Kurt Martin
Chad Day
English 102
4/27/11
The Zeitgeist Evaluation
What is a Zeitgeist? Dictionary.com defines it as “the spirit of the time; general trend of thought or feeling characteristic of a particular period of time”. Zeitgeist: The Movie is an expository documentary that is alarmingly interesting and eye-opening. Peter Joseph, who also narrates the majority of the film and composed music for it, produced the film, which was released online in 2007. The film and filmmaker make a convincing argument that religion is plagiarized from ancient mythology including Christianity and that “God” and religion are made up to manipulate people for social control. The film also jumps into the discussion of 9/11 being an inside job and that the destruction of the World Trade Center Towers 1, 2 and 7 was aided by controlled demolition. Another argument the film makes is that Global Bankers, through the Federal Reserve, control our money and our future, ultimately leading to the coming of a One World Government and the “micro-chipping” of everyone. Sounds a bit sketchy if you ask me.
Despite being debatable and controversial, Zeitgeist: The Movie is an effective medium for propaganda because the lack of production quality, insufficient evidence, and credibility all discredit the film’s presentation about our Government being corrupt. The documentary is broken up into three parts: Part I: The Greatest Story Ever Told, Part II: All The World’s A Stage, and Part III: Don’t Mind The Men Behind The Curtain. All three parts spark controversy and debate that has already been addressed by many theorists and scholars.
The Zeitgeist website claims that “There are no external investors or contributors. It is 100% independent and Peter Joseph has funded everything with his own money”(Zeitgeist: Addendum). From the start, anyone could tell the film had a low budget due to the video quality and poor sound editing. Being a Sound Engineer myself, I could tell there had been...