Demonstrating the Power of Mental Stimulation through Film

Demonstrating the Power of Mental Stimulation through Film

I. Media: A Sensory Stimulant

A mass communications major once told me that an individual is subjected to more than forty thousand advertisements during a single day. From radio to television a person’s senses are bombarded by images, sounds, and even the smells of ever conceivable form of media. Newspaper pictorials use print to deliver visual messages. Companies erect walls of advertising billboards along our highways that utilize large graphics and bright colors to draw the attention of sight. The radio attacks the sense of hearing with commercial advertising twice as loud as the station’s booming rock music. The pages of men’s magazines are doused in the smell of a single cologne ad that lurks within the pages waiting to be unhinged. At grocery stores and markets tasting tables are set up to create interactive advertising for an individual’s pallet. No matter what form of media is used to communicate ideas to the population there will always be a stimulation of one or more of the human senses.

II. The Hot Dog Stand Effect

The most effective media combines several senses of an individual to arouse an emotional reaction. I call this the “hot dog stand effect”. Consider a hot dog vender who has set up his cart on a corner of down town New York City. The vender’s ultimate goal is to sell as many ho dogs during the lunch hour as he possible can. To maximize his hot dog distribution he must entice the hungry stomachs of corporate New York who to busy for a decnet meal. This enticement can be achieved with a careful combination of sensory stimulants.

Lets begin with a hungry individual on her lunch break. The vender’s assault on the lady’s sens...

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...y leaned forward as if bringing my eyes closer would let me absorb more stimuli.

By the time the first sequence was over I had traversed the entire world of Middle Earth, climbed its mountains, fought a dark lord, and settled into a peaceful community with a creatures known as hobbits. I picked up my jaw, pushed my eyes back into the sockets, and wiggled my ears. My senses were devastated by the power of the cinematography carefully combined with a explosive musical score. I thought for sure the film would be an anticlimax from here on out. I was nothing short of wrong. The stimulation was so amazing there were times when I could help but smile in an attempt to hold myself together. For me, media is all about the force behind an excellent film. Film is truly a media that demonstrates the power of mental stimulation through our helpless primitive senses.