The 1978 U.S. film “The Deer Hunter,” starring Robert DeNiro, is an emotional movie with a strong antiwar message, but it bears a lethal fault, as in other Hollywood films on the subject of war. The anxiety of the antiwar sentiment belongs only to the United States in the narrative, while the other side is merely portrayed as purveyors of nasty acts in order to emphasize the agony felt by the invading U.S. soldiers. This is not even to mention the near-psychopathic sentiment of the “Rambo” movies. It is within the same context that the major media of the U.S., at the start of the war, portrayed their own country as a victim and Vietnam as the immoral enemy.
If we assume the test firing of missiles is perceived as so dangerous, why would the media keep mum on joint military exercises by the U.S. and Japan, who have more lethal weapons than North Korea? Even South Korea has tested its cruise missiles. This represents a double standard for North Korea, as not only the U.S. and South Korea but Japan and India have test fired their missiles. Why are North Korea’s tests of several primitive missiles, into the open sea, so dangerous?
The dangerous side is not North Korea, but the media, which just took the issue and ran with it. Such biased reports create a chain reaction that exaggerates fact, amplifying events into a crisis. The South Korean media, who enjoy the world’s highest freedom of speech as guaranteed by President Roh Moo-hyun, have chosen to report inappropriately on the North Korean missile tests. Who will gain from these reporting tactics that have merely followed the views espoused from the U.S. and Japan?
[Column] A study in sophistry |
