A good movie usually teaches a moral lesson

A good movie usually teaches a moral lesson

12:05 to 12:35

Since the beginning of human civilization people have gathered for some form of entertainment. The most common form of entertainment is art that engages its audience in all aspects and helps influence people to change or steer society into a better direction. Art comes in many forms, but the most popular is the movie. The movie is a very engaging form of media and has become the most influential in today’s society. It employs visual and auditory queues to tell a story. In contrast, books, audio recordings, radio, and paintings often times require audiences to use more of their imagination when encountering the work. As an accessible and appealing form of art, the movie has the means of influencing more people in society through their messages and images. While some movies aim to educate audiences, others exists to merely entertain, and many attempt to do both. Although many good movies teach a moral lesson, others may be deemed "good" regardless of their aim to educate or entertain.

First consider when a good movie is actually meant to teach a moral lesson. These moral lessons could be attributed to honesty, kindness to other and the environment, loyalty and generosity. Producers of these movies or television series tend to shed light on these morals to make viewers aware or even learn morals they might not be familiar with. A good movie has the ability to emotionally and visually move the viewer to engage them better. A good example of this is the Disnep Pixar movie Toy Story and Cartoon Network’s Captain Planet. Toy Story is a children’s movie that emphasizes the importance of loyalty, honesty and kindness to friends above all. Woody, the cowboy, is initially jealous of Andy’s new Space Ranger toy, Buzz Lightyear. Woody tries to eliminate Buzz many times to receive more attention from Andy. However, when Buzz gets knocked out the window he tries to catch up to Woody and Andy to the gas station in hopes to go to Pizza planet. At the gas station, Buzz and Woody have a fight but end up at Pizza planet only to find Buzz wanting to go to spaceship vending machine. Buzz along with Woody are taken to the evil child’s, Sid’s, home. There both Woody and Buzz face horrible experiences from Sid’s toys and eventually when facing these hardships Buzz and  Woody develop a friendship to survive and escape Sid’s torture to reunite with Andy. Another example, would be Captain Planet and the Planeteers. In this movie, 5 young teenagers are given the power of the natural elements to combat evil environmental polluters. In each episode, different forms of pollution are combated which educates the importance of environmental protection and cleanliness. So a movie can teach moral lesson, when it is aimed to do so.

On the other hand, not all movies are there to teach moral lessons, rather to purely entertain the audience. Examples of this are Mr. Bean & Jumanji. In all these cases a theme of entertainment is present ranging from comedy, sci-fi mystery, adventure and sci-fi adventure. The movie's purpose may be to make audience members laugh at a series of jokes, introduce mystery or astonish them with the latest developments in animation artistry. These types of movies, although lacking an educational or moral component, may still be considered "good." In all these movies an interesting plot or idea is used to captivate the audience.  If they affect viewers in a way that they aimed to, then the movie could be thought of as a success. Mr. Bean, is a comedy where the character does bizarre things deviating from a normal human being to solve daily problems. In Jumanji,the main character is sucked into a board game and brought back out 26 years later only yet to finish the game with his companions. Therefore, it is evident that there are movies that are there to purely entertain and if they succeed in doing so, the movie may become a box-office hit.

In all, a movie may be perceived as good or bad depending on what a viewer is anticipating to watch. If one watches a movie, they may learn some morals and values such as in Toy Story or Captain Planet. On the other hand, a movie can be there to purely entertain. Therefore, a good movie can either teach a moral lesson or purely entertain.