Advertising is an age-old concept of conveying the messages to the people. In prehistoric days, people used to write with chalk, which was available in plenty, in their own languages the messages they wanted to propagate on the walls of the caves or on tree trunks. While doing excavations in Pompeii, signs and evidence were found that services and goods were advertised as early as in 79 A.D.

Later, Egyptians wrote the messages and drew images on papyrus. When paper and printing press were invented, advertising became popular, first in Great Britain, then in other countries. Illustrated ads were placed in newspapers and magazines. Products like Pears soap, Woodbury’s Facial soap, Michelin Tires and Encyclopedia Britannica were among the first to advertise. Advertising companies like J. Walter Thomson, Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, Volney Palmer and N.W. Ayer were among the pioneers, responsible for creating ads and getting them placed in newspapers and magazines. J. Walter Thomson was however the first to expand internationally.

Today, we live in the world of advertising. Nothing sells without advertising; may it be a product or service. It is a well-known fact that you need to create an awareness of the product you want to sale, then promote it through means of advertising; hence the importance of advertising cannot be denied. That is why ad agencies are flourishing and their clients are spending millions of dollars to promote their products or services. Ads should be clever and to the point. Yet, many advertisers rely on belittling the competitors’ products which results in a big confusion in the minds of consumers.

David Ogilvy, the guru of advertising, said that ‘a good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing the attention to itself.’. One wonders how many ads these days conform to this belief. The Chief Executive of one the agencies where I used to work way back in Pakistan had a motto framed behind his desk. It read: Advertising is supposed to be impactful and clever without being overpowering. In short, be subtle.

There are various outlets where the ads are placed. Generally, your product is promoted through TV, Radio and social media, newspapers and magazines, billboards and brochures and your product gets consumers’ awareness and impulse to buy. This is the common practice, yet there is another means to advertise. It is called subliminal advertising, and it has been found that this means alone can soar the sale of your product. Only few clients and advertisers know and realize the positive effect such advertising would produce. Others simply do not believe in its efficacy and consider it a fallacy.

Subliminal Advertising

Subliminal advertising is described as the use of images, logos and sounds to influence consumers’ responses without being conscious of it. A subliminal message passes below the normal perception. It might be inaudible to the conscious mind, but audible to the subconscious mind, because it is a brief flash of the product, escaping the conscious level of mind but getting stored in the subconscious mind, so that when a consumer goes to the market and sees the product along with other products, he is inclined to buy the product subliminally advertised.  They are ‘hidden persuaders’ – as said by Vance Packard in his book,’ Hidden Persuaders’ which was published in 1957. There are various ways to do it:

Single Frame Effect

This was often practiced in the days when movies were processed by 35 mm cameras. It involves the insertion of ‘hidden’ messages into movies or TV programs. The concept ‘moving pictures’ relies on persistence of vision to create movement in a series of images projected at 25 frames per second. A single frame of the ad is then inserted after every 25 frames on the editing table. The hidden command in a single frame flashes across the screen so quickly that it is not perceived consciously but is registered in the subconscious mind.

As mentioned in QUORA journal, an experiment was conducted by James Vicari, a marketing researcher and psychologist, in 1957 when a popular movie PICNIC was released. Every five seconds the words, Hungry? Eat popcorns. Drink Coca-Cola, were projected for 0.003 seconds. The sales of popcorn and Coke in that New Jersey theater increased by 57.8 percent and 18.1 percent respectively.  

In the early seventies, we, at an advertising agency where I worked, made a similar experiment. In the cinema house where one of our client’s products was advertised subliminally through the screening of the movie, I stood near a concession stand. During the interval – in those days we had intervals of 10 to 15 minutes – a good number of moviegoers were seen to buy that soft drink.

You may think that this is a very easy and economical way of advertising. No, it is not. It took a series of meetings with the client to convince him about this method of promotion. The client eventually agreed, but still seemed doubtful. Then we had to approach the movie producer who was shooting a blockbuster movie with famous stars. After being assured that it would not make any difference in projection, and paying him the agreed amount, he consented. When the movie was shot and ready for editing, I went to see the editor to get the frames of our product inserted after every 25 frames of the movie. The editor simply shook his head and said that it was just an experience in futility, but he had to do it, because the producer asked him to do that. It took him two weeks to complete the editing. I met him again and saw that the one frame of the product was inserted after every 25 seconds in the master print of the movie. I was happy to learn that and took the editor, who had by now become a good friend, for a lunch at a Chinese restaurant on my expense account.

The client later reported that the sale of his soft drink had increased by thirty-five per cent.

This form of subliminal advertising was gaining grounds and proving to be an effective vehicle for promoting products. This became a matter of concern for public relations officials and some advertising agencies, probably because they feared that budgets for regular advertising on TV and press would plummet, resulting in lesser profit. They argued that such a way of promotion is ineffective, counter-productive and unethical since it invaded the minds of the people without their consent. The other school of thoughts pleaded that it is not the only way that does that, there are many happenings in everyday life that do so, and on which we do not have any control.

In USA, Federal Communications Commission took up the matter, held several hearings and declared that subliminal advertising is contrary to public interest, because it involved ‘intentional deception’.

Terry Lane in CHRON journal reported, ‘While the US Congress has never passed a law restricting subliminal advertising, government agencies have said that the practice is unfair and could result in enforcements, especially for broadcast stations.’

Since then this form of advertising gradually decreased. It may still be in existence, but countries like Australia, U.K. and Canada have banned it. Other forms of subliminal advertising, like product-placement and hidden messages through logos are very much in practice throughout the world.

Product placement

A highly popular technique is product placement. Here again you need a movie producer or a TV show producer. Subject to his consent and agreed payment, a can or a box of food products such as cereal, jam, jelly, butter or a soft drink is strategically placed on a dining table – or any other place – at a home. When the scene of a family dinner is shot, the product is placed on the table in such a manner that it is quite visible. It is flashed for only a few seconds, and the message is delivered.

Products or services are also promoted when a character drives a car and it passes through a street where there is a billboard or a store front where it is displayed. The camera briefly focuses on it while the car is passing by.

An unethical and detrimental trend is now prevalent in our movies and TV dramas and shows. The hero or another important character is shown smoking a cigarette or a cigar leisurely and enjoying the puffs, while at the bottom of the screen you read a sign ‘smoking is injurious to health’. This is a subliminal advertising for tobacco smoking, and one is sure that some tobacco companies must be paying the producers or channels to promote this habit among viewers, especially youngsters. The tobacco companies have to rely on such a means for advertising, because they are not allowed to advertise directly through electronic or print media or through billboards. Authorities should take note of this and take proper action to stop such a practice.

Meaning of logos

Logo is an intelligent way of subliminal advertising. Let us look at some logos:

• amazon.com. Did you find a hidden message? Observe carefully. There is a curved line connecting a and z, meaning that everything from A to Z is available on this online store.
• Logo of FedEx shows an arrow in white space, an indication of the company’s speed and ability to deliver.
• In the current TOSTITOS logo, can you see two friends sharing chips and salsa?
• In the SONY VAIO logo, the design of the word Vaio shows the symbol of analogue and digital that defines the two worlds in which the brand works.

Cost-benefit analysis of piracy

To begin, I want to analyze piracy free from any ethical or normative judgments. Piracy is an act, and like any other act, it has costs and benefits. A utility calculation or a cost-benefit analysis shows that the material benefits far outweigh the minimal material costs of piracy. Entertainment media usually has a monetary price that must be paid in order to consume it, like buying tickets to watch a movie at the theater. On the other hand, given that the individual possesses the technical knowledge, the individual can receive the same entertainment for free if he chooses to pirate the media instead of buying it. While some individuals who pirate are caught and do pay fees, the probability of these negative consequences are very small. Given no other external factors, this cost-benefit analysis indicates that the materialistic benefits outweigh the materialistic costs.

Additionally, from a behavioral perspective, piracy makes sense. When a person commits piracy, they are immediately presented with the benefit of entertainment or utility. The behavior is immediately rewarded and reinforced. The costs are not immediately evident, and can be easily overlooked, because the probability of being caught and punished for pirating is very small. In contrast to the act of physically stealing the DVD of a movie, the act of illegally downloading the movie is much less risky and only entails the seemingly innocent pressing of buttons. When contemplating whether to physically steal another DVD of a movie, the person would weigh whether the entertainment benefit is really worth suffering the stress and energy as well as the high risk of being caught and punished by the law. When contemplating whether to illegally download a movie, the person would only need to weigh whether the entertainment benefit is greater than pressing some buttons. With such low risks and such immediate gratification, the behavior of piracy is easily engrained.

This cost-benefit analysis in a vacuum free from any external forces like ethics, morality, and religion sufficiently shows why piracy is so prevalent. It is easy and rewarding. However, people do not live in a vacuum.

The ethical factor

If piracy is theft, then it is unethical, immoral, and wrong. And it is indeed theft. All digital media whether film, music, ebooks, or games are products of another’s hard work. Just like a farmer’s crops or an author’s book, digital media would not exist but for the producer. Thus, similarly, the producer has taken ownership of digital media by production. Modern copyright and digital rights laws are evidence of this societal norm. So, if it is wrong, why do some people pirate digital media anyway?

When a person is given the choice between paying for the entertainment and consuming it for free, ethical principles clash with desire. In order to resolve cognitive dissonance, the discomfort caused by the clash of conflicting inner-beliefs, individuals will attempt to justify their actions and alter their beliefs (1). In the case of piracy, an individual might conclude that the producers of the entertainment media are already wealthy and do not need more money. Alternatively, the individual may decide that his financial circumstances do not allow him to pay for the products, forcing him to illegally obtain them. Ultimately, these justifications allow the individual to live more comfortably with their decision to pirate the product.

Justifying piracy

In addition to common justifications for any other ethical violations, piracy has a unique justification due to the unique nature of digital media. This unique justification is that the illegal downloading of digital media does not harm the producer, because it does not represent a loss of revenue for the producer of the game, movie, or song. Given the digital nature of entertainment media, a pirated copy of a game does not directly mean a loss of revenue equal to the price of the game. For example, when an item in the physical world, such as a watch, is stolen from a store, the store loses money that is equal to the sum of the cost of the watch and the profit from the sale of the watch. If the thief had not stolen the watch, the store could have sold it to someone else. In contrast, when an individual obtains a pirated copy of a digital media, the ability of the producer to sell a copy of the digital media to someone else is not inhibited in anyway. In other words, the benefits or entertainment experienced by the individual who chooses to pirate does not result in a loss for the producer. Those who have this justification would then conclude that piracy only has positive consequences.

This justification, unique to digital products, has two main deficiencies. First, piracy can lead to loss of revenue to the producer if a person who would have otherwise purchased the product chooses to pirate it. Aggregating all the individual acts of piracy can lead to a cumulative loss of revenue of many millions of dollars. Second, loss of revenue is not the only reason piracy is immoral. The primary reason why piracy is unethical is because it constitutes a taking of another property, violating another’s fundamental property rights. If a producer chooses to share its property with only those who pay for it, then the taking of that property without paying for it is a violation of fundamental property rights. An independent showing of damage or loss of revenue is not necessary to prove its wrongness.

Habit

Another possible explanation for the prevalence of piracy is habit. Once an individual has committed piracy, despite ethical prescriptive to the contrary, the individual experiences the benefits and joys of that piece of entertainment. As previously mentioned, this immediate reward can lead to a cycle that constantly reinforces the behavior until it has become habitual. The case study of the video game, Proun, can provide some insight.

Proun, a low budget game, was released under the pay-what-you-want pricing method which allows consumers to legally obtain the product at whatever price they decide to pay including for zero dollars. In other words, people could legally get the game for free from the developer’s official website. Essentially, the developer removed monetary concerns from the utility calculation. According to the released statistics, approximately 40% of used copies were pirated (2). Individuals chose to pirate the game, despite being able to obtain the game legally for free.

The implication of the Proun case study is that price may not be the sole determinant for pirating behavior. A possible explanation for the observed pirating behavior could be that obtaining entertainment media through illegal means has become habitual to a significant portion of the population. Due to the low risks associated with piracy, individuals who have chosen to pirate media experience no consequences that would deter their actions, making piracy their normal means of acquiring any form of software, irrelevant of whether or not the software is free. In other words, habitual piracy has become legitimate in their eyes. After the initial act, the individual no longer considers the ethicality of their actions. Every subsequent act merely reinforces the habit.

References

1. See also Yerli, Selnur Hatice. “Cognitive Dissonance and the Psychology of Sin.” The Fountain 80, March-April 2011.
2. van Dongen, Joost. “Proun sales data revealed: Proun is a big success! Pay What You Want is not!.” <http://joostdevblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/proun-is-big-success-pay-what-you-want.html>

It was 3 o’clock in the morning. The rain outside beat on the windows and the loud thunder ripped through the night. A loud knock on the door startled the boy. All alone in the mansion, he was not really expecting anyone this late. But the stranger insistently knocked on the door. The boy got up hesitantly and grabbed the doorknob with shaking hands… Flash forward. He woke up with a scream, drenched in a pool of sweat. “Thank God, it was all a dream.”

I turned off the TV, feeling a mix of boredom and hunger gnawing hunger at the pit of my stomach. I headed down to the kitchen to grab a bite.

The world is full of wonders. We are amazed at how fish swim or how birds fly; by imitating their systems, we attempt to swim or fly. One of our most precious attributes is curiosity. Once I attended an exhibition associated with a popular movie. I was amazed at the power of human imagination and the dreams it can conjure, turning them into reality. The props and costumes used in this movie were displayed lavishly for the curious eyes of the fans and the flash of the cameras. We, as human beings, were being entertained with the products of the human imagination. Even the flow of events that happened at the exhibition, the flashing cameras, the décor and costumes, which seemed so important at that time, were all a design of the human imagination; they were not real. As the actors and actresses took on the personalities of their characters, they not only assumed the role of a movie character, but also became a player in a man-made dream world. We followed the entertainment with curiosity and interest. The characters, the story, the costumes, the light, and sound: all this captivated our attention. As the glow of the entertainment slowly faded off, I began to feel that this popular movie and even the exhibition itself existed within another movie… a more real movie in which we all played our roles.

My favorite pieces in the exhibition were the “magically alive” animated portraits. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw the people in the portraits applauding us, as if we had accomplished some feat. I liked the idea of animated portraits and photos. A picture is ultimately just a 2D image, but an animated image encompasses a third dimension: time. A movie’s ability to capture the charm of time is what appeals to us and captivates our attention.

Early in the morning, I glanced out my window and noticed the autumn leaves falling from the tree in my back yard. About two or three weeks ago they were all green, but now the scene had completely changed. Tinted with different shades of orange, yellow, red and purple, the leaves ruffled on their branches with the whoosh of the light breeze.

I imagined that my window was an animated picture inside my home. There was someone insistently striking His brush against my easel, coloring this picture day by day, moment by moment, and giving it motion for me, making me feel the changes He brought about. Filled with these wondrous thoughts, words fell out of my mouth: “He is truly a magnificent artist.” At the moment, I recalled what the lead character in a movie had said as he looked, bewildered at the harmony of colors in the sky during sunset: “God must have been an artist.”

In order to make an animated picture or create a video sequence, the consecutive pictures or “frames” of a scene must be joined together. If the difference between the capture times of two consecutive frames is too long, the video will not run smoothly, stuttering like an old silent film, with intermittent flickers. Modern day movies use a larger number of frames per unit of time. The greater the number of frames, the smoother the images will appear. When I focused my attention on this outside “movie,” a movie in which I was an actress along with the rest of humanity, I couldn’t help but wonder what the number of frames was. Since we are living in a “perfect” movie, the movie of our world that we see through our eyes everyday must have an infinite number of frames. I contently followed the descent of a snowflake onto my hand. It made me admit once again that we’re part of a great cinematography and screenplay. The producer is not only an artist who covertly paints the pictures with His gentle brush strokes, but is also someone who strings an infinite number of picture frames with great skill and attention to detail, creating the perfect animation of “life.”

Imagine the animation of a falling bird feather; one would need to perform an enormous number of calculations between the sequences of frames. It would be necessary to run many computers in parallel to be able to process such animation in real time. Then I used this same information and applied it to the scene of the falling snowflake. Contemplating the details of each moment within that scenario and considering each moment to be a single frame helps you appreciate the complicated task of stringing these frames together in real time.

When you see a man inscribing circles with a light source you actually see a circle of a light. In fact, you perceive it as a circle because of the speed and the continuity of the motion. Life is analogous to that imaginary circle; it exists because of the continuity of the artist’s efforts. Yes, life as a “perfect” movie is similar to the continuity of this circle of light, because the artist’s magnificent skills continuously color and illuminate each picture frame, stringing them together in a perfect fashion.

Wait, wait, it doesn’t end here. I close my eyes; it is easy for me to see things that happened years ago in all their details. The time I dropped my ice cream on my favorite shirt when I was five, the gift that my brother gave me on my thirteenth birthday, the day I graduated from college… like a movie, I can watch all these whenever I like. This illustrates another issue in video processing, storing the videos, in other words, the frames, in an efficient way so that they can be accessed promptly when needed. I already have a good technique to store the story of my life in my memories. Moreover, in order to remember any sequence, all I need to do is just remember a small detail of the time, an event, or a memento. This is the fastest content-based image retrieval system I have ever seen! No moment of life is wasted and all is saved somewhere, providing relief for the human heart, which is helplessly attracted to eternity. Any art necessitates an exhibition and an audience. Then there must be a place and a time in which the whole movie will be watched again by the audience.

My brain not only stores my memories as videos, but also creates videos as I dream. These are mostly movies in the making; because I can do everything in my dreams, they do not need to be logical. I heard the phrase “Dream Theater” and I smiled. What else can one call a dream other than a grand theater full of surprises? Moreover, although the length of time that a dream takes up is not that long, it still contains a sizeable story that takes up days of real life. It’s one rabbit warren inside another.

As the rain hits the Boston ground, I look outside my window at my moving picture. Through this open window, I also hear the pitter-patter of the falling rain. The smell of wet soil seeps into my room. I shut my eyes and I can repaint the entire picture, using nothing but sounds and smell. What kind of magic is this? I cannot stop myself as I think about Him, the Producer of the real movie of my very existence. After all, I know that He loves me. No matter how busy I am watching man-made movies inside the real movie, I feel the presence of the true artist always with me and the imprint of His ever-lasting art in every moment of my life.

“Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called ‘The Pledge.’ The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course… it probably isn’t. The second act is called ‘The Turn.’ The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you’re looking for the secret… but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call ‘The Prestige.’”

The above quote is taken from the script of the movie “The Prestige.” This article is not about that movie; nor is it a critique of any film. It is an attempt to use the theme of the movie “The Prestige” to provide a different perspective on the brutal power struggle that has taken place in the international political arena over the last century. For those readers who have not seen the movie, the story is about two famous rival magicians who sabotage one another’s performances. When one performs a successful trick, the other becomes obsessed with disclosing the secret of his competitor. The rivalry is so intense that in the end they become murderers.

Drawing an analogy, I see that the battle for “The Prestige” among today’s power centers is not that different from the deadly rivalry of nineteenth century magicians-only today’s magicians have more advanced methods and more engineering power. Moreover, the tricks they use in competition for supremacy are costing more lives than ever. Throughout human history there has always been a battle of supremacy among nations. Mostly, this has been carried out with political or diplomatic sanctions, but when necessary, this volatile rivalry has been transformed into disastrous wars with intelligent tricks.

Now, read the remainder of the article and decide for yourself whether the above analogy facilitates an understanding of the bigger picture of some global conflicts. In the end, we will focus on an alternative way that could attain much better results with more humane means.

The Pledge

The basic nature of the power struggle is that the involved parties always try to dominate one another in any domain of power-economic, military, diplomatic, ideological, technological, or cultural. They strive to establish systems and sanctions over others in order to divide up, or rather not to divide up, global resources.

In this ordinary struggle there will come a day when one or several of the parties involved in the struggle begin to feel that other means are necessary to establish a new world order, and they start to perform their magic. They start with the death of a preeminent person, or an unfortunate event; this may be a local disaster or a much unexpected incident. But whatever happens, they make a great noise about it, manufacturing a crisis, and thus attaining global attention. Sometimes the crisis is so disruptive that people are able to think of nothing else.

One recent example of this type of crisis is the tragic events of September 11, 2001. On a busy and beautiful New York morning everything stopped and events occurred that would shock the world. Some twenty crazy people-and whoever was behind them-killed more than three thousand people, bringing down the WTC towers and shaking not only New York City, but the entire world, in a matter of hours.

On another September morning, sixty years earlier, a similar disaster occurred when a madman decided to march with the German army to seize the entire continent of Europe. That march ended six years later, after millions of lives had been lost, including the lives of those who had started it.

Around twenty-five years before that, yet another disaster started with the assassination of an archduke in June 1914. Again, a sudden death and a shock wave of deaths followed the onset of World War I.

The number of examples can be increased, but the important thing here is that on a normal morning, people are shocked by unexpected news and their daily routines are disrupted. For most people, their world views change and the important paradigms shift, initiating a great change in their lives.

The Turn

Experiencing the shock that has been caused by the unfortunate events of “the pledge,” even before people have a chance to mourn, hundreds of questions start to fly… But how? Who? Why? While trying to extricate themselves from this trauma people cannot help but keep asking themselves: Who could do this? Why would they do this? And consequently, they start searching for answers.

Any victim of a disaster, indeed, anybody who experiences such an incident, is naturally filled with intense emotions. Even long after the trauma most people are still upset, anxious, sad, or angry, while others even become depressed. Therefore, they can neither think straight nor find any meaningful explanations for events. Even if they were to ask questions, it would not be possible to find any immediate answers. As a reaction, they try to find someone to blame for the situation, so that there is a target for their emotions.

It is at this point that the technical or social engineers of “the modern magicians” come on stage and make the real picture disappear by transforming it into another image. People who were looking at the screaming children or listening to the cries for help a day ago no longer see or hear such things. People who were searching for the responsible parties and who were trying to discover the truth behind all the noise, stop and search no more. The social engineers smoothly direct the attention and emotions of the general public to something else, convincing them that the source of the problem has been located; there are no more investigations. Whether that which has been selected is really responsible for whatever has happened is not really important. Rather, now what is to be done is to take appropriate action.

This is what happened to our grandfathers at the beginning of the twentieth century, or during “the turn” of World War I. By no means was the assassination of Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand the sole trigger for the conflict; for some reason (!), the war plans (German Schlieffen Plan, French Plan XVII, Austria-Hungary’s Plan B and Russia’s Plan 19) had already been engineered long before 1914.

Similarly, in “the turn” of World War II, the invasion of Poland and the Sino-Japanese war led to a global conflict that split a majority of the world’s nations into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. Whatever the war plans that had been engineered on the two sides before the 1940s were, it was not long before more than twenty countries started fighting one another; after six years, World War II, which had spanned much of the globe, resulted in the deaths of over fifty million people, making it the deadliest conflict in human history. God knows whether justice was delivered in the end or not.

The “magicians” of that time, maneuvering the war as they wished, used every trick including, but not limited to, thousands of armored vehicles, hundreds of bombers, submarines, and finally the atom bomb, to change the direction of the war. Like in the movie “The Prestige,” some say they used the methods of Nikola Tesla, and tried to make huge objects literally disappear (the alleged Philadelphia Experiment ), and sometimes they managed to do so, but in rather more costly and deadly ways (the Manhattan Project ).

In “the turn” of 9/11 attacks, Iraq was invaded due to the allegation of weapons of mass destruction being hidden by Saddam Hussein and his connections to Al Qaeda leaders. Since this invasion, there have been some claims that the terrorist attacks and allegations were a “turn” to pave the way for a new era in human history. Let us first take a look at the third act of the aforementioned wars.

And The Prestige

The prestige, the third act, of World War I could be characterized as “New Imperialism” or “ethnic nationalism.” New imperialism was distinguished by an unprecedented pursuit of what has been termed “empire for empire’s sake.” This consisted of aggressive competition for overseas territorial acquisitions and the emergence of jingoistic doctrines in colonizing countries that denigrated the ability of the subjugated people to carry out self-government. In reaction to this, ethnic nationalism became popular in such colonies, sometimes in the form of nation-states, sometimes in extreme forms like ethnic cleansing. In the end, it would not be unfair to say that “the prestige” of World War I was very different from what had been intended.

The prestige of World War II can be depicted as post-colonialism or liberal institutionalism, both found in the discourse of Cold War. The former dealt with matters of the cultural identity of the colonized societies, whereas the latter suggested that with the right factors, the international system could provide opportunities for cooperation and interaction. Many nations in the Middle East or the Far East experienced identity problems, and in some cases these issues evolved into new crises or even civil wars. Opposing camps were maintained throughout the Cold War, with some different allies or enemies, and more deadly weapons were built. The idealism of liberal international institutions did not help much, because alternative blocks were formed in the opposing camps and this only accelerated the race to dominate one another in different power domains. Again, “the prestige” of World War II was very different than the intentions that had formed in people’s minds.

What is more interesting is that, within the causality of international relations, “the prestige” of one war became “the pledge” of the following. The nation-states or ethnic cleansing that appeared in the aftermath of WWI evolved into WWII, and the liberal institutionalism of post-WWII era has now evolved into a global war on terror. As part of the ramifications of liberal institutionalism, if states are unable to cooperate then they are curbed, with either economic or military actions. The future remains uncertain in many aspects with regards to the power struggle in the world.

In The End

All in all, the main question still remains: Are the magicians of our time achieving “the prestige” they have been creating for so long? Have we yet observed a third act which deserves our applause? I seriously doubt it. All the magic tricks they have used neither justify the means nor have they brought any prestige. For the most part they have even lost what is left of the global prestige they had. But the social engineers still keep fueling the fire with their self-fulfilling prophecies of a “clash of civilizations” and an inevitable Armageddon.

Obviously, this never-ending rivalry among modern magicians cannot bring any good to any state or nation, including those who are in control of it. The intelligence and the engineers of these magicians could very well use more productive ways to promote liberal democracy and build alliances among different nations.

There have indeed been ongoing efforts for the “alliance” or “dialogue of civilizations,” which has actually been discussed many times in this magazine, The Fountain. In two such articles, the necessity for dialogue is emphasized with evidence from religious texts given, as well as quotes from modern philosophers, and the conclusion drawn is that dialogue among people from different walks of life is inevitable. Sooner rather than later we have to learn to live together on this unique planet and share its resources with respect and compassion for all. “Even though compassion and hatred are both present as realities in this world, it is indeed compassion that is the essence of all existence. Were it not for compassion as the essence of creation, human beings or any other thing would not have come into existence nor would they remain in existence.”

In order to achieve this compassion, everyone, not only modern magicians, has to make a paradigm shift in our minds and hearts, because, as Einstein eloquently put it, “The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.” He is probably right that such a task is harder than splitting an atom, but surely, it is worth pursuing.

Veli Keskin is a freelance writer living in Maryland, USA.

Notes

1. This quote is taken from the script of the film The Prestige, written and directed by Christopher Nolan, adapted from Christopher Priest’s novel. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482571/quotes
2. Plot Summary for “The Prestige”, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482571/plotsummary
3. The Planning of the War, http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/plans.htm
4. The Philadelphia Experiment, http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq21-1.htm
5. The Manhattan Project, http://www.cfo.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/index.htm
6. Salih Yucel. “The Necessity of Dialogue,” The Fountain, 2007, No. 57.
7. M. Fethullah Gulen. “The Necessity of Interfaith Dialogue,” The Fountain, 2000, No. 31.
8. M. Fethullah Gulen. “Compassion,” The Fountain, 2008, No. 63.

Of course you have been watching movies for years. Maybe you have subscribed to various cable or satellite channels so that you can watch even more movies. So, how many of them had the qualities mentioned above? How many of them, produced with enormous budgets and large casts and over-promoted, can you watch without finally becoming bored ? How many of them can fill you with indescribable emotions and make you resolve to follow in the footsteps of those characters?

One such movie is the masterpiece The Message. How many times have you seen it? I am sure that some of you have watched it ten, fifteen, or even more times. This would not surprise me at all, for we do not get weary of reading the Qur’an, which God revealed to humanity as the source of guidance and peace. Likewise, the lives and struggles of those who tried to live according to the Quranic teachings do not tire us. On the contrary, The Message refreshes your spirit each time you watch it.

There are two versions of this movie. The Message, directed by Moustapha Akhad and produced in the U.S., attracted attention due to the participation of some famous actors and actresses, among them Anthony Quinn, who “lives” the role he plays, Hamza, the Prophet’s uncle. Irene Papas, who played Abu Sufyan’s wife Hind, made this woman a prominent character, although historically Hind did not have an important part in the story.

The other film, the Arab made al-Risala, which has almost the same scenario, was watched mostly in Arab countries. Its most distinguishing feature is that the Qur’anic verses are recited in their original form (instead of in translation). This movie did not attract as much attention, because there were no movie stars in the leading roles. Nevertheless, the characters are portrayed quite successfully.

In both movies, Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is not shown. Rather, he is symbolized through the staff he carries, the camel he rides, or the people who talk with him. Both scenarios begin by depicting the “Era of Ignorance” period in Arabia. Makka’s social structure and its culture are shown in some detail: the prevailing tyranny and injustice, the hundreds of deities being worshipped and the sacrifices offered to them, the annual fairs, and other activities are presented. This was the milieu into which the Prophet was born. His world was one in which poetry and rhetoric was favored, women and slaves were not regarded as human, where might was right, and where thousands of people died in blood feuds. In short, there was no one to stand up as a living monument of faith or courage or to speak up for the truth.

We read about the Prophet’s life or learn about it from the people around us. But how many times have we contemplated his struggles and difficulties in order to understand him better? These works fulfill an important duty in terms of informing those who do not have the time for such contemplation about the lives of these ascetic people, by taking them to the Makka of that time.

The revelation’s beginning is portrayed by reciting the first verses in the darkness of the Hira cave. First, the Prophet invites those who are close to him to Islam. Everything is done in great secrecy. The setting is the house of Ibn Arqam (where the early Muslims gathered) and the new converts devote themselves to this cause there. When there are 40 of them, the period of public preaching begins. Then we see another touching scene: the Muslim community is walking toward the Ka’ba with the Messenger in the middle. They are met with stones, spittle, clubs, and insults. One of the most spectacular scenes is close at hand: Hamza, whom the Messenger later nicknamed “the lion of God,” rescues these people, who could have been killed on the spot due to the provocations of Abu Jahl. He rides through the crowd and, to everyone’s surprise, dismounts and hits Abu Jahl with his bow. As a result of beginning to preach in public, the poor and weak Muslims are subjected to violence at the hands of the Makkan polytheists. The audience sees Bilal and Ammar ibn Yasar being tormented and tortured.

One of the most emotive scenes is the discussion held before King Negus between the first Muslims and the Makkan polytheists who followed them there. The Prophet, describing Negus as a just ruler, told the persecuted Muslims to take refuge in his land. So, Amr ibn al- ‘As, at that time a polytheist, was sent to bring them back and was given many gifts to bestow upon Negus. The king listens to their conversation for a long time, and for a moment thinks about handing them over, but decides to protect them after Ja‘far ibn Abu Talib recites the Quranic verses about Mary. These scenes are significant in that they show how the Christians of that time and area viewed Islam.

After a while, the Prophet and many Muslims emigrate to Madina. Another well-known scene is when the Messenger and Abu Bakr enter Madina. When the people, who have been waiting for days on the rooftops and in the trees, begin singing the hymn Talaal Badru to welcome him enthusiastically, a scene is created to touch the heart of all that witness it. And Madina’s Muslims, who beg the Makkan immigrants to stay with them, as well as the heartfelt embraces that are the product of the affiliation felt between the two groups, fill our hearts with emotion and our eyes with longed-for sights.

The following scenes depict the wars between the Muslims and the polytheists. Both movies give a detailed depiction of the battles of Badr and Uhud. The war tactics practiced around the wells of Badr and Mount Uhud are presented as comprehensively as possible. The peace of Hudaybiyah is pictured, but not focused on much. After the polytheists break the treaty, the Muslims, now more powerful than before, led by the Messenger and his followers, march upon Makka. Campfires are lit around Makka to intimidate the polytheists, Abu Sufyan tries to make peace and then coverts to Islam, we see the Prophet’s entrance to the city and witness him heading toward the Ka’ba…

Here come the scenes that fill you with emotion and move you so much. The Makkan exiles are once again walking along the streets of their hometown. Some embrace their relatives, kiss the ground, or similar actions. But the Prophet, who missed God’s House more than anything else, enters the Ka’ba … and we go inside with him. He uses his staff to topple the idols that have darkened the soul of humanity one by one, for they are nothing but stones and wood. We become so absorbed that, for a moment, we forget that we are watching a movie and wish that the camera would move a little so that we could see his blessed hand holding the staff, as well as his holy face. Bilal stands upon the Kab‘a’s roof and calls the faithful to prayer, just as the Prophet has told him to do. This call rings out in Makka … bliss fills the hearts, tears fill the eyes.

Then comes the final scene: the Farewell Sermon. One hundred thousand people fill the Uranah valley of Mount Arafat, and all eyes and ears turn upon him. At the end of this sermon, after he hears his community bear witness that he has fulfilled his duty, he says: “O God, Bear witness!” three times.

We see three blessed riders in the desert, representing the thousands of companions who went out into the world to invite people to Islam. After a certain point they separate, saying farewell to each other. Perhaps never to return, they are setting off for lands that are completely unknown to them in order to obey the Messenger’s command to tell others about Islam. Then the calls to prayer begin, one after another, recited in different tones, from mosques of different architectural styles, located in different lands.

This is how the movie ends , but you just keep sitting in front of the screen for a while. Though your eyes are still on the screen, fixed absently, your mind is there, far away in the deserts of Madina, thinking about the exalted guide who reminded people of their humanity, about the world which had been oblivious of humanity. Your soul is striving to follow on his path, and you leave your seat in a completely different mood.

The movie makers probably did not intend to make killing look attractive. But was it the final effect anyways? Do movies depicting indecent acts fail to show the consequences sufficiently? What can society do about this trend? These and similar questions have been asked and debated for decades. Below, we analyze a time in Hollywood when the concentrated efforts of concerned individuals and organizations had a significant positive impact on forcing the movie industry to move toward self-regulation.

The Beginning of the Movie Industry

Movies rose as a new form of entertainment at the turn of twentieth century. By the 1920s, 40 million Americans were watching them each week. After winning the right to vote in 1920, flapper girls were exercising their new-found freedom, Harlem nightclubs flourished with whites with an interest in African American culture, and the number of gangs selling liquor during Prohibition increased. Movie producers displayed these value changes in their films to attract more young people. This started the big fight between America’s moral guardians and the movie makers.

Hollywood scandals in the early 1920s accelerated the demand for movie censorship. In 1921, the famous comedian Fatty Arbuckle was accused of raping and murdering a young actress; director William Desmond Taylor was found murdered, and a series of front page stories revealed his drug use and sex life; actor Wallace Reid died of a drug overdose; and America’s “sweetheart,” Mary Pickford, got a quick divorce to marry Douglas Fairbanks.

The motion picture business had become an industry. Film companies seeking to integrate production, distribution, and exhibition had one formula in mind: expansion meant capital, capital meant Wall Street, and Wall Street meant conservative business practices. They could not afford any scandals or federal investigations of Hollywood.

The Pressure for Codes Builds

Leff and Simmons write: “In 1921 alone, solons in thirty-seven states introduced nearly one hundred bills designed to censor motion pictures. Women could not smoke on screen in Kansas but could in Ohio; a pregnant woman could not appear on screen in Pennsylvania but could in New York. Six censorship states, which controlled over thirty percent of the theater seats in America, condemned illegitimacy and sexual deviance.”(1) State censors recut films after the producers, and the outcome was unfavorable. Local exhibitors were tired of the cost of censor cuts and attacks by the public and the media. In January 1922, the movie company presidents formed a trade association, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributers of America (MPPDA). Postmaster General Will Hays, an ex-Republican national chairman with White House connections, was chosen as their head. He was a great success as a spokesperson, but failed as a censor regulator of movie content.

Under Hays, Hollywood instituted a morals clause that, as part of the standard employment contract, regulated performers’ off-screen lives: “The artist agrees to conduct himself with due regard to public conventions and morals and agrees that he will not do or commit any act or thing that will tend to degrade him in society or bring him into public hatred, contempt, scorn or ridicule, or that will tend to shock, insult or offend the community or ridicule public morals or decency or prejudice the producer or the motion picture industry in general.”(2) Furious with such self-regulation and restraints, many ignored the contract, and so the scandals continued.

A mainly Protestant anti-movie lobby grew larger and more threatening in the mid-1920s. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the Reverand William H. Short’s Motion Picture Research Council, and Canon William Shaefe Chase’s Federal Motion Picture Council, among others, all lobbied for federal action. Supporters of cencorship bills claimed that movies were immoral, vile, and corrupting young people. With the advent of —talking— films, the moral guardians of America faced a bigger threat: movies were more popular and dialogue challenged public norms. According to Black: —In 1928 the New York State censorship board cut over 4,000 scenes from more than 600 films submitted, and Chicago censors sliced more than 600 scenes.—(3) Martin Quigley, owner and publisher of the industry trade journal Exhibitors Herald-World, initiated in 1929 the first attempt by Catholics to influence the film industry. Believing that government censorship was futile, he began thinking of a code that would include rules, regulations, and philosophy. Father FitzGeorge Dinneen, Chicago censor board advisor, sent him to Father Daniel Lord, a St. Louis University professor who could write the document. The resulting production code had three working principles:

• No picture should lower the moral standards of those who see it.

• Law, natural or divine, must not belittled, ridiculed, nor must a sentiment be created against it.

• As far as possible, life should not be misrepresented, at least not in such a way as to place in the mind of youth false values of life.(4)

The production code termed movies entertainment, and those who made them were obligated to produce —correct entertainment— for mass audiences. Movies had a profound impact on the —bodies and souls of human beings,— and could —affect spiritual and moral progress.— Hays saw the code in early 1930. He later wrote: —My eyes nearly popped out when I read it. This was the very thing I had been looking for.—(5) The code announced specific limitations on language and behavior. Lots of offensive words and phrases were banned, and the ridicule of religion, nudity, evocative dances, depiction of illegal drug use, and scenes of childbirth were prohibited. The code was explicit when it came to on-screen crime and sex:

I. Crimes against the Law

These shall never be presented in such a way as to throw sympathy with the crime as against law and justice or to inspire others with a desire for imitation.

1. Murder

1. The technique of murder must be presented in a way that will not inspire imitation
2.  Brutal killings are not to be presented in detail c. Revenge in modern times shall not be justified

2. Methods of crime should not be explicitly presented

1. Theft, robbery, safe cracking, and dynamiting of trains, mines, buildings, etc., should not be detailed in method
2. Arson must be subject to the same safeguards
3. The use of firearms should be restricted to essentials d. Methods of smuggling should not be presented

3. Illegal drug traffic must never be presented a. The use of liquor in American life, when not required by the plot or for proper characterization, will not be shown.

II. Sex

The sanctity of the institution of marriage and the home shall be upheld. Pictures shall not interfere that low forms of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing. 1. Adultery, sometimes necessary plot material, must not be explicitly treated, or justified, or presented attractively. 2. Scenes of Passion a. They should not be introduced when not essential to the plot. b. Excessive and lustful kissing, lustful embraces, suggestive postures and gestures, are not to be shown. c. In general passion should so be treated that these scenes do not simulate the lower and baser element.(6) Interestingly, the above principles set forth by a Catholic scholar were in perfect accord with the moral codes of Islam, another Abrahamic religion that prohibits the vivid depiction of actions not approved by God.(7) By the beginning of the Depression, film studios turned increasingly to themes of sex and violence to attract audiences. Finally, Hays used the resulting public reaction to persuade the studios that enforcing the code would be the most secure and economical answer to their troubles. If the movie industry regulated itself, it could prevent likely government intervention. The film companies were in debt, having spent a lot of money to introduce sound, and many had lost money in the stock market crash of 1929. Desperate to cut costs, they decided to avoid paying to revise the film after the censorship boards made their edits, by following the code before making their movies. The code was adopted in 1930.

Joe Breen Gets Involved

During 1930-34, movie producers ignored and openly mocked the code. The pressure continued from the Catholic Church with the support from Jewish and Protestant leaders. In 1934 Joe Breen, a strict Catholic moralist working as a public relations man for the production code in Hay’s office, was hired to run Hollywood’s Production Code Administration (PCA). Breen brought new standards: —The PCA had the authority to review all movies and demand script changes. Any theater that ran a film without the PCA seal of approval would be fined $25,000.—(8) Finally the Code had some power. Studios accepted it and produced films that met Breen’s standards. Largely because of his efforts to get the code implemented, it has become known as Breen’s Code. It lasted for more than two decades, being officially abandoned only in 1968. Breen’s Code is a perfect example of people affecting the behavior of institutions whose motives may not match the best interests of the people they serve. By expressing their dissatisfaction and organizing to pressure the motion picture industry, Americans managed to change the nature of the movie industry’s products toward higher moral standards held in common by most monotheistic religions. As we go into the twenty-first century, there are many areas in which people of faith can work together to make a positive change in their societies and the world

Footnotes

1. Six states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, New York, Maryland, Kansas, and Virginia. Leonard J. Leff, and Jerold L. Simmons, The Dame in the Kimono (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990), 4.
2. Ibid., 5.
3. Gregory D. Black, Hollywood Censored (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 34.
4. Leff and Simmons, The Dame in the Kimono, 284-85.
5. Black, Hollywood Censored, 40.
6. Leff and Simmons, The Dame in the Kimono, 284-85.
7. Bukhari, —The Prophets,— No. 8.
8. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/beyond/hollywood.html.

Additional References

• O’Connor, John E. and Jackson, Martin A. (eds.). American History/American Film.
• New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1979. Walsh, Frank. Sin and Censorship. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.

Much later, the 1990s generation was on everybody’s tongue. A generation that developed a relationship with a computer joystick, that can assume any identity from James Bond to the Queen of England in a virtual that expanded from kick-boxing to strategy games that can think and act in very limit ed areas, Internet geeks whose connection to life is united by the interactive means offered, and that is indifferent to social and even familial problems.

However, there is another generational in between, a generation that inherited the elders’ knowledge. This generation more or less knows equality, social justice, freedom of ideas and speech. Although it does not believe that “we are no more a hunting society,” its members are so cowed that they can be labeled at most a small gear of the System.

This generation is surrounded by new needs and modern solutions put to them, is being mechanized and is aware of what this means. Hence, a generation in deep suffering… It is contaminated, but aware of how it happened. It is living in a house full of furniture, yet aware of the “humiliation” this represents. It is working, yet aware of how “success” becomes an idol that enslaves people. It believes in heaven, is aware of its expulsion, and has not yet lost the hope of heaven, yet it is scared to confront hell and trapped in a dilemma. Again a generation in deep suffering.

What can stop this suffering? Who is the other thief in “set a thief to catch a thief,” that famous proverb? Love, or else an enormous experience that makes you feel alive? How about a fist that reminds you of your veins and the blood they contain? But please you first!

Fight Club starts with scenes from the life of a yuppie. From this introduction we understand the extent of his boredom. He makes “profitable” inspections for an automotive company and suffers insomnia due to statistics, numbers, and routines. The truth is that Norton, our protagonist whom we see with a gun pointed to his mouth, flashbacks the story for us.

The narrator, while seeking a cure for his long-lasting insomnia finds himself in a solidarity organization for the fatally ill. Marla, who attends every therapy session just as he does, disturbs him like him, she also is actually not “dying.” This irritates the narrator, who bad been the only healthy man present. Thus, even though he feels good, his problems recur.

We now begin to observe his metamorphosis, which starts with a chance encounter with the imposing, charismatic, and intelligent Tyler Durden on a plane that led to the start of the Fight Club. But what a club! A club with two rules: 1) You don’t talk about the Fight Club, and 2) You don’t talk about the Fight Club.

Tyler says that self-destruction, rather than self-improvement, might be the answer. Hence, every meeting is full of bloodshed, the fighting people are actually friends, and every punch means happiness for them!

The club’s very name, the close fighting scenes, and the phenomenon of ‘relief/purification” based on mutual consent seemingly gives the impression that Fight Club sanctifies violence. On the contrary, as in Seven and Game, David Fincher presents us with an ironic and hence indirect criticism of the System.

Tyler Durden, a sort of externalized inner soul of the narrator, utters things that are hard to disagree with, such as “You’ll get used to consuming more than you need. Then your belongings will eventually own you,`”, “You are not a beautiful and unique snow-flake” ,“If you have nothing to lose, you won’t be scared to lose,” and “You are not your job. You are not how much you have in the bank. You are not the contents of your wallet. You are not your khakis.”

Durden is asking for the television generation’s rage, and hence is trapped by the surmise of being a rock star or a CEO. But he is not offering a solution; be is merely promising a few hours of liberation from the “cowshed.”

The docile, quiet, and harmonious members of the lower class behave as they wish and discharge on the only property where the right of imposition is left to them, at least for a few hours. However, it does not stay there.

The action spreads to the streets, and deliberately harms the temples of consumption and the System’s key points. The goal is liberating individuals who spend their days under supervision and store unhappiness at night while “watching” other people’s lives, making them feel alive by peculiar experiences up to and including death! Yet it is only after you have lost everything that you are free to do anything. Fight Club represents that kind of freedom.

These relief scenes that are easily transformed into purification ceremonies, as well as the “liberating actions” thesis, evolved into a hegemony that even refuses the identities of its members. The fact that Tyler’s tyranny is a bad replica of the “great corrupt System” is accentuated by Fincher’s ingenious irony.

Let me tell you about Tyler. He had a plan. They trusted him. Tyler said that whatever they own end up owning them. The difference between the goals of the director and the characters becomes apparent. Moreover, Fincher fictionalizes group therapy and the modern psychiatry behind it as a “world of escapism.” The plump man in a group therapy session, a method peculiar to modern society, symbolizes modern times, which advises chemicals for every happiness and ideal.

Fight Club is an inexplicable movie… According to one reviewer: “Even if it was not such an effective satire, it is worth seeing just for its astonishing visual style.”1 It is a dark movie that can be viewed from many angles: revolutionary violence to social personality disorders, the relation between men who see themselves as the “waste of the world” and women who “raise them,” and individual-group identification.

However, I assume it probably will reach the generation that grew up at the “wrong time.” It will occupy a bright place in cinema’s scale, and will be talked about just like Seven, with its cast, story, surprises, and astounding camera. Fight Club is one of 1999’s best films. However, remember the warning: “Restricted: Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.”

Footnotes

1. Michael Skeet, “Fight Club: An effective, incisive movie.” See: http://infoculture. cbc.ca/archives/filmtv/filmtv_10191999_ fightclub.phtml

References

• Aksiyon, 263 (December 1999).
• http://www.foxmovies.com/fightclub/
• http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hV&id=1800018964&cf=info
• http://infoculture.cbc.ca/archives/filmtv/filmtv_10191999_fightclub.phtml

Even though today’s viewers consider Frankenstein too pedestrian, viewers in 1931 found it so frightening and disgusting that Whale was criticized quite harshly. Earlier fantastic horror films that served as early examples of this genre, such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, were adaptations of literature and did not have much cinematographic merit.

In the 1930s, with the appearance of sound pictures, the movie industry could no longer remain indifferent to horror movies-especially the big success of Dracula, directed by Todd Browning and starring Bela Lugosi.

Up until World War II, many horror movies were released one after the other. As the war intensified, the genre’s theme shifted to psychological distress, and gradually toward European themes.

Violence and Blood

In England, near the end of 1950s, traditional horror films continued to be produced: Dracula, Revenge of Frankenstein, The Mummy, and The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll. However, the genre’s content changed somewhat. As color movies emerged, such movies as Paranoiac, Nightmare, Evil of Frankenstein, and Hysteria contained more violence, blood, massacres, and impalings, rather than fantastic themes. As viewer interest increased, the genre was accepted by the world’s leading cinema industries, including those in Asia, and horror films were shown around the world. In Italy, movies like the very successful The Mask of Satan acquired cult status.

Hollywood Begins To Rule

The American movie industry of the 1970s, the heart and soul of the global movie industry, gave considerable room to this genre, especially in the case of small-budget productions. However, the fantastic heroes of classical horror movies were replaced almost completely by exaggerated and “real” horror. Movie screens turned into pools of blood and depicted shoving needles into people’s eyes, cannibalism, dismembering bodies with chainsaws, and devil possession. Many movies had to be toned down before their release, among them Tobe Hooper’s The Exorcist (1973); David Cronenberg’s They Came From Within, The Parasite Murders, and Shivers (1975); John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978); and Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1983).

Additionally, movies like Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) and Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) blended science fiction and horror or comedy and horror. More importantly, they were big hits with moviegoers.

In contemporary horror movies, which produce sequels proportional to the interest stirred, we observe harsh criticism of society and the system, as well as a blending of comedy and horror or an accentuation of metaphysics. In recent years, movies produced by Wes Craven and John Carpenter, whose names are now forever linked with this genre, were warmly welcomed by moviegoers.

Giovanni Scognamillo: “Horror” lost its credibility

In recent years, the horror genre has suffered several traumas. The main problems are its diminishing credibility and marketability concerns. Giovanni Scagnamillo, the famous Italian director, says: “We can assure horror movies a type of popular cinema. Despite this, many famous directors show interest in this genre. Undoubtedly, there are really bad horror productions of this type. We can even say that most of them are substandard, second class.

“However, there also are many unpromising movies in other genres. In my opinion, we should talk about the cinematographic value of the movies. As a pro of the horror genre, I am in favor of fantastic horror. It can cover more topics and different dimensions. You can do anything as long as you use your imagination. Other horror types have to confirm to specific restrictions. In horror movies, credibility is rather hard to find, because Hollywood is producing movies for a relatively young audience, regardless of budget. Grown-ups do not go to movies very often. Hence to attract young people, producers accentuate effects and go for the shock effect.” (Asik, 2)

A movie released on July 30, 1999, has overcome these problems via the newest form of media: the Internet. It also signals a new era in horror movie genre.

The Blair Witch Project

Two young men and a women go into the forests of Maryland to shoot a documentary. They end up filming The Blair Witch Legend, which has somehow survived until today. They interview area residents, talk to historians, and produce a documentary film by synthesizing the gathered data. Mysteriously, nothing is heard of them for a year. Then the following year, deep in the forest in which they were lost, their footage is found. In the scenes shot with one color and one black-and-white camera, their research and horrifying nights spent in the forest are recorded. This is a very brief summary of the movie. If you think you have a fine topic, a fascinating novel, and enough material to produce an impressive horror movie, all you have to do is create a proper fiction. This is what Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, two university pals, did. Their movie, The Blair Witch Project, has already made $150 million in box office sales just in the United States. Another astounding aspect is that it cost only about $30,000 to make. After El Mariachi, which carried Robert Rodriguez to Hollywood in 1993 and cost only $7,000, The Blair Witch Project is another exemplar of a low-budget film becoming a box office success.

A Fake Documentary

The planning stage of The Blair Witch Project is as interesting as its theme. In 1992, two University of Central Florida (Orlando) students decide to shoot a documentary movie in a television-series style. They call their production a documentary, although most of it is made up. First, they devise The Blair Witch Legend and backdate it to 1785. The plot features a woman who, accused of witchcraft and sorcery, is left in the middle of a forest to die. To support their story, they fabricate historians, police, and townspeople, as well as some footage of the witch’s house, which was allegedly found later in the forest. When they relate their idea to a professor in the Theatrical Arts department, they are told it is “the most ridiculous and nonsensical project I’ve ever heard of,” and are shown the door. Ignoring this comment, in 1994 they send three young people to a desolate forest in Maryland with Hi-8 cameras. As the scenario necessitates, while they are going around the woods and shooting, more activity is brought to the movie by means of special messages received every morning in boxes. During the nights, the directors scare the actors by making strange noises. In six tiring days, they shoot 20 hours of raw film. Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez start working to make the material usable. They release the first version of the movie, which is 2.5 hours long, at the end of 1997.

The New Market: Virtual Environment

The film is now complete, yet there still is a problem: skyrocketing distribution and advertising costs. Besides, a box-office failure is not totally unlikely. To solve this problem, they come up with a brilliant idea: spreading the legend over the Internet. In 1998 the producers, who build a related Web-site, do something different from similar sites: They spread the legend to the masses instead of advertising the movie. After a television spot broadcast by the Independent Movie Channel, a fan circle begins to emerge. The number of interested people continues to increase, until it numbers in the millions. The famous Web-site, to which mostly young people are attracted, spreads among the public, who await the movie’s release with great curiosity.

Negative Criticisms

At the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, the movie receives harsh, mocking, sarcastic, and derisive criticism, especially from movie critics. After the festival, producers decide to budget $15 million for marketing and distribution. At this introductory stage, they put brochures about the movie inside books, make special programs for television channels, and arrange campaigns at school campuses. These efforts bear fruit, and the film enjoys great success in theaters. The Blair Witch Project, which was mocked at Sundance Film Festival and regarded as a nonsensical movie, is now accepted as a herald of a new era in the horror genre. Perhaps the reason for its success can best be explained by what Scognamillo talks about: its realism and documentary style, which gave it a great deal of credibility.

References

• Asik, Fatih. “Horror Genre.” Zaman, North American edition (27 September 1999).
• http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&id=1800019506&cf=info
• http://www.blairwitch.com/2
• http://www.film.com/reviews/features/99blairwitch/

– Moive Review

Science Fiction/Fantasy and Action/Adventure

Rated R for sci-fi violence and language

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano

Directed by: The Wachowsky Brothers

Produced by: Andrew Mason and Joel Silver

Written by: Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski

Distributor: Warner Brothers

In the year 1999. To be more precise, people believe it is the Year 1999. In facts we are well into the middle of the twenty-first century. In addition, this is not the only reality concealed from us. The “creators” of artificial intelligence were caught unprepared while they were drunk on the extent of their accomplishments. There has been a great revolution-machine revolted against humanity and conquered life. Now we do not even have a system about whose corruptness and shortcomings we can complain. Yet we continue to work from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in our daily shifts, eat hamburgers while watching television, and attend parties. Children are still being born, and the sun still rises and sets.

However, none of this really exists, for only the “Matrix” exists. This “Matrix” is the name of a dream from which we cannot awake. It also is a three-dimensional curtain pulled between reality and humanity. With your fork-actually your fork does not exist either-you can still feel the taste of a nonexistent slice of meat. Tiredness, disappointment, and sorrow are all possible, along with the signals they send to your brain, most of which they already own.

Unless you believe “ignorance is a virtue,” like someone who realizes the difficulty of “knowing” does after he or she has known, you would like to learn. Yet, you also realize immediately that knowing this particular truth does not exalt you. This is neither an auto-criticism nor a suggested solution, but rather a knowledge that you will not be able to relate to others with extravagant praise or mention in every meeting or social gathering.

In fact, you would prefer not to know it at all: Matrix is the name of a computer program that is animated as if it is “life.” In reality, our bodies are connected to metal basins, and cables of various sizes are plugged into us. Our life lasts only as long as (the lifetime of the “battery.” We are planted on electronic fields, harvested and fed “until we exhaust” the battery. We are walking around with large plap-ins,which provide our connection with the machine, located at the back of our heads. Only those few who were born naturally have seen the world in which real parents exist, known in the movie as “Zion,” and do not have plug-ins. Zion is the only place that the electronic barbarians cannot enter, which is why the ruthless guards of the Matrix are trying so hard to find its coordinates.

THE CHOSEN MAN

Thomas Anderson is a computer geek who works for a software company during the day and spends his nights as a computer hacker known as “Neo.” There is a truth that he has been trying to find for a long time: Is his life somehow being controlled? He is after “Morpheus,” whose name is usually uttered as if he were a terrorist. Neo feels that this man is somehow connected to his problems and can provide him some answers. Morpheus gets in touch with Neo through his assistant “Trinity.”

When they finally meet, Morpheus promises to show Neo “the truth,” of which even minute parts are invaluable. Now, faith is the power that reality cannot deny. Neglecting humanity’s fragile nature, men and women built the Machine and will defeat it to the extent that they can free their thoughts from it. Is Neo the awaited savior? If so, what will he promise to humanity? Unless they are killed at the instant they “awaken,” will he promise the underground breakfasts consisting of mossy oats at best? In place of a joyful but unreal world, can he promise a dark but real world?

ELECTRONIC SCIENCE FICTION

Finally, a science fiction movie that can be viewed with enjoyment and suspense, one that is graded “A” despite its shortcomings. In The Matrix, the dose of excitement, long and technical dialogues, and contrasts are properly blended. The fighting scenes, modeled after Asian action movies and modernized in a computer environment, have been transformed into a public demonstration by the aesthetic style of the Wachowsky brothers. They do not hesitate to use such scenes, for they know that even viewers who do not like such action and fighting scenes will appreciate the results. With cameras that can shoot 12,000 clips per second, with actors seemingly almost independent of gravity, these fighting scenes seem like dances conforming to the movie’s theme, rather than brutal fights.

The movie moves smoothly between prologue and awakening, development and meeting, result and struggle, and conclusion. Among the cool, black-clad men and women with sunglasses, Reeves, Fishburne, and Moss have peculiar facial expressions. But the movie itself has a power beyond its individual components. One example of this is how the camera approaches objects: In one scene, the camera is located right under the helicopter and window from which a gun is being fired. Both action areas can be seen, yet the focus is on cartridges seemingly suspended in the air and then gradually gliding to the ground

As a matter of fact, the question: “Seeing that this electronic mechanism fools man and condemns him to a virtual life, to a dream from which awakening is impossible, could not man be deceived by a better view of 1999 rather than the present one?” is answered before long. Agent Smith accidentally lets the cat out of the bag when he has cornered Morpheus: “We wished a better world for man, but man defines his essence with such misery and sorrow that these designs were rejected by human conscious in the experiments.”

The martial-art figures borrowed from Asia give the impression that this struggle to awaken humanity carries a deeper philosophy, yet only in the movie’s second half is this suspicion confirmed. But it is impossible not to notice the symbolic supports of the Bible and Greek mythology, which are layered one inside the other and pervade the movie’s life and imagery. The relationship of “Trinity” to the Bible is self-evident. Moreover, “Neo” (like his name, he also is “new”) ascends to his own “reality” under the protective wings of “Morpheus” (the Greek god of dreams), who heals the mental and physical harm caused by switching from one world to another. Trinity Morpheus, and Neo form a sacred trio who know the “truth” and partially own the mechanism to alter it. They are striving to benefit a humanity corrupted by its own faults, while at the same time being fully aware that they really do not have more than just their belief. Until he experiments with the limits of his powers to learn if he is the “Chosen One” or not, Neo continues to learn. A female soothsayer wants him to sacrifice himself. After all, is there any other savior for humanity, who became arrogant because of its accomplishments but lost the struggle against evil forces and was enslaved, other than a “Chosen One”?

A BROTHER TO LEM

I do not know how much of The Matrix is inspired by the science fiction work of Polish author Stanislaw Lem. But the theme of living in a fake world as if alive, which came to the public agenda with such books as Strangers by Day (by Vicki Malones, 1984) and movies as Dark City (written by Frank Lauria, 1998, the movie version released on February 27, 1998), or the theme of an existing dark reality contrary to the present make-believe world-in other words the theme of illusion-simulation-is not so new.

The Matrix’s story-line bears a considerable resemblance to a book written in the 1970s by Lem, who is considered to be the genius of science fiction. But rather than eulogies, Lem delicately criticizes science. He foresaw humanity’s misfortunes and degeneration years ago. He touches on the results of inventions and discoveries in his future tableaus, rather than becoming carelessly intoxicated by them, and analyzes our greed and inordinate desires via scientific diagnoses and terms. Lem fictionalizes a virtual world similar to The Matrix in his 1974 novel The Futurological Congress.

The story goes like this: After a space voyage, Ijon Tichy finds himself in an advanced twenty-first century civilization. He tries to understand the age in which he lives and what he missed while asleep in the shuttle. In this new age, people can assume any temperament they want via chemical stimulants, store in their brains any information they want to by means of drugs, torment those they hate in their virtual worlds, travel, and participate in any virtual fantasy. In this “democracy,” such serious social problems as prejudice and racial discrimination are solved by chemicals. Opportunities are endless. There are firms to decide things for you, fight your fights, even to satisfy your religious sentiments. In short, this society has an ultra-free market economy.

Ijon comes across a Professor Trottelreiner, whom he had known long ago and who was sent to sleep in a spaceship like himself. He shows Ijon more than he wants to know by giving him a bottle of fragrance to smell. The scent emitted from the bottle shows reality to Ijon. The eye-catching restaurant coated with Italian tile, and the palm trees are transformed into a coarse underground shelter. The pheasant they are eating is, in fact, a porridge that has a grayish-brown vomit-like color, because the last pheasant died 25 years ago. The palm tree is really the rubber underwear of the man living in the upper shelf, which in reality is too narrow. People inhabit an incredibly overcrowded world, and forks and knives are made of tin.

Worse than that, Ijon understands why people are always red and out of breath: There are no elevators, so people reach the ninth and tenth floors by climbing up elevator cords. The chemical empire has already started to transform them, for most people now have stained and discolored skins, longer ears, and scaly backs. All seen images and used chemicals conceal the already demolished system of the planet, on which more than 20 billion people live. The air we breathe is full of camouflage mascots, reality is hidden under layers of chemical products, and humanity is rescued superficially from the reality of poverty and misery!

The Matrix is a movie that should be seen more than once. The Wachowsky brothers took into consideration not only aesthetic styles, but also commercial worries by meeting the expectations of an average sci-fi viewer and then combining both issues on the same platform. After the Coen and Taviani brothers, it is possible to say that the Wachowsky brothers, who managed to attract interest with their previous movie Bound, have opened a respected room in the cinema for themselves with The Matrix. We can only hope that the sequels, already rumored to be coming soon, will be just as good.

The best side of the movie is the Matrix paranoia itself, which is even scary to say. The Matrix gains importance when the uncontrolled life is faced with the reality of existence, the purpose of which is almost forgotten. It gains importance by becoming the new name for alienation, enslavement, and enumeration. Everything is assigned a number, including people. Our identification and accomplishments, everything we do, is specified with statistics and numbers, which have more value than the individual in the twenty-first century.

The movie might be a fad, or a nine days’ wonder, simply another Spielberg special, like Jaws or E.T. However, this time the messages that the movie addresses have far-reaching consequences for mankind.

Thanks to Jurassic Park, our attention has been drawn to the recent achievements made in molecular biology and we have the opportunity to ponder how genetic engineering, in the hands of scientists who are apparently unrestrained by moral and ethical values, could threaten the ecological equilibrium of the planet and our very survival.

Let us consider the scientific advantages and ethical disadvantages of the advance of genetic engineering, by taking a look at the various applications of this knowledge in the modern world.

In Jurassic Park, John Hammond, played by Richard Attenborough, inspired by motives of forwarding the causes of science and making a profit, undertakes a scheme to clone living copies of dinosaurs from DNA extracted from fossilised, blood-sucking insects, preserved in amber. The origin of this idea was first proposed by George Poinar and his team at California University, Berkeley. In the last twenty years there have been many scientists working on the extraction of DNA from fossilized remains and the notion of obtaining dinosaur DNA in this way became feasible. Ironically, on the eve of the release of Jurassic Park, Poinar announced that his group had, in fact, extracted the first samples of genetic material from the age of the dinosaur. Using liquid nitrogen to crack open a sample of amber, DNA had been obtained from a weevil trapped 120 million years ago. Using gene-amplifying techniques, scientists are now able to make billions of copies of any piece of DNA.

I would like to draw your attention to two aspects of these scientific endeavors; firstly to the religious dimension and secondly to the wider ethical considerations of genetic engineering.

We must first ponder the notion that if it is possible for mortal human beings to produce synthetic RNA, one of the master-molecules in the nuclei of all cells, or to reproduce extinct animals by the retrieval of their DNA, surely it is possible for God, the All-Mighty, to recreate us from our bones on the Day of the Resurrection.

There are, of course, more secular ethical considerations in the application of genetic engineering. Today, scientists are experimenting with gene sequences and seem to have the ability to switch particular genetic codes on and off. By this means, science is on the brink of producing hybrid organisms in vitro. One recent experiment reported in The Economist (18th September 1993: pp.119-20) described how scientists were able to change the function of developing organs in four-hour-old fly embryos. One claim made recently is that the difference between man and chimpanzees is a few critical genes affecting intelligence. Are we to allow scientists, once these genes have been isolated, to create a hybrid intelligence? Are we ready to have these hybrid creatures living in our midst?

Will the Beast (Dabbah) mentioned in the Qur’an (al Naml, 27.82) be the result of such unrestrained scientific enquiry? What are the moral, ethical and religious implications of these advances?

When recent experiments on human cloning were publicized people seemed to worry, and worry deeply, about the horrific implications of duplicating a human embryo. This experiment is not the Jurassic Park-type cloning many might imagine. The worrying thing is that such technology really could pave the road to embryo factories to selling foetuses, freezing cloned foetuses for ‘spare organs’ that might be needed, or to be giving birth to genetically the same child at intervals, even to ‘maturing’ a twin cloned and stored for later use. According to Time’s survey 63% of people asked said human cloning is against God’s will; 90% of women stated that they would not be interested in cloning an embryo: a 58% said it is morally wrong (Time, 8 November 1993, pp.63-8).

In Jurassic Park, chaos theoretician Ian Malcolm, played by Jeff Goldblum, insists that what God has put asunder, no man should join together. Man should not interfere with the order of nature ordained by God and Malcolm says: ‘God created dinosaurs, God destroyed dinosaurs. God created Man, Man created dinosaurs’. Viewed in this perspective, can we foresee the consequences of interfering with this divine order, created by Allah in perfect balance? (al-Rahman, 55.8).

Today, genetic engineering is becoming a commercial enterprise in the hands of avaricious entrepreneurs and ethical considerations are being subverted by the desire for profit. The same technology is also being investigated to make tailor-made human organs, for transplantation into human patients. The specificity of these engineered organs would, in principle, avoid problems of rejection, as well as the practical and moral problems associated with human donors. This sounds good, but are we allowing ourselves, unhampered by moral considerations, to pave the way to a greater calamity?

Great advances have also been made in the field of agricultural genetics, with scientists trying to find answers to the problems of feeding a spiralling world population and of growing crops and raising cattle on poor soil or in adverse weather conditions. The Malthusian nightmare of populations being decimated by starvation has, to some extent, been averted in this century, although most of the benefits of these advances have been felt in the West where intensive farming of hardy crops and animal breeds have produced huge surpluses of food. For example, bovine growth hormone can be injected into dairy herds to give higher milk-yields and hybridization of crops has been used to produce strains which will grow in areas thought to have been useless for large-scale farming.

Genetic engineering in the field of producing vigorous or hardy varieties and breeds has signalled a new departure. Instead of the long, hit and miss processes of traditional hybridization, scientists are now able to isolate and transfer genetic material to improve the vigor of an organism or to increase its resistance to disease, insect damage or weed killers. Plants have been produced which fix their own nitrogen, as do natural legumes, and strains of bamboo have been reproduced which grow faster than the ‘natural’ varieties. All of this progress seems to suggest that yet another watershed has been reached in the realms of technology and productivity, which might offer benefits to all of mankind.

There is, however, another side to this coin. For example, hogs which have been treated with growth hormone are subject to gastric ulcers, arthritis, dermatitis and other diseases, making their already shortened lives a pain-ridden misery, and producing animals possibly unfit for human consumption. In Arable farming too, the production of herbicide-resistant crops encourages the indiscriminate spraying of chemicals on the land, increasing pollution of land and waterways. The agro-chemical companies are simply creating a ‘treadmill’ whereby new formulas are constantly needed to combat the new mutants of resistant pests.

Another environmental concern is that biotech agriculture will encourage the evasion of fundamental ecological reforms. If crop species can he easily bred to thrive in inhospitable conditions, farmers may fail to see the need to prevent environmental damage and simply wait for the scientists to engineer new crops or beasts to suit the new conditions. Would fish, genetically modified to flourish in acidified lakes, undercut the determination to clean up the air and water? Perhaps scientists should be concentrating more on the fundamental problems of the environment, rather than inventing palliatives to deal with the ravages of mankind. Surely it is better, for example, to find ways of conserving the rain forests than to invent ways of recreating their extinct flora and fauna?

Because of the limitless possibilities offered by the application of gene technology, DNA has become a corporate resource which can be patented and owned, designed in the laboratory and used to replace raw materials. This tendency may lead to the monopolization of genetic resources, placing control in the hands of multi-national giants whose main motive is profit, rather than with the people who need to use the technology to live.

Biotechnology will introduce a new era, greatly changing the way we live and the structure of our national economies. Food production in the laboratory will mean that traditional farming jobs will disappear–the EEC have already issued directives setting strict quotas for this type of production (EC Commission Directives 90/219 and 90/220). Consumers will also be directly affected and there is already a growing ‘grass-roots’ opposition to genetically engineered plants and animals. In the United States, for example, there have been moves to boycott such products and some restaurants have refused to serve genetically engineered foodstuffs. On 3rd October, l993, legislation came into force in Chicago obliging all food outlets to label genetically engineered food.

Studies in genetics are not confined to medicine and food production. In 1986, Professor Alec Jeffreys, of Leicester University in England, discovered that DNA is as individual as a finger-print and his research led to the genetic finger-printing techniques now established in forensic science. Samples of DNA taken from body fluids or tissues can provide an unmistakable ‘identity card’ and so assist in the conviction of offenders, particularly in cases of physical violence or sexual assault. DNA recovered from the victims of such crimes is now regarded by the British judicial system as highly reliable evidence and its use in the conviction of suspects is spreading, very rapidly, worldwide.

Even this seemingly overpoweringly beneficial use of genetic science has its dark side. The possibility of creating global genetic databases, with genetic information on all known criminals would appear to be an ideal solution in these times of escalating crime. However, there are issues of civil liberty to be tackled, and there is public resistance to such information being collated, using much the same arguments as have been used to resist the issuing of identity cards. There is also the problem of information held on these databases finding its way into the wrong hands. Again, mankind is faced with moral and ethical questions concerning the use and the abuse of technology.

Further Reading 

• BBC2 SERIES Cracking The Code: The Mouse That Laid The Golden Egg.
• HURREL, M. (1992) ‘Criminals Could Go On To World Blacklist’, The Times, 8 May, p.26.
• KENNEDY, P. (1993) Preparing for the Twenty-First Century, Harper-Collins Publishers, London, pp.65-8l.
• NASH, J. M. (1993) ‘How Did Life Begin?’, Time, 11 October, pp.53-9.
• RICHARD, M. et al. (1993) ‘Archaeology and Genetics: analyzing DNA from skeletal remains’. 25 (1) World Archaeology, pp.18-28
• TEICHMAN, D. L. (1993) Regulation of Recombinant DNA Research: a comparative study, 6 (1) Loyola Los Angeles International & Comparative Law, pp. l-35.
• TRUX, J. (1993) ‘A Case of Unmistakable Identity’, Observer, 13 August.
• WALKER, J. (1990) ‘DNA Profiling and Police Powers’, Criminal Law Review, pp. 479-93.
• TIME, (November 1993) ‘Cloning: Where Do We Draw The Line?’, pp.63-8.