A Fake Rant Letter Exercise
Dear Jessica Winter,
I have recently read your Time magazine article about Kathryn Bigelow and how current events inspire her recent works. I love how she tries her best to keep the political opinions expressed in her movies as neutral as possible. I interpreted her movie Zero Dark Thirty to be a personal story about Maya’s desperate attempt to find the Al Qaeda leader before she loses more friends and before more innocent people die. No political messages propagandized but since this movie is about something political, people are always going to find something to rant about.
I am an art student (like Bigelow), but I have always wondered about what people in ‘frontlines’ think about some current events. I may not like war, but I sure appreciate those who are willing to put themselves in danger in order for the rest of us to remain unharmed. One thing that has intrigued me about your article is that you showed the responses from the film Zero Dark Thirty of many perspectives.
The power of perspective can easily influence one’s opinion. From the scenes in the movie about the interrogations being the way to finding Osama bin laden to all of the CIA officials claiming that it is an inaccurate representation of the operations and to the general audiences’ reaction to it all. As you might have expected, I am not sure which perspective I like most, but
There is a saying, “The action is justified by the intention behind it.” (Something like that). I may not approve of some of the actions used to get the answers needed but I will say that sometimes there are no better options given the circumstances and the desperation. Of course, nobody enjoys conducting such actions but if it’s the only way than so be it.
However, the general audiences have been raging about what has been fed to them from the film and the officials have been raging about the misrepresentation. Either way, both sides won because Osama bin Laden was found and we were able to end the threat, can’t we justify on the results rather than the trials getting there? I would not be surprised if the operatives responsible for the “interrogations” are ashamed of doing such things but if that was the case, I am sure they were thinking more about the outcome than the current situation. Whether or not Kathryn Bigelow was fabricating this whole controversial issue, she wanted the audience to ask themselves (just like you mentioned in your article) about who are really the good guys. Personally, I think the question in this case should be “How much are we capable of sacrificing ourselves to accomplish our mission?”
-Yours truly, Sam Kuo
revolverswitch 