The idea of having a utopian society has not yet been reached, but definitely seems to be what the elites in charge of our lives want to achieve when they say they want to make our society a” better” place to live. The ultimate goal of those who migrate to America is to reach the American dream, which in reality is full of misconceptions. The American Dream is to be successful enough to buy a big house with a white picket fence, have nice expensive cars and to be able to buy all that one wants and desires. The entertainment industry is fully in charge of manipulating people to think that the life that celebrities lead is the only type of life style that is glamorous and consists of happiness. The concept of a person reaching its full potential of knowledge and true happiness has completely diminished from the goals that drive us to “be better” and “live better”, just like in the story of Fahrenheit 451. The novel and film of Fahrenheit 451 describes how shallow the reasons are for destroying and overlooking the knowledge that makes us humans unique and true individuals who are able to speak proficiently and create personal opinions about issues that surround the world we live in. Guy Montag is a fireman who burns books in a futuristic American city. In Montag’s world, firemen start fires rather than putting them out. The people in this society do not read books, enjoy nature, spend time by themselves, think independently, or have meaningful conversations. Instead, they drive very fast, watch excessive amounts of television on wall-size sets, and listen to the radio on “Seashell Radio” sets attached to their ears. Fahrenheit 451 will be looked at through social critical theories and those involving the entertainment industry.
The book and movie of Fahrenheit 451 foreshadows the world we will live in if society continues to make media the focal point of our minds and the priority of our lives. The book Fahrenheit 451 is about a man going against the idea/norm of burning houses that consist of books, to add to the idea of how crucial knowledge, language and individuality is. Fahrenheit 451 uses the tool of taking away books as a way to dumb everyone down to the same level, but with society today, media is emphasized (nothing is directly taken away, but instead emphasized) as a way to make society pull away from books and knowledge and to make everyone look the same and to think/ focus on things that are only materialistic and have no real value. In the book Modern Social Imaginaries, Taylor suggests “in the modern ideal, mutual respect and service is directed toward serving our ordinary goals: life, liberty, sustenance of self and family” (Taylor 13). A person like Beatty, the captain of the fire squad who burned books in Fahrenheit 451, eventually becomes very robotic and shallow when mutual respect and service are the only things that direct him to his goals. Instead of knowledge being the tool that directs one closer to their goals, it is substituted by taking away what makes us different and valuable creatures. This is parallel to the society that we live in today. With society today, the media is so concentrated on getting the younger viewers interested in what they are selling, that they stray the younger generation, which is our future, to a path where knowledge is overlooked and not advocated in any way. The goal of the media which is also the reason that Beatty gives Guy Montag for burning books, the protagonist in Fahrenheit 451, is to “make everyone equal” (Bradbury 58 ). Beatty also mentions how “each man should be the image of the other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against” (Bradbury 451). Media is doing the same exact thing by advocating the life style that celebrities have and telling the viewer that we should all be the same and look the same to be happy. When comparing Fahrenheit 451 and our society, I came to the conclusion that we are not that far away from reaching the point where we can physically burn books and where we can finally stop making the same negative effect in a way where it’s not obvious.
The oppression of ignorance is a theme that drives Guy Montag to free himself from the strain that was on him physically and mentally. Individuality is lost both in society today and in Fahrenheit 451 because “the industry robs the individual of his function. Its prime service to the customer is to do his schemasting for him” (Adorno and Horkheimer 4). In Fahrenheit 451, although Guy Montag found it wrong to burn houses, books and people, he was forced into it by Beatty’s rules. The fact that the entire town went after Montag to track him down, shows translucent characteristic of “Big Brother” in Orwell’s 1984. The industry in this case is the government and does all the thinking and decision making for the people so that they won’t have to decide what is good and what is bad. It will be stated and expected to conform to by the people for the good of the government. The entertainment industry has also robbed the individual of the self by brainwashing the public by making them think that one will gain more happiness about themselves if they mimic celebrities and their “glamour”. With movies that premier in theaters don’t let us decide for our own if it is a good or bad movie. We are directly told even before watching it that it is good/ bad through ratings and shows that cover the media. The industry has begun to serve all people by creating shows and movies that are appealing to all age groups and all ethnic backgrounds. This bright idea which earns the industry billions is created to completely remove the idea of knowledge/ earning an education. The destruction of knowledge and language is a work that is in progress today by the entertainment industry that we are so a part of. It seems to be having a stronger hold on us as individuals as time progresses and as we allow them to by eating up all that they try to feed the public (metaphorically speaking).
Works Cited
Adorno, Theodor and Horkheimer, Max. “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass
Deception. 1944. Source: https://webteach.csun.edu:31987/SCRIPT/ENGL312_13669-Wexler- Fa09/scripts/serve_home.
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. Ed. Del Ray. New York. 1978.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Thoughts on Media
I always thought that the entertainment industry had a purpose of brainwashing the public, but the articles by Adorno, Horkheimer and Benjamin present extreme, yet very true views on what the entertainment industry really stands for. In the article written by Adorno and Horkheimer, it is mentioned how this industry is based on producing and selling with the ultimate goal of making as much money from their products as possible. Something is provided for all kinds of people so that no one is able to escape this industry. By offering so many different types of products for the public, they are basically saying how everyone must behave and submit to the billion dollar industry that owns us. We come to “understand” how formalized the procedure is when we “see” how similar the products are at the end. From block- buster movies to automobiles, they are all equipped with the latest psychological formulas to make us spend money on things that “sound” good the ear. All this made me think, are we really told that if we don’t conform (in regards to buying things that conglomerates try to sell) we are a stranger to society and left powerless, economically and therefore spiritually? Does this industry have this strong of a hold on us? I believe that we try to avoid this fact, but it does have a strong hold on us. Everything we do and say revolves around the media. Our language which is used to know the self and others has become a tool whose main component is the media. Now day’s people use the things they see in movies, T.V and what they hear on the radio as a way to connect to other people and form relationships with them. This media becomes the foundation of what is supposed to be real and sincere (ex: relationships and friendships). Which is more common with someone that you just meet, being asked what your religious and political views are or what your favorite song, movie or book is? One thing I have noticed is that every year when the first day of school comes around almost all of my Professors ask the class to describe themselves by a favorite movie, song or book. These are all things that make the media therefore, does the media define who we are as individuals? As Adorno and Horkheimer mention, “the industry robs the individual of his function.” If the industry leaves nothing for the consumer to classify a film or a song as good or bad, then we no longer engage in things with a conscious mind.
Like Walter Benjamin mentions in his article, the mechanical reproduction of the arts brush aside “creativity and genius, eternal value and mystery.” If we are deprived of the things that makes a movie brilliant and what makes a song touch our hearts, then why is it that we find ourselves so attached to this whole idea of the media. I personally found both of the readings very interesting because I work for the entertainment industry and it’s so true how the industry runs on making non- authentic products for the consumers to buy. Many of the shows out there are targeting the younger generation knowing that they are more vulnerable to things that resemble their language. We are victims in our own society. Watch out because they are out to get you big time!!!
Like Walter Benjamin mentions in his article, the mechanical reproduction of the arts brush aside “creativity and genius, eternal value and mystery.” If we are deprived of the things that makes a movie brilliant and what makes a song touch our hearts, then why is it that we find ourselves so attached to this whole idea of the media. I personally found both of the readings very interesting because I work for the entertainment industry and it’s so true how the industry runs on making non- authentic products for the consumers to buy. Many of the shows out there are targeting the younger generation knowing that they are more vulnerable to things that resemble their language. We are victims in our own society. Watch out because they are out to get you big time!!!
A Clockwork Orange (Response Paper 1 of 2)
Society At Its Most Destructed State
The movie A Clockwork Orange is about a fifteen year old boy named Alex and his gang who spent most of their time getting high, lying, robbing, raping woman and treating the people around them very poorly through severe abuse (mental, physical and emotional abuse). The movie starts off by these group of kids spotting a drunk on the street singing. They stop and deicide to make fun of the drunken man by kicking him in the stomach. It is at this point where one of the themes of the movie is revealed: the younger generation controlling the old and how law and order has diminished. This youth is clearly full of violence and has no fear of punishment. Randy Martin suggests a societies central cleavage would be played out along the lines of risk. Those who are able to live life with always taking risks are masters and leaders of their own lives, but those who are not capable of being risky is the population that is “at risk” and the target of all types of domestic wars like drugs, crime, kids and culture (Martin 2 ). From the beginning to mid- way through the movie, the population that represented risk was Alex and his gang. They were very much into the world of misconceptions, where physical desires become the one and only priority. However, towards reaching the end, the story has a certain twist to it because the population that is “at risk” turns out to be the group of individuals who lived in intense evil manners. The reason being that they were the ones involved with the drugs, crime and the lack of culture. It only makes sense that what Martin describes (concept of risk) is the moral of the movie. The moral being that although risk is thought of in a positive spectrum the reality of it is that if “risk” is abused than it brings forth a lot of conflict that many times leads to wars.
Althusser suggests that our values, desires and preferences are inculcated in us by ideological practice, the sphere which has the defining property of constituting individuals as subjects. Ideological practice consists of an assortment of institutions called Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs), which include the family, the media, religious organizations and, most importantly, the education system, as well as the received ideas they propagate (Althusser 3). There is, however, no single ISA that produces in us the belief that we are self-conscious agents. Instead, we derive this belief in the course of learning what it is to be a daughter, a schoolchild, black, a steelworker, a councilor, and so forth. This is to say that Alex in A Clockwork Orange did not notice one day that he can be a powerful leader and can find ways to get easy money and sleep with woman all day long. If Alex is put into the context of Althusser’s belief, then Alex realized the life he could be living when he slowly started to include activities such as robbing and raping into his daily life. As always, there are consequences for social practices that are considered “immoral”, especially when it reaches a point where the government gets involved. Although many different people would tell Alex that he is a murderer, he would not understand it to be a negative connotation. Alex received 14 years in prison and yet he did not understand what he did wrong. It was not until the doctors made him watch scenes of rapped scenes when he started to feel sick and disgusted by what was being seen. However, he tells us near the end that the sick nausea that he felt was not because he was cured by science but because Beethoven’s 9th symphony would be playing every time. This scene is an obvious example of classical conditioning. Everytime that Alex saw a woman, he had to act upon his desires, therefore was not used to resisting his temptations. However, for him to be “cured” he needs to resist what he normally wouldn’t and this causes the nausea/ withdrawal symptom, just like a person laying off of drugs. He couldn’t stand anything that linked back to the older generation. The movie comes to show us that he did realize what he did wrong but instead decided to go along the same path. As a whole, the movie emphasized the inviolability of free will, the inherent evil of government, the necessity of commitment in life, good versus evil, commitment versus neutrality, man versus machine, man versus government, youth versus maturity, and intellect versus intuition, to name some of the most prominent ones. The two readings by Martin and Althusser were definitely relatable to the movie because the readings were about a society where the government is a big machine that the people had to be at constant war with. The two readings and the movie connect to this idea of not being able to reach a utopian society as long as we have the language to communicate with others the way we wish to.
Works Cited
Martin, Randy. “Where Did The Future Go?”
https://webteach.csun.edu:31987/SCRIPT/ENGL312_13669-Wexler-Fa09/scripts/serve_home
Althusser, Louis. “Ideolgy and Ideological State Aparatusesses”. La Pense. 1970.
https://webteach.csun.edu:31987/SCRIPT/ENGL312_13669-Wexler-Fa09/scripts/serve_home
The movie A Clockwork Orange is about a fifteen year old boy named Alex and his gang who spent most of their time getting high, lying, robbing, raping woman and treating the people around them very poorly through severe abuse (mental, physical and emotional abuse). The movie starts off by these group of kids spotting a drunk on the street singing. They stop and deicide to make fun of the drunken man by kicking him in the stomach. It is at this point where one of the themes of the movie is revealed: the younger generation controlling the old and how law and order has diminished. This youth is clearly full of violence and has no fear of punishment. Randy Martin suggests a societies central cleavage would be played out along the lines of risk. Those who are able to live life with always taking risks are masters and leaders of their own lives, but those who are not capable of being risky is the population that is “at risk” and the target of all types of domestic wars like drugs, crime, kids and culture (Martin 2 ). From the beginning to mid- way through the movie, the population that represented risk was Alex and his gang. They were very much into the world of misconceptions, where physical desires become the one and only priority. However, towards reaching the end, the story has a certain twist to it because the population that is “at risk” turns out to be the group of individuals who lived in intense evil manners. The reason being that they were the ones involved with the drugs, crime and the lack of culture. It only makes sense that what Martin describes (concept of risk) is the moral of the movie. The moral being that although risk is thought of in a positive spectrum the reality of it is that if “risk” is abused than it brings forth a lot of conflict that many times leads to wars.
Althusser suggests that our values, desires and preferences are inculcated in us by ideological practice, the sphere which has the defining property of constituting individuals as subjects. Ideological practice consists of an assortment of institutions called Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs), which include the family, the media, religious organizations and, most importantly, the education system, as well as the received ideas they propagate (Althusser 3). There is, however, no single ISA that produces in us the belief that we are self-conscious agents. Instead, we derive this belief in the course of learning what it is to be a daughter, a schoolchild, black, a steelworker, a councilor, and so forth. This is to say that Alex in A Clockwork Orange did not notice one day that he can be a powerful leader and can find ways to get easy money and sleep with woman all day long. If Alex is put into the context of Althusser’s belief, then Alex realized the life he could be living when he slowly started to include activities such as robbing and raping into his daily life. As always, there are consequences for social practices that are considered “immoral”, especially when it reaches a point where the government gets involved. Although many different people would tell Alex that he is a murderer, he would not understand it to be a negative connotation. Alex received 14 years in prison and yet he did not understand what he did wrong. It was not until the doctors made him watch scenes of rapped scenes when he started to feel sick and disgusted by what was being seen. However, he tells us near the end that the sick nausea that he felt was not because he was cured by science but because Beethoven’s 9th symphony would be playing every time. This scene is an obvious example of classical conditioning. Everytime that Alex saw a woman, he had to act upon his desires, therefore was not used to resisting his temptations. However, for him to be “cured” he needs to resist what he normally wouldn’t and this causes the nausea/ withdrawal symptom, just like a person laying off of drugs. He couldn’t stand anything that linked back to the older generation. The movie comes to show us that he did realize what he did wrong but instead decided to go along the same path. As a whole, the movie emphasized the inviolability of free will, the inherent evil of government, the necessity of commitment in life, good versus evil, commitment versus neutrality, man versus machine, man versus government, youth versus maturity, and intellect versus intuition, to name some of the most prominent ones. The two readings by Martin and Althusser were definitely relatable to the movie because the readings were about a society where the government is a big machine that the people had to be at constant war with. The two readings and the movie connect to this idea of not being able to reach a utopian society as long as we have the language to communicate with others the way we wish to.
Works Cited
Martin, Randy. “Where Did The Future Go?”
https://webteach.csun.edu:31987/SCRIPT/ENGL312_13669-Wexler-Fa09/scripts/serve_home
Althusser, Louis. “Ideolgy and Ideological State Aparatusesses”. La Pense. 1970.
https://webteach.csun.edu:31987/SCRIPT/ENGL312_13669-Wexler-Fa09/scripts/serve_home
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