Lions for Lambs

BE ADVISED: Please bear with me as I struggle through this rant.....I recently watched a movie that absolutely made my skin crawl. The funny thing is that the film wasn't about aliens, ghosts, unsolved mysteries, murderers or any of the above but it was horrifying none the less. The movie was simply about America. More specifically it was about the war in Iraq, the timid state of the American media, and conciseness, a topic that I have attempted to analyze in previous blog entries. It seems as if my inability to completely wrap my head around the movie's subject matter is exactly the point that director Robert Redford is trying to make. Several scenes in the movie mention events and names involving the war and world politics in general. While I do consider myself a conscience individual, even I had trouble following the conversation between Meryl Streep, playing a witty news reporter, and Tom Cruise, playing an ambitious senator. The conversation covered the U.S.'s relationship with Saudi Arabia, the relationship between Iran and Iraqi insurgents, statistics on military casualties, etc. As I sat listening to the dialogue, learning new things and looking up references that I didn't understand, I wondered what would the average American citizen get out of this movie? What would the average person my age (20) get out of this movie? A person that is consumed less with world issues and more so with "I Love New York", Britney Spears, the latest rap beef, sportscenter, etc. It seems as if this mindless entertainment deprives us from observing the important issues in the world.The disconnected (for lack of a better word) state of Americans was one alarming issue that Redford points to. The issue that scared me the most was how Redford paints the American media to be a leashed and blinded dog, leashed by the government, and blinded because of the failure to present impartial opinions. The movie made me think, am I really hearing the real story? If i am not, if I've been fed propaganda by the government through the media, then perhaps my opinions, whom I once thought were my own, are no more unique than...than...Have you ever seen the Manchurian Candidate? Well that's the concept that I'm trying to fit into words here. This is wearing me out...I'll try again later.P.S. I hope all of you that read this can feel where I'm coming from. After rereading my own work, I'm not quite sure that I've articulated myself as clearly a I would like yet I I'm not quite sure on how to correct this problem. The reason I actually posted this entry is to get help from you. Perhaps your comment, question or inquisition can help me better understand my own thought and argument