Warning: Current Events Loses its Lackluster!

First it was Untraceable that got me thinking... now George Romero's Diary of the Dead is trying to portray a similar underlying message, in his film about zombies, which is released this Valentine's Day weekend.

The message is that our modern day society seems to be dangerously trading human compassion and a desire for knowledge in exchange for non-stop entertainment.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. I've recently gone to see the film "Untraceable" starring Diane Lane. If you haven't seen it I suggest you prepare yourself for some cringing torture scenes. However, underneath the gory and nerve-wrecking segments of the film, I believe it also serves to reveal an underlying message as to what kind of society we have become... a group of unsatiated entertainment feigns.

The basis of what "Untraceable" is about is the search for the untraceable creator of a website called Killwithme.com. As the story unfolds the creator of this website captures and murders people on this site live stream, the more viewers he attracts the quicker the victim dies. As the media starts to get a hold of this case, more people start to visit the site, even though they are made aware of the consequences the victim will face if they increase the popularity of this website.

On the right hand side of the website, its creator puts a chat room where the visitors on the site talk about the victim on camera as if it were a gory cartoon and anticipate his/her unfortunate ending. One visitor even says they would like a copy of one of the live stream videos. Here is the trailer, so you get a better understanding of what I am trying to use as a reference.



Of course this movie is fiction...but if it weren't? This is definitely something I could see happening in real-life. Couldn't you? And I know it may seem ironic that a form of entertainment (film) is eliciting a message that is in some ways against its own purpose...to entertain, but whatever happened to being compassionate? I think this may be a message that more and more filmmakers are trying to breakthrough. How many of us remember the phrase "putting yourself in the other person's shoes?" So then, why is it becoming such an addiction to get the "latest Britney update" or watch over and over again drunken videos of people like David Hasselhoff? Since when did a desire for knowledge, current events and human compassion become such unappealing characteristics? I guess film is trying to use their way of "entertaining" to bring us out of the dark about ourselves. What do you think?