Gone Girl and The Power of Media

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!