“American media has played a central role in encouraging this culture of fear among its audiences through a steady stream of reporting on natural and man-made disasters and blockbuster films depicting apocalyptic scenarios. » (Podalsky) When 9/11 happened, we saw news covered with images of collapsed buildings, ashes, and injured people. As the storm swept across the US state, we saw images of destroyed homes and rescue activities. Some images may be difficult to look at, but they attract us. People respond to provocative things like people's suffering and pain. For example, from images of skinny and starving children to images of bloody war scenes, we cannot resist the attention and sympathy. However, by comparing the two films "Babel" and "Life and Debts" and analyzing the text, we show that as a method of expressing the problem, showing too much people's suffering is ineffective, misleading and unnecessary. . Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayUnder the public's unconsciousness, the media has used a huge amount of images of suffering. One of the reasons for using brutal images is that it is the most direct way to get people's attention. For example, imagine that you are browsing your friends' posts on Facebook or flipping through the pages of a magazine. You'll probably decide to pause for a second and look at the image of a woman crying, or the image of a man bleeding rather than an advertisement or your smiling friends at a party. Indeed, these provocative images immediately trigger the public’s reflection. We begin to think about what is happening and desire to discover what is behind this image. Another type of media that makes extensive use of images of suffering is cinema, particularly films that attempt to express a point of view or issue. Like “Babel” and “Life and Debt,” both films have an issue to express, but they express it in such a different way. “Life and Debt” is a documentary that mainly uses interviews and voiceovers to express the problem. The film successfully expresses the anger of local Jamaicans towards the World Bank (indirect route of business invasion) and the sarcastic attitude of filmmaker Stephanie Black. On the other hand, “Babel” is an example of melodrama, “Babel approaches its subject with emotion. In other words, the film's concern with questioning the cold logic of the law becomes the driving force for formal experimentation as it appropriates a sensational cultural form (namely melodrama) to move its viewers in unexpected ways. (Podalsky) Babel uses an exaggerated storyline and extreme character characteristics to exaggerate the tension between the law and immigrants, in order to force the film's point of view on the audience. In Melodrama, the filmmaker forces the audience to think about the problem behind the context by conveying to them the pain of others. According to the text, melodrama has two characteristics. “(1) The prolonged duration of scenes of suffering that position this ecstatic state of feeling as a transparent sign of moral good and (2) the frequency of their use to call the viewer to witness this suffering. » (Podalsky) In “Babel”, close-up and extreme close-up are frequently used in the film when the character is in an impulsive emotion or in deep pain. As we look at the image of suffering, it once again triggersthe greater the moral sense of the public, we feel compassion for what we see. We also begin to process the information we get in the film. Then we ask society and ourselves what are the reasons that cause the tragedy and how can we fix it. However, melodrama also has its flaws. Susan Sontag, an American writer and filmmaker, questioned the effectiveness of showing images of suffering through a third-person position in her book "Concerning the Pain of Others." In a film, the camera shows the audience reality, but at the same time it puts us on stage. in a third position of the person – witness. Since the public is not in the same position as the victims, the victims' pain will not be conveyed as effectively as intended. We may not understand what the real message behind the scene is, however uncomfortable the images may be. “Photographs of an atrocity can provoke opposing reactions. A call for peace. A cry of vengeance. Or simply the perplexed awareness, continually replenished by photographic information, that terrible things are happening. (Sontag) When the audience sees the older brother dead after being shot in "Babel", his father cries over his body. When the woman was injured, the tourists immediately thought it was a terrorist attack and they only worried about themselves until the woman could be rescued. The audience will respond by feeling compassion towards the character and then thinking about how stupid and selfish human beings can be rather than thinking about the message of immigration and the law. It's fair to say that once people felt sympathy for the father of Babel losing his son, we have already removed ourselves from the possibility that this could happen to us. The more exaggerated the pain, the less attached the audience feels to the victim because we know these incidents may not happen to us. It is another flaw of melodrama that it only activates the audience's compassion instead of the desire to help, and usually this compassion turns into satisfaction with our own lives. “At its worst, compassion involves appropriating the suffering of others to prove the moral superiority of the compassionate one. At best, the individualizing dynamic of compassion distances us from recognizing structural inequalities. (Podalsky) In recent years, there have been few serious earthquakes in China. Every time my family watched the news, my mother would turn to me and say, “How horrible is that?” We should be happy with what we have now. The statement is correct, but I feel morally wrong for thinking this way. Besides donating money, what else will we do to help them after a feeling of sympathy. Even the act of giving seems to be a statement of appreciation for not being a victim. “Compassion is an unstable emotion. It must be translated into action, otherwise it withers. » (Sontag) Just like what Susan Sontag mentioned in the text, compassion is not a weak emotion that can fade easily. When I was a kid, there were a lot of homeless people sitting on the street corner and shaking from head to toe. At that time I was extremely sympathetic towards them and tried to give them some coins. However, as time went by, I grew up and saw them many times and understood that there were people who behaved like homeless people for money. I gradually lost my sympathy for them. In the same way, we can lose "interest" in issues that are continually expressed through the pain of others; one day we.