What separates you from the moster is the emotion

When flipping through the channels and finding nothing on, I usually settle for FX. In our society today, consumers want something new and emotionally invigorating. It is like a psychological killer. He or she doesn’t have the same emotional reactions to specific situations a normal person would experience. The killer needs stronger stimuli to provoke emotions, and thus kills to feel. I feel like I am that killer searching for something meaningful on television that will provoke some kind of feelings because everything else on TV has been done. I think this was the reason for the birth of reality shows.
FX is a parental unit for just such a show. Morgan Spurlock produces “30 Days,” which incorporates an episode called ‘Immigration’. It is about a legal immigrant who spends his days as a minuteman alongside his wife patrolling the borders of the United States and Mexico. Frank George is from Cuba and is offered the proposition to spend 30 days living with an illegal family in the United States. Viewers are intrigued with the curiosity of Frank’s endeavors with the Gonsolas family. The question is prompted of whether or not, at the end of his stay, Frank will want to deport the family or support their illegal life in the United States.
Frank was an immigrant himself. I was intrigued by the fact that he had such a strong belief and support for America. He was a minuteman to protect the laws that govern the place he lives in. Lippman says, “we pick out what our culture has already defined for us”. I question if Frank whole-heartedly supported American laws, or if he did because that was what, stereotypically, a good citizen would do. As a law-abiding citizen, Frank needed to rid the country of all that was bad to make it a better place to live. Frank gave this warning, “Americans, get up and save this country or they’ll be none”. However, after living with the Gonsolas family, did Frank think America was better with or without these people?
I think the justice that Frank wanted was trying to be obtained through simple stereotypes. Frank was a minuteman to protect his country. However, Lippman says, “If we cannot fully understand the acts of other people until we know what they think they know, then in order to do justice we have to appraise not only the information which has been at their disposal, but the minds through which they have filtered it.” Frank went to Mexico and saw what the family had left behind, and to me, became more human in front of the show’s viewers. Whether it was due to the gatekeepers of reality TV, or the talent of Morgan Spurlock, I felt like Frank was reciprocating real emotions, especially with Armida who believed in the “American Dream”. To understand the means for which Frank attempts justice for his adopted country, you must understand his cognitive constructs about immigration after his 30 day experience in that one bedroom apartment.
As a critic, it touched the heart strings, but it is still the portrayal of the ideas of one man. It may have informed individuals of the struggle from both sides of the border for immigrants, and changed the simple to the more complex, for which I commend the show. It seems that the man that was rejected five times from film school has made a name for himself. However, the purpose of the show was to gain viewers in any way it could. Producers can use agenda setting to bring to light what they think are the worst issues in America. If they can gain viewers successfully because viewers accept and adopt that these issues need the most attention and action from the public, I would feel ashamed to watch another show. I would like the pictures in my head to become more complex, but I would like the power to pick my own pictures to edit.