(Midterm Essay)
A documentary film is a movie that attempts, in some way or another, to document “reality”. Dictionary.com says that ‘documentaries’ are “factual films or television programs about an event, person, etc., presenting the facts with little or no fiction”. The scenes are not scripted and the people in the documentary are not actors; they are your average Jack and Jill down the street. In Media Literacy class, we were faced with the task of documentaries. In each of the documentaries, from The American Dream, to Food Inc., the purpose of the films was to tell society what we are facing with; to tell the reality of life. Before these documentaries, I never thought about how the government is hiding information from us, or how today, farms are no longer farms with green grass, but factories with antibiotic filled animals. Documentaries reveal different sides of life and inform us along the way. Not only does it make me aware of the life we are living in but also makes me critically think and wonder what else is going on in my life that should be uncovered.
Anything that has to do with politics, the government, or how our system works, does not mix well with me. I simply do not understand those aspects of life. So, for me, the cartoon, The American Dream, made me critically think. As well as the Alex Jones documentaries, their focus was to reveal to us, the people of the United States of America, what is going on in our government. The films shot out numerous amounts of information at us, from Alex Jones saying that we are living in tyranny and the government is hiding information behind our backs, to The American Dream stating that the Federal Reserve is in control of the bank’s money. Had I ever thought of this before coming to Media Literacy class? No way. This experience made me wonder what else is being hidden from us, the citizens of the United States. Being that I am a citizen, shouldn’t my government not keep information from me? These documentaries really stirred up a lot of questions in my mind.
From our government, to how the meat we buy in our local grocery store comes from filthy, often mistreated farms, documentaries try to uncover the truths of what is going on in society and how it affects us. In the disturbing and revealing documentary, Food Inc., the realities of what we eat is brought up to the front burner. When you buy a hamburger from your favorite restaurant or eat your school cafeteria’s chicken patty sandwich, do you sit down and ask yourself, where did this food come from? I know I don’t. I thought Food Inc. brought forth the disturbing truths of how the products that we eat are altered and treated. The produce that we buy may say “farm fresh”, but does that necessarily mean that it was grown on a luscious green farm, with leaves swaying in the cooling breeze? No. Today, we are solely producing food. Our food is a mass production, not a farm. These revealing truths about what we eat made me stop and think about what I consume; is what I am ingesting safe or was the animal treated poorly? It honestly makes you not want to eat. It sent a shock through me because the factual truth was right in front of our eyes. For example, the chickens we eat today were shown to be twice the size they used to be and get to that size twice as fast. Yet, we still consume it, not worrying.
If the government is corrupt and we are living in tyranny, or if the food we eat is coming from places of mistreatment, what else could be uncovered in our daily lives? Documentaries are set out to reveal the realities of what we are living through every day and they do so by presenting revealing facts and truths. These documentaries made me stop and think; is my government hiding information from me or where did my pork chop come from? The documentaries are set out to inform society of what is happening in our lives and sometimes, the reality is hard to swallow.
