With this week’s look into the world of cinema, a lot of significance is placed on how movies interact and influence the world around us. It’s easy to think we have lots of control over how we think and act, but how true is that?

As talked about in the textbook, chapter 8: Movies, movies tend to reflect the time they are made. With this, popular beliefs or sentiments are commonly found tucked into the films. The movie Birth of a Nation by D. W. Griffith is a stellar example of this. Almost unsurprisingly, racism shows it’s face in the almost 3-hour film and is sadly cheered on. If that were to happen today, there would probably be shock or outrage instead of joy. Unfortunately, it’s a product of it’s time when the opinions they cared about would be those who cheer for the film. Eventually, it did spark riots mostly by those who were a victim of that oppressive narrative. But you have to imagine, there were probably those who supported and even defended the film, not seeing what is wrong with it. The common thoughts of the time probably provided them enough justification to ignore those who were hurt, and if I’ve learned anything about racists, opposition to their views only seems to make them retreat into those same views even further.

On the same idea of how movies influence us, Disney comes to mind almost immediately. Though there are definitely adults who enjoy some of their movies to this day, it’s well known that they’re produced for a child audience. Along with being produced for children, it’s almost a given that there’s some type of big lesson for kids to take away at the end of the movie. Now, most kids don’t just see that lesson and then toss it aside, a lot of the times it influences how they act and interact with others. Beauty and the Beast teaches you not to judge others by first glance, The Princess and the Frog teaches you that you need to work hard to get what you want, Aladdin teaches you that if you feel tied down by rules or standards, you need to change them. Through these fantastical stories and songs, children learn important life lessons on how to be good people and respect others and themselves. While a lot of the time things like this are positive, with the wrong intentions it can teach children to be intolerant of others and perhaps shun others for being who they are.

It’s a little scary to think something so simple as a bad movie when you’re little can make you who you are today. That doesn’t always have to mean that you’re a bad person either, but it could mean it shapes your fears or first thoughts about things. Maybe you watched a scary movie with a monster that would hide in the shadows, now to this day you need to have a light on when you sleep or else you’re nervous. Maybe you watched a movie with a killer taxi driver and to this day, you’re a little too hesitant to get in a taxi or an uber. You know the person driving probably isn’t going to try and kill you, but because you saw it at a time in your life when you’re learning how the world works, your brain made that connection. How do you think movies influenced you throughout your life? To this day I can’t sleep with my door open because the amount of movies where someone watches their victim through the crack of the door or something like that. I used to also be scared of attics because of Beetlejuice! I always thought I’d somehow find him up there.