"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" (MLK Jr.) Of course injustice is a threat to justice but those who are inflicting the injustice usually do everything they can to keep it out of the world's eye. It is our duty as people to exploit social and political injustices for the world to see. Recently a video went viral on the internet involving a man named a Joseph Kony who is the poster child for treating people unjustly. A short documentary was made showing the world what he had done and people reacted. The video nearly got 100 million views in one month. Although sometimes it is hard to tell, people really do care about others in our world, and when they are being treated unfairly or unjustly people rise up. But if there is no way to know or see the unjust behavior, people continue to live their lives, and nothing is done. I will say once again that weither you are a film maker or not it is our duty to exploit and prevent injustices from happening on our planet. It just so happens that film is one of the most effective ways to portray these events to get people involved. A fantastic example that is right in front of our face is the violence in the south side of our city. The film The Interrupters remarkably not only portrays the violence but shows the interruption process, giving its viewers an even even better reason to take action.
In order to prevent injustice you must exploit injustices.
Just playing devils advocate here but, though I believe injustice must be documented and perhaps stopped, can you really define something as injustice without looking at both sides of a story first? Seems to me that most modern day documentaries only display one side of a story, so if you watch just that, what other choice of opinion do you have? Isn't it better to look at both sides in a documentary and allow the viewer to decide which side or point of view they like?
ReplyDeleteCan you push further WHY film seems to reach people so effectively, Sam? Take, for example, the Kony film. Why did it go viral?
ReplyDeleteGlad you brought up "The Interrupters," by the way -- we start it tomorrow!