Andy Warhol once said once said something interesting…?

Question

…it's the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it.

Would you or would you not agree with this?

Just curious

Answer 1

to a certain xtent. many people r un-original or ...submissive to themselves. they care too much about what people think therefore they re-live what they have already seen and know what to expect from their seeings. movies are meant to jog the imagination, unfortunately most people use them as manuals for their lives.

Answer 2

Within some contextual restraints, I would agree with the statement. However, it is not merely the movies; it is mass media in general. As politicians throughout history have known it is relatively easy to manufacture consensus among a populace by manipulating the informaton or disinformation that flows through the media to the public at large. In other words, when a fact, a lie, or a position on an issue is repeatedly hammered through the media into the public consciousness...people can be made to support or oppose just about anything that the government says they should. Noam Chomsky wrote an excellent book about manufacturing consent; look it up some time.

It is just this manipulation of the public through the media that leads the public to support so many things that are neither in their best interest nor in the best interest of their nation and their world. That's why one occasionally sees, both on the History Channel and on PBS, so many older Germans who remember being mesmerized by Hitler's rallies and speeches and who supported the Nazi regime...yet now they wonder why they ever did. They were manipulated and allowed themselves to be caught up in the fervor generated by the Nazi political apparatus.

A good citizen of any country has to think about the information they are presented with, and they have to question every single thing that their government tells them. Governments don't go corrupt without the tacit participation of citizens grown too complacent and lazy to inquire into the facts.

Answer 3

The movies gave the birth of celebrity status a sought after thing by all teenage girls and boys. The televison is the monster among us. And sad to say the internet is a big part of this growing lack of reality we are experiencing in younger people today.
I am a mother of a young American male. He does not live in the reality of life. He lives in the reality created for him by the communication and entertainment devices we have invented and meant to be a good thing at that time.
Little did we know what a monster pong would start rolling with the atari.
Now we have x-rated video games for adults! We have pornographic material if we wanted to see it only 5 minutes from fingertip to retina to brain. I am astounded with the ease and finesse our young children have of getting around any kind of parental control device or software we place on these things we all have in our homes. This cannot be good.
I have a neice who is 15 years old and her life is one big soap opera. She is the drama queen to end all drama queens. I tire of the endless line of children who are so caught up in self- absortion they have no idea what it is to live in reality.
Real life is not fun all the time, nor is it an endless procession of love affairs and no lack for money. This is what they expect life to be like. And when they marry they expect it to be romantic and fun and sex to be thrilling. Sometimes it is wonderful like that. But never to the extent of them not being disappointed and therefore they quit the marriage and find another.
I think in the movie The Swiss Family Robinson I heard a line that was one of the most truthful things I ever heard, it follows and then I will shut up.

in the scene where the family is rescued and the parents decide to stay instead of return to "civilization" the father say to the mother," Let us stay here then, you know it is hard to know you have nothing and are worth nothing if no one ever tells you are."

Answer 4

I would disagree with it. Maybe if I used them as an educational tool to become familiar with the lifestyle in other countries, but whats in movies is very rarely realistic and can't be counted on as an accurate protrayal. It can be very upsetting to think that other countries think Americans act like what they see in the movies....

I guess I am more influenced by my real life experiences. Andy Warhol lived a very eccentric life, not too much like most of us do!

Answer 5

I think they have a huge affect on our culture. The prevalence of gratuitous violence, illicit sex & coarse language has pervaded our society due to the non-stop inundation via movies. Remember when he said that we didn't have 100+ channels of cable piped into our homes 24x7. It's easy to see the escalation of it over the past 20 years since cable & videos because popular. Makes me wonder what we're going to see with the advent of video to cell phones & other remote devices.

Answer 6

Certainly a sad commentary on our century but nonetheless true. As a reading teacher, it is hard to get students interested in books when so many have been shuttled in front of a TV for their learning.

Answer 7

makes perfect sense - humans rely on their society and culture to tell them what to think, how to act, what to believe, etc., etc. and most americans get their cultural information from television and movies. the tricky part is which comes first? humans doing what they do, then that's reflected in our entertainment; or the other way around? it's probably an endless feedback loop.

Answer 8

I totally agree. That's how I learned to disable bombs. Rule of thumb, cut the third blue wire!!!