Gillian Wainwright
ENG 100 Assignment #3: Film-Based Assignment Due: Draft #1 posted to blog by 11:59 pm on 3/23 A Nation Paralyzed by Fear The Sixth Sense is M. Night Shyamalan’s chilling story of a young boy named Cole Sear, his mother Lynn Sear, and his psychologist Dr. Malcom Crowe. Cole, realizing that Dr. Malcom is close to giving up on him, tells him his secret: he can see dead people. Cole tells Dr. Malcom that the ghosts come to him to scare and hurt him. Dr. Malcom helps Cole to take a closer look and confront his fear. Cole soon realizes that the ghosts do not want to hurt him, but they just want help. Cole’s paralyzing fear and misconception of the ghosts is a clear representation of global ignorance in today’s society. Cole represents the general fear and mistrust of the unknown that is so strong that it prevents us from taking a closer look. The only difference between Cole and all of us is that we are not afraid of dead people, we are afraid of the living. Since the beginning of time, our nation has overflowed with bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. There are many instances within our history where common ignorance has led us to make sweeping generalizations and take unnecessary actions. A more recent example of this is Trump’s executive order on immigration, more commonly known as the Muslim ban. The Muslim ban, put into action January 27th, 2017, called for a complete shutdown of all citizens from 7 countries in the middle east, with most of their population being Muslim, from entering the United States. I believe this instance holds a striking resemblance to the way Cole felt about the ghosts in the beginning of the movie. Cole refusing to take a closer look within the ghosts represents how our country refused to take a closer look due to their ignorance. Up until Cole started facing the ghosts and asking them what they wanted, he was taking the easy way out and letting himself believe that all the ghosts wanted was to hurt him. We, as individuals, have all made assumptions about people before we have even met them. We are taught not to judge a book by its cover, yet we are taught stereotypes from the day we are born. Disney movies, thought they have good intentions, showcase all ugly people as bad and all beautiful people as good. We are all constantly trying to identify who is “good” and who is “bad.” This stays with us our entire lives and even if we don’t realize it, we all judge people based off their appearance before we have spoken a word to them. Our country’s people have a common belief that, because there are some Muslims that have had villainous qualities, all Muslims are villains. Just as Cole generalized all of the ghosts based off the one ghost that attacked him in the closet, we have generalized and entire culture due to our fear and ignorance. Though Muslims and ghosts are very different things, the ways we tend to treat the two are shockingly alike. In a study done by Nielsen Entertainment, more than half of Americans said they’d seen a ghost in their life which is 50%. The population of U.S.A in 2015 (most recent count) was a little over 321 million. Worldwide, about 3,503 American have passed on due to terrorism. Keep in mind that this number is not specific to what religion the terrorist was, where they came from, or where the attack took place. I did the math and found that is 0.0010913% of all Americans. You are more likely to die from furniture falling from a window and crushing you than you are to be killed by a terrorist. Do we walk around with helmets on our heads constantly looking up to make sure no furniture is falling from the sky? No. Did President Trump pass a law that prevents moving companies from transporting things off the ground? No. So why does it make sense that we banned an entire group of people to prevent terrorism that rarely takes place? It is clear to me, and I hope it is clear to you, that our nation cannot move forward and coexist properly with the rest of the world. This will not happen until we abolish our ignorance and try to learn more about what we don’t know rather than be scared of it. Cole is one little boy that faced his fear. We are a nation of people that promotes strength, yet we have spent our entire existence running from what we do not know. The sooner we start facing our ghosts, as Cole faced his, the sooner we will live in a peaceful world. |
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