The Decline of Reality in Post-Modern Culture

Post-modern culture has shifted its reality to a lesser degree in recent years and media has definitely played a large role in contributing to this issue. So many people watch movies and television and their view of the world is shaped by what they experience on screen. Oracle’s ThinkQuest has an article discussing the role Hollywood and post-modern visual production played in manipulating the masses in American Propaganda. This was utilized during WWII in the form of film propaganda, which facilitated the ease of bringing the population to support the war efforts. That is just one of many examples that can offer the way in which media can shape the beliefs and behaviors of an entire population. Whether film producers intend to shape beliefs and behaviors or only wished to alter views for a brief period of time for the sake of a story, audiences do remain impacted in various ways. Sometimes more profoundly than intended. This paper will address the decline of reality in post-modern culture as demonstrated in the following films: Bullets Over Broadway, Terms of Endearment, The Emperor’s Club, and The Thomas Crown Affair.

Bullets Over Broadway was produced in 1994. It was written by Woody Allen and Douglas McGrath. This crime-comedy film is placed in the 1920s where an unknown musical playwright is struggling to find funding for his musical. Although sympathies with his plight are available, funding for an unknown is hard to come by. That is, until one backer comes through, under the condition that his girlfriend is cast in the production. The challenge with this lies in that she isn’t that talented, which the director finds challenging because his reputation on his first produced musical lies in the hands of the financier, for better and for worse. His musical would not be able to be produced without this backer, yet the star of the show’s lack of talent may be the undoing of his future career and ability to land future backers. The lack of reality in this production is that clearly there is always another way and that is not sought in this film.

Clearly, the whole purpose of the film is the debacle. Within this debacle, there is the underlying current that only people with money have power, that women need to have a rich man to move up in the world, and that the budding talents of the world are desperate in the hands of the wealthy. Although, there is some historical truth to this tiered belief system. Musicians throughout history were always dependent upon their aristocratic financiers or the church to sustain their livelihoods. Certainly, the 1920s were no exception to maintaining the order of power with the rich and masculine. Much of that hasn’t changed even in today’s society. Although women do have more control over their careers, even today there are prominent female actresses speaking up against the academy’s abuse of women in film. However, with this film, the moral of the story is that he was a hapless victim to his own desires. Story conclusion, you can’t have what you want without paying a price that is not desirable, thus keep your desires in check. This leads us to the film, Terms of Endearment.

Terms of Endearment was produced in 1983 by James L. Brooks. A similar story-line in regard to women always having to survive everything while the men play permeates the entire film. Mother and daughter are estranged. The daughter marries someone that the mother doesn’t approve of. The husband cheats on his wife. The wife moves her family numerous times to support the husband, who is moving to follow his lover. The wife finds no real support from friends because friends can’t relate to her plight. Mother has her own issues with dating. The wife eventually finds out she is dying and is now the person responsible for reigning in the horrible behaviors of her adult family members and spouse for the care of her children. There are very real truths in this story that many women can relate to. However, it doesn’t offer a glimpse into the viewpoints of the other characters and why they behave the way in which they do, which paints the wife as the hapless victim and the rest are people who cannot control themselves. The challenge with this is that it empowers the victimhood mentality of women and does nothing to rectify the balance that many of them seek. In order for women to find a more equitable world, they can’t be consistently reminded of victimhood. They need to be empowered to find solutions that understand the challenges of all peoples they interact with. As is true for the others who interact with them. This leads to the next film, The Emperor’s Club.

The Emperor’s Club was produced in 2002 and directed by Michael Hoffman. This film addresses the life of a professor at an elite private school and his encounter with a privileged Senator’s son who seems to be disinterested in the work laid before him by his professor. Not for lack of effort, the professor goes out of his way to try and mold the student into adhering to more honorable work ethics and determination to excel in academia, but the student just does not rise to the occasion. Many years later, the student is successful and wishes to see his professor. The professor says what happened in the past no longer matters since clearly, the student has succeeded in life. The student still feels remorseful over the experience with the professor. What is misleading about this is that the student was put into a pedestal position of elitism, which many cannot relate to. This makes the audience feel detest for him simply for his power and privilege amplified by his lack to learn. Clearly, the student did learn something and has done what was necessary in order to be successful, but without the guilt required by the audience to make the powerful bow down to the professor (the middle class), there is no respect for the efforts made by the student in his professional success. The bottom line of reality is that wealth and power can offer opportunities for success more readily than those without, but maintaining it is not possible without having gained knowledge and skills. Clearly, there is no real respect for the efforts not seen on screen for this man’s efforts and the need for the middle class to bring the wealthy and powerful down to a level of worship and admonishment for not conforming to their beliefs of what makes success is, in essence, condescending to the abilities of the middle class themselves. The need for limitations on “how” success happens is exactly why they don’t find themselves in powerful and wealthy situations to begin with. Shrinking the powerful in order to gain a sense of entitlement is false power. The final film to be discussed is The Thomas Crown Affair.

The Thomas Crown Affair is a typical crime cat and mouse chase film originally directed by Norman Jewison in 1968, and a remake was made in 1999. The plot of the story centers around a rich man who plots a grand heist that brings his millions through 5 people he never meets. An insurance investigator is set to bring him down but does so in a manner similar in many films. A female investigator intent on using her charms to woo the criminal into a trap where she can capture him and declare herself successful. The overall theme of this relies upon the use of sexual persuasion, manipulation and an overwhelming declaration that women (the investigator) cannot succeed without using her feminine wiles. This does nothing to promote the intelligence of women or that they can accomplish what is necessary without having to be manipulative or utilizing their sex appeal to accomplish what the seek. Unfortunately, this theme is quite pervasive in Hollywood. This is one of the overall concerns brought to light by numerous female Hollywood actresses in recent years.

As seen in the above films, there is a recurring theme of disempowerment by the middle class and a severe disempowerment of women. The theme that only the rich can have what they want, that they are people to villainize and that they must all come crumbling down in order for the middle class to feel powerful, or for women to feel powerful by bringing down men, is not really new. This has been told in stories throughout history, but the prevalence in film and the introduction of the women’s movement in the last century has added backlash behaviors, responses from Hollywood and a drudging through muddy waters of how to tell stories in a different light that will still resonate with people. “The women’s movement produced in Hollywood a backlash of hysterical masculinity of which the only surprise is that it did not erupt sooner” (Wood xxxvi). Radical feminism did appear to collapse and the ramifications of what it has left in our society in its quake is an uncertainty of where to draw the line. Familiarity is always more prone to win, but the longer we go in evolving as a society, the more we realize that the norms of the past were really quite misogynistic, but the overall understanding of acceptable behavior has not been reformed into something everyone comprehends or is prepared to abide by. As such, we find ourselves swimming in a sea of radical behavior on both ends of the spectrum. Hollywood is left to find a way to function within these norms in order to render box office financial success. “A film recombining other financially successful films possesses built-in marketing hooks. This privileging of the marketing apparatus is viewed by the media as Hollywood focusing on commerce rather than art, placing an emphasis on marketable stories rather than ‘original’ stories” (Wyatt 13-14). In other words, the financiers, just as described in Bullets On Broadway decide the fate of the stories that are told.

So, in order for less societal degradation to occur, a new model must be formed. A large contributing factor to a real shift will have much to do with the passing of the choices to new generations not raised in such misogynistic belief systems. As the aging Hollywood producers pass the batons onto younger generations and more and more female producers, a shift in what is manufactured will occur. The largest population, the baby boomer generation, has had much to do with the type of films produced in the past 50 years. They were the driving target market, the financiers, and the most heavily involved in the feminist and women's rights movement. The backlash from their experiences can still be felt today and the evolution of beliefs will and is currently beginning to shift. One can attribute Hollywood to a decline in reality, but the generation most heavily influenced by this propaganda tool is aging and will not remain in control over the production of films in the future. All hope is not lost. The only hope that remains is that the efforts of those attempting to make a change now ripple into future endeavors that produce more thought-provoking films that bring society to a more improved reality than what has been experienced in the past. That is all that can ever be wished for in any society.

Works Cited

Allen, Woody (1994). Bullets on Broadway.

“American Propaganda.” Oracle Education Foundation ThinkQuest. Retrieved from Web 3/8/2014. http://library.thinkquest.org/C0111500/ww2/american/amerprop.htm.

Brooks, James L. (1983). Terms of Endearment.

Hoffman, Michael (2002). The Emperor’s Club.

Jewison, Norman (1968). The Thomas Crown Affair.

Wood, Robin (2003). “Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan…and Beyond.” New York: Columbia University Press.

Wyatt, Justin. (1994). “High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood.” Austin: University of Texas Press.