The Truman Show: Ethically Speaking

by Alex Dodds

The Truman Show is a fantastic movie with a great storyline. The film has received high praise from critics, with an 8.1/10 rating and a Top 5,000 rating on IMDb. For those who have not had the opportunity to watch the film, take a look at the trailer:

What a lot of people do not think about when watching The Truman Show is the ethical implications that arise throughout the movie’s 103 minutes. Things like secrecy,  harm, and the principle of humanity all come to the surface in a truly creative film.

Christof, the producer of the show known as “The Truman Show”, first and foremost was blocking information intentionally from Truman to prevent him from possessing, learning, or using it–otherwise known as secrecy. By doing this, Truman did not have a fair chance to make an informed decision. Christof has a responsibility to Truman to reveal as much as is necessary to afford him this decision. Due to the lack of transparency and the secrecy between the cast and crew, Truman was put at serious risk.

Truman was harmed in the making of “The Truman Show” as he had to struggle with the idea that his whole life was a lie. Christof was guilty of wrongful acts that “set back” interests and undermined the dignity of Truman. If Christof had non-maleficence and had avoided harming Truman, the producer would have upheld his obligation to minimize harm.

One framework Christof could have used to make more ethically correct decisions is The Principle of Humanity. The Principle of Humanity suggests that we cannot use people as a means to an end. This goes along with the Theory of Human Dignity, which states all humans require a certain amount of respectful treatment. If Christof had followed either of these two ideas he would have been under much less scrutiny from those viewers who did not agree with what he was doing to Truman.

All of the ethical issues discussed above really take away all sense of autonomy for Truman. While this is a wonderful film I would suggest anyone to watch, I also strongly urge you to think about the ethical implications of the film and relate it to the media today. It is crucial for us as consumers to think critically about what we are consuming. However, those creating the content have an obligation to do everything in their power to be as ethical as possible and abide by the principle of humanity.

References:

The Truman Show [Motion picture]. (1998). Paramount Pictures.

The Truman Show. (n.d.). Retrieved April 20, 2015, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120382/

The Story Behind The Story: The Struggle For The Truth In The Insider

Brugge, P. J. (Producer), & Mann, M. (Director). (1999). The Insider (Motion picture). United States: Touchstone Pictures.

Michael Mann’s The Insider is a thriller about scientist Jeffrey Wigand’s struggle to reveal to the world what the seven major tobacco companies knew and hid about the dangerous effects of their product. The film depicts an onslaught of unethical tactics used by a major conglomerate desperately trying to maintain their public image. The Insider tells an intense story about a man caught in the middle of a company trying to silence a source, and the press’ determined to expose a story.

The Insider begins with 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman seeking out the help of scientist Jeffrey Wigand to translate anonymous documents he received regarding the tobacco company Phillip Morris. Wigand has recently been fired from Phillip Morris, but he is still bound by his confidentiality agreement from the company that keeps him from speaking about company business. It is here in the film that we encounter the first ethical dilemma. It becomes clear to Bergman that Wigand is aware of crucial information regarding the negative effects of the tobacco industry’s product. The exposure of this information could have a detrimental effect on Big Tobacco. However, is it ok to breach his contract for the sake of the truth? Bergman is determined to find a loophole that will allow Wigand to do so legally.

What follows is a fight for exposure muffled by deceit, lies, and manipulation. Jeffrey Wigand is personally threatened for his participation in Lowell Bergman’s reporting , his name and career are falsely defamed in a smear campaign backed by Big Tobacco, and his own words are used against him in an edited and tarnished interview. Eventually multiple media platforms and channels get involved and in the end Jeffrey Wigand is exonerated, the truth is finally revealed, and Big Tobacco is forced to settle in court.

This film makes viewers ask, what is going on behind the story? and what is the real truth? This movie exemplifies the power money and reputation can have over the media and how a story can filtered before it reaches the general public. In the real world, not everybody is going to play by “the rules”, or follow a code of ethics, and there are multiple forces fighting for a different outcome. Jeffrey Wigand’s story is an example of one of the largest cases of deceit and corruption in the media, and the in the end the truth was revealed. However, the film leaves it’s audience with a sense of unease. Yes, this story has a relatively happy ending, but how many don’t? How are we as consumers supposed to trust what the press is telling us?. How, as a nation can we know that what we are hearing, seeing, and reading, is the unfiltered and transparent truth? Well the only truth is: we can’t.

Ethical Issues raised within What Women Want (2000)

What Women Want [Motion picture]. (2000). Paramount.

The movie What Women Want (2000) raised ethical issues about privacy, taking credit for someone else’s work, and withholding information. In the movie, the character Nick Marshall who is an advertising executive mistakingly obtains the power to hear what women think. After talking to a psychologist who tells him to use this knowledge to his advantage, he decides to do exactly that. However he uses this information to benefit him without thinking of the consequences or ethical issues that it would lead to.

When a new team member, Darcy Maguire, takes the job as creative director over Nick he decides to do everything he could to take the position away from her. Nick started reading Darcy’s thoughts and before she had a chance to say her ideas herself, he would repeat them and take the credit. Darcy gave him the idea to find out what women want without knowing his “gift”.

Nick started hanging out around more women and using this power to his advantage. This raises the ethical issue of privacy. If women wanted men to hear their every thought, they would say it out loud. Therefore Nick was invading the privacy of the women he listened to. For example when the office’s file girl, Erin, has thoughts about no one in the office noticing her, Nick decided to pay attention. One day he heard Erin say she would stop showing up and then someone would wonder where the “nerdy file girl” was. On the day she decided not to go to work, Nick went looking for her at her apartment. When she didn’t come to the door he went inside anyway; again invading her privacy and now trespassing. When he went into her bedroom he found a suicide note and ended up catching her before she could harm herself. The result of his ability to hear her thoughts benefited her in the end by saving her life; however in the process he crossed some personal boundaries and technically broke the law even though her door was open.

Not only was Nick crossing a line of privacy and stealing someone else’s ideas, but he did it without letting them know where he got the information. Nick knew exactly what women wanted, and when they wanted it. This ended up landing the company an account with Nike which then led him to get promoted at work, replacing Darcy. Nick withheld information about his ability to read women’s minds to everyone at the office including Darcy and Nike. Although Nick wasn’t specifically asked about his new “gift”, he was lying to all of these people.

It would have been more ethical if Nick was open with his ability and knowledge, telling the company how he got it. However with that, he would still be invading the privacy of the women he listened to. The power Nick received was all together unethical because he was able to hear personal and private information that women may not have told him if he asked.

Bamboozled: Racial Stereotypes in Media

Lee, S. (Director). (2000). Bamboozled [Motion Picture]. America.

The film Bamboozled highlights the issues of race in the media, specifically the stereotypical ways that African Americans have been portrayed.  Within the first ten minutes of the movie the white boss in the movie asks Mr. Pierre Delacroix if he knows what CP time is. Delacroix replies with a straight face calmly saying, “CP time is colored people’s time. The stereotypical belief that Negroes are always late, that Negroes have no sense of time. Time except when it comes to music or dance, then you can set your watch to them” (Lee, 2000). The boss then goes on to use the N word and claims it is okay because he has an African American wife. This clearly offends Mr. Delacroix.

Mr. Delacroix and Sloan Hopkins make a good point early on in the movie. The network only wants to see black people on TV as “buffoons”, not as dignified people. This is why most of his shows and ideas get turned down or cancelled. Due to this phenomena Delacroix decides to make a show so racist and ignorant that the network would have to fire him for thinking of something so offensive. The point brought up by Sloan and Delacroix is the center of the ethical issues this movie raises. It is awful how the media feels the need to portray minorities as less dignified people. I will never understand this issue but hope that it gets fixed in the future.

Delacroix wants to take his ideas to another network in hopes that they realize that it is okay to have intelligent and dignified African American characters. To his surprise the network loves the racist idea and wants to pick up the show immediately. This is when the chaos starts. The show becomes extremely popular, people either love it or hate it.

The movie frequently references clips from old cartoons and minstrel shows which portrayed African Americans as stereotypical monsters. I think that the chaos that ensues in the movie shows how seriously the problems of racist stereotypes really are. Due to Delacroix’s show he himself gets killed, Sloan’s brother dies, and the star of the show is brutally murdered. Racism should be a thing of the past; the color of your skin doesn’t matter at all. We are all HUMANS and should treat each other as such.

Blog 2: Wag The Dog

Livenson, B. (Director). (1997). Wag The Dog [Motion picture]. America.

For Blog number three I chose to watch the movie Wag The Dog and explore the ethical issues that were present throughout the film. I thought it was interesting how the movie opened with the quote “Why does a dog wag its tail? Because a dog is smarter than it’s tail, if the tail were smarter than the dog the tail would wag the dog.” This gave me some insight as to why the movie is named that and also gave me some insight to see what the movie was going to be like, but I didn’t fully understand it until the end. This movie is about a spin-doctor (Robert DeNiro) and a movie director/producer (Dustin Hoffman) coming together with one of the president’s advisers to create different scandals around the world to cover up and draw attention away from the current president who is in the running to be re-elected, sex scandal. Throughout the film there are many scenes that made me question the actors ethical standards.

One of the scenes that really had me questioning their ethical morals was when they fake the war in Albania. Kirsten Dunst is used in a “mock video” to show the severity of what was going on in “Albania” which actually just happened to be a fake recording on a green screen. This scheme was made up to draw the public’s attention away from the upcoming presidential election. To me this was un-ethical because Conrad and Stanley created a huge lie to the public to divert their attention from this scandal to a fake scenario. This not only is a lie but puts the public in danger for their lives and fearing something that does not even need to be worried about. Eventually the CIA leaks the story about the fake war and the attention is back on the president once again.

Another scene that I found to be really unethical in this movie was when Conrad and Stanley threw shoes into a tree and there is a child next to them who says that the shoes are ratty, so they also invite him to participate in this act of throwing shoes into a tree after making a song connecting a made up lost solider to an old shoe. Soon all around the country people were throwing shoes in trees and telephone lines to support this made up solider who was lost. They carry this story out so much that they actually go the extra mile and get someone to impersonate this lost solider. In the end the president wins, because of the slogan that was present in the first scene of the movie “Don’t change horses in mid stream.” Everything that Conrad and Stanley did was a waste and Stanley ends up getting killed in the end. The movie made it seem like Conrad had a lot to do with the death of Stanley because Conrad didn’t want him to talk to the press about these lies. Overall this movie made me really think about the ethical issues that are present in our world every day and sometimes we have no idea what can go on behind closed doors.

Blog #2: Media Ethics in Quiz Show

Quiz Show is a true story based on a TV quiz game show that previously aired on NBC. It was discovered that the producers of the show, Dan Enright and Jack Barry, were taking on contestants for the show and giving them the questions and answers before they were asked them on the show. This situation becomes unethical and corrupt on many different levels.

There are two philosophers that should be mentioned when discussing this film. The first, who is directly mentioned in the film is Immanuel Kant. When the producers of the game show are initially talking to Charles Van Doren, a contestant on the show and the main character of the movie, he thinks to himself what Kant would do in a situation such as his. In the end, Van Doren did take their offer. However, if Kant were to be in this situation, I believe he would have denied the offer. Since his ideas are “duty-based” and “universalized,” he probably would have thought it unacceptable for others to commit such falsehood to the public (Plaisance, 2014, p. 13). Another philosopher who could be discussed is John Stuart Mill. Mill argues that whatever situation produces the most amount of happiness becomes the best solution (Plaisance, 2014, p. 14). At the end of the film, Dan Enright said that he didn’t see a problem with what he did. He argued that there was nothing wrong with what he did because those who were involved in the game show, including the advertisers, NBC, and the public, were happy with the results of what they were producing. Although this follows Mill’s system, there many other factors that come into play here that makes his system ineffective.

There are quite a few stake holders in this situation. The producers, the contestant, the advertisers, the president of NBC, and the public are all involved in this scandal. The producers should definitely take responsibility for this, and Dan Enright did. However, NBC also takes responsibility for deceiving the public. The advertisers, although not directly involved, should have been somewhat suspicious and questioned the show’s ratings more. The most important stake holder in this scandal is the public, who watched the program and were deceived the entire time.

An important factor here is transparency. While the public watched this game show, they were not told the truth in its entirety. Had the show been more honest, the whole scandal could have been avoided.

References

Plaisance, P. L. (2014). Media Ethics: Key principles for responsible practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc.

Blog #2 All the President’s Men

 

All the President’s Men shows where hard hitting journalism will get you. The story of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s investigation of Watergate is considered some of the “greatest acts of investigative journalism” (“Watergate scandal,” 2015). While this might be true, some of the tactics they used to uncover the iconic story can be classified as unethical. They did, however, follow an ethical code for the majority of their reporting. Journalists are able to practice a wide range of freedom in their work, thanks to the first amendment, but they are still required to follow ethical guidelines to insure a form of structure.

Reporters are here to serve the public with truthful and reliable information. The web of unnamed sources used to obtain other unnamed sources seems to conflict with this oath. The public has a right to know the credibility of the news reported, to deem for themselves their own opinions on the story. With a subject matter of the magnitude that Bernstein and Woodward were uncovering, trustworthy sources were imperative to the investigation.

They both were extremely persistent with sources; trying their best to find the most reliable sources, but in doing so, they also ran into some ethical dilemmas. While politicians are in the public eye, they have the right to their privacy. A fellow Washington Post staffer gave Woodward and Bernstein some information on a private moment between the staffer and Ken Clawson. When they called up Clawson to let him confirm or deny the information, he begged that the extracted information remain private as he had “a wife and a family and a dog and a cat”. The Post did the ethical thing and excluded that information from the report. Ben Bradlee then assured him that they aren’t interested in where it took place, just what was said while he was there.

When they found new information that they were preparing to print, they reached out to anyone involved with the story and gave him or her an opportunity to state their opinion on the matter. While most of the time they denied, as I’m sure both Bernstein and Woodward expected, the reporting style still gave them the ethical courtesy to defend themselves.

While gathering information from sources, they led with the ruse that they knew more information than they actually did. When asking questions, they casually mentioned information that they were actually guessing at, claiming that they just needed the source to confirm or deny the information. This left the person unaware that they had just became the primary source. This ploy can be classified as a form of deception to obtain information. By forgoing fair and honest means to gain knowledge for a story, they were putting their ethical values in question.

Woodard and Bernstein displayed good investigative ethics by being courageous, persistent, and determined in their reporting of the Watergate story. However, their pursuit of the truth created ethical dilemmas for themselves and their editors. In the end, they were willing to push the boundaries of media ethics to obtain the story that would bring down a president.

References

Coblenz, W. (Producer), & Pakula, A. J. (Director). (1976). All the President’s

            men (Motion picture). United States: Warner Brothers Entertainment.

Watergate scandal. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.history.com/topics/watergate

Blog #2: Media Ethics in “What Women Want”

By Kimberly Pavlovich

(Paramount Pictures, n.d.)

Meyers, N. (Director). (2000). What women want [Motion picture]. Los Angeles, CA: Paramount Pictures.

What Women Want (2000) portrays an ad agency workplace environment where Nick, desperate to hold onto his job, unethically utilizes a superhuman skill acquired through electrocution. Although unrealistic, this lighthearted romantic comedy has value in regards to the application of media ethics. The ethical issues introduced are a figurative form of wiretapping, invasion of privacy, plagiarism, and unethical conduct on the job.

Nick’s mindreading is a figurative form of wiretapping. Wiretapping is defined as utilizing a device “to intercept, disclose, or use the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication” (Lawyers.com, n.d., para. 2). Even though he does not use a device per se, Nick secretly monitors and listens in on private thoughts without a warrant or consent. Thus, Nick’s actions are a form of deception and invasion of privacy that he quickly and purposefully chooses to use for intentional, unethical purposes.

When Nick begins to use his “wiretapping” to his advantage, instead of using it to gather his own ideas on how to appeal to women and produce female-driven advertising, he uses it to plagiarize. Although listening in on female strangers’ thoughts would still have been unethical, Nick uses the skill in the office with colleagues that know and, presumably, trust him. His first instance of plagiarism is at a business meeting in which Darcy, the new creative director, requests ideas for advertising Advil to women. One female colleague thinks to herself that they should advertise Advil to women like her; she uses it whenever she needs to fake a headache. Nick suggests this idea to Darcy who, despite dismissing the idea, expresses gratitude for Nick’s contribution. This builds Nick’s credibility with Darcy, but he gains her respect under false pretenses.

Nick’s plagiarism becomes more serious when he uses “wiretapping” to steal Darcy’s ideas for a female-driven Nike campaign. While giving the illusion that he is collaborating with Darcy on the campaign, he instead takes credit for her ideas. For example, just as Darcy mentally formulates a tagline—“no games, just sports”—Nick pronounces the same tagline. Darcy, in turn, believes the two of them are in sync and that Nick is highly talented and capable. She insists he present the campaign ideas to the Nike representatives. Nick willingly obliges, and successfully takes credit for Darcy’s ideas during the presentation.

Thus, unethical conduct on the job is also a key part of the issues presented in What Women Want. Nick plagiarizes Darcy as revenge—he had wanted her position as creative director. In this way, Nick violates basic business ethics. Although Darcy, a fellow colleague, believes that she and Nick are working together as a team in a professional environment, Nick sabotages her. As a result, Darcy loses her job due to Nick’s unethical behavior. Although the film has a happy ending, Nick puts his personal interests ahead of the team, disregarding his ethical responsibility to his company and coworkers. Overall, the film can be used to understand ethical issues in regards to privacy and ownership of ideas in media-related professions.

#pavlovich

References

Lawyers.com. (n.d.). Wiretap Act. Lawyers.com. Retrieved from http://communications-media.lawyers.com/privacy-law/wiretapping.html

Meyers, N. (Director). (2000). What women want [Motion picture]. Los Angeles, CA: Paramount Pictures.

Paramount Pictures. (n.d.).  [Theatrical release poster for What Women Want ]. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Women_Want

An Ethical Analysis on “Wag The Dog”

Wag The Dog came out in 1997 and was directed by Barry Levinson. The movie centers around a presidential sex scandal that happens right before the presidential election. The White House brings in a “spin doctor”, Robert De Niro’s character to create a story or diversion to take the attention off of Americas biggest scandal. With the election just days away, Robert De Niro’s PR team is willing to do anything. The film revolves around deception and diversion by creating fake news stories to divert the American public’s attention to a different crisis.

The first major ethical issue is the made up war in Albania and all the other issues that come with it. They took it to the extreme; they created a story behind the Albanian war. It was an entire timeline of Albania placing bombs near the US border to a US soldier essentially being taken by Albanian war to the soldier returning home safely and being considered the “hero”. The PR professionals break one of the major rules of the PRSA Code of Ethics. Honesty. There was not one second when they thought owning up to the scandal was a good idea. They immediately resorted to lying and dishonesty. They lied for what they thought was for the “greater good” which is completely unethical. When ethics are put to the side, the sky’s the limit for these PR “professionals.”

Another ethical issue I came across in the film is how images are used in media to mislead the public. They use images to make the president look like an amazing guy saying that an American soldier didn’t return home from the “war” yet and was taken hostage by terrorists on purpose. To play on peoples emotions the soldier has on a shirt with Morse code with the words “courage mom” to inflict emotions on the viewers and readers. This is to get the public emotionally invested in the fake story being shown. Again, they are not being truthful. They are manipulating the public to suck them in by their emotions. This movie shows how a good PR team can change everything. It can change the way the public thinks and acts just by the PR team manipulating them.

This movie has proven to me that political individuals abuse the power they have because they are “credible.” As we spoke about in class when referring to PR, the public is forgiving, everyone is human and may screw up once and a while. Robert De Niro’s characters thought that applying consequential ethics; the greatest good for the greatest number. In this case, this is not ethical because lies are being told as well as fake stories to get the people of America to believe in this president for the upcoming election.

Levinson, B. (Producer). Levinson B. (Director). 1998, Jan 9. Wag The Dog (Motion Picture). USA: New Line Cinema.

#Paganelli

An Ethical Analysis on “eXistenZ”

eXistenZ is a very trippy sci-horror film that stars Jennifer Jason Leigh  as  famous video game designer Allegra Geller who is on the run from assassins with a marketing trainee turned  bodyguard Ted Pikel played by Jude Law. The two must play her new virtual reality video game called “eXistenZ” in order to see if it’s damaged.

In order to play the video game you have to have to have your nervous system hooked up to the game device via a biotechnogical umbillical chord. (Kind of weird I know) Once you’re hooked up to the video game, the game controls your nervous system. When you’re in the video game if feels so real that you have a hard time telling whether or not it’s real life or not. As the film progresses reality becomes more and more disoriented.

The film itself deals with a lot with the issue of ethics in technological advancement. In the world of the film the you play the video game but the game controls you. How much advancement is too much for technology? That is the ethical question that this film raises. In the film the assassins want to kill Allegra Geller because they view her video game as too powerful. The testers of the video games are called slaves. This is the writer/director David Cronenberg saying that we are slaves to technology. How much technology do we need in our lives? Is this world so dull that we need to go and play in virtual realities? These are some of the questions that the films asks. The film also raises the concerns about ethics in video games. Common ethical issues in video gaming are: Is it too violent? Is it too realistic? The video game in the film requires one of the characters to kill a man in broad daylight. The players in the video game have a hard time recognizing whether or not the world there in right now is real or in the video game.

Overall I thought the film was weird, but cool and raising interesting ethical questions about technological advancement and video games.

#Minghella