Film

I belong to a philosophy forum. A suggestion was made that a 'film club' category should be added to it. I voted against it. Then I realize I may have been too hasty in my decision. When I voted I was thinking it would just turn into a geeky discussion and go of track. But then I thought of the impact movies have had on society since their inception. That impact, I thought, can best be articulated in a philosophical way.

There are many negative aspects about movies, like gratuitous violence and sex. However, I think movies generally have had a positive influential on society. Their mass apply has developed common bonds of understanding. They subliminally have helped align society to function in a coherent fashion, developing common modes of behavior and tastes. In America, where the genre was basically invented, films have helped many new immigrants assimilate to their adopted land. They have also helped expand modernity and democratic values throughout the world. They have, in a perverse way, expanded knowledge in their portrayal of historical events. As propaganda they were encouraging and supportive in defeating the enemy in W.W.II. Often, though, they just have been pure entertainment, a release, like circuses for the masses.

The impact of movies can be enormous. Some impacts are just trivial. Nevertheless, they are indicative of the influence of movies. I remember my father telling me that in one movie Clark Gable was bare chested and not warring at least the customary under shirt. In the following weeks of the release of that movie under shirt sales plummeted and never recovered. A similar thing happened in the wearing of hats by men. Sales of hats dropped as movies portrayed men not warring them as they once did.

Some of the impacts are real and not trivial. Movies can be effective in drawing out social issues that would otherwise be avoided or overlooked. They can raise awareness and provoke much needed discussion. In most respects this task now has fallen on television. But movies still carry a lot of weight in raising conscience. Tom Hanks’ movie “Philadelphia” raised awareness to the needless and thoughtless bigotry displayed towards aids victims. After the movie a more sympathetic and less superstitious attitudes developed towards this once taboo subject. Movies help get out the message and dispel the wrong-headedness that so often has accompanied uncharted social waters. Movies that once portrayed Jews and African Americans as inferior and marginal now portray them as part of the main stream, helping to break down racial barriers and change social attitudes toward them.

There was a time when drunkenness was romanticized on the silver screen. Eventually that stereotype died away under social pressure, helping curtail the number of accidents due to alcoholism. Smoking has declined over the years because similarly it was no longer romanticized in the movies or accepted as a social norm as it once was.

The other day I saw a move called “Far From Heaven”. It was appropriate that I saw it again because of my writing this article. It came out in 2001 but took place in 1957. It was deliberately given a 1957 flavor, in how it was filmed and how it was musically scored. It dealt with two contentious issues that for the most part have been defused today, homosexuality and racial segregation. However, the power of this movie made me feel that those issues were still divisive and with us, that racial segregation and anti-homosexual attitudes were still part of our culture. I remember movies made in that era which portrayed homosexuality and interracial relationships as abhorrent acts, leaving the feeling that they would always be so because the cultural consensus of the day said so. However, many moviegoers back then felt uncomfortable with the discriminator behavior they saw depicted on the screen, about how people were being attacked and marginalized just for being different or themselves. In their discomfort those moviegoers helped change perception and attitudes in future generations. Though this movie reflectively showed how far we have come in changing things, it also was a reminder that we still have a distance to go in making society a truly just and equitable place for everybody.

It is hard to measure how much movies have influenced social change, in making things more just, representative and equitable. My sensibilities, though, tell me that such change could not have happened without the movies, this larger than life art form.

Civilization has needed and had many facilitators to help develop and ease it along, like philosophers, theologians, lawyers and scientists. In the 20th century movies also have played a major role in facilitating and mediating society and individuals, helping us in how we ought to organize and govern ourselves. Some will argue, though, that movies have also perverted society with mindlessness repetition and excessive portrayals of sex, violence and hedonism. All I can say to that is, like all human endeavors, this enterprise also has its negative aspects, its down side. However, overall movies have made life richer and more tolerable.