Argo and Zero Dark Thirty: Film, Government, and Audiences

Abstract

With the prevalence and accessibility of fi lm today, we must wonder how fi lm aff ects its audience. In particular, how does fi lm infl uence an audience's perceptions of the government? Regardless of the content, research demonstrates that fi lm has the power to shape perceptions of its moviegoers on a range of subjects. In this study, two recent fi lms, Argo and Zero Dark Thirty , were chosen as case studies to explore how Hollywood portrays the intelligence community in fi lm and shapes opinions about the government more broadly. This research found that about 25% of viewers of the two fi lms changed their opinion about the government after watching one of the movies. Additionally, many of those changes are refl ected in an improvement in the sentiments about the government and its institutions. This exploratory research provokes interesting discussions about the ability of fi lm to infl uence the perceptions of an audience. F ilm has proven its endurance as arguably the most accessible form of art for Americans. Movies invite audiences to engage in stories that range from the terrifying to the futuristic to the dramatization of signifi cant events in history. Watching a movie occupies our senses more than any other form of art, particularly when we experience it at the local Cineplex. Regardless of the content, a fi lm has the power to shape perceptions of moviegoers on a range of subjects from love and marriage to the work of the government (cf. Franklin 2006 ;Kolker 1999 ;Ortega-Liston 2000 ;Riggle, Ellis, and Crawford 1996 ). A frequent subject on the silver screen is the government, yet our understanding of its infl uence is limited. Recent scholarship examined the portrayal of the government in aggregate in the movies and found that it is a common subject in fi lms (cf. Pautz and Roselle 2010 ; Pautz and Warnement 2013 ). However, this research does not explore the infl uence of a particular fi lm on an individual viewer. Indeed, if fi lm has such a signifi cant infl uence on an audience, what is that infl uence? With regard to the government on the silver screen, does this infl uence improve an audience's perspective, keep it the same, or make it worse? These were the questions guiding this research.With its prevalence and accessibility today, how does fi lm aff ect an audience's perceptions of the government? Two recent fi lms, Argo and Zero Dark Thirty , were chosen as case studies to explore how Hollywood portrays the intelligence community and infl uences opinions about the government more generally. This narrowed focus allowed us to investigate how signifi cant events in US history-the extraction of Americans during the Iranian hostage crisis and the hunt for Osama bin Laden-are portrayed in fi lm and what, if any, infl uence these fi lms had on audience perceptions about these events and the government more generally. Both fi lms were contenders for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award for Best Picture (i.e., the Oscar) in 2013; Argo won, arguably, the fi lm industry's most sough...

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