CMCstudent, 2/8/09

Dr. Rog explained the word verisimilitude as creating the sense that actors, or characters we see on TV or elsewhere in entertainment, are real. When the word itself is broken down we get the root words simil (similar) and sim (simulate). By combining these two words we get the definition of verisimilitude, to simulate what is similar to us. Thus, one greatest sense of verisimilitude is reality TV, because they are mimicking and producing a version of reality. I got curious and looked up the meaning of the roots veri and tude which I then found out meant true and a state/ condition of. This then brought the meaning of root-word-for-root-word: to simulate a true similar condition. In this case I have to ask is anything in entertainment verisimilitude? Does reality TV really simulate true to life conditions? In the real, actually, world outside of entertainment and television who really lives in a house with 7 random college age kids from across America in a huge house smack in the middle of a big city, extravagantly furnished, including a pool table, Jacuzzi, and unlimited supply of alcohol. Is all this so similar to life? They may want us all to identify to these extravagancies although, I think it just makes people want to identify with a luxurious lifestyle because of the depiction of it seems to be the norm of what kids that age are doing.

“The public is an examiner, but an absent-minded one.” This quote from Benjamin although written around 1936 when Fascism was on the rise, still applies to the public today. In 1936 the media was being used to control and manipulate people, today the only that has changed is our knowledge against it. Now, we know that most the things media says has a bias view, whether we are watching the news or a commercial. We know that things we see in a magazine or a movie are not as glamorous as they seem to be. For instance, everyone knows smoking bad for them, but they either watch people they love do it, or do it themselves. It is the #2 American killer, and it is not that we are unaware of what we are doing to our bodies, but we quickly put it to the way side. This is an example of being an examiner, but a very absent mindedly one.