World Wars and the Media, Tuesday

[chosehumanity]

"Good morning, everyone." Mitchell's cheer seemed a little heavy on the sheepish side that morning. "I'm Mitchell. Not Professor Mitchell - I hear you have to go to school to earn that. Welcome to World Wars and the Media. Which is a fairly impressive title and sounds properly academic, which I'm not." Unless you counted that stint in Oxford in the thirties, and Mitchell had made very sure at the time no one was around to remember that. At least it was a little more optimistic than his original idea of starting the class, which had involved saying I have absolutely no idea how to teach a class like this and possibly George having a massive fit, if things went the way they tended to.

"But let's not linger on that. The 20th century is famous for its global wars and equal consequences," he segued. "It's equally famous for being a time at which the media exploded all over the place, giving us film, radio, television, the internet..." He looked momentarily wistful. "Obviously, these two cross-pollinated. Through propaganda, but also through the reverse. Rebellions were started and extinguished with the help of rising technology. Unlike previous centuries, there was suddenly this mass of... possibility," he made an enthusiastic gesture with his hands, "Where in the middle of an armed conflict, one single image could travel around the world and change everything. The way the people saw it, the way the people thought about it... It's a powerful tool."

He paused, leaning forward against his desk. "I'm not going to bore you with more general babbling," he said, "But we'll be here to look at and discuss a lot of these things. Of course, to do so, we have to know what we're starting with. So starting with you," he pointed out a random student, "I want your name, I want when and where you're from, and I want to know what you think about war. In a very general sense. What images spring to mind what you think about it? What stories have formed the way you look at the First World War, or the Second, if you even know what those are? Or if you don't, what stories have formed the way you look at the wars of your own place and time?"

Beat.

"Also, have some tea."

[[ wait for the ocd up! ]]

Comments

Re: Introductions

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Dinah Lance, New Gotham City, USA, 2009, and." She frowned. "Most of my ideas about war right now come from either school, or CNN. A couple of the older war movies, for World War II, like meta for Casablanca, and meta for The Great Escape." She frowned. "Not as much about World War I. Barbed wire, and trenches, and gas. Ugh."

Then she stopped. "But in my own life, I have friends here at school who are involved in all sorts of wars back at their homes, fighting with different technologies, and different ideals. And I know what it's done to some of them, a lot of it bad. But most of them are what people in New Gotham would call heroic."

Re: Introductions

[chosehumanity]

"Not a bad pick for films," Mitchell said, with approval obvious in his voice. "So would you say your ideas about war from film have changed because of the people you've met?"

Re: Introductions

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Definitely. Mostly that it's," Dinah struggled for words a second, "a lot more confusing than war movies would tell you. And the thing people in wars want is to survive it first, then keep fighting. It's not all over in a couple years. Plus I've been in few invasions here since then too, and wow, it's more gross." But harpies and zombies would give her that impression.