5 Ways You Don't Realize Movies Are Controlling Your Brain

[JunkMonkey]

The effect that it has on us can quite easily be overstated. But there is a demonstrable effect to exposure to anything over a period of time.

Even if that effect is an aversion to whatever you are exposed to.

At the moment I am suffering a violent reaction against bloody Christmas music - or mare particularly the same fifteen or so that get endlessly repeated over every shop's PA system every year from the middle of November onward. I avoid shops that play music at this time of year. Though I did score a piddling victory against it the other day. I was in my local coffee shop "...and so this is Christmas...".

When the only other patrons left and the staff were busy out the back I went over to the CD player and turned it all the way down to 0. Then went back to my coffee, my bun, and my book.

The staff didn't notice.

 

[Parson]

Even if that effect is an aversion to whatever you are exposed to.

At the moment I am suffering a violent reaction against bloody Christmas music - or mare particularly the same fifteen or so that get endlessly repeated over every shop's PA system every year from the middle of November onward. I avoid shops that play music at this time of year. Though I did score a piddling victory against it the other day. I was in my local coffee shop "...and so this is Christmas...".

When the only other patrons left and the staff were busy out the back I went over to the CD player and turned it all the way down to 0. Then went back to my coffee, my bun, and my book.

The staff didn't notice.

Exactly!!! I just have to believe one of those songs was the never to be condemned enough "Rocking Around the Christmas."

 

[JoanDrake]

I'd suggest that that's because you're not constantly receiving the Christian narrative subliminally, in the guise of entertainment.



I don't agree with that at all.

They come from within the storytellers and other people -- their audiences, or readers -- soak them up. Not everyone creates their own stories. I've heard countless people say they haven't the imagination and I think those are the ones most vulnerable to being influenced by the stories of those who do, because they don't understand how the author or movie maker manipulates their emotions and perceptions either for artistic reasons or to get a message across. (Those of us who write stories are more likely to recognize what is happening.) Some narratives are consciously constructed to get an idea or a message across -- and that's not always a bad thing -- but even when the person or persons who create the story don't intend it, something of their world view will naturally seep into the story. It's inevitable. And the better the author or the movie maker is at manipulating the readers' or the audience's emotions and perceptions, the more that story and the world view it represents is going to be "imposed from without" on a significant number of people. Of course those most susceptible to the ideas contained in a particular story -- that is, those who are already half-convinced, or who haven't thought about them much before, or who find those ideas encouraging or comforting -- are the most likely to be influenced.

I think maybe you're in danger of falling into one of the traps the article discusses, remember: there is no conspiracy. Or to put it another way the writer's only REAL agenda is almost always to get you to keep reading and turn the page, (or not leave the theatre, computer, etc)

I'm not going to argue that this is all wrong because it has elements of some reality but it contains its own element of fiction which each person needs to examine before they accept it as some truth of sagacious value.

In other words this article is a perfect example of the very thing that it's trying to expose. He has an agenda and he's assuming his audience will take his word that everything he says it truth. Or maybe he's just trying to make people think; either way in a small or maybe a large way he's become a part of the problem. Unless we examine it before we accept it and in this venue there is a slight more insidiousness happening than in something that we already should know is fiction like tv and movies and books of fiction.

Not withstanding the notion that some people might go away confused because they often do and the whole point is that afterwards it should motivate them to look things up and find out which is fact and which is fiction or just assume it is all fiction. The writer of this article assumes that everyone fails to do this or is doomed to fail even when they try and that we are all mindlessly allowing ourselves to be driven by psuedo-facts based on his own personal experience with either himself or people he has around him.

This becomes dangerous thinking because it's too easy to step from here to blaming all the movies, myths, tv, books, and other works for all psychological aberration in people despite any number of times one claims they are not being paranoid conspiracy driven when pointing this out.

Make no mistake he has his finger on the pulse of a symptom of a greater problem but putting the blame in this one place is like treating a person only for a headache when they have a concussion.

I would venture a guess that more people are subject to this problem with conversations with their friends and neighbors who they have less reason to disbelieve than they are from the fiction they actively engage in. But that's only a guess based on my own experiences.

This is beginning to remind me more and more of the recent (at least to me) Through the Wormhole episode "Is Reality Real?" Isn't reality itself just a big story we're all making up in our heads as we go along? I know that's not a terribly original idea but it seems interesting.

 

[Eli Grey]

The question is can we free ourselves from this matrix, and if so, how?

 

[MWagner]

Just getting around to reading the article. It's a bit superficial. Also contradictory. The author cites Joseph Campbell, but then goes on to say these stories are socially constructed. Campbell was a Jungian, and believed the core stories of human myth are imprinted in the human psyche. That's why they're universal. The author also overstates his case with the extent to which pop culture stories inform us. Some people consume little pop culture, and they aren't wandering the streets like lost naifs. As a Canadian, I'm accustomed to the real world - my world - rarely being presented in pop culture, and 95 per cent of what it does show as false.

But the general point stands - we are shaped by stories. And to be honest, it troubles me. We live in a staggeringly complex world. Yet we crave simplicity. Our habit of putting everything into a narrative means we want our politics to fit the model of heroes and villains. Oppressors, victims, and saviours. That's emotionally satisfying delusion. The world is complex, not simple. Most of the harm in the world is not due to villainy, but is the unintended or unforeseen consequences of actions in that interconnected and complex world. We're often faced with unavoidable trade-offs where there are winners and losers. A hundred people all of goodwill interacting together can create awful catastrophes. And yet we rarely see that shown in our pop culture.

I have reservations about being a storyteller. One of the reasons I left journalism is because I grew frustrated with simplifying complex realities. But isn't that what popular fiction is - comforting simplicities that provide an emotional antidote to frustration and alienation? Isn't peddling these narratives a kind of deception? The alternative is a literary approach to fiction, where you evoke intellectual dilemmas, anomie, and existential anxiety. But I don't enjoy reading that kind of fiction anymore. So it's not an easy choice. It's like sailing between scylla and charybdis.

 

[JunkMonkey]

A hundred people all of goodwill interacting together can create awful catastrophes. And yet we rarely see that shown in our pop culture.

That's your story! Write it.

 

[Theophania Elliott]

But the general point stands - we are shaped by stories. And to be honest, it troubles me. We live in a staggeringly complex world. Yet we crave simplicity. Our habit of putting everything into a narrative means we want our politics to fit the model of heroes and villains. Oppressors, victims, and saviours. That's emotionally satisfying delusion. The world is complex, not simple. Most of the harm in the world is not due to villainy, but is the unintended or unforeseen consequences of actions in that interconnected and complex world. We're often faced with unavoidable trade-offs where there are winners and losers. A hundred people all of goodwill interacting together can create awful catastrophes. And yet we rarely see that shown in our pop culture.

I have reservations about being a storyteller. ... But isn't that what popular fiction is - comforting simplicities that provide an emotional antidote to frustration and alienation? ... The alternative is a literary approach to fiction, where you evoke intellectual dilemmas, anomie, and existential anxiety. But I don't enjoy reading that kind of fiction anymore. So it's not an easy choice. It's like sailing between scylla and charybdis.

I agree with what you say about people wanting simplicity, heroes and villains, these are the good guys over here and those are the bad guys over there. But I'm a bit more optimistic about storytelling.

Terry Pratchett (who has, admittedly, been accused of literature, although I never heard whether he was actually convicted) was brilliant at exposing some of the social and moral complexities that modern journalism - and other internet commentary - ignores or hides. Take the Battle of Koom valley: the only battle in (Discworld) history where both sides ambushed each other, leading to generations of interspecies hatred, each side casting themselves in the role of victim.

Or Granny Weatherwax, who stands on the line between light and dark, turns her face to the light... and steps backwards.

Or the Patrician, who carries a small box (very carefully) which contains something he says will end a war...

I think it's possible to do some very interesting and pointed things with popular fiction - you just have to be good at storytelling as well, because you can't get away with saying, "Well, I'm writing Literature here: you're not supposed to enjoy it."

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

the never to be condemned enough "Rocking Around the Christmas."

I always feel like throwing something when I hear "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree" or other songs of similar vintage. But I love older Christmas music, and particularly orchestral arrangements of Christmas carols, which I think are lovely.

The other day my daughter and I were shopping for presents at the Disney Store at our local mall (we have many relatives who are Star Wars addicts, or who visit Disneyland several times a year, so we can always pick up a few gifts at the store -- it feels strange to me to be buying so much SW merchandise at Christmas, but the idea is to give people things they'll enjoy and with some of them it's a safe bet) and it was the day that Rogue One was released. They have these big closed circuit TV screens at the store, which were running Star Wars trailers etc. Most of the whole time we were there they were blasting out the March of the Stormtroopers. Not what I would call festive! But I turned to Megan and said, "At least it's a change from the Christmas music we've been hearing in other stores."

 

[J Riff]

Play this version instead and see if anyone notices anything.

one can also search for : 'Carols from the Dark Side',

 

[JunkMonkey]

(we have many relatives who are Star Wars addicts, or who visit Disneyland several times a year,

They can be helped. There are probably 12 step programmes out there for them.

 

[Toby Frost]

But the general point stands - we are shaped by stories. And to be honest, it troubles me. We live in a staggeringly complex world. Yet we crave simplicity. Our habit of putting everything into a narrative means we want our politics to fit the model of heroes and villains.

I agree. There are - in the West, at least - two main stories that are the root of a lot of trouble, namely Us Good, Them Bad, and Us Bad, Them Good. They are spouted with absolute conviction by a lot of intelligent people. But both of these come out of some sort of truth, so perhaps the trouble isn't the existence of such stories, but the lack of nuance with which they're told. Tell the same story enough times and it will become either twisted, oversimplified or both. The trouble is that the dumb, inaccurate version is the easier one to tell, and to swallow - just ask a certain sex pest and reality TV star.

As well as liking simple narratives because they are simple, people like discovering stories that tie all the loose ends together, which is probably why conspiracy theories are so popular. They actually make a sort of sense. To realise that there is a simple answer to complex problems (The lizard-people did it!) is actually pretty reassuring.

I think the question of whether the stories reinforce the reader's thoughts, or the reader's thoughts create the next story, is a bit chicken-and-egg. Is Michael Bay dragged down by the public, or does he drag them down? I'm not sure it matters as long as you can recognise the badness of his work and pull yourself out of that loop, which it seems a lot of people won't do.

As a Canadian, I'm accustomed to the real world - my world - rarely being presented in pop culture, and 95 per cent of what it does show as false.

Next thing you'll be telling me that your heads don't flap. It occurred to me a few days ago that it is very easy to live in a world totally dominated by pop culture. Even the "intelligent" stuff becomes pop culture (Is Trump like Lex Luthor? How is feminism reflected in the works of Joss Whedon?). I can't help thinking that the best stories get away from the "rules" not by playing with them in a self-aware fashion, as seems popular at the moment, but by doing something totally different or ignoring them completely.

 

[Parson]

When you are telling truth in the terms of a Biblical Story nuance is where the interesting bits are. Otherwise your story just recites the increasingly over told moral which having been diluted through the ages turn into trite tripe.

 

[J Riff]

Yeah but the Bible weren't innerested in making people dumb-downed now were it? It was a good book, most o' these here movies are just junk.

'As a Canadian, I'm accustomed to the real world' Great comedy writers in here./... * ) - 51st on th' F of A act.... an extreme exaggeration but whatever, eh?

 

[Parson]

Yeah but the Bible weren't innerested in making people dumb-downed now were it? It was a good book, most o' these here movies are just junk.

'As a Canadian, I'm accustomed to the real world' Great comedy writers in here./... * ) - 51st on th' F of A act.... an extreme exaggeration but whatever, eh?

Eh, no, not dumbed down. Even as literature the stories of Jesus are stories with real depth and nuance. ---- I know nothing of the above show, eh?