Movies About Complex Issues Like Racism, Rape And R... Health Care

[Seil]

So I've recently remembered seeing the movie A Time To Kill (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O90-DO9P6q0), which deals with racism and somehow got stuck on the trailer for the movie John Q (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8ljEiZWHoc).

The thing I find interesting about these movies is that they're real. Okay, they're not really truth, but John Grisham based his novel "A Time To Kill" on real events. The idea I have is that these movies are trying to get a message out, in a generation that needed the messages. John Q was released in 2002 (http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/408184), while A Time To Kill was based on a 1989 book - 1989 a somewhat racially charged time. (http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/07/nyregion/rape-charge-splits-stony-brook-campus.html?pagewanted=1)

One could argue whether or not these kinds of films are made to get a message out. That they're only made to sensationalize, to entertain, to put butts in theater seats. In response I'm going to use a quote from a superhero movie:

I believe comics are a form of history that someone, somewhere felt or experienced. Then, of course, those experiences and that history got chewed up in the commercial machine, got jazzed up, made titillating...

Now like I said before, these movies aren't exact truth, they're more made to entertain. But sometimes a film maker tries to stick a message in the middle of it - why do you think that is? Why do they do it? Does it work? I think that last question depends on who the film-goer is. Looking at YouTube comments for the trailers is like submitting yourself, and grammar to torture.

[Premmy]

2002 (http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/408184), while A Time To Kill was based on a 1989 book - 1989 a somewhat racially charged time. (http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/07/nyregion/rape-charge-splits-stony-brook-campus.html?pagewanted=1)
Cause these days, (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/nyregion/09patchogue.html?emc=eta1) Racism is TOTALLY not a problem (http://www.counterpunch.org/rodriguez03042010.html)anyone has to deal with.

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One could argue whether or not these kinds of films are made to get a message out. That they're only made to sensationalize, to entertain, to put butts in theater seats. In response I'm going to use a quote from a superhero movie:

Some people make movies to express the way they think or feel about some things, you could argue that EVERYONE makes films for these reasons, just that people who make "Simpler" films are expressing simpler ideas. It's a part of how art works.

[Magus]

Movies by definition pretty much have to entertain the people who watch them, but they don't necessarily have to have a message, so any attempt at a message is purposeful beyond the requirement to get people into seats. Then again, with John Q. it might have just been a plot device to have the main character hold people hostage as the main action of the film, but then again, The Negotiator didn't talk about people's lack of health care at all so it would seem to be a purposeful choice.

I mean, I don't think your average action movie really tries to have much of a message, it's just an action movie. When they do try to put a message in as well people usually take notice of it and think it's superior to just another "dumb" action film, so it would probably be in the interest of producers and directors to try and appeal to something slightly higher than the lowest common denominator by making a movie about "something".

EDIT: Also sometimes the addressing of the issue is the entertaining aspect for the people who go see the film, however this type of film will not appeal to someone whose main purpose is to see a good story and who doesn't mind getting a message besides (or who assuages their "guilt" over seeing a good story by saying "well at least it has a good message, too!", since for some reason we have to feel guilty over seeing good stories and not caring about issues 24/7...)

ANOTHER EDIT: Also if the message is hammered home in a seemingly incompetent way it is jarring and ruins what is otherwise a good story. I remember watching the movie Inside Man, which is about a complex bank robbery/illusion that Clive Owen pulls off, and in the middle of it Clive Owen grabs this kids PSP where he's playing a GTA-lookalike and comments on how its like, ruining society or something. We can thank Spike Lee for this incompetently delivered message. The greater "message" of Owen getting revenge on Nazi sympathizers by stealing back the jewels they stole during the Holocaust out of their safe deposit boxes was superior, but the other thing sticks in the throat due to the fact that it just comes out of nowhere and had nothing to do with the film's greater message, really. Ooh, mindless violence is bad and will apparently make our kids into Nazis, sure.

[KittenMittons]

Look, its a movie. No need to get anyones panties in a bunch. its an expression of someones opinions. No reason to get upset.

[Premmy]

Look, its a movie. No need to get anyones panties in a bunch. its an expression of someones opinions. No reason to get upset.

So Who's upset?

[Magus]

Spike Lee is upset about Grand Theft Auto and what it is doing to impressionable young black kids! Why aren't you thinking of the children?!

Miracle At St. Anna was also a pretty terrible movie, and it didn't even have any stupid messages I could identify, other than something or other about racism (not sure what the message was--I'm assuming that it was "racism is bad", but between the kid calling the fat dumb soldier "the chocolate giant" and the "villain" ending up being a side-side character who barely did anything to the main character and yet somehow it was enough for the main character to patiently wait for him for twenty-five years, I was a bit lost by the end).