James,
To respond to the recent letter about the fictional Blackout show:
I too was annoyed with the way they portrayed some of the people in the story but after thinking about it I am afraid that this is how a lot of the people will act.
The prepper is the story obviously had no idea what he was doing. I think they portrayed an arm-chair prepper with more resources than street smarts spot on. First of all letting his young son patrol the perimeter in the middle of the night while he is nice and cozy in bed was the big mistake that lead into the rest of his mistakes. As far as everyone else, that’s how it will be.
The stupidity of how everyone acted in the show is precisely why we prepare. Hopefully it was an eye opener for the sheeple because really our only hope of getting through something major is having everyone at least a little prepared. – Sean M.
Mr. Rawles,
It sometimes causes me to wonder just how two people can look at something and come away with such different views.
You posted a message from a fellow in North Carolina who had very negative things to say about “American Blackout.” I could only shake my head. He said that he “turned the television off in total disgust and went to bed,” calling it “insidious propaganda.” Really? Really?
He called the prepper father a man who was depicted as “gun toting, autocratic bully who bossed everyone and refused to act humanely by sharing all his wealth.” What I saw was a no-nonsense, mission-oriented family man whose feet were firmly planted in reality. Indeed, his attitude was vindicated by the end of the program, at least from my perspective.
While he mentions that the young fellow was happy to live off someone else’s largesse (as is the case with so many liberals), the writer described him as being depicted as the “compassionate one,” as if this young man was somehow portrayed in the script as the ideal character in the program. What I saw was a young man who was depicted as being naive, and as one whose misguided inclinations brought the prepper family to the brink of tragedy. The “compassionate one” seems to have somewhat redeemed himself by the end of the program, apparently having seen, to some extent, the error of his ways.
His comment that the young woman who was attacked was shown as having “deserved” what happened to her reveals more about this writer than he might want to admit. Where did he get that? Regardless, what can be said about her character is that she does represent a certain defined class in our society who, literally and figuratively, live above the nitty gritty aspects of life that so many others experience. These people are usually totally unprepared for dealing with life if everything in their world does not work perfectly. So it was here.
His comment about the fact that the movie showed that we were all going to be saved by the government as our “fearless leader gravely assured us” is evidence of paranoia or of a political curmudgeon’s perspective. The fact is that our political leaders routinely assure us that everything is being done, and will be done, and that order will be re-established. The fact that they say these things does not mean that they are true, however, and the fact that the producers included Obama’s assurances from other crises only added to the cinema verité aspect of the movie. Should we depend on these assurances? Of course, not. Can we expect to hear them in the next major crisis? Of course, we can.
Why he calls this movie a “PC” version of who the good guys are and who the bad guys are is nonsensical.
I totally agree with him, however, that the program offered “an excellent opportunity to impress upon the average citizen that they need to be ready for bad weather or other unforeseen circumstances.”
I think that the movie did so to a large extent, and that it will serve to change at least some peoples’ attitudes about the need to prepare. The young woman’s plaintiff cry, “Why is no one coming to help us?” may sink in with more people. Even the liberal young man who caused the prepper family’s near disaster, ultimately came with a gun to aid of the prepper dad, saying to his assailants, “You guys wanted food? You should’ve prepared, okay?” Maybe more people will get that message now, too.
As for my criticisms, the movie did not show nearly enough of the violence that I believe would prevail after the grid was down for a few days. The manner in which the violence might have been depicted could have been handled in a way that was not so graphic as to offend the broad audience for whom the movie was intended. I would also preferred to have seen a portrayal that depicted the situation after, say, a month, not just for the first ten days.
The writer ends by saying, “I think I’ll just stick to SurvivalBlog.” At least that’s some good advice I won’t dispute. – Howey