Uncle Rory
Potential
The following anecdote may be true or it may be an urban legend - I could not confirm.
In the 1970's there was a great western called "The Cowboys" with John Wayne. The story of a Texas cattle rancher who has to turn to hiring school boys to drive his cattle to market when the majority of men in his town head west to California to get in on the gold rush.
The cows are stolen and John Wayne is killed by bandits and their leader played by Bruce Dern. The young boys, now experienced after months on the trail take up arms and hunt down and kill the bandits.
In real life it was years before Bruce Dern could leave his home without fearing retribution from the public as many (one would assume NORMAL folk) kept accussing him of KILLING JOHN WAYNE. He would get beat up regularly.
A similar story has also been atributed to Ernest Borgnine. He was also accosted due to the antics of one of his characters. These stories have always led me to believe that there are many people out there that have a hard time making the destinction between REALITY and FANTASY. Add in the transformation of a Monkey's sideman into President of the USA (Ronald Ray Gun) and my theory starts gaining some steam.
Fast forward 30 years or so and we come to the type of entertainment we have been seeing for the last decade, specifically since 9/11. And what about the public's perception and / or opinions which may or may not be influenced by that programming?
We live in a world where people who 10 years ago would have been considered CRAZY CONSPIRACY THEORISTS are now respected as being current and topical. Micheal Moore's psuedo-documentary Farenheit 9/11 is considered by some (not me) to be the Holy Grail slash Smoking Gun slash Bible of Bush's implicit guilt in the falling of the twin towers and hatred and racism are more rampant than ever.
I was thinking about all of this while I watched Season 5 of 24 this weekend. I pray that no one anywhere around the world has formed their opinions of the US system based on the corruption of President Logan from 24 season 5 but I have a sneaky suspicion that they have. SAD, SAD, SAD.
I have no point here, just a warning - Be careful of how you let the entertainment you are watching influence your opinions and perspective of the world. It's entertainment, and like sports it really doesn't matter. The survival of a show like Dollhouse one way or another won't put bread on the table of a lower income family, and the outcome of the Stanley Cup or Super bowl won't make or change foreign policy. Just because they made a Docu-drama on the subject doesn't mean that the opinions they are pushing are 100% true. (And in the case of Farenheit 9/11 there have been 3 or 4 films made just to debunk the lies in that one film)
And if there is anything to be learned on this site it may be DON'T TRUST FOX (or any network for that matter) which we all learned because of the FIREFLY debacle. The same can be said for their news coverage - but I'll let you make up your own minds - is the program you are watching depicting the world in a balanced way or are they biased? I hope you actually THOUGHT about it as oppossed just swallowing the info you are given via News, Entertainment OR word of mouth.
My 2 cents.
Uncle Rory
In the 1970's there was a great western called "The Cowboys" with John Wayne. The story of a Texas cattle rancher who has to turn to hiring school boys to drive his cattle to market when the majority of men in his town head west to California to get in on the gold rush.
The cows are stolen and John Wayne is killed by bandits and their leader played by Bruce Dern. The young boys, now experienced after months on the trail take up arms and hunt down and kill the bandits.
In real life it was years before Bruce Dern could leave his home without fearing retribution from the public as many (one would assume NORMAL folk) kept accussing him of KILLING JOHN WAYNE. He would get beat up regularly.
A similar story has also been atributed to Ernest Borgnine. He was also accosted due to the antics of one of his characters. These stories have always led me to believe that there are many people out there that have a hard time making the destinction between REALITY and FANTASY. Add in the transformation of a Monkey's sideman into President of the USA (Ronald Ray Gun) and my theory starts gaining some steam.
Fast forward 30 years or so and we come to the type of entertainment we have been seeing for the last decade, specifically since 9/11. And what about the public's perception and / or opinions which may or may not be influenced by that programming?
We live in a world where people who 10 years ago would have been considered CRAZY CONSPIRACY THEORISTS are now respected as being current and topical. Micheal Moore's psuedo-documentary Farenheit 9/11 is considered by some (not me) to be the Holy Grail slash Smoking Gun slash Bible of Bush's implicit guilt in the falling of the twin towers and hatred and racism are more rampant than ever.
I was thinking about all of this while I watched Season 5 of 24 this weekend. I pray that no one anywhere around the world has formed their opinions of the US system based on the corruption of President Logan from 24 season 5 but I have a sneaky suspicion that they have. SAD, SAD, SAD.
I have no point here, just a warning - Be careful of how you let the entertainment you are watching influence your opinions and perspective of the world. It's entertainment, and like sports it really doesn't matter. The survival of a show like Dollhouse one way or another won't put bread on the table of a lower income family, and the outcome of the Stanley Cup or Super bowl won't make or change foreign policy. Just because they made a Docu-drama on the subject doesn't mean that the opinions they are pushing are 100% true. (And in the case of Farenheit 9/11 there have been 3 or 4 films made just to debunk the lies in that one film)
And if there is anything to be learned on this site it may be DON'T TRUST FOX (or any network for that matter) which we all learned because of the FIREFLY debacle. The same can be said for their news coverage - but I'll let you make up your own minds - is the program you are watching depicting the world in a balanced way or are they biased? I hope you actually THOUGHT about it as oppossed just swallowing the info you are given via News, Entertainment OR word of mouth.
My 2 cents.
Uncle Rory
