Films Should Challenge And Confront Us

Imagine a world where there was only films that were purely created entertainment, if there was nothing in them to make us relate them back to the world we lived in and if there was nothing in there to keep us as the audience watching. This is what the world would be like if films did not do anything more than entertain us. However, this is not the nature of the world we live in so I am here today to tell you that films should do more than merely entertain us, they should challenge and confront us. This will be shown throughout the use of three movies portraying six key points; The Help, Wonder and The Truman Show. (Definitions Slide) These movies will portray the following points; sexism, racism, inequality, diversity, manipulation and commercialism. Therefore, this is how it will be proven that films should do more than just entertain they should challenge and confront the audience.

Throughout the film industry there are many types of themes that are introduced to challenge and confront us. Some of these themes include sexism and racism and these can be seen throughout the film The Help. (Sexism Slide - Play Quote) The sexism throughout the film can be seen as there is a strong focus on the woman’s side of daily life and this focus is where the women have maids to do all their work for them including looking after their children whilst they go out and work on building up their social lives, the lack of male characters shown throughout the film also cements this idea of sexism as their absence was always due to the fact that they were at work. (Racism Slide - Play Quote). The racism is also shown at many points during the film as there was a focus on how the people of colour were maids and how they had different rights to the white people. As can be seen from the two previous clips this film wants to confront the us as the audience and challenge us using sexism and racism in order to get us talking and thinking about the film long after it finishes. By first entertaining the audience the director gets us engaged and watching then they add content to challenge and confront us to get us thinking and not just mindlessly watching. This therefore shows how films have an obligation to the audience to do more than just merely entertain us.

Furthermore directors want to make us relate the film that we are watching back to the reality of the world that we live in. This is true for the film Wonder as the director wants us as the audience to believe that despite the diversity within classes in schools there is still a stigma about the child that is different to everybody else and this is the child who ends up being bullied. (Diversity Slide – Play Quote). This is shown by the focus on Auggie as the main character and as he was one of the many different children in the class it shows how as he was the most unusual in the group he stood out the most therefore showing how despite the diversity in the world there is still an inequity in the treatment of the different child. (Inequality Slide – Play Quote). The focus on the bullying of the “different child” in the class in the movie shows how the director wants us as the audience to see the inequality that is in the classroom despite how diverse a classroom is. Therefore this proves how directors add in content that make us as the audience do more than just be entertained as we are made to try and relate what we are seeing back to the real world in order to challenge and confront us. 

Finally directors have an obligation to do more than merely entertain us as they must also challenge and confront us in order to give a sense of a deeper meaning to the world in which we are presented with throughout their films. An example of this deeper meaning that we are presented with is in The Truman Show where we are presented with the idea of manipulation at every point. (Manipulation Slide – Play Quote). This is displayed by the focus on how everything in Truman’s world is manipulated and how nothing was real. This shows how even with a completely artificial world with endless amounts of manipulation bad things can and will still occur. (Commercialism Slide – Play Quote). The film The Truman Show also confronts and challenges the audience through the use of commercialism as throughout the film there is a strong focus on the deceiving side of commercialism as everything was only shown from the best side possible of the product as opposed to the reality of the product. This therefore shows how directors have an obligation to do more than to just entertain as they must also challenge and confront us. 

Now as can be seen directors have an obligation to present us with more than information that will solely entertain us, we should be presented with information that challenges and confronts us as an audience in order to keep us engaged and watching. This is done through the use of different themes, including sexism, racism, inequality, diversity, manipulation and commercialism. These points were shown through the films The Help, Wonder and The Truman Show. Therefore this once again proves that directors have an obligation to do more than merely entertain us as an audience, they must challenge and confront us.