Reflection on Media and Fear

Comm 497AJ was definitely my favorite out of all of the classes I have taken at UMass.  The class was so interesting and not only helped me further my education but it gave me a different perspective of life.  One of my favorite parts of the class was analyzing movies, news media, and television shows.  It helped me so much to actually watch programs with the mindset of analyzing the culture of fear.  I literally sat in front of my computer with my eyes wide open shocked and overwhelmed at all of the fear tactics that were being used.  Even analyzing local news stories was almost sickening!  Out of all of the headlines on my local news media website were about deaths and fires.  Analyzing Oz was also one of my favorite parts of the class.  I always watch shows similar to this one, specifically the show Prison Break.  I actually always thought that the way they portrayed prison was reality.  Reading Yousman’s examination about Oz and than analyzing a few episodes myself was mind-boggling.  Learning about what prison life is mostly like in comparison to how Television shows like Oz and Prison Break is just one aspect of the culture of fear.  We are not shown realistic images and facts, but everything we see is exaggerated and thrown out of proportion.  

“I’ve never wanted the violence to be sensationalistic in the sense of ‘Oh boy I cant wait to watch that show and see what kind of violence they are going to do today’ My attitude is if your going to show violence you should really show it for how horrible it is” –Tom Fontana, Creator/Executive Producer of Oz

Although I thought both of Hall’s essays were challenging to relate to our culture today, I thought the readings were a great way to introduce the ideas and concepts of the class.  It was definitely a smooth transition into my now favorite book, “The Culture of Fear” by Barry Glassner.  Glassner’s way of explaining the culture of fear was more than intriguing. I never even thought about the fearfulness injected in our lives until I took this class and read Glassner’s book.  Ranging from road rage, to metaphoric illness, Glassner provides details and facts about Why Americans are afraid of the wrong things.

Before taking this class I was definitely a victim of the fear tactics that are used in our culture.  The more I listened to the news or read the newspaper the more I saw myself afraid to do anything.  Stories like kidnappings, school shootings, and even local bomb threats in my high school would terrify me to say the least.  I also notice my mom falling for these fear tactics.  I remember when I was little she wouldn’t even let me go trick or treating or eat any candy on Halloween because of the anthrax scare.  Learning about the exaggeration and false facts that media and politicians implement just for their benefit is appealing.  Like Yousman said, if we share with people the important things we learned in this class we can help them understand and give them an entirely different and healthy perspective of life.  I now notice myself not as anxious of fearful when I am home alone or when I walk down the street alone.  I can actually sleep with knowing I forgot to lock my door! I am so happy I took this class because it is the important things I learned that I will continue to utilize throughout my whole life, and I hope to plant the seed for other important people like my mom!

"Those with the darkest nightmares became the most powerful"

The Power of Nightmares Part 3: The Shadows in the Cave

In the 1990s both groups, the American neoconservatives and the Radical Islamists were out of power, but with 9/11 attacks on America, the fates of both groups changed….

Continuing from The Power of Nightmares Part 2, Ayman Zawahiri, follower of Sayyed Qutb, tried to persuade the masses to follow Islamism during the 1980s and 90s.  But after extreme violence, the masses refused to follow.  Zawahiri, followed by bin Laden, decided that they needed to implement a new strategy to reach consent.  Their strategy was to strike at the “far-away” enemy (America) rather than the near enemy (locally).  In August 1998, they put their plan into action.  Bin Laden recruited few fighters from the Islamist training camps to help with the new plan.  Zawahiri and bin Laden set off 2 suicide bombs outside of American embassy’s, killing and injuring hundreds.  The bombings triggered the popularity of Bin Ladens in the West, giving him a powerful reputation.  As bin Laden did recruit some of the fighters, the majority of the fighters in the Islamist training camps had nothing to do with the embassy bombings or with Laden and Zawahiri.  They did not have anything to do with Laden and Zawahiri’s plan of striking the far-away enemy.  As the United States tried to prosecute Bin Laden for the bombings, a myth was created that Bin Laden and Zawahiri were extremely powerful and unified.  This “huge terrorist network” was labeled “Al Qaeda”.  In reality, this network did not exist, and bin Laden was not as powerful and organized as he was made out to be.

Then, the 9/11 attacks happened.  This brought the neo-conservatives back in power.  This also confirmed their 1990 suspicions that America was a risk from other threatening nations.  A few of the neo-conservatives, including vice-president Dick Cheney, who were under the Reagan administration and saw the Soviet Union as a huge threat, were now unified again.  They saw 9/11 as a new war on terror.

“They took a failing movement which had lost mass support and began to reconstruct it into the image of a powerful network of evil, controlled from the center by bin Laden from his lair in Afghanistan”

America was now determined to locate and defeat this network.  Pairing up with the Northern Alliance, the goal was to find bin Laden who was rumored to be hiding in the Tora Bora Mountains.  However, we were chasing an illusion.  In reality, Zawahiri and bin Laden were not the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.  The 19 hijackers supported Zawahiri’s far-away strategy but implemented the plan themselves, and they went to bin Laden for money and volunteers.  We were chasing an idea because the hijackers were either dead from the attack or went in different directions.

As Paul Wilfowitz believed the Al Qaeda network was spreading into several countries, our government started to look for the network in our own country, where the 'sleeper cells' were also exaggerated and distorted.  This "network" was no where to be found....

 The Power of Nightmares is an extremely compelling movie and I recommend it to all.  I found all three parts to be very interesting and educational.  I found myself really enjoying Part three of the movie because I remember the 9/11 attacks vividly.  I also have close friends who lost family members in the 9/11 attacks so it was really interesting to learn the facts, not just what the news media tells us.  I also found the sleeper cell cases to be very surprising.  I have not heard much about the term sleeper cell or about the cases until this movie.  I remember watching on the news that our government have found terrorists that were planning to plot attacks, but I never looked farther into it.  I felt extremely sorrowful for the innocent young men who were accused.  As our government probably did have probable cause to look more closely into the case, they did not find any evidence.  Being accused of being a terrorist before a wedding just because of an e-mail must be extremely traumatic, altering lives forever.  This fantasy has spiraled out of control, disseminating fear and anxieties directly into our society.  The illusion will not last..

Protection from Nightmares

The Phantom Victory is the second part of the BBC documentary film series, The Power of Nightmares.  The film goes into depth about the neo-conservatives and the Islamists, incorporating vital pieces of history that I feel is necessary to learn in order to understand where we stand as a country today.

Building on from Part one of The Power of Nightmares – Baby it’s Cold Outside, Part 2 explains how the neo-conservatives utilized philosopher Leo Strauss’s theory that you need powerful myths to inspire and unite the people.  As the neo-conservatives created a contorted vision of the Soviet Union as extremely evil, they set out to defeat the ‘sinister’ empire.  The neo-conservatives received help from the head of the CIA, William Casey, who was convinced that Afghanistan was the secret to this new strategy.  Casey gave order to his agents to form an alliance with the freedom fighters, giving them massive amounts of weapons and unlimited amounts of money to triumph against the Soviet Union. 

One of the greatest myths today is that the American Government was ultimately responsible for the downfall of the Soviet Union.  However, head of office of Soviet Affairs CIA Melvin Goodman said in the film that the Soviet Union collapsed like a “house of cards because it was a house of cards.”  The economy was rotten, no one believed in the Government, their system just was not strong enough to last.  But we still believed we were responsible for the triumph.  We basically became our own victims to our own myths. 

Pushing our own political agenda seemed necessary to neo-conservatives.  We saw living in a world with ‘free’ countries as a way for our country to be much more secure.  The neo-conservatives were convinced that the Soviet Union was just one evil regime that threatened us.  In order to spread democracy and free the world,  the neo-conservatives saw it vital to conquer the other regimes that we saw as a threat.  What we saw as the next most evil tyranny was Saddam Hussein.  In the 1980s Hussein was our ally.  However, when he invaded Kuwait in 1990 we now saw him as a vital component to further the transformation the world.  This is when I thought the film started to become more interesting.  Saddam is another example of the good vs. evil tactic that we used and still continue to use.  However, As we secured Kuwait, President Bush Sr saw the good vs. evil tactic as irrelevant.  Bush did not want to change the world as the Reagan administration did, he wanted to create stability in the world, reaching steady power.  This angered the neo-conservatives as they saw liberal values as a corruption.  This is when they turned to Leo Strauss's theories, turning to the myth of religion, and creating a new myth of evil, Bill Clinton.  I feel that how we turn against our own people in this country is so evil.  

Good vs. Evil?

This film is kind of sickening in a way to me.  There is so much important history that I feel is concealed so we do not learn about it.  I recommend this film to many, as it helps understand the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and how the neo-conservative agenda is still visible today.

"The price of peace and freedom"

I really enjoyed the film for this week, “The Power of Nightmares.”  I thought it was very intriguing yet a little much to absorb in such a small amount of time, considering I have little knowledge about Leo Strauss or Sayyid Qutb.  In regards to our class, I feel this film did a great job in educating us on our administration and on the construction of fear within our society.

Part 1 of “The Power of Nightmares” is a film that examines the Neo-Conservative movement in the United States as well as the origins of Islamism.  Egyptian Sayyid Qutb travelled to Colorado and came up with a powerful set of ideas.  Qutb was extremely disappointed with America.  He saw inner corruption, vulgarity, selfishness, and materialism under the surface of Americans.  He thought Americans were overly obsessed with materialistic items and culture, preoccupying their lives with hollywood and keeping their lawns perfect.

A Chicago professor named Leo Strauss had the same ideas as Qutb, which was the force behind the Neo-Conservative movement.  Strauss and Qutb were both disgusted with society in the United States.  They also both figured that myths such as good vs. evil, while constructing fear within the society, were necessary to rescue the public from decay.  After leaving America, Qutb became a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and was tortured in Egypt for wanting to change the government.  He was later executed in 1966, but his ideas lived on with the mentor of Osama Bin Laden.

 

Through films and television, the Neo-Conservatives committee portrayed a world where the United States was under attack, and could be attacked at any given time.  Movies also portrayed good vs evil, for example having a ‘good guy’and a ‘bad guy’ fighting, with the good guy always prevailing.  This tactic is what gave the Neo-conservatives great power and influence, especially with calling the Soviet Union ‘evil’.  This binary opposition of good vs. evil is what we see everywhere in politics and our media today.  It is very upsetting to me that this 'fantasy' has lived on and has great consequences.  I would definitely recommend this film to others, especially in the educational system.

Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes

Byron Hurt, a documentary filmmaker, takes a deep look into the representations of manhood in hip-hop culture through his 2006 documentary, Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes.  Hurt wanted to break down the hip-hop culture into bits and pieces and learn why rappers project such an immense image of toughness.  Hunt explains the two main components to masculinity in this hip-hop culture; Verbal ability and the ability to negotiate violence.  In order to be in this box of masculinity, you need to be a player, a pimp, have a lot of money and girls, strong, tough, etc.  Hunt further explains that if your not any of these things, your soft, your a chump, your no one.  Even if your not this tough guy, you need to make people believe that you are.

Through their physical image and lyrics, rappers exert themselves to be violent, tough, a ladies magnet, and homophobic.  Although many of the rappers do not agree with this portrayal, they are told that it is what you need in order to be successful in this hip-hop culture.  As Fat Joe said in the film, he said how everyone “wants to be hard” and he constantly wonders why rappers cant just “smile at each other”.   This portrayal in this culture is transferring into our society, telling fans that in order to be a man, you need to act like this. 

Another aspect to the hip-hop culture is the constant objectification of women in music videos.  Although objectified females are everywhere in American culture, as Sut Jhally says in Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, in music videos women are only presented as a sex object, with little room for imagination.

One aspect this film did not focus on so much are women artists in the hip-hop culture.  I am a huge fan of Nicki Minaj, and I have recently realized that she also portrays this tough image through her songs.  Furthermore, she tends to contribute to the objectification of women by calling herself extremely degrading names, such as in the song, “Romans Revenge”, saying “I’m a bad b****, I’m a c***, and I’ll kick that hoe, punt”.  What is even more shocking is Eminem’s part in this song.  After a long verse about a “dumb blonde white broad with fake tits and a bad dye job”, Eminem continues degradation by rapping, “So I tied her arms and legs to the bed set up the camera and pissed twice on her, Look, two pees and a tripod!” (Below is a youtube clip of the song with lyrics)

I really enjoyed this documentary because it focuses on problems in our society that are not really seen as an immediate issue we need to confront.  The objectification of Women is something I am extremely interested in and is something that I cannot ignore.  From songs titled as “Bitches aint shit (but hoes and tricks)” to Eminem’s “Smack That”, our culture needs to halt this objectification and educate those who feel this is appropriate behavior.

American Orientalism

Columbia Professor Edward Said, a Palestinian-American theorist, explored issues of Orientalism and why we have a “pre-conceived” notion of the people in the Middle East.

In the video Edward Said- On Orientalism, Said argued that because of the collection of images we see that are preconceived through images such as art and Hollywood, representations of the Middle East are consistently being distorted of the actuality of the people who live there.

Orientalism today is constantly being emphasized in Hollywood and by Journalists. In Hollywood films, Arabs almost always play a violent role. Said even mentioned how it is hard to find movies that are “sympathetic” towards Arabs.  Children movies such as Aladdin even play a role in distorting this image, reinforcing stereotypes and false beliefs within our society.  Furthermore, journalists choose to leave out several key facts to issues involving the Middle East such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which also contributes to our preconceived judgment.

This is a clip from the 2008 comedy film "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay".  Kumar is played by an American actor named Kal Penn.  Penn was born in New Jersey after his parents immigrated to the United States from India.  Because the news media and Hollywood almost always portray as terrorists as a darker skin tone, in the film Kumar is immediately mistaken for a terrorist on the plane.  

This demonization of “Middle Easterns” that we see subconsciously transfer into our lives, causing people to be extremely racist and dehumanizing.  An immediate example is one that Edward Said touched on, the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing.  After the explosion FBI reported that a few Middle Eastern looking men were seen around the area.  Because of these one-sided representations, the men were immediately viewed as suspects.  However, it came as a shock to many to learn that the one responsible was not only a US citizen but was also a US Army veteran.  As Hall explains in “The Spectacle of the Other”, we understand the world by “referring individual objects, people or events in our heads to the general classificatory schemes into which—according to our culture—they fit” (Hall 257).  We have falsely paired the Middle Eastern look with terrorism, causing hate and violence.  But what can we do to reverse this racism and stereotyping?  As Said draws upon Anthony Gramsci’s theory, to “overcome the racist legacy of orientation”, we first need to interpret and make sense of it.  We need to give history sense to understand "oneself in relation to others" (Said) and transform itself from a "unitary identity to an identity that includes the other without suppressing the difference" (Said).  That.....both Gramsci and Said believe, is a great goal to overcome "the racist legacy of orientation" (Said).

Oz

HBOs Oz is a dramatic television series that falsely depicts and exaggerates prison and jail life.  Oz consists of immense amounts of violence having on average “13.6 violent scenes per episode” (Yousman), being three times greater than the average amount of violence in prime time television.  The violence depicted in Oz is depicted as ordinary incarceration behavior.  However, Yousman argues that Oz “amplifies and decontextualized this violence, while ignoring the fact that non-violent inmates vastly outnumber those who are convicted of violent crimes” (Yousman).  Coincidentally, according to the film The War on Drugs, 60% of the prison population are actually non-violent drug offenders.  In one of the episodes I analyzed of Oz, there was extreme ‘happy’ violence that “disguises real consequences beneath a veneer of humor and spectacular visual effects” (Yousman). 

At 5:30 one of the inmates used his purposely razor-edged like nails to murder a cop.  At around 7:25, the same inmate is seen calm as ever clipping his bloody nails.  In the episode the inmate does not get caught and gets away with murder.  What is even more interesting is he does not show any sign of remorse, and “Monsters who are incapable of remorse must be feared” (Yousman).  This is the perfect example of how prisoners are portrayed to the world.  Audiences who have no real experience with prison fear inmates and jail life because of how the media conveys it.  As Daniel Schorr explains in Glassner’s book, “The Culture of Fear”, television creates “a reality of it’s own that may crowd out our real reality”. The effects of this false portrayal are beyond question.  There are so many consequences to watching television. 

In this episode, Yousman’s argument that in Oz, “…The image of black masculinity on Oz is consistent with a long history of representations of black males as violent savages” is confirmed.  The African Americans are depicted as animals that cannot be controlled, and the prison is portrayed as the opposite of a place of social order.  The characters symbolize enormous threat in the prison, ultimately leading to more racism and stereotypes.  This "mean world syndrome" that Gerbner describes leads us to distinguish television reality as our own.  Furthermore, because of availability heuristic in regards to television violence, we all tend to falsely believe we live in a very cruel world.  As Gerbner points out the true casual relationship is not between TV violence and real life violence, but "between exposure to violence and one's feeling of where one belongs in the power structure--one's feeling of vulnerability, one's feeling of insecurity, one's demand for protection".