Genocide
...it from celebrities, and see the faces of its victims splashed across the covers of our news magazines. Most of us turn our heads, with the notion of “if it’s not happening here, it’s not a problem.” Reality for most people is something that has to be experienced first hand, the essence that seeing and feeling is believing. Without actually being there, most people find the situations where genocide takes place irrelevant to our modern world of technology, the fast paced flow of our society, and the intertwining of our family lives.
In the past decade, more films about the hatred and cruelties of genocide have surfaced in our theatres. With older films, such as Schindler’s List documenting the horror of Nazi Germany, to more modern cases such as the well known Hotel Rwanda, we are slowly learning more about the incidents of genocide around the world. Hotel Rwanda follows the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, and his journey to save many of the Tutsi population around him. The movie itself is gripping, with many scenes that would make any viewer want to turn away. While watching this movie, even I found it hard to turn away just out of the sheer magnitude of shock that these events are not fictional. A reviewer from the popular film website, Internet Movie Database quotes “This movie will make you rethink everything about what it means to be human and how much we need to think about all our neighbors in this world” With that comment, films such as Hotel Rwanda, Sometimes In April, and Shooting Dogs have a massive effect on getting the word out about Genocide. Films have such a massive impact on our culture that with the more big-budget movies about the atrocities of genocide and war crimes, the better educated and more compelled people will be to do something besides push it to the back of their minds. Although some fiction does come in to play, for the most...
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