Week 05: Mediating

‘Just Like a Movie”? By Geoff King (2005) inspects the barriers between reality and fiction in regards to news and cinema, and the difficult task of establishing a middle-point between the two conflicting parties.

9/11 is given as an example for comparison of breaking news, therefore reality, against cinematic constructions, fiction. The observation ‘to have this imagined fantasy of destruction realized in actuality was potentially very unsettling for those who might have enjoyed the fictional version’ (page 49), points out the idea of everything being light and exciting until it happens to you, in this case, happens in reality.

The view of such events being ‘the just desserts of ‘sinful’ American hedonism and materialism’ established by Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell (page 49) is an idea that attracted my attention, as I found it extremely offensive. My personal view is that regardless of ‘sins’ or crimes being committed, NO ONE should have to wear a punishment such as 9/11 or equivalent.

I think this idea alone has volumes to say about different peoples views on karma and influences of such views as well as the eye-for-an-eye notion and examines the cross over between cinema conveying reality and the effect this has on reality in actuality.

Bibliography:


King, G., 2005, ‘”Just Like a Movie”?: 9/11 and Hollywood Spectacle’ in The Spectacle of the Real: from Hollywood to Reality TV and Beyond, ed. Geoff King, Intellect Books, Bristol, pp. 47-57.