The past week of documentaries in Media Literacy has been interesting, to say the least. The documentaries ranged from political titles by Alex Jones, "Police State 4: The Rise of Fema" and "Fall of the Republic: The Presidency of Barack Obama," to a political cartoon "The American Dream," and a documentary about food, "Food, Inc." Some of these documentaries by Alex Jones were hard to follow since I am not extremely educated about politics, but I still found them to challenge the mind. The political cartoon "The American Dream," on the other hand, was much easier to understand. It told us the same type of information that Alex Jones' documentaries did, but it was in a form that was much easier to understand. "Food, Inc." was very interesting and educational, it told about how our food is grown and produced. It was very disturbing to see what the major food producers are feeding us!
Since a documentary is "a movie or a television or radio program that provides a factual record or report," I would hope that the information we watched in class was factual. Watching Alex Jones' documentaries, it was a little hard to believe at times. I'm not saying that everything was a lie or anything, but Jones did seem a little crazy. He would start to yell or go off on a tangent at times about things in the government most of us have never heard of. Jones would present some support for his claims by having interviews with various people involved in the government, video clips of the president, or text documents written by the U.S. government. Having this support helped me to believe that the information being presented was true; but thinking about it now, I didn't really know what Jones was trying to tell us. Most of the information was going right over my head. Why should I believe Jones? He works without any sponsors out of his basement. How reliable can this information be?
"The American Dream" had similar concepts to that of Alex Jones, but it was in a cartoon. This was much easier to understand than it was to listen to Alex Jones go on rampages. The cartoon mainly told us that the government is not on "the people's" side. It is there, along with the banks, to take all of our money. The banks make us believe that we are able to have "the American dream" by giving us money to spend on new houses, cars, pets, etc. Then one day the bank comes to our house and tells us that we have to pay them back all of the money we borrowed, plus interest. Credit cards also make us believe that we have much more money than we actually do; it allows us to spend a bunch of money "on credit," at one time, then just pay it back later with interest. The bank and credit cards are what are ruining "American dreams."
The last documentary, "Food, Inc." was the most interesting and most effective on me, personally. It showed us what we are actually eating when we buy food from the supermarket. The chickens we purchase were raised in a dark, window-less, shed, standing in their own fecal matter. They were grown at twice the rate they naturally should have been, their internal organs were unable to keep up; their breasts are so large that they are unable to walk more than a few steps before falling over. Consumers prefer the breasts over legs, wings, and thighs, so the large chicken producing companies design their chickens to have large breasts. Cows are fed corn, rather than eating grass because it is cheaper. Corn is used in many different products because it is easy and cheap to grow. The major food producers in this nation are trying to take the easy way out by cutting expenses and work. These shortcuts are affecting our health.
Overall, I think that this documentary week was very educational and made me use my critical thinking skills.
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