the film is targeted towards appealing to Americans. Whereas Zero Dark Thirty was also targeted at appealing to Americans, but more specifically at American women. Zero Dark Thirty creates its appeal by having a strong female lead that holds authority over other soldiers. Argo modified the historical facts in the events that it was based off by downplaying the role of the Canadian embassy, and shifting the major role to the American forces.
• In the same way that movies are modified to have more elements intended to make the view feel good about themselves, elements that shine a negative light on the protagonists are avoided. There is a strange line created here where the film must decide on what it must keep true to historical fact in order to remain believable and entertaining, and what it must censor or modify in order to avoid making the protagonists viewable as anything negative. Zero Dark Thirty was censored in multiple places as a result of five conference calls between the CIA’s Office of Public Affairs, the director, and the producer of the movie. These changes served to remove or downplay events which portray the U.S. military negatively.
1. ZDT and Argo both represented a timeline of factual events in recent and past history. Done in such a way that allows movie goers to have an educated understanding of these events as seen by the people directly involved in achieving these feats.
ReplyDelete2."This explicit edit from the destruction of the World Trade Center building to Middle East torture sites reinforces the dominant popular US political narrative that “19 box cutter–wielding Muslim fanatics acting alone” carried out the 9/11 attacks, and reminds American filmgoers that, whatever nasty business the US may do in the Middle East, it is being done as a response to that “horrific” 9/11 attack on US soil."
3. ZTD most powerful use of propaganda involves using Hollywood to convince American audiences to accept torture and extrajudicial killings in the name of the greater good.
Share THREE SPECIFIC observations from the chapter at the blog thread below - how do Hollywood movies like "Argo" and "Zero Dark Thirty," the Arab Spring movements, and U.S. goals and policy in the Middle East all intersect?
ReplyDelete“. . . the chief goal of the twenty-first century US is nothing less than world domination in the name of waging a sequential, global war for the planet’s remaining fossil fuel energy resources.”
The US’s main focus is gaining natural resources in the Middle East. One of the main reasons that the US is interested in the affairs of the Middle East is to gain potential control over the oil industry. This reason for involvement is not always pointed out directly in films that portray the arab spring or events that have taken place in the Middle East. In this conflict for control the US does not like to point out that there is the potential for gain and that there is always someone else to blame, this is noted in most of the films we watch like ZDT & Argo.
“That via the silver screen, Hollywood’s job is to prepare American hearts and minds for embracing the collective actions of the state- both domestically and globally- on behalf of advancing US hegemony in the Middle East and around the world.” & “. . .Hollywood industry ‘frames’ audiences understandings of vital issues of import, filtering and censoring our cultural understanding of what we might call ‘real life.’”
Ignoring the details and attempting to get the mass population in sync with our government’s decisions. The Hollywood industry is helping to persuade the masses to be “used” to the actions that are taking place globally to communicate that these actions are normal.
Argo- “. . . almost complete lack of historical context and.or misrepresenting of the decades- long US/Iranian political relationship, the odd downplaying of the Canadian embassy’s central role in rescuing US hostages. . .”
The misinterpretation of facts and historical context is helping to misshape the global perception of the actions taking place in our global entertainment. The misused and downplayed, ignored facts is changing how we all look at the Arab Spring and the key players effecting the Middle Eastern affairs.
“Screening the Homeland”
ReplyDelete1.) “I used the word ‘screening’ in this chapter title as a double entendre, to describe both the technique of the narrative process—propaganda disseminated 24/7/365 via ubiquitous screens, including movie theaters, TV, and all manned of mobile devices—and the political process by which the Hollywood industry ‘frames’ audiences’ understanding of vital issues of import, filtering and censoring our cultural understanding of what we might call real life.”
2.) “According to everyone involved in the real-life escape, the sheer lack of drama and ease of exit proved to be their escape’s most defining feature. But, in the world of American cinematic triumphalism, such details are easily replaced by more Hollywood-esque endings, complete with obligatory national high-fiving, scorekeeping, and nose-thumbing toward Tehran; the film’s final few intoxicatingly nationalistic minutes would make any pro-American public relations professional sit up and cheer.”
3.) “Critics initially praised the film on release for its “realistic” depiction of the search for Osama bin Laden, including the famous raid on the Abbottabad compound that resulted in his alleged death. But the film subsequently came under fire for claiming to be historically accurate, particularly with regard to the film’s opening scenes in which an actor/CIA agent tortures another actor/al-Qaeda detainee to unearth a crucial piece of information that leads CIA investigators to discover bin Laden’s whereabouts.”
1) Having not seen either of the movies I was surprised to find out how far the facts were stretched for the creation of both movies. It's frankly disgusting to hear that something like that could happen. It's obvious that the media can help change public perception of different events but there should still be some kind of integrity to how the facts are handled.
ReplyDelete2) Hollywoods manipulation of our views on the middle east really hurt our relations with people from that region. The way they played up the events and added gunfire when there was no factual evidence to support that move is more than just "Hollywooding" the movie up. It makes middle easterners look more aggressive and put our lives in danger.
3) The movie claims to be perfectly accurate to the real events but claims that CIA Agents tourtured Al Qaeda detainees to find out crucial information. That is an allegation that isn't to be taken lightly. It's also one that doesn't have any evidence to support it. Bending the truth to make the movie more interesting and then claiming the movie is accurate should be taken seriously.Instead the movies were praised.
1)Having seen both of the films Zero Dark Thirty and Argo, I would have to say that my perspective has definitely been changed after learning about why these films were most likely created. However, I cannot completely agree that the entirety of the Arab world is completely innocent in everything either. For example, I can most definitely believe that Argo has a lot of misrepresenting views on the Arab world and what happened there. I can also agree that the hostage situation in the movie undoubtedly was due to Americans stirring the pot in some way, shape or form. I could even admit that what Americans have been doing in the Arab and Middle Eastern world is worse than what happened to the hostages during the time Argo was portrayed. However, hostages were taken out of force and were held captive. The article seems to be very one sided, which is fine, but also refreshing from the bullshit that is mostly written about the Middle East.
ReplyDelete2)When speaking specifically about Argo, it kind of downplays the whole situation of Americans being forcibly taken hostage in what is supposed to be an embassy, somewhere that should be respected. I think in this particular instance, it was stupid for Ben Affleck’s character to claim historical accuracy. Whether he was aware of his mistake or not, I would have to say that it was clear that there were a lot of inaccuracies, but I was only able to see them after looking over these movies again. This speaks to what powerful propaganda this can be.
3)In a film like Zero Dark Thirty, it is even more evident that the United States has been unfairly persecuting Middle Eastern citizens and Muslims without any real discrimination. When I first saw this movie, I found myself questioning a lot of different aspects. For one, the torture, which at the time I did not realize the U.S. took part in over this past year, I realized just how naïve I had been. I won’t say I was not happy to find out that Osama Bin Laden had been found and I also won’t say that I was upset to find out he was dead. In fact, I would even say I was glad. However, I will say how awful I found it when hundreds of arrogant and idiotic people flooded the streets cheering for “America” and its victory over terror. When I saw those people on the street, I was not happy. I was disgusted not that they were proud of being Americans but because 2/3 thirds of them probably didn’t understand the first thing about the complexities of what is happening over in the Middle East and just how big a part the U.S. has played in making the travesties that have come to unfold there a reality. It is movies like this that make people that I grew up with hate all Middle Eastern individuals and turn in fear when they see a Muslim.
“It is here, at the intersection of realpolitik and art, where Hollywood pop culture plays a critically significant political role—producing and deploying powerful image-driven stories designed to legitimize US imperialism abroad.” Through movies Americans are being prepared for the actions taken by the government abroad in the Middle East and other parts of the world.
ReplyDelete“According to everyone involved in the real-life escape, the sheer lack of drama and ease of exit proved to be their escape’s most defining feature.” The movie Argo according to Ben Affleck was going to be a factual movie; but Hollywood had its own take on the situation. The climax as well as the historical context of the movie was inaccurate. This goes to show that Hollywood makes people of the Middle East look evil in almost every movie as we have seen in “Reel Bad Arabs”.
“Zero Dark Thirty’s most powerful use as a propaganda piece involves using the silver screen to convince American audiences to accept torture and extrajudicial killings in the name of the greater imperial good.” This concept has been seen for years in Hollywood. It is up to the viewer to realize that most movies are fictitious and it is on the viewer to make up their own mind of what is wrong and what is right. Perspectives of what is imperially good vary on who you are asking but I do not think people should base their beliefs off of what they see in a movie.
• “via the silver screen, Hollywood’s job is to prepare American hearts and minds for embracing the collective actions of the state— both domestically and globally—on behalf of advancing US hegemony in the Middle East and around the world.” In this aspect Hollywood has done its job to numb our minds to the corruption hidden in plain site. They show us in movies like Zero Dark Thirty exactly what is happening but something about it being a movie makes us feel like it can’t possibly be real. I’m guilty of it to but we are all so caught up in our own lives that it doesn’t even occur to people that something like this is happening. It has been happening for so long that we seem to not care life has simply gone on.
ReplyDelete• “Looking globally, two-thirds of the planet’s recoverable oil reserves are located in the greater Middle East.” In a world were we are in need of oil for everything from getting to A to B in our cars to heating our homes and living our very comfortable lives it is inevitable that anyone who has oil is in our scope. Not that I am trying to completely justify our actions in the middle east using the excuse of oil like the government is but I think without oil coming from the middle east we would have to seriously readjust our “American” life styles.
• “It’s okay to embellish, it’s okay to compress, as long as you don’t fundamentally change the nature of the story and of what happened,” Ben Affleck said this about Argo. This is exactly what is wrong with Hollywood. He is right in a way that the fundamentals of the story shouldn’t be changed. The thing is he mentioned that they embellished and compressed the true story. This is how Hollywood numbing us. Sure they are presenting factual information but they are doing it on an entertainment scale so that it almost doesn’t seem real. That’s how they make their money so I wouldn’t expect anything otherwise from Hollywood. In my opinion movies like Dirty Wars have just as much entertainment value but that’s not what the American people want for entertainment they want a hero and a flashy presentation of facts. This leads to exaggeration coming out of Hollywood.
1. Some believe that the Hollywood and the US politics are contrary to each other. This is not true. In fact the Hollywood and the US politics collaborate with each other.
ReplyDelete2. The US has an imperialistic agenda. Hollywood supports this agenda. It furthers the US
Imperialistic agenda by giving expression to it in the movies.
3. Movies like Argo and Zero Dark Thirty present Arab people in poor light. They tend to stereotype Arab people as being bad and selfish. It is this imperialistic agenda of the US that believed in propping up the autocratic regimes in the Middle East, which contributed to the rise of the Arab Spring protests in the Middle East.
1. Hollywood films will always be made to entertain. There is a reason why they put “based on true events” at the start of the feature. It would be impossible for a director and a screenwriter to capture the exact details of the event. They may capture some of the major important things that happen in the story, but they run a good chance excluding something else. It is also no secret that U.S government uses Hollywood for their own propaganda purposes. As you put it in your essay Hollywood and U.S government are incapable of living without each other.
ReplyDelete2. Hollywood has forever changed our view of the Arab world. I imagine if you asked the average American on the street what they thought the average Arab Person looked like. You will probably get a description of a cliched Arab person in a hollywood film they just saw. The U.S government uses this to their advantage unfortunately. They create this fake image of an Arab person, so that the American people will forget that an entire race is of people are in fact not human.
3. Argo and Zero Dark Thirty run a thin line between reality, nationalism and fiction. It was understandable why these movies received several nominations and awards. Both of them were well done films. That being said, watching these films you can see that they tilt the focus more on what U.S was doing and showed very little of what was going on outside the U.S’s general interest. They did this to capture their audience attention and perhaps feed the stereotype that all Arabs are incompetent and are all the same.
1. Currently I have not seen either Argo or Zero Dark Thirty, prior to reading this I had the expectations that both of these movies would be yes very entertaining, but not as exaggerated and far swayed from the truth as they are. In the reading the quote Regarding Argo, Affleck himself went public on many occasions with the “truthful” nature of his film. “It’s okay to embellish, it’s okay to compress, as long as you don’t fundamentally change the
ReplyDeletenature of the story and of what happened,” While yes I will admit I agree that some embellishment is sometimes necessary to excite the audience but from what was told to us happened within this story has gone to far. The media over the last decade and their consistency to embellish for sales sake has contributed to the Islamaphobia to a disgusting point.
2. Regarding the topic of the movie Zero Dark Thirty and the condoning of torture this is something that I feel has impacted the general populous view on the Middle East, having events like this shown to us over and over only causes a weakening of sensory response to this and how long will it take for us to actually believe it is acceptable if we just continually see it again and again, This explicit edit from the
destruction of the World Trade Center building to Middle East
torture sites reinforces the dominant popular US political narrative
that “19 box cutter–wielding Muslim fanatics acting alone” carried
out the 9/11 attacks, this quote sticks with me deeply, films like this do simplify the extremity that went into the 9/11 attack and only further contribute to Islamaphobia, with making the attack seem like much less of a fine tuned ridiculous attack than it was provides a stronger feeling of fear for another attack to occur and subsequently causes paranoia toward many other Muslims when no such fear should arise.
3. The fact that many do not go into a viewing with any skeptical eye and take everything for exact meaning is something which will come to hurt us greatly in the future. If more and more continue to view movies like this this only gives more power to the media and gives the media the ability to shape our minds even more than they already have, which if they continue to operate using the same stereotypes, storyline, and political propaganda cross-culture immigration to a full extent will be at a level of extreme difficulty to achieve.
While it is important to keep facts straight when making a movie based off of actual events, I would expect Hollywood to dramatize the events a little bit. Otherwise, the film would be more of a documentary; with Argo, the added peril and aggressiveness makes the film more dramatic and captivating. This film and Zero Dark Thirty both reflect our culture’s views of Middle-Easters as a savage, almost uncivilized people that are out to get the heroic white westerners. Both Argo and Zero Dark Thirty claim to be based off of actual facts obtained from top sources about the stories, yet they don’t mention any addition of Hollywood drama. I’ve seen both these films and I admit I enjoyed them. I was captivated by the storylines of the films. Not being alive during the Iranian crisis that Argo is based off of, nor part of the top government spy agencies, I did not know any crucial details around the stories. Despite the dramatization, I found them both to be informative as well as entertaining.
ReplyDelete1. I have seen the film Argo, and have heard of Zero Dark Thirty. I heard that Zero Dark Thirty was feminist. Probably because it showed Maya, a character in the film was shown to take on and achieve many “male” roles. When I watched Argo, it was a gripping film. And it was scary to think about those things like that happen. It was interesting to read that both the story lines of the films were skewed by Hollywood producers and misrepresent some scenes and the like. They are made to attract the American, making the Arab world look evil, using examples from 9/11 to remind the audience why the Americans are doing what they are doing over in the Middle East.
ReplyDelete2. When looking at Argo, after seeing it and reading the essay, it occurred to me that it was made out to make Iran a horrible place, depicting even the Canadian Embassy as not being a safe place, when it’s supposed to be. As it said, it makes the Americans look good and the Iranians look like the bad guys. “Instead of keeping its eye on the big picture of Revolutionary Iran, Argo settles into a retrograde ‘white Americans in peril’ storyline, recasting the oppressed Iranians as a raging, zombie-like horde,” This is just one of the things that stood out to me.
3. The fact that the producers of Zero Dark Thirty included sound clips without permission and all the things that were questionable about the film’s storyline and how it depicted the US and the military etc, makes me wonder about the film industry as a whole. It sounds like they have their own hidden, trying to show the movie-goers, in America a part of history but with parts that make us view another race in a negative light. Yes, as it was said, they tried to not make one side, (USA, or Arab World) better or worse, by giving factual information, but not ALL of it was 100% fact. Or maybe it was, and the Government stepped in for their protection.
After reading this it was really interesting seeing how movies show the goal that the US achieves. Even though I haven’t seen any of the movies, after reading this I feel like I have already seen them. The point that the US is portrayed at the “good” and Arabs are “bad” is clearly there. The US goal overall is to completely gain control over the Middle East and its resources. Also, the US goal is to try to “prevent” future terrorist attacks by killing leaders or potential threats. As in ZDT the target was eliminated but was the problem really solve?
ReplyDeleteThe way Hollywood goes about making films on “based true events” is far from the truth. Hollywood is always adjusting to make films attractive and nowhere near the real truth. Also Hollywood makes American seem as the victim and that anything we do in the Middle East, is completely out of revenge for what they did on 9/11.
Lastly, in ZDT its most powerful message to Americans was to show that all their tortures and killings were made for the greater good. Overall, its crazy to see how movies manipulate thousands of people to accept that multiple torture and kills have to be accepted because they were made for the greater good.
1. “via the silver screen, Hollywood’s job is to prepare American hearts and minds for embracing the collective actions of the state— both domestically and globally—on behalf of advancing US hegemony in the Middle East and around the world.” Hollywood has definitely done its job with the filming of Zero Dark Thirty. As they open the movie with audio clips from 9/11 victims and then jump to a scene of a suspected terrorist being tortured, they remind the audience that in a way that the United States is torturing suspected terrorists and that this is what is required to be done to protect us from terrorism. To me, it seems like Hollywood is doing the government’s job in reminding America why we are at war still and that what we are trying to accomplish is important.
ReplyDelete2. “Looking globally, two-thirds of the planet’s recoverable oil reserves are located in the greater Middle East, a region hotly contested by the US, Russia, and China, featuring repressively governed “client states” propped up with loans from the “international community” (read: International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and the US), which are currently experiencing a series of turbulent economic and political upheavals”. I think that it is very interesting to look at the fact that the majority of the worlds oil reserves are in the middle east which also tends to be the area of the country with some of the most instability which is why countries like the United States, Russia, and China have taken so much interest into it.
3. I think that it is very interesting that in the movie Zero Dark Thirty, the producers claimed that it was very accurate to what actually happened, but upon release the CIA stated that torture was not used to apprehend the information that lead raiding of Bin Laden’s compound. It also brings to question why the CIA wanted to remove the scene of the attack dogs and whether or not how much of the information in the movie is accurate and how much the CIA did not want to release to the public.
1. “…where Hollywood pop culture plays a critically significant political role—producing and deploying powerful image-driven stories designed to legitimize US imperialism abroad” (pg 2). The movie Zero Dark Thirty helped make people feel less guilty about torture, by showing that torture is “necessary”. People are less likely to question the government if they say everything is for our safety as well.
ReplyDelete2. Argo, like almost all based on real-life movies changed how events happened. In Argo the escape from Iran happened so chaotically; however in real life the defining factor was the lack of drama and how “easy” escape was. Also, it’s an incredibly telling thing about how other people view Americans, if everyone needs to pretend they’re Canadian. And then for Argo to downplay the role of the actual Canadians in the film is ridiculous.
3. The thing I found most disturbing about Zero Dark Thirty is the fact that Bigelow’s production team didn’t even get permission from the victim’s families to use the audio footage of the victim’s dying. 9/11 changed the lives of Americans whether it was directly or indirectly. The families that lost someone that dreadful day that is completely disrespectful; especially if they weren’t comfortable with that footage being in a Hollywood film. Then to use that footage to make the torture scene seem less horrible is just tactful.
1. Watching a movie is a very intimate experience. Often the cinematography alone can cause a person to cognitively disconnect and just absorb. This can become a problem when it comes to propaganda-esque films like ZDT or Fargo. Although it is clear that the author perceives some sort of foul play in the relationship between Hollywood and Washington, I am not so sure. I do agree with his points about the effects of the films; they certainly do condition folks to act and think in a certain way. However, the suggestion that these actions are intentional is an area that I cannot take as face value. Either way, the effect of these movies (and other movies) is real and detrimental to our citizen's views about the international community. It is a shame that and American view of Arab identity can be so ill-effected by entertainment.
ReplyDelete2. It is troubling to me that these films claim to be true to fact pieces, while they are in fact sensationalized and professionally written with a I respect filmmakers who make true and factual dramatizations as much as those who make fiction movies, however, the fact that ZDT and Argo use this disclaimer to their "advantage" is a disconcerting fact. I feel that the films of Argo and ZDT proclaimed to be "true stories" solely to legitimize their films and persuade more people to watch them. This can however have and ill-effect on people who cannot maturely digest media; it can lead to people believing that they are gaining some sort of history lesson from the films, rather than pure and fictional entertainment.
3. The article points out the effect of media on our society, which I can agree with whole-heartedly. However, it leads me to thinking about how scary it is that a lot of Americans aren't media literate to a sufficient degree. Poor media literacy leads to the kind of thing the author talks about: when the media itself can project views upon you through movies such as ZDT and Argo. If these movies could be taken through a lens of entertainment and not imprinted upon our society's psyche, than things like this wouldn't be a problem. The fact that ZDT and Argo are able to promote such a powerful feeling of anti-Arabness is a problem within itself.
Even before 9/11 American movies have always had the "Us vs. Them" mentality with other countries, especially with countries that are part of the arab world. WIth 9/11 being fresh in American's minds, movies that are made in the 21st century make that "Us vs. Them" mentality even stronger and convinces the public more easily.
ReplyDeleteWhen movies are hyped as historically accurate (Such as Affleck did with Argo) people that are not aware of such events are going to believe that those are how those events actually played out. That is a very scary thought and knowing that people think that these movies are accurate could be described as dangerous and harmful. What also does not help is when well known political figures, like Michelle Obama, endorse these movies and create an inaccurate sense of pride.
Movies like Argo and Zero Dark Thirty are going to keep being made until the majority of people realize that these movies are inaccurate and Islamophobic. There's always the argument that the movies are just for entertainment (And I did find Argo to be entertaining and well done) but what is more important? Entertainment or perpetuating racism?
1. The first point that stood out to me was the quote that “Washington and Hollywood spring from the same DNA.” I have long realized and have never really questioned that historical non-fiction films are often not historically accurate. Exaggerating a story and adding more dramatic context is often used in Hollywood for more ticket sales. However, I never related Hollywood to politics and its “job is to prepare American hearts and minds for embracing the collective actions of the state— both domestically and globally—on behalf of advancing US hegemony in the Middle East and around the world.”
ReplyDelete2. I have never seen the movie Argo but Dargis’s review that it “is a story about outwitting rather than killing the enemy, making it a homage to actual intelligence and an example of the same” immediately tells me that the film is inaccurate. After watching “Dirty Wars” in class, it is clear to me that killing is a large tactic of the U.S.
3. Zero Dark Thirsty used killing and torturing as U.S. war tactics in the film. However, these acts lead to the killing of Osama Bin Laden therefore they are justified. The film “normalizes and justifies” the strategy of “extrajudicial killing.” Naive audiences believe they are learning the true details of Osama Bin Laden’s death and therefore are not feeling negatively about U.S. forces in the Middle East. However, there are still many immoral secrets.
1. Everyone has their own perspective and the right to make a film that conveys such- it’s when this perspective is represented as FACT, or just the only existing perspective (as in the case when the other sides of a story are never conveyed through the medium of film or when films that do represent a different side of the story do not make it anywhere near the big screen) that problems like Islamophobia occur. The problem is not that stories like Argo and Zero Dark Thirty are being told- the problem is that they are the only ones being told. This post links Hollywood propaganda with US political policies, [right off the bat ZDT was not considered for an Oscar because its content did not represent the US in the most flattering light.] Therefore it is not solely the existence of ill informed directors of these films, but what and why the industry standard is what it is that keeps perpetuating ignorance.
ReplyDelete2. I agree movies are a very strong and powerful medium used to propagate and convey ideas, however I do not believe it is only Hollywood movies which promote the “acceptance of…aberrant behavior” (11) and therefore blind acceptance of the atrocities we’re causing in the middle east. This is achieved by our culture as a whole. If these same scenarios as portrayed on film were written about in the same manner the same result would occur.
3. Though audiences acceptance of Hollywood’s “the other “ and “ficticious framing” of historical/ current events has helped to prepare “American hearts and minds for embracing the collective actions of the state… on behalf of advancing US hegemony in the ME and around the world”.. it is also the visions of truth which keep audiences subdued. Films like those mentioned above help to illustrate the privileges many US citizens get to enjoy. In many ways Hollywood isn’t blinding anyone… people are actively choosing to accept the injustices portrayed in these films, for no other reason but for the fact that they can… becoming outraged would require effort.
Yalla, colleagues - shukran for blogging your collective wisdom here.
ReplyDeleteLet's dive deep in class!
Dr. W