{"id":67,"date":"2017-10-08T16:18:29","date_gmt":"2017-10-08T20:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mcifall2017\/?p=67"},"modified":"2017-10-08T16:18:29","modified_gmt":"2017-10-08T20:18:29","slug":"1010-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mcifall2017\/2017\/10\/08\/1010-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"10\/10 Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5e-ZZLk7L2U?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Article: http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-middle-east-33152315<\/p>\n<p>Summaries:<\/p>\n<p><em>Media\/Society<\/em> pages 166-170<\/p>\n<p>Ideological analysists tend to focus on a specific time period and genre of media so that their findings will not be affected by differences in the way the stories between genres are told.\u00a0 These analysists tend to focus on two of the most popular genres in the 1980\u2019s and early 90\u2019s: action-adventure and military\/war films.\u00a0 Each film has a similar plot line where the white male becomes the hero after defeating the violent foreigner.\u00a0 This promotes power of the white male and enhances the idea that non-whites are violent and deserve to be overtaken.\u00a0 Similarly, military\/war films portray Americans as the victors and are often a means of reinforcing masculinity.\u00a0 The Pentagon often assists in the production of these types of films as a way for them to recruit members to the military.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Zero Dark Thirty<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This film was produced in 2012 and outlines the process of Osama Bin Laden\u2019s death after the long hunt.\u00a0 Bin Laden was not easy to find because he had been hiding out, so the film works to explain how the intelligent participants were able to find and eliminate him.\u00a0 This took a lot of effort and planning. \u00a0Some of the best military officials were sent on the manhunt after Bin Laden\u2019s continuous involvement in terrorist activities, including 9\/11.\u00a0 The Pentagon assisted in the production of this film, which may have contributed to the positive light shed on the military throughout the movie.<\/p>\n<p><em>Zero Dark Thirty<\/em> starts off with some audio from the events on 9\/11.\u00a0 It continues by showing the torturous interrogation by C.I.A. agents of Khalid Sheik Mohammed\u2019s nephew, who was tied to the terrorist activities and is hiding information that would be helpful in locating Bin Laden or preventing future terror attacks.\u00a0 The torturous interrogations continued in order to find Abu Ahmed, a courier for Bin Laden, who K.S.M.\u2019s nephew suggested as a lead.\u00a0 These leads eventually led to the raid of Bin Laden\u2019s hideout, where he was then murdered by Seal Team Six.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cZero Conscience in \u201cZero Dark Thirty\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n<p>This article brings up the morality of <em>Zero Dark Thirty<\/em>.\u00a0 If every life is valuable, how is it moral to create entertainment out of the death of someone?\u00a0 Torture of those involved in the process is also thought to have taken place, which is brought about by the interrogation of C.I.A. detainees.\u00a0 Officials, however, claim that this was not the case, furthering the concept of the leads to Bin Laden simply rising from the intelligence of the team.\u00a0 The screenwriter, Mark Boal, argued that the film does not show a process of torture, but one of intelligence and is a way of showing if torture works or not.\u00a0 However, the only place in the movie where the idea of torturing Bin Laden is opposed or viewed as immoral is a quick clip of Barack Obama.\u00a0 Even this is brushed off, as it is on a television in the background and no one even pays attention to it.\u00a0 Other small implications throughout the film suggest that torture was, in fact, used in the process of finding Bin Laden.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Born in Flames<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This film was produced in 1983 and laid out a dystopian future, ten years after the socialist revolution, outlining the social structures of minorities such as gender, sexual orientation, and liberals.\u00a0 It takes place in New York City, and it is quickly evident that the government is not treated these minorities as equals.\u00a0 Police often abuse their power and are violent towards these minorities.\u00a0 Because of this continuous inequality, many women take a stance and try to bring light to the matter through various actions of protest (i.e. women\u2019s marches).\u00a0 They understand the power of media, so they try to use this as another mechanism for spreading awareness of the issues.\u00a0 They use media to publish the truth about the murder, not suicide, of Adelaide Norris by threatening the guard of CBS.\u00a0 Nothing really changes, so, at the end of the movie, a group of women decide to blow up the World Trade Center in order to make a statement about the unequal way they are being treated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the heat of the moment: Notes on the past, present, and future of <em>Born in Flames<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This article outlines the historical context of the movie <em>Born in Flames<\/em>.\u00a0 It suggests that the sudden decrease in wages and social organizations among minorities was due to the economic crisis New York City had been experiencing at the time.\u00a0 The article explains the shift in class in the city, as wealthier people moved to the suburbs.\u00a0 The poor left in the city had to do whatever they could to survive, which perpetrated this new image of the inner-city.\u00a0 Lucas Hildebrand suggests that the movie was not so far off of reality at the time.\u00a0 This article also suggests the reasoning behind the production of <em>Born in Flames<\/em> to be focused around the experimentation of feminism; to see how people would react to the proposition.\u00a0 As it turns out, many people, including men and black women, disapproved of the film.\u00a0 These women argued that black women were misrepresented throughout the film.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, the article describes how the film strives to bring the truth of the matter to light so that it appears as a necessity to begin the transition to a more accepting and equal society.\u00a0 It also displays the power of unity and reinforces the idea of hope and desire.\u00a0 One of the films screenwriters, Lizzie Borden, declared <em>Born in Flames<\/em> to be \u2018\u201cscience fiction\u201d because I [she] don\u2019t believe it will happen\u201d (Hilderbrand 9).\u00a0 The article further discusses the motives behind the explosion of the World Trade Center.\u00a0 The antennas on the top were targeted, suggesting a protest against the media, along with the overall protest of gender discrimination.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Critical Questions:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>There is evidence that proves an existing relationship between Hollywood filmmakers and the Pentagon. Although Pentagon officials deny the accusation, many military men and women say that these collaborations are made for recruitment reasons rather than to depict real-life military.\u00a0 How would movies like <em>Act of Valor<\/em> and <em>Zero Dark Thirty<\/em> look different if the Pentagon had no say in its content?\u00a0 Is the sole purpose of releasing <em>Zero Dark Thirty<\/em> to paint the officials as strong, intelligent people?\u00a0 Why else would the information regarding Bin Laden\u2019s death be released?<\/li>\n<li>The BBC article \u201cHave we been told the truth about Bin Laden&#8217;s death?\u201d brings to our attention that what we know about Bin Laden\u2019s death may not be the entire story. Do you think there is a significant aspect of his death that the government has left out?\u00a0 What may their purpose be by excluding this information, and how could citizens get a better depiction of the truth?<\/li>\n<li>The movie <em>Born in Flames<\/em> was produced in 1983 and utilizes the concept of time travel to predict how certain social controversies would play out in the future. If we were to recreate this film now to highlight these same aspects in approximately 2060, would a similar dystopian society be predicted?\u00a0 What circumstances in the current society would lead to these particular predictions?<\/li>\n<li>At the end of <em>Born in Flames<\/em>, the World Trade Center is blown up. How does this act of violence relate to similar acts of violence today that are used to bring light to a certain issue or group of people?\u00a0 How does the media\u2019s portrayal affect the way the audiences view these acts?<\/li>\n<li>How does our prior ideology of the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9\/11 shape our mindset when watching the destruction in <em>Born in Flames<\/em>? Consider demographic, the way we view minorities (Muslims, women, etc.) and the media\u2019s influence.\u00a0 If it were a white male who had destroyed the World Trade Center in either scenario, do you think we would view it differently? (Similarly to how media displays white killers as mentally ill but black killers as criminals).\u00a0 Would there have been less entertainment and more sympathy if the torture in <em>Zero Dark Thirty<\/em> had been against straight, upper-class, white men?<\/li>\n<li>The reading from out textbook highlights the similar storyline in action movies where the hero is a white male and the villain is a foreigner. Is this a form of inferential or overt racism?\u00a0 How can Hollywood transition this plot line to promote a positive image of everyone, not just white men?<\/li>\n<li>In the article \u201cZero Conscience in \u201cZero Dark Thirty,\u201d\u2019 the author argues the morality of the film. Is it ethical to torture people in order to locate someone that is torturous to many more people?\u00a0 Is this benefit of the majority a just reason to torture these detainees?\u00a0 Consider the justness of mistreating people of color (the minority) in order to benefit white people (the majority).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Article: http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-middle-east-33152315 Summaries: Media\/Society pages 166-170 Ideological analysists tend to focus on a specific time period and genre of media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3424,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mcifall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mcifall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mcifall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mcifall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3424"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mcifall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mcifall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mcifall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mcifall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mcifall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}