Jake Gyllenhaal hates Bourdieu

Returning to reflect upon a theorist gone by, I really enjoyed Bourdieu's reading, "On Television."
 It immediately called to mind the film Nightcrawler (check out the trailer, it's a great movie), in which Jake Gyllenhaal plays a man looking for a job who stumbles upon an accident on the freeway and realizes that bloodshed is a lucrative business in the news world. When he can't find a position in the business, he decides to go DIY with a camera and his old (but speedy) car.

There are plenty of gory lines in the movie that immediately call to mind Jameson's quote: "The underside of culture is blood, torture, death, and horror," such as "If it bleeds, it leads," and a newscaster's disturbing advice to "Think of the news as a bleeding woman running down the street with her throat cut." In fact, the movie's grotesque media spectacles and commodification of terror can relate back to numerous theorists, especially Baudrillard and Zizek. Jake Gyllenhaal's character eventually finds success in manipulating the scenes of crimes and accidents to make them seem more spectacular, even arriving before the cops and manipulating evidence for the most shocking shot (blurring the line between media, fiction, and reality - back to Baudrillard). However, I'd like to give Bourdieu domain on this one; he seems to be much more optimistic.

He argues that no singular journalist can really be to blame for this phenomenon, because media and society as a whole has created an immense pressure through "the race for the scoop." As Bourdieu points out, "This means that news which might prove dangerous to those involved can be broadcast simply to beat out a competitor, with no thought given to the danger" (258). This is essentially the premise of Nightcrawler: news is a business of speed and spectacle, with victims becoming objects of consumption. The audience of Nightcrawler is then entitled to sit and watch in horror, realizing the poignancy of the critique and thinking self-righteously about the callous nature of the news industry; essentially "opining and reclining," as Chomsky would put it. However, Bourdieu is more optimistic. He believes that if people become aware of the system that necessitates this behavior and the mentality of "if it bleeds, it leads"reporting, change will be made possible. A refreshing view in the face of so much cynicism. In his words, "[If] people became aware of them, conscious action aimed at controlling the structural mechanisms that engender moral failure would be possible" (258).

However, I'm sure Jake Gyllenhaal's character resents Bourdieu's optimistic vision; its realization would mean he's out of a job.