Comfort Watching versus Empathy Watching

The following paper, written by Carter Franklin, discusses how greater access to film and entertainment may not be as liberating as we might think. And, by the way, please check out his podcast. But it also caused me to think more universally about how we “consume” information and how that shapes our world view. I usually do not solicit comments on my posts. However, this is an exception. How would you answer some of the questions posed below?

Refections on Movies by S. Carter Franklin

Imagine this scenario: you are by yourself or with your significant other on a Sunday evening with nothing to do and decide that you want to watch a movie. From this scenario rises a number of questions: What means do you have available to watch a movie? Are you interested in watching a movie you’ve never seen before or one you’ve seen a dozen times? Do you want to watch the movie at home, or do you want to go to a cinema?

In our world of streaming services, cable television, pay-per-view and dine-in movie theaters the number of small choices that amount to ultimately deciding when and where one would like to consume a motion picture is almost overwhelming. It can be crippling to the point that one can spend as much time deciding which movie to watch as it would take to watch said movie. Indeed, many people today seem to like to have the decision made for them; they will say “let’s just watch whatever is on Netflix’s top 10” or “let’s just watch what has the highest Rotten Tomatoes score.”

I would like to relate this scenario that surely occurs on a nightly basis in households and apartments all over the world to a couple of works from the field of information science. Specifically, Vannevar Bush’s article “As We May Think” (1945) and the chapter “How Information Flows” from Francesca Tripodi’s book The Propogandists’ Playbook How Conservative Elites Manipulate Search and Threaten Democracy.

Vannevar Bush’s article discusses a variety of topics concerning the future of information in the post-World War II world. Some issues that he addresses are: who should have control over information, whether information systems should be catered to individual users or to experts, and how and when is expert intervention necessary when an individual user is trying to find information. Does the individual user always know what is best for them and, if not, who should decide what is indeed best for them?

These are just a few of the questions posed by Bush’s article and they are questions that continually arise in today’s world of media production and consumption. Should people trust film critics to tell them what movies are worth seeing or should they trust an algorithm to make the choice for them? Should studios trust filmmakers to pursue original ideas or should they invest in projects that serve existing fanbases and existing intellectual property?

Netflix uses algorithms to present “choices” to consumers, but the system is designed to push individuals to consume Netflix original programming over alternative choices and ultimately the purpose of their suggestion is to keep the user on their platform for as long as possible. To what extent is the consumer’s power to choose an illusion? When you are on your couch, how do you decide what movie to watch? Do you do a Google search, do you consult your favorite critic, or do you simply let Netflix decide for you?

Another issue presented in Bush’s article is the idea that having so much information available can lead to things being missed. Bush says, “truly significant attainments become lost in the mass of the inconsequential” (101-102); this very much brings to mind the overwhelming number of titles available to consumers today. This Sunday night you could watch the best movie you will ever see, but you may also just scroll right past it and watch the latest Netflix offering.

In Francesca Tripodi’s book chapter she is interested in the idea of individuals “doing their own research.” Most if not all people in our world today are computer literate to a certain extent but it seems from Tripodi’s work that people seem to overestimate their ability to “do their own research” or indeed their manner of conducting “research” is so faulty and infused with bias that they end up favoring results that simply reinforce their world view; thereby entering a feedback loop where the thoughts and opinions they hold are reinforced by the illusion that their research is thorough and accurate when it is in fact anything but. Tripodi’s book chapter focused mainly on individuals undertaking “research” on political issues or current events, but I feel the general points of her chapter can be applied to ways in which individuals consume media, specifically film and television media.

What is your goal when you are deciding what to watch this Sunday night? Are you trying to expand your horizons and engage with films that push you outside of your comfort zone or expose you to cultures that you have not yet encountered? Or are you merely trying to have a “comfort watch” and passively consume media that aligns with your world view and depicts characters and events that you can identify with? Very often when I ask someone why they didn’t like a movie they will say something like, “I couldn’t relate to any of the characters” or “none of the characters resemble anyone in my world,” as if the purpose of movies is to see your conception and experience of reality reflected back at you. But to my mind the thing that makes cinema unique as a medium is its ability to expose individuals to ideas, characters and events that they have never and will never encounter in their everyday existence. The late film critic Roger Ebert believed cinema to be an “empathy machine” that allowed people to be transported to a plane outside of their typical daily existence and to come to a better understanding of the lives and experiences of human beings existing in the world.

If individual consumers allow an algorithm to choose what they watch next they are not engaging with the medium to its full potential. If you search the web for a movie to watch and limit the results to films you have already seen or are similar to things that you know that you like, are you really utilizing the number of choices we have as consumers in the streaming age? Should consumers allow “experts” to make decisions for them when it comes to deciding what to watch? How many people would allow themselves to possibly feel uncomfortable when consuming a work of audio/visual media to fully realize the potential of cinema as an “empathy machine?” Would you?

I completely understand the purpose of “comfort watching” as most individuals experience stresses and anxieties in their daily lives and would rather not engage with potentially upsetting or boring material during the few hours of rest and relaxation that they have, but I do think it is important for people to occasionally step outside of their comfort zone and to engage with media that shows them something different; something that raises questions without necessarily providing answers.

The motion picture industry is now at a crisis point as streaming services have often catered to user dominated experiences and we are learning that oftentimes consumers don’t really know what they want. Users control what they watch and when they watch it and the algorithms that streaming services use generally point consumers toward films that adhere to their world view and stay firmly within their comfort zone so that the users will spend more time on their platform. Is that really the purpose of films? To make people feel comfortable and show them things that they already know? I do not believe that to be the purpose of the medium.

Filmgoers used to place more trust in film critics to tell them what movies were worth seeing. People used to go see a movie without anything to go on besides the fact that Ebert and Roeper both gave it two thumbs up, but film critics do not matter like they used to, and consumers have become much more comfortable with algorithms deciding what to watch next. I find this very concerning for the future of the medium. There are so many movies out there and most people genuinely do not know what they are missing. So how do you decide what you are going to watch on a lazy Sunday evening?

Bibliography:

Francesca Tripodi. 2022. The propagandists’ playbook: how conservative elites manipulate search and threaten democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (pp 101-125).

Vannevar Bush. 1945. As we may think. The Atlantic Monthly. July 1945, 101-108.