Movie Review of Oliver Stone's "W." (Week 8, Blog 3)

It's 1:23 in the morning and I've just gotten back from watching Oliver Stone's latest picture "W." which chronicles the life of current president, George W. Bush. While I was watching the film, a couple of things actually stood out for me, things of which correlated to what chapter 23 of the text is about: narrative coherence and narrative fidelity.

According to the text, narrative coherence is basically when characters act consistently and leads the listener (or in this case, the viewer) to believe that the story is true. Having said that, there is NO narrative coherence in this film. With the exception of Josh Brolin (who does a solid job in portraying Bush), every character is absolutely blown out of proportion. In other words, the character actions in the film were not consistent enough to make me believe in the story.

While the film does have an example of narrative coherence, it also has an example of narrative fidelity. According to the text, narrative fidelity is when a story "strikes a responsive chord" within the listener (but again in this case, the viewer). According to Fisher, a story has "fidelity when it provides good reasons to guide our future actions". While I learned nothing new from Stone's picture, I was aware of the emphasis he put on the film. He emphasized key points in Bush's life in which Bush clearly showed that he was never, is not and will never be qualified to be the President of the United States. I would certainly assume that Fisher would see the narrative fidelity in this film, in which Americans, with good reasons presented before them, will be able to make better decisions in the future with regards to voting the right man (or woman) into the country's highest honor.

I realize this blog is totally unconventional from what we usually do in this class, but I felt the need to express this. I personally did not enjoy the film because it is blatantly biased (in support of Bush) and it simply places all of the blame on his advisers through his eight years as President, thus assuming that Bush should not be held accountable for anything, even though he makes the final decision. I surely hope that you can understand where I am coming from, whether you are in support of Bush or not, and I'd like to thank you for taking the time to read my blog.

Chapter 22: Victimage (Week 8, Blog 2)

One of the most interesting concepts I found in chapter 22 of the text is the concept of victimage. According to Griffin, victimage is when one names someone or something outside of himself and places the blame of personal or public problems on that someone or something. I found this concept interesting because just an hour before I had read chapter 22, I watched a show on VH1 in which memorable reality show moments were reviewed. One of the moments came from "America's Next Top Model," in which one of the contending models fainted right in front of Tyra Banks (one of the judges). The fainted model was taken to the hospital while Tyra spoke with the other models who had just witnessed what had happened. Instead of saying that the fainted model was a victim of something like anxiety, Tyra turned it around and made herself the victim and blamed her shock of seeing the model fainting on the fainted model. By the text's definition, it is clear that Tyra made the fainted model her scapegoat.