As published in the September 2011 issue of Counterpoint, the Wellesley College JournalofCampusLife

CanMoviesmove?Whenblockbusterssellmorethanjustpopcorn

Summer blockbusters enjoy more widespread than movies released at other times of the year yet these are the same set of movies that are we regard with a sort of suspicion,forreasonsweallvaguelyunderstand.However I especially enjoyed this summers cinema. I felt the presence of a heart in many of the blockbusters something that makes them more than merely unabashed moneysucking ploys. Common sense dictates that one should never read too much into popcorn fares but I swear I have, for many times this summer, left my neighbourhood cinema feeling like I have just read a good book and Im not just talkingabouttheHarryPottermovie.A WWF (World Wildlife Fund) booth, right next to a Rise of the Planet of the Apes promotional poster in our cinema, confirmed my hunch blockbusters do come with missions this summer! Apes was one of my favourites this season. The reboot of 1970s material managed to marry modern concerns the inyourface Stop Animal Testing message with ageold lessons of power and leadership while simultaneously paying homage to elements that made the first Apes movie. And now the movie was publicity partners with one of the most active wildlife conservation groupsintheworld?Iwassold.On the movie, I mean. That I just dedicated an entire paragraph to describing why the movie was so great is proof to my allegiance. But was I sold on the messages? Was I so moved by the inhumane treatment of the movie apes that I could immediately swear off all products that tested on animals? Was I sold on the cause would I have signed up for yearly contributions to fund WWFs gorilla tracking projects? Did the fordiversity messages of the Xmen movies, after so many of them over the years, make significant changes in alleviating bigotry among the moviegoing crowd? In shortarethesocietybuildingambitionsofblockbustermoviesrealisticatall?My stock of care products was far from exhausted, and it would be very long tilI have to make the decision of whether to buy animaltested products I was spared from committing answers for now. But I will not be so for long. I will need a new bottle of shampoo one day. On that fateful day when I am finally pressed to make a decision to be or not to be will I be looking back to this cinematic experience with Caesar the protagonistapeforreference?I suppose the more fundamental question is: to what extent can fiction mobilize social movements? Fiction is no doubt fun people have been telling stories since the

beginning of time, and are still doing so in different media platforms books, films, television and in more inventive ways than ever. Yet when it comes to rallying support for a social cause, it takes the brashness of nonfiction, the grittiness of reality, to jolt people out of their seats, and take it to the streets. The secondwave feminist movement didnt begin until the publication Betty Friedans The Feminine Mystique, a work of nonfiction, even though many widelyread novels before Mystique spoke of similar feminist ideas. I remember that I only started taking my carbon footprint seriously only after An Inconvenient Truth, even though I have learned much of the disastrous consequences of climate change from The Day After Tomorrowafewyearsback.The truth is, while we may laugh and cry our hearts out at fiction the subset of which include movies and novels we will still be doing all that in our seats or sofas. We may flinch and curse at all the animal cruelty depicted on the silver screen, but the villain is after all just Tom Felton. The entire premise of fiction is based on the suspension of our realities, our willingness to be whisked away to a makebelieve world. How many would be brave enough to follow through instructions obtained from a movie or novel? Whereas nonfiction asks cutting questions, and points to evidences around us, in our lives, and speaks to us directly about what is at hand we simplyhavenoreasontoignore.But I was not entirely wise to say that fiction has no role in mobilizing people. True, I forgot the plots of all but three of the books from my childhood, I dont even remember who was whom in Enid Blytons Secret Seven series but what I read as a child has got everything to do with my becoming the person I am today. Fiction does not preach nor implore it asks us follow them instead. It does not shove instructions or messages down our throats it asks us to internalize the awareness, let it hover on the edge of our consciousness, and quietly work its way without us realizing it. Before we know it, were thinking like the characters were. And at that point, all it takes is a heartchilling work of nonfiction to get us off our sofas do some real action, like our fictionalheroesdo.I believe that instead of focusing on the big lessons for the audience many of which are delivered in ways that are this close to being cheesy movies should be more invested in perfecting the subtler hints and messages. The audience will leave behind the alien invasion, the talking apes, the government conspiracies, the superheroes, and the ultraevil villains in the theatre but they will inevitably take away the human elements, because they recognize the same situations in their very human lives. As to what these human elements are exactly? This is for movie makers to decide, hopefully after much shoegazing and soulsearching. Movies makersare,intheend,peopletoo,andarentwealleachothersaudience?***Eileen Cham '14 was just kidding of course she would never buy products that tested onanimals...