Dear John, Your Movie Is #1 [Media Meditation #1]

Over the weekend, I went to see the movie that kicked Avatar out of the number one spot. I saw Dear John.



This movie is based on a Nicholas Sparks novel. It is about a young Special Forces Amy Sergeant who is home on a two-week leave, when he unexpectedly falls in love with a girl who is visiting his town on spring break. The solider named John Tyree is played by heart throb Channing Tatum, and his love interest, Savannah Curtis, is Amanda Seyfried (who most of you probably recognize from Mean Girls).

After only two weeks together, John needs to return to the army, and Savannah has to go back to college. They decide that to keep in contact for the next 12 months, they will send letters to each other. Their love is put to the test when John is pressured to reenlist after the September 11th attacks.

Now, before I gush about this movie longer, and accidently spoil it, I want to talk about the connections I made between the movie and things I have been learning in college. I know, it's shocking that I'm consciously aware that school has had an impact on things as simple as movie watching. I definitely analyzing the movie the entire time with the four tool sets that I have been studying in Electronic Media Writing.



The first, and most obvious observation, is that this movie is an epistemological shift. It was was a book made into a movie, word to image.

There is also a personal shift aspect to the movie industry. Before the movie even came out, I could go to the official Facebook page, find out information on IMDb, and look at the movie's website. There can be an interactive discussion about the movie on the Facebook page, read the message board on IMDb, and register for updates on the official website.

For the seven basic principles, I noticed a few of them used in the movie. One that especially stuck out was emotional transfer. This movie was definitely focused on the limbic brain, throwing the viewers emotions on a roller coaster.

Another principle that was used in the movie was value messages. The movie was based off of a love affair that started when a boy saved a girl's purse out of the water after it fell off the pier. They immediately clicked, and it was love at first sight. Now, isn't that an ideal situation.



Then, my favorite of all the tool sets, persuasive techniques. I'm sure the movie used all 29 techniques, but I'll spare you, and only talk about a few.

Simple solutions comes to mind first. John and Savannah decided to continue their relationship through letters. They only knew each other two weeks, and completely trusted each other to be faithful and tell each other everything. I think that the thought that a letter could keep them fully connected is a bit of a simple solution.

Beautiful people is another persuasive tool that dominated this movie. The intended audience for this movie is the female population, and they were not disappointed. Channing Tatum had a good amount of scenes without his shirt on. The movie didn't leave out some eye candy for the men who were dragged along to see this movie. Amanda Seyfried is a beautiful woman.

Nicholas Sparks could be used as a testimonial for this movie. Not only is he a best selling author, but he was also the author to The Notebook, which was also made into a classic love story movie in 2004.


As opposed to the testimonial, the movie also used plain folks. The characters in the film were very common people. One was a solider, who was just trying to make his autistic dad proud. Savannah was a college student who was on spring break participating in Habitat for Humanity. The character's lives were very average. They were very down to earth.

I also mentioned earlier a part of the brain. I said that the movie was very limbic, but one could contest it involves all three parts of the brain.

It was very reptilian because it was easy to get mad at, and instincts would tell you to get mad and want to fight. There were also emotional parts of the movie, where characters believed that it was easier to "flight" instead of addressing the problem head on.

Lastly, the neocortex was engaged, especially now because I am analyzing the movie. It was also used during the movie, because I could hear my friend talking out loud at the screen. We were thinking about the movie, and how the messages in it could apply to everyday life.