Chad Froomkin

November 20, 1999

TCOM 100 – Final Paper

James Korn

The state of our culture is one that is monopolized by multi-millionaire business owners, is dependent on television entirely too much, and is greedy with money. Our dominant ideology as a culture is the belief that the more money you make, that the better off in life you will be. Nothing shows this more than television. Television shows sports stars, actors, and news anchors that make millions of dollars a year just by having a talent, or looking pretty. Everyone one wants to make that money, so they will wear the expensive clothes, drive the expensive cars, or even buy that expensive dream house. People think to get ahead in this world, that they need to be rich. The media does not help this image at all.

The media not only sides with the moneymakers, but also contributes to people wanting that money. Like I said before, the glamorization of entertainment figures, leads people to think that you have to become one of these people to be happy in life. They get tons of money, because they have a talent, nonetheless people like firefighters, police officers, and teachers, who actually do this world some good, and help people survive in life, make peanuts compared to these overpaid stars. Another good example of how the media portrays that money is the root to our culture is through two new game shows, “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” and “Greed.” On both of these game shows contestants have a chance to win one million dollars or two million dollars, respectively, for answering questions. The only thing this causes is for people to realize that there might be a way out of having a job and actually working hard for your money. You can just go onto a game show and your whole life will be changed, just by answering a couple of questions. This representation of the importance of money ruins a person’s consciousness.

The amount of importance the media puts on money only attributes to the shaping of a person’s consciousness. If people see over and over again that to be happy you have to be rich, then they will actually start believing it. This theory actually feeds into the modalities of consciousness by a brain washing technique, and there are three modalities that contribute to this brainwashing. It becomes embodied in your mind that the more you see something you like, then there will be a greater chance that you are going to want that more and more. You are programmed to think that you cannot live without that particular item, and you wouldn’t be complete without it. The repetition of this situation feeds into temporality. The more and more you see that thing, the deeper and deeper it stays with you, and therefore you are constantly reminded by it. The third modality that deals with money is sociality. Many people’s main purpose in life is to be better than the next guy. Life is a competition for who can be the best. This goes hand and hand with the saying of, “keeping up with the Jones’s.” We are creating a monster of a people that are selfish and insecure. All people care about is having a bigger house or a better job than the next person. I wish we could say to look at other countries as good examples, but we can’t.

Not only does America have this problem, but also it seems that we have exported this greed to the rest of the world. It used to be that people from other countries wanted to come to America to seek freedom, but now it seems that people come to this country to make their fortune. People from other countries see how much of an importance that we put on entertainers, so they figure that if they become one of these entertainers that they can cash in on the fortune that is to be made out there. These American entertainer’s films also dominate most of the foreign culture. In many countries the top movies or the top celebrities are American. They see how good the life in America is portrayed on television, so they try to copy it in every way that they can. Not all foreigners’ greed for money comes directly from America, though; sometimes it comes because people in some foreign countries are just sick of being poor. Take for example Russia. Their country is in such a horrible debt that doctors and lawyers that would make a more than honest living in the United States, make near to nothing in Russia. Many people want money so bad that they get involved in phony pyramid schemes, even though they don’t have much money in the first place, the money they do have is used for the greed of becoming rich. These people are so sick of being poor, that they will try anything for money. The only way that this is going to change in many countries is through time, and the rebuilding of a country’s economic system.

The responsibility of the media is not to put so much emphasis on material things. This, however, is basically impossible. People like Rupert Murdoch and Michael Eisner who have more power; because they have more money, control much of what we see on television. This limited amount of choice shapes our consciousness and ideology, and therefore limits the possibilities for our consciousness and ideology. Big money people want more money than they already have, and so they buy numerous amounts of companies. This narrows the playing field when talking about business, and seems to create somewhat of a monopoly. To stop this problem, for the future, I would try to limit these corporate heads into how much power they can actually have. A good way of doing this is to set up some kind of a rule that enables more people to start business, and therefore creates an opportunity for many people to put out a variety of products. This will in turn limit the amount of power one could have over so many different things. Right now, the top ten percent, according to wealth, of people in this country are richer than the lower ninety percent. I think the limiting of power would then enable these figures to not so much become equal, but to gradually lessen the number of terribly wealthy people.

The question of what kind of world do I want to live in and how can I help bring it about, is simple. I don’t want to live in a world that is a democracy, yet is controlled by people with money. It has turned society into thinking the only way to become successful is to have a load of money. I want to see the Pittsburgh Pirates, with their low payroll, win the World Series. I want to see a President be elected because of his ideas and not how much he has campaigned. It is possible. An example of this would be the Blair Witch Project. Even though it only cost thirty-two thousand dollars to make, it grossed over two million dollars in the theaters. The only way this is going to fully happen is if you root for the underdog, because the underdog might be actually better than the favorite.