Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Response

In response to the first blog prompt, I think that the media portrays America to be exceptional and "the best" in many ways. In the film, the values behind what has made America what it is today such as liberty, justice, and truth were a very large part of why John Smith was so interested in history. There were parts in the film that were very patriotic, where bells were ringing and shots of Abraham Lincoln, the White House, and other famous monuments were shown with an extremely patriotic song in the background. In these scenes, the producers are showing the audience how many important things we've accomplished as a country and that everyone can benefit from them, though this isn't necessarily true. When John Smith is reading the names on the wall in a scene, he looks at another man reading, who looks African American, basically praising Lincoln for "ending" slavery. Today, though Lincoln did do things to improve the quality of life for those enslaved, he also owned and contributed to the slavery crisis. The film also portrays every person withholding a position of power as a white man. This is pretty inaccurate today since we have people with different backgrounds, racial identities, and gender identities that are either within a position of power or aspire to be in the future. We have made a lot of progress since when the movie was set, but still have a lot of work to do, especially with women being normalized in power in government positions. In these ways, the reality does fall short, as compared to the film. I think today there is a lot of secrets hidden from society and the general public by government officials. American politics today is much more managed by the media than it has been in the past with new technology, but from the film, we can see the effect that the media directly has on changing the public's opinion on laws or people in office. There are various ways that film and media continue to portray America and our ideals, rather they be correct or not, but I think the important takeaway from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is that we can continue to improve as a country even if we aren't doing something right today.