Week 2: Brainstorming Research
After coming up with my initial concept I wanted to begin planning a general narrative and establishing base ideas to explore in development and production. I especially wanted to highlight the mental journey that the author of the journal goes on, as he struggles with cognitive dissonance is forced to rationalise his teachings with reality.
Themes of anti-fascist and anti-war resistance were especially interesting to me, as I’ve always been interested in political history and current geo-politics. I wanted to explore the themes of:
•Anti-War resistance
•Pre-War society, calm before the storm
•War of information vs disinformation / modern warfare instead of traditional warfare
•Slow deradicalization
•Learning to love after a lifetime of being taught to hate
•Diversity of opinion, expression and lifestyle
•Confronting cognitive dissonance
•Compassion and empathy for enemies and allies
I also want to explore the question of if ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ people really exist or only good and evil acts do. I personally believe that no-one is ‘born bad’, but instead that we are all born good while cruelty, or ‘evil’ is taught, and that societies are not a monolith; there are bad people in ‘good’ societies and good people in ‘bad’ societies. The actions of a government do not always represent the beliefs or values of the people, historically cruel societies have not been comprised entirely of cruel people. Resistance to fascist and oppressive regimes has always existed and I find stories of kind people from within a cruel society more compelling that stories from people without. Those under attack will naturally resist against an aggressor but those who have nothing to gain and everything to lose from going against their own people, but doing it anyway because its ‘right’, is more interesting to me since they have to draw upon a pure, innate goodness to be truly selfless.
One of my thematic inspirations for my journal was Jojo’s diary from the 2017 Movie ‘Jojo Rabbit’. The movie follows a young boy in late WW2 Germany who has fully bought into Nazi propaganda and believes in the stereotype of cartoonishly evil Jews. His beliefs change over the course of the movie after he meets a Jewish girl his mother is sheltering, and he starts writing an ‘expose on Jews’. He learns over the course of the movie, despite the girl’s sarcastic teasing that Jews all have hidden horns and can read minds, that none of this is true, and his shift in opinions is reflected through the illustrations in his diary/expose which change from scary illustrations of “Jews”, to childish drawings of his crush’s boyfriend being dangled over pits of snakes, to cycling with his mother and finally to himself looking at a caged rabbit (representative of his Jewish friend).
Jojo Rabbit has been one of my favourite movies since I saw it in cinemas, and the story of deradicalization and empathy has stuck with me. I wanted to echo a similar sentiment in my own FMP, with the Author starting the story as ignorant and trusting of his superior’s propaganda, before overcoming his flawed beliefs and changing his opinions fundamentally, while growing as a person.
Other fictional stories i took narrative inspiration from pictured below:
Bibliography:
Blade Runner (1982) Directed by R. Scott, Film, USA
Jojo Rabbit (2019) Directed by T. Waititi, Film, New Zealand
BBC Bitesize. (n.d.). Opposition and resistance in Nazi Germany – Life in Nazi Germany, 1933-1939 – AQA – GCSE History Revision – AQA. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zp3p82p/revision/6
Wikipedia Contributors (2019). German resistance to Nazism. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_resistance_to_Nazism
German resistance to Nazism – Wikipedia
www.cbsnews.com. (2023). Russian armed resistance group tells CBS News the Ukraine war is helping it attack Putin on his own soil. [online] Available at: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-ukraine-armed-russian-resistance-attacking-putin-regime/
Chapple, A. (2023). ‘It’s Not His Country, It’s Ours’: The Russian ‘Partisans’ At War With The Kremlin. [online] RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Available at: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-anti-kremlin-partisans-war-sabotage-jake-hanrahan-film/32205391.html
‘It’s Not His Country, It’s Ours’: The Russian ‘Partisans’ At War With The Kremlin
O’Connor, T. (2023). Meet the Russian Rebel Groups Waging War from within Putin’s Own Borders. [online] Newsweek. Available at: https://www.newsweek.com/meet-russian-rebel-groups-waging-war-within-putins-own-borders-1793715
Meet the Russian Rebel Groups Waging War from within Putin’s Own Borders – Newsweek