Horror Films and Society as Mirrors Since the beginning of time, violent crimes have been committed. From crimes of jealously, insanity, revenge, and even crimes of passion, criminals have always found a motive to validate their reason to hurt or kill. These crimes have dated back before the idea of movies, much less horror movies, was thought about. If this is the case, why would one believe that the violence in horror films is influential to society? Although horror movies can be psychotic, gory, and may sometimes give creative ideas to criminals; criminals committed heinous crimes before the television was even invented.
Rhetorical Analysis of John Leo’s article, “When Life Imitates Video” Throughout his article, John aims to convince his audiences that violence in gaming has an adverse effect, rippling through children and jeopardizing their well-being. From the beginning, he utilizes vivid imagery to portray horrifying scenes into the Colorado massacre. Along with a chilling description, he indicates that two shooters indulge in the simulated killings which desensitize themselves to actual violence. His purpose is to demonstrate greater correlations between playing murder games and aggressive actions. To further strengthen his insight, he cites Los Angeles Times that address their aggressive behaviors by imitating murder-violence modeled on the game.
A “moral panic” starts with an unspeakable tragedy, which sparks an attempt to ascribe blame and responsibility. Framers or activists, fueled with exaggeration of statistics and the strong imagery presented through pop culture and especially the media help define “moral panic”. The most interesting relationship to me that is created by the “moral panic” is the involvement of the media or pop culture. The media in all these articles have a crucial role in escalating the issue as well as pop culture. The movies, literature, and news all have a stake in the phenomenon of serial homicide.
Although both movies are very similar, they are very different because as the time moves from the 1950s to 2000s, our culture has transformed therefore, the movies has transformed along with it. One thing in particular that has transformed in our society that is a noticeable difference between both movies is violence and crime. Our society had become more dangerous over the 53 years span among each movie. In this paper, I will discuss how the movies, Rear Window, and Disturbia have depicted our culture and how crime and violence in general has become extremely problematic as the times move forward. Before I establish how Rear Window and Disturbia depicts our society and how it has gotten dangerous over the course of 53 years, here is a brief overview of what both movies were about that made them different.
Violence is still making the headlines today for many reasons; first of all, violence sells. People are interest in finding out why or how some persons are killed or abducted. It seems that the population sees violence as ‘entertainment’. For example, most films are getting more violent than their predecessor. Secondly, violence is in our genes.
He uses these techniques in a way to manipulate the viewers in order to make them feel uncomfortable. Throughout the Documentary Michael Moore throws many cold statistics on the screen that makes it obvious that the strong nation of America is violent. One key fact that stood out to me, as the viewer of this documentary, was the number of deaths caused by guns in America per year. In comparison to the other countries, America has an outstanding “11,127 gun related deaths a year”. This is ten times more than all the countries together that are mentioned in the documentary.
1 Reel Injun This documentary Reel Injun directed by Neil Diamond showed how Hollywood viewed Indians in their movies. As he traveled across the country he spoke with Indian filmmakers, actors, and writers. The documentary exposed Hollywood’s false portrayal of Indians over the past century and how Indians are striving to change this. In their movies Indians were seen as spiritual, noble, free, and also as supreme horsemen when in fact most could not even ride. In the 1930’s Indians were transformed into brutal savages by movies like Stage Coach.
In recent years, several critics have called for a change in the ratings system that would make the ratings better reflect what is depicted in the film. One reason the ratings system should be changed is that the lines are blurred between some ratings. What kind of content gets a film an “R” rating, and what content deserves the dreaded “NC-17”? One article written by Andrew Essex for Entertainment Weekly magazine provides an example: in the movie Eyes Wide Shut, sixty five seconds of an orgy scene were digitally obscured, successfully bringing the film from an “NC-17” to an “R” rating (paragraph 1). Essex also discusses how Wild Wild West, a Will Smith film which begins with a decapitation, was given a “PG-13” rating (paragraph 7).
In Books II: Halifax to Hollywood, she (Rebecca Solnit) took a great deal of time looking at 20th Century explosion and wars, along with the reaction of the people to it. While also leading up to how Hollywood portrays that in their movies and how (in)Accurate it may be. Something as major as a war or an explosion could easily change someones views from being all about god, and how he protects all, to now believing Survival of the Fittest. Movies could portray someones motives as being a 180 of what they really were, and Solnit looks at this compare and contrast seemingly through the pages, culminating towards the end on how things change for people in disaster. EXPLOSION In the morning of Dec 6, 1917, Gertrude Pettipas decided to look
Bowling for Columbine Essay America has one of the highest gun murder rates in the world. The question that we all ask ourselves is why. The film, Bowling for Columbine truly got one thinking. In the film, we saw how the news may be a cause for this. The American news builds fear in its citizens.