[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

it is still a fictionalized piece of drama entertainment.

True, but that is like saying every book, piece of art, or music is "just a piece of fictionalized entertainment." Artists create art for many reasons simultaneously. This film was clearly written, produced, and made to be informative, emotive, and revelatory rather then merely entertaining. After all, its not really all that entertaining is it?

Schindler's List was too, and the shit that went down in WWII was a billion times worse than any 3 hour movie can begin to show.

Spielburg made that as a kind of personal experience to connect with his own Jewish history and share it. I also think it was a beautiful film which demonstrated how even in the most inhuman of circumstances, we see the true Light of the goodness in human beings. It was a crucial movie that humanized the Holocaust experience in a way a documentary couldn't. People can again compartmentalize documentary films and personal accounts, but the medium of the dramatic narrative is powerfully compelling. Human beings are story tellers, and we learn through stories. I can't tell you how many black people felt like they learned something deep about their own history through Roots. Its one thing to talk about slavery, its another to recreate the experience through storytelling. People have to as it were "jump into character" even if they don't want too.. That is why Schindler's List is crucial, and why 12 Years A Slave needed to be made. That being said, a lot of people truly at the core of their being NEED to watch these movies. I am not one of them though I have, and with 12 Years a Slave more than likely will.

I think it is more important to learn from those things to watch out that they do not happen again, or if they are happening now, to spot it and STOP IT.

I think that is too simplistic. We can't necessarily just "stop" the bad aspects of the human experience through a conscious awareness. Rather, I think whether watching these movies or just studying the history, that folks need to empathize with this history in the experiential sense. They need to engage with it deeply, to experience it, not just know it. Knowledge is worthless if it doesn't cause growth and maturation. Sometimes people just need to feel what has happened or is happening without necessarily any intent to change their actions. The heart is where real life exists, not just the outside world. So even if folks can't change the world, the least and indeed most they can do is change their own heart.