hearthesilence wrote:I think most people here were far more impressed with the media satire than I was. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't all that insightful - it felt like a broad aggregate of fairly typical criticism.
I thought this was actually the weakest part of the film. For one thing, it felt like media satire of an older era--social media barely figures into the film at all. It's basically all TV driven. My other problem with it is the implicit assumption that media still manipulates the public the way the way they INTEND them to be manipulated, but that just isn't the case anymore. There just isn't the public trust in the media that there was 20, maybe 15 years ago. For sure, the media still plays a powerful role in shaping public opinion, mostly based on how much coverage--good or bad--they devote to someone. But just because they present a point of view about a person that's good or bad doesn't necessarily sway the larger public's opinion to the side the media wants them to be swayed. We've seen celebrities get plenty of negative attention who end up gaining a large fanbase based on the negative attention, and vice versa. For the most part, Nick and Amy's image is mostly shaped by how the media chose to shape them. Other than the grungy couple Amy meets up with, we don't see much public backlash to Amy, even at the end of the film which certainly would have opened her up to much public speculation and conspiracy theories if something like this happened in the real world.
What I did find spot on, though, was in showing how it's so easy for one to speculate on someone's character based on his face, body language and overall manners. If you don't cry on cue or you look too disengaged or you talk with your head down etc., people are so quick to crucify you on a stake if you don't display the "proper" social mores in every situation. And the tendency of everyone to play amateur body language expert.
Also, it's also a great deconstruction of the polarizing appeal of Ben Affleck. I can't think of anyone else out there who would have fit this role as well, speaking as someone who is generally not a fan of Ben Affleck the movie star (I actually heard some of myself in that obnoxious blonde newstalk host)
As for all the gender relations stuff, I think it's mostly people projecting their own worldviews onto the film. Any reading one way or the other seems to be countered by something else that is the exact opposite of any one specific reading.