2012 and the disaster film media hype horror
There is a lot of media involved (and affected) by the new film 2012. The new film is produced by Sony Pictures, distributed by Columbia Pictures and directed by Roland Emmerich the director who brought us other disaster films like Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. The film is about the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar. Information on the Mayan calendar and its relevance to the new film is readily available and can be found on blogs, wikipedia, in internet and newspaper articles, movie trailers, television documentaries and even radio.
In an effort to promote the new film and to reach a larger audience the producers have both created and allowed mass media that encourage the receivers to buy into the film plot that the world will come to an end in 2012. The film industry and many others are capitalizing on consumers in a way that could cause harm and possible deaths. I believe that the media hype and push for 2012 is crossing the lines in media and entertainment. The movie should be taken as an exciting form of entertainment and should be sold as that. It should not include internet trickery as a way to be taken as truth, thus making more money in movie sales.
Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas. Similar quotes suggest the same; University of Florida anthropologist Susan Gillespie says the 2012 phenomenon comes “from media and from other people making use of the Maya past to fulfill agendas that are really their own.”
“If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn’t have any idea,” said Jose Huchim, a Yucatan Mayan archaeologist. “That the world is going to end? They wouldn’t believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain.”
Bernal suggests that apocalypse is “a very Western, Christian” concept projected onto the Maya, perhaps because Western myths are “exhausted.”
“It’s too bad that we’re getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they’re too young to die,” Martin said. “We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn’t live to see them grow up.”
Sony has set up a fake website to convince people that the world will end in 2012. It details what the world will be like after 2012, offers survival kits and asks people to sign up for a lottery to be saved. Dr. David Morrison, a senior scientist at NASA’s Astrobiology Institute says he’s gotten nearly 1,000 e-mails from people who believe something catastrophic is about to befall the planet. He added that some letters have been from teenagers who said they would rather commit suicide than watch the world come to an end. Sony claims it’s obvious the Web site is a promotion for the movie. “It is very clear that this site is connected to a fictional movie.”
My personal favorite link is http://www.2012officialcountdown.com/?a=dannasshop
Here you can buy books and CD’s to teach your family the truth about how the world will end in 2012 and how to take steps to prepare for it. I am saddened for that year to arrive as we may lose lives to the hype and it would be by and large BECAUSE of the mass media and how easily and quickly it can spread through the internet. This may be the beginning of where new social media avenues might be forced to gain a conscience.
The end of the last Mayan calendar signifies the end of a calendar cycle, the same as our current December 31st of every year. 2012 may be the end of the Mayan calendar, but it will not be the end of the world. . . . . . .or will it?
References
2012 official website http://www.whowillsurvive2012.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_%28film%29
Kwalkersbtadblog's Blog 