>I live in Colombia, South America, every time I turn CNN on, to watch
>the "great movie" I see things about my country that I have never seen
>living here for 18 years, and watching what is happening in Iraq really
>makes me think about the situation of our world and the degradation of
>the media. The "great movie" is not just the bombing in Iraq, it is the
>war in my country, the former situation in Sarajevo and all the other
>somewhat .  I wander if it is just a way of getting more rating or is it
>that they do it really because they are concerned about what is
>happening and want to make the world aware of it.  I remember Dan Eldon,
>the young photojournalist who made the world aware of what was happening
>in Somalia, he used to say that he had to hide behind his camera to
>protect his feelings while taking pictures of the horrible situation the
>somalians were facing.
>
>WAG THE DOG...seriously I can't believe how the "world power" is
>paralyzed because their president did who-knows-what instead of focusing
>on real issues.  Still the worse part is trying to hide the fact that
>Clinton is going to impeached by a republican-majority congress today by
>bombing Iraq.  The ironic thing is with what moral standards will U.K.
>and US (who own nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons) bomb or even
>demand anything from a country because they have these types of weapons.
>
>I don't know how much sense this makes, but I really want to sate my
>position I am completely against the bombing of iraq and of the
>neocolonialist and imperialist position of the United States.
>
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the great thing about television, and especially television like this, is
that it creates such debates. If the movie weren't happening on CNN, the
"live" feeling of the event would not be there. Remember, Vietnam was the
first real "war movie" in America, and it could be argued that the creation
of a live and real feeling about the war via television created the protest
movement... or at least gave it wings.
People are protesting these attacks... partly becuase they saw them on CNN.
Far from condemning television for this spectacle, I think it should be
applauded for showing the human face and the real casualty of war.
Of course they are doing it for ratings... they're a television network,
and thats what television networks do.
Issues of spin, on the other hand, are, I think, matters of great concern
not only to film-philosophers, but to any concerned citizen. The simple
fact that the war (or any war, or any other news) is being displayed is not
inherently bad... it can be good for people to see other people, other
cultures, to view other ways of being or thinking. The real question is the
nature of the coverage, the view that the media chooses... the artificial
creation of good and evil. Whoz the good guys? The United States, of
course, and all attendant policies, which creates a view of the war in
Iraq, or Columbia, or Serbia, that ignores local reality. However, I think
that it is important to separate the physical act of showing an image from
the moral act of commentary.




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