Media in Movies: The Two Sides of the Same Coin
People have always had discussions about media playing a major role in shaping societies and lives; about how its power and reach can affect people to the level of their decision making and how they perceive their actual environment. But to what extent is media supposed to be able to touch us as individuals that represent a bigger part of our society?
In one of my college classes, we were asked to view some films and reflect on what we learned from watching them. All of the movies were centered on aspects of media such as its influence, acceptability, roles, and workings. I chose writing about two of these, The Truman Show (1998) and Our Brand Is Crisis (2015).
I chose these two movies specifically because I feel like they show how much media can influence the real world but each represent two different aspects of the influential process: The Truman Show representing the side affected by the media, and Our Brand Is Crisis representing the side of he media that affects society.
In The Truman Show, it tells the story of Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) a man unaware that he has had his whole life played out on television living in a fake town, orchestrated life events, and even with hired actors playing the roles of the people in his life. The studio manipulates Truman into decisions that lead him to stay in the fake town. These manipulations range from events in his life like the staged death of his father in water, to subliminal everyday messages such as Seahaven (the fake town) being names as the best place on Earth. As an adult, Truman realizes there is something wrong when a studio light falls out of his fake sky. He starts wondering about his environment and notices the weirdness of some people’s actions and the seeming fake-ness of it all. At the end of the movie, he is eventually able to escape with the audiences of his life applauding him.
This is actually a movie I watched as a young grade school kid, and even then I was amazed at how a person could be fooled or in a stronger word, manipulated by media in such a way that it makes up their whole life. However, re-watching the film now that I am older made me see deeper into the movie and reflect on it more. The media here is not just the program tricking Truman by making his life a show for the whole world to see. The media is present in the life that they had made up for Truman itself. It is present in the way that his fake world is created, the orchestrated events in his life that push him into making certain decisions, and the ways that his world operates from day to day. Being able to see these forms of media actually bother me because of its hyper-real nature. It makes me wonder how much of our lives are actually there just because of media and its influence.
Representing the media’s side, in my opinion, is the movie Our Brand is Crisis. Here, Jane Bodine (Sandra Bullock) is a political strategist taking on another job for a politician running for president in Bolivia. In the run of the movie, she is convinced to come out of retirement to redeem herself with a bonus of going up against her old rival. She works in bringing up the votes for a politician using unethical methods such as framing crises and muddying the image of the rival politician. Her client politician eventually wins the presidential election but it turns up bad after she realizes that her candidate has agendas and ulterior motives that is not in the best interests of the mass.
The movie represents those people working for the media industry. These are the people who in turn create and influence media. The media portrayed here is practicing unethical ways of presenting media to the people and trying to turn in into their favor. An example of which is mudslinging the opposition, and framing events in the country that make their client seem capable and worthy of their votes. It shows how carefully planned the materials that are shown in media are before they are released to the people. It also proves how strong a force media is into shaping realities and beliefs of the society. In the movie, I admire her interview at the very start as she presents herself as a disillusioned media practitioner that knows the dark side of media all too well. Bodine shows that she is aware of how dirty the media can get, especially when mixed with politics which is under her field of expertise. As someone who might get involved in the same jobs myself, it struck a cord in me to be careful about media.
Personally, studying communication, I am actually glad that there are movies like that, those that present media in different ways. Media is not always good and fun. It has a tricky side that we should all be aware of. In both movies, there is a manipulation that alters reality or at least affects it enough to become true. There is a large possibility for me to work in media someday and I want to be aware of everything that is happening around me. I want the truth to be presented in media, not just things that are meant to affect us for the benefit of a few, not just for entertainment. There should be some meaningful but ethical use of media that allows it to be free but sustainable without the support of those with agendas. Like Jane Bodine, I want to be aware of the manipulative nature of media but not to the point of becoming as disillusioned as she has that I give into the system.
As an individual, away from being a student of communication, I think that the general public should be free to make informed decisions guided by the information presented in media but not so that they are subliminally controlled by what is presented in the media itself. We all have to be aware of what actually is. I understand that media is part of our world and cultures, but after watching these types of movies, you yourself might wonder: How much of the world is actually real?
“We accept the reality of the world which we’re presented.” - Christof, The Truman Show (1998)
If you’re interested in watching other films like these, here’s the list of films that our teacher gave us to watch:
The Truman Show (1998)
The Insider (1999)
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
Our Brand is Crisis (2015)
Spotlight (2015)
Images Retrieved from:
(The Truman Show Poster) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120382/
(Our Brand is Crisis Poster) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1018765/
