Post #3: Freedom Riders

             Although PBS's documentary on the Freedom Rider bus movement delineated the issue historically and accurately, I feel that if Hollywood could accomplish the same information and vision through a movie. The movie would need to be directed by someone who was willing to put aside the artistic aspect enough to include all of the factual and realistic information. The character development could be achieved by having the actors represent people who were actually there and they could talk to them to understand what they went through. By doing this, the movie would do a better job than the documentary because the viewers of the movie would be able to get more emotionally attached to how those being discriminated felt and what they had to go to. Also, I think the Hollywood version would be able to represent the scenes such as the bomb explosion or the violent police scenes at the end of the documentary better than the documentary because those who watch the movie would gain a deeper impact from these emotional scenes by viewing them as if there was live footage there, which could only be done properly by the use of the best visual effects and stunt teams that Hollywood has to offer. Audiences are more likely to be moved by being showed something than being told something. I found that the scene where the head of the policemen in the documentary was describing the plan to let the white men do anything they wanted to those on the Freedom Riders' bus for 15 minutes had an impact because I watched him say that himself in a primary source's video. That was one detail that stood out to me more than the situations those being interviewed only informed me from their interview segments through out the video.