Globalization
Catholic Social Teaching &
Hollywood:
A Media Education Response
Rose Pacatte, FSP
Director, Pauline Center for Media Studies
3908 Sepulveda Blvd
Culver City, CA 90230
T 310-636-8385 F 310-397-8366
RosePacatte@aol.com
www.paulinecenterformediastudies.org
www.nationalfilmretreat.org
The world is only
10 (13) years old
to explore the following questions:
• What is globalization and how has this process impacted
world ecology and therefore social justice and culture?
• What is culture, how is it transmitted and what does this
have to do with globalization and eco-social justice?
• How has Hollywood contributed to and commented upon
globalization and its effects?
• What commentary do the principles of Catholic Social
Teaching offer and what response can media literacy
provide in a world that is “just ten years old”?
Friedman, Thomas L., 2000. The Lexus and the Olive Tree. Anchor Books: New York. Page xi
Introduction
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Globalization
Culture
Hollywood
Catholic Social Teaching
Media Education
The connection & response
Principles of Media Literacy
• The media construct reality
• The media use identifiable
techniques to construct that
reality
• The media are businesses
with commercial interests
• Audiences negotiate
meaning
• The media communicate
value messages (ideologies)
• How you teach “is” what you
teach
Principles of Catholic Social
Teaching
• Life and dignity of the
human person: rights and
responsibilities
• Family, community and
participation- the common
good
• Preferential option for the
poor
• Solidarity: one with the
human family
• Integrity of creation
• Universal distribution of
goods – rights of workers
• Subsidiarity
Globalization
Rob van Drimmelen:
• “… Globalization refers to the process of growing and
intensifying interaction of all levels of society in world
trade, foreign investment and capital markets. It is
abetted by technological advances in transport and
communications, and a rapid liberalization and
deregulation of trade and capital flows, both nationally
and internationally, leading to one global market.”
Faith in a Global Economy: A Primer for Christians, 1998. WCC Publications: :London, pp. 7-8
Thomas Friedman:
“… the essence of
globalization is
economics.”
Friedman, Thomas L., 2000. The
Lexus and the Olive Tree.
Anchor Books: New York.
Page xi
Short term
profits
No long-term
survival or
sustenance
Responsible citizens
want to know
how hunger is created
UN photo
Giddens: Only economics?
• A mistake to limit the process only to economics…
“Globalization is political, technological and cultural as
well as economic. It has been influenced above all by
developments if systems of communication dating back
to the late 1960’s.”
•
Runaway World: How Globalization is Reshaping Our Lives. 2000.
Routledge: New York, Page 28
The “government” of globalization
If globalization is to benefit all the
world’s inhabitants, it must be
directed and regulated with
international consensus
(NB: not all needs can be satisfied
by the market system, hence a
broad understanding of social
justice is called for)
When the forces of a
market economy and
special interests are
the only things
guiding the
international
exchange of capital,
goods and
information, the
weakest members of
society have no
guarantee of benefit
and risk greater
exploitation
Not a “global superstate”
… but
the strengthening of
processes to increase democratic
participation and promote political
transparency and accountability
on an international level
JP II May 2, 2003
John Paul II: Positive and negative
effects/results
• “… positive
consequences such as
efficiency and increased
production and which…
can help to bring greater
unity among peoples and
make possible a better
service to the human
family.
• However, if globalization is ruled merely by
the laws of the market applied to suit the
powerful, the consequences cannot but be
negative…
– the absolutizing of the economy,
– unemployment,
– the reduction and deteriorization of public
services,
– the destruction of the environment and natural
resources
– the growing distance between the rich and the
poor,
– unfair competition which puts the poor nations in
a situation of ever increasing inferiority.”
•
February 4, 1999 Synod of the Americas, Ecclesia in America, Origins News Service
Tools of globalization
(and terrorism)
•
•
•
•
Travel network
Communications network
Global fund-raising
Easy movement of money
Globalization works best when…
• There is peace and tranquility
• There is openness and trust between
nations
• There is collaboration among nations
• Need for permanent cooperation: no one
can do it alone
Globalization continues even though…
• Borders that were coming down are now no
longer high enough to protect citizens (but
from whose perspective? The globalizing or
those being globalized?)
• There are risks (SARS, terrorism, market
fluctuation) emerging from the connected
world that have effects on everyone,
especially the poor
(Daniel YERGIN, USA Today May 28, 2003)
Who protects labor and the
environment?
Sustenance & Existence: How?
• Reshaping the economy for export
• Producing for export
• What happens to people in the
meantime?
• Collateral damage?
• Do media question the culture?
• Does anybody care?
Sustainable food
sources
Eco-justice
Culture & values
Communication
Dilemma
Play the “game of
globalization”
Or
Encourage a balance
between human freedom
and responsibility in all
areas of human activity
(Christian personalism)
“Greed, for want of a
better word…is good…”
Dimensions of globalization
•
•
•
•
Technology
Trade
Transportation
Control over nature (genetic manipulation of
food)
• Everything is commodified
• Re-valuing food: cost over worth
– Parity is long gone
– Subsidies keep corporate farms going
– Mass crops for export over farming to feed the family
& community\
– Profit over people
Giddens & JPII:
Communication
technology’s role in
advancing the
process of
globalization
Cultural globalization & values
• Media impose the values of
globalization
• Often arbitrary and materialistic
• Difficult to maintain a lively
commitment to one’s
traditional/faith/human values
and a commitment to justice –
especially for the community - in
the face of relentless
globalization
Culture
• Culture can be
defined as a system
of beliefs and values,
passed on from one
generation to another
through language and
action, that guides
human behavior.
• “… a specific dimension of the
existence and being of the
human person. It creates
among persons within each
community a complex of
bonds, determining the
interpersonal and social
character of human existence.
People are both subject and
creator of culture in which they
expresses themselves and
finds their equilibrium…
JP II, 1984
Culture is communication…
“… culture in itself is communication:
communication not only and not so much
of people with the environment that they
are called to dominate as of people with
other people. Indeed, culture is a relational
and social dimension of human
existence…”
JP II in Eilers, F.J., The Church and Social Communications: Basic Documents. 1997, Logos
Publications: Manila, page 269
The Web of Life
(Interdependence of nature & people)
Hollywood
What & how has
“Hollywood”, as a
culture creating
industry, contributed to
and commented upon
globalization and its
effects?
Some history…
• US (economic and cultural)
dominance over other nations’ film
production secured because of
World War I
• Disposable income (audience)
• Raw materials (independent of
other countries)
• Free market
Art vis-à-vis Entertainment
• European and other countries:
government funded “art” (until
recently)
• “cinema”
• US – motion picture “industry”
(=commercial) moved from east to
west coast; increased viability
– “movies”
US: Global exporter of film
(values, culture)
for almost a century
• From World War I until the recent “rise” of
UK, India, Brazil, China/Hong Kong with
commercially viable films (and television)
outside their own countries
• US produced films are seldom a total loss
because of the international market for
them
Can movies contribute to a frank
conversation/dialogue about
what matters to the
human family?
“Movies do more than entertain, though they
surely do that. They also shape our hopes
and desires. They tell us who we are and who
we ought to be. They give us a language to
express our loves and our fears and the full
scope of our messy, complicated humanity.
That humanity is contemptible and noble,
craven and courageous, pitiable and
dignified. As members of it, we share one
thing in common: a desire that something
matter...” (my emphasis.)
Celluloid Saints: Images of Sanctity in Film, 2002, Mercer University Press: Macon,
GA, Page ix
Films that question the negative
aspects of globalization
(and thus show the positive)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The Burning Season
Erin Bockovich
Medicine Man
At Play in the Fields of
the Lord
Matewan
The Matrix
Minority Report
Citizen Kane
These films…
• Highlight and question one or
more aspects of globalization
(environment, dignity of the
human person, justice,
equitable distribution of goods,
sustainable development)
• Other films (and sometimes
these) will question and
critique the status quo and
often end the story by reestablishing it (Mr. Mom)
Giddens: Four consequences of modernity
That contribute to globalization
The people hand over to the
government “authority” and
“control” over
•
•
•
•
Surveillance
capitalism
industrialism and
military power
The Consequences of Modernity, 1990,
Stanford University Press: Stanford, CA, Chapter II
Principles of Catholic Social Teaching:
why are these important in the US (1st world)?
• We grow up in affluence (having
it or surrounded by it)
• Food – too much variety; no
intrinsic value; fast; disposable
• Abundance leads to lifestyles of
waste and dearth of creativity
(artistic and as ways to solve
problems) and lack of empathy
and commitment: lack of vision
to see the human needs
(injustices) and beauty of the
world
• Too busy for family and meaningful,
lasting relationships; single-parent
working homes (often just trying to
survive)
• Poverty: material and spiritual: no time
“to be”
• Creation of personal debt
• The challenges to parenting
(communicating values) in an
entertainment, consumer culture
• Stages of human, social, moral
development & sources of identity, ways
of learning – for another time
Freedom & responsibility
in society
Sources
•
Old & New Testament
• Natural law
• Philosophy
• Consistent and developing
articulation of ecclesial
teaching (e.g. integrity of
creation)
–www.osjspm.org
1) The inherent dignity of the
human person
• Human persons are
of infinite “worth”
• Created in the divine
image
(Gn 1:27).
• The human person is
“central” to all
teachings about
justice; the reason for
justice
• The human person is
the “center” of all
forms and processes
of true communication
Ps. 8, Ps. 103, 24; Cf. Gen. 1, 26;
Ps. 8, 6-8; Rom. 2, 15; Cf. Ps.
18, 8-11.
And the dignity of work
• The obligation to earn one's
bread presumes the right to do
so. A society that denies this
right cannot be justified, nor can
it attain social peace.
• Work remains a good thing, not
only because it is useful and
enjoyable, but also because it
expresses and increases the
worker's dignity. Through work
we not only transform the world,
we are transformed ourselves,
becoming "more a human
being."
2) Subsidiarity
(role of government)
• that no higher level community should
strip another community of their
capacity to see, judge and act on their
own behalf
• The "principle of subsidiarity" must be
respected: "A community of a higher
order should not interfere with the life
of a community of a lower order,
taking over its functions." In case of
need it should, rather, support the
smaller community and help to
coordinate its activity with activities in
the rest of society for the sake of the
common good.
• Matt. 16:18
3) the common good
• That it be the determinant of all
economic social organization
• Urbanization and work
can give rise to "structures of
sin“ that need to be taken
down & replaced by authentic
forms of community life.
• The common good embraces
the sum total of all those
conditions of social life which
enable individuals, families,
and organizations to achieve
complete and effective
fulfillment.
• …it is the government's role to
guarantee the minimum
conditions that make this rich
social activity possible,
namely, human rights and
justice. This obligation also
falls on individual citizens as
they choose their
representatives and participate
in shaping public opinion.
(Economic Justice for All)
4) universal destination (or
distribution) of goods
We are one human family.
•
Our responsibilities to each other cross
national, racial, economic and ideological
differences.
•
Authentic development must be full
human development & respect and
promote personal, social, economic, and
political rights, including the rights of
nations and of peoples… It must avoid the
extremists of underdevelopment on the
one hand, & "superdevelopment" on the
other.
•
Accumulating material goods, and
technical resources will be unsatisfactory
and debasing if there is no respect for the
moral, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of
the person.
5) Solidarity
• the alternative to globalization
based on empathy for others
• (Solidarity) is not a feeling of
vague compassion or shallow
distress at the misfortunes of
so many people, both near and
far. On the contrary, it is a firm
and persevering determination
to commit oneself to the
common good; that is to say, to
the good of all and of each
individual, because we are all
really responsible for all.
• On Social Concern #38
• (Rom 8:21-23).
6) Preferential option for the
poor
• From the social, economic and
cultural vantage point of the least
among us:
• "If someone who has the riches of
this world sees his brother in need
and closes his heart to him, how
does the love of God abide in him?"
(1 Jn 3:17).
• Saint Ambrose: "You are not making
a gift of your possessions to the poor
person. You are handing over to him
what is his. For what has been given
in common for the use of all, you
have arrogated to yourself. The
world is given to all, and not only to
the rich."
7) The integrity of creation
• Balance between
human rights and
land rights
• Respect for
creation
• The earth’s welfare
is human welfare
• The Bible, from the first page on, teaches us that
the whole of creation is for humanity, that it is
men and women's responsibility to develop it by
intelligent effort and by means of their labor to
perfect it, so to speak, for their use. If the world
is made to furnish each individual with the
means of livelihood and the instruments
for growth and progress, all people have
therefore the right to find in the world what is
necessary for them. (Development of Peoples,
Paul VI 1967)
IMF, World Bank, WTO
• E.g: fish gene in tomatoes: why?
• How does the media report this?
• Western corps identify gene sequences of cocoa
and copyright them (intellectual properties) so
African countries that live from this crop are in
copyright infringement – yet their ancestors
developed it (gold-Peru?)
• How often does the media report on this? What
is missing from the news?
A media education response:
• Awareness of the media
environment
• “mining” the media
• Deep viewing
• “Why?”
• Talk about it
• What does it mean to
you?
• Why?
Free
participation in
a democratic
society
Pedagogy: conversation & dialogue
• Communication builds relationships;
respectful communication is good in itself
• Open-ended is fine: free sharing of views,
opinions
• The goal is to “break open” these films and
see what they say (message) or what they
are witnessing to
Methodology
Short time
• View whole film
• Select clips to begin
conversation about a
topic (curriculum topic?)
• The topic can direct the
conversation (or the
characters and their
actions)
Longer time
Pizza & a Movie
Cinema & Soup
• View whole film
• Write the name of a
character, theme or
symbol on pieces of
paper and ask students to
view through the that lens
• “What about your
character? What did that
symbol mean, do you
think?”
Principles of Media Literacy Education &
Principles of Catholic Social Teaching
So that critical thinking may bear
witness to the hope that is
within it for the human person
and for humanity:
Media education is not only
cognitive… but for the whole
person: cognitive, behavioral,
emotional
Justice is for the whole person
and
all society
Principles of Media Literacy
• The media construct reality
• The media use identifiable
techniques to construct that
reality
• The media are businesses
with commercial interests
• Audiences negotiate
meaning
• The media communicate
value messages (ideologies)
• How you teach “is” what you
teach
Principles of Catholic Social
Teaching
• Life and dignity of the
human person: rights and
responsibilities
• Family, community and
participation- the common
good
• Preferential option for the
poor
• Solidarity: one with the
human family
• Integrity of creation
• Universal distribution of
goods – rights of workers
• Subsidiarity
Principles of Media Literacy for People of Faith
Presbyterian Media Mission/ John Siebert 2001
• Human beings are created in the image of God
• Artistic expression, like creative imagination, is a gift
given by God
• The pursuit of the common good is the fundamental
principle for the good of societies
• The power of the gift and act of the creative
imagination and expression is rooted in human
freedom
• The value of the human person is independent of
material possessions or social status
• The whole world and all that is in it, is the arena for
God’s activity
National Film Retreat
The Three Faces of Love:
Eros, Philia, Agape
www.nationalfilmretreat.org
Boston (Billerica), MA Aug 1-3
Orange, CA Aug 8-10
Bibliography
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[1] Op. cit. Page 11
[1] Runaway World: How Globalization is Reshaping Our Lives. 2000. Routledge: New York, Page 28
[1] February 4, 1999. Source: Origins: CNS Documentary Service, Washington, DC, Vol. 28, No. 33;
paragraph 20
[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1997 edition, Editrice Libreria Vaticana, Part III, paragraph 1731 ff.
Eilers, F.J., The Church and Social Communications: Basic Documents. 1997, Logos Publications: Manila,
page 269
[1] Celluloid Saints: Images of Sanctity in Film, 2002, Mercer University Press: Macon, GA, Page ix
[1] The Consequences of Modernity, 1990, Stanford University Press: Stanford, CA, Chapter II
[1] A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001); At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991); Beautiful Mind, A (2001)
Burning Season, The (1994, TV); Cast Away (2000); Citizen Kane (1941); Civil Action, A (1998); Clueless
(1995) Cry Freedom (1987) Erin Brockovich (2000); Full Metal Jacket; Gallipoli (1981); Ghandi (1982); Glen
Garry Glen Ross (1992); Jerry Maguire (1996); Killing Fields, The (1984); Kundun (1997); Life as a House
(2001); Magnificent Seven, The (1960); Matewan (1989); Matrix, The (1999); Medicine Man (1992); Men with
Guns (1997); Minority Report (2002); Mission, The (1986); Romero (1989); Truman Show, The (1998)
Wall Street (1987)
[1] Catholic social teaching, and the history of its development, is covered in the Catechism of the Catholic
Church, Part III.
[1] Zenit News Service, July 6, 2002, Weekly News Analysis
[1] Routledge: London and New York
[1] Based on the definition proposed by the Alliance for a Media Literate America, 2001, www.amlainfo.org
The Global Banquet: The Politics of Food: Maryknoll 1991