He looks to the future!

[sabotabby]

I took the kittums up to the roof for the first time this year. I'd post pictures of that, but wouldn't you just rather see my cat Photoshopped into a socialist realist painting? Yeah, I thought so too.


Heh.

Today's game, following up on a comment exchange with cpxbrex in my last post, is to name as many movies as you can that end with hackers hijacking the airwaves to broadcast The Truth What Will Lead to Revolution. I'll get you started *SPOILER WARNING*: They Live!, Serenity, V for Vendetta, and This Revolution.

And why is this such a common fictional fantasy?

Go!

Comments

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

My feelings, before I go read through any of the other posts about this, is that it satisfies certain narrative and political goals in the movie format.

The narrative satisfaction is that it's a very traditional narrative. It's about the lone hero who finds the truth and brings it to the masses -- it's functionally a bunch of aristocratic tripe, the hero making the passage into the other world and back, carrying with them a mystical secret. It's very Campbellian, and thus it is easy and resonates with a lot of people.

Secondly, it satisfies people politically. The AUDIENCE is allowed to feel that the problem is just that they don't have the proper information, that what prevents "them" from "doing the right thing" is that some superhero hasn't come along and spoon-fed them the truth. It enables them to lull themselves into feeling that they're not responsible for understanding the world around them -- they are never the problem, after all.

[sabotabby]

I agree, but it also doesn't stand up to thinking about it for more than 30 seconds. In They Live!, the aliens boss-impersonators aren't doing anything that actual human bosses don't do—their motives may be different, but the result is the same. In V for Vendetta, it's difficult to believe that a population that condoned rounding up half of Britain and putting them in concentration camps would revolt because...they saw something on TV.

It's terribly depressing.

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

Lots of plots don't last thirty seconds if you think about them. People don't generally need their entertainment to make sense. ;)

I guess the "media rebels frees people" thing is just people blowing of steam at the media, specifically. We all know we're being lied to and wouldn't it be GREAT if JUST ONCE we did actually see what they all know but don't tell us? :)