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For which they were killed by the power hungry second in command who wanted to go back to "business as usual" without the do-gooders in the way. Not exactly winning this one...



But it's *always* the handful of greedy folks who are running things, isn't it? And there never seems to be an end to the volume of bad guys who want to wrest control of the big corporation so they can embark on their own nefarious purposes.

The point is that there is a common perception of corporations in film media that their natural state is to be "evil" with the occasional good person having to fight hard to prevent it.



Not at all. I'm talking about the over-the-top statements made in just this thread. I'm talking about the knee-jerk assumptions being tossed around. The reality is much much different. How many large corporations have you worked for?

The larger social reality is that "profit==greed==bad". But it's hard to sell an evil based purely on someone wanting to make money while providing useful products and services to people who are free to buy them if they wish, so they have to invent truly horrific plots involving schemes of ridiculous proportions in order to cause people to equate corporations with "evil". You can insist that you aren't influenced by this, and you may even be right. But advertising works, otherwise people wouldn't spend so much money on it. The key element in advertising is repetition. It's why you repeat the brand name as many times as possible, or invent clever jingles so that people will repeat it for you.


What are these sorts of messages in films advertising? What is the repetitive message? Can you honestly say that this *doesn't* influence people's opinions? You've read the posts on this forum over the years and don't see that many people have a nearly irrational hatred of corporations, even though they themselves have never been harmed by them? I just don't buy it...

We've had over 100 years of anti-corporation movies and yet we still aren't socialist. That's some pretty ****** propaganda.

Why not some "corporation wins *and* average Joe wins"? It's interesting that you seem to automatically assume that if one wins, the other must lose. Almost as though someone had pounded this message into you over your entire lifetime...

You don't feel the unexplained need to "baaah" at random times, do you? That might just be a side effect. Nothing to worry about though. ;)

I have a rational hatred of corporations.

Is it like flammable and inflammable?

That goes both ways though, doesn't it? If I observe that some folks opinions on corporations may be the result of media fueled false perception, a response greater than "no" might just be called for. Just a thought...



Um... I'm guessing here, but because that was the point of the thread? I just extended it a bit, but the OP was pretty much about the semi-ludicrous portrayal of corporate greed leading to the unfair exploitation of a native population and how this is far to common in film media. Varus may have stumbled around in the dark a bit getting to that, but it is a valid point.

All I did was take note of a number of seemingly knee-jerk responses and question whether those responses were results of exactly the kind of repetition of an idea expressed in many films, including Avatar. That seemed like a reasonable point to make, given the subject matter. Finding what I see as examples of exactly the sort of presumed social response such plot lines would be expected to produce did seem relevant to me at the time.



Sure. Want to compare how often the corruption portrayed happens to line up conveniently along lines which put Liberals in a positive light and Conservatives in a negative one versus the opposite? Heck. Find me an example in the last 40 years of a major motion picture in which some positive social program turns out to actually be some secret evil plot to control the population via economic manipulation (or some other more nefarious means). Contrast that to the number of "using military forces illegally", or "military project gone awry", or "using government power to funnel money to a company", or "corrupt government official helping out rich buddies".

It's hard to find films with the former. It's hard not to trip over films with the latter themes. And yes. The individual soldier is often portrayed well. But usually in the context of disobeying orders given to him in order to do what's right. The military as a whole is overwhelmingly treated negatively in film media.




The specific example is just one example of something. Are you seriously going to argue that the themes I just listed off aren't pretty darn common? Avatar just happens to hit several of them. It's just another example of a larger pattern. When was I supposed to mention this?

If.

Soylent Green?

Sounds like you never saw Batman.

Let me help you here. They were killed by a thug in the street for their wallet.

Yea but Gbaji was responding to Kavekk who was specifically talking about the new Batman movies.

And regardless when batman runs the show you always have the corporation being used for good.

As has been pointed out, you need an antagonist. In an underdog story you need an antagonist that is powerful to a point that the average person doesn't have a chance. Your only real options are a government, a company, or a supervillan, and supervillans don't generally play as well, because people need a motivation, and supervillans just make me think of james bond.

Another thing I'd like to point out, re your talking about soldiers being mass murders etc:

There have been a ton of movies made that portrays soldiers as noble hard good people, even through mistakes and battle rage, so I'd say any point in that direction is rather lacking.

Companies really provide a fantastic super powerful antagonist, because they can be assigned an obvious motive (money) and have lots of power. There are also enough examples of bad actions by companies, or their executives in the real world that it easily resonates with people.

Do you have a point here Gbaji? Are you trying to say movies that have an evil corp are bad? Are you saying that people's inherent untrust of large companies is mostly because of these movies? Are you saying we should be worried about movies which portray companies as evil? Or are you just arguing because you can? Silly question it's number four of course, but you usually also have a secondary purpose, so what is it?

no one is arguing that, what a relief.

Edited, Dec 23rd 2009 8:27pm by Xsarus

I'm saying that a large percentage of the people working, writing, acting, and funding the films we see tend to hold to a Liberal political viewpoint. That viewpoint is helped by portraying big business and the military in the worst light possible. It's a form of propaganda. If you can get more people to believe these things, it's easier to get them to support whatever political agenda you have.

How many Liberal political arguments revolve not around arguing *for* what they want to do, but rather *against* something they oppose? The easiest way to get a large population to accept a course of action they might normally oppose is to convince them it's the only way to prevent something worse. And for that to work, you have to create something "worse" for them to fear. It's kinda obvious how large volumes of films involving evil corporations might just play into that...


The point is to get people to see this. It's good to question why you believe what you believe, isn't it?