Ideology seems to be a very complicated and philosophical subject. Its the study of ideas right? Does everything in society have link to ideology? Every movie we watch? Magazines we read? What people believe in? The Prof. showed clips of several movies: Anchorman, Fatal Attraction, The Music Man and most recently American Psycho. I would never have imagined any deeper meaning in any of these films although i have only watched one out of the four. All these movies portray ideas and influences of the world around, of society, beliefs, politics, etc.
In the Music Man the whole ideology of the "trouble in River City" song and dance part had to do with culture. The culture of the people, what they believed in, and the main character, the con artist is trying to change their views so he can create trouble in a once peaceful town. He does all this for his own benefit but its very clever how he as an outsider tries to create conflict with the set of moral standards the people of the town have. he taps into their standards and manipulates them into thinking their standards are all wrong and bad and will cause potential downfall to the future leaders of tomorrow.
In American Psycho i found the movie clip to be very "trippy" as some people say, he says he is not really there that he doesn't have a true or real identity or real self. His identity is built on preset ideology, consumerism, and how he wants others to see him, the "Regime of the Self" as the professor put it. he had a very specific and almost tedious daily regime to achieve a self perfection to be seen by the world. That is the "performance" aspect of oneself. One quote that was brought up several times was that of the 17th century during the Age of Reason where someone said "I think, therefore I am". Its a short yet powerful quote. It means that the only thing people can be sure of is self existence. But in the book by barker that doesn't seem to be the case. Can identity really be a composite of what others think of you? That never would have crossed my mind. In the movie American Psycho the main character Patrick seems to be a socially constructed being and a result of all those influences so he can fit into society, so he won't be looked at by people with unacceptable. He puts on a mask to perhaps hide the real him, his inner self. His identity is influenced by these factors: his career (in Wall Street), where he lives (high prosperous district), family, friends, and maybe most importantly people he doesn't even know. How do we know who we really are then? I'm still baffled and pondering over that question myself. Who am I? If everything we believe in comes from a pre-existing world and identities are always adapting and sometimes contradicting we never really know who we are. Language has a very powerful influence over every aspect of our life, in order for people to live well we need language. Its something we take for granted at times or don't always realize or ask ourselves where it came from, all we care about is that we can communicate with others through this language. Its almost like that saying, the monkey doesn;'t ask where the banana came from, the monkey simply enjoys the banana. People are like that too. We do not question what is already in existence or what we believe to be universally accepted or else that is going against the norm. When people are comfortable with something, why change it correct? All words in language have value but the proximity of value placed upon each word differentiate.
In our modern selves, one of the things most people seem to distinguish themselves by is by what they buy. What you wear, watch, own. Can a person identify themselves by what kind of car they drive? Or what kind of watch they wear? many people now are products of capitalism. We consume and consume. Are we trully free in that case? Or are we mere products of capitalism?
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