By Nivedyta Khanna
Most of the cinema viewers are mainly confined to metro cities. Surveys say that the movies are not for the masses but for the elite class. In 2016, 2.2 billion tickets were sold in India and 1.25 billion were sold in China.
Well, the movies do have an effect on our brains. In today’s time, it is said that a film can influence someone to be a detective or a scientist. On a serious note, the movies that involve art in them can have a deep influence on the person’s brain.
How do they affect scientifically?
Scientifically, it turns out that there are complex processes happening in multiple areas of the brain that allow us to get swept up in a movie, according to Washington University psychology professor Jeff Zacks.
Zacks explained the deep physical response we have to certain scenes in movies as normal since it is just the brain processing the stimuli you are getting from those scenes just like it do so in real life. We have certain real-life incidents that explain how our brains can be affected by films.
It is said that if we watch an intense scene in a film our heart rate and blood pressure increases. This can lead to heart attacks, in people who have cardiovascular weaknesses.
Films can also make you more aggressive, since a study of 250 women found that when they watched clips of violence and then tested afterward the women were more likely to place importance, subconsciously, on words describing violence or aggression.
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Impact of movies and celebs on the people? How?
Importance of cinema on the lifestyle of people is the most complex and powerful art present in the world. Movies like Taare Zameen Par, brought attention to the topic of dyslexia, something that wasn’t commonly known in India and showed parents and teachers on how kids who suffer from this can be helped in a healthy.
Movies also affect people differently and depends on each individual. While some take it lightly as a few hours of entertainment. There are people who take movies extremely seriously and start correlating to their daily life, with their way of talking, actions, and thoughts undergoing a tremendous change.
The 2007 movie, No Smoking by Anurag Kashyap portrayed overcoming an addiction in the scariest and darkest manner and could be seen as triggering in certain instances.
A more dangerous instance of a person taking a movie too seriously was that of an American Kyle Shaw who after watching Fight Club, made homemade bombs and exploded them across New York City on Memorial Day weekend in 2009.
The movie by David Fincher and based on Chuck Palahniuk’s debut novel was about underground boxing and organised terrorism. The teen also admitted that he was trying to launch his own ‘Project Mayhem’ a reference to the movie.
The extremely popular show Dexter about a serial killer has also seen people getting influenced from it in real life and committing murders. Apparently, a 17-year-old boy named Andrew Conley in 2009, strangled and killed his 10-year-old brother Conner and then dumped his body in a park.
While talking to police interrogators, Conley said that, “I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but it’s called ‘Dexter,’ and it’s on Showtime. And I feel like him because he’s a serial killer of bad people … but I just feel like him.”
It is noted that even the actors or celebs have a great influence on people’s brains and that the celebs become either their best or worst role models.
A well published survey of UK parents with children under ten years old voted both Cyrus and Minaj as worst role models. These celebs often influence the youth as to how to look or what they wear, along with also affecting their sense of identity.
The influence of celebs in the construction of young people’s aspirations is being focused as well. This year, Sikkim Government announced AR Rahman as its Brand Ambassador. The state government had earlier this year made him the Brand Ambassador of tourism and business.
Image Credits: Google Images
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