Last class session, we were shown images without context and we weren’t able to tell if they were “real” or simulated, such as a movie set. I’m used to images being accompanied with a caption that puts the image in context and, depending on the source, I’ll usually believe the caption because I don’t have any further context or information to question it. If an image is posted in a trusted newspaper, people will usually trust that the context the paper gives the image is reliable. It’s so easy now to create and alter images through technology like film and Photoshop. How can you know the context of a picture, even if it is supposedly from what is considered a reliable source? Even if you somehow do, it could be interpreted differently for everyone depending on their ideology, culture, and past experiences. In a civics class in high school, we watched the movie Wag the Dog (1997). In the movie, the president was falling behind in polls for re-election due to sexually assaulting a minor. To get people’s attention off of the scandal and make the public view him as a hero, the president’s staff hired a famous Hollywood producer to make the public think the U.S. was at war with Albania. In a studio with a hired actress, they created footage of a war scene with a young Albanian girl being attacked. The news media ran the footage, and everyone was convinced it was real. The president then worked out a “truce” with Albania and the public viewed him as a hero from saving us from going to war. The Hollywood producer wanted credit for being able to create something so realistic that it fooled a nation, but the administration killed him to stop the public from every finding out it was all simulated. At the time, I thought it was incredibly unrealistic. How could anyone be fooled by that? Now I’m not so sure. We’ve misinterpreted history because of misleading images and text before. We’ve dramatically advanced in our ability to distort what’s real and simulated since the movie has come out. It’s becoming more difficult to analyze media critically when you don’t even know what you’re looking at sometimes.
Your caption point is very interesting. I think that as a society, we are generally quite naive and we have learned to put our trust on various outlets/sources. Although visuals are powerful, they also require further information to break down their meaning. The war picture we saw in class was also very shocking to me; the possibility of it being part of a movie set never crossed my mind! Context inevitably changes meaning.
ReplyDeleteNowadays, like you said, it is almost impossible to decipher the "realness" of things because we have learned to duplicate and alter everything. I think that technology plays a huge factor in this. Think about how many things we think we "know" about based on our media consumption. If knowledge was based on real-life experience only, we wouldn't "know" about many things.
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ReplyDeletePost-Class Blog (10/1)
DeleteErin, your post about the simulation of reality was shocking to read! That film takes on such an interesting topic and it is unnerving to think that the public can be fooled into something like a staged war. Most of the public knows so little about war and the inner workings of the government, so I believe we would be easy to fool if the same stunt was pulled on us.
This reminds me of ‘the loss of the referent’ that Benjamin and Lyotard talk about, which has made our society “slackened” as Lyotard would say. The photos we talked about in class—namely with the lens of Baudrillard and his 'phases of the image,' demonstrated that people can bend reality to make it appear the way that best caters to their purpose. The resulting affects may be good (reflects reality), evil (denatures reality), akin to sorcery (masks the absence of reality), or even simularic (which is a false reality). As a result of the ability to manipulate images and mass produce them, we have entered an age where original signifiers are irrelevant. These differences are hard to determine. They are the 'successive phases of the image.'
‘Fabrication of images’ makes me think of the popular reality TV dating show, The Bachelor. This show was one of the first in a new popular genre of reality TV: dating contests. In The Bachelor dozens of women ‘compete’ to be engaged to one eligible bachelor. The Bachelor franchise has grown to include The Bachelorette, Bachelor in Paradise, and The Bachelor Winter Games. In addition to this franchise, there are reality TV dating shows such as The Proposal, Married at First Sight, and Are You The One?
In the show, reality is denatured (when they go on fancy dream dates in helicopters and such), akin to sorcery (they pretend it is reality even though there are cameras always following them and in their faces), and it is a false reality (most adults to not meet their significant others on an extended catered beach vacation). Many phases of the image are experienced. I am not sure which one is most specific to the experience. However, people eat it up and a whole cult creation has developed—a group of fans who call themselves ‘Bachelor Nation.’ We fall victim to the pleasures of false reality over and over again.
Some examples from the show…
Elaborate and unreal set up:
https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS704US705&biw=1280&bih=609&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=YFi5W8q0NOiJggfwnq3wCg&q=the+bachelor+one-on-one&oq=the+bachelor+one-on-one&gs_l=img.3...2099.2099..2465...0.0..0.55.55.1......1....1..gws-wiz-img.VGhhPKc2kWQ#imgdii=6p-3Cor1FzrBWM:&imgrc=JZw83457AWSXXM:
‘Intimacy’ fabrication with camera-man present:
https://www.google.com/search?q=the+bachelor+filming&safe=active&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS704US705&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj_o_27j_PdAhVRs1kKHfRcAgcQ_AUIDCgD&biw=1280&bih=609&dpr=2#imgrc=dJuS2YzKf2kU4M:
Staged set-up and camera-men:
https://www.google.com/search?q=the+bachelor+filming&safe=active&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS704US705&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj_o_27j_PdAhVRs1kKHfRcAgcQ_AUIDCgD&biw=1280&bih=609&dpr=2#imgrc=mVsPfd-OYZspMM: