As I am sure many of you know (by looking around my classroom) I am a huge fan of films. I enjoy watching all kinds of films - even the occasional horror flick. With films, viewers can lose themselves in another world. They can travel back in time or see a glimpse of the future. For two hours you can become a pirate or a cartoon character or even an alien life form.
But, no matter how often I lose myself in a film, I always have enough brain power to realize that what I am seeing is fiction. Sure, there are films that are based on facts, but the very essence of filmmaking dictates that the viewer is seeing a biased, perception driven version of the story. The camera can only show you so much. The special effects can only make things look somewhat real. In the end though, no film shows the complete truth - even documentary films.
Apparently the "film as fiction" reality is something that many viewers forget. According to an article that I read recently, "Students Recall More Hollywood Than History", young viewers "tend to substitute Hollywood fiction for historical fact in their minds." Although viewers tend to retain information better from watching a film, the information that is retained is often not the previously learned factual information but the newly acquired "movie facts." So, this leaves me to ask, do young people believe anything they see? Or better yet, how often do educators need to remind students to read or view everything in an analytic manner?
I enjoy using films in my classes. I have seen, first hand, how films can reinforce information and present a new way of seeing of the world. I have also seen how films can be great tools for teaching metaphor, symbolism, and deep analysis techniques. But, after reading articles like the one cited above, I am more hesitant to show films in class. I know that no matter how many times I state that a given film is a representation of reality, there will always be those few students that believe they just watched the truth. These same people will then pass along these "truths" to others and begin a terrible cycle similar to the telephone game.
4 comments:
I believe that young people have a tendency to believe everything that they see and hear. As I was searching for information for my research paper, I stumbled across an interesting point that the media has portrayed cloning in a negative way. When most people think of cloning, they probably imagine some machine that you put a piece of hair into and a clone of the person walks out the other side. Because people don't have any prior knowledge of cloning, they replace what they see on the big screen with reality, which is usually inaccurate and slanted. I agree that we need to be more skeptical when watching movies because people do get fiction and non-fiction confused.
This is a great article and in some ways a representation of an ugly truth. Many young people like myself know that extremely fictional films, like for example Shrek are really not the truth because ogres don't walk around talking to donkeys. However, when we watch films that are only a bit fictional like documentaries and such, we can be persuaded into thinking what we saw is true, even if we are told that it is not.I guess the expression of seeing is believing has transfered itself to film, so whatever is seeing on film can be believed as if it was really seeing in person. I still don't think that you should stop showing film, because watching films do gives us a better understanding of some things.
It's great to see that film makers are using history to enhance their movies, but when they do things such as add special effects and enhance add humor, then kids tend to accept it as what really happened. For example, after seeing "300", my 10 year old cousin really thinks that King Xerses was an abnormally tall bald man and that 300 spartans were able to kill over 1 million Persians. As long as they know that you see in the theaters stays in the theaters, then the new generation wouldn't be as dumb.
I defiantly agree watching films in class is a great way to learn in a different perspective. It is also very true that my peers are very gullible in watching films and pretty much believe in anything they see. My fellow peers need to have a better understandings of the films they watch. Because some of my friends will just believe in anything they watch.
I am a very visual learner so watching films in class is much more meaningful to me. Not to mention it's much easier to grasp what they are talking about. You can actually see the whole scene as if you were really there which I enjoy. So I say we should watch some more films in class, I would like that very much. :)
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