Cinema & Human Rights
The UN’s Charter of human rights in its article 19 says everyone has the right to gain information and disseminate it. Today this freedom of access to information can be taken into consideration from another point of view. But a question is raised whether everything including art can be presented in different forms? Basically art, under the pretext of freedom, has been badly exploited and used as a tool for deprivation of rights. If we wish to view this from the angle of the cinema and TV the issue will become more complicated. Many experts believe that cinema is an artistic way of conveying to the audience the freedom of expression. However, sometimes the promotion of some ideas through the cinema is intended to negate the undeniable rights of human beings. For instance, support for family values is among the basic rights of a community. But in Europe and particularly in America the family is no longer of any importance. This is confirmed by the spread of such unnatural practices as sodomy, promiscuity, children born out of wedlock to single mothers, lack of morals and breakdown of families. All these are portrayed and promoted by the western cinema. Therefore, one can say that spread of such dangerous ideas area a violation of human rights.
One of the most important discourses in the cinema is the promotion of violence and its negative consequences on human communities.
Bushman and Anderson in a jointly researched titled “Violence of US Media and Community” have pointed to this issue. This article says: "The rate of violence is high in the US media. The analysis of over 8000 hours of satellite and TV programs in America shows that about 90 percent of the TV programs are violent. The percentage of production of violent cinema films, which does not fit the children under the age of 15 increases day by day. For instance the film Natural Born Killers directed by Quentin Tarantino is full of violent scenes and murders. From the beginning the film was encouraged. Naturally the watching of this film and the similar ones can have irreparable results on the spirit of viewers specially the children and teenagers. Experts of educational issues believe that watching Violent TV films increases the violent behavior of spectators. Moreover, lab researches show that watching a 15- minute violent program boosts the instinct of violence in at least one fourth of viewers. Thus, can one imagine what the media broadcasts? Doesn’t the promotion of violence by the media especially cinema mean the removal of the undeniable human rights?
Today in many parts of the world festivals under the title of human rights are held which worth pondering. In these festivals we see the films that filmmakers of the third world countries have produced regarding the problems of a specific group of their own community. The problem of marriage of the woman of a tribe in Africa is one example. Although, the general laws of that country grant human rights for women, the unwritten tribal and native code deprives them from these rights. Such films usually have many supporters in western countries and the western governments usually misuse them to attack the third world governments and accusing them of violating human rights. Most of these films have been documentary and impress the viewers. It is evident that adherence to customs like forced tribal marriage and the lack of freedom in choice of spouse in some parts of the world is not something, which can be easily changed by laws. Unfortunately still most of these useless customs are supported in a biased manner. Therefore, a political advantage of cultural problems has nothing to do with the materialization of human rights and it has turned only into a pretext for condemning some governments. Another point regarding the cinema movies raised in some of these festivals is the expression of the updated political issues of the world. Films are screened with the issues of suppression of political opponents, rights of refugees, women and children and the victims of poverty. Nevertheless, the holders of these festivals consider human rights among the serious issues of the world today their political tendencies prevent the impartial raising of human rights.
For instance in a festival which was held recently in London, films under the issue of occupation of Palestine were screened but instead of focusing on the occupation of Palestine and the trampling of rights of millions of innocent people, they investigate the present situation of Occupied Palestine and present ways for getting along with this situation. The films have an apparently deceitful concept like love among human beings and peaceful co-existence while the main issue of Zionist Crimes has been ignored. Thus, defense of human rights is restricted to defense of the rights of the aggressors as is happening against the oppressed people of Palestine.
The late Palestinian writer and researcher Edward Saeed in the book titled “Beyond the Last Heaven” writes: Why they expect us to follow the UN Resolutions that even make no mention of us? Why they expect us who are the victims of a planned genocide to submit to them and not to resist? In addition they advice us to give up the wish of forming an independent state and to yield to the apparent US defense of peace.
Meanwhile, the US has put all types of facilities at the disposal of our enemy but what we do is precisely what an oppressed human being does. We do not stand before anyone to let them just watch us, but we are striving to change the unequal conditions by defending our nation.
