Are We Simply Being Informed?
By Angelica Molina
As we sit down and watch a program on television, specifically the news, we think we’re simply sitting there on our couch being informed of the day’s events, the weather, and other little segments of what’s going on in the world. Little to our knowledge, that’s not all that this news station has in mind. The media manipulate us and our emotions in a variety of ways to ensure that we come back to that channel at that specific time slot. In the movie “Hero”, a movie about a heroic act of a selfish, seedy man wrongly credited to a dishonest person with heroic tendencies, we see many examples of reporters working day and night exploiting a serious situation.
In the movie “Hero”, there is a scene in which Gale Gayley, a news reporter, is lying in her hospital bed, when talking to some visitors; she comes to a realization that someone anonymously saved the lives of fifty-four people. She felt this was a fantastic story, being a high-profile news reporter. Though she was injured, Gale went out and interviewed all the survivors of the plane crash who had an encounter with the anonymous man. The only evidence they have of this “angel” is a shadow on a frame on some footage the cameraman was shooting. The footage is then edited with the most heartfelt moments of the interviews, making sure that each of the survivors’ injuries is within shot of the camera. There is also some music playing lightly in the background, and some moving images dancing across the screen.
If you notice, this marketing technique that Gayle Gayley used is not uncommon. All channels put together these sequences and edit them to provoke a certain emotion using music, color, and images. For example, an ASPCA commercial will flash grayscale images of animals in cages, most likely wounded. As dogs with three legs and cats with one eye fade in and fade out on the screen, “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan plays softly. As a tiny tear falls onto your cheek, you reach for the phone and pull out your credit card.
Though Gale has an emotional attachment to the “hero” that selflessly saved her life as she was stuck under an airplane seat, there is still a specific reason as to why the News station even broadcasts the story, for ratings. After John Bubber deceitfully comes forward as the man who saved the fifty-four people from a plane that was eventually going to burst into flames, he becomes not only a hero to the survivors, but to everyone who has access to a television or a newspaper. Everyone idolizes this man, who, we know as an audience to the movie, is not the real hero. Throughout the movie, we see that the people have John Bubber t-shirts, and children have John Bubber action figures. Women also swoon over him. The news station sets up events with him, filming him every step of the way, ensuring that his image as this credulous, selfless man continues to leave people wanting more. At this point, they’ve filmed him going to visit sick children in a hospital. They also dug into his background discovering that he is a Vietnam hero and televise the reunion of other soldiers he had fought with. In this aspect of the movie, the media also indirectly manipulate these people into giving the wrong man credit for a selfless act.
In one scene of the movie, there are two men who work for the news station. They make it evident that they only care about the ratings that John Bubber is bringing to the news station. The media trick us into thinking that they sincerely care about its viewers or about a specific subject, in this case, John Bubber. When really, their intentions and hard work all lie within the hunger for higher ratings. This is made clear during the scene in which Bubber is going to jump off of a building, and the possibility that he may not really be the man who saved the fifty-four people. They basically say that they put everything into John Bubber, and he is bringing ratings to the station.
So next time you’re watching the television, really think about what you’re watching. What emotion are they attempting to provoke? This psychological technique has been used for many years, but we don’t really notice them, because we are distracted by entertainment. The movie “Hero” uses this technique as an example for how easily swayed an audience can be.
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