Kinsey’s pseudoscience

The American entomologist Alfred Charles Kinsey (1894-1956), who is called the “father of sexology” and the “father of the American sexual revolution”, established “scientific” foundation for medical recovery of homosexuality. Despite the frank delirium and obsolescence of Kinsey’s works, venerable scientists and ordinary propagandists continue to refer to his works up to now. In view of odiousness and significance of this person it is necessary to give review of his personality and activity.

As a child, Kinsey loved nature very much and by the age of twenty decided to devote himself to study insects. Very soon he paid his attention to gall wasps (either a fly or a wasp), which he “maniacally” studied for 20 years. By the age of forty, the “flies” had left Kinsey’s head and he became seriously interested in human sexual behavior. In the late 30s, after the first reports on sexology, he attracted attention of John Davison Rockefeller, Jr., who at that time was already active in reducing the birth rate, and since 1941 Kinsey has been receiving a lot of money from Rockefeller funds for his “researches” (1).

In 1948 he published the book “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male”, and in 1953 – “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female”, known today as “Kinsey Reports”. They became bestsellers, or rather, their patrons made them so in order to form public opinion. The report about men was sold in astonishing 200,000 copies within two months. For your information, the well-​known propagandist of incest and pedophilia Wardell Baxter Pomeroy was a co-​author of his books. In these reports a group led by Kinsey (it’s called as Kinsians) talked about the sexual behavior of children and adults, 13.5 thousand people took part in this analysis. (5.5 thousand of men, 6 thousand of women, 2 thousand children of both sexes). The books caused a storm in American society, some screamed about the revolution, others insisted on the inadmissibility and proved inconsistency of the results. There was a war of liberal reformers (client and patrons of the former entomologist) against conservatives (religious groups, adequate scientists and reasonable people). By the mid-70s it became clear to everyone that the former defeated the latter.

Some data taken from the reports:

• 95% of men practice “sexual perversions and illicit relationships” (note: at that time adultery was criminalized in the United States);
• 8% of men surveyed reported sexual contact with animals;
• 17% of farm boys had experienced sex with animals;
• 10% of men have practiced homosexual relationships for at least 3 years during their lifetime (between 16 and 55 years);
• 25% of men between the ages of 16 and 55 had several homosexual contacts;
• 18% had the same number of homo- and heterosexual contacts for at least 3 years;
• 4% of men are exclusively homosexuals;
• 37% of men had at least one homosexual contact with orgasm during their lifetime (only 48%);
• 19% of women under 40 had at least one homosexual contact, including 13% with orgasm;
• up to 3% of unmarried women aged 20 to 35 were exclusively lesbian;
• 1% of women are exclusively lesbians;
• 12% of women and 22% of men experience “erotic arousal from a sadomasochistic story”;
• 85% of men and 48 % of women said they’d had premarital sex;
• 50% of men and 40 % of women had been unfaithful after marriage;
• 69% of men had prostitutes;
• 25% of wives abort;
• 85% single pregnant women abort.

Implicit in Kinsey’s report was the notion that these behaviors were biologically “normal” and hurt no one. Therefore, people should act on their impulses with no inhibition or guilt (2).

Kinsey was particularly interested in children, the “child orgasm” was studied starting from infancy. There are six varieties of it: 1). Genital reactions – 22%; 2). Weak torso tension – 45%; 3). The strongest tension and sharp spasms – 17%; 4). The same as item 1 or item 2, but with hysterical laughter or chatter, sado-​masochistic reactions – 5%; 5). The same as item 5, but at the peak of tension, strong trembling, exhaustion, exsanguination, some degree of fainting – 3%; 6). Painful, fearful encounter of orgasm – they fight off their partners, aggressively prevent orgasm, torment and even scream to meet the usual touch – 8%.

Kinsey claims that “orgasm” in children is noted at any age, in boys, starting at five months, and in girls – from four. It indicates a certain record – one 4-​year-old boy experienced 26 orgasms per day, there is also a 13-​year-old teenager with 30 orgasms per day.

In the article “Funding a Sexual Revolution: The Kinsey Reports”, posted on the Rockefeller Archive Center website, says: “The most well-​known of the study’s conclusions asserts that only ten percent of the human population is fully heterosexual, and likewise only ten percent is exclusively homosexual. The rest of the population is spread across a “continuum” at points somewhere in between. This assertion transformed American society by challenging American attitudes toward sexual normalcy”. I note that the delusional myth about “10% homosexuals” still exists. In fact, only about 1% of the adult population (USA, France, Britain) demonstrates exclusively same-​sex behavior (3).

Even for today’s reader such studies may seem shocking, imagine now what feelings the reports aroused among Americans in the middle of the last century. How did the Kinsians manage to get such results?

1. Inadequate sampling. Pseudo-​scientists and LGBT agents hastened to impose (the principle of extrapolation) the results of the reports on the whole society and not only the American one. In other words, if Kinsey has 8% of the men surveyed told about intercourse with animals, then 8% of American men are zoophiles, if 10% of the male participants in the study reported long-​term same-​sex behavior, then 10% of the male population of the Earth are homosexuals. However, the sexologist Igor Kon notes (4): “it is impossible to give out purely local, scientifically untested views for implementation of the principles of the world medical community.”

It is known for certain that the participants (sampling) of the studies were volunteers who were recruited in prisons, psychiatric clinics, brothels, gay bars and other places of various kinds of declassified element. In 2004 the American Council on Legislative Exchanges (ALEC), representing 2,400 state legislators, noted that of the more than 5000 men who made up Kinsey’s research base: 2,446 were found convicted, 1,003 homosexuals, 50 transvestites, 117 mentally ill, 342 “Others”, 650 sexually abused boys. This gave 4608 n = Deviant and 873 n = “Normal” male subjects (5), including 5% of the sampling consisted of male prostitutes and 26% of men who committed sexual crimes. In total, the group consisted of conditionally “normal” men is only 16%.

In an attempt to justify such an inadequate sampling, the Kinsians claim that it was difficult to find suitable respondents during the World War. Do you believe in this kindergarten located in the meadow? I don’t. The war was only against the USSR and only in the USSR. Even France, which went down without any fight within two months, lived under the German “occupation”, and it got even more order, including in dirty French brothels. Moreover, the war in no way affected the territory of the United States. Moreover, the Rockefellers never spared money for “philanthropy”, and Kinsey had enough resources to form a sampling that met the scientific principles of that time.

When interpreting data, especially these ones, many fall into a trap that can be avoided if you know that there is homosexual behavior and homosexual passion. There are quite a few people who are attracted, but have never entered into contact. On the contrary, there are situations when people enter into contact without having homosexual attraction. For example, according to V. Ovchinnikov’s review 65% of convicts in high-​security prisons had homosexual relations, while there were 2.5 times more active than passive ones (6). But propaganda knocks everything into a pile and gives out any homosexual relationships, sometimes forced, for homosexuality as such.

2. Kinsey’s pedophiles. Critics claim that data on children’s “orgasms” could have been obtained by Kinsey’s participation in pedophilic acts, including children being raped. When viewing reports, such an impression really arises, it’s too painful there everything is spelled out in detail. But in attempts to justify the Kinsians say that only materials provided by a group of real pedophiles (diaries, letters, etc.) were used.

It is known that Kinsey collaborated with at least 9 pedophiles, among them there was the Gestapo Fritz von Balluseck, an inveterate pedophile convicted of having carried out sexual violence against children for more than thirty years. There is also evidence that Kinsey directly encouraged pedophiles to “research child sexuality”. Kinsey calls “child orgasm” screams, resistance, an abundance of tears, a painful reaction, fear … what is it like a child’s reaction to violent actions? Did the Kinsians rape children, including infants, or did they contribute to it? Is this approach ethical?

3. Doubtfulness of revelations made by volunteers. As noted above, sampling consisted of conditionally “normal” men by only 16%. How can we consider these reports reliable? Normal person doesn’t want to tell the truth voluntarily about some secret episodes of his sexual biography, especially to a person of the early 40s of the last century. Obviously, this group of “normal” consisted of such people who had experience of various forms of sodomy and for one reason or another wanted to share it with the others.

By the way, modern rules for the formation of an adequate sampling exclude participation of respondents from a number of professions, for example, marketers, journalists and other people who intentionally or unwittingly may not say what they really think, but what is appropriate.

Critics of the Kinsey methodology report (7) that when the interviewees “answered negatively to questions about certain “progressive forms” of sexual behavior, stimulation measures were applied to them (censure of “secrecy” and encouragement for “frankness”), and if this did not help, the doctor personally edited the answers, making “statistical correction for denial”.

Familiarization with the sources confirms the version that the work of the Kinsey’s group had a secret component, including one in relation to children.

Famous scientists repeatedly warned the Rockefeller Foundation that Kinsey’s pseudoscience was a direct deception (8), but the generous sponsor did not listen to anyone.

The consequences of the activities performed by the Kinsians and their masters are destructive: the medical and legal recovery of homosexual relationship “Portrayed throughout the media and academic scholarship as a conservative, husband and father, Kinsey was in reality an obsessive bi/homosexual, a masturbator, adulterer, exhibitionist and pornographic “film maker” and addict whose research aim was to prove the normality of his many illegal obsessions. These truths are still hidden in mainstream and official scholarly publications,” said Judith A. Reisman and Mary E. McAlister (9).

Kinsian pseudoscience has also come in handy when changing the American legislation. When Kinsey was made quite famous, The American Law Institute (an NGO from large capital) was involved in the case, where in 1955, with the money given by the Rockefeller Foundation (a grant of 510 thousand USD), they developed the Model Penal Code (10) – this is a sample of criminal legislation for state governments. Code “called for the legalization of seduction, fornication, cohabitation, adultery, sodomy, and other practices that were largely illegal pre-​Kinsey,” points out a historian Judith Reisman. Kinsey helped to weaken or gut 52 sex laws that had protected marriage and the family. From 1970 to 1980 48 states, using the false sexuality data, adopted forms of “no fault” divorce.

“A clear goal was set: to achieve the abolition or radical revision of laws, rules and legal norms concerning rape in all its forms, child molestation, prostitution, homosexuality, bestiality, exhibitionism, incest, polygamy and polyandry, hooliganism and profanity, pornography, adultery, extramarital cohabitation, etc. If, for example, a conviction for rape — a particularly serious crime according to the standard of customary law — in three states entailed the inevitable death penalty, in 20 states — the possibility of a death sentence, and in all others except one — at least a twenty-​year sentence, then after the writings of Dr. Kinsey, everything changed dramatically,” said Mark Markish (11).

Yes, Kinsey’s followers “cleaned up” the sampling after 30 years, reducing it significantly. But who needs it, who will expose a “clean” group consisting of people with uncertain motivation? The job is done, Kinsey can rest in peace.

Historian of science Kersten Jacobson Biehn notes (12): “Behavioral science research in American universities was promoted and influenced by philanthropic foundations. In the 1920s and 1930s Rockefeller philanthropies in particular financed behavioral science research projects that promised to fulfill their mandates to “improve mankind”, mandates that foundation officers transformed into an informal, loosely defined human engineering effort. Controlling behavior, especially sexual and social `disfunction’, was a major priority.” In particular, grants are received by Yale University President James R. Angell (psychologist), Frank Ambrose Beach (ethologist) and Robert M. Yerkes (psychologist, primatologist). The latter received 500 thousand USD from the Rockefeller Foundation (8.5 million USD today, taking into account inflation), with this huge amount of money in 1929 he founded the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center, where, investigating the sexual behavior of chimpanzees, he tried to understand how things work in humans (13).

Another well-​known historian and sexologist Vern Leroy Bullough (a very influential LGBT activist, propagandist of sodomy, transsexuality and pedophilia) writes (14) – “This meant that much sex research had been done on a shoestring and had lacked the kind of financial or institutional support that research in other areas received. Both the government and private foundations had been reluctant to give money to what might be called a “delicate topic.” There were individual exceptions, such as Reed Erickson and the Erickson Foundation which supported some of my own research as well as that of others, but most importantly, both in terms of quantity and quality of the research, there had been the Rockefellers and their various funds. Their importance is hard to overestimate. In fact, in the period between 1914 and 1954 the Rockefellers were almost the sole support of sex research in the United States. The decisions made by their scientific consultants about nature of the research to be supported and how it was to be conducted, as well as the topics eligible for research support, shaped the whole field of sex research and, in many ways, still continue to influence it.”

In this example we see that the first American studies on sexuality were paid for by the Rockefellers, and I have a reason to believe that they did it on a global scale. So it turns out that John Davison Rockefeller, Jr., Bureau of Social Hygiene, Committee for Research in Problems of Sex and Rockefeller Foundation were at the origins of funding the “scientific” base for “sexology”, the sexual revolution and for the LGBT movement.

In conclusion, I propose to think over the question: Who originally needed sexology? Let’s turn to the Wikipedia and highlight the personalities up to the middle of the last century, who laid the foundation of this “science”. Very quickly you will come to the conclusion that I did.

Sexology as a “science” was created by pervert men to justify their deviant behavior, which they declared the “norm” under the mask of science. In the beginning the first “sexologists” normalized homosexuality, then – trassexualism, and now their followers are working on the legalization of pedophilia, bestiality, cadaverism, BDSM and other the most disgusting perversions.

***

1. Financing the Sexual Revolution: Reports by Kinsey, Rachel Wimpey and Teresa Iacobelli, Rockefeller Archive Center (https://resource.rockarch.org/story/funding-​a-sexual-revolution-the-kinsey-reports)

2. Kinsey’s Secret: The Fake Science of the Sexual Revolution, by Sue Ellen Browder, CatholicCulture.org (https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=6036)

3. Prevalence and stability of components of sexual orientation In adolescence and adolescence, Ritch S. Savin-​Williams, Jeffrey Rome (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6605886_Prevalence_and_Stability_of_Sexual_Orientation_Components_During_Adolescence_and_Young_Adulthood)

4. On recovery of homosexuality, Igor Kon (http://www.pseudology.org/kon/Articles/NormaGomosexuality.htm)

5. Sexual violence. Kinsey’s Lies Shaped American Law, And Now What?, Judith Raisman, Salvo Magazine, Issue 12, Spring 2010 (https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/reis/reis_11kinseylies.html)

6. Ovchinnikov V.I. Features of homosexuality in places of imprisonment // Psychiatry at the turn of the millennium. – Rostov-​n/A: LNC “Phoenix”, 1999. – pp. 449-451.

7. The rhetoric of the homosexual movement in the light of scientific facts, Viktor Lysov (http://nkras.ru/arhiv/2019/lysov.pdf)

8. Fighting Kinsey Fraud, Interview with Dr. Judith Raisman (http://www.whale.to/b/reisman3.html)

9. Destroying Dignity by Eradicating Shame: The Pernicious Legacy of Alfred Kinsey, Judith A. Raisman, Mary E. McAllister, Humanum: Problems of Family, Culture and Science (https://humanumreview.com/articles/deconstructing-​dignity-by-eradicating-shame-the-pernicious-heritage-of-alfred-kinsey)

10. Frank, John P. (1998) “American Law Institute, 1923-1998″, Hofstra Law Review: Volume 26: Iss. 3, Article 4 (http://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/hlr/vol26/iss3/4)

11. Hieromonk Makarii (Markish). Lessons of love. Danilovsky evangelist. 2008, 250 p.

12. Bean, K. J. (2008). Psychobiology, Sex and Chimpanzee Studies: A charitable foundation supporting Behavioral Sciences at Yale University, 1923-41. History of the Humanities, 21(2), 21-43 (https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695108091411)

13. Stepanov S.S. The Century of Psychology: names and destinies; Yerkes, Robert Mearns, Encyclopedia.com (https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/dictionaries-​thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/yerkes-​robert-mearns)

14. Bullough, V. L. (1985). Rockefellers and sex research. Journal of Sexual Research, 21(2), 113-125 (http://www.jstor.org/stable/3812475)

In these classes, media workers are taught to check whether the news is true; evaluate sources of information; identify the reliability of photo and video materials; avoid unnecessary emotionality in your work and many other generally useful skills. The ability to distinguish true news from false in modern conditions is indeed a vital necessity.

Let’s think still about whether the dissemination of reliable information is always beneficial to society? Is any truth that is diffused on television, for example, useful to the audience?

These are very important issues that are never treated in “fact-checking” and “fake detection” courses, by the end of the article you will understand why.

Let’s look at a few specific examples to find answers.

First example. Many people know that the Russian TV channel NTV (Independent TV) is famous for its tendency for all sorts of mayhem. The channel regularly broadcasts programs, the plots of which are based on a selection of various events related to murders, robberies, car accidents and other incidents. There is even such a joke on the Internet: “A shark is able to smell blood at a distance of 50 kilometers. Among people, only NTV journalists have such an ability!”

Are journalists broadcasting reliable information in these programs? Yes, they are broadcasting, because all these accidents or tragedies, that TV-people talk about emotionally, have really happened. But how does the regular immersion in such content affect the viewer? It is obvious that the influence is negative – the viewers begin to think that everything gets worse in their country, there are only misfortunes around, in fact, the audience gets depressed through such a set of negativities.

But after all, the NTV channel could seek out unique cases of achievements, mutual assistance, rescues and other good events in the life of the country. And this would also be true, but it would have a positive effect on the audience.

Second example. In the news cast of Channel One, journalists talk periodically about music festivals like “Nashestvie” (“Incursion”, arranged by rock music radio station “Our Radio” / in Russian “Nashe Radio”). Such events are sponsored by alcohol companies (most often beer producers) and, naturally, the selection of performers, songs and the environment of the concerts have an alcohol-intoxicating theme. By advertising such events, Channel One contributes to the alcoholising of society, although it broadcasts the truth in its stories.

But after all, in Russia “sober” festivals, rallies, concerts are regularly arranged, that bring people a completely different ideological message. They bring together people who have chosen consciously a sobriety, and their work fosters other values. Why shouldn’t the journalists of the main TV channel in the country tell such a truth to their viewers?

If these two examples haven’t yet given an answer to the question posed, then I will give a third one here. It is contrived and crude, but very illustrative in terms of explaining the topic.

Third example. You can put a video camera on the trash can and broadcast the show “life of the homeless” from morning till night. Will that what is shown on the screen be an “assured fact”? Of course yes. Will this information pass all the tests by means of “fact-checking” technology? It will definitely pass! Everyone can even come personally to the place and make sure that everything is shown as it really is. After all, journalists don’t distort anything, they just film the everyday life of homeless people on the garbage dump around the clock, one might even say “they highlight an acute social problem.”

By the way, the show “Dom 2″ (“How to build your love”) on the TV channel TNT (Your New TV) is built exactly according to this principle: in one place they gathered people with low morals and weak will, who want easy money and fame, and put everyone in one closed space. They set up cameras and film how this whole company make war and copulate.

But is such “fact of life” of benefit to millions of viewers? Obviously it isn’t. Such content, as in the case of a camera on a trash can or the show “Dom 2″, is very harmful, no matter how TV-people or filmmakers cover up their anti-social activities with excuses like “we just reflect the reality.”

Reality is very multifaceted, and the reflection of some facets and their spreading in the media is beneficial to society, while the reflection of other facets is harmful.

Thus, when we consider the activities of the media and journalists, it isn’t enough to pay attention only to the reliability of the information they publish, it is important to evaluate the message and impact of the content disseminated.

At the same time, I urge you to proceed from the position that any lie is always bad, and in this regard, the ability to distinguish the truth from the “fake” is really useful and necessary. Contrary to what many people think, there’s no white lie in fact, because the side effects of spreading any lie always exceed the possible short-term benefit. All people can verify this with their own example, if they think about the consequences of any of their deceit.

But not any “fact of life” should to be reflected, because the reality can do harm. By the way, there is a quote by Mark Twain on this topic that is similar in meaning: “The truth should be served as a coat is served, not thrown in the face, like a wet towel.”

Then why is this seemingly obvious and important aspect of the information exchange process never taught in on “fact-checking” and “fakes fighting” courses?

The answer is really simple. Fact-checking courses are usually promoted by the same organizations (or owners of the same organizations) that distribute all sorts of grants among journalists to highlight various “acute social topics”, such as domestic violence, LGBT issues, environmental protection, and the like. In most cases, this is done by Western funds, of course.

Then the idea is very simple. If the journalistic and blogging communities don’t realize that the main thing in their work is not only credibility, but also impact on society, then you can easily manipulate them to achieve your goals.

Again, I will give you a simple example, whether it is real or fictional – decide for yourself. You can allocate 100 grants to write 500 articles that deal with various aspects of the same-sex couples’ problems, but not provide money for highlighting the difficulties and concerns of normal families. As a result, the whole society will discuss the problems of perverts, instead of thinking and caring about those who raise children and whom the future of the country depends on.

And according to a similar scheme, you can form a message on absolutely any topic.

If, however, journalists understand that their mission and responsibility isn’t limited with verifying the authenticity, but it’s much wider – to have a positive impact on their readers and viewers. It will be much more difficult to involve such an author in destructive activities under a plausible cover, of course, if he cares not only about his own cheek, but also about those around him, about the Motherland.

Someone will object sadly, where can we find such honest and decent journalists now? I will answer with a joke: “Deep down, all people are kind, just the depth is different.”

So remember: don’t spread misinformation. But it is also necessary to spread the truth only in such a way that your information benefits society.

Dmitriy Raevskiy 

Translated by Alexandra Rogalyova

The structure of the psyche

Let’s start with a theory that describes how the human psyche works. This knowledge is necessary not only to understand the topic of humor, but in general it is vital. Unfortunately, it is still not taught at schools, and as a result, people often don’t understand how they think and what goes on in their heads. Let’s fix this situation.

The human psyche consists of two interconnected systems to process and analyze information – consciousness and subconsciousness. As well as the knowledge base which the consciousness and subconsciousness is guided by in their work – it is called “worldview”. In order to quickly understand the essence of each concept, we will consider the process of interaction of the psyche components, by drawing an analogy with the computer familiar to all of us.

The work of consciousness can be likened to how an operating system (for example, Windows) functions in a computer. You have your own personal “desktop”, which contains the icons you are currently interested in – what you often think about, remember, reason about and evaluate. Through your attention, you, like a computer mouse, decide what to take interest in and when, which images to bring to recollection through launching their mental broadcast, and what to send “to the trash folder”, through letting it out of your sight for a long time.

At the same time, while clicking on the next downloaded video file (recollecting certain events), you don’t really think about what is happening “inside of the system” at that moment. For you, this is just a video, the broadcast of which you can speed up, slow it down, or even start it frame by frame if you wish, but for your computer processor, this means tens of thousands of pixels that are displayed on the monitor every second and millions of operations that provide this process. So we’ve got to the conception of what the subconsciousness is – it is a very powerful data processing system (analogous to a processor and a graphics card put together), that works automatically and provides your consciousness – your “operating system” – with the necessary data.

But can a computer work without RAM or a hard drive where all the data is stored? Of course not, because all the programs are installed there and the system must constantly access this database during its work. This repository is an analogue of the human worldview. Everything that you have ever learned, heard, seen or realized on your own is stored on your “hard disk”, is marked with various markers and serves as the basis for the further functioning of your psyche.

Who installs programs on your psyche?

If you have been using a computer for a long time, then you probably understand how important it is what programs are installed on it and how well they work. For example, a slow browser that barely opens pages on the Internet can disrupt a working webcast or just make you angry. Therefore, experienced PC users always monitor what is installed and who installs on their system, and don’t allow any garbage to collect there.

In the case of the human psyche, the situation is similar. Various “programs” work in it too, many of them you’ve installed on your own – for example, you’ve learned to drive a car or speak a foreign language. Pay attention to how the “loading” process of new skills and abilities into your head ran.

First you’ve studied the theory for a long time (for example, you crammed traffic signs), then you applied new knowledge practically (you drove car with an instructor), and only after a month of independent driving the skill was so well mastered that it became automatic. Now you can drive a car while listening to music or communicating with a passenger, and the car is driven automatically on the subconscious level.

Notice that driving is a rather complicated process: you need to control the situation on the road, the condition of the car, evaluate the speed of approaching objects, and much more. But now all this is easy for you, because the “program is installed” in your psyche and your subconsciousness is occupied with its implementation, the resources of which are powerful enough to cope with this task easily. Thank it for this, it is your faithful assistant in life. And after the words of gratitude, ask yourself the question – do you install all the programs in your head yourself? Or can someone else do it?

Don’t rush to answer, remember your childhood. Once upon a time, your parents repeatedly showed and explained to you that you should eat with a spoon, but not with your hands. At some point, after a few dozen overturned plates, you suddenly learned to eat like a human being. And obviously you don’t think today about how to hold cutlery properly, and send food right into your mouth – this process occurs automatically. You were also taught how to use the potty, how to cross the road correctly and you were helped by learning many other useful skills.

You have to admit that at that moment you were clearly still too young to call these programs the result of your “conscious choice”. Therefore, first thank your parents – they also did a lot so that you live, learn, rejoice, and just read this text now (after all, they were likely to teach you to read), and then accept the simple fact: throughout your life your subconsciousness has been programmed not only by you.

Humor as a programming tool

If you understand how mind programming works, then you can understand the role that humor can play in this process.

When we considered examples of driving or learning to eat with a spoon, the programmer (the one who determined the content of the installed programs) was either you yourself or the one who a priori wished you well – your parents, and besides them there were also sports coaches, school teachers, and many others who built your personality and shared valuable knowledge. All these subjects can be conventionally called “good programmers”.

But there may be “evil programmers” who see you only as potential customers and want to persuade you to buy their product by any means. Or they consider you and thousands of other people to be just biomass, from which the Earth must be cleared, for example, in order to protect the environment. You have probably heard that “the earth is overpopulated and there are not enough resources for everyone”, which means that people are no longer needed. Often this is exactly what “evil programmers” think, of course, they plan to reduce you, but not themselves.

In order to realize their plans and goals, they need to program you, by making you, for example, a “brand fan”, a “chain smoker” or a “high-quality beer connoisseur”. Or maybe they want you to become tolerant and start protecting the rights of minorities, by joining the ranks of feminists, childfree or LGBT people? Believe me, the evil “programmers” have big plans for you, they are very interested in you. And they have only one problem – how to program you?

After all, you are unlikely to be delighted with clothes reeked of tobacco smoke, and the sight of drunks on the street doesn’t serve as a good advertisement for “high-quality booze.” Therefore, they need to deceive you somehow – to offer you an attractive program, but that is infected with the mental viruses they need. They must gain access to your attention, lull vigilance and program your subconsciousness.

Fortunately for “evil programmers” and, unfortunately for you, humor comes to the rescue. Well, why do you think there are so many comedy shows, communities, groups in all social networks and on television? Because humor is the perfect cover for any informational poison.

Do you remember the elegant smile of Ivan Urgant? And what about the jokes of the Comedy Club or the series Interns? Or maybe you haven’t passed by the most popular communities Lepra and MDK on VKontakte? By the way, the name MDK stands for “asshole” – this is how the admins of this public page call their 11 million subscribers. Well, lepra is leprosy, which is also called “slow death.”

The bosses of comedy TV-shows and similar communities sincerely welcome your attention, because thanks to it they will install the necessary programs and behavioral patterns in your heads. Watch, for example, this video – and answer the question – what concepts does the author convey under the guise of humor to his audience?

Management through Humor

The procedure of influence through humor is quite simple, at least for those who understand the structure of the human psyche and are able to abstract their mind from their positive emotions.

People enjoy laughing and having fun. Comedy shows give them what they want – laughter and entertainment, and in exchange they put their programs into people’s heads. By the way, here is the answer to why shooting of one episode of a comedy series costs around 100 thousand dollars, and the audience gets all this “goodness” absolutely free – about the same way as cheese is given to mice, by pinning it on a mousetrap hook.

While people’s attention is drawn by jokes and they’re overwhelmed with positive emotions, at this very moment – that, what the customer needs, is recorded there, on the subcortex, into the worldview and subconsciousness. In most cases this Trojan horse comes through without any hindrance. For example, watch, how this is done by an example of alcohol use, every second public page of VKontakte is filled with such humor:

And if someone reveals the manipulation, then you can always say that this person simply doesn’t have any sense of humor, and the authors didn’t mean anything by that, they just joke – after all, the jokes are really funny. It’s a perfect cover for injecting info-viruses into your subconsciousness, isn’t it?

However, don’t lose your courage! The situation is difficult, but this is okay – danger encourages strong people and helps to brace themselves. Gone are the days when the power of humor was mainly in the hands of those who used it obviously not for a good cause – now the “sword of knowledge” becomes available to almost everyone who is ready to master it, and this changes everything.

Firstly, you personally have gained protection now, and it will be much more difficult to program you through humor with bypassing the consciousness. When you hear another joke, just ask yourself questions – what meanings does the author convey to me under the cover of laughter? Are these useful or harmful meanings? How should I feel about this kind of humor? By answering them, you can easily recognize how the creators of the next joke want to influence you. Make it habitual for yourself (install another one useful “program” in your subconsciousness), and you will get a reliable bulletproof vest that protects against bullets of deadly and harmful jokes.

And secondly, humor is just a tool, and by means of it you can similarly promote constructive meanings, concepts, views, behavioral patterns. You can become a kind “programmer” by wrapping in a wrapper of humor those things, which you consider useful to society and people – and helping others to become better in intellectual and moral aspects.

In the VKontakte-group “Useful Humor” we try to follow this path. For example, we don’t want our society to be overwhelmed with all this tolerant filth with the legalization of same-sex marriages, implanting of LGBT-values, feminism and other things – therefore, through jokes that are published in the group, we try to show all the stupidity, harmfulness and absurdity of these foreign newfangled trends. We help our subscribers to realize what is the norm and what is a deviation, to make a choice in favor of the norm.

We also like to publish educational humor, humor about fashion, Hollywood and much more. If you find this activity useful, you can participate in the life of the project: comment, share your favorite jokes or send your ideas for publication in the suggested news. For your environment, which will laugh at the useful jokes you spread, you will become the same kind “programmer”.

______________________________________________________________________

If you want to take a deeper dive into the issue of Humor influence, we recommend you to study the continuation of this educational course, which consists of three lectures. You are already familiar with the first one.

• In the second lecture, the topic of Emotions, their role in the human psyche is elaborated. In addition, we will offer you a specific algorithm of actions that is convenient to use when assessing the usefulness or harmfulness of jokes.
• The third lecture tells about how to work on your worldview, identify and correct mistakes. And a mechanism is suggested for creating and promoting your own humorous community with useful humor in social networks.

To continue the study you need to send the phrase “Lecture 2″ to the chat of the group:  https://vk.com/im?sel=-206735159

It’s reasonable to invest time in your self-education!

Source: VK-group “Useful Humor” 

Translated by Alexandra Rogalyova

The author of the book starts with a simple fact: for the past two decades, the intelligence quotient (IQ) of young people has not ceased to fall, while over all the years of the twentieth century that have passed since the emergence of this concept, IQ has steadily increased. The decline in intelligence is shown by many researches being conducted in Western countries. In Finland and Norway, for example, the determination of the IQ coefficient is mandatory for young people when being admitted to the army, that is, the test is carried out massively.

And if earlier it was believed that scientific progress should be accompanied by a development of human intelligence – this is facilitated by achievement of better living standards, an improvement of the educational level – now this is no longer an indisputable truth. Since the 2000s, the average IQ of young people in developed countries has been gradually decreasing. France is no exception: from 1999 to 2009, the average French IQ fell by 3.8 points.

Scientists have asked the question: what is the reason for the decline in the mental abilities of young people? Usually, several factors are cited in response. Firstly, the environmental factor is mentioned. Many studies show the negative effects of polluted air and food on development of child’s brain.

There are numerous medical studies proving the harmful effects on the child’s brain of heavy metals (lead and mercury) contained in the atmosphere or endocrine disruptors (pesticides, polymers) used in agriculture and household chemicals.

The Empire of entertainment

A factor that has been more and more talked about lately is the effect of all kinds of “screens” on the developing brain of a child. Screens are understood as both a TV (while watching it the child remains passive) and all sorts of gadgets: game consoles, smartphones and tablets.

Michelle Demurger, PhD in neuropsychology, listed the negative effects of long-term use of screens by children. This is a speech retardation by the youngest, problems with motor skills, memory impairment, poor concentration, sleep disturbance, decreased creativity of thinking and various emotional disorders (depression, aggressiveness and tendency to addictions).

As Michelle Demurger explains, the study of this problem began a long time ago, long before the smartphones and tablets were invented. The first studies focused on the time children spend watching TV. Then scientists took up the problem of the distribution of computer games. And according to Michelle Demurger, every time the researchers came to the same results: the more time the child spent in front of the screen, the more pronounced the above negative consequences became.

In his book “Factory of Screen Idiots,” the French neuropsychologist explained a well-known fact: the constant use of screens leads to a decrease in IQ by children. The younger the child is, the stronger the negative consequences are, he said in an interview with Le Quotidien.

“All this depends on age. Until six years, there are no positive effects from the use of screens. There are many studies that show that children under six years who use screens for 10-15 minutes a day are already experiencing negative consequences affecting their development. The sooner children gain access to screens, the more addicted they get later. None of the studies show a positive effect of the use of screens by children under six years, any of them notes only negative ones. “

Total stupidity

As Michelle Demurger notes, speech and mental abilities are developed by children in the process of live communication:

“Of course, you need to live moving with the times, but our brain is not adapted to this, it was formed in the era of the Neanderthal. How it works: if you give me information directly, my brain responds, its neurons start to work. If I receive information from the screen, then the neurons will not respond – or they will, but much less. If you tell a small child the name of a color, for example, “green”, three times in a row, he will learn this word. If he hears the same word from the screen, then, according to various studies, the child needs twenty to sixty times to learn a new word for him.

In other words, our brain is designed in such a way that it needs to communicate with people. Evolution has made him that way. It is vital for babies to communicate with real people. At a later age this is also important. In real communication, the brain processes the information differently than when it receives it from the screen. The development of the language skills occurs during the conversation. When all the screens in the house are turned off, the child hears about a thousand words per hour. And if the child sits in front of the screen, then you speak to him about 100-150 words per hour. At the same time, it has been proven that cognitive development depends on the number of words “being received”, especially at an early age. ”

At a later age, constant use of screens leads to a decrease in the student’s school achievements. In addition to the effect on IQ, another problem arises: sitting in front of screens, children move little, which leads to obesity.

“A child’s brain needs quietness to develop properly. Under constant noise hyperactivity, sleep disorder and poor attention span emerge. In addition, the use of tablets and smartphones suppotrs addictive behavior – that is, it habituates us to a culture of constant entertainment: when playing computer games, the system of compensation and pleasure is constantly activated in the brain, without it the child can no longer make mental efforts, ”explains Michelle Demurger.

In connection with the impending danger of “total stupidity of the future generation”, Michelle Demurge advises not to let children under six get access to smartphones and tablets at all. Novice schoolchildren, in his opinion, are allowed to use these gadgets for up to half an hour a day, and older children – not more than an hour a day. At the same time, in France there are statistics according to which teenagers spend up to seven hours a day in front of screens.

Source: AUM News

Translated by Alexandra Rogalyova

]]> https://what-is-good.com/theory/factory-of-screen-idiots-french-scientists-about-the-decline-in-children-s-intelligence/feed/ 0 https://what-is-good.com/theory/media/modern-cinema-and-children-s-motivation-to-study/ https://what-is-good.com/theory/media/modern-cinema-and-children-s-motivation-to-study/#comments Sun, 31 Oct 2021 06:49:26 +0000 https://what-is-good.com/?p=16751 Читать далее →]]> The following is an excerpt from the notes of a history teacher: “Modern children have extremely low motivation to study successfully. Don’t they understand at all the importance of studying well?” It sounds hard to believe children wouldn’t want to work toward success, but it is the reality we face today… Faced with this perplexing situation, I set up an experiment. I put textbooks on the students’ desks, asked them a few questions, and told the students to simply find and write out ready-made answers from the textbooks! In previous years, I would not have dreamed of such a profanation of the educational process…

The experiment gave amazing results. Many students did not find the answers in the paragraph which I indicated. It turned out to be an impossible job for them to read the text and write out ready-made answers! Many did not even try to do it, nor were they even tempted by a good grade. Ten minutes before the end of the lesson I was handed papers with several randomly selected phrases. The students who turned in these papers were just sitting, stealthily playing on mobile phones under the desks.

I tried to investigate this phenomenon. It seems that many children have a firmly-rooted stereotype that everything in life will somehow come to them easily and all work out by itself. Maybe such an attitude toward life is derived from our cultural stereotypes of superhero consciousness?

The concept of being a “chosen one” and superheroes – is it useful for children?

Looking closely at the cartoons and movies that our children are watching, which are playing in cinemas today, you can see that many of them have a certain common outline. There lives a certain boy (or girl) – an outright loser and loser. He has no special abilities, no special talents. He is poor, ugly and lonely. But suddenly, it turns out that he (she) is the chosen one with the purpose to save the world! In an incredible and magical way, our yesterday’s loser suddenly acquires special talents and abilities and becomes a superhero! He finds everything – glory, honor, love, friendship and success!

Note that in the old “soviet cinema”, the hero, in order to find himself, had to work hard, study, overcome difficulties and his own laziness. In the Soviet cartoon, no one received anything just like that. Only through work and overcoming laziness, cowardice, selfishness, an ordinary character became a hero. He didn’t turn into one by a miracle, he made himself! In modern cartoons, the hero usually acquires his abilities just like that, by magic, or at worst, by eating a special pill (then it’s no longer fantasy, but science fiction). Maybe this stereotype imposed by modern cinema hides the fact that many children are just waiting for a gift from fate, not wanting to put any effort into it?”

Source: Komsomolskaya Pravda

Translated by Nolan Roud

However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, we will move from the simple to the complex. I think some of you have heard that a black transvestite is going to play the role of the fairy in the new Cinderella movie. Now, these kinds of facts do not appear so much for the sake of propaganda, rather, they just need a precedent. It is clear that many people will not like it, and it is not only about the fact that the fairy is a transvestite, but also about the fact that the fairy is black. After all, the fairy tale is European and it was written when in Europe there were not so many immigrants from African countries. What is needed, however, is an event, an event that will be discussed, that will resonate with the public. An event on the dissemination of which the media will earn good money. And in this sense, the transvestite fairy is a good newsworthy occasion.

The appearance of a fairy tale for children with such characters would mean that another step has been passed in the admissibility of such things in cinematography for children. And it is the young audience, of course, who is the first to be targeted in this matter. Those who drive these ideas apparently realised a long time ago that there is no point in trying to influence adults. Adults are long-formed individuals with a fairly stable worldview and values that are little susceptible to change. Not all of them, of course, but most of them. And children… That’s the open field!

However, the adult population is also being prepared for what they will have to face in the near future. Take, for example, Demolition, 2015, with Jake Gyllenhaal. The film tells us a completely adult story of a man’s wife dying in a car accident. One would think, what does the subject of pederasty have to do with it? Turns out it has a lot to do with it, if you approach the script very intelligently. Watch this short video clip.

Pay attention to the presentation, to the staging of the scene itself. First of all, everything is clearly in the form of a joke, which automatically removes some barriers to perception. Secondly, a teenager is much more mature in such an intimate matter of sexual relations than his interlocutor: he is more liberated and speaks freely about his desires, what is very unlikely because any adult is much more knowledgeable in such things, simply because of his age. But someone wants to see children like this – deeply concerned about their sexual orientation at the age of fifteen, as if there were no more important issues in their lives. It’s hard to think of any other explanation for such scenes in movies, don’t you agree?

The most important thing is that this episode with a homosexual teenager, like others, can be easily removed from the film (just cut out), and this will not affect neither the content of the picture nor the narrative line itself.  And this means that at the stage of receiving money for the creation of the movie, the authors were given to understand that they would be financed only if this topic was identified.

And many even in this case, perhaps, will object: “What’s the big deal?  The film is adult.  Rated 18+.  It is unlikely that he will be of any interest to any teenager.  Yes, you yourself said that this does not particularly affect adults: their point of view will not be changed by such things.

Yes, in many ways, perhaps you are right, but we should not forget about messages, about preparing the mind for such situations.  It seems that many were unpleasant to watch this scene.  Some were definitely shocked by what they saw, weren’t they?  I wonder what happens if you run into something like this again?  Will the reaction be the same?  Or will it be a little more loyal?  Maybe there will not be such shock already?  But such situations, such topics are now present in almost every film and TV series, which means that our sensitivity will inevitably decrease.

From the category of “shocking” this topic will gradually move into the format of “normal”

But this is all too obvious, too pretentious. There are much more “amusing” things.  And here it is worth mentioning content for children, where the work of real professionals is periodically felt.

At the beginning of this article, it was not coincidence that some kind of implicit propaganda was mentioned, when it is difficult to make out something that we were shown on the screen.  Is this just a coincidence, or is it time to doubt that such things in movies are really safe for our children?  Watch another short video clip:

This is an episode from Ghosthunters, 2015 (Gespensterjäger). 12+, children of twelve years can watch it calmly.  Agree, the moment is very implicit.  What should be done in this case?  There seems to be nothing wrong. After all, no one says phrases, as in the first video clip: “I sometimes imagine his genitals in my mouth.”  The movie is intended for children, so you can not use something like that here.

But the questions involuntarily arise in my head: “Why was it actually imagined in this way?  Why does the boy stay in a woman’s dress for so long?  Why did he wear it? He could have just put the dress in front of him?  Somehow to cover himself with it?  Why a dress?  Couldn’t he find other red clothes?  And in general, what is the reason for this long comment from his father about the fact that this is normal?”

Not sure how to answer?  Then here’s a leading question for you: how would you act if you wanted perverse permissiveness and sexual promiscuity to be covered in children’s films?  Obviously, none of the normal parents will show their children a movie that is too frank about such things.  It seems that very few people will see the new Cinderella movie with a transvestite fairy.  Therefore, it is necessary to act very subtly and carefully to approach scrupulously to the introduction of all this dirt in media content for children.

 One more time, notice how correctly everything is built in this scene.  The boy put on a red dress so that his hands were free and he could attack the ghost with a water gun.  The boy did not take off his dress before going to bed, but fell asleep right in it.  He takes it off only when the ghost asks him to do it.  So the boy feels quite comfortable in a woman’s dress, as if it were his everyday clothes.

Such moments can be easily missed and taken for something completely normal, and this is despite the fact that the boy stays in a woman’s dress for seven minutes of the movie (!!!) and receives instructions from his father that this is absolutely natural.  What do you think? Will a child  perceive this scene correctly or not?  What will remain in his head after watching it?  Will this somehow affect the attitude towards this topic?  Maybe if it is a boy, he will really decide to try on something from woman’s wardrobe or use some female accessories?  After all, if you rewind the story a little back, you will see that a boy also sprinkles with female perfume with the scent of violets: this allegedly scares ghosts away  And who knows what will such experiments with the boundaries of the norm lead to, how will it affect  fragile young psyche and what will follow after trying on woman’s clothes?  Maybe female behaviour?  Maybe he will turn into the same teenager from the previous movie that we have just discussed?

Of course, it’s up to you to decide what your children need. But, you know, it seems that it is high time to pay attention to the information flows that surround us.  Anything that does not meet the needs of parents in terms of the development and upbringing of a person should gradually move into the category of marginal and unacceptable.  We should not be led by those who prepare such products for us, the simplest way is  DO NOT WATCH such products. And if it still unwittingly caught your eye (after all, it is not always possible to predict what will be in a particular movie), then give your assessment of what you saw and share it with others.

Oleg Searching

Translated by Xenia Shmonina

“Spread Your Wings” (Donne-moi de ailes, 2019) turned out to be kind and sincere. On the example of the main character there is well shown the path of transformation of a young man into a man capable of making difficult decisions and showing the will and endurance to implement them. There is a strong environmental agenda and a good example of restoring family relationships. The negative side of the movie is scenes with alcohol, but in any case, I recommend the movie for viewing.

Detailed opinion

The work tells the story of a French teenager named Thomas. He is immersed in the virtual world and is not interested in anything except his phone and computer. But everything changes when he finds himself on the farm of his father, ornithologist Christian, who is keen on saving an endangered species of wild geese. Though at first the guy took his father’s work and profession skeptically, he is gradually drawn into the mission that Christian had chosen for himself, truly inspired by caring birds.

The movie turned out to be kind and sincere. On the example of the main character there is well shown the path of transformation of a young man into a man capable of making difficult decisions and showing the will and endurance to implement them. The tests that the teenager will have to go through are really impressive, as well as the beautiful views taken during the flight of ultralight trike.

Curiously, on the one hand, the story serves as an example of getting rid of computer addiction, and on the other hand, it demonstrates the importance of the beneficial use of modern technologies. Phones, navigation devices, social networks help the main characters solve problems that arise before them. Also there is well disclosed the role of journalism and modern media as a tool for drawing public attention to important issues. It is clearly seen that the media can influence the decisions taken by the authorities. In the context of the movie, this influence is clearly positive.

The movie can be fully called adventure and family one. In addition to the teenager’s story, there is a storyline of restoring family relationships – it is shown touchingly, constructively and in a human way simply. It is shown without stirring passions, but in a way it probably happens in life – when people are united by a common cause or common trials, and gradually they can see something that they did not notice or did not appreciate before in other person.

The father of the family is shown as a person who is genially passionate about his work. A bit eccentric, but at the same time brave and resourceful enough. However, some of his actions can be called the use of “military cunning” in peaceful conditions, and for this “cunning ” he has to bear responsibility, since any lie, even committed “for good”, has its consequences.

The movie also broadcasts a fairly strong environmental message on the topic of the importance of caring for nature. Especially memorable is the story of a hunter who was driven to defend his native land, and then, realised a lot, he gave up hunting and started breeding rare species of birds. The controversial topic of global warming also appears in the background, though it is presented in two ways, rather as just an excuse or a reason to draw attention to the topic of saving birds.

The story ends with a reminder of American Indian wisdom: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children”.

Unfortunately, there is one significant negative point. In the movie there are a lot of scenes with alcohol drinking –  wine or beer. Probably it is all about French production and local “cultural traditions”, which would be more correctly called anti-cultural. Therefore, while watching the movie with a child, it is worth focusing on the fact that this model of behaviour is not worth being adopted in your life.

Anyway, “Spread Your Wings” is a good modern, beautifully filmed movie, which will be pleasant and useful to watch at home in a cozy atmosphere in the family circle. Don’t miss this opportunity!

Source: Review on the site KiniCensor

Translated by Xenia Shmonina

Despite the resistance of the parent organization, the animated film «Onward» from Disney has been released with a slightly retouched LGBT character (unlike the original version, in the Russian version perversions are not so expressly propagated).  This is only the beginning of sodomists massive attack on children around the world. Hollywood, Sony, and other large western filmmakers are aimed to increase the proportion of homopropaganda of their products oriented towards children.

At the end of the 2018 year, an American non-governmental perversion organization GLAAD criticized Hollywood for negligible 109 films with homosexual, transgender, or bisexual characters from the seven largest motion-picture studios in 2017. This is equivalent to 12,8% of the total released films number. They demanded from the Hollywood film giants to increase to 20% the number of pictures with bi-curious characters by the 2021 year and to 50% by the 2024 year.

The party said: «It needs to be done», and Hollywood answered «Copy that». The further step was Disney and Pixar opus «Onward» with its out-and-proud sodomite. This trash has already been released, besides the character was slightly retouched for the Russian audience, which is certainly not enough. Social activists have already appealed to the Ministry of the Interior and Roskomnadzor with the requirement to ban the provocative animated film and engage to bring those responsible to justice.

The next opus of that kind may become «Cinderella» from Sony company with its black-skinned pederast Billy Porter as a fairy godmother. The film will be screened next year. Moreover, Porter does not conceal that the «kind fairytale» will be specifically oriented towards children. «Cinderella» will become «a classic fairytale for a new generation, which takes such characters well», – says Porter.  “I think that the new generation is really ready. The kids are ready. It’s the grownups that are slowing stuff down”, – explained gender-neutral «it».

Obviously, Porter lies about the classic. Just imagine the reaction of the Academy of Sciences member and king councilor on Charles Perrault works, if he was introduced Moorish pederast as a fairy in his fairytale. It is not only the Moorish, but the whole Hollywood drama class would move to Bastille until a hangman will soup the rope for them. As for the new generation of sodomists, they are already get used to various gender-neutral creatures.

Marvel company announced the appearance of the superhero-transgender in their films

It is common knowledge what comes after «heroes» of that kind. If in Eastern Europe and Russia child sexual abuse (or homopropaganda) draws protests, meanwhile «a bright future» is here in Western Europe and only Moslems make a stand against depravity. Disney not only add perverts in each third animated film. Last year the company held the first «gay pride parade» for children in Disneyland Paris. The special humiliation is that «Magic gay pride parade» was held on Children’s Day.

Fortunately, Russian children have an opportunity not to see all this real mess. Surely, «Masha and the Bear», «Luntik» and «The Snow Queen – 3» are not the brightest masterpiece (especially in comparison with the soviet animated cartoons) and there are some questions to them from the point of character building. However, there are no pederasts in these pictures. That is why they take over the world tired of tolerance.

Source: RIA Katyusha

Translated by Diana Manakova

The entertainment industry and mass consumption have become the backbone of modern society. Some people can no longer imagine their lives without computer, newfangled phones, all kinds of technical devices, not to mention shopping and food abuse. The consumer society is responsible for the stability of our life and is the ideology of the capitalist world. What should we do, parents who think about their children’s future, who want “the reasonable, kind and eternal” for them?

How to educate not a consumer, whose formation is aimed at all the technical power of cinema, animation, show business, toy production, etc., but a person who is able to critically comprehend the information presented to him or her? How to instill the skills of conscious perception of information into our children?

The question is extremely complex. You will not solve the problem by throwing a TV set and showing only cartoons selected by yourself. I came across this on my own experience. My daughter’s grandmother stubbornly refuses to listen to me and accept what I try to convey to her about the malicious content of some products of modern animation, both Western and Russian. A lot of our grandmothers, who were brought up on TV, as I have seen, are still not able to accept that television is now deliberately destructive. We can understand them as they grew up in a different time, in which propaganda was structural, and the goal of the owners of large media was not the gradual “moronization” of the nation. Now time is different, and we must understand this.

Today, every responsible parent should realise that the state does not perform the function of educator, our children are raised by advertisers, banks, multinational corporations, and other guys who are not interested in our children’s smartness, kindness, and independence.

It’s important to understand that conscious parenting is now a choice you make day-to-day as you devote time to your child. If you do not devote time to your child and leave him or her to the mercy of the above-mentioned companies-this is your choice, but it is different and with different consequences.

Therefore, in order to form a conscious perception of information, you need, of course, to start with yourself. It is in the first place in importance. Review your values, views, and behaviour. If you want your child to watch TV a little, don’t watch it yourself. Don’t waste time scrolling through the news on social networks, it’s not much use, and it takes a lot of time that you could spend usefully with your child and family.

Secondly, strengthen relationships in the family, with your wife, and with your husband. You cannot blame “Masha and the Bear”, “Peppa pig”, if in the family you endlessly quarrel and humiliate each other. Read good psychological books, if they help you, if there are problems and you cannot cope with them-contact a psychologist to save your marriage and good relationships. Cartoons have nothing to do with it if the family bears the stamp of destructiveness.

Thirdly, if your child asks you to watch a cartoon or a movie that you think is harmful, do not refuse him or her. Offer to watch together. After all, in this way you can really separate the wheat from the chaff, take a critical approach to viewing and explain your child what is wrong with this work. Also, your child will share with you his or her thoughts about what you viewed. This is an invaluable communication experience and, again, your choice.

Fourthly, unfairly forgotten reading to your children, even to adult children. Reading with your family is also one of the possibilities of spending time without a TV set.A book is a wonderful world of creativity and imagination, as well as a tool for educating a little person. If you want to show less cartoons to children, you must provide children with an alternative, which can be books. It is completely wrong that parents for whom it was commonplace to read fairy tales to their little children before going to bed, stop doing this when they reaches 7 years old. Like, he or she has already gone to school and has learned to read. At this age, it is still quite difficult for children to master any texts, and as a result, they have a misunderstanding of what they read, which discourages them from reading. And then parents wonder why their children do not like books. Lazy, probably. Of course, it is easier for children to watch a cartoon, because there is absolutely no need to strain. Therefore, I encourage parents to read their children as long as possible, to dive together into the wonderful world of adventure instead of Evening Urgant programs, instead of Instagram live broadcasts. If children do not have time to read books at school, read them: “Dubrovsky”, “The Captain’s Daughter”, “The Inseparable Twins” by A. Pristavkin, Gogol’s novels, etc. Children will read if they will be supported by mom and dad.

Dear parents, the decision is yours! Children are only your choice and what it will be will determine your and your children’s future.

Source: VK Group “What is Good 2.0”

 Essay 2

 As most parents know well, young children do not “filter” what they view or listen to at all. They, like sponges, absorb everything from the world around them, because nature has arranged it in this way in order to survive in this world. Children must understand what is what, and this means that they need to learn, they need to copy adults, their behaviour, children need to learn stereotypes in order to rely on them in building their own life in future.

Human is a collective being, human respects mass trends, believing that they are worthy of trust, this is due to the internal mechanisms of the psyche. Previously, people survived only in groups, being expelled was considered to lose the chance of life, so the depths of our psyche store the postulate that it is dangerous to go against the opinion of the majority.

I will not speculate about this phenomenon. I have given this example in order to show that children perceive TV as part of the big world, society, and therefore, the goal of watching TV is to teach how to live, to transmit successful behaviour algorithms – this is how a child unconsciously perceives it.

A kid learns by looking at this screen and imitates cartoon characters, adopting their behaviour, learning skills of how to behave in similar situations, or in general in life.

But now on television and in cartoons, in particular, there is quite a lot of negativity, a huge number of frankly harmful stereotypes. What should we do?

It is necessary to teach children to perceive information consciously. I want to note that this skill can be instilled in older children, for example, up to 3-4 years old it will hardly be possible to do this, so it is desirable that children of this age in general, as they say, should not be allowed to watch TV. The psyche will be healthier. It is not natural for children to remain motionless at all, as it happens when watching any programs or cartoons. Children should explore the world, run, jump, bite snow and icicles, stick their tongues to metal slides in winter, watch the growth of grass and flowers during early spring, enjoy the sun, they should be touched by the rain and admire the flight of birds and soaring clouds in the sky.

Of course, over time, children will somehow “stick” to the screens, so let this “stick” happen as late as possible. This is my personal opinion.

Let’s think how you can help your child consciously perceive information.

1. Watch cartoons, movies, programs, even listen to music with your children.
2. Choose a strategy when you should turn on with comments: in the course of perception of information or immediately after it. Both strategies have a place to be. For example, if you explain the reasons for characters’ actions at once to your child, then no character will escape attention, but on the other hand, your child will not get pleasure from contemplating or listening to the content. If you analyse what you’ve seen and heard immediately after full acquaintance with a work, i.e. after the end of the cartoon, movie, program, etc., your child will be able to fully perceive everything he saw and heard, it will be more pleasant for him to answer questions, he will enjoy watching, listening, but there is a chance that any character or plot twist will be missed. In addition, there is a danger that the child will still “catch” some harmful stereotype. In my opinion, and I do so, it is reasonable to use both approaches, both strategies, so that already during the viewing the baby can, as they say, “turn on the head”.
3. After viewing, tell your children that any content is made by someone, and this person or group of people has certain tasks that they solve through this cartoon, movie, program, etc.and ask what do you think these people solve? Of course, children will not respond, but this is not necessary, it is important that they switch from consumption to comprehension.
4. Then tell your children what each character’s image carries. Evaluate the plot, considering it from the perspective of traditional values.
5. Build a dialogue so that children could be included in the discussion. For example. Does the boy have to be brave and strong? Children: yes. Further. And how do you think this boy is strong or weak (look at the character). Children: weak. Why is he so weak, you know? Children: No. Because he is drawn in that way, because his creators don’t want you to be strong and brave. So that none of you (if the conversation with boys), when you grow up, could not protect yourself, your homeland, those who are weaker. Let me show a brave boy, and at this time we turn on a Soviet cartoon, which demonstrates courage and strength. You can show photos of great-grandfathers who fought during the Second World War and say that if they were cowards, the enemy would have captured us all and offended us. Then we ask the children to compare whatthey saw in Soviet cartoons with what is happening on the screen, and always remember that artists and screenwriters are behind the drawn characters. In my case, it works, that’s how I explain video content to my children.

6. We watch good content with children and analyse the plot and characters, and at the same time we say that this is “good”.
7. Tell children that whenever they watch something on TV, it is necessary to compare it with good content previously viewed, i.e. you need to give a good sample, it is important, that you have something with what you can compare. Of course, you will have to download a bunch of cartoons and movies from the Soviet era, you have to have a strong-willed decision to limit the viewing of modern content, but then, when children can distinguish between “bad” and “good”, “useful” and “harmful” it will become easier.

Images work better than words

Source: VK group “What is good 2.0”

 Essay 3

Nowadays the issue of forming children’s skills of conscious perception is one of the most important, I would say that this is almost the only way to solve the problem of countering the total moronization of the younger generation. More and more children in our time are under the threat of forming new destructive behavioural stereotypes that are loaded into their heads bypassing consciousness and not only with the help of the internet and TV. The processes influencing through the media are long-lasting, and in order to recognise the managerial impact of the invisible hand that takes away our future, it is necessary to develop the skill of conscious perception of information, first of all, in ourselves.

In my opinion, addressing the issue of children’s development in the context of raising awareness and developing critical thinking is a global problem. The issue should be discussed and always be on the agenda of schools, parents, and, of course, the Ministry of Education, as we are dealing with a systemic issue that requires a step-by-step approach to its solution.

The first link in solving this problem is the development of conscious perception skills in adults – those who will educate and teach children. Next, it is necessary to raise the issue of combating the school bureaucracy, with which teachers are bombarded every day, and also to demand an increase in wages in school educational institutions. To increase the level of training of new teachers, along with solving the issue of their employment. Include such fundamental and important disciplines as” Logic “and” Psychology” in the school curriculum, as once in the USSR. After the training of highly qualified teachers and personnel of managerial significance, the real struggle against false values that dominate the minds of our children will begin.

But not everything is so simple. We see that many people have been sounding the alarm for a long time and the changes are still purely negative. We see that some people give up, because enthusiasm is a perishable product. Therefore, we do not need naked enthusiasm, we need a goal, or rather a VECTOR OF GOALS! So, the position I have described will be based on one of the most difficult aspect –  work on oneself. We need, even must, understand what children cannot understand, and explain and teach. At the initial stage, the skill of conscious perception is needed, first of all, by adults. This is an adequate and reliable development of events in the direction of the formation of humanity! Imagine that we are on a plane where depressurisation was: first put the mask on yourself, then on your child.

The development of skills of conscious perception of information in children at the school level is also a long-playing process, and not yet controlled. The future must be fought for. Our cause is just! The victory will be ours!

Source: VK group “What is good 2.0”

Translated by Xenia Shmonina

“Fiction!” – someone will exclaim. But what if I tell you that this device was created a long time ago and has been working for many years right in your room. Yes, exactly! We often underestimate the power of television. But … click – and one lie told on the air is multiplied by the number of TVs on. Click – and one scoundrel who grabbed hold of the television camera turns into a multimillion army. Click – and one movie murder becomes a real genocide. Click – and one vulgarity covers an entire generation with debauchery. Click – and one terrorist attack endlessly rattles through all channels, penetrating into every house. Every time you click on the TV remote, you multiply something.

Have you thought about it? Why is there so much negativity and immorality? What multiplies these phenomena? We couldn’t have done it without you. Every day you open the doors to evil, grimacing and cursing at the same time that only abomination is broadcast on TV. You should know that it was not YOU who saw the dirt now, but half of the country. They didn’t show ass to you, they show it to the whole nation. And this is no longer a black drop, but an endless stream of the stinking sea. Imagine how many times you need to press this damn button for all this to pour into our lives …

But don’t forget: TV can also zoom in and out. And not only objects. It magnifies events. Inflates personalities. Out of nothing, it can create a huge problem and overshadow the whole world. And vice versa – to make a real gigantic misfortune invisible to most people. Hocus pocus – and no one cares that a million people die from alcohol in Russia every year. Just think! After all, everyone is worried about the coronavirus. Think about it – a million is dying under the nose, but everyone worries about viral respiratory infection. Or Buzova’s new trick (note: Olga Buzova is a Russian media personality), or how many balls football players kicked into the net, or what word the politician called in another talk show – you don’t think that all this is under the powerful magnifying glass-screen of a merciless device called TELEVISION.

The evil that has taken possession of the media increases and multiplies itself, while day after day it methodically reduces us to the size of microbes. And, clicking on the button on the remote control of this mechanism, do not be surprised later why we are so small and helpless, why there is so little good, why people with microscopic consciences and ego bloated to the skies walk the streets, why many people have intelligence like an amoeba, and why you don’t see anything good in your life.

It’s great that this hellish machine has a switch! But … you will not be able to press on it and get rid of the harmful effect forever: there will not be enough strength. After all, your will has been reduced so many times, and besides, football is on Channel One today, immediately after your favourite series …

Toha Ha

Translated by Xenia Shmonina

Now it’s a matter of time when your power over yourself collapses. There are already too many of them. What will happen next is known. Listen, THEIR requests are already slowly heard from your lips , at first timid, but then more demanding and loud: “We want! Gobble and laugh! Consume, get! Give, give, give!” THEY begin to strike: they do not go to work and study, they hang around all day in the gateway or sit at the computer for days. You already hear THEIR intrusive thoughts in your head, THEY scold, complain, resent, accuse, make claims to the country, relatives, the whole world, but not to themselves. Your world is turning grey and dull. THEY are always unhappy and burst out of you in the form of impulsive actions, take to the streets, squares – and now in your eyes the fierce lights of THEIR incendiary mixtures are already lighting up. And you are not alone. Forward to the barricades! Young, embittered, ignorant, everyone owes you all the time: the government, bosses, parents, acquaintances and even passers-by. But you are never enough. Well-fed, fixated on yourself, obsessed with entertainment and getting pleasure – you no longer know how to rejoice. For so long you have cherished your “friends”: stupidity, indifference, consumerism, laziness, herd feeling, animal instincts, pride, greed, bad habits – you yourself brought them to the Maidan. They promised you a sweet life, but now everything is out of control. You were deceived, my friend.

You were just used in someone else’s game. Your mind is enslaved and captured. This is no longer your head, not your life. It’s time to give all your power to the thoughts that rebelled against you and run away. At the very last moment, you stop near an open door, looking at yourself in the mirror and not recognising that bright kind young man in the reflection whom you came to this world  – you understand that at such a turning point you could be saved by your real allies – LIGHT IMAGES … Good books and songs, poetry, art, reflections, knowledge, sports, sobriety, self-development, good deeds … But they are not here. You have been convinced that they are ridiculous. You yourself drove them once from your own life. You betrayed them. Now you have been betrayed too. And here you are, wringing pencils in your fists, helplessly standing in the centre of the raging chaos of your inner world, one on one with this wild Maidan of uncontrollable negative thoughts. The deposed king, the master of the once great empire called “LIFE”. Run and see what happens next to your abandoned country!

The revolution is in full swing. Your head, like a besieged fortress, has been blockaded for too long. The will, surrounded by hordes of destructive information, is broken, and the faithful guardian CONSCIENCE, that was the very that guarded the soul from vices, is put to sleep. The rebels stuck the drug needle of mass culture in it. Now you cannot discern evil, the way is open and the brutal crowd, armed with torches, pitchforks and axes, rushed inside, destroying and trampling all the good that was still in you. Rough, primitive, ugly, they took possession of your values, leaving behind only dirt and emptiness. Who will be their first victim? Of course, the brain – the rebels poison it profusely with alcohol and ignorance. Then, with the help of tobacco, they smoke your health. The stomach is stuffed with harmful junk food, and then pills. The next victim is your skin. They pierce it with needles and, mocking your body, paint it with indelible ink. They brands you. All this happens with laughter, jumps, screams and drunken hooting of the endless parties that they now throw in your house day and night. It happens when clowns and TV series actors come to the kingdom. You have reviewed them so much in your life that now they are in power here.

But these are still little things, the main goal is your soul. The saboteurs blind it with pride, make it deaf, callous, arrogant, indifferent to everything. Your spirit will weaken. A little more and the soul is dead, and streams of stinking hatred rise over its corpse. You do not exist any more. In the place of your empire there are ashes and ruins. Life is broken. But this is not the end. After all, your body is still alive. Only devil knows what they will do with it. They can turn you into a pederast, a criminal, a drunkard, a suicide, a corrupt official, a traitor, Dud, a zigging fascist, an idiot, into a small evil dog, an obedient slave… (note: Yury Dud is a Russian sports journalist and YouTuber)

But you will no longer understand this. After the revolution of consciousness, the absurdity happening around you will seem so normal and even dear. Look back at our society, isn’t this happening to people now? And you naively believe that this fate will pass you? Listen, friend, while the Maidan and devastation have not yet happened in your head, turn around and carefully look at what you are wearing behind your back. What are you growing? Prevent the impending sabotage at the very beginning. Half of the conspirators can be thrown into the trash with the TV. The second half of the “unsanctioned rally” will be dispersed by bright images. And soberness will become a reliable shield in the future … But what is it ?! You frown and disdainfully avert your eyes from the screen with the thought: “What nonsense I just read!” Are you laughing? Is it you who are laughing now? It seems that I am late. Goodbye, my friend …

Toha Ha

Translated by Xenia Shmonina

Recently the practice of revealing hidden meanings in movies has become widespread on the Internet, especially in the blogosphere. Most of the articles and videos on this topic are structured according to the following principle:

1. An author of a review, relying on his or her own worldview, identifies a number of key characters or events in a movie. These can be both main characters and episodes of the main storyline, and minor faces and small details that are hardly noticeable when viewed.
2. An author gives the characteristics of key objects selected by him or her (related to the plot of a movie or events in real life) and arranges them in a kind of integral system of concepts and meanings, within which the events of a movie are analysed.
3. On the basis of the analysis the conclusions are drawn about the meanings and ideas embodied in a movie. Depending on the content of the revealed message, an author explicitly or implicitly gives one or another assessment to a work: good, bad, harmful, useful, interesting, stupid, smart, relevant, and so on.

With the professional approach such reviews often attract quite wide attention of users, since they are surrounded by a halo of a certain “secret”, which an author reveals in the material.

In this regard, a number of questions arise: Can movies really contain hidden meanings and should they be revealed? Is the revelation of a hidden meaning analogous to assess to a movie impact on society? How reliable is analytics in the blogosphere in revealing hidden meanings?

The main criterion for evaluating a movie

In order to answer these questions firstly let’s think about what a main criterion for judging a movie from a good / bad position is. So before we start praising or scolding a watched movie, what should we evaluate – was it interesting to watch a movie? Did it evoke vivid emotions in us? Did actors play well? Is there a happy ending in a movie? Or something different?

In fact, in order to evaluate a movie aimed at a mass audience, you need to analyse its content and make a prediction about the consequences of its distribution in society – whether it will bring more harm or benefit to those people who watch it. And depending on the results of this forecast, you can give a movie one or another assessment from the position of “good / bad”.

For example, if watching a movie by millions of viewers will help them identify and solve a particular social problem, become better intellectually and morally, inspire them to creative actions, self-development, care for others, help the society as a whole to avoid some kind of catastrophe, and so on – we can call this movie “good” in the full sense.

If a movie “teaches the wrong” to a greater extent – it promotes consumerism and selfishness, forms depressive moods in the audience, popularises various deviations and vices, distorts historical events, and so on, then such a movie should be assessed as “bad”, because its influence on most viewers and society in general will be destructive.

At the same time, the process of predicting the results of movie distribution is associated not only with the assessment of its ideological content, but also with the form in which it is presented. Because actual and useful meanings and models of behaviour, presented in an “inedible form,” will only cause viewers’ rejection. The converse statement is also appropriate – no matter how beautiful the wrapper is, if the content is destructive, then a movie should also be considered harmful, no matter how many Oscars it was awarded for musical design or scenery.

Of course, it often happens that we assess some ideas in a movie as positive, and some as negative. In such cases, you need to understand what is more significant in terms of impact on society. Much in this case depends on the personality of an evaluator, because it is not for nothing that there is a saying “what is good for a Russian, then is death for a German” (although in modern realities it is appropriate to replace “German” with “liberal”) (Note: “what is good for a Russian, then is death for a German” – Russian equivalent for a saying “one man’s meat is another man’s poison)

Now let’s figure out how all of the above relates to the topic of hidden meanings.

Let’s start with the fact that many modern movies reflect this or that political, historical or ideological context – remember at least the form in which Russia and Russians are usually portrayed in Hollywood products. You can often find the so-called “product placement” – that is advertising of products of large brands built into the plot. In a way, all this can also be called “hidden meaning”, because not all viewers can reveal this layer of information.

Is this information significant for determination of the impact of a movie on society? In most cases, yes, so it is useful for a person expressing this or that opinion about a movie to know about the existence of all these aspects and take them into account in his or her assessments.

Moving on. Can authors of movies – screenwriters or directors – deliberately put some hidden meanings in their works that will be understandable only to people who know certain symbols, or who are ready to immerse themselves in the study of the work in great detail?

Since the form of allegory has always been present in many directions of creativity, it is logical to assume that it is also represented in cinematography to one degree or another. Moreover, the hidden meanings can be different:

1. Focused on recognition and understanding only by a narrow group of persons “initiated” into some secret knowledge (an example of revealing such meanings is presented here).
2. Accessible to enough wide range of random people who know a topic well and therefore are able to recognise the figurative references of the movie to it (for example, the so-called Easter eggs in Disney cartoons).
3. Available for reading by the general population, but mainly not from the level of consciousness, but from the level of the subconscious – through the perception of archetypal images or information of a cultural nature.

The first two categories of “hidden meanings” in most cases are laid down by the authors deliberately and affect limited groups of people. The third category in the aspect of influencing a wide audience has a greater potential for impact, but it can appear in a film both purposefully and unplanned – due to the fact that the creator does not always consciously express certain meanings in his works, often simply broadcasting much of that which is already present in the culture, but is not realised by him or her. This is especially true for collective creativity, in which the final product integrates the thoughts and desires of many people, while acquiring its own unique form and content.

Now let’s ask the question: Is the process of identifying and analysing hidden meanings the same as the process of assessing the impact of a movie?

No, it’s not. Analysing implicit meanings is only part of the broader process of assessing the impact of a work.

Firstly, because no matter how interesting and important the revealed hidden meanings are, the educational component of a movie and the behavioural models encouraged by the plot always play a significant role in the aspect of influence on society. And it is incorrect to draw conclusions about the influence of a movie without analysing this side of a work. For example, many people enthusiastically accepted the movie “Joker”, seeing in it a social protest against the “capitalist system.” But if you evaluate the educational and moral component of “Joker” and answer the question what this movie teaches, what example of behaviour it encourages – all enthusiasm quickly disappears.

Secondly, the identification of hidden meanings often very much depends on the worldview of a person who conducts such analytics – and therefore is more subjective in nature. One person recognises one hidden meaning, another – some other hidden meaning. And most of the society will either not notice anything at all when watching, or subconsciously perceive some third algorithm (of course, exceptions are possible when the author was able to correctly recognise the hidden component that strongly affects the audience – honour and praise to such authors).

For this reason, the revelation of hidden meanings in assessing films should be considered more as one of the additional elements of assessing the impact of a work, and it is worth addressing this topic only when there is confidence that the revealed hidden meaning has been interpreted correctly and really is of great importance.

It is also important to understand that the degree of influence of “hidden meanings” on society can be different – from negligible (just because these meanings will be understood or unconsciously learned by a few), and to very large – which is not often and refers rather to unique films , which have become cult – for example, the science fiction “The Matrix”.

Summing up, it should be said that you should not get carried away with hidden meanings in the field of cinema. You need to know about their existence; be interested in the topic to the extent that it is useful in your work; share guesses about encrypted messages and hidden meanings, when, in your opinion, it will benefit others – but at the same time, you must always remember that the assessment of a movie should be based on a holistic analysis of the work and identification of all the main aspects of its impact on an individual viewer and society as a whole …

Source: KinoCensor

Translated by Xenia Shmonina

Nobody was stopping the creators of the sequel “Jumanji” to maintain the original idea of the film of 1995, in which each hero had his own body and the adventures took place in the real world, not vice versa. But they took a different course which formed a different matrix and filled it with new background content, unobtrusively urging the audience to immerse themselves in the gaming industry and virtual reality.

Censor’s opinion (in details)

Probably everyone who grew up in the 90-s remembered the movie “Jumanji”, the story about teenagers who found an unusual board game. After rolling the dice, they suddenly were caught in the middle of dangerous adventures, where fantastic plants and animals appeared around.  The main characters had to run away from fabulous villains and help their new friend, who had spent more than 20 years in the jungle, to save his better half.

Despite its uniqueness and memorability, the story about the magic game remained without continuation for a long time, but in 2017 and 2019, viewers watched two new parts, “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” and “Jumanji: The Next Level”.

So what has changed in the content over the past 20 years? What ideas filled this vivid plot?

Let’s start with the positive aspects. The idea that you can only get out of trouble joining forces and supporting each other is still at the focus of the story. Of course, the characters quarrel or argue sometimes, but in any challenging situation, they are always ready to risk for the sake of a friend, which looks inspiring.

As an essential positive point, I can also note the transformation of most of the main characters as the story progresses. Like in the first part, for almost each of the heroes playing the game becomes a kind of life lesson. It helps them to change for the better, overcome some of their fears, learn to appreciate what you have, fix the mistakes of youth, and so on.

Besides, there are still many vivid and fantastic adventures in the sequels of “Jumanji”.

But there are also significant differences. In the first part, the characters in the world of the game had a look of their own. In the continuation of the story, all the characters found themselves in the virtual world of a computer game. Moreover, everyone becomes a kind of new hero with his unique skills and distinctive qualities.

Much follows from this detail, which may seem insignificant. 

Firstly, the heroes now overcome difficulties not only due to sagacity, courage, and mutual supportiveness. They also use various superpowers, which occurred with a wave of a magic wand. “Superheroism” is a generally destructive concept because it presents the idea that you can do nothing and instantly become a kind of highly developed being.

The popularization of superhero tales instead of real people’s life-stories serves as a demotivator reducing the potential of the younger generations for self-development. Why work on yourself if you can find a magic remedy or be in the right place at the right time and gain the powers of Spider-Man, Hulk, or Bravestone like in the new “Jumanji”?

Secondly, in the new world, all the main characters acquire new bodies, and here arises an interesting collision. You can be a boy or a girl, whatever you like best. As the story progresses, the characters change not only the color of their skin but even their gender and appearance. In “Jumanji: The Next Level” one of the characters becomes a horse, and he is so satisfied with this image that he finally decides to stay in virtual reality. Of course, in the eyes of the viewers, this is justified by the fact that he is old and terminally ill in real life. But anyway, there is a pretty specific message broadcasting that voluntary leaving into the computer world can be beneficial. You can be anyone there.

This message is becoming stronger with each new sequel. At the beginning of the third part, released in 2019, the protagonist, a teenager named Spencer, left for the game. His friends had to follow him to get him out of there. When they found Spencer and asked him – “Why did you do this?” – he replied that he just wanted to feel like Bravestone again (an analog of Superman), and for that feeling, he took such a risk and endangered his loved ones.  There is no morality that he should not have done this. In contrast, his initiative turned out to be useful in the end. He repaired ties with his girlfriend, helped his grandfather, had a great time, and so on. A simple message is broadcast to the viewer again – going into virtual reality will benefit you. The third part ends with Spencer teaching his grandfather to play the game console.

The modern Infomedia with all its media industry (Internet, music, computer games, films, etc.), of course, has already become an integral part of our life, and there is no point in urging to renounce the use of it. But this does not mean at all that the impetuous immersion of society in this area, especially children and adolescents, should be encouraged because it can only benefit someone who has developed qualities of self-control and knows how to set goals and achieve them without being distracted by secondary things. If this is not the case, then there is a high probability that the person will lose touch with reality, absorb the destructive component, which is present in large quantities, begin to behave inappropriately and ultimately prefer to stay there – on the other side of the screen.

These are not hollow warnings. Today an enormous number of people suffer from gambling addiction. In the future, this problem will grow, moving towards the popularization of transhumanism, the idea that a person can connect his mind with a computer.

As virtual reality technologies develop, this ideology will become more and more attractive, especially for all those who could not realize themselves in the real world, who did not create families, who did not fulfill their creative potential and did not fulfill themselves in the profession and knowledge.

The greater the percentage of such people in our society, the higher the likelihood of such a scenario.

Therefore, it is important now to focus attention on how the virtual world is featured in the films. Does the image broadcast from the screen carry learning, instructive and educational component, or does it offer boldly diving into the world of dreams and fantasies, having fun, experimenting with your avatar, changing bodies, dying and reborn many times, falling in love with networks and much more?

Nobody was stopping the creators of the sequel Jumanji to maintain the original idea of the film of 1995, in which each hero had his own body and the adventures took place in the real world, not vice versa. But they took a different course which formed a different matrix and filled it with new background content, unobtrusively urging the audience to immerse themselves in the gaming industry and virtual reality.

Some more points regarding the third part of “Jumanji: The Next Level”

• One of the positive images in the film is a killer girl (by profession). She easily climbs the rocks, scatters a crowd of men, fights with monsters. There is no femininity, modesty, chastity in her image, instead, there is strength and aggressive sexuality. It is she who has the main romantic story. Thus, it can be characterized as a shift in social roles based on gender.

• The film has a lot of humor, sometimes witty, but often stupid and vulgar. There are a lot of jokes about “the boy ended up in a woman’s body” and vice versa. But there are no scenes with alcohol, or they are completely inconspicuous.
• There are vulgar scenes of passionate kissing. As the characters periodically change their bodies, in one case an elderly grandfather in the image of a muscular macho is kissing a woman (despite his old age, the hero is portrayed quite lustful). In another case, a teenager in the same body is kissing another girl. What a muddle!
• Blood is not shown. Killed characters disappear in the air. But many monsters look quite scary and realistic, as well as their unexpected attacks on characters in the style of horror films when a giant fanged mouth suddenly appears out of nowhere.
• As for the presentation style and the content of the dialogues, the film is aimed at a teenage audience.

By using this link, you can click “Like / Dislike” on this review, evaluate the film, and write your comment or your review on it: https://kinocensor.ru/movie/dzhumandzhi-novyy-uroven-12034

Translated by: Diana Manakova

“Sleep well, peaceful citizens, while your peace and comfort are protected by immortal sodomites” – approximately such a slogan should be given to the new American science fiction “The Old Guard”.

The LGBT theme is presented very professionally in the movie, in such a way that it is guaranteed to provoke the viewer’s sympathy for perverts. This is done in a following way. According to the plot, in our world there are some chosen ones who have the gift of self-healing, which makes them almost impossible to be killed. The team of these brave heroes has been selflessly fighting evil for many centuries, rescuing those in trouble.

For the first half of the film everything looks very brutal and without any tolerant hints. The so-called “saviours” go and kill everyone (naturally, for the good!): skirmishes, shooting, bloodshed – everything is as it should be. It is a little annoying that the first role in the team of “killer-benefactors” is given for  a woman who is always the first to go into a battle and commands the rest of the men. But today, distorting social roles is already practically the norm in Western cinematography, so most viewers will probably not feel the substitution in this topic.

But after an hour of viewing  they begin to gently introduce us to the difficulties of the personal life of the newly-minted superheroes. It turns out that they are very unhappy with the fact that their loved ones are constantly dying and they remain forever young. The audience was even told the story of one of the characters who still hasn’t recovered from the deaths of his sons. His children did not have the gift of healing, and he could not help them in any way.

And now, when the audience’s degree of sympathy, imbued with the tragic fate of the heroes, is at the limit, we are shown that two brutal men have found a solution to this difficult life situation – they have become a pair of doves. But don’t think anything vulgar, everything is very sublime. Just appreciate this tirade:

“Your ridicule is childish. He is not my lover, he means more to me than you can imagine: he illuminates my path in the dark, warms me when it’s cold, his kiss excites me even after millennia. His heart is overflowing with kindness that this world is unworthy of. I love this person immeasurably, for no reason … “

By the middle of the film, the audience suddenly learns that a pair of brutal superheroes have not only brotherly feelings for each other 

And the viewer, immersed in this cinematic world, has no choice but to conclude that these characters are absolutely right in their choice. But a person who understands that a movie should be evaluated by looking at it through the eyes of a screenwriter and a customer, realises that this whole plot with immortals, the tragedy of their personal life and the injustice of the world were specially thought out in such a way to justify same-sex relationships in the eyes of the audience.

For the same reason, the female characters of the story do not show any interest in the opposite sex, do not have a family or children, but only languidly look at each other (their intrigue, apparently, will develop in a sequel). According to a certain part of the world’s elites, humanity has multiplied greatly over the past hundred years, threatens the biosphere of the planet, and therefore it must be reduced using all available means.

And the propaganda of perversion is not the only destructive program of the movie, which is gently introduced into heads of the audience. There is a lot more:

1. Firstly, the heroes of the movie constantly drink alcohol. One immortal does not let go of the flask. The head of the squad manages to find something to drink in any location, and does it very “professionally” – in some episodes she simply pours in half a bottle of whiskey or something similar in one gulp. The supers celebrates their victory at the bar.

2. Secondly, our “saviours” are like to be very kind, but in fact 90% of their activity in the frame is all sorts of scenes with fights and murders. They behave very coolly, wielding both swords and firearms. Due to such a dissonance of what is spoken in words and shown on the screen, the message to the viewer is something like this: “if you want to save the world, kill all enemies.” To put it mildly, this is a very destructive ideology based on the principle “the goal justifies the means”. For example, in one of the episodes superheroes use the services of drug dealers, hiding behind the fact that sometimes “you can work with those whom you despise.” And previously they had risked themselves to save a group of several children. The question is how many children will be killed by that ton of drugs that got into the frame? By the way, a Russian-speaking character was assigned to the role of a drug dealer in the film. According to the logic of the plot, it is the Russians in Afghanistan who are engaged in drug trafficking …
3. Thirdly, the world around and ordinary people are shown as insensitive and hostile. Here is an example. One of the new immortals is seriously wounded during the military operation in Afghanistan. At the time of the incident, she still does not know about her being chosen and how an ordinary soldier serves in the American army (it is very indicative that the sweeping operation in an Afghan village in the film is carried out by women). When her colleagues see that she has somehow survived and has been healed, instead of rejoicing for her, they turn the heroine into an outcast and begin to bully her. Such behaviour of others looks absolutely stupid and unnatural, because war somehow brings people together, they walk together under the bullets and cover each other’s backs. Obviously, this “stupidity” is deliberate and the scriptwriters needed to form the necessary message for the viewer in the style: “there are only scoundrels around, the world is hostile, you need to rely only on your own strength.”
4. Fourthly, the very concept of being chosen and superheroism is destructive, since for the viewer it somehow serves as a demotivator for the development of their talents and abilities. Young people watch such superhero films and at the subconscious level they are saturated with the idea that unique abilities and achievements are given to a person just like that – by wave of a magic wand, or from birth. Why strain and work on yourself, if you can just wait until the luck falls on your head. 
5. Fifth, the film is simply full of sadism. The heroes constantly strive to injury themselves or one of the team members: stick their fingers into a fire, break an arm, make a hole in the head. It gets to the point of absurdity – when one of the heroines is asked: “who are you?”, she, in order not to explain for a long time, simply shoots herself in the foot with words like: “look, I am immortal.”

Modern cinema is more and more openly engaged in dehumanising the mass viewer, gently inculcating destructive models of behaviour and adjusting the value system. Since the process is extended in time and is carried out under the guise of entertainment and special effects, many people do not understand the real goals for which such films are created. They justify the actions of the heroes by the logic of the development of events, without thinking about the fact that the script itself is an invention, into which it was possible to put completely different events and circumstances, forming a different message to the viewer. But every film has a sponsor. And who pays the piper calls the tune, including ideas that, under the guise of entertainment, will be conveyed to the viewer.

Source: review on Kinocensor.ru

Translated by Xenia Shmonina

In short

The movie makes propaganda of vulgarity, alcohol drinking, obscene lexicon, violence as the main means of solving problems. The main positive character is presented as a person with low moral qualities, who is inclined to act rashly and aggressively. Sometimes he behaves as a child, sometimes as a maniac. But as he has defeated the main villain, in general the audience’s sympathies are on his side.

In detail

After watching Bad Boys for Life I have a strong impression that simplification of content in genre ‘action movie’ continues to build up hard. And the thing is not just about common destructive settings as bar scenes, vulgar humour, admiration of cars, plenty of violence and obsession with someone’s own coolness; the thing is that the plot itself and the attitude of the characters are the height of stupidity and absurd. I have such a feeling that nowadays Hollywood movies are made on principle ‘the sillier and more obscene, the better!’.

A woman arranges a bloody murder of a prison warden and a medical team in order to escape the prison. Having got out she meets her son Armando and tells him that he must revenge for the death of his father, a famous Mexican drug lord. So that he should kill everybody who was a part of 20-years-ago events. Her son who absolutely accidentally happens to be a super-professional killer, starts by himself to shoot different high officials, including making an attempt on the main character, a detective Mike Lowrey. After that the latter gets to hospital for several months.

The elite team of the American police cannot get on the trail of Armando for half a year. The latter absolutely openly arranges carnages in the major cities in broad daylight (they even do not try to follow the surveillance cameras to find out from where and where his motorcycle goes). When Mike finally leaves the hospital, he and his partner Marcus quickly reach out to informants and through them to the main killer. Closer to the final the movie transformed into “Santa-Barbara”. Mike find out that the killer who is being searched by everyone is his son by his only “love” of a lifetime that he put in jail 20 years ago as she was a mad sadistic witch. In the final scene the witch is killed, and Mike saves his son and, according to the emotionality of the scene and tonality of talkings, he does not condemn him morally. But all the latter did was chopping everybody everywhere throughout the movie. With pain in his heart for his blood and soul, Mike still puts Armando in prison for crimes committed, but promises to visit regularly! Happy ending!

Idea settings in the movie

Since the plot itself does not cause anything but rejection, we will go through some typical moments. Such movies are often created for the sake of such “settings” to have a certain influence on lovers of “public executions” (some time ago people gathered in the square to see how the next criminal was being got on the scaffold, and today you can go to the cinema for a thriller or a horror movie to enjoy a bloody spectacle…):

1. Alcohol is an integral attribute of any important events in the lives of the characters: a child’s birth is an excuse to get drunk; you want to talk to a friend – a bottle will help you; a villain has been defeated – go immediately to the bar to celebrate; you recover from injuries – alcohol is the best medicine; a wedding celebration – a toast to the health of the young, etc. In general, certain alcoholic products are present in the frame for about 10-15 minutes of the entire duration of the movie. Through this obsessive emphasis on this topic, viewers are trained to a similar lifestyle with regular self-poisoning with alcohol. As the German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin said “There is no better way to create idiots than alcohol.”
2. 
3. If you are an adult man and a successful professional in your business, it is quite natural to constantly swear, flaunt your coolness and regularly make jokes on toilet topics. And what else can discuss two best friends except their achievements at an intimate front?
4. The main character must be an upstart and loner, and preferably reckless, impulsive and arrogant. Only then he will be successful in all things. “Armando, he’s the same age, crazy like me, merciless like me and pushy like me” says with a serious look the main POSITIVE character of the movie, whom the audience seems to like. It turns out that being crazy and ruthless is kind of a good thing… Another time he also teaches “in the fight against the criminal it is important to be a criminal a little bit!” In fact, the image of such characters transmits the message that any methods are good on the way to achieve your goal.. But in life, unlike movies, such an ideology does not lead to anything good.
5. Violence is a great way to solve all problems. Why should you turn on your brain when you can just kill someone you do not like or who stands in your way? And in the 21st century hitting fingers of an uncooperative accomplice with a hammer is still the most reliable method to find out some important information.
6. You are the master of life, and you can freely drive through crowded streets at high speed, putting dozens of pedestrians at risk just because you like it, or because you want to please your friend, quickly taking him to the hospital to meet his first grandchild. A friend is much more important than a possible accidental death of a passerby. The described logic of behaviour is again represented by the POSITIVE character of the movie.
7. It is the best way to fill numerous small scenes that last just a couple of seconds and have nothing to do with the plot with half-naked women’s bodies in swimsuits, glasses, cigars or pornographic sites and scenes with perversions. After all, these are excellent complements to the general message of the movie on degradation! 

7. For a complete set it would be good to reveal the mother theme. In the movie, the word “mother” is always heard, but it is tied to the most ruthless character, who kills everyone in cold blood, even her son, when he gets in her way. For two hours the word “Mother” has been used dozens of times to call a real fiend of hell, which unwittingly builds extremely negative associations with this holy word for every person. It is fair to say that there are several bright scenes in the movie that describe the joy of giving birth to a child. But they always alternate with other episodes in which the “mother” instructs her “son” whom and how to kill. 

8. The creators of the movie have thoroughly mocked believers putting such concepts as religion, God, karma and so on in an idiotic light (all gotl – from Buddhists to Christians). This message was revealed through Marcus’s behaviour, who at some point decided to give up violence and think about the man’s mission, but, of course, nothing came of it. In general, the story gives the impression that God approves of any methods of violence and does not even give people the opportunity to solve conflict situations in any other way. These are movie authors’ ideas about our universe, which they broadcast to a mass audience.

Is there something good in the movie?

Yes, it is. The main characters constantly sing Bob Marley’s song “Bad Boys” and there are such lines:

Why did you have to act so mean don’t you know
You’re a human being
Born of a mother with the love of a father
Reflections come and reflections go
I know sometimes you want to let go
I know sometimes you want to let go

But the movie creators apparently decided to go on a different path and agitate the audience in the direction of degradation, giving a very clearly understood name to their picture: “Bad Boys for Life”.

Source: Film reviews on KinoCensor

Translated by Xenia Shmonina

Last year I wrote an article. It was called “About Psychoologists and Keys”. I just had some thoughts and shared them on my page and in What is Good group. The fact that my article was voiced became a sign for me: it was interesting for people. That is why I began to expand on that and wrote the second part. I did not plan to write a sequel. I thought that I put a bold end to “psychoologists” by the story “On the Other Side of the Screen” but something went wrong. The images appeared again and again. They did not leave me alone and insistently demanded a continuation. I understood that it was not the end of the story. I set to work even without imagining what it would be.

As a result it seems that a new genre has been created. I have called it “a 3D story” or “a stereo story”. But to achieve an effect of volume reading you should read  the previous part. See the links above.

According to the established tradition this plot will be inside of the previous one. Such a matryoshka story. One more time but from the other optical angle I will try to show what happens THERE behind closed doors of human psyche during a movie watching.

About “psychoologists” and keys to films. Part 3

That seems to be all. The last preparations are over and this white and black text is in front of you. It remains to paint it in all colours of your imagination. Be in a hurry: the movie is about to start…

VIEWER No.53

1

Sergei was the last one who ran into the cinema hall. Having stopped in the entrance he hastily looked around. He was a young man in a violet T-shirt with an image of the British flag on the weak chest, torn jeans bridge with a child face and long oblique highlighted bangs. With one hand with unreadable tattoo hieroglyphs he was trying to hold a satchel bag with big paper cup of Coca Cola. With another one with a lot of colourful bracelets he was holding a tube under his arm and a big cup of popcorn. As he did not have the third hand he had to clench a bright glossy ticket in his teeth. The young man was in a hurry. By his calculations the movie should have already begun but, fortunately, the session had been probably delayed. Those present looked lazily at the entered as it was he who they had been waiting for.

Today was the premiere. The audience having flocked like flies to the smell of a new action movie chose mainly a centre of the hall. Sergei chose a place on the side away from the main audience. A day session has its own advantages: less people, a big discount, a possibility to be the first to watch a movie. “I hope the movie is worth it. Not for nothing have I had to skip two higher math classes”, thought Sergei making his way deeper into the hall. The trailer was promising: cool cars, glamorous chics, brutal guys, bucks, arms, fascinating colourful life – all that a without-moustache second-year student of the Faculty of Trade and Finance lacks so much.

And here the lights turn off. The audience are in anticipation.

“What’s your number?” asked a stern voice in the darkness.

“The seventh place in the forth row. But here you can sit where you want, look how many free seats”.

“The serial number of your ticket?” interfered a man.

“Hum… I don’t know…”

“He’s bothering me”, thought Sergei, “he is possibly a hall employee or a meticulous verifier”.

“The fifty-third,” read he highlighting it with his cell.

“Yup”, sighed the stranger obviously having got upset by such an answer, “you’re unlucky”.

“Why?” Sergei was surprised.

The man did not answer. Instead of that he relaxedly as he was at home plopped into the near chair.

“Shit, here are so many free seats, why he chose this?!”

“What do we have today?” asked the stranger impudently.

“What do you mean?”

“Horrors have been promised”.

Sergei rejoiced.

“It means that you are mistaken, here is an action.”

“I am never mistaken”.

The music started playing solemnly. The screen flashed brightly illuminating the audience.

The light fell on the stranger. It was a high man of 30 in an up-to-impropriety old-fashioned suit.

“Fancy dressed clown, what times have you come from?” thought Sergei. “And maybe he is an invited actor?”

“Let me introduce myself”, said a man in a long black tailcoat as he guessed that the thoughts were addressed to him.

“Starring,” a narrator began to speak in a nasal voice from the speakers. “Richard Gordon…”

“Richard Gordon,” the stranger introduced himself.

“No, I know who you are, you are a psycho”, guessed Sergei. “How many of them are around now! Damn freaks, they watch anime and fantasy and then live in their fairytale world with fairies and dragons”.

“So, you have come to watch an action with the ticket No.53, hum…imprudently, though… Mine was the first at all…

“How it is interesting”, said Sergei showing great sarcasm on his face.

Fortunately, it was a moment when the movie started and “Richard” stopped talking thoughtfully looking inward vanishing captions. His face was absolutely indifferent as a mannequin’s one. It seemed that the happening on the screen was absolutely out of his interest. And even when everybody started to put on 3D glasses he did not stir as in his thoughts he was somewhere but not here.

At that time the plot was developing quickly. Incomprehensible shooting and chasing started from the first seconds. At first, a busy city street appeared on the screen. An endless stream of people flowed in grey brooks. An absent-minded passer-by stopped at the bank’s glass doors. For some reason, he began to look at his reflection in them. Suddenly the doors swung open, knocking the clumsy man off his feet. Robbers ran out of the Bank. The alarm went off.

“Get out of the way, scarecrow!” barked one of the bandits at the fallen man and shot him several times as he walked. Stepping over the body, without slowing down for a second, the criminals jumped into a car that came out of nowhere and disappeared. The unlucky passer-by stayed motionless on the steps.

“Yes, it wasn’t a good day”, remarked cheerfully Sergei looking at his neighbour. The man’s gaze was still not on the screen, but somewhere far behind it, as if he was looking through a window. It was clearly noticeable that the crank does not watch the movie and at the same time he saw something there, in this huge stereo window. Neither the shooting, nor the fight, nor even the vulgar joke about the oblique Chinese caused this idol any emotions. “Is he alive?” asked Sergei, cringing in his chair. There was something eerie about that blank stare.

“Have you noticed that almost all Hollywood movies are made according to the same template?”  murmured slowly Richard without looking away as if he was talking to himself. “And it seems that something new, bright, original constantly comes out, but this strange feeling of déjà vu does not leave you, as if you have already seen this story and these characters more than once… As if all these films have the same AUTHOR.”

Sergei looked painfully towards the exit. “I’m not going to be able to watch the movie properly,” he realised.

Suddenly a prominent beauty appeared on the screen. “Wow, this is…”

“…As if you were going around in circles and learning the same lesson over and over again,” continued Richard in his monotonous monologue. “Don’t you see that all these movies are so far from life that watching them is like looking into a crooked mirror with a distorted reality?”

Richard turned inquiringly to his neighbour. But now he was leaning back in his chair, not noticing anything except the third size of a lustful blonde.

“Oh, you bastard! Stop it!” she shouted, brandishing a tiny lady’s pistol.

Sergei laughed. The bimbo accidentally touched the trigger and the big man who tried to rob her fell heavily to the ground. Sergei laughed even harder.

“Oops,” the lady said with a simper.

The second robber tried to run away, but help was already close. There was a long burst of machine-gun fire. The body of the unfortunate man was shaking violently under the hail of bullets.

“He must have been in pain,” commented ironically the student.

“He is not in pain,” Richard said as detached as ever. “These characters go through the mandatory depersonalisation process. They are raised for slaughter, like pigs.”

“What are you talking about?” Sergei looked at his neighbour in amazement. The same man was sitting in front of him, but now he was wearing a medical gown over an old-fashioned tailcoat.

“When did he have time to change, this very, VERY strange guy?! I will try to ignore him as much as possible.”

“You wanna a trick?” Richard started to speak less formally. “I was recently taught a trick here.”

“That’s right, he is a psycho.” The guy turned away, pretending not to hear, and even if he did, he wasn’t interested.

But the other didn’t back down.

“How long has the movie been running?”

Sergei didn’t answer, trying hard to concentrate on robbing another bank. But Richard’s insistent gaze did not allow him to look calmly at the hostage-taking.

“I don’t know, maybe… ten minutes,” replied irritably the young man, giving up under the weight of those unwavering eyes.

“How many people have died in that time?”

Sergei tensed, taken aback. It was not the stupid question that confused him so much as the fact that he really didn’t know the answer.

“Three, no, four, oh, and that nigger. Five.”

“Seventeen.”

“Come on…”

“Have you ever seen shot people?”

“Are you kidding me!” Instead of answering, Sergei got up to sit down and say goodbye to this obviously inadequate friend forever. As he got up, he clumsily touched the glass of Coca-Cola and it completely spilled on the neighbour. Embarrassed, Seryozha took off his glasses, preparing to apologise. Strange Richard’s snow-white medical gown was covered with dark purple spots that looked like blood. The student glanced into the hall, looking for someone who might have seen it, and then an icy dread gripped every cell of his body. Here and there, the audience was frozen in unnatural positions, with the same bloody bullet marks as his mad “friend”.

A shot rang out sharply from the speakers. Sergei shuddered.

“Eighteen,” the man in the robe said without looking up from the screen.

Another viewer slumped in his seat. A black puddle slowly spread across the floor.

Unable to remember himself from fear, Sergei screamed in a way he had never screamed in his life. It came naturally, and when he came to his senses, he was also afraid of his own voice, which still echoed in his ears. The guy looked at the people hopefully. To his surprise, no one turned around. Everyone was chewing tensely on popcorn and watching someone tormented someone with a screwdriver.

“It doesn’t feel good, does it?” Richard noticed his confusion. “I have something very, very important to tell you. You are methodically exterminated here! Wake up before it’s too late!”  the lunatic was clearly mocking. Abruptly, his face became serious again. “They can’t hear me. They don’t want to hear anything. It’s like sleeping with their eyes wide open.”

“I’m dreaming!” Sergey grasped this thought as a drowning man grasps at a straw. He looked around the room again. Indeed, the sounds of the movie had faded into the background, became quieter and seemed to come from somewhere far away, as if from another world. But everything else seemed realistic. As if nothing had happened, the audience sat in the semi-darkness, the light of the screen revealed fascinated faces in the darkness. Their skin and eyes reflected the elaborate scene of torture in details. And then, among others, the unfortunate man saw himself! “That’s right, it’s a nightmare!” The guy ran to the spot and began to furiously shake himself by the shoulders. But the double, like everyone else, kept his eyes on the movie.

“Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!!!”

In the reflection of his face, Sergei saw a close-up of a tortured man being finished off at point-blank range in the movie. Another viewer slumped in his chair.

“Nineteen,” Richard said coldly, “so what do you say your number is?”

“Please Wake up. Hey!” Sergei pleaded in vain, turning to himself. The “twin’s” hand reached for the popcorn indifferently, then he busily rummaged in his satchel, took out a can of cola and washed the corn down with pleasure.

The student was already close to despair, and suddenly the viewer looked at him through his glasses as if with a conscious glance. Sergei froze in hope. His heart was ready to jump out of his chest. “Come on!” A series of shots rang out. The double laughed out loud spitting out bits of popcorn right in the face of the stunned self.

“That’s hilarious!” commented he looking through his “brother”.

Four viewers sitting nearby dropped their heads.

Terrified Sergei ran to the exit as fast as he could. The way to freedom was blocked by an armoured door with a lot of heavy locks. The prisoner screamed helplessly and beat her with all his might. The audience in the hall simultaneously laughed at some flat joke. No one noticed anything unusual.

“Where are you going? Why did you get this desire to run away from any problem? Is there anything THERE?” Richard stood up from the armchair. “Is there any other world beyond these doors? Where? WHERE do you want to run?

The world outside the cinema, isn’t it FANTASTIC? A world without bandits, drug addicts, traitors, enemies, poverty and slavery? The land of happy citizens who are confident in the future, the land of intelligent, bright INDIVIDUALS who are able to create and empathise with their neighbours, a conscious society in which people are not tortured with screwdrivers…” Richard snorted bitterly. “We’ve been locked up here for a long time. Get it?! We’re all locked inside this damn cinema hall with all these 3D effects. You need keys to get out of here. EVERYONE should have their own keys to the bright world in their pocket…”

“Who are you?” asked Sergei finally leaving the door alone.

“I don’t know,” said Richard lowering his head. “My memory has been deleted. I have no past. There is no fate. No history. I was depersonalised and shot for the amusement of the audience at the very beginning of this film. You didn’t even notice. When I was dying on the steps, you were eating popcorn in this very chair. My image was immediately blocked. I am not showed up in the audience’s memory. We are even forbidden to scream before we die, so that they will not accidentally remember us. As the doctor says: the shorter the memory, the longer the rows in the cemetery will be. This is his formula. “HOCUS POCUS”…

Richard unclenched his fist. In his palm was a “lucky” crumpled ticket with the number one on it.

“I’m the one who didn’t have a good day, the guy who’s going to die first, a random passer-by, one in a million, dry statistics, a snippet from the crime news, an empty seat in this auditorium… I was supposed to go into oblivion, but apparently Doc saw some perspective in me. He has a nose for such things. I was “honoured” to become his disciple.”

The student stared at Richard. The blue face, the pale lips, the glassy stare, the scant expression, the blood-spattered robe…

“You are a ghost…” either asked or stated the astonished young man. “Why is this happening to me?”

Richard went straight to Sergei.

“Not with you. This is happening to EVERYONE now. But these chairs…” the ghost ran his hand over the back, ‘they are so comfortable, these special effects (there was an explosion on the screen, some tough guy was lighting a cigarette in the foreground), they are so realistic. And no matter what horrors happen on the screen, the main nightmare always happens here. In the auditorium. Fifty people have just witnessed so many murders, and NO ONE has even batted an eye! This is the thing that is really scary. The lack of compassion has almost reached the level of reflex. No one but you ran in a panic. They think they’re not the ones being killed here every day. “Save our souls!” Do you hear this ubiquitous call for help? And I don’t hear it. Everyone is happy. All are PUT TO SLEEP.

The second thing Doc does after PUTTING TO SLEEP is DISTORTING. A distorted consciousness consumes lies like a viewer consumes popcorn – enthusiastically, unconsciously, immensely, more and more. Consumer society deprives you of a sense of proportion. And as a result – reason. An unquenchable hunger for spectacle, violence, lawlessness, drug addiction, the cult of money, murder… Yum-yum, wash it all down with a cup of cola. Like this. You like IT. Oh, come on. You like all this mud. You like it when they throw this mud at you. You like living in mud. You like to complain to each other about mud. You like BEING this dirt.” Richard look around the hall. “This is what a distorted mind looks like. You like everything…”

On the screen there was a burning man running back and forth to cheerful music. The audience smiled. The smell of roast meat appeared in the foyer.

“You like it…”

“No!” exclaimed  Seryozha. “No! No!”

Richard pointed at the armchair where another Seryozha was making  some sharp jokes about barbecue.

“You are one of them. You are a bright representative of your unintelligent species. The only reason you can see everything that’s going on right now is because I managed to shut you off from the instruments without you noticing. It wasn’t easy. IT’s always watching, you can’t hide anything from it. It’s already begun to suspect.” Richard spoke in riddles. “What could be worse than WAKING UP from an anaesthesia in the middle of an operation? But you have to go through it. This is OUR only chance.”

“What operation? What does this mean?” Pleaded the student.

The screen turned black and white, and sad music began to play.

“They will do to you what they once did to me,” said the ghost, coming close to Sergei. “You will be depersonalised.”

“Why… Why are you doing this?” he whimpered.

“Why are YOU doing this?”  Richard either mimicked or redirected the question.

“What? What have I done?”

“Why do you come here? Do you like the way people are killed?”

The girl’s pleading face appeared on the screen.

“Of course, not!”

“Then stop killing her! They kill her here for three sessions a night and one more day session at a big discount! She is killed as scheduled, at the same time in thousands of cinemas right now, and then she will be endlessly killed on TV!.. Open your eyes at last, it is EXECUTIONS!” shouted Richard in the hall “This is where you all really go to have fun on holidays and weekends.

Sergei broke into a cold sweat. The screen was still showing this hideously long moment. The little girl’s frightened face looked up at him with a look of hopeless appeal.

“This is all for you,” Richard turned away. Shots rang out. At once, two spectators slumped forever in their seats.

“Twenty-five… and there is less and less time. The depersonalisation process has already started. You have just been hacked. Now the doctor will start hunting. Your name is already in the end credits.

“My name!”  Sergei asked in horror, tears glistened on his cheeks. “I don’t remember my name.”

“No character, no destiny, no past. Now you’re number 53.”

2

“Well, it’s all a dream, I’ve already figured that out. I’m sleeping, right?”  Sergei asked expecting Richard to agree immediately. He nodded.

“Much longer than you think. But now it’s just the opposite.”

“What’s going on here?” I want to know the TRUTH!”

“The truth is that not everything in this world can be explained in words. There are things that simply cannot be explained. They can only be understood by feeling them. I should have shown you all this. Otherwise, you would never have known the truth. No one knows what’s going on inside him when he’s watching movies.” Richard frowned “Prepare. You must be strong. The TRUTH is a FORCE that weak people can’t handle…

You are in great danger. Your soul is at stake. Right now, we’re hiding from the doctor deep inside your subconscious – not the safest place to hide, but the only place to hide when they dissect your mind. The operation is in full swing. They’re getting closer. Invisible, thin fingers have already entered your head. Your mind is drugged, distorted, and disfigured. One by one, they remove your memory, your freedom of choice, your conscience, your compassion – all the things that make you a PERSON…

“Why did they choose ME?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. Nothing PERSONAL, you’re just a patient to them. Number 53. Just a number in a long list.”

“Who are they?”

“I call them PSYCHOOLOGISTS. Professional brain washers. Programmers, sysadmins and hackers for hacking the psyche. Invisible puppeteers with a monopoly on spectacle. The real AUTHORS of almost all modern films.

In order to control and control people, they calculated and calculated all the features of the human being with the cold calculation of a computer. Everything but the soul. And this loophole is our only chance. I managed to insensibly disconnect part of your mind from their manipulations. The last place the doctor had not yet reached. All the good things that are left in you are gathered here. And I must say – there is not much. You’ve been dissected so many times… It couldn’t last forever. Everything will be decided today.”

“What should I do? What should I do?!”  Sergei pleaded. He realised that this terrible man was the only one who could help him.

“Think. Analyse. Thinking is like picking up the keys to the door to awareness. Sometimes the armour is very thick, but behind there is freedom. Psychoologists know that and are most afraid of this. They won’t let you out of here just like that. A free, conscious man is more terrible to them than an atomic war, because he does not believe in the lies which all their power is based on. A lie is not just INFORMATION that does not reflect the reality, the lie is a CONDITION in which we all live. State of insanity. We are all seriously ill…

But today you must fight back. Give these scoundrels your own action movie. Mix up the cards. Give them a good thrashing. I’ll teach you a few secret tricks that will help you kick the psychoologists in the teeth.

First of all, you need to know that in each film, the audience also has its own role. You have to guess yourself in this movie. Then you will stop being just a viewer. You will not be an indifferent spectator – you will become an active participant in your life. You can influence the situation. Act. This is why psychoologists rely on spectacles. So that we can sit still and never know our true strength. “Every cricket stick to his last”. They put everyone in their seats, chained and fixed them in their neatly arranged chairs, immobilised them and blinded their eyes with 3D glasses. They imposed their own illusions. Mesmerised. They connected all their brains to the same screen. And I’m not talking about a specific movie, but about television in general.

TELEVISION is not a caged animal. It’s not locked in a kinescope. It doesn’t have an outlet or an “off” button. It’s everywhere. Every lie and stupidity here is multiplied by the number of TV sets on. Television is a MEDIUM. Our habitat. Whether we watch it or not, we all participate in the TV show. With prizes, Snickers and the “bankrupt” sector on the reel. We are inside this “very funny” box for degradation. Funny puppets tied hand and foot by a TV cable. Do you feel that piercing, all-seeing gaze from the other side? I don’t want to think that someone on the other side of the screen has pointed their remote control at you for a long time…

To break out of this insidious network, you need to decrypt the CODE. In order to get free, you need to find ALL the keys hidden in this movie. Non-stereotypical, critical thinking will help you see the hidden tricks and not fall for them. One of these traps is public opinion. If you follow his lead – you will stop hearing your mind. This is the strongest factor affecting a person, so the most vile ideas are promoted by psychoologists here. Don’t be fooled by millions of views, likes and high ratings. Not everything that is approved by the crowd is good. It is very easy to go with the flow all the time. But only dead fish do that.

And finally, the heavy artillery against psychoologists – you have to do what all these viewers could not do, you have to hear the voice of conscience. This is your main weapon. Wake her up. The doctor is powerless against CONSCIENCE.”

“But that’s not all” Richard paused, choosing his words for the most unpleasant news.

“Doc will try to open the doors. If he lets THEM out…”

An ominous shadow moved across the room.

“We can’t handle images like that. THEY will take over what’s left of your mind. You will lose yourself. If they take over your worldview, you and I will be locked up in a secure prison forever. They will enclose all the bright images in the released chambers of your subconscious. This is how they turn people into their obedient slaves. The third, penultimate stage, after EUTHANASIA and DISTORTION – is SUBMISSION. The doctor is raising an army. There is a war going on. The most terrible of all wars. A war in which weapons are not bullets and bombs, but various types of information influence. And the goal of the conquerors is not cities and countries, but much more valuable. Your head. Your mind. Your soul. Everyone is a hostage to their own worldview. If they win, they will not own any territories or states. They will own man… Humanity.”

Pale Sergei listened to Richard neither alive nor dead, struggling to understand his incredible words.

“Did you really think you were just going to be entertained here?” laughed bitterly the man.

“Why do you help me?”

“You have to stop this. I want to turn the doctor’s methods against him and turn them to dust. Bring this charlatan to light. I am not so naive as to believe that everyone will suddenly wake up and become aware. But if EVERYONE knows the secrets of his tricks, no one will buy these cheap TRICKS. People will just lose interest. We can do all of his tricks USELESS. In fact, we can ruin and crush these psychoologists in an instant. THINK. It’s not as difficult as it sounds. Do not underestimate the enemy, but also do not overestimate its capabilities. You have a great mission. You must get out of here and tell them,” Richard pointed to the audience, “that there is another world. In which PEOPLE are not a desecrated herd of intimidated consumers who don’t want to think with their own heads and don’t know how to do it, but reasonable, bright individuals who are intolerant of any evil. You have to remind them… I’m tired of dying on the dirty steps several times a day for the amusement of this crazy public, who have a long time ago forgotten that every death is a tragedy.”

On the screen, the main character, still holding the bottle, was crying over a photo of his wife and daughter.

“They must not be killed again. Our deaths should no longer be used by psychoologists for their inhumane purposes… Enough!”

“What will happen if I fail? Me too…”

The ghost lowered his eyes.

“Stage four … the doctor’s final focus… EXTERMINATION.”

“What the hell? It’s just a funny movie. Movies can’t kill people!”

“Yes, they can,” said Richard, “tell number 26 about it.”

Having sprawled like a king in a cramped chair, a swollen, flabby viewer number 26 was sitting bored. Without distracting from the screen, he greedily sipped secretly brought beer from a bag. In the light of the projector there reflected bread crumbs on the untidy stubble and sweaty shirt. His face was bleak and melancholy, and he cursed the stupid laws that forbade smoking in cinemas, and he waited impatiently for this annoying homeless drug addict to be shot.

In a second, his expectations were over.

“Devil!” Sergei closed his eyes.

“We don’t have time to talk anymore. It’s time to act. Now your personal “action movie” begins. The action movie in which you can win not with your fists and a gun, but only with your mind and heart. So what do we have… You’ve seen so much of this stuff. This is a good base. Your trump card. In fact, you know them much better than you think. You need to get ahead of them. Gather all your thoughts together and analyse step by step what is wrong with these films. Inconsistencies in the plot, holes in the script, ridiculous dialogues, impossible in real life tricks do not interest me. I’m interested in the KEYS.”

“I have some suggestions,” Sergei began after a pause. “Remember when you said that action movies are public EXECUTIONS? It turns out that all these characters, both bandits and the police, are … EXECUTIONERS?”

“Bravo!

There was a click as one of the locks on the armoured door fell to the floor.

The faces of the actors became covered with executioners’ masks, rough grey burlap with slits for eyes, and it was no longer clear who was who in the movie.

“Distortion. You took off the bright wrapper, now look at what’s inside.”

“So they all have the same face in these movies. There are no positive characters here! And there is no difference between them. They all work for a single goal” continued Sergei.

Another heavy lock clattered down.

“Perfectly. Develop the idea, you are close.”

“Purpose. They always have the same goal! Well, as if it is constantly different – a valuable hostage, a suitcase of money, drugs, a chip with secret information – but it’s all the same image transferred from movie to movie. This is the key! In movies, it is presented as a GOAL, but… it is not. This is a false landmark – just a DECOY. something that will justify the entire movie for any vile actions.”

Another lock clattered to the floor.

On the screen, the engine roared deafeningly, and a swift chase began.

“They’re afraid of you. Feel your power. They’re on the run. Don’t miss them!”

“I noticed another pattern. In the pursuit, at high speed, the main character necessarily goes to the oncoming or sidewalk. Here, just like now! Did you see it? And passers-by always dodge at the last moment. ALWAYS. Here again as you can see all remained intact. A tough guy will punished scoundrels, and no one will remember this “little” incident. But in fact, he just put the lives of dozens of random people at risk for the sake of his “goal” without blinking an eye…”

“What’s the message here?”

“A man’s life is worthless. You can and should sacrifice people for your own interest.”

“Put it simply.”

“It turns out that the end justifies the means.”

Several cars crashed head-on at the same time. There was an explosion.

“Congratulations, you have solved the main message of this genre. It turns out that you are a capable guy, it’s a pity that you’ve never used your brain before.

“Moreover not only the methods of solution are used only by force and violence but the goal itself is false,” Sergey was surprised at himself. “Why didn’t I know that before? The same methods of propaganda, they are so primitive and simple… We were all deceived!”

“So what is their true purpose? Name it. And you can get out of here right now. This KEY will open all the locks at once.

“Their goal is…” the student thought deeply. “I don’t know,” he sighed after a long silence. “… Maybe they want to show that they are cooler and smarter than anybody else?”

“Wrong!” said Richard with annoyance.

A dented car came out of the fire. From the tinted window, Sergei felt someone’s bestial, hypnotic gaze on him. With an angry growl of the engine, the car spun around and slammed on the gas and  disappeared into the nearest gateway.

“Went away…”

Eleven viewers did not survive the chase.

“The closer the end, the more victims. The final carnage is coming. Think!”

“I’m trying, but that sound!”

“They turned on Tam-Tam.”

“What is it?”

“Another TRICK. When frames flash quickly on the screen, when special effects change like in a kaleidoscope, epic music is turned on, accompanied by special beats. Haven’t you noticed it before? A low drum sound with the desired frequency begins to beat with a certain rhythm. The doctor’s imagination is immense. New technologies – new keys. A zombie-like measured thud, a “pendulum” of frames in front of your eyes. Does it remind you of anything?

“I can’t hear you well! What is this … Hypnosis?

“Something like that. They muffle the voice of reason in such a way. They usually launch a “Tam-Tam” before or during the final slaughter. This means that a good half of the operation is already over. Usually the doctor opens the door with this “music”.”

“What?!”

“Get ready!”

The ominous shadow moved across the hall again.

The sound stopped abruptly. The scene changed. There abruptly began a “lyrical” retreat on sex in the movie.

Sergei held his ears in horror.

“That sound almost blew my brains out.”

“Don’t worry about it, do you have any bright images?”

“What images?” the student did not understand.

“We need help right now, and your subconscious is filled with negativity to the brim. What happens when all this comes out? When was the last time you read a good book?”

“Yesterday”

“What was that?”

“50 shades of grey”

“We’re finished.”

Suddenly the screen went dark. The cinema was plunged into total darkness. The sounds faded.

“They’re already here,” whispered Richard.

The ominous silence was broken by the piercing rasp of claws. It came from the other side of the screen. The monitor began to brighten. All the executioners of the film gathered in one place. Huge black shapes crept silently to the edge. Their eyes glittered like wolves under their grey masks. Everyone was there. Not looking up, killer angrily looked at Richard and smiled. They went to the final slaughter. Now the doctor will release them into the wild…

“Can they see us?” whispered the guy fearfully. The ghost didn’t answer.

Agonising minutes passed, but nothing happened.

“Ha! He can’t open the door,” guessed Richard.

“Is this the end? Have we won? Happy end?”

“Tam-Tam” hit. Sergei bent over, covering his ears with his hands as strong as he could.

“The doctor won’t just give up! Now he will take a cruel revenge.”

Loud bursts of gunfire rang out. Maddened executioners crushed each other right and left. The audience fell from their seats one by one.

“Find the main key and guess yourself on the screen!!!” shouted Richard over the sound of gunfire and the zombie drum.

“I can’t hear you!” shouted Sergei at the top of his voice.

There became quiet again. Exhausted and half-deaf, Sergei stared at the screen in horror. He was shaking. Tears ran down his cheeks. He was the only one left alive in the hall. All 52 viewers were dead. The only one who could still escape – right now just to get up and walk away from this nightmare forever – stared with admiration at the bloody spectacle. Only two characters survived in the film.

“Here we are, Fyodor,” said one of them. “You’re going to bed early tonight.”

The unfortunate Sergei realised all the stalemate: HE would die anyway.

One of the executioners lunged at the other. Several shots were fired. The guy clenched his teeth and closed his eyes. But not. Everyone was still alive.

“What did they want from you the whole movie? What do they want to TEACH you?” pleaded Richard.

Sergei slowly turned to the ghost. He no longer heard his words: the inevitable fate, anger, and despair had taken possession of him. A fire was burning inside. The Tam-Tam beat belligerently in his ears.

“You!!!” he shouted in an inhuman voice. “YOU lured me here!”

“Resist! Don’t let the doctor finish the operation!

“It’s YOU. This is all your fault. I hate you, do you hear? I HATE it!”

“Listen to my voice! This is your last chance! Hear your conscience!”

“I can’t hear you anymore. Your strange words. I never believed them. Why do you follow me all the time? You read morals. You think I didn’t recognise you? You’ve been nothing but trouble all my life, and you’re always making it difficult for me to live the way normal people do. “It’s not good”, “it’s shameful”, “it’s not right”, “it’s not fair»… Ugh! I don’t need you. Get away from me! You’ve deprived me of so many opportunities.”

The student lunged at the ghost with his fists.

“I’m sorry,” said Richard painfully and went back to the screen, leaving his protégé completely alone.

From the speaker, as in a confession, came the insidious plans of the villain, bringing the inevitable closer.

“I hate you all!” shouted  distraught Sergei fiercely in the hall. “From number one to number fifty-two. Burn in hell! You all deserve it! Stupid gapers! What are you looking at?! I’m going to be killed here!”  Sergei hit the screen with all his might. “Do you like this kind of movie? Yes?”

The corpses were silent.

“Do you like executions? With jokes, in soft chairs, with a full mouth, under a beer… Why don’t you clap? You are all dead! You have already come here dead, you can not help, soulless bastards! How do you like this movie?!”

“…And after I crack the master code, I’ll take over the whole world, ha-ha-ha!” did not stop the movie killer.

There was nowhere else to develop the idea. The student has seen too many action movies in his life not to know that it will all be over now.

There was a click, someone ran out of ammo.

“I hate you!” shouted he at the villain. “I hate you!” shouted he at the main character.

The man demonstratively removed his mask. In a face contorted with hatred, Sergei recognised himself. They met the fierce gaze of each other. All three of them: one on the screen, one in front of the screen, one in the chair.

“H-A-T-E!”  They all shouted in unison.

The main character pulled out a knife from a bloody leg and accurately threw it into the hall. The bright light hit in the eyes. The movie is over. Evil is defeated. All 53 viewers came to life and stood up from their seats. Sergei was the last to get up. Next to him there was an empty chair with a spilled glass of Coca-Cola. For a moment, in the eyes that were unaccustomed to the light, there was a distinct image of a short man. His face was covered with a gauze bandage, but even under it there was seen a wide, satisfied smile. The vision immediately disappeared. “See you soon, my dear loyal friends,” came a barely audibly whisper, punctuated by silent music that accompanied a slowly floating list of countless unreadable names and surnames.

The operation was successful. All 53 viewers left the hall. The cinema was empty, and the credits went on and on, lightning up the empty rows of identical electric chairs in the dim foyer. Only two of them stood out from the crowd. On one there was a fallen cup, on the other a satchel and a tube.

“How was the movie?” a tall man asked the student on the way out.

“Cool,” – he muttered.

Sergei went outside. His head was still buzzing. He had left the cinema so many times with this slight headache and the addition of some other incomprehensible feelings that are difficult to characterise. Usually it was something unpleasant, as if he had witnessed or participated in something bad and vile. But there was nothing like that today. There was a new sense of absolute emptiness. It was as if something inside him had died forever. As Sergei went down the stairs, he completely forgot the plot of the movie he had just watched. When he left the hall, firstly he threw away his ticket. It flew away an urn filled with identical ragged twin tickets and lay on the dusty steps. By that time, Sergei no longer remembered the name of the movie.

He walked for a long time looking down at his feet. First, he was going home. Then he just walked. When he stopped, he did not remember neither where he lived nor what kind of a city it was, nor what ear it was… “Who am I?” flashed and extinguished his latest thought. No.53 looked puzzled at a busy street, where people were passing by, andeveryone had a blurred face. Identical and impersonal, they went on and on in a never-ending, terrible stream. No character, no destiny, no past. Someone had wiped faces of an entire city. All together, passers-by merged into a single grey background. It was like static on an old broken TV screen.

No. 53 turned his bleary gaze to glass doors of a large building nearby. Something about them caught his distracted attention. He no longer felt anything. Slowly, the guy walked over to the front door. The mirrors reflected his own blurred face. No eyes, no nose, no lips. With the last of his strength, he tried to see something human in himself, but nothing. Just a faded, indistinct silhouette. Suddenly the glass doors swung open, knocking the clumsy man off his feet. Robbers ran out of the bank. The alarm went off. “Get out of the way, scarecrow!” one of the bandits barked at the fallen man and fired several times without slowing down. A moment later, the criminals jumped into the car that came up out of nowhere and disappeared. The unlucky passer-by remained motionless on the steps.

“Wow, went to get some bread!” commented Igor ironically. His girlfriend giggled loudly.

“It must have hurt.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” someone said from the darkness of the cinema hall. “What is your ticket number?..”

Tokha Ha

Translated by Xenia Shmonina

Have you ever thought about what do we need film awards? At first glance, the answer is clear – to encourage this and those creators for their performance and talents. Indeed, all these red carpets, flashbulbs, statuettes, enthusiastic comments are the award which famous actors, screenwriters, directors will receive for their masterpieces.

Now, let’s answer the second question. Why award those people in public? Why arrange a big and expensive show of this process in which dozens of major media outlets and hundreds of journalists involve themselves? This answer is much more intriguing, which is to set an example for the other creators. These film awards and the media frenzy over them are necessary for showing the other filmmakers how to film and what to make films about. Film award is like an honor roll that hangs in the hall of school or enterprise and encourages everyone to look up to the most hardworking and diligent.

The only thing is that on the honor roll hangs photos of A students or so-called Stakhonovites with the highest labor efficiency. That is, both the first and the second are somehow evaluated and encouraged for diligence, development, and the benefits that they can bring to the enterprise or the whole society. And what is the criterion evaluating filmmakers? Why are they given all these statuettes?

Actually, it is a very deep question, which seems to be plain to see, but in fact, it has never discussed anywhere. Let’s pay attention to the same Oscar, although we are talking about almost all modern major film awards since they are based on the same principle. It has over 20 nominations for which awards are presented, for example, for the best male or female role, for the best script, direction, sound, special effects, and so on.

But at the same time, no one says about whether the film, on which dozens or hundreds of people were working, is beneficial to society. Perhaps the authors filmed immoral, deceitful, crap, saturated with a poisonous ideology of cynicism, selfishness, sociopathy, sadism, and so on. In this case, can we encourage with awards the participants of the process, for example, the same actors or editors? Logically, we cannot, but as the real practice of the Oscars shows, this is what happens. Talents are awarded regardless of whether they deliver benefits or cause harm to society.

Here we could provide hundreds of similar examples when antisocial and highly immoral films are encouraged by this or that Oscar, or even collect a whole list of statuettes, but these will be details only. What is more important is that you can see and understand the entire absurdity of the situation in which the key criterion for evaluating art and its impact on society is just beyond the discussion. As if it does not exist, as if it is not relevant, as if artistry and talents are valuable themselves, and not within the frameworks of the goals for which they are realizing.

The essence of the deception, hundreds of films are awarded without assessing their impact on society!

In the current system, it is quite possible to release a film that glorifies Hitler, racism, and Nazi ideology, for example, or promotes cannibalism, LGBT, and any other perversions. After that, advertise it to the whole world for the excellent acting, for impressive special effects, for great sound, for costume design, for anything! After all, you have as many as 25 nominations, choose any!

On the KinoCensor website, we do not indicate which awards received a particular film, actor, or director. As far as in day-to-day realities, almost all major film awards are built precisely according to such a false format, which allows us to advertise and encourage an ignoble art. We are not supporters of such manipulations, and we believe that viewers should think with their heads and evaluate the influence of the cinema themselves, without being guided by the opinion of clearly engaged authorities. In our opinion, this is a more honorable position.

Watch films consciously and evaluate them correctly together with KinoCensor.

Translated by Diana Manakova

My first article “About psychologists and keys” was voiced by the guys from “What is Good” project and it immediately encouraged me to write a sequel; it means that it is interesting not only for me and the topic is broad. I began to think how to do it better. At first I wanted to follow the previous scenario and to take such movie genres as action, detective fiction and historical period drama.

“The more keys the better!” But while working I realised that to spell information out and cram people with ready-made thoughts is a bad idea. I reread comments one more time. Some liked everything, others wrote “you’re lying” and almost nobody responded by involving in the game. So I decided to act in another way.

I started to study the roots of such a phenomenon as “PSYCHOOLOGIST” and principles of work of such a phenomenon as “KEYS”. The article was turning more and more into a story. I named it “On the other side of the screen”.

It is necessary to note that it is an enough unusual story, its originality is that it happens inside the first part of that very article, between the line “you sit in a comfortable chair, the lights go out, you are bewitched by the picture, and your psyche at that time is in the hands of dangerous manipulators”and “methods of propaganda are so primitive and simple that their elementary nature can only surpass their effectiveness.

I would call the genre of what I have written “NONfiction”. Here you find both action and detective fiction and also historical period drama. I would really like you to save today’s image and take it out from your memory every time when you watch something in the cinema or on TV-set. As for “KEYS” that, of course, will be here, so you have to find them  yourselves. Right now I offer to travel into the text and to see with your own eyes what happens behind the closed doors of human mind during a very ordinary movie session.

Sit in a comfortable chair, put 3D glasses on your imagination, take popcorn out. It is beginning. 

“On the other side of the screen”

The lights turn out. The audience is full of anticipation. Somewhere in the darkness on the other side of the screen a nurse carefully is laying out instruments on the table, an experienced psychoologist is slowly turning on gloves and a mask. At this time DOCTOR himself is going to work. Get ready, now he is dissecting your mind.

“What do we have today?” a psychoologist asked with a cold and even voice of a deadman.

The moviemaker’s image appears, solemn music sounds. The dark basement of the operating room is slightly lit by the screen, the light is falling on a surgery table acting as an operational lamp.

“An action,” said the nurse not distracting attention from her work.

“How much time do we have?”

“About two hours.”

“Excellent.” In the psychoologist’s glass, not blinking eyes appeared barely noticeable lights. He groped a bunch of keys in a pocket of his oversized gown. “Establish a connection. Ten CC’s of abomination.”

“Why so quickly? They haven’t been warmed up yet.”

A beastly, hypnotic look from under the surgery mask with any words ordered the nurse not to argue. A syringe with dark liquid slowly injected its contents into the patient’s head. The first reactions began.

When at the second minute of the movie the third murder was committed, the viewer’s mind started to suspect something.

“He looked at the exit. Anaesthesia, immediately! We are losing him!”

“I told you,” the nurse muttered. “I’ll settled it now.”

A sister in the image of a gorgeous blonde appears on the screen. The viewer smiles and leans back. It is a good sign.

“Five CC’s of vulgarity!”

A dirty joke, a murder and again a dirty joke.

“An excellent combination. From this time be careful, kill at ease and with humour. How is he?”

“Laughing like a madman,” contemptuously answered the nurse. “The guy is ready”

“We should ensure this,” frowned the doctor.

There was a long burst of machine gun fire in the cinema.

“Acceptance has been gained, connection has been established. The interest is shown, mind’s reactions do not exist. One more head shot and we can continue.”

On the screen another poor guy is being finished off at close range. The viewer’s hand is reaching for popcorn.

“How do you do it, Doc?” responded the third person who attended the surgery from a dark corner of the room. It was a intern.

“What exactly?” the doctor did not understand.

“Well, about a hundred people have just witnessed so many murders and NOBODY has blinked an eye. In former times people ran out from the cinema in panic and THESE sit as if nothing has happened and obviously even enjoy it.

“My friend,” smiled the doctor through a gauze mask, “do you want a trick? Describe me ANY killed guy on your choice.”

“Well…”  hesitated the intern.

The doctor smiled wider stretching his unnaturally big mouth under the gauze mask.

“You see..”

“How have you done that?!” the intern was amazed.

“Once I have created a whole system of psychological tricks. For example, to turn off compassion and empathy we use “effect of depersonalisation”. The method is old but it is still fail-safe. Nurse, voice the statistics.”

“For tonight 380935 tele-murders have been committed all over the world.”

“Audience, without knowing it, do not consider all these killed extras as people. We have trained them to do this in a way that absence of compassion will go to the reflex level. Since every extra does not have PERSONALITY. We have deleted it on purpose. Neither character nor fate and the past. Neither love, nor sadness and pity. Hocus-pocus! And you can kill millions of people and no one will think of it as a murder. We have already done that… on practice.”

“Amazing!” the intern stared wide-eyed.

“Nurse,” the doctor again turned to the screen and busily looked at it as if it was a plane control panel and he was the only person who knew what to do with it, “How is our patient doing?”

“Critical thinking is absent, pulse and ignorance are normal. Amputation of conscience is normal.”

“Excellent. Increase the frame rate and connect patterns of behaviour.”

The nurse carefully took iron snake-like hoses out from a round box. At the sight of the patient steel tentacles stirred excitedly.

“Introduce the viewer to PROTOTYPE,” ordered the psychoologist.

A main character, tough cop with a hard life, appears on the screen. He has just saved a woman from robbers, having killed and injured a dozen more people. Epic music is playing, a close-up is being made and the audience automatically understands that he is that guy who should be cheered for. Cop slowly takes out a cigarette and spectacularly lights it on the background of a bright explosion which, of course, he does not look back at.

One of the snakes, shining with its metal scales, crawled on the surgery table towards dreaming patient and stuck directly into his head with its sharp suckers.

“The first went,” commented the doctor, “change the frame.”

After a hard working day the main character stands at the bar and holds a sipped glass in his hand. There is pain and sadness in his eyes, he remembers something.

The second snake attached to the patient. Pip, a new device is connected.

“The patterns of behaviour are connected. Virus applications are being activated. Thinking is clip.

“What does that mean?” asked the intern.

“From this moment, having got into a similar situation, the patient instinctively will act in a certain way. The main thing is that he doesn’t notice anything now. We programme the audience in a such way, including to self-destruct by different kinds of drugs.”

“Relations are predictable, a set of thoughts is standard, a sense of distinction is absent,” continued the nurse.

“Splendid,” the doctor rubbed his hands. “It’s time to use keys.”

“Which one will we use?”

“My favourite one”

The psychoologist took the biggest key from the bunch and put it near the patient’s head.

“What’s that?” asked the student.

“It is..,” the master looked at the key with obvious adoration. “It is HATRED,” he said with some special pleasure, “now I am planting it into our viewer. Hocus-pocus! Attentively watch my hands, now you will see that any verbal logic is NOTHING in the comparison with sensual images. Nurse, instruments! Start a story!”

The speakers play sad music, the screen becomes black and white, frames are slightly slowed. Now the audience will be told the main character’s tragic past. Here he is in love walking with his wife around a park, here they are on a romantic sea shore, and here the happy family celebrates their little daughter’s birthday.

“Quicker, quicker!” hurried the doctor. “Enough that lyrics.”

The happy father carries his baby girl on his hands and she unsuccessfully blows onto candles on a big cake. They never go out. Everybody laughs. The music becomes more disturbing.

“Kill’em!!!” sharply shouted the psychoologist. “All, except father. Injure the main character seriously, but not deadly. We’ll need him again.

“The girl too?” trembled the intern.

“Kill the girl last. Show her scared face in close-up and better slow this moment two… no, three times.

Bandits break into the house. There is the noise of people going up the stairs.

“Let it be a Russian mafia. Now they will take revenge on this policeman for something… It’s not important. For busting their drug business.

“That have already been,” interrupted the nurse.

“How many?”

“1984 movies”

“Let the 1985 be. Trust my practice, the more often we show it, the better.

Screams and shots are heard.

“How is the patient?”

“The pupils are dilated, pulse is accelerated, senses are sharpened. CODE is found.”

“A dog looks at the stick and a lion looks at a person who threw it,” the doctor quoted with satisfaction. “My friend, we have just hacked our patient.”

“What does that mean?” the intern did not understand.

“We have got what we wanted. The viewer has begun to HATE and we have proved to him that he is right in his hatred. Because they are bandits and children killers!”

“What’s the trick? How could it be otherwise?”

“That’s the point that there is no way. Everything was preordained from the beginning. I told you: watch my hands carefully. What if I tell you that in all works, in all books and movies there is always ONE and the same main villain?” the doctor paused significantly. “It’s the author. It was he who send main characters all challenges, it was he who continuously plotted against them. And a negative character is just his obedient fiction. But the audience will hate it. Do you understand? Ha-ha-ha. A doll for distraction. And it doesn’t matter that the whole story was made up in five minutes and out of thin air by an unknown loony. Hey, you, detective amateurs,” told the psychoologist  as if he was speaking to an invisible audience. “Where is your vaunted deductive method?! Wherever Mrs Marple goes, there ALWAYS will be a murder, isn’t it suspicious? If there is a superhero then the world is ALWAYS on the verge of destruction, isn’t it a regularity? Aren’t these different scales of ones and the same scenarios?”

“But everyone is so obsessed with logical assumptions about who killed Sir Christian that night. And over the years has at least one detective amateur suspected that widespread lies and total degradation of society are created by US, authors and directors of your highly artistic public opinions, approved by all ministries, from culture to health? Has at least one fan of science fiction guessed that the world should be saved from US, true supervillains of this planet. Has at least one fan of actions challenged US, owners of all mafias of the world. Has one fan of historical movies come up with a way to stop the endless wars unleashed by US. Has any movie about luv taught you to really LOVE?”

“Now tell me, honestly, what have all these movies TAUGHT you? Why did you spend one-tenth of your life on them? What was their multibillion-dollar budget spent on? What is the result of all this pointless staring?”

“Yes, my efforts were not in vain. The only thing you can do perfectly now is look and not see. Look carefully in the direction that my finger points at and do not notice THE PERSON who this finger belongs to. Fascinated by watching, you do not think about the fact that on the OTHER SIDE OF THE SCREEN there is a round-the-clock work. You have stopped noticing that every day we serve you, you fall into the power of justified hatred and lies. Believe me, there is nothing better than directed and justified HATRED. This is pure poison. How is our patient?”

“The pulse has slowed, thoughts and reactions are predictable, emotions are controlled, transplantation of hatred has been successful.”

“The main thing is that it takes root.”

The nurse took out a thick magazine.

“What does the statistics say?”

“For today the patient has unconsciously hated 32 times, this is 7 times more than yesterday.”

“Mmm, unconscious hatred. My favourite one.”

“Doc, can I ask you a question?” said the intern.

“Of course, my friend, ask,” said imposingly Doc pleased with himself.

“Why do you hate the Russians so much?”

The important smile immediately disappeared from psychoologist’s face, he exchanged glances with the nurse.

“What does make you think so, Intern? I hate everyone equally, without exception.”

“No, Doc. I’ve been following you closely for a long time, and I’ve learned something. Asian mafia that you often use in your movies, Italian, Mexican… Even Bushman’s one: all of them are red rags, which the audience’s enraged hatred throws at. But the Russians… There is something else. It’s hard not to notice that you have some personal scores with them.

“I don’t have time for your wild speculations,” muttered the psychoologist.

“Don’t distract the doctor,” the pale nurse grabbed the intern by the shoulder, “he needs to concentrate, he will open the doors.”

“What doors? For whom?”

The nurse looked at the psychoologist questioningly.

“Bring this young man up to speed,” he said approvingly, and closed his eyes. By touch he found the patient’s forehead and with a sharp movement penetrated his thin fingers directly into the patient’s head.

“He’s going to release THEM now,” the nurse whispered admiringly.

“Who are they?”

“Hush! He releases images. Once upon a time,” she continued in a conspiratorial tone, “the doctor studied the human subconscious and made a lot of discoveries in this area. His work literally changed the world. But then,” she looked down for a moment, dark memories ran across her face, “well, all the diaries were stolen and kept secret. They thought they could use the doctor for their own purposes, but the doctor is always ahead of everyone! They let the gin out of the bottle…”

The psychoologist’s face tightened, and the veins on his forehead bulged like worms. In the background the movie continued, the audience were chewing inaudibly.

“The doctor considered the model of human psyche,” the nurse continued,” as a single complex of multilevel corridors, with many obvious and secret rooms. All these rooms were locked with their own key – a secret code. The levels were carefully guarded. Nobody knew what was behind the doors. But Doc learned to lulled “the guard” to sleep and pick locks.”

“And what was there?”

“I’m telling you – IMAGES.”

The intern was at a loss staring at the nurse.

“Mostly what we see and hear, less often what we think. Information that has taken on an IMAGE freely enters human brain through eyes and ears and settles their forever. For security reasons subconscious mind instantly sorts information and distributes it in specially designated places. This is a formative moment. Information forms a person. A brain is like a computer. It is a huge base of data sorted by different disks, folders and files. We call them DOORS.

Some doors are opened by subconscious mind itself. Memory works so, for example. And some,” the nurse was speaking very quietly, “are at the very bottom, in a deep and dark basement and are a real maximum security prison.”

“Information can not be deleted but it can be blocked. Accept to dangerous materials is closed even for MIND itself, it is carefully guarded by CONSCIOUSNESS and different security programs that are able to DETERMINE evil.”

“As you understand, not all images can be kept free,” the nurse nodded in the direction of the hall.

Someone was being raped in a full-screen in the cinema. The audience concentratedly were chewing popcorn.

“Maniacs, perverts, alien vs. predator and hundreds of murders, that’s what a modern human consumes through mass media everyday. But again and again the mind locks all these horrors in its prison. Can you imagine what monsters are kept in this prison for life? You can’t just get there. But as I’ve already said Doc has found loopholes.”

“Sometimes a person collects so many negative images in one cell that they manage to knout a door and capture the mind. How do you think they become psychos?”

“Then in court the accused say that they lost control or about voices in their heads. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen as often as we wish and such psychopaths can’t be controlled yet. It’s not so easy to hack psyche but if you find the right code the door will open itself. Doctor has made a huge bunch of different keys and pick locks as well as a whole arsenal of virus programs for selection of passwords. Now WE help “prisoners” to leave on freedom. By this movie we have managed to remove the protection, put “guard” to sleep and right now the doctor is opening cells.

“And these images…” the intern was approaching to the most exciting question, “do they have their own intellect?”

“No, and this is one of the doctor’s main discoveries. Every piece of information has its own OWNER. And every piece of information serves his owner and has his owner’s piece of intellect. It continues to serve him or her even if the owner is no longer alive.”

“Why do you do all this?!” the intern could not stand it.

The nurse looked at the intern with indignation having doubts about his future.

“It is a WAR,” the doctor opened his eyes. “An this,” the psychoologist pointed to the patient’s HEAD which was studded with wires and suckers and looked like a set-top box because of cables sticking out, “is a battlefield.”

Despite anabiosis the viewer’s face was ecstatic, his eyes were moving behind closed eyes and saliva was flowing from his mouth.

“We gather an army. Nobody knows what kind of a struggle is going on inside a person while making certain decisions. Choice is like scales. And the more our “soldiers” will stand on one side the stronger arguments in favour of its adoption will be.”

“In fact it’s very simple. Choice determines actions, control over choice is nothing more than remote control over a person in a structureless way.”

“I have a lot of tricks with pseudo-choice. As a rule we generally offer people to choose only from deliberately incorrect options, it’s very democratic. But even when some crank manages to discern single well-hidden TRUTH out of thousands of fakes, our liberated army begins to tip the scales in the right direction.”

“And a person will have GREAT doubts “there CANNOT be such a thing!” Hocus-pocus! Black becomes white. Nobody likes TRUTH anymore. As it is not prestigious, it is cruel, you should constantly search for it and struggle for it. It is not invited for advertised talk shows about acute social problems. It is not published in glossy magazines and there is no its image on bright boxes in supermarket. It is not handed out near a metro station. It is not posted on busy avenues. There are no seasonal sales and Sunday discounts on it. Spielberg does not make movies about it. There is no word about it in mass media. They do not sing about it at Eurovision, it does not dance naked in Madonna’s music videos, it does not bring multimillion profit for bankers. And it contradicts such right and unanimous social opinion. It has been out of fashion for a long time, it has unpleasant bitter taste. Who needs it in a happy world of ignorance?”

“Truth conceals FORCE that’s why it’s hard nut to crack for wusses as it’s so easy to go with the flow… And many already squirm obese bellies on the very bottom.”

The psychoologist turned to the audience and waved his hands as he conducted an orchestra.

“Do you hear this music?”

Rustle of cellophane was accompanying scratching of coca-cola, mouths filled with popcorn were moving exactly in time, here and there were ringing notes of laughter, somebody was being tortured with a screwdriver on the screen.

“I’ve just opened several doors,” said the doctor humming under his breath ‘Ride of the Valkiries’, “the thing that has got outside will hide in the corridor of the patient’s psyche and will patiently wait for its time. Instructions of our invisible team. When it is necessary ‘hacked people’ will do everything that is required of them: rallies, revolutions, square jumps, concentration camps and unconditional faith.- we’ve done all this before… On practice.”

“Start the final stage. The audience are getting tired, it’s time to cheer them a little bit. It’s necessary that every head will take out of here as much garbage as possible. How is our patient?”

“He is satisfactory. Substitution of concepts is being committed successfully, virus applications have been launched, false beliefs have been made, but the head is overloaded and starts buzzing.”

“It means that we have done all correctly. Go to dessert, it’s time of happy end as the most interesting things are always at the end, something that the audience will not notice as always.

The fearless police officer, rescuing a partner who had been taken hostage, finally came out on the trail of the hated gang. Saving the life of his friend, he took the lives of so many people in an hour of the film that Chikatilo himself would have been the first to shake his bloody hands.

But in the crooked mirrors of movie cameras he is not a maniac – he is a saviour. Sounds of heroic music increase, the audience stops chewing reflexes. They froze, as if paused, staring at the new gate of the 3D screen. Something is about to happen!

And here it is the climax – the main character comes face to face with the main villain. As it should be in such moments the main character has all the attributes of the climactic scenes: a naked, pumped-up torso, a wound in the shoulder and leg, a dirty face with traces of neat abrasions and bruises, a proud confident look. Playing with his cheekbones, he utters some epic phrase through his teeth.

“So we have met, Fyodor, today you’ll go to sleep earlier.”

The main villain also has a whole set of climactic scenes: slicked-back hair, a beard cut around his mouth, a deep scar on his cheek, a thick gold chain worn out, a disgusting Russian accent, a bright sports jacket under which he probably has tattoos with the image of a hammer and a sickle against the background of domes, and the inscription “I will not forget my mother” written with two mistakes. Behind the back of the bandit, of course, hides a gun.

“Images!”  exclaimed the psychoologist with satisfaction. “That’s stuff that’s crammed into the cells of the unfortunate psyche of modern people. But once they had bright thoughts in their heads! Once they read good, kind books.”

“Negative, vulgarity, meanness, stupidity, cruelty, ugliness, envy… With it,” the doctor knocked at the screen, “we do very great work: it implements this ‘cute’ characters. And I grant them freedom. What will happen when all this comes outside? Nurse, one last double prick of stupidity.”

Events develop rapidly – a desperate police officer rushes to meet the offender, gets three or four more injuries, all of them are not fatal. Further, the villain having felt the entire moment of impunity and complete control over the situation holds the main character at gunpoint. And before the last time to shoot, according to tradition, as if in confession, he tells all his secrets of life, confesses to all the crimes of the world, explains in detail where he hides the stolen money (drugs, hostages), reveals insidious plans for the future and calls his passwords from Facebook and Twitter in a fit of volubility. Then he laughs like a man possessed, pulls the trigger. There is a click. Naturally, he has run out of ammo. The psychoologist without taking his eyes off the screen strokes the patient’s tense head with a bony hand as caring owners stroke their pets. The main character pulls a knife out of a bloody leg and throws it at the bandit. Loud wheezing sounds are heard, the death cry echoes sharply and deafeningly through the empty, cold walls of the operating room. Blood from the neck fills the screen to the brim and spills through it into the surgical ward, spattering everyone in it. Most of it goes to the sleeping patient.

“Bravo,” the psychoologist said, clapping his hands. “Bravo!”

Evil is defeated. The lights turn on in the cinema. The audience begin to get up lazily. The doctor and nurse are in a hurry, their movements fast, precise and practiced.

“Condition of patients?”

“Condition is stable. Common sense is disabled. Emotions are probably predetermined. The integrity of consciousness is split. There is no freedom of choice. Conscience doesn’t respond.”

“We have to keep the patients unconscious as long as possible,” explained the teacher, ” it’s a good thing that almost all of them are running to their TV sets. Nurse, a shot of amnesia.”

“Already done,” said the assistant, ” the memory is partially blocked.”

“Now they will quickly start to forget both this plot and these characters. All events will be mixed into a homogeneous mess. This is necessary so that the consumer does not suddenly remember this movie when he consumes another product that looks like two drops. Somewhere in the operated consciousness there will remain a slight feeling of déjà vu, a small scar, and that’s it. This drug has a wonderful side effect – it is addictive. All our patients are sick, drug-addicted showmaniacs. Voice statistics, how many times has the viewer already seen such a surrogate?”

“An uncounted number,” the nurse spread her hands.

“I bet he won’t remember 5% of all this junk. Short memory is the jeweller’s work of my sharpened scalpel, and “forgetfulness” is second in importance. Someone will forget the history of this film, someone will go further and forget the history of their people, and I am not exaggerating at all.

Sister, let the PROTOTYPE be an American special forces officer in the next session. Kill his best friend, and let the whole movie take revenge on the mercenaries … er, “the doctor looked slyly at the intern,” … let’s say from Russia. Mix all the models and go ahead. Let them watch, let them cram. I always wonder if patients really think they’re just entertained here!”  the psychologist clutched his head. “No matter how much slops we put in them, they still come for more. We don’t even come up with scenarios for a long time – we openly clone them.”

“These are not movies, they are degenerates from a test tube, mutated due to endless experiments, crosses and manipulations into ugly not viable freaks.”

“This is no longer creativity, but an industrial conveyor of genetically identical film organisms!”

“A waste-free spectacle machine, completely devoid of soul. How much more of this dead stuff should they take to make their minds sick?”

“Is it possible that when they come home they do not feel disgusting from an overdose of this psychotropic cocktail consisting of violence, sadism, rudeness, arrogance, betrayal, lies, hatred…”

“And if one of them tells me that THIS is just a funny movie, and he does not notice all this monstrous widespread DEGRADATION, I will answer: “my friend, it is not noticeable only for its direct, active participants.” Yes, I am a monster, but I am NOTHING compared to this omnivorous monster called the AUDIENCE, with millions of eyes and one gyrus. Tomorrow at the same time (you can check your watch) they will, as always, come for another dose of our stinking stew. They always come back, these moral colourblind people who can’t tell black from white… And our doors are always open.”

“See you soon, my dear loyal friends!” the psychoologist watched his patient going away.

The operation has been successful.

…And again you leave the cinema with a sense of deception and falseness, and even with the addition of some incomprehensible feelings. You cannot describe them – something unpleasant, as if you were a witness or an accomplice to something vile, bad. There are processes running in your head that you feel, but do not understand or control…

The dark basement, which looks like a bunker, is covered with purple spots. There is a sharp, disturbing smell of blood. The psychoologist still walks limping excitedly around the room, thinking hard about something and counting the keys on a huge bunch. The impassive nurse wipes the blood from her face. The struck intern stood on the sidelines, unable to say a word.

“It’s enough for today,” the surgeon attracts his attention. “You are somehow gloomy. Next time it will be funnier. Come to a comedy. We will laugh heartily…”

White as a ghost, the intern goes out of the operating room.

“I don’t like this guy,” the nurse says thoughtfully, alone with the doctor. – What do you think about him?”

“I don’t make exceptions, I don’t like anybody. Have you seen how skilfully I hacked the patient today? It gets easier every time.”

The psychoologist removes the bloody mask.

“It’s been a long time since my ashes were scattered to the wind, and I’m still in great shape.”

“I see,” the nurse nods, putting the sharp tools in boxes.

The doctor lies. For the first time in recent years he has not managed to open any door. Many keys no longer work. Someone was on his trail.

“So much work lately!” the crooked figure sits wearily on the edge of the table. The psychoologist bows his disproportionately big head, which makes his shadow on the grey wall look very much like a giant embryo. The blue face with all the signs of degeneracy plunges into thoughts, mentally going to the near past. Snatches of silent music come from the speakers, and the end credits float slowly across the screen with an endless list of uninteresting names and surnames.

“Do you remember how many people wanted to get even with me – to hang me, shoot me and dance boogie on my bones? Ha-ha. Desperate heroes of naïve actions. Here I have also outrun you. I’m always one step ahead. Everybody thought that I was dead but it’s not so! I have moved into a different, more comprehensive state. It is not for nothing that they say that a man is alive as long as his deeds live. All these heroes of action were absolutely helpless against the new INVISIBLE enemy.

Somewhere beyond the walls of the bunker came the faint sounds of explosions, gunfire, the hum of planes. The music in the cinema smoothly turns into a military-patriotic march, and the black screen with the credits turns into a black obelisk with an endless list of the dead and missing. Late. The audience went away.

The doctor’s pointed face is transformed into a blind fanatical rage, and the old excitement flares up in his eyes like hellfire. The sunken, blue cheekbones turn purple. He jumps up, stretching to his full small height. He is alive.

“Do you want a TOTAL war?!!”  he shouts directly at the screen, as if speaking from a high podium.

The nurse quietly approaches the doctor and puts her arms around his shoulders.

“I’m in great shape, Magda, nothing has changed, everything is the same. The more monstrous the lie, the more readily it is believed, give me the media, and I will turn any people into a herd of pigs…

Tokha Ha

Translated by Xenia Shmonina

– either to strive to provide an audience with the most objective and relevant information, both necessary for life and broadening your horizons and raising the moral level of the society;

– or to create such informational background that will contribute to degradation of information consumers as well as to create a favorable background for all sorts of deception and manipulations in various spheres of public life.

In the second case managerial essence of the media is hidden as much as possible and is replaced by false tasks of self-financing, pursuit of ratings, mandatory pluralism, and so on.

We offer you to learn about main methods of forming a mass audience’s chaotic (kaleidoscopic) world view and long-standing information myths, the dominance of which in the information field ensures the use of central mass media mainly in the second scenario.

Manipulation-underlying myths

The myth of neutrality.

The manipulation should be invisible in order to achieve the greatest success. This requires a false reality where its presence will not be felt. It is important that people believe in neutrality of the main societal institutes:

• Integrity and impartiality of the government and its constituents. Corruption and deception are justified by human weaknesses. The institutes themselves are in the clear.
• People should believe that mass media just covers events and opinions, not forms them.
• Science (that is closely related to economy) is also supposedly neutral and objective.
• The education system, from primary school to the level of universities, according to manipulators, is free from directed ideological influence.

All these myths are designed to convince the population that there are no private views which can have a dominant influence on decision-making processes in the country.

The myth about mass media pluralism

The illusion of information choice is based on the fact that people are ready to take the abundance of mass media as a content variety. The information monopolies offer just one version of the reality – their own. But when similar opinions appear in different sources, it seems that information is uncontrolled, free and natural. Indeed, a choice is impossible without a variety, but if there are no objects to choose, than the choice is either meaningless or manipulative (when the illusion that it makes sense is created). We waste our freedom of choice on a lot of meaningless decisions (what kind of TV show to watch or which washing powder to buy – but all of them are very similar), but really important things remain hidden from our attention.

The myth about social conflicts absence

Manipulators deny the existence of social conflicts drawing a picture of the life inside the country. All attention is drawn to other problems: an intention to rise above the middle class, an image of external enemy, etc. Those movies, TV shows, books and mass spectacles (Disneyland) are the most successful and relevant to mass media that offer a significant portion of violence but do not concern social conflicts. Genuine and reality-admitting works are lost in a flow of stampings.

The myth about individualism and personal choice

Choice and freedom are shown as something desired and purely personal, individual rights are put higher then group ones, striving to material wealth of individual family is encouraged. Solely egocentric world view is oriented to while environmental problems and social divisions are ignored; all attention is drawn to the increase in the rate of production and consumption. Private property in all spheres of life is considered as the norm: no one is surprised by the fact that the sphere of health care, education system, cultural institutions are commercial and oriented primarily to profit making, not to the benefit of all society.

The myth about unchangeable human nature

There are promoted theories showing primordially aggressive side of human behavior and invariability of human nature. They claim that existing conflicts are inherent in people but are not imposed by social conditions. A “scientific”approach that measures vicious sides of a society is popular, but important social parameters are ignored. Our attention is switched to the physical side of our lives: living conditions, fashion, technicals innovations, possibility of sex change, etc. If information about favorable changes, possibility ways out of the crisis suddenly appears, then they are criticized or mocked, people are quickly showed how to “properly” interpret such information.

Myths are created in order to keep people under control. When they manage to imperceptibly introduce myths into masses’ consciousness, they (myths) get enormous power as most people do not suspect the manipulation.

Means of information presentation that form kaleidoscopic world view

Fragmentation as a form of communication

In order to effectively and imperceptibly introduce myths a special method for information distribution is used that can be called fragmentation. Radio and TV news are fragmented into a lot of reports that are not related to each other; newspaper and magazine articles are divided by advertising pages.  With similar indifference advertising interferes in all informational and entertaining programs, no matter what they are about, turning social phenomena into meaningless incidents. The already low people’s capacity for critical analysis of information turns off completely. Common characteristic of most central mass media is heterogeneity of given material and denial of relation between events.

Even children’s programs are designed according to the similar commercial model and are interfered by advertising blocks. It is explained by the fact that children can not focus their attention on something for a long time and need to have a rest. But on practice gradual increase of time when children focus their attention on one thing is a factor of mental abilities development. Debatable programs reduce the significance of a subject of discussion and with the help of fragmentation they switch attention to separate points of views and insignificant details missing the point. Even if somebody talks about something sensible, it will be lost in a following flow of advertising, gossips, intimate scenes, flat humor. The candor of information presentation and a flow of a variety of criticism create the illusion of  freedom of opinion and access to information.

The method of fragmentation is used not only in mass media. Most part of cultural and educational system implements dispersion, specialization and microscopic separation. Subjects and disciplines are randomly and forcibly divided into narrower ones, interdisciplinary relation is denied: “Economics is for economists, Politics is for scientists studying political sciences”. Although in fact all these spheres can not be separated from each other, in scientific terms this relation is ignored. As a result the society is full of specialists that are well aware of their narrow specialization but do not have knowledge to cover entirely global processes. Flows of unrelated information cause information overloads while the quantity of significant information does not increase. Fragmentary data are offered as reliable “information” that leads to misunderstanding in the result and then to apathy and indifference.

Immediate transfer of information

Immediate transfer of information is related not only to the method of fragmentation but it is a necessary element of its implementation. Speed of information transfer is not always an advantage. The based-on-competition system has converted information into consumer good as other things. The advantage is to get and quickly sell such perishable good as news. When crises arise an unreasonable atmosphere of hysteria is created. Informational express reports and reportages from the place of an event create a sense of extreme importance that dissipates just as quickly.

Constantly alternating reports about catastrophes, military actions, strikes and natural disasters prevent us from distinguishing the information in order of importance and do not leave us time for an analysis and  balanced judgments. All attention is drawn to the events that happen and a necessary relation with the past is being ruined. At the same time we do not talk about technical capabilities of quick information transfer that can be a positive factor but about the method of manipulation when all these capabilities are used for dispersion and lack of sense. We just do not have time to think about happening events.

The main purpose of mass media manipulatory scenario is passivity of a society.

The successful use of manipulation inevitably leads to passivity of an individual, to the state of inactivity that prevents actions. Both content (myths) and methods of information presentation have a numb effect.

• Physical activity decreases: a person is content with watching TV and does not want to be a participant of events. He is satisfied with the role of observer. There will not be counteraction if necessary. Creators have given way to consumers.
• One more dangerous consequence is decline of intellectual activity, increase of passivity. Feelings that can make you take active actions are out to sleep. A viewer knows much more about lives of TV fictional characters then about real historical persons or his or her own parents. Knowledge is being lost.

Such impact reminds a lullaby, it does not annoy you, does not force you to react, free you from the necessity to be somehow active. All means are good: radio, television, cinema, massive spectacles, all kinds of shows.  Yes, sometimes you can find programs or movies that awaken your consciousness and draw your attention to problems of extreme importance. But there are very few of them because the purpose of manipulators is not to induce but to put to sleep concern about economic and social reality. All events are covered in a way as if people have nothing to do with them and cannot change anything, they just should keep up with all sorts of events. The distinction between news about real events and fictional plots of movies is blurred; for a passive viewer there is no difference.

It is necessary to make efforts to break the system causing passivity and degradation or at least to create counterweight for it

1) The primary task is to comprehend managerial functions of informational means in all respects; to develop analytical and critical capabilities of a wide audience, to develop a capability to identify public and non-public goals of mass media, to assess the influence in complex.

2) A creative approach as a means to awaken consciousness; transition from consuming to creating; creating and distributing of informational content motivating to develop in ideological and moral way.

The article is based on Herbert Shiller’s book The Mind Managers. The book is re-comprehended a little bit as 30 years ago there were no such phenomena and things as we have today. But prerequisites had already appeared at that time.

Natalia Vasilieva

Translated by Xenia Shmonina

“Of course, it entertains!” – some will say. “Of course, it controls!” – others will answer. And then they will start long debates. Although if you understand that one does not contradict the other but only compliments it, then there can be a constructive conversation instead of a disputes. In order to go according to this more constructive script let’s answer the question “Can you control someone entertaining?”

Having thought about it, we will understand that we can. Let’s remember usual fairytales that told us being children about courageous bogatyrs, devoted friends and terrible dragons. Children adore fairytales that are a great pleasure for them. While parents read these exciting stories children immerse themselves in the magical world where, no matter how scary it is there, villains will be defeated, rascals will be punished, and honest and brave characters will definitely get their reward.

But the thing that is an exciting entertainment for children is one of the main educative tools for their parents. This tool helps to instill important moral qualities into children  and to form the life’s core that will help them not to be led astray (that means that parents are a subject of control and children are an object. The upbringing is also an element of process of control, in this case, over children.

We grow up as time passes. But fairytales do not go away from our lives. They just become other and now they are called MOVIES. So, that’s fine. Meet me again, my magical world! But there is one problem – the subject of control has changed and adult fairytales are told to us not by our parents. This changes everything…

Parents always sincerely wish their children well (there are exceptions but we do not want to talk about them here). So that they tell their kids good stories about honest and brave characters. And movie makers’ affection for their audience is not guaranteed at all. Moreover, in the modern world cinema as other spheres of culture often becomes a battlefield where blood battles are fought. Did you know that? But you should not know that because you are not a participant in the battle but a RESOURCE or a VICTIM or two in one. So that’s why you are still entertained but now you will be programmed for another ideas that very often are contradicted to what we were taught in our childhood.

In the childhood parents told you the fairytale about Buratino and you learnt that you should not carry your money to the Field of Wonders otherwise you will make a fool of yourself. But when you are an adult, you will hear a fairytale The Wolf of Wall Street (DiCaprio – don’t miss!”) and suddenly you learn that financial fraud is very cool! And on television the real Field of Wonders will be broadcast, just  instead of nasty Basilio the Cat there will be smiling Yakubovich (note: Leonid Yakubovich is a host of Pole Chudes, Russian TV program. Pole Chudes is literally Field of Wonders) who never refuses to throw back a snifter with a dear guest. And it is only one example of how people get into The Country of Fools. In fact, there are thousands of them. We are different and it is necessary to find a required key to every Buratino to attract him or her to the field of wonders. Though there are forces of good in this cinema kingdom, you should just know where to find them.

But let’s return to the main question – “entertainment or control?” The matter is simply. For those who make a movie it is always a tool of control (also as for those who compose fairytales; once, by the way, volkhvs (wisemen) do that). And for mass cinema consumers it is a reason to entertain, relax, escape, finally, from the circle of life concerns and immerse themselves in the world of illusions. And everything would be fine if an illusionist was kind. And what will be if he is evil? You are not his children after all. May be, you are just BIOMASS that should be utilized so that a golden billion or a golden million of that very illusionists will survive. Or may be you are just SIMPLETONS that can be earned on. For example having instilled a wish to follow fashion into you or having advertised new IPhone or just having made you sit in a comfortable armchair when it is time to fight and defend your Motherland.

But, of course, all of us want to remain children in our hearts and believe that “everything will be fine, the world is beautiful, that those people who can allocate 10 or 100 million dollars for shooting of one movie do it with absolutely sincere intentions and Hollywood is the residence of real philanthropists. Otherwise, why do they spend so much money if nine pictures of ten do not pay back its production, not to mention advertising. Of course, they are driven by something sublime!” Approximately such thoughts has an adult child who has not understood that his time to entertain has passed and most of fairytales lead him into absolutely another world.

Source: KinoCensor

Translated by: Xenia Shmonina

Vae victis

We have to start with a sad fact: the Soviet Union has lost the Cold War and as a result, as any defeated country, it has lost the major part of its sovereignty including over the sphere of ideology and mass media.  Now we review this situation only on the example of television, the main informational mouthpiece.

In the USSR all TV channels belonged to the state and completely obeyed it. Thus, at least nominally, they had to work according to the interests of the country: to highlight the people’s achievements, contribute to the realization of cultural and educational policy, counteract foreign informational aggression, etc. A huge range of tasks and a vast amount of work were implemented. How well the Soviet TV coped with all this is an open question, but in general the information agenda was at least life-affirming, inspired the population to be confident about the future (times of Perestroika, of course, are not included here) and allowed to build a harmonious life.

With the coming of a new “Owner” the situation has absolutely changed and technically it was made in following way.  Those people have been put on key positions who nowadays are called “effective managers”, mostly people who have got additional education abroad (read “recruited” or “reprogrammed”) and even persons with double or triple citizenship. If you read biographies of Russian TV channels top managers and leading journalists, you find a common thing that unites them. The well known examples are such television hosts as Vladimir Pozner (U.S. and French citizen), Ivan Urgant (Israeli citizen), Alexander Gordon (U.S. citizen), etc.

On service of money and ratings

But television is a huge machine where tens of thousands of people work. It is impossible to find so many professional agents, and all staff members cannot be replaced with “their people”. Thus system mechanisms of major media goal-setting changing were implemented. This was done quite simply by putting TV channels on the rails of self-sufficiency (taking account of the fact what power television has it is equal to offering the army exist on self-sufficiency mode). Nowadays all Russian TV channels are financial organizations first of all, and their main task is to get profit. This task is registered as the main one in their statutes.

Bot it is not enough to reorient from state interest to financial ones. They still need to make sure that these financial interests are implemented in the way that a customer needs. And for this purpose external financing mechanisms were set up. TV channels earn mainly due to advertising. 90% of TV advertising in Russia is ordered by large business and MNCs, companies and brands that are somehow under the jurisdiction of the United States, Great Britain or are directly controlled by foreign financial elites. In other words, now the creation of Russian TV content is paid for by Russian overseas and European “partners”. Accordingly, if any TV channel begins to conduct an incorrect information policy, it automatically has problems with advertisers and revenue decreases. And try to maintain a state of hundreds of journalists without heavy financial injections.

Besides there is a mechanism of ratings that advertising price depends on.

Until 2016 the only structure forming ratings to all Russian TV content was TNS. It defined what was popular and what was not. Do you really think that Russians like Dom-2 (House-2) and that is the reason of its high ratings? Nonsense, it is just a very effective program in terms of decline in moral and intellectual level of local natives. That’s the reason why it has always had high viewing rates. Of course, after many years of such brainwashing a real fan club of this degradation product has formed.

Since 2016 function of TV ratings has been taken by VTsIOM (Russian Public Opinion Research Center), that, on the one hand, can be an indicator of Russian media sphere gradual separation from foreign influence; on the other hand, we can suggest that that during the last 30 years a sufficient quantity of local Gauleiters has been brought up and the need for such provocative mechanism of external control fell away. Anyway, over the past three years after VTsIOM coming in this sphere TV content in terms of values and ideology has not become less immoral.

It’s all about effectiveness

Let’s look at further work of the system. Due to the organized scheme “their people” from key positions have got a possibility to demand EFFECTIVENESS of all TV staff members and all journalists, that means good profit for TV channel. And good profit is provided by high-quality goal setting of foreign owners that for obvious reasons is not publicized directly, but that, what is called, is in the air. Aleksei Volin, deputy RF Minister of Telecom and Mass Communications, speaking to students of journalism faculty of Moscow State University stated: “Your task is not to make the world a better place but to earn money for that people who hired you”. Find this video in the Internet in order to feel cynicism of the situation.

In order to work qualitatively and effectively TV channel journalists must spare no effort in reeling in local people and conducting anti-Russian rhetoric (of course, not directly but disguised) in pursuit of ratings and money. That it is why people can endlessly be surprised reading news that Channel One invited Ksenia Sobchak to host a new TV show. She just meets the requirements of foreign regulators better than anyone. Who could offer Russian people life lessons on the main TV channel better than her?

Of course, on television there are a lot of “patriots” who loudly defend the honor of the country and scold Europe and the States and so on. But all their pseudo-patriotism is clearly revealed by a popular demotivator dedicated to the main host of political talk shows Vladimir Solovyov.

In general, all Russian TV shows are organized on the principle of Trojan horse when they announce to pursue good goals but achieve destructive ones. On YouTube there is a video about this technology called “What do Russian TV shows and Western NPOs have in common?” Watch it to understand how it works using concrete examples. The TV shows themselves are mostly purchased abroad because the “correct formats” are developed in the metropole and then are exported to the natives. But if local employees are particularly diligent and knock off something suitable for customers, then, of course, it is sin to refuse, and this also goes into the business. And a zealous and creative employee gets a promotion and can be sent abroad for additional training.

Actually, for the same reasons the main characters of all TV serials are mostly on the booze, do not communicate much, lead a free sex life and no one even tries to create a strong family. And if somebody tries to do this, they fail. The image of a strong happy family or person of labor has been completely removed from TV screens. As well as the concepts of “conscience”, “chastity”, “honor”, “modesty” and its derivatives. Because no one has yet come up with a better means of genocide than debauchery, vulgarity, alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. And why, if the society is ready to walk twice into the same water for the tenth time.

Humor and horror of Russian television

Of course, all this is mostly given under the mask of entertainment and humor. There are so many professional clowns on television that you could call it “a circus”. Although actually they are evil clowns and all that broadcast on TV is more like an endless horror movie.

But a lot of people do not see the horror and prefer to entertain or say a learnt phrase “if you don’t like it, change the channel”. As if there is any difference between channels. They’d better reread Dunno on the Moon, there is a good image of Fool’s Island. Or brush up on Buratino. Then they would understand why Yakubovich has been a host of Pole Chudes (Russian TV show; lit. The Field of Wonders) and what symbolism is in it.

By the way, do you know that the state represented by Cinema Foundation regularly funds horror movies shooting? There are just also effective managers who have a task to earn. Now the well-known phrase “pay taxes and sleep calmly” acquires new meanings. Because the state will spend your taxes on another two billions subsidy for Chanel One or give Cinema Foundation money for the promotion of national cinematography. And Cinema Foundation will use and spend funds by shooting talentless rubbish and bawdiness under cover of the society’s request. It is all about ratings – look, Dom 2 is so popular!

There are no good nights at all…

But everything is not so bad. After all, if you know the arrangement of a enemy’s forces, then it becomes much easier to fight with them. The most effective way to do this is through personal communication and the Internet, spreading the truth about the real goals of TV channels, programs, well-known journalists and mechanisms for manipulating the masses. As more and more people start to wake up and see the deception technologies, the system is starting to stall more and more. As a result, the achievement of certain tasks meets strong public resistance, and sometimes becomes impossible, or requires excessive resources.

One of the projects systematically working in this direction is What is Good project. Read the already written materials and participate in work on the revival of morality in mass media: http://what-is-good.com/

Go ahead, publicity is our strength!

Dmitry Raevsky

Translated by Xenia Shmonina

Entertainment factory or tool of control?

Nowadays the movie industry is presented as an entertainment factory so this  masks the possibility of manipulating our mind through movies. Therefore, the prevailing opinion in society is that movies, like any other art, are intended only to entertain. As a result, it cannot be a control tool. But is it so? A vivid example of thinking on this topic is Alla Surikova’s movie Man from Capuchin Boulevard, 1987, where the dependence of the human behavior model on the prevailing information in the form of cinematography is perfectly shown. As well as individual methods of protection from such an informational impact.

A person gets information from environment using the five senses. We get up to 80% of all information through sight, up to 10% through hearing, the rest is smell, touch and taste. The data received through all these organs is processed by our mind and requires certain concentration of our attention. There is also intuition, the comparison of events that occur around us with images and sensations that arise in the human mind. And it happens both in the waking state and in sleep. However, materialistic science does not place it in a general range of human feelings.

Cinema is an information flow. As any other information it is also processed by our mind that filters information garbage and unacceptable (disapproved) images. The information that corresponds to our values goes to our knowledge base and forms an algorithm for human behavior. If the “filter” that is a certain mechanism for analyzing information in mind does not work, an entire information flow is freely uploaded to the brain and bypasses mind to correct a human value system, as well as the”filter” itself. And if the received information was malicious, then it, like a virus, can distort a person’s entire system of values and introduce a new model of behavior into his or her mind. In the light of informational wars, this phenomenon is called brainwashing. The illustration of this can be Revenge of the Sith, Episode III of George Lucas’s fantastic saga Star Wars, 2005. However, a tool of influence on Eniken Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) was not television, but the suggestion of Senator Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), who is also the Sith Lord. But this is still the same information intervention in the mind of future Darth Vader. And its heightened emotionality did not allow young Skywalker to recognize the threat and build the necessary protection.

Why can the security mechanism for sorting information be disabled?

Firstly, mind may simply not be used to analyze incoming information. Having accepted that movies as entertainment cannot be harmful, a person watches movies without subjecting them to critical analysis. Secondly, the “sorting mechanism” can be overloaded with informational garbage, for example:

• too rich visual series that human mind does not have time to process it completely. It is accompanied by the dominance of special effects and computer graphics, sometimes inappropriately drawn out battle scenes. Take at least the movie trilogy “Matrix”, shot by the Wachowski duet in 1999 and 2003.;

• an overloaded audio channel with background noise and / or music that is too loud. You have to focus on the text without paying attention to other information. This technique is now used very often, for example, in Now You See Me shot by Louis Leterrier in 2013.;

• the increased emotionality of information. Inappropriate cruelty or, on the contrary, excessive melodramatic narration “mask” the information that needs to be subjected to critical assessment from mind. For example, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull shot by Steven Spielberg in 2008. Here the image of aliens’ cruelty is a way to program a viewer to refuse to receive new knowledge and self-development.

In addition to this, American and European culture imposes the use of popcorn and other food products, as well as alcohol, while watching the film. Thus other sense organs are used, and this causes further distraction of human mind from processing information.

Levels of receiving information while watching a movie

While watching a movie we use only two sense organs of five. But the information gets to our mind on several channels in parallel. According to the depth of perception and impact they can be divided into nine levels:

1. Verbal level – text information only

2. Nonverbal level – gestures, intonations, emotions. It is so-called body language.

3. Visual level – accompanying video series illustrates the information from the first two levels.

4. Level of emotions and reflexes – mood, feelings, reflexes. All advertising works on this level including hidden advertising in movies. There is a lot of information about the mechanisms of short-time control of our mind in the Internet.

5. Semantic level – meaning, moral, movie idea. Nowadays there are few people who watch a movie recognizing its idea. Nevertheless, most of authors send a concrete social message through their movies.

6. Cultural (egregorial) level – an information flow that is formed under the influence of purposely imposed culture or that is prevailed in a director’s mind. On this level there is a long-time correction of a person’s value system and behavior algorithms. For example, a feeling of mutual assistance, mutual respect or healthy lifestyle can be cultivated. And on the contrary, ideas of “cultural drinking” of alcohol, consumption, egocentric behavior, rejection of family values can be put in the mind. Unfortunately, nowadays the positive programming is condemned by film critics. In contrast to this, ideas of hedonism, parasitic needs and asocial behavior are positioned as the manifestation of freedom and choice. The most vivid example of such cinema is the series Sherlock, 2010-2017.

7. Civilized level – it shows historical value system that an author has inherited during the process of personality formation. The information on this level often transfers in bypass of a director’s mind. Being a representative of a concrete cultural cluster of the humanity an author of a movie puts the value assessment system that reflects his or her civilized affiliation in a creation. Also on this level it is possible to identify the information about modern peculiarities of everyday life and the social structure of the society that an author belongs to. Perceiving the information precisely from this level, a Russian viewer always smiles indulgently watching how Russian reality is showed in Hollywood cinema. We always notice incongruities of their ideas of life in Russia. It is possible that Americans also smile watching Russian “westerns”.

8. Conspiratorial level – transfer of significant information to “dedicated’ people, viewers of a certain circle who possess some key to understand. Nowadays the attitude to the conspirology is ambiguous, from manic and paranoid to disdainful and mocking. The truth is, as always, somewhere in the middle. I think it is better to highlight this level than not to mention it at all and thus to leave a gap for access of malevolent images in our minds.

9. Sacral level – associative, prophetic level; inspiration, heavenly revelation.

The features of information transfer are similar on the last two levels. However on the conspiratorial level the information is very likely transferred by a director deliberately while on the sacral level the information is woven into the canvas of a story as if “by accident”. Without using your intuition it is impossible to put the information from a movie and real events and processes together and compare them. In my opinion Oleg Stepchenko’s Viy, 2014, transfers the information on the sacral level. Some actions of the characters and especially images of the video series look illogical and are not linked to the story but when applied to the facts from real life they carry deep semantic load.

Creating a movie any author wants to achieve quite concrete aims. They can be divided into two groups:

• Commercial interest. As a rule such content does not carry any semantic load and, on an author’s plan, is solely entertaining cinema. The fifth (semantic) level of information transfer is often blocked. However it does not mean that the information is not transferred on the levels from the sixth to the ninth.
• Social responsibility. An author uses his or her work (a movie, a book) to deliberately share his or her thoughts and ideas with the society, to draw people’s attention to some problem (social, economic, environmental, etc).   The information on the fifth level is vividly expressed as, for example, in James Cameron’s Avatar, 2009.

Paradoxically, but watching movies solely as entertaining content a person deprives himself of two thirds of pleasure. Since the information is recognized only from the first three levels. Secondly, two thirds of above mentioned information are not perceived by mind, but in bypass of it they get into the brain forming new and possibly malevolent values, needs and person’s behavior algorithms. As a result, a person can change the attitude to life, starts achieving other people’s goals, copies imposed behavior models. Because of distorted value system events that happen around are assessed differently, and developed decisions are taken not in own interests. In fact, a person becomes a biorobot and, what is the most interesting thing, welcomes it.

Informational self-protection

However a reverse process is possible. It depends on what kind information we consume, what movies we watch, if we subject the seen on TV or in cinema to critical analysis.

Consciously perceiving information on all levels we get not just full pleasure but a possibility to analyze the seen and the heard. In other words we enter into a dialogue with a director, oppose him or her, and it means that we find a possibility to minimize the probability of zombifying our own minds. In turn it allows to increase our life experience and luggage of knowledge if a movie is really serious, not just a set of colorful pictures, special effects and unusual sounds created solely within a commercial project. Thus a person gets an effective protective tool and can successfully resist the outside informational aggression.

In 1930s Hollywood shares were bought by several large American corporations and the creation of entertaining cinema industry was announced. It still helps to form needs and value systems not only in America but in the world. In 1916 Khvostov A.N., Minister of Internal Affairs of Imperial Russia, advocated state  monopoly of cinema considering that cinema should be a means of educating the population. It shows that managerial elite of all countries considers the significance and the potential of this kind of art as a very powerful tool of mind control. But the epoch of leaders has gone and every person should realize it and, thus, get a possibility to protect against any malevolent informational interventions into the mind, in particular through cinema.

Alexandr Ilchenko site “Agency of creative events”

Translated by Xenia Shmonina

What does make people commit such voluntary suicide? Actually, there are only two reasons. The first reason is availability, and the second and main one is the mass drug propaganda that has caught practically all media. Runkova M.I., a psychiatrist, an expert in narcology, a forensic psychiatric expert, in details told Na Rasputie.ru how interest to drugs is imposed on children and teenagers by television, cinema and music and why it is dangerous to ignore it.

What is meant by propaganda?

Let’s start from afar. According to Efremova’s explanatory dictionary (T.F. Efremova is a Russian linguist) “propaganda is the dissemination of ideas through continuous, in-depth and detailed explanation”. There are similar definitions in Ushakov’s and Ozhegov’s dictionaries (D.N. Ushakov and S.I. Ozhegov are Russian linguists). However, Wikipedia, popular among young people online resource, considers the dissemination of ideas, arguments and facts to be propaganda only when it is done for the purpose of forming public opinion. So following the opinion of informational resources that are convenient for Europe and the States the familiarization with destructive information is not propaganda if it is said that it is bad/dangerous/harmful for health. The statement is incorrect and here’s why.

Imagine a movie that would show us all spheres of addict’s life: drug use and consequences for life, drug production and sale and accompanying criminal details. Will a person brought up according to European or American methodology consider such a movie propagandistic and urging to use drugs? Of course not, because everything ended badly for the characters of the movie. And characters with addiction being more colorful, emotional and even more charismatic than other normal people is such an artistic move so that an audience understand the characters and even start to sympathize with them.

Yes, that’s it. It is called the substitution of concepts and is used actively by public organizations and even some mass media that familiarize people with usage of prohibited substances under the pretext that they prevent drug abuse. Sometimes they even come to schools where discuss risks associated with drug use with middle and high school students (usually they start to list slang names of psychotropic substances). This is real propaganda, just they have made a few mistakes in the word and now it is written “prevention”. They try to implement a similar system in sex education with predictable result.

Sometimes the impudence of those to whom it is profitably to propagandize drug abuse is beyond the pale. As an example there can be given Norwegian social banners where attractive young people are imagined and the sign says that they are alive thanks to the fact that they knew how to use drugs correctly. Just think, they don’t say that drug usage means to ruin your health. No, instead of that they teach Norwegians and their children how to use drugs correctly.

The next step is the state regulated drug distribution to all who want. And it seems to not take long to wait.

Drug propaganda through music and cinematography

Of course, the most aggressive propaganda is conducted by artists with audible, visual, kinesthetic methods and the same substitution of concepts. Let’s look at them more detailed.

Audible method

An audible method is the easiest to implement in creativity. We can remember all situations when an audience hear names of narcotic substances in movies, interviews, songs during concerts. Sometimes there is a direct appeal to use drugs. If a teenager hears one and the same text, there is high probability that he or she will repeat it, and practice makes perfect. It’s hardly surprising that after listening to idols talking about drugs a teenager can try to join to this drug subculture. Just out of interest or in order to be like the ideal.

Visual method

Visual images are often used in movies and music videos. There we can learn about the technique of drug usage: how a substance gets into an organism, how to make it or get it. The almanac of drug world can be The Wolf of Wall Street. Famous journalists, producers create a positive attitude to the movie beforehand but if we keep all Oscars and awards, actors’ charisma and producers’ ingenuity aside, what will remain in the end?

Advertising a drug-addicted lifestyle. Actually many actors in this movie are the persons who have been repeatedly seen in use of narcotic substances.But every doctor working with such patients tell you that there are no former drug addicts. Do the audience of this movie really want to admire the product of addicts’ painful thinking? Is it a really good choice of brain food.

Kinesthetic method

It works with images and feelings. A very effective kinesthetic method is that which is combined with humor. The humor is a kind of reduction of a degree of danger of a subject under ridicule and sarcasm.In other words it makes the dangerous seem safe.The danger exists but it is somewhere far, on the other side of the screen, not here with me. Such attitudes are created by the kinesthetic method.

The substitution of concepts

This is the most sacrilegious method of drug propaganda. The substitution of concepts is used for the propaganda of any destructive things when under the plausible pretext one or another source of problems is advertised. And it is made at all stages – from sale (dealers are not interested to discourage potential buyers) to the use (it will be strange to consume a poison if it is directly named a poison). The slang names are concocted just to hide the meaning from people and to interest potential buyers.

In order to understand the horror of scene of what is happening we can give an example of the concert Vypusknik-2019 (Graduate-2019), held in the Kremlin. There was the performance of RASA band that had managed to come with a song about… drugs! “Speed doesn’t allow us to sleep, we are killed both” – it seems that a lot of people intuitively understand which word means a narcotic substance and which one means the effect of its use.

Probably the artists were not chosen on the basis of “the nastiest the product of creativity the better”, and all this happened because of ignorance of narcotic substances slang names. That’s why parents who care about their children’s fate can try to listen to the music playing in their children’s earphones and ask themselves questions “What target audience are these songs intended for?” and “Does my child need to be a part of this target audience?”.

The substitution of concepts and movies based on books are a separate topic for conversation.This can be seen especially vividly on those heroes that have been always perceived positively by readers and have been considered as examples of imitation. The illustrative example is the British screening of series of novels about Sherlock Holmes, who was presented as a drug addict in total. And there were created plot twists that could make us sympathize with the main character and understand why he had become a drug addict. This is how a positive attitude to drug addicts is gradually formed.

Some go further. There are often cases when a singer propagandizing destructive ideas through the creativity, gives concerts under the charitable pretext. This is the case when money has not just smell, but exudes a deadly poison.

And we should also mention those teenager who are far from social networks, television, YouTube, because they play computer games. Every expert in narcology knows that a computer game addict is a potential drug addict. And it is not just that there are games where drugs are an important element of a gameplay. This is about feelings of a gamer: they are similar to those experienced by an addict. But the former gets them injecting substances outside. And if parents try to deal with their child’s addiction through denying him or her playing, they can soon be faced with that their child will get into another dangerous addiction.

So what should we do? How to save a child or a teenager from drug abuse if to speak about it means to advertise it? You should focus attention on other activities. Going to theaters, listening to classical music, going in for sports – it is all that can help to save a child’s health and independence. A child does not rush for chocolate if he has not learnt about its existence yet. And an adult can think and refuse to eat it, no matter how sweet it is.

The text is prepared by Rena Mishkina

Translated by Xenia Shmonina

What does this movie teach?

Take, for example, an ordinary teenager and try to imagine what kind of impressions he will have after watching.

Generally speaking, the movie effectively discredits the contemplative form of a person’s perception, in which he aspires to sublime feelings and spirituality, as well as European classical culture as a whole, contrasting and promoting a primitive emotional form of perception. This form of cretinism is essential in order to push peoples into the abyss of passions and frivolity. And then you can do whatever you want with them.

Let’s take a closer look in order to make the statement obvious.

The main character named Driss is the most typical thief and a bully, an ordinary French emigrant from African countries. Throughout the movie, he is a purely positive character, while at first people perceive him somewhat disapprovingly, but at the end, he charms everyone around him.

The second character is Philippe, at the beginning is shown as a real aesthete: an educated, noble, pure aristocrat. He feels art, thinks deeply, without bad habits. At least he creates such an impression. Further, all his pluses are shown as a kind of senseless boredom, and Philippe begins to entertain the audience with his methodical transition into the primitive world.

A very subtle message with painting. Aesthete Philippe is well versed in painting and has long admired by “scribbles”, the meaninglessness of which is obvious even to a bully, and ultimately buys this piece of art. Then Driss draws similar “scribbles” and then they are created a legend for this picture, so it could be exhibited in London and Paris, and sold to another connoisseur of painting for 11,000 euros. As a result, a person who is not yet expert in painting has the impression that, in principle, all world painting is valuable only because rich people are ready to buy paintings for a lot of money, and that any masterpiece is the result of such speculation. Such an impression kills the interest in real painting, replacing it with the “knowledge” that all this is nonsense.

Indirect discreditation of high literature. This is done by ridiculing the epistolary way of expressing thoughts. Philippe‘s poetic and romantic style of speech is ridiculed and criticized by Driss, referring to the ineffectiveness of such a method when dealing with a woman. During this time, a woman who writes down a speech under dictation and looks like a highly cultural person, fully supports the arguments of a bully. Further, this idea is repeatedly confirmed “in practice.”

As in the case of painting, a person who has not yet studied poetry may have the impression that all these tedious, meaningless phrases, pompous “inferences” people are forced to do contrary to their true desires just in order to look like real aesthetes. This is what he will now see in real poetry.

But the main discreditation fell on the music. At the very beginning, from the first words, Philippe says that he is an export of Berlioz’s music, after which there is no doubt that he is truly committed to music. However, at the opera, the absurd behavior of Driss, who mocks the opera, becomes more interesting to our aesthete than the opera itself. Philippe does not even dare to blame the bully at least for the fact that he interferes with the rest of the audience with his behavior. This leads to the conclusion that people go to opera for the sake of showing off or other fake purpose, but in reality, even the most “real aesthetes” would prefer to see Eddie Murphy’s jokes.

An orchestra plays at a festive event, guests sit, listen to music. It’s so depressingly shown. Perhaps the saddest performance of Vivaldi’s music, with the boring faces of the performers and boring faces of the spectators. By the end of the evening, Philippe decides to introduce his new friend to music, so the orchestra begins to play the most famous classical work. The whole idea becomes really interesting and joyful, but not because Driss is beginning to understand music, but because he begins to “ridiculously” poke fun at classical music, and our “aesthete” meanwhile is smoking weed.

The next move is made by Driss: he turns the ordinary frivolous music on. And then everyone really feels good: everyone is cheerful, dancing, rejoicing, and everything is cool! Young man’s impressions who is not familiar enough with classical music will be quite unambiguous: really interesting music is modern dances and other primitive things, and all classical music is boring, even musicians and aesthetes listen to the classics music only because it is mandatory in their society, no more. With this approach to music, a person will not even try to really feel the deep meaning of classical music, and therefore the door will be closed for him.

The image of a woman. At the beginning of the movie, the mother kicks her son out of the house, saying that she has other children (although by the end of the movie it is said that this is not the mother, but the aunt who raised him). But the most interesting thing is realized in the image of Philippe’s assistant, whose name is Magalie. Her gradual transformation is shown very vividly. At the very beginning, she is shown as a very well-mannered and exemplary woman. It was further shown that no matter how spiritual a woman may be, she is unable to feel the truly sublime forms of courting and prefers simple primitive methods. In one scene, she praised Driss’ rude behavior, expressing her admiration for him.

However, she does not respond to the direct and vulgar methods of Driss who obsessed with the desire to seduce such an attractive red-haired lady. This unwittingly leads to the idea that simple straightforward methods of seducing women are also ineffective. But it turns out that Magalie is so impregnable just because she’s a lesbian.

All female images in the movie create the impression that when interacting with women, it is necessary to strive for noble feelings as little as possible, and more – tor dirty instincts.

Also, there are several more interesting points that I would like to pay attention to:

For example, all French men are shown as hypocritical, selfish, weak and some as vile. In contrast shown a typical black immigrant who surpasses everyone in his naturalness, kindness, in his aspirations for justice, etc. This is all to the benefit of European migration policy, one of the goals of which is to suppress the national identity of the French and other European peoples.

Smoking propaganda. Gradually, Driss introduces Philippe to smoking. We observed a romantic image of weed smoking. All this becomes the norm for the “aesthete”, and it is positioned as a positive phenomenon. It is a remarkable moment when a new nurse wants to feed invalid person, but he asks for a cigarette. When the nurse starts talking about the risk of smoking and a healthy lifestyle, Philippe defiantly leaves, leaving Driss’ successor in an absurd position.

In conclusion, it should be said that everything described above is in the background, and the plot itself is pretty good from an artistic point of view, as well as pleasant enough to interest a wide range of viewers, which allows the authors to claim that the movie has a positive morale. In addition, at the end, it is said that the plot is based on real events. This is purposely mentioned to weaken the critical perception of the viewers and to finally convince them that everything shown in the movie corresponds to the actual situation. Few people understand that these real events are simply used for certain selfish purposes, and that only the plot in the movie corresponds to these events. This all makes the implementation of the identified ideas much more effective and widespread.