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Home > Archive > Hepatitis disease > February 2006 > War of the Worlds, Orson Welles, And The Invasion from Mars
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War of the Worlds, Orson Welles, And The Invasion from Mars
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| http://www.transparencynow.com/welles.htm
The ability to confuse audiences en masse may have first become obvious as a
result of one of the most infamous mistakes in history. It happened the day
before Halloween, on Oct. 30, 1938, when millions of Americans tuned in to a
popular radio program that featured plays directed by, and often starring, Orson
Welles. The performance that evening was an adaptation of the science fiction
novel The War of the Worlds, about a Martian invasion of the earth. But in
adapting the book for a radio play, Welles made an important change: under his
direction the play was written and performed so it would sound like a news
broadcast about an invasion from Mars, a technique that, presumably, was
intended to heighten the dramatic effect.
As the play unfolded, dance music was interrupted a number of times by fake news
bulletins reporting that a "huge flaming object" had dropped on a farm near
Grovers Mill, New Jersey. As members of the audience sat on the edge of their
collective seat, actors playing news announcers, officials and other roles one
would expect to hear in a news report, described the landing of an invasion
force from Mars and the destruction of the United States. The broadcast also
contained a number of explanations that it was all a radio play, but if members
of the audience missed a brief explanation at the beginning, the next one didn't
arrive until 40 minutes into the program.
At one point in the broadcast, an actor in a studio, playing a newscaster in the
field, described the emergence of one of the aliens from its spacecraft. "Good
heavens, something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake," he said, in
an appropriately dramatic tone of voice. "Now it's another one, and another.
They look like tentacles to me. There, I can see the thing's body. It's large as
a bear and it glistens like wet leather. But that face. It...it's indescribable.
I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it. The eyes are black and gleam
like a serpent. The mouth is V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips
that seem to quiver and pulsate....The thing is raising up. The crowd falls
back. They've seen enough. This is the most extraordinary experience. I can't
find words. I'm pulling this microphone with me as I talk. I'll have to stop the
description until I've taken a new position. Hold on, will you please, I'll be
back in a minute."
As it listened to this simulation of a news broadcast, created with voice acting
and sound effects, a portion of the audience concluded that it was hearing an
actual news account of an invasion from Mars. People packed the roads, hid in
cellars, loaded guns, even wrapped their heads in wet towels as protection from
Martian poison gas, in an attempt to defend themselves against aliens, oblivious
to the fact that they were acting out the role of the panic-stricken public that
actually belonged in a radio play. Not unlike Stanislaw Lem's deluded populace,
people were stuck in a kind of virtual world in which fiction was confused for
fact.
News of the panic (which was conveyed via genuine news reports) quickly
generated a national scandal. There were calls, which never went anywhere, for
government regulations of broadcasting to ensure that a similar incident
wouldn't happen again. The victims were also subjected to ridicule, a reaction
that can commonly be found, today, when people are taken in by simulations. A
cartoon in the New York World-Telegram, for example, portrayed a character who
confuses the simulations of the entertainment industry with reality. In one box,
the character is shown trying to stick his hand into the radio to shake hands
with Amos n' Andy. In another, he reports to a police officer that there is
"Black magic!!! There's a little wooden man -- Charlie McCarthy -- and he's
actually talking!"
In a prescient column, in the New York Tribune, Dorothy Thompson foresaw that
the broadcast revealed the way politicians could use the power of mass
communications to create theatrical illusions, to manipulate the public.
"All unwittingly, Mr. Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater of the Air have made
one of the most fascinating and important demonstrations of all time," she
wrote. "They have proved that a few effective voices, accompanied by sound
effects, can convince masses of people of a totally unreasonable, completely
fantastic proposition as to create a nation-wide panic.
"They have demonstrated more potently than any argument, demonstrated beyond a
question of a doubt, the appalling dangers and enormous effectiveness of popular
and theatrical demagoguery....
"Hitler managed to scare all of Europe to its knees a month ago, but he at least
had an army and an air force to back up his shrieking words.
"But Mr. Welles scared thousands into demoralization with nothing at all."
In the 1950s, America had another taste of the power that simulations have, to
draw people into a world of delusional fantasy, when paired with mass
communications. This time it was revealed that a number of television game shows
were simulations, in which contestants who knew the answers ahead of time were
pretending to guess at their responses. But unlike the invasion from Mars, here
the fakery was unambiguously intentional; it was the work of producers who had
concluded they could create fictional game shows that would be more exciting
than the real thing.
Once again, there was a shocked reaction from the public. Once again, those
involved became objects of public anger. And, as happened with the Orson Welles
broadcast, an effort was made to ensure that such manipulations wouldn't recur.
But in 1990, it happened again. Audiences around the world discovered that they
were taken in by the ultimate Hollywood illusion in which two performers faked
their own talent, lip-syncing, to create the impression they were singing. What
millions of fans had believed were two talented singers was actually a
composite, another seamless interweaving of sensory simulations in which two
people provided the visuals, while vocalists provided the audio.
As in the previous two instances, there was a stunned response. But unlike the
experience of 1938 or even the 1950s, the social context was different because
simulations had become commonplace, and attempts to use them to trick the public
were the rule rather than the exception. Also by this time, a global culture had
developed, which meant that tens of millions of people around the world were
drawn into the same illusion.
One might say that War of the Worlds and the game show scandal foreshadowed the
age of simulation that was still to come. Allowing for a little poetic
overstatement, the Milli Vanilli scandal served as a rite of passage or symbolic
marker, making clear that we now live in an age of simulation confusion in which
our tendency to mistake fakes for what they imitate has become one of the
characteristic problems of the age.
More to the point, we live in a time in which the ability to create deceptive
simulations, especially for television, has become essential to the exercise of
power. And the inability to see through these deceptions has become a form of
powerlessness. Those who let themselves be taken in by the multiple deceptions
of politics, news, advertising and public relations, are doomed, like the more
gullible members of the radio audience in 1938, to play a role in other people's
dramas, while mistakenly believing that they are reacting to something genuine.
http://www.transparencynow.com/welles.htm
ROFLMAO
*Suck* it *down* *Land* of the *Free*
Alan
"Nemesis, winged one that tips the scales of life,
dark-eyed goddess, daughter of Justice,
you restrain the futile pride of mortals with your unyielding bridle and,
hating hurtful vanity, destroy black envy: below your wheel,
always moving but leaving no trace, the fortune of man turns.
Unseen, you come at once to defeat arrogance;
by your hand you gauge the span of life, and, frowning,
you scrutinise the thoughts of men, you always hold the balance.
Be merciful, hallowed judge, winged Nemesis, life's force.
We honour you, Nemesis, immortal goddess,
victory incarnate with wings unfurled, faultless,
sharing the throne of Justice; you resent human vanity
and banish men to Tartarus below"
Nemesis Peace Centre
http://www.veloceraptor.free-online.../protector.html
Abuse of Women and Children
http://theoriginalfirebird.blogspot.com/
Nemesis News
http://lordcerneabbas.blogspot.com/
The Fight For Freedom
http://lordcerneabbastoo.blogspot.com/
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