The Strange Fascination of People of Turning Catastrophes Into a Media Event
This opinion article tries to outline why the destruction of New York
is presented in films and takes the 11th September terrorist attack as
a case study and it attempts to find reasons why disasters that happen
in real life remain stamped in the imagination of the human psyche.
The destruction of the New York skyline has long been an obsession for
the American film industry. It is depicted a lot in the Planet of the
Apes series when in the first film's memorable closing sequence we see
Charlton Heston finding the Statue of liberty half buried in the sand.
The sequel " Beneath the Planet of the Apes" goes one step further
where it has Charlton Heston and James Franciscus finding a destroyed
subterranean New York City where they witness the tragic ruins of the
New York Public Library, the New York Stock Exchange and the Radio
City Music Hall. The fourth installment "Conquest of the Planet of the
Apes" has the Apes completely destroying New York City and if one goes
back in time to 1933 the Monster Movie that started it all! King Kong
culminated with a battle between this gigantic ape and the American
air force atop the empire state building. Besides the apes destroying
the big apple, New York has had its fair share of variable disasters
such as the criminals that wreak havoc to the city in John Carpenter's
Escape from New York where the US president's plane crashes in
Manhattan that has now been transformed into a dark maximum security
prison. In the 1984 film Ghostbusters, a team of scientists are called
to rid Manhattan of ghosts and poltergeists and end up ...
... middle of paper ...
...he problem as to how accidents are
projected on the media and the impact they leave on the viewers. They
should not be glorified by the movie industry/media, nor be used as a
mechanism to spark off a chain of events or message. This is why there
must be responsibility and the need to draw the line and not go
forward with a way of thought of it bleeds, it leads. That is the
problem. We are all in a position to take responsibility to think
about what we're watching and as the repeatedly airing of certain
events can traumatize people and may lead then to act in a certain
way, therefore education and awareness are necessary.
References and Bibliography
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The 1997 Virgin Film Guide
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Focus Magazine Italia April 2002
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In today's day and age, it's rare to see famous historical events and societal disasters not be picked apart by film directors and then transformed into a box office hit. What these films do is put a visual perspective on these events, sometimes leaving viewers speculating if whatever was depicted is in fact entirely true. I have never felt that feeling more than after I finished watching Oliver Stone’s JFK.
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One could easily dismiss movies as superficial, unnecessarily violent spectacles, although such a viewpoint is distressingly pessimistic and myopic. In a given year, several films are released which have long-lasting effects on large numbers of individuals. These pictures speak
...s at that time who have come of age. Perhaps no film in recent history has captured more attention and generated more controversial debate. This film resonates the feeling and question that common people had about the JFK assassination in the 60s. As a result, the debate about the validity of JFK extended much further into the war-torn cultural landscape of America in the 1990s than most observers noted. The JFK was a telling incident demonstrating the larger cultural conflict over values and meaning in America and the competition to define national identity. The whole affair demonstrated how effective a motion picture can be as a transmitter of knowledge, history, and culture. As a result, the debate about the validity of JFK extended much further into the war-torn cultural landscape of America in the 1990s than most observers have noted.
When the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2011 rocked New York City, Pennsylvania, and Washington D.C., the word “tragedy” was used on a grandiose level around the world. For the people who lived close enough to experience the events first-hand, they may not have even called it a tragedy; perhaps they called it a misfortune, retaliation, lack of a strong government, unreal, or maybe even rebirth. In the coming years after the attacks, everything between standing united as a nation to declaring a war had flourished; but how has that left us - the land that has no distinct ethnicity - feel about each other? Why is it that fear is usually missing in the affective mnemonics of memorial sites, which, after all, are signifiers of some of the most horrific violence in human history? Do memorials dedicated to these attacks bring us together in terms of understanding, or is it just continual collective grief? This paper will cover the global complexity of the 9/11 attacks, the Empty Sky 9/11 Memorial in Liberty State Park, NJ, and factors and theories that memorials do influence a sense of complexity. The ground of public memory is always in motion, shifting with the tectonics of national identity. I chose the Empty Sky 9/11 Memorial as my topic of observation as I, personally, visit a few times throughout the year to pay respects to people I personally knew who perished in the attacks to the World Trade Center. I was in the 5th grade when this happened, and had absolutely no clue what was going on until my father did not return home until two days later with a bandage wrapped around his head and his devastating recollection of what happened just before he arrived to his job. The emotions that I feel within myself compared to others will...
Gina Marchetti, in her essay "Action-Adventure as Ideology," argues that action- adventure films implicitly convey complex cultural messages regarding American values and the "white American status quo." She continues to say that all action-adventure movies have the same basic structure, including plot, theme, characterization, and iconography. As ideology, this film genre tacitly expresses social norms, values, and morals of its time. Marchetti's essay, written in 1989, applies to films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Rambo: First Blood II. However, action-adventure films today seem to be straying farther away from her generalizations about structure, reflecting new and different cultural norms in America. This changing ideology is depicted best in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994), which defies nearly every concept Marchetti proposes about action-adventure films; and it sets the stage for a whole new viewpoint of action in the '90's.
The true test of a film’s greatness is time. The 1984 science-fiction/comedy classic, Ghostbusters, has stood the test of time, producing both a sequel (in 1989) and a hit cartoon series. Ghostbusters is the story of three offbeat scientists interested in paranormal matters: Peter Venkman (played by Bill Murray), Raymond Stanz (played by Dan Aykroyd), and Egon Spengler (played by Harold Ramis), who have just lost their university grant, and are suddenly forced out onto the streets of New York. What will they do now to survive? After taking a third mortgage out on Ray’s family home, Peter, Ray, and Egon decide to pursue the idea of catching and containing ghosts in the private sector. Their business, fittingly named: “Ghostbusters”, starts out slow, but quickly the word spreads of their ghost investigation and extraction services. Within seemingly no time at all, the Ghostbusters are a hot commodity in New York where ghost activity is on the rise.
One fateful afternoon in 2011, David Daigle, Associate Communication Director, at the Center for Disease Control (CDC), purchased eighty-seven dollars worth of zombie related stock photography – convinced that this would be the key to engaging a young and media savvy audience in a conversation about disaster preparedness. Daigle concluded – based on his personal affinity to zombie culture – that there are a similarities to the items one would need in a disaster kit and to those necessary to survive a zombie attack and that this unique connection would be relevant to a zombie crazed society.
Nevertheless Italian NeoRealism was essential to Italy’s film industry at the time the war ended and while Europe was recovering from the war. Its impact on modern film has been monumental, not only in Italian film but also on French New Wave cinema, and ultimately on films all over the world.
ComEd appears to have thoroughly analyzed social media best practices before it embarked on its own social media program. However, it decided to place the responsibility for social media within its own customer operations rather than in its communications or marketing department. Was this is a good decision- why or why not?
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It's clear to see the media focuses on various reports, television shows, and even sitcoms regarding all forms of psychology. While watching television one can say media basically relies on psychology. The media of psychology views psychology through means of common sense versus an actual science. Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processed. Behavior is anything you do that can be observed. In the media we can observe people through the television screen. Through our observations we learn from their behavior. For example in a famous experiment conducted by Albert Bandura called, "Bobo Doll Experiment," a preschool child is working on a drawing. An adult in another part of the room is building with Tinkertoys. The child is watching this adult through a television screen and watches as the adult gets up and for nearly ten minutes pounds, kicks, and throws around the room a large inflated Bobo doll, while yelling hurtful sayings such as, "Sock him in the nose" or "Hit him down" and even "Kick him". After the adult was done, the child was taken to another room and demonstrated the same actions as they have seen through the television screen to the Bobo Doll. It's clear to see from the experiment the media teaches society many aspects of psychology. From a psychological aspect we see a child observing violent behavior from what the media has presented. Humans learn through observation and in a world where technology is advancing, the media plays a large role.
Martini, G. (2013) I Festival sono ancora necessari?, Spec. Issue of 8 ½- Numeri, visioni e prospettive del cinema italiano (2013).