Citizen Kane and What We Can Take Away.

     Citizen Kane is a classic weave by some of the cinematic greats, and it contains wisdom throughout about the corrupting effect of money, the American Dream, and media's effect on society. It is some of these underlying themes that seem to ring true, even during the sixties, that give the film it's long-lasting effect; In the early stages of his first divorce, Charles is having an argument with his wife about the current President, and her uncle. Things get heated, and Charles tosses out the idea of going from media mogul to President himself:

Emily: I mean the President of the United States.

Charles: He's still Uncle John, and he's still a well-meaning fathead who's letting a pack of high-pressure crooks run his administration. This whole oil scandal...

Emily: He happens to be the President, Charles, not you

Charles: That's a mistake that will be corrected one of these days.

    Here we see one of the first truly deceitful comments Charles makes. During the structure of the film, and it is about taking his media empire to the next level by using it to get himself elected. In the very next shot, he takes another pot-shot at the idea of his power over his readership. He understands the strength o his empire and knows quite well that he is promoting what people across the country thought about daily, and that his framing can be used to promote his own agenda.

Emily: Really Charles, people will think...

Charles: ...what I tell them to think.

     And it really is no surprise; even in the earliest examples of multimedia news, we can clearly see the political slant that has since become the hallmark of American newscasts. The Newsreel was the mainstay of images from the battlefront, and since they were paid for and provided by the US government, we only got to experience one side of the story. While some live newscast programs from NBC, ABC, and later CBS went online as early as the 1940s, most citizens could not yet afford to adopt the pricey new tech involved: the television. Since movies were already an established form of media by this stage, newsreels, or short updates on the war effort abroad and at home, were the preferred form of multimedia news dissemination. With well known producers and directors, these high-priority productions were well received by the audiences during the second world war era, and with their patriotic messages and glorification of American war involvement, they had a dedicated viewership; in some of the larger cities with more active theaters, there were even had a specific theater rooms that played the newsreels on loop throughout the day, so that people who didn't have the time to take in a whole movie could enjoy the regular weekly updates. These early single-roll flicks were designed to help promote the war effort and sell bonds, but they also helped mold the public opinion in favor of increased spending towards the war, and used many of the same tactics that were implemented in W. R. Hearst' s newspaper campaign to ignite the Spanish-American war in Mexico. By fabricating a conclusive story about who the culprit was behind the USS Maine's sinking, Hearst framed it as the potential end of America; and for many people who only had his papers to go by, the answer was obvious; They took on his pressured opinion, and forced the country to war with our neighbors.

Most people do not realize that Citizen Kane was written to impersonate many of the media owners of the day, but specifically William Randolph Hearst; infact, after this movie was produced and ready to distribute, Hearst ignited a firestorm by using all of his resources to stop distribution and exhibition of the film, knowing that he was the main mogul attacked by the film's content. While early viewers nearly all knew they had seen a masterpiece, some fans of Hearst alerted him to the matter, and after a massive campaign, Citizen Kane took home the 1942 Oscar for best picture, and was quietly retired the vaults at RKO studios. It would be years later before Orson Welles' genius would be recognized, and the film would be appreciated in mainstream culture.

      But just as abolitionist and suffrage papers helped to point out many of the major social injustices going on in Hearst's time, we now find ourselves in a stratified political situation; Luckily, we have a tool that allows us to ignore the geographical and socioeconomical stratification, and it is giving people the power they need to look critically at our country's politics, media, and international involvement. It is allowing whistleblowers, ex-patriots, and retired military personnel to open up and freely discuss what was going on continents away from NYT's press and seeing all these stories of corruption, counter intelligence, alternative motives, and personal gain, has given the public a taste for blood, and a thirst for the whole truth on many of the subjects that have been blacked out of the media over the years. We are seeing the growth of independent reporting groups who are breaking stories from their own communities and abroad with no political motive; I believe this is bringing people closer to a reliably truthful media form, and helping people create a more honest government through truth-informed voters. I believe the internet is on its way to completely saving our free-media form, and if we do not protect our net neutrality, we may find ourselves back where we started all those years ago: with a single, overriding power that gets to decide what people can and cannot know about, and who can publish information around the web. With all the attempts to shut down Wikileaks and the media lashback that has happened since, it is clear that the idea of a free and open society, where all the citizens get to know what is going on and what to expect, is something that frightens the people who lead this country, and this is something the people of America should look at carefully to understand why they would want this information guarded and taken down off the internet.

      Independent investigative groups like Vanguard, VBS, and Democracy Now have gone beyond the red-tape of the major networks to provide the most recent data and findings available to the concerned citizen. And as the popularity of these underground news organizations grow, we see them impacting main-stream news by bringing on stories that are so strong, they Big Four cant afford to ignore them. Even the individual blogs that are involved in legal issues, personal rights, and social issues are helping to bring big local stories of corruption and inside-dealings to light, and right wrongs from all across our county. They are helping to keep people more informed and as a web organization, people are more than open to ask them any questions they may have about their own community issues. The connectivity and broad number of pages dedicated to all sorts of issues online is staggering, and more and more citizens are discovering the ignored issues and stories that end up affecting us all. In short we can see a direct correlation between the number of independently financed information agencies and the relevance and truthfulness of the news we receive; It is only when we start to consolidate and compile our news sources into large conglomerates that we see issues with public opinion swaying and media spinning. We also can see how both political and corporate connection to news sources can damage the quality and truthfulness of the news receive; it is for this reason that I feel we need to protect what we have left of net neutrality at all cost. It may not be the most productive advancement of the last fifty years, but it has certainly done more to promote a world of open information and transparent government than any other form of media. Even two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson knew what we had in store and what we needed to keep our country as socially accepting and as free as possible; “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

Where are our Heroes?

       While watching the Will Smith film Hancock last week, I came to realize a significant pattern that has been developing since the seventies, begining with gritty and raw NY-style films like Dirty Harry, Dog Day Afternoon, and of course Scarface; the belittleing of the traditional hero for the anti-hero.  While this makes for more interesting subject matter for media, I have to wonder weather or not is has any effect on the way it's viewers digest media and in the big picture, the world around them.  With more cynical approaches, insulting interactions, and a general disregard for the wellbeing of others, the law, and morality, is it possible that people are absorbing more of this attitude and living it out in their own lives?  While media can never be proven to directly cause people to go out and do something that appalling, I believe that the promotion and glorification of the anti-hero can only lead people to take a more selfish approach in their own lives.
       Throughout the corridors of history and back as far as we can document, storytelling has been a quintessential element in the game played for human survival. As our original form of escape, after a long day of running down wild animals, people sat around a fire and shared their favorite tales. They could awe, inspire, or excite but usually came with elements of all three, tied together by a fantastic weave that continues to expand and change as our ideas about society change. While we all know that the truths are only halfs, we still accept them as having some connection to the real world, applying them in this way or as an example of that. But our classical application comes when we take the principles of our main character and try to make them useful by bettering our daily lives and the lives of those around us. From stopping to help someone while they change a tire to standing up in court to testify against a wrongdoing, we all see a little bit of that hero in ourselves when we do something for that sake of good. While it can lead to unrealistic visions of what our society (and even reality) is like, I think that we need to bring back the more traditional hero character to continue this mythology of inspiration and glorifying righteous actions. While a true story can never fully reflect reality, it seems that if it can inspire more people to get involved outside of their own realm of benefits, then we will see a more cooperative, and overall less corrosive, society.

      We know from cave paintings that documenting one's accomplishments has a greater benefit than simply keeping track of hunts, trade, and goods: Cave paintings that have been discovered across the globe have shown consistency in a cogent train of thought and a basic story outline. These stories vary depending on where you are (and when you are there) but all storytelling begins the same way One person, or group, against waves of bloodthirsty animals, fighting for the survival of humanity. But as we develop into more sophisticate and conscious people we find that our stories, and even subject, continually shift. And after millions of evolutionary changes, both with our bodies and ways of thinking, our current idea of what a “hero” is has been forced to develop as well. Some may claim that there are plenty of examples of what a traditional hero is in our storytelling, but in modern mass media, we have almost made a complete shift to the anti-hero.

         The anti-hero shares a stronger connection with the audience for one basic reason: in the past, most heroes were, in some shape or form, invincible. Many had some weakness, but it was always beyond their control when they came into contact with it, and weather they were escaping the clutches of a mad scientist and his laser-equipped sharks, or simply riding off into the sunset with a “thank ya ma'm”, our parents idea of the heroic figure was drastically different from what we now envision. Even many of the iconic media characters that transcend the realms of any one generation have seen the evolution into this anti-heroic role: Batman and James Bond have both been re-scripted in the last few years to show them to the audience as more fallible, human characters with their own hardships, and personal troubles. But the anti-hero has to have one self-imposed restriction that leads to lots of personal conflict, and when modern media hits, is it ever hard. Take for example the new FX show, “Terriers” that premiered this quarter; and ex-cop and an ex-junkie team up to do private detective work as they get their lives on track, and in the first episode they plant a gun on a not-so-innocent man for a crime he did not commit. As they are leaving, they actually discuss the purity of their actions and in a few moments, decide to shrug off a long day and go get a drink. This is another a modern crime drama that makes the clear statement “hey, if you want to get anything done, your gonna have to break any rule that gets in your way”.

         Heroes have always played an integral role in shaping who we are and how we as a society view ourselves. They make decisions in idealized or melodramatic situations that force even the most considerate characters to rethink their position. In doing so, they help everyone who views it because when we see hard choices being overcome by good and righteous decision making, we get a taste of how rewarding it can be to make the best of your situation; lemons into lemonade if you will. The more we expose ourselves to people who always break policy, live life impiously, and care nothing for the value of others the more we should expect to think this way. And when we never see the joys and benefits of hard work heroized on television and in film, where will we get this drive to work harder and make more of (and for) yourself? And more importantly, when everyone is just looking out for number-1, what is going to happen when all you need is an extra hand's strength for a few seconds; will there be one there to provide you a much needed hand? We need to reignite the fire of our traditional hero stories, so that the next generation doesn't lose sight of what it means to do something out of the kindness of your soul: It is important in this modern world to show as many people as possible that there are still souls out there that hope to live in a more communal world one day, and dont mind a little personal sacrifice in the meantime. I think we all really want the same basic things out of life and while changing our cultural views of heroism wont solve all the issues, if we all did a little extra to help out, then I think we would be living in a more secure social structure that would be bound by much tighter connections, even to strangers.