Ok, but isn't that..... what a show is? They are actors. Acting out scenes. It is all fake. The reason to watch it is to suspend disbelief, immerse yourself in pretending that it's real, imagine you are the one going through the actions and emotions of the characters. But yeah it gets harder the more you watch and know what to expect.
Is adding songs written in a minor key to TV shows manipulation so I feel sad?
> I said “Jurassic Park” is manipulative, and I stand by that; the way the episode exploits its flashback structure to build to the most devastating possible conclusion is about as subtle as that Sarah McLachlan SPCA ad. Acknowledging this isn’t the same as criticizing it, though. Manipulation fails when it becomes noticeable, and when the audience resents the efforts made to drive them towards certain feelings. [...] Clumsy manipulation reveals a certain unearned arrogance, even contempt; look how easy it was for me to trick you, how vulnerable you are to control. This episode is more about empathy, and that ending — that uncompromising, agonizing ending — has no contempt in it. Just the knowledge that these things happen, and that we have to live with them.
https://tv.avclub.com/futurama-jurassic-bark-crimes-of-the-h...
Wow. Brutal.
Then I read that piece, and read the comments on it, and cried some more, and then found this one.
https://tv.avclub.com/1804382181
I have no words.
I'd say music is always manipulation as it's always triggering emotions in some way. Unless it's some genre or band you absolutely hate. But even then it's triggering emotions, just probably not the intended ones. :-)
When your parent put sugar in a cake, they you to enjoy the cake for you own enjoyment. They will dose the cake, and make you experience the cake in this context.
Kinder wants you to enjoy it so you buy it again. The goal is not the enjoyment but the reaction after it. Dosing the sugar, the other ingredient, the context you will consume it and the so on are going to be completely different.
When you hear "Ride of the Valkyries" being played in apocalypse now, you don't hear the voice of the director suggesting "now you should feel this particular way, because I said so". You just enjoy the craft.
Some movies and series now, it feels like the way they put music, cuts, etc. are just cheap plots designed by engineers to get something out of you.
You can't feel the desire of creating and sharing something, rather you are given a product designed to specs.
This is a great counter-argument to your theory, since that song (like all choices in that movie) was explicitly chosen to manipulate — to make you feel specific ways about the U.S. military and the Vietnamese villagers, to induce tension, etc.
The intent hasn't changed, you have. You'll discover this when re-experiencing old favorites and discovering that they've lost the magic because you've developed the tools to see behind the curtain.
Take a example of a clueless director putting rise of the valkeryies on a chopper scene in his movie without knowing about the scene in 'apocalyse now'. He knows the song as certain qualities to it and his intent is to bring these emotions across. Yet, is the watcher being manipulated despite this genuine intent?
What's more useful than making a useless distinction between what's genuinely fake and what's manipulative is looking at execution. Is the director being clumsily formulaic (common with many netflix shows now) or does it fit coherently as a work.
some points
* Shooting must be done on location
* All music must be incidental
* Genre movies are not acceptable
Right, it’s the difference between an item being a prop, and being a paid-for product placement.