▶ Your Answer :
As watching a movie to know about a country is like a double-etched sword, it has its own advantages and disadvantages. Although some may believe that the movie tells a lot about a country, I strongly think that such opinion lacks coherence to some extent. In my humble opinion, the movie does not tell much about a country for the following reasons.
To begin with, movies often does not give factual ideas of a country but instead leads people to form a skewed idea of a country. Movie directors have their own views, values, and ideas of a country. When their ideas are conveyed to people, people may form a biased or unfactual idea of a country. For example, John, one of a movie director, has released a movie called “The American" in the 1990s, which was on the lives of Americans.(실제 예시면 더 좋을것 같습니다) In the movie, he depicted his characters as Republicans who were strongly against gay marriage, abortion, and refugees. Some of them even expressed their hatred towards refugees by saying that they should move out of America and return to their countries. As a Korean who have not encountered Americans before until later, I thought all Americans were unkind to people from different cultures. However, when I went to America during my senior year in college, I have realized that some Americans agree in accepting immigrants from other countries. In fact, the movie was only depicting a number of people’s beliefs and pretended like those represented those of all. This clearly indicates that movie could express a biased aspect of a country depending on a movie director.
In addition, people cannot learn much about a country simply by watching a movie. The movie does not focus on delivering the cultural aspect of one’s country; rather, the movie focuses on the universal aspects of lives such as loveship in between people. Without letting people know about countries’ cultures, it is hard to say that movies display a lot about a country. For instance, when I was in high school, I saw one of my classmates from Ethiopia eating his meal with bare hands. I felt very uncomfortable with his behaviors because it was my first time seeing someone like him. I kept a distance from him and made fun of him. However, when I traveled to Ethiopia last summer, I have realized that we just had different eating styles. In fact, he had a lot in common in a way that we all cared about our families, were committed to a relationship, and got easily hurt by what others’ said. Although I saw many of Ethiopian movies when I was in high school, which were on romance, I could not learn Ethiopian food culture as the movie only depicted the love between two main characters such as conflicts and the process of reunification between two. In this sense, people cannot know the cultural aspects of a country by watching a movie.
In summation, it’s virtually impossible to provide a completely satisfying answer to a question. Although the jury may be out on the given essay question, we can come to a mutual agreement that movie does not let people know much about a country. |