Incendiary. But food for the hungry mind.
Seemingly innocuous influences... are they really that harmless? So many people have absolutely no idea or regard of the many powers that exist around us and are actually influencing our psyches, self-esteem, and relationship with others. Take a look at teenybopper mags and 'maturer' publications like Female or Vogue. They appear harmless, don't they? But aren't they partially responsible for shaping materialistic minds and fashion-crazed consumerists, celebrity gossip fanatics, body-obsessed and image-conscious people? A single advertisement looks alright... So do the 150,000 TV adverts that an average TV-watcher absorbs into his soul in his lifetime. Somehow adverts for slimming clinics and pills, wonderbras, toys, gadgets, makeup, more magazines, shopping sales..... just don't influence the feeble mind, yes? They don't create the illusion that people are happier by acquiring more, and more, and more, do they? Perhaps they've already considered that it's a big, fat lie that people subconsciously integrate into their philosophies of being. Perhaps they've already considered the fact that people now consume more than twice than their predecessors did, but feel even more miserable about life. Aren't people happier! You don't get a widening, gaping hole in your heart because you keep wanting more, do you? Nahhhh I suppose not. Because that's what the adverts seem to promise.. they promise happiness! Contentment! What a wonderful thing in the world!
Ah. And have you wondered what the media has done to our relationships with others and our self-esteem? When it defines self-esteem as the cup of your bra, a good figure, muscular body, your mobile phone model, rebonded hair and great fashion sense... as being popular, and liked for such right reasons? When relationships covertly disintegrate into an animal world of predators and preys, one where people are silently hungry to be better than others in many superficial ways, for many superficial reasons. Predators consume preys, and the latter say their last prayers in self-pity and melancholic misery. Predators find their social authority but don't quite seem to find a way to keep filling the emptiness in their hearts. Oh maybe they fill it with friends and boyfriends and girlfriends and shopping and partying and sex. Boy/Girlfriends! Ahh. Another lie the media keeps perpetuating... that people aren't happy unless they find a person to love them? How long will romance and passion last? I sound disillusioned... no I'm not. I'm only aware that true Love can't be found anywhere in the mortal world. After all, it's called the 'mortal world' precisely because it's defined by its mortality. SO. What makes you?
I watched Sin City yesterday. Would say it's quite stylistic, and the plot is pretty good. But it's terribly, terribly violent. I guess it's called Sin City for a reason. Something that struck me, however, was the successful reduction of effective shock because of its colours. When spurting blood and chopped heads are reflected by white on black, its realism is effectively dumbed and a normal person won't recoil much at the sight of gore, as he usually would. It's insidious. Not Sin City, perhaps not its creators, but the whole idea of euphemistic replacement. Reduction of realistic severity. It makes gore and violence bearable... cartoons and anime, especially, make grenade-throwing, abusing, slashing and what-nots seem effectively appealing. It's the same subtle, sinister influence you get from adverts, just regarding a different issue altogether. I'm taking it too seriously? Maybe so, especially when I think rising crime rates, perversion and violence around the world are just a coincidence...
Seems normal! And Sin City is ok what. Doesn't look violent and disgusting 'cuz it's all black and white. And it's cartoonish. Doesn't matter that they're eating people and slashing limbs and filling the streets with blood. Doesn't look that bad, y'know?
I wonder why, by observing kids kids, you see the girls dress their dollies in spectacular clothes, the boys bulldozing their legos and torturing their action figures in constant fight and action... and both just getting absorbed in more and more adverts and cartoons. What a hard one!
It's funny how people create their own grey areas, enlarge those areas, and then find life and personal decisions so difficult. That's what I mean. All of the above just contribute to the enlarging grey areas of our lives. Things are a lot easier black and white... and,
No, I'm not saying you should be a hermit and avoid the world. Not saying that you should unplug the TV forever and be a happy ignoramus. Not saying that you should avoid Odeon or Lido or Cineplex for the rest of your life.
But it helps to be aware. At least you know what defences you need. Rather than blindly submitting yourself to the unconscious power constantly unleashed by media's many tentacles. Some people call themselves free-thinkers?
I don't think you have any idea what you're submitting to....
