Movie Subliminals -- The Rate of God (Accident? Purposeful?)

>...if people are depicted as saying, "Oh, my God!" and then getting slaughtered anyway, isn't the underlying message "God can't/won't help you"? Plenty of people calling on him, and He ain't answering, so to speak.

Yes, I had this very thought myself!

FYI, the ending of "SCREAM 2" (which continues the characters and story of Scream 1) is very interesting to examine with this thought in mind. (I will now "de-construct" and re-assemble the ending of SCREAM 2. For lurkers who find this kind of thing crazy, by all means skip this post. To my eyes, this is a _wild_ example of subliminal messaging, but it _seems_ to be consistent.)

At the climax in Scream 2, Sidney (the heroine) stands literally on a stage confronted with the evil killer. Next to Sidney is her boyfriend, "crucified" on a prop. Underscoring this crucifixion theme is the repeated image of Sidney wearing her boy friend's necklace like a crucifix around her own neck.

Now, as Sidney actually fights the evil killer, the crucified man she loves (!) is of no help to her! Sidney is about to be killed when the would-be businessman in the story (Cotton Weary) appears with a gun and confronts the evil killer. After speaking about his own _monetary_ interest in Sidney's life, Cotton brings up a business deal he'd promoted to her previously. Although she refused it earlier, now, with the evil killer's knife at her throat, she agrees to Cotton's plans. Cotton then shoots the evil killer and saves the heroine's life.

Now, this entire scene can be construed as very explicitly dramatizing the helplessness of Christianity in the modern world confronting evil, and portraying "enlightened self interest" and business values (i.e., Mithraism (soldiers & businessmen)) as able to confront and defeat evil.

In an earlier scene, one of the characters explicitly says something like, "The battle for the soul is fought in the arena of art."

Some of the people making some of these movies recognize that there is more going on than meets the eyes. In my next post to this thread, I'm going to say something about the background of the people who made SCREAM.

Mark W.

>The only debunkers are those who profit from the massive subliminal suggestions on display every second of our lives.

Yes.

And they profit many ways.

I think some people posting to this thread picture the people making these movies as grubby men eaking out a skanky existence in the movie business. In some cases that may be true. But in others, nothing could be farther from the truth.

The producer of SCREAM -- who took a very active role in the production -- Harvey Weinstein [sp?] -- is widely regarded as the most powerful man in the entertainment industry. (A couple of days ago, Drudge singled him out on his page.) And he is not just involved with entertainment. He is also connected to Hillary & Bill and was one of the organizers of the New York benefit where Hillary got boo-ed by the firemen and policemen. The director of SCREAM -- Wes Craven -- was chosen by the Clinton Administration (!) to film a documentary of Clinton's final day in office.

The people connected with many of these films are profoundly connected politically, and they have active agendas socially. They are the kind of people who would _want_ to put messages (overt and covert) in movies if such things are possible.

And to my eyes, anyone who actually watches one of these movies carefully sees that messages (overt and, more importantly, covert) _do_ exist.

Mark W.

>Are the film makers explicitly linking snack food to the experiential feelings of strong emotions?
>>In a word: no.... The theories behind 'subliminal suggestion' have been thoroughly debunked for years

[laughs] Hello? Helloooo? 'Thump' 'Thump' Is this thing on? Do the words Plausible Deniability ring any bells with you? Do you believe the meaning and usage of the words might be relevent to this issue?

Consider this, which was written more than twenty years ago:

"The effects of massive subliminal indoctrination are already highly visible. Large numbers of U.S. children regularly freak out on every conceivable chemical they can swallow or pump into their veins. The U.S. family is a disaster area, with nearly half of all marriages ending in divorce. American men and women are alienated and distrustful of each other, their reproductive behaviors shunted through masturbatory fantasies of bizarre and unrestrained sexual indulgence. Our general population is anaesthetized toward reality by immersion in endless hours of mind-deadening media pap--a perverse, destructive manipulation into fantasies of instant gratification, endless sensual indulgences, and purposeless consumption just for the sake of consumption--and corporate profits.

One thing quite apparent from world history is the low survival rate for societies which repress their vulnerabilities and imperfections by constantly repeating to themselves how perfect, beautiful, noble, inspired, and grea they are. The Greek youth Narcissus never realized, even at the point where he was destroyed by his self-adoration, that the magnificent being he had fallen in love with was his own reflected image."

[from "Subliminal Ad-Ventures in Erotic Art," by Wilson Bryan Key]

Twenty years ago, that was a pretty darn accurate assessment of the contemporary world. And it would have been a pretty good guide to how things were going to get worse over the coming years. They did.

These same dynamics are still at work. Let's at least go into the next twenty years with our eyes open a little wider to actual reality, rather than the reality put together by social and political activists and fed to us like junk food...

Mark W.

Even people like Harvey Weinstein are fronts for the banks and spooks who've controlled Hollywood since its inception.

One of the biggest lies is that Hollywood was founded by Jews. Jews are also the front men; Mayer, Thalberg, Goldwyn, etc., were all the worker bees for the New York wasp banking community and military intelligence, who've always known the hypnotic impact of story-telling, and have used it to full advantage.

The world on the flickering screen in the darkness of a hushed theater is the world the Powerful want. "American Beauty" is a good example. That disgusting film isn't my world. But Hollywood is doing its best to make sure it becomes my life and yours.

>Hm. Since your opinion of the Lord of the Rings is that Tolkien wrote it as a homosexual allegory, I think I'll pass on this little number, too.

[sighs] I have no problem with comments on my beliefs, but I think you do a dis-service to lurkers by making reference to something without putting up a link! Most lurkers won't know what the heck you're talking about.

You're referring, of course, to my posts starting here: Tolkien returns to the best seller list

And you remember me correctly. It was during that thread that I decided to put up a thread dealing with the issue in detail. It was in that thread that I said:

"That's a defining feature of a really powerful subtext -- the elements are NOT hidden, NOT isolated, NOT available only to cognoscenti. They are very visible and their relationships are very logical. They don't standalone. (The meaning or effect may be hidden, isolated and very Byzantine indeed, but that's an entirely different issue.) The amazing thing about a subtext, however, is that simply because people are focused on the TEXT, they don't SEE the subtext. (Or, more interestingly, because of the hidden aspects of subtext -- the meaning -- in some cases many people will very literally go into a TRANCE STATE and "screen" the reality of the subtext from the conscious mind. These people, then, aren't fooling around when they say such things don't exist -- because to their _conscious_ mind, the subtext doesn't exist. It's very very interesting.)"

Mark W.

Yes, you said:

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I don't care if you talk about Tolkien, or the old Grail "romances," or Star Wars, there is an underlying theme...

The underlying theme in these stories is of a naive, virginal young boy who places himself in the hands of a worldly-wise, experienced old man, and the old guy teaches the boy the ways of the world and initiates him into the mysteries of the universe.

Get it!?

The polite interpretation is that the traditional family has been SO destroyed since, say, the 30s, that ANY father-figure relationship is embraced. Of course, the grail romances have been around for a long time. I'm afraid it's difficult to explain them -- and the larger trend of this theme -- without bringing up the impolite stuff like NAMBLA.

Have fun with your "wizards" and "swords" -- to be honest, it is _fun_ speculating as to whether "dragons" represent society (which must be elminated to make room for the fraternal order), the "civilized" self (which must be destroyed to embrace the perverted self), or women in general (the devoring things which threaten to take men & boys away from the fraternal order, and the traditional things "swords" get stuck in). But, other than the clinical aspect, I don't see much worth in this garbage.

Mark W.
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Pretty funky stuff. Obsessing about hidden messages in everything seems to be your forte, my man.

>Pretty funky stuff. Obsessing about hidden messages in everything seems to be your forte, my man.

It is funky stuff.

But is hidden really the right word? I mean, that is one of the amazing things about the stuff I've been posting. It's not really hidden at all. It's right there for anyone to see or hear, but because everybody is focused elsewhere, the contiguity of these other elements and their relationships get passed over by our conscious mind.

Am I obsessed with this stuff? I don't think so. But I am real interested in it. To be honest, I don't see how a person can 1) recognize that this stuff is real; and 2) not be interested in it.

If you still think this is just projection on my part, consider this. In this thread, I've spoken about SCREAM, and SCREAM 2. In particular, I've addressed how the climax of SCREAM 2 could be viewed as a paean to some historically Mithraic beliefs. If that sounds like I've dropped acid, have you (or any lurkers) ever seen the first scene of SCREAM 3?! Let me recount some basic points of the first scene from SCREAM 3.

SCREAM 3 begins with the murder of a woman. Before she's killed, we learn her name because her boyfriend is constantly using it. Her name is Christine. The guy who murders her, we eventually find out, is named Roman. Just before Roman kills Christine, he yells, "Now you're history, babe!" To use a phrase I used in the other thread, get it? It's not a _hidden_ message. It just has to be put together!

And, for people who see any sense in this, in SCREAM 3 Roman eventually turns out to be Sidney's brother, so, if I'm "reading" this film cycle correctly, we have a "simple" teen slasher movie which is putting down Christianity (twice!) and affirming the ascendency of a weird, Osiris-derived mythos from either ancient Egypt or Babylon.

And, now that the Osiris link is made clear in SCREAM 3, much of the weird, unresolved brother/father/mother/daughter/son issues from the frist two movies have a framework that makes at least a little sense...

Is this kind of speculation just projection? Could be. But do the actual elements that serve as a springboard to this thinking really exist in the movies? ABSOLUTELY. It wasn't my projection that put them there. (And we see in a movie like "CHERRY FALLS" that a really good movie can be made WITHOUT any of the weirdness. The weirdness isn't essential to a good movie.)

It is simply that some film makers choose to build THEIR movies with this weird elements built in.

Is it really so funky to wonder why?

Mark W.

P.S. SCREAM 3, written by a different screenwriter than SCREAM 1, has something like 42 references to God/Jesus/Christ in a running time of 117 minutes, for a Rate of God of something like 2.76. Still nearly twice as high as CHERRY FALLS and considerably higher than I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER.

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