Oral Assignment "This house believes in restricting Hollywood's influence."

Speech

Ladies and Gentlemen it is my honour to be here tonight proposing the motion “This house believes in restricting Hollywood’s influence.”

In my speech I will be following up on arguments introduced by my partner. This includes the promotion of smoking, the political influence of Hollywood and the use of it’s monopoly to spread the American way of thinking throughout the world. However after having listened quite attentively to the 1st opposer’s speech, I feel obliged to comment on some arguments brought up by him that seemed irrelevant/ unsupported.

To witness how much smoking is glorified by the Hollywood industry, all you need to do is go to a movie theatre and sit in front of a big screen with a coke and popcorn. You’ll find characters such as Bruce Willis defusing a bomb with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, or Arnold Schwarzenegger playing the role of a president’s fitness expert, posing on the cover magazines with a big cigar in his mouth. Is that cigarette going to help Bruce Willis in any way defuse the bomb? Is a cigar a symbol of success and fame in our society? Ladies and gentlemen this is obviously sending a contradictory message to the teenagers and kids…. These are their heroes… role models. However this doesn’t mean that the message being passed on is “Smoking is good for you”… what is actually happening is that the naïve audience is becoming less sensitive to the serious dangers of smoking. This comes as a result of movies portraying smoking as a common thing that everyone does.

This youthful audience is too young to understand life, its obstacles and dangers. They don’t understand that in the real world, the smokers tend to be poor and less educated because Hollywood’s movies show them that it is the powerful and successful who smoke the most. You’d be surprised to find out that smoking can be found in movies that are practically aimed towards the young audience such as Ghostbusters II, Home Alone 2 (Lost in New York), Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Kindergarten Cop, Men in Black, and The Nutty Professor.

For those of you who are ...

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For those of you who are sceptic as to the magnitude of Hollywood’s influence over the world, here’s and interesting fact that might enlighten you. The world bank has estimated that over 20% of the world’s population owns a television set which means that the potential audience having access to Hollywood’s influence can be as high as 80%

Ladies and Gentlemen, with such a large and diversified audience there is a very serious threat as to it’s cultural and political influence. Hollywood usually tends to promote a “good vs. evil” image of international conflicts, featuring negative, stereotypical images of people from different countries. In most cases Muslims, Russians and South Americans are represented as enemies of freedom. In a world that has been marked by the tragic events of September 11th , people of different ethnic groups are being looked at as potential terrorists. A little spark of misunderstanding caused by a movie could lead to serious conflicts on a national or even international basis. The Peacemaker is an example of how Hollywood’s slyness is used to portray minority ethnic and religious groups in a prejudiced and harmful way.

Situations like this where Hollywood can have such a big influence may seem far fetched but wasn’t it a movie called “Child’s Play 2” that encouraged Martin Bryant into shooting 35 people dead at Port Arthur?

The opposition might argue that Hollywood is a business and that the producers are only interested in money. A recent study conducted by the Dove foundation shows though, that G rated movies make eight times more money than the R rated films. However there are 17 times more R rated films being produced. If the producers are so interested in money then why don’t they focus on the larger audience?

Ladies and gentlemen. Movies are powerful opinion makers that exert great cultural, moral and political influences. This strong influential power is being used to promote an American view of the world and encourages prejudice on ethnic minorities on a national and international basis. Hollywood uses actors to promote smoking, John Travolta makes it look cool, Sharon Stone gives it a sexy image and Leonardo DiCaprio just has to light up to make it look appealing.

The evil ideas are always more dangerous than inanimate objects because they are required in order to give birth to action. If we must restrict either, we should restrict the one which is more dangerous, and in the case of this debate I am referring to Hollywood’s influence.