MOVIE REVIEW: Sicko

Regardless of their pledges and advertisements on caring for the sick and most especially the poor, America's health care insurances are all but unreasonable money suckers.

This documentary by Michael Moore dug deep in the controversial health insurance system in the United States... Which is none! No, let's say that there is a health insurance system in the great America, which has been a hot topic for debate over the years, but health insurances in their country care for money more than its citizens. Micheal Moore presented a spread of cases where in people apply for healthcare yet get denied of it because those people's cases are "non-life-threatening". And yet, they die a few days, weeks, months later. This happened to more than half of America's population that's why their last resort would be to cross the border to Canada where they could get free medical service. The only con about the free healthcare in Canada was the long wait.

In every country, I believe that the priority should always be the health of its citizens. It is sad that there are issues like this in the United States for they themselves claim that they are a powerful country. I guess they are so powerful that all they have is power. 

MOVIE REVIEW: Control Room (documentary)

The documentary 'Control Room' gives us another look on the war in Iraq which happened nearly a decade ago. It mainly showed how the largest Arab network, Al Jazeera, framed the war with its 'anti-american attitude'. It gave a new perspective because for so many years, racism aside, I believed that the Americans are the saints and that the Arabs are the sinners. Perhaps it has something to do with the kind of network I get news from. In this documentary, I was able to see how gruesome the attacks from the US were (reported by Al Jazeera). It is disturbing to have just realized that two had played the game. I mean to say that the Americans weren't fully innocent during the war.

Despite the goal to show how an Arab network handled the war, Control Room had an opposing perspective of an American soldier. The American soldier pointed out that Al Jazeera only showed how merciless the US was for being responsible of the seemingly endless bombings in Iraq. And so as to frame US as the enemies, the network decides to show photos and footage of children and women with blood all over their bodies and bandages on their heads. He also spoke about the fact that the network never showed how the Iraqi troops responded to the attacks. Again and again he told that the US is only helping the Iraqis achieve their freedom from Saddam Hussein and that Al Jazeera should realize and report about how much of a villain Saddam is. But then again there are issues surrounding America's real intentions--that they are only after the oil and having power over Iraq.

This documentary tackled beyond which country is to be blamed or which side had a purer intention. I think it also aimed to make people realize that there is no objectivity in journalism. When there is war, news networks take advantage of what they call the 'human cost', or could also be referred to as the 'collateral damage' of the war. Journalists and news networks have a stand in the war. They make use of the human cost to earn and influence a certain perspective. Media has the tendency to exaggerate news so as to provoke anger from their audiences. A good example in behalf of the US would be the American networks' use of images of American soldiers who died during the war. It could be something that might make the viewers go against whoever killed those soldiers, which in this case are the Iraqis. On the contrary, in behalf of Iraq, Al Jazeera showed photos of children who were victims of the bombings. Neither of the opposing networks are objective during the war.

Perhaps we could summarize and say that because of the way al Jazeera framed their news during the US-Iraq war, the negative reactions and perspectives of their audiences (mostly from the Middle East) towards the US was triggered and was worsened. But having so much more power than Al Jazeera, the US, together with its networks, might've influenced the world to change their perspective on the Arab countries.

Another reason as to why we could say that there is no concrete objectivity in journalism (especially in the midst of war) is because of the word "military propaganda". It was mentioned a lot of times in the film so as to point out that networks of each opposing countries have a position in the war. It is in each of the networks' hands to control the news and to manipulate what is to be shown to their audiences. As I quote Al Jazeera's manager  (shown in the film), Joanne Tucker "objectivity is a mirage...if there was true neutrality, all information would be welcomed on all sides".