Movies, short movies and different other kinds of videos are being made since a very long time now and we have been watching various kind of stories, incidents etc through them. And it is all fine and great because many people have jobs, we are getting entertainment, amusement etc. But does it only provide us entertainment, amusement and fun? Yes, it provides entertainment but no, it does not only provide entertainment. We are definitely having different kind of experiences, getting to know about the cultures, habits and livelihood of different localities, regions of this world. Also, many times it gives you ideas, puts thoughts in your mind and makes you made your own opinion about something.
It influences you more when you see or hear than reading. Movies or videos or even reading books sometimes forces an idea upon you, like you did not know about a topic or did not even need to know probably but now you know and this changes everything the way you see things in your daily life related to that particular topic. From my own point of view i think this is tricky, we all think (We all believe actually) that showing something spreads awareness and knowledge of that particular something. But have we ever thought about it that this might create an adverse effect on someone or us? I am not sure if there are any studies on this already but i am writing here my own opinion and thoughts, which i am not asking you to agree but just think about it. I can give you a recent example, which is a movie called “Joker” (2019, Director: Todd Phillips). Many people said this movie glorifies crime or violence and people may think that it is fine to do crime or commit violence after watching the movie i think this is true but again this is completely upto the person watching the movie and his/her own interpretations. This is not only point that i want to make here. There are a lot more things or examples. There are movies or videos that are made on real incidents and most of them are fictionalize to some extent (maybe a very little), There is no way we can recreate an incident exactly. But even though the makers are admitting in credit or disclaimer of film for fictionalization, what does the movie means to people or viewers? I want to say that we can never depict an incident accurately and it is impossible, no matter how hard you try or use N number of methods. So when you make a very minute change or change a single word from the original incident then there is a probability that the story that you are making can be a different one from the original. And when the story is different than the meaning of the story may come out different and we all can learn something else from what was intended. The point here i want to make is movies or any kind of other videos does not provide only entertainment but influences our thoughts and it can make diverse effect on us. And we cannot say that this effects are always positive, it can vary from people to people.
We can find grey lines everywhere. Somebody’s intentions may be correct but it does not always produces right results. I want to give here one more example, we are seeing many movies or videos or ads about different social issues. I do not have to point out that it is a very good thing but let’s try undestand from a different point of view. By this type movies or videos we are reminding people about the issues related to that particuular topic and people will learn who wants to learn and correct their mistakes going forward. But what about those people who does not believe in it (For example racism, women empowerment or any other social issues) at all or the people that learn and believe whatever was shown in a movie, are we giving then any wrong ideas? And what about people who does not have issue about it at all, i mean they have been giving their all support and they did not even know that there is an issue something like this unless they were told or shown. Now what does this movies or videos means to this type of people? what if they start questioning everything (related to a particular topic) they do twice or thrice, does it also going to cause a mantle effect as well? Also the benefits are more from this type of topics than the adverse effect, so any negligible amount of negative effects are ignored probably. I think the broader idea of this social topics are fine but when you divide them into different parts, analyse closely and we all try to create our own story then again this can sometimes mislead and dilute the main point.
So, the idea that movies/videos are only for entertainment or education can be wrong, they may have many different effects or influences. And nowdays we also have a lot of YouTube or social media influencers.
Above are my views and thoughts which you all readers may not agree with it but please give it a thought.
