Film 1984

There is so much in this movie to contemplate it’s hard to know where to begin.
Human nature, why the first reality t.v. show 1984 was so popular, why the phenomena continues to be popular, what’s worse the idea of society as a panopticon or synopticon. How are humans able to be so cruel to one another, why do we hunger for control over each other?

I think an important concept in 1984 that I was missing until now is the concept that it is human nature to want to watch and to judge each other. If it wasn’t human nature I don’t think we would still be so stuck in the same scenario as we were so many years ago. That of putting so much emphasis on surveillance in our lives, either as the watcher or the watchee.

I had a discussion with a couple of others after class today about why hasn’t anything really changed in the last 100 years. Sure technology has changed or progressed but the underlying social issues haven’t seemed to change at all.

What was most striking to me in the film was the concept that people would have to be forced into believing the ‘facts’. In today’s society many people are more than happy to accept the “facts” without a second thought and without force.

After watching the movie I did some basic investigating on the Internet. I used “google” as I often do and when I was reviewing the resulting links it occurred to me how much trust I put into “google” search results. This fact now feels a little creepy to me after watching 1984 and seeing the news stories displayed on the screens with the facts rewritten. When one realizes the tight control of the media outlets one also has to realize how controlled the information is that we really have access too. That is unless we know how to dig a lot deeper than just the nightly news and the one liners that are displayed on my.yahoo.com.

Plus it’s more than just the know how, you have to have the desire to dig deeper as well. In a world where we just want to be entertained, how many of us take the time to dig deeper?