Cinema Studies
This is an excerpt from the paper...
The post- postmodern world is more real than real, it’s hyper-real. This phenomenon has occurred through technology’s ability to transform reality into cyber-reality, a world where the images and shadows of Plato’s cave allegory and the shadows and light of mass media imagery are more real than real. Many modern films have dealt with this transformation of non-technological reality into techno-reality, including Blade Runner, The Matrix, Fight Club, and a spate of films dealing with politics and war in a post- post-modern hyper-reality: Primary Colors, Wag The Dog, Bulworth, Courage Under Fire, and, Three Kings. Masked in terms like democracy, humanity, and freedom, modern political and media machinery create a hyper-real, “spun” if-you-will, version of modern warfare that presents a modern conflict like the Gulf War as an edited movie-of-the-week, replete with the good guys (always America of course) handily defeating the bad guys and bestowing democracy, humanity and freedom upon the world’s formerly oppressed. This particular presentation of war is more fabricated fiction than the dissemination of the actual events and realities lying as the real motivations beneath the surface of bloodshed and territoriality in the name of democracy, humanity and freedom. With modern political and media machinery at full tilt, it is easy to manifest a consensus of opinion among the American masses who believe anything just so lo
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a fair trade for a Rolex.”
Many other films in recent times have presented this dilemma of perceived reality based on political rhetoric and media technology as opposed to actual reality. One that did so superbly was Wag The Dog in which a Hollywood producer and Washington spin-doctor come together and make the mass audience believe anything they want them to believe, particularly anything aimed at portraying the scandal-ridden sitting president in a halo-light. The spin-doctor and Hollywood producer combine their talents in an effort to create a fully “fabricated” war through the use of media imagery and political rhetoric. The do so to help minimize the damage of a sex-scandal involving the president. Roger Ebert’s (2) review of this film contains a description of it that could be accurately applied to Three Kings, because it demonstrates “How easy it is to whip up a patriotic frenzy, and how dubious the motives sometimes are. The movie is satire that contains just enough realistic ballast to be teasingly plausible; like Dr. Strangelove, it makes you laugh, and then it makes you think.”
In other words, our political and media presentation of war in modern culture is all based on style, not substance. This is brought hom
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 4966
Approximate Pages = 20 (250 words per page)
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