What does the media say about the world that we live in?
From what can be seen, there seems to be a great interest in media that deal with more realistic and/or darker aspects of life. With the passage of time comes a growing amount of movies and television shows with less idealistic characters, like Walter White in Breaking Bad and his quest to earn money to treat his cancer and give to his family through dealing in meth, or Under the Dome, in which the protagonist locks his girlfriend in a bunker to protect her from the conflict of the show. Other subjects such as the blurred lines of good and evil and the prevalence of violence in the media points to a world where the public doesn't necessarily want to see a perfect vision of reality anymore. While this is only speculation (although I have a feeling there have been discussions about this in the past), one could look at the ever-increasing connectivity of humanity through the Internet and thus a greater exposure to the realities of subjects such as crime, war, basically senseless violence, which leads the public to want to see this more realistic view shown in the media. Unlike decades before, it’s rather difficult to escape hearing of horrific events when the Internet is around.
Do you notice any one trend that keeps resurfacing through multiple media forms?
As mentioned above, the primary trend going on in the media today is a move away from idealism, the perfect hero and the purely evil villain, and clear-cut answers to every conflict. It’s a trend that encompasses multiple aspects of the media that are changing even now. To go into more detail, using one example:
The grey area between good and evil. Several movies and TV shows exemplify this theme, and it's becoming much more common. Some of the more well-known examples include Breaking Bad or Under the Dome as mentioned above, but there are several others. A notable example is Game of Thrones. This TV series almost flouts the idea that no character is completely good or evil; everyone is doing good in their own eyes despite the atrocities they commit. And the one person that does try to do the right thing, well, he gets executed by the end of the first season.
Even then, that doesn't make 'the right thing' something to be admired.
What do you see as the best and worst of what media portrays?
Well, that's a difficult question to pin down. If by 'best' you mean TV shows where the hero wins in the face of adversity, movies where good triumphs over evil, and news stories where Good Samaritans helps others out of the good of their hearts, well, there's still quite a bit of that. I don't believe there will ever be a point in time where there will be an absence of films where the good guys win because of the goodness derived from human nature, or love, etc. But I don't believe the media will ever revert back to the time when shows like Superman portray a perfect human being who does no wrong.
As for the worst, well, there's plenty of that too. The media these days especially loves to report on school shootings, mass murders, horrifying ambushes in other countries, and in general the worst humanity has to offer. Most of the time, it's for the ratings. It gets viewers. But it also changes our perception of the more, shifts it into a much more negative light.
Where do you see yourself contributing to the conversation?
I hate that term but I'll roll with it this time. As far as the conversation goes, whenever I picture myself speaking up about this I think about how our society puts taboos on certain subjects that are put on TV, like sexuality. Or perhaps that's the only subject that's seriously taboo here. Either way, I see myself debating about subjects such as that, whether it's right to have gruesome, gory murder scenes in crime shows and *cough* Game of Thrones. Although that show does have a lot of sexuality. EITHER WAY, that's what I see myself talking about, in addition to talking about the news media, and how it exaggerates horrifying stories, ONLY reports horrifying stories, to add to the paranoia of the American public and thus encourage us to watch more horrible news stories. That's all I have to talk about.
Also, sorry about the black highlighting. Blogger has horrible formatting.
