Olympus Has Fallen (aka, all North Koreans Can't be Trusted)

After our week of learning about the effect of media on the war and vice-versa, I decided to hop on Netflix and finally watch Olympus Has Fallen. The film starred Gerard Butler as a disgraced secret agent who uses his skills to save the president after a North Korean terrorist group occupies the White House. It was also one of two films to come out in 2013 about terrorist groups attacking the White House. Apparently vampire films are out of style now.

Of course like any action film there were plenty of explosions and gunfire to keep a moviegoer entertained; and that's what most people would consider the film to be-simply entertainment. But after our lessons, I suddenly felt aware of the deeper underlying issues of what we talked about in class.

It's no secret that there is hostility between North Korea and the United States. And it's no secret that North Korea has committed terrible atrocities to its own people. I'm no expert on military training, but I can find it understandable why our soldiers would be trained to see North Korean soldiers and terrorists as dangerous and to be very wary of their presence. Their lives are on the line when they go into enemy territory, even though we are not fighting in either of the Korea's right now. 

This mindset works for soldiers, but not for citizens. There are very few, if any, North Koreans currently living in the United States. So a film like this, showcasing an entire race as an organized terrorist cell (they had a bus full of fighters disguised as tourists) is a dangerous mindset to put the American people in. People say the media is just entertainment, but when you consume as much media as the average American does, at what point does entertainment bleed into your reality?

Am I saying action movies should never be made, or that they should never have a villain? Absolutely not! I love action movies, and if the genre went away, I wouldn't be able to survive on independent Scandinavian films alone. I just think filmmakers need to take more consideration into who is vilified in their films, because those stereotypes last a long time.