I just watched the limited series Self Made, it's based on the life of the first female African American self-made millionaire Madam CJ Walker.
It was quite interesting and the plot, costume, setting, and acting were "A" movie quality.
But of course, few things are more boring than a general review of a movie. When I talk about a movie I usually pick a certain aspect or topic, not a general criticism.
And for this movie, a striking thing I discovered was a huge lesson about how the media can manipulate things, and make something appear in a light different from its true light.
The Lesson
In the movie, Madam Walker had a bad case of dandruff and hair loss until she met Annie. Annie made and sold hair growth products.
Annie successfully treated Madam Walker's hair and nursed it back to life for a price.
Later on, Madam Walker wanted to be Annie's sales agent but Annie refused saying Walker was not good-looking enough to represent her brand.
Walker got angry, left, and decided to start making and selling her own hair grower.
If you watch the movie, with Walker being the hero, you'll get the impression that Walker was wronged and called too ugly to represent the brand. You'll be filled with so much pity that you'll forget to realize that this was in fact the truth and that Annie did no wrong.
Furthermore, Walker's new hair grower brand got successful and she competed with Annie in the same city and left the city later on.
While watching the movie the general sentiment was that it was great to see her succeed when Annie doubted her, you would even start to wish Annie ill.
You wouldn't remember to realize/think:
"Hol up, this woman was suffering from hair loss and dandruff and wishing for a cure, if she could make a hair grower why didn't make it? Why was it until she used Annie's hair grower for months and got rejected as a sales agent that she suddenly got the knowledge of how to make hers? How did she get the knowledge if she didn't steal it from Annie's? And doesn't that make her a villain and Annie the hero?"
So far Annie was looking like a villain when in fact she did nothing wrong, and Walker was clearly betraying her by stealing her formula and competing with her in the same city. But you wouldn't get that feeling when watching the movie.
After this, the only nice thing Walker did was leave the city Annie was in to go do her business elsewhere. And that was when Annie only truly became the villain because Annie followed her to the new city soon afterward.
Later on, Walker admitted to stealing her formula.
Conclusion
When you watch movies or the news or anything, you need to think for yourself and be able to see when a narrative or propaganda is being pushed on you within sufficient backup/logic.
In this movie when you see how sad and broken Walker got when she was told she was not good-looking enough to represent the brand it would be hard for you to see that yeah, that's correct, she's not good-looking enough for the brand and the proprietor is not wrong for wanting something different for her brand.
And as the story is further centered on Walker's struggles and pains we'll wish her well to the point that we'd not realize she's betraying someone who helped her win the battle against hair loss and dandruff.
All these are achieved by a certain kind of storytelling and presentation. The importance of independent thinking, therefore, becomes enormous.
The End
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Thank you!