Finally the month of September is
over, and some good movies have started showing up in the theatres again. One
of the best ones that managed to spike the box office is Gone Girl. If you
haven’t seen this movie, I definitely recommend checking it out. This movie is
full of twists and turns, and attempts to keep you guessing throughout the
entire flick. Don’t worry I won’t spoil anything for you here. Gone Girl stars
Ben Afleck as Nick Dunne who finds himself as the prime suspect in the murder
of his wife, Ammy Dunne, played by Rosamund Pike. The part of Gone Girl that I
want to talk about is how it shows how much power the media has. The media can
pretty much frame the public’s mindset towards their desired direction with no
problem. Depending on how the media feels about you on that day you can either
be instantly vilified, loved, or tore down just to be brought back to rise
again. There’s a particular scene in the movie, and I won’t get into too much
detail here, where without much evidence to go off of, the cable news pundit in
this movie immediately painted Nick Dunne as an evil, sociopath who was already
guilty. Thanks to her power and platform she was able to get others to buy into
and believe her mindset. Sadly this is what we see all too often in today’s
media/cable news landscape.
With that being said, I loved how
in this movie, Nick and his lawyer Tanner Bolt, played by Tyler Perry, were
able to use this to their benefit, and manipulate the media. Through some
coaching and training with his lawyer, Nick was able to present the image and
story that they wanted portrayed regardless of what questions his interviewer
asked him. As I was watching this the thought went through my head that this is
marketing, or it’s at least what marketing hopes to do. Marketing and marketers
want to take advantage of the media that’s available to them, to portray
whatever it is that we’re selling in a way that is desired, and pursway the
public’s opinion in favor of them and/or their product. How does this make you
feel? Do you care that your emotions and thoughts are being manipulated by the
media and marketers, or is it just necessary in this day and age? I’d love to
hear your thoughts in the comments!
