Im locked up..they won't let me out

Film has always been an outlet for me. My father being a film producer would take me to classes with him at Hampshire and later on at Columbia. I watched him make films with meaning and purpose, to tell stories of those that did not get the recognition that they deserved.  I witnessed first hand the power of film and media. I made my first short film at 7, with one of my closest friends Alexis. There was no script, formal set or even great actors. We just went with what we were feeling at the time. At 7 why were we feeling like convicts? I am not sure, but the opening scene was me behind bars staring into the camera, with tears running down my eyes to show the pain. The bars were the second floor metal banisters and the hand cuffs were socks. Needless to say our creativity was on another level.

Why at 7 years old were we making movies about being in jail? Is it because something we watched that may not have been intended for us? Popular culture in 80's and 90's were to watch shows on crime. You had shows like Cops, and Law & Order that people were loving. But the effects of watching these shows have left more of an impression on us than we think. Did we think that maybe it was cool to creative violence and punishment for entertainment?

I anticipate learning more about the consequences of consuming unhealthy and uncensored media. I want to understand why our beliefs, culture and values are depicted in what we surround ourselves with.

Western Themes in Mad Max: Fury Road

The first film with a western narrative that came mind was one of the best, in my opinion, to come out last year, Mad Max: Fury Road. Set in a post apocalyptic world, Mad Max tells the story of Max, an outsider and loner, as well as a group of very strong women, who escape captivity from an evil leader of a corrupt society and his "war boys". The movie then becomes an extended chase scene (with amazing cinematography). Underlying this action is the group’s desire to free this society and give back control of its resources, most importantly water, to its people. 

I think this movie has many western themes and motifs. Replacing the American frontier is a post apocalyptic world. Its desolate landscape conjures up images of the American southwest. Water is scarce and there’s a battle for control of limited resources. This, I think mirrors the cowboy in the American west securing its resources and land. Through this battle Max and the women attempt to bring order to the constant chaos of an uncivilized place. He and the society he finds himself in are under threat from corrupt and hostile forces. Max’s character has all the elements of a cowboy. He’s white, self-reliant, strong, stoic and very independent. He’s also at heart a moral character. At one point he wants to set out into the landscape on his own. In the end, however, he decides to protect those in danger and accompany the group of women in order to follow through with their plan to bring order to what’s left of society. As Jennifer Moskowitz point’s out in The Cultural Myth of the Cowboy, or, How the West Was Won the myth of the cowboy began as a need to pull together a fractured nation. The world in which Mad Max takes place is also fractured and chaotic. Its in need of a figure around which a community can coalesce. One of those figures is Max.

http://www.americanpopularculture.com/journal/articles/spring_2006/moskowitz.htm

http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2015/06/19/the-road-western-the-mad-max-series-and-its-latest-installment-fury-road/

Photo: http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/bs0a2p6jyovlotmmwlre.jpg