Jean Seberg: Media at Its Worst
For this project, I did my report on actress and activist, Jean Seberg.
The Medium is the Massage included the iconic screen cap of Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo kissing in Godard's avant-garde classic, Breathless.
Directly after this picture, McLuhan starts into his theory of culture clash between the young and old. He says, “Many of our institutions suppress all the natural direct experience of youth, who respond with untaught delight to the poetry and the beauty of the new technological environment, the environment of popular culture,” (100). Seberg is the embodiment of the youth McLuhan is speaking of. She broke into the Hollywood scene as a teenager and then fled to France where she worked with Godard to create Breathless. Both she and Godard were young revolutionaries, pushing the limits of film and society.
But Seberg also has a darker connection to this book, one that McLuhan did not see coming. Because of her ties to the Black Panther Party, the FBI began to harass her. They gave false information to the media that said Seberg was pregnant with the child of a Black Panther, ruining her image in the public eye. In just a matter of months, Seberg lost her child due to the stress that the rumors had put on her. As McLuhan said, "Real total war has become information war," (138). Developing media has lowered the walls of truth and fallacy, creating a new playing field in everyone's lives. Seberg's life is a testament of the vile effects media can have on an individual. Eventually, the trauma caused from the FBI's media take over lead to her suicide.
The Medium is the Massage included the iconic screen cap of Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo kissing in Godard's avant-garde classic, Breathless.
Directly after this picture, McLuhan starts into his theory of culture clash between the young and old. He says, “Many of our institutions suppress all the natural direct experience of youth, who respond with untaught delight to the poetry and the beauty of the new technological environment, the environment of popular culture,” (100). Seberg is the embodiment of the youth McLuhan is speaking of. She broke into the Hollywood scene as a teenager and then fled to France where she worked with Godard to create Breathless. Both she and Godard were young revolutionaries, pushing the limits of film and society.
But Seberg also has a darker connection to this book, one that McLuhan did not see coming. Because of her ties to the Black Panther Party, the FBI began to harass her. They gave false information to the media that said Seberg was pregnant with the child of a Black Panther, ruining her image in the public eye. In just a matter of months, Seberg lost her child due to the stress that the rumors had put on her. As McLuhan said, "Real total war has become information war," (138). Developing media has lowered the walls of truth and fallacy, creating a new playing field in everyone's lives. Seberg's life is a testament of the vile effects media can have on an individual. Eventually, the trauma caused from the FBI's media take over lead to her suicide.
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