Rather than take the exam, I opted instead to take the course. Naturally, it was during my final semester at Ball State in 2013. Better late than never I suppose?
Anyway, throughout the course we learned more about the writing process and wrote a total of four essays. That fourth essay, however, was essentially an updated draft of one of our previous essays for the class.
Below is my fourth essay for the class. Admittedly, I haven't read this in six years when I originally was going to publish this as a post and I have no idea if this writing holds up.
After all, have you re-read something you wrote years ago? Man, for some of the assignments I wrote in the high school I have no idea how I managed to get the grade I did.
JAW – 22B
Essay 4
A More Informed Consumer
The advent of the internet has opened many doors for people like myself to write about a particular product and publish our reviews online. No longer would we have to solely rely on what someone we know said or what we read in a newspaper or magazine. Tom Vanderbilt’s article “Star Wars” looks at this ever-growing culture of online criticism and concludes that with some many opinions on the internet we as readers have to “sift through these…[and try] to make meaning of everyone else’s attempt to say what something meant to them” (Vanderbilt 11). But is this flood gating of opinions on the internet being helpful or is it being a hindrance? If anything these multiple opinions can actually help shape our own views without our views solely becoming identical to one particular source that we read. By being able to access a broad spectrum of opinions, our own choices are better informed than in the pre-internet days because it allows us to be open to more ideas and new views that we previously had been unable to access.
The internet allows us to be open to more views rather than limiting ourselves to one view. On page 8 of the article Vanderbilt brings up movie critic A.O. Scott and how each critic “comes bearing their own agendas and biases” (Vanderbilt 8). “You may not ‘like’ A.O. Scott’s taste, but at least you know who he is and what he stands for” (Vanderbilt 8). With this potential for bias the question comes up: by reading this one critic’s reviews, are our own views on something really our own? Have we come up to a thorough conclusion on something based solely on one source? Limiting ourselves to one source greatly hinders our own ability to be able to think critically and allows us to expand our own thinking. Had I relied solely on one source in the past I might have missed out on some very good films.
In 2009 the satirical comedy The Men Who Stare At Goats was released into theaters. Based on the trailers it looked funny and I thought about possibly going to see it after class one day. My parents saw it for my mom’s birthday a few days before I was able to go. The next day after seeing it my dad’s exact words were “Oh yeah, don’t see Men Who Stare At Goats.” He and my mom later elaborated a little more that they didn’t really think it was funny and that a few other people in their theater had also said the same thing. I later went online and read a few other reviews of the movie, which overall were mixed but it allowed me to read more than just my own parents opinions on The Men Who Stare At Goats. Despite my parents negative review of the film I decided to go see it anyway and I ended up liking the movie. I thought it was funny and had many solid performances from the cast, including Jeff Bridge and George Clooney.
Expanded resources that the internet provides can bring up new things that we usually might not have heard about. Early in the article Vanderbilt talks about the days before the internet and how to find out about the quality of a restaurant. You either had to just go with your gut instinct to decide whether to go or not or see “many truck drivers or cops at a lonely diner…vouchsafing it’s quality” (Vanderbilt 1). No longer would we have to go on gut instinct alone or see if other people are at a restaurant to go eat at it. We can read about new restaurants online and decide from there whether or not to go to them without actually having to go to the restaurant.
Without the internet I would not have been interested in or have been able to go see certain art house and independently made films. The type of films that wouldn’t usually be reviewed or even talked about in the Ball State Daily News or among my peers here at Ball State University. One recent independently made movie that I had not heard about except for online sources was All Is Lost, a movie about a resourceful sailor played by Robert Redford who is trying to survive in the middle of the Indian Ocean after his boat collided with a lost shipping container. The movie is very well acted and very well made, with beautiful cinematography and an amazing musical score. I thought it was one of the better movies I had seen this year and I never would went to see it or let alone even know about it without the opinions and resources on the internet. Experiencing new things that we had read about on the internet enables us to expand and challenge our own views, allowing us to be better informed and make better decisions by being more open.
With more opinions and views to read through there is more of a chance of a consensus rather than simply stating “It’s good” or “It’s bad”. My parents had disliked The Men Who Stare At Goats and told me not to see it. I read a few more reviews of the film and most of the critics I read actually did enjoy the movie, but there were still plenty of critics who fostered the exact same opinion of the movie that my parents did. Overall a mixed reception, but it’s important to see things from more than one perspective. With a better overall consensus, rather than a “it’s good” or “it’s bad” mentality, I gain a better perspective and more free to make my own decisions on something. Listening to solely one view would almost turn me into a copycat of whoever I was listening to. And that brings us back to the question of if we listen to solely one viewpoint, are these really are views? I can regurgitate opinions of other film critics all I want, but do I actually believe what I’m saying or do I repeat their opinions because they’re well known?
Ultimately our ability to access a broad spectrum of opinion means that yes our choices today are more likely to be better informed than was possible in the pre-internet days. I am able to access a myriad of reviews for a movie and then decide based on all of those reviews whether I want to go see that particular movie or not. With my peers not having the same movie interest and the campus newspaper not running that many movie articles the internet allows for me to expand my knowledge of films that I might never have heard about otherwise. Expanding my knowledge and gaining more of a consensus on a movie both help me make better decisions based on the information that I am able to gain from my access to the internet.
Vanderbilt, Tom. “Star Wars”. The Wilson Quarterly (2013): n. pag. Print.
