Korean Job Discussion Forums

[JMO]

[JMO]

[Gopher]

JMO: I regret that you remain totally unable to discuss the matter at hand and that you are trying to make this into something about me personally, as if I, alone, have invented film and culture's relationship.

You, on the other hand, should regret your ignorance with respect to the literature on the relationship between film and culture. Film both reflects and influences culture. We can deconstruct many films to see this. Unfortunately, you seem hostile to the idea, even outraged here. C'est la vie.

[JMO]

[mindmetoo]

After Lord of the Rings was published, lots of people saw it as story about World War II. In the later years, they saw it as a story about democracy vs communism. Some people lately have seen it as a book about the environment vs industry. Tolkien went on the record as stating no one should read any current political situation into his story.

Sometimes a story can just be a story.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/influences.html

[greedy_bones]

[Nowhere Man]

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

Clearly, Ben Kenobi would school Bruce Wayne's Republican buttocks.

To suggest that people are voting with their pocket books to support torture is bunk since most people are watching the movie for the first time. They're not saying, "Hey, remember that message about torture? Let's go see that again!" The ones who are going back for seconds at this point are comic-book dudes who want to see if the Bat Cave has the right decore.

Moreover, this torture incident occurs under circumstances where innocents have minutes to live and the Joker holds the key info that will save them. This, known as the "ticking timebomb" scenario, is the single case where many (including myself) see torture as acceptable:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/torture/justify/#1

It's sad that some will take this and run with it as some sort of thumbs-up for 7 years of Gitmo.

[Gopher]

I started this thread to speculate, explore, and discuss and not score propaganda points on this or that. I am advancing an interpretation to see where it might go. But I am by no means married to it. So I would suggest that those who have decided to challenge my point or outright oppose it might step back for a moment. Do not let your knees jerk reflexively per usual. Can you not participate in a tentative discussion? Must you always take a side and rigidly defend it to the death?

That being said, I agree that there is no evidence, only cultural theory on film and my own -- and others', I hope -- constructive speculation, on what those who see this film read into and take away from the experience. This, again, is intended as an almost purely speculative ex. In this respect, I thank Ya-ta Boy for suggesting something I had not yet considered about something that might indeed motivate at least some of the audience.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[yawarakaijin]

[Gopher]

[loose_ends]

[bacasper]

[Gopher]

Easy, Loose_ends: you.

Bacasper: if you are truly interested in CIA's Cold War-era cultural propaganda activities, I suggest you stop reading sensationalist internet media and get into the scholarship on the subject. Historian Hugh Wilford published The Mighty Wurlitzer (a reference to Frank Wisner's propaganda machine in Western Europe) through Harvard just this year. I believe it gets into the so-called Ramparts Scandal, among other points of interest. I have not yet read it, but will soon do so. I received a copy several weeks ago, in fact. And it is high on my to-do list. In any case, why not give such sources a try? If you would like more specific recs, just ask.

[Nowhere Man]