The technological medium I would use to tell the story of my life would be movies because they have played a big role in my life. They are a very popular and influential technological medium in this time, and they have influenced many people, including me. Many things have influenced what type of movies I watch and how many movies I watch, including both my age and the convenience of obtaining movies.
The medium of the film fits in very well with David Nye’s definition of technology in Technology Matters – Questions To Live With because it is an agent of social change. Many films have been used to influence society, most notably in the genre of documentaries. While this is not my favorite genre, I do have documentaries that I have watched and enjoyed, such as Food Inc., which deals with big food companies and their bad practices. Not only have movies been used for social evolution, but they have also been used as a signal for the social evolution that is happening at the time. Popular movies are a reflection of what the people are interested at the time, which means popular movies are a window in which to look through to understand the current social status at the time. Movies are a way to live out something that would normally not be plausible, so popular movies are a reflection on the types of lives people would like to live if this type of life is realistic.
I grew up in an era where Disney cartoons were huge, especially for younger children. I remember when I was young that I used to sit down at least once every weekend and watch a Disney movie. My favorites were The Fox and The Hound and Bambi. Despite the fact that many people assert that these movies subliminally teach bad lessons, such as anti-Semitism, to children, the movies taught me many good values. This is what I think was the main point in the Disney cartoons, to both provide entertainment to children and to teach lessons such as: the importance of family, empathy, hard work, and many more. I did not even realize the bad reputation of the movies until many years after this period in my life, and I do not think this has changed my understanding of the films very much, in large part because I do not really believe Walt Disney intentionally taught anti-Semitism to children using these films, and this is more of a conspiracy theory. I believe that these movies have set a good example for me, and they served to entertain me for many hours as a kid; in fact, I probably spent too much time watching these and other similar movies as a kid, but I enjoyed them very much.
As I grew up, I began to progress to more “mature” movies. I still love the old cartoons, but I have transitioned to watch non g-rated movies, or, in other words, more inappropriate movies. I began watching violent action movies. My favorite movie in this genre during this period in my life was SWAT. This perfectly displays the type of movie that I watched at this time. This is most likely due to the fact that I thought the action in these types of movies was really cool, and watching movies with this type of action was the best way to experience it, since it is not realistic to experience this type of action in my life. These movies served as a sort of vicarious thrill in that sense.
Most recently, my tastes in movies have changed from action movies to more mature comedies. My favorite movie in this genre is Super Troopers, a comedy about state troopers in Vermont that bust a drug ring. The trend from action movies to comedies seems to be a pretty popular one in males, and it is reflected in the movie industry’s practice of making many comedies geared towards the young adult generation. This is one example of how the movie industry is a reflection on culture. This definitely points to movies being predictable. In some sense movies are predictable, in that the general trends of the industry match social change. This may be true, but specific movies are not predictable, so the movie industry is not completely predictable, but it is mostly predictable. Directors still have influence over what they want people to see, and they can block people from seeing certain things, not to mention movies can also influence culture in some ways. One area in which the movie industry has a big influence is in fashion. I do not think it is appropriate to say the industry is deterministic, but it is appropriate to say it is partially determined by culture and partially determined by the directors and the big production companies in the industry. One can determine what the popular movies are going to be in the near future because the popular movies will be about subjects in which people are interested, but there are some surprisingly popular movies that initiate social and cultural changes, so not all of the aspects of this industry are predictable.
David Nye’s article addresses an interesting point: if technology controls our lives. This begs the question: have movies controlled my life, at least thus far? Certainly directors assert a large amount of control over their viewers, controlling exactly what content and, perhaps more importantly, viewpoints they see. This can have a large effect on many of our views, such as political, economic and, social views. I would say that movies do not control me personally, as my movie viewing has been more a reflection of my interests prior to watching the movies than watching movies to learn new information and apply it in my life. Movies can be powerful, and documentaries can certainly change people’s views and even control many people’s opinions, but in my case, watching movies primarily for entertainment, not primarily for education, movies have not exerted enough influence on my political or social views to control them.
The other thing that changed about movies in my lifetime that has affected their influence on me is the way they are displayed. When I was a little kid movies were played at home with a VCR and a tape. These tapes were cumbersome, large and not so easy to obtain. With the advent of DVDs and Netflix, movies are now much easier to obtain and watch, not to mention the quality is much better. This has led me to watch more movies, and this has become one of my go to activities to do with people when we are bored, since it is much more convenient and cheaper to look on Netflix than to go out and buy a movie. The emergence of Netflix has also influenced the types of movies I watch. Now I tend to watch movies that have been out of theatres for longer periods of time since these are the movies that Netflix usually has online. This has led me to be somewhat behind the time in this respect, but it has also led me to appreciate slightly older, classic movies. I still keep up with the newest movies by going out to a theatre with my friends, but I don’t do this quite as much as I used to.
Movies are a very influential technological medium in my life, as in the lives of many others. They have influenced me, teaching me many things and providing me with a lot of entertainment, but they have not changed my fundamental views on society, like they have for other people. My age and the ways of obtaining movies at that particular time have been the primary factors in the kinds of movies I watch, and in how much I watch them. Therefore, these two factors have been the most influential in determining the effect movies have had on me throughout my life. In some respects the movie industry is deterministic, as it is a reflection of culture, but in some ways the industry actually helps to shape culture, both in good ways and in bad ways. In this case, the answer to the question “does culture shape technology, or does technology shape culture?” is not so clear, and in fact both answers to this question would prove to be right.
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