The film Obey was made by British filmmaker Temujin Doran. This documentary is based on a book by columnist Chris Hedges, "The Death of the Liberal Class". The film accomplishes its goals by demonstrating the takeover of business in government, and persuading the viewer to act upon it. The last century took part in the rise of privatization which meant the indoctrination of a nation in a capitalistic world with no morality. Forced to follow propaganda created by wealthy businessmen, eventually people will no longer be able to make decisions against what they are told to believe. Dorian's film explains what we can do to overcome such a state of moral decline. The explanation to how the rise of the corporate star began, was during World War II. The use of propaganda became more prevalent than ever during this era. Historians wondered how could capitalism survive after the disaster that was the Great Depression? Propaganda reached a high, but this was led by corporate men, not men of politics. Privatization is able to take over through the use of propaganda, as a means to make a profit. This was when the question was raised. Are politics being led by men who truly wish to represent their constituents? Or is their more of a presence of business men, not politicians? …show more content…
The people who fall for the propaganda become the ones employed into those businesses. It is worth falling victim to the educated liberal thinkers. "The corporate salary will sap the moral and intellectual independence."
“When a great democracy is destroyed, it will not be because of enemies from without, but rather because of enemies from within.” During the late 1940s and early 1950s, these words of Abraham Lincoln were all on the minds of Americans (McCarthyism). After fighting against Communism for decades, the fear of it taking down the country terrorized people’s thoughts. Even more so, people were extremely frightened of the idea that there could be Communists within the spotlights of American influence that were plotting the destruction of the United States. A fear swept the country for almost a decade, and it transformed every aspect of American culture. This transformation began in the entertainment industry and hit here the hardest. The fear of Communism completely spun the industry upside down and distorted everything that made American showbiz so distinct. Even today, the controversies of the 1940s and 1950s have left an impression on the current entertainment industry.
More specifically, the movie A Few Good Men depicts the results of blindly obeying orders. Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, also explores obedience to authority in his essay “ The Perils of Obedience”. On the other hand, Erich Fromm, a psychoanalyst and philosopher, focused on disobedience to authority in his essay “ Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem.” Milgram wrote about how people were shockingly obedient to authority when they thought they were harming someone else while Fromm dissected both: why people are so prone to obey and how disobedience from authoritative figures can bring beneficial changes for society. Obeying commands, even when they go against our morals, is human nature; Disobeying commands, however, is challenging to do no matter what the situation is.
Obedience has always been a trait present in every aspect of society. Parents have practiced enforcing discipline in their homes where children learn obedience from age one. Instructors have found it difficult to teach a lesson unless their students submit to their authority. Even after the adolescent years, law enforcement officers and governmental officials have expected citizens to uphold the law and abide by the standards set in society. Few will understand, however, that although these requirements for obedience provide positive results for development, there are also dangers to enforcing this important trait. Obedience to authority can be either profitable or perilous depending on who the individual in command is. In the film, The Crucible,
Obedience is a widely debated topic today with many different standpoints from various brilliant psychologists. Studying obedience is still important today to attempt to understand why atrocities like the Holocaust or the My Lai Massacre happened so society can learn from them and not repeat history. There are many factors that contribute to obedience including situation and authority. The film A Few Good Men, through a military court case, shows how anyone can fall under the influence of authority and become completely obedient to conform to the roles that they have been assigned. A Few Good Men demonstrates how authority figures can control others and influence them into persuading them to perform a task considered immoral or unethical.
...t happen even in Hollywood. You don’t have a revolution in which you love your enemy, and you don’t have a revolution in which you are begging the system of exploitation to integrate you into it. Revolutions overturn systems. Revolutions destroy systems.”
In general, rebellion is considered as an act of disobeying laws and norms in society, and existence refers to something or someone that is living or present in the actual universe. Albert Camus once said, “In order to exist, man must rebel, but rebellion must respect the limits that it discovers in itself – limits where minds meet, and in meeting, begin to exist.” What rebellion has to do with existence? It is true that rebellion is an action of disobeying the norms. However, there are reasons for humans to violate such norms, and the reasons could be because they are unable to conform to these norms, or even worse they are completely excluded from society (by the norms). As result of these limitations and exclusions,
When dystopias are mentioned, books like Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World come to mind, but no one ever thinks of modern, popular religions. The goal of these books are to warn the modern society of what could go wrong if it keeps behaving like it is by exaggerating the flaws of the modern society. Scientology is a fairly new religion that has gained many followers over the past decade because of its illusion of a utopia, but it is also exactly what Huxley and Orwell are warning about in their books. Like A Brave New World, The church of scientology started off with good intentions, but over time all the rules and beliefs have turned out to be corrupt and unfair. Utopias like in A Brave New World and Scientology often become dystopias because
Our dystopian movie, Oblivion, revolves around a bureaucratic dictatorship (the Society) occurring in the 24th century. It contains futuristic elements in which a totalitarian government uses propaganda and tyrannical force to run the society. Oblivion portrays an alluring depiction of propaganda while instilling a greater image of the reality of survival.
Organizations have been leading the world for a recorded 5000 years. 1984 and Fight Club predict that mankind will fall as figurative slaves to large organizations. Both share an identical theme: figurative slavery to organizational bodies. The novel and film mirror the mechanics of figurative slavery in the modern world through various forms of propaganda shown within the plot, the characters’ ideologies revealed in their methods of escapism, and their display of rebellion.
The movie Mad Max: Fury Road portrays the world in a post-thermonuclear fallout; where the rest of living inhabitants must fight to scavenge for resources (water, and gasoline). Which leads to the forming of factions by name of The Rock Riders, The Buzzards, and The War Boys to simple survive the current nuclear fallout which is the Earth. The War Boys look up to one leader known as Immortan Joe who runs the settlement known as the Citadel which has vast water and food that is a rarity during this era. Immortan Joe has a strangle-hold grip on the resources his settlement own; one scene Immortan release a decent amount of water to close it quickly and lets out the statement “ Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence.” After this scene hundreds of thousands of people are fighting to have just a taste of the water, this shows that
Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer were two renowned Jewish representatives of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory; they were particularly dominant during the early 20th century, approximately around the time of the 1920’s to 1960s. They took refuge in America after Adolf Hitler’s rise in Germany. These to philosophers developed the ‘Culture Industry Theory’ in the 1940s, in light of the disturbed society they had seen during this time. They witnessed how Nazi Fascism used mass media such as films, radio and newspapers to brainwash millions into partaking in this ideology. Similarly they saw the rise of Capitalism in America, which also used mass media such as Hollywood films and advertising to disseminate the masses into the capitalist Ideology. This essay will evaluate how the ‘culture industry’ had profound social impacts in society and examine weather it is valid in contemporary society.
Individuals often yield to conformity when they are forced to discard their individual freedom in order to benefit the larger group. Despite the fact that it is important to obey the authority, obeying the authority can sometimes be hazardous especially when morals and autonomous thought are suppressed to an extent that the other person is harmed. Obedience usually involves doing what a rule or a person tells you to but negative consequences can result from displaying obedience to authority for example; the people who obeyed the orders of Adolph Hitler ended up killing innocent people during the Holocaust. In the same way, Stanley Milgram noted in his article ‘Perils of Obedience’ of how individuals obeyed authority and neglected their conscience reflecting how this can be destructive in experiences of real life. On the contrary, Diana Baumrind pointed out in her article ‘Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience’ that the experiments were not valid hence useless.
Role of Propaganda in Animal Farm The novel, Animal Farm, is a well-known allegory written by George Orwell. As a satire of the Russian Revolution, Orwell portrays the rise of a cruel dictatorship and the mistreatment of the general population under it. Like the Communist government in Russia, the government in Animal Farm employs the use of many manipulative tools, especially propaganda. Propaganda was used by the pigs throughout the book, deceiving many of the animals.
The Wolf of Wall Street reveals important information on human nature and the state of today’s capitalist world. It looks at greed and indulgence and how this taps into humans desires for wealth and pleasure-seeking activities. This film reveals infidelity is a byproduct of gender and power.
... Change has to be generational and falls into the hands of children; is a reasonable method to consider? There is the obvious approach of investing in teachers and early childhood education, but what child loves school enough to care. Children love television, movies, and games. From personal experience, many life lessons instilled in me were from the former sitcom Full House. Each episode contained a “moral of the story” and it was demonstrated through real life, relatable examples. I did not have to steal to know it was wrong, I watched Michelle Tanner (character on Full House) do it for me. Perhaps we should invest in generating blockbuster movies and amusing sitcoms to indistinguishably revise cultural norms. Ethics has to be taught and has to be impregnable to carry into the business world and capitalism. Does the future of capitalism rely on Hollywood?