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opinion:
our view
Can you believe
your eyes?
With every passing
year, cultural trends and technological advances make the line
between fantasy and reality more transparent.
Television is rampant
with reality shows in which we as viewers get to vicariously
experience the same adventures as the "real" people
on the tube, rather than the world of make-believe we usually
see.
But are they real
people, or just on the first step in entering the same world
of make-believe in which a majority of our entertainment exists?
This, however,
holds none of the ethical questions that emerging digital
technologies are creating every day.
In "Forrest
Gump," Tom Hanks appeared on-screen with the likes of
John F. Kennedy, John Lennon and Elvis Presley, all of whom
are long dead. No logical person, knowing whom Hanks was,
would believe these events actually occurred. Although, we
do live in a society where people actually cast votes for
Ross Perot, Steve Forbes and Pat Buchanan for president.
Also in vogue these
days are commercials featuring old-time movie stars, including
James Cagney, Gene Kelly and John Wayne, endorsing various
products. Whether or not these stars would object to being
light-beer shills is irrelevant, as their descendants and
studios hold the rights to their likenesses. It would be interesting
though to see how today's stars would react to selling flavored
sugar water ten years into the grave.
Incidentally, it
is ironic that someone with as masculine a reputation as Wayne
would be used to sell an alcoholic beverage as impotent as
Coors Light.
Entire animated
movies have been created with computers, but these have not
been able to accurately recreate a believable human figure.
So far.
All of these advances
bring us to the latest overuse of technology, the reappearance
of recently deceased Nancy Marchand on last Sunday's premiere
of "The Sopranos." Rather than simply write her
out of the script, as is customary when an actor dies, the
producers took already shot footage and grafted her face onto
another actress' body.
Though announced
ahead of time and done so ham-handedly that it was obvious
something was not quite right, this does set a dangerous precedent.
With an impending actors' strike on the horizon, the producers
could cut and paste lines of dialogue to create new storylines
and hire extras to stand on the right mark and call it a new
show.
Yes, this is far-fetched
and likely impossible, but the potential is there.
Even more dangerous,
with technology becoming more affordable, digital manipulation
is practically an application for the home computer. Someone
who holds a grudge against you could film and photograph themselves
committing various illegal or heinous acts, paste your image
onto their body, and you would not realize it until you found
yourself in a police station.
Movies like "Arlington
Road" and "Rising Sun" have shown practical
applications of this devious technique. Where Hollywood provides
inspiration, Americans follow with innovations.
This is a brave
new world of technology we are entering and, as in most things
in life, rules will not be written until someone gets hurt
and we know what laws to write to prevent them from happening
again.
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