I haven’t seen a lot of documentaries but I feel like Inside Job is the first documentary in which I saw an active role of the interviewer in the documentary.The confidence shown by the interviewer to ask several logical questions to the distinguished personalities in politics and financial sector and asking clear and detailed answers on the questions that the interviewee don’t dare to talk openly, was really unique and appreciable.Watching the movie I felt the constant stammering and nervousness of the famous people( who are often seeing speaking in mediums of media), made me question if the things they are saying is actually true or not.Also the constant zoom in in interviewees faces when they stammer makes audience easily believe that these people were aware of what was going on before the recession.
I felt having Julia Gillard( France),Strauss Khan(IMF), Lee Heisng Loo(Singapore) and other international personalities made the points made by them reliable and fair whereas we questioned the reliability of the speakers from American origin as most of them showed low- confidence and were directly involved in the economic crisis.However, I believe having some more people from middle and low class group about their experience during recession and their reaction on the Wall Street Scandal would have made the documentary more appealing and convincing.
Since the beginning of the semester we have been talking about the increasing importance of media in our lives.We have discussed about movies, short films and social medias transforming our lives. I would like to relate the importance of media during the Arab Spring when social media like Youtube, Facebook and Twitter helped accelerate democratic revolutions and influence larger number of people.In Middle East countries where mainstream media have been substantially controlled by the government, social media emerged as a tool for freedom of speech.Thousands of youths were active on facebook and twitter to raise their concerns about autocratic rule and to disseminate their feelings to the people in the region and the outside world.
Also, there was a video by a Egyptian American youth named Tamer Shaaban which went viral during 2011.The video showcases the real incidents on the streets on Cairo showcasing people’s frustrations about their autocratic government.The video was one of the most crucial pieces of media that helped frame the uprising as people led democratic movement.After watching the video many Egyptians decided to change their minds of staying in their home and take out to the streets and stand for their rights.I believe this is one of the best examples of why having medium of media in everybody’s pockets, sets the importance of media to an unprecedented extent.
Here’s the link for the powerful video which was one of the most viral videos of 2011:
In the reading “Hollywood and Vine”, King Bach says that having ideas that go around Hollywood ,that Asians play smart people, whites are rich ones etc- get the most number of likes and views in his videos.Also Klarity acknowledges that one of his biggest vines is ” Racist ATM” video.Some people might argue that vine is just a medium to laugh at harmless stereotypes. However, I feel these videos setting a particular stereotypes or repeating the old stereotypes may have a significant impact on the viewers.Especially, the audiences of these videos are immature teens and child, who tend to imitate the creators of vine.The massive popularity (over several million views) also show that the impact can be significant.
Portraying Asian people as smart and girls as dumb( as seen in some of the vine videos), tend to affect the mindset of teens not mature enough to differentiate what’s true and what’s not.Owing to the huge popularity and fan following of these videos, vines can be attributed as one of the most influential media in the present time.
above is the Super Bowl Doritos commercial discussed in class early today. This was a low budget commercial ($20) which greatly contrasts the 3+ million dollar commercials the Super Bowl is known for previewing. It also comments on our discussion about youtube and advertisements. If you watch the video you’ll see advertisements popping up all over the page.
I decided to watch God Loves Uganda after Rodger William’s talk on Thursday. I was extremely intrigued by the conversation and the trailer. The documentary did a great job in showing both sides of the argument. The extremists in the film did everything possible to spread ideologies to the people of Uganda making it almost hard to watch. A lot of the things said seemed ridiculous and it surprised me how Williams was able to stay silent and film and even get really close to these people. There were times where I was extremely angry and I remember Williams saying he learned to love everyone even those against his belief. He got that close to them and that something extremely admirable as I’m sure it wasn’t easy. I really enjoyed this film. I was thrown into emotion after emotion getting specifically mad at how much Americans impacted the lives of these people. Williams was able to catch in perfect timing the build up to the anti-homosexual bill that passed in Uganda.
It was also nice to see a documentary that doesn’t show how this flm was personal to the director. It was evident without him being in the film specifically how important this was to him without his personal story in the mix. You can tell in just the shots how much he had to endure in order to catch the moment and put it in his film. He mentioned it in his talk but the scene where they were burying David Kato became a fight between both sides in one shot. He mentioned how rocks were thrown and how the activist had to be rushed away. He put himself in danger as most film makers do to capture the moment and spread it to the world. After watching God Loves Uganda I understood and was grateful that it got the attention it deserved.
On the subject of experimental film another new form of film has grown into something deeper than we first imaged. We have seen these on websites like tumblr and is known as the GIF. Graphics Interchange Format are short clips of something with no sound seen all over social media sites. They have been seen as nothing more than a comical way to represent an emotion or response but is now seen as more. At the MOMA in January there was an exhibition of GIFs being seen as an art form. First Look is a festival that showcases new approaches to film making. It showcases “works that defy convention, experiment in form, blend fiction and reality, and allow us to see the art form—and the world—in a new way.” This year they showcased animated GIFs as an art form. We may never look at GIFs the same way again!
I know Professor Sikand posted the John Oliver’s satirical version on the subject of parent incarceration but I looked up the specific episode and found that there was a whole web page on the subject on Sesamestreet.com. This was a bigger deal on show then I expected. The subject went on for a while, they had animation on visiting dad in prison, they had songs, they had specific stories of kids with incarcerated parents, and multiple clips of parents giving advice on how to handle a situation like this. Then on the physical website there is a kid kit with many tools that parents and children can use to help deal with having a parent in jail. Then finally at the bottom there are 7 tips. I think it is important that this subject is being addressed and talked about but it says a lot about what is happening in America. The fact that so many kids are dealing with living with an incarcerated parent to the point where they need to be represented on Sesame Street shows just how many we are putting in jail. Seeing this online was very unsettling.
The House I Live In (Jarecki, 2012) explores the Jailing system in the United States. Jarecki uses interviews, real storiesm, history to create this fascinating story. The most important message I received from this story is that no one, including people in power positions, are particularly okay with the situation of the jail system and the drug laws that are in place. When the media portrays a drug bust, they sensationalize the story and portray the drug dealer as the primary bad guy and the judge and officers as good guys. The fact is, no one in this scenario is the good guy. Jarecki does an incredible thing by documenting this. You never hear of a cop or judge resigning because of the harsh laws or feeling bad. Because they receive incredible payment, drug busts have been incentivized. The officers and Judge being interviewed tell the story unheard. The Judge has no choice, the law is in place, hence why so many judges have resigned, they feel terrible and feel like the sentence the give is unjust for the crime. The officers discussed the dangers of incentivizing officers to bust people for drugs. Officers receive more money for drug busts and can find and close cases much quicker than a murder or rape. They also have families to feed and bills to pay. This puts rape and murder on the back burner. Jarecki’s stories he exposes are what is not shown to the media. He gains sympathy when exposing a talented inmate playing the guitar with his mother to really sway the audience. His interview techniques give the viewer sympathy to the people involved and also make you feel like the prison system is corrupt in America. If it is corrupt or is not corrupt does not matter, but Jarecki’s decision to frame the film like this gives a sympathetic feeling to the audience member in an effort to skew the viewer’s previous view points about this situation.
“Everyone looks at us like these pioneers, like we know exactly what we’re doing. We have no idea what we’re doing” (Marcus Johns, Vine star). Johns mentions this when they began to film an idea for a vine. He has no idea really what they are doing but they know what they are doing gains popularity and goes viral within a couple hours. Most famous viners just experiment with everyday life situations. They use society as their experiment. They portray societies flaws, such as racism, in a funny way and hope other people think it is funny, and people do. It is their realistic elements that attract people to their silly 6 second clips. For instance, people being themselves because they can be. Without the Hollywood star like titles, their credibility increases. If they promote Michael Jordan sneakers, people immediately believe they are great shoes. They subconsciously believe “He doesn’t have to promote those shoes for money, he really likes them”. Due to this promotion however, Bach met with the Jordan brand for advertising and more promotional videos. The use of experimenting with popular trends in society and the aspect of increased credibility catapults these vine stars into stars. Although these videos are shot on Iphones, they also use elements of film such as blocking and editing and pre/post production to make a 6 second clip complex and well made.
After watching The House I Live In, I couldn’t believe the jail time that many of the inmates were getting. There have been countless murder cases, even horrific ones, in which the offender had a lesser sentence than some of the mentioned drug dealers and addicts in the documentary. I couldn’t believe that some people can even get a life sentence on a drug charge alone. It was astounding that one small mistake can destroy one’s entire life. Many of the drug offenders should have been helped and treated instead of being thrown into a prison and transported far away from society. I don’t think it is right to treat these people the same way a murderer would be treated and labeling the offender as a bad person. Most of the time the person was not raised in the best environment and is doing what he can to survive. With these kind of charges, it is scary that cops will do whatever it takes to bust as many people as they can in order to receive a higher pay check. In the documentary, police officers would get paid overtime for additional cases and filling out the paperwork that goes along with it. This documentary really opened my eyes to the unfair ways people with drug charges are being handled. They shouldn’t just be banished from society as a way of dealing with them. I hope change comes soon and we, as a country, figure out a better way of dealing with the war on drugs.
