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Author Topic:   Has fiction made anyone believe conspiracy theories?
PixieJane
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Posts: 2481
From: CA
Registered: Oct 2010

posted June 21, 2013 03:52 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for PixieJane     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I got to wondering after reading this:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/20/opinion/garrett-dan-brown-inferno/index.html

I don't know how accurate she is or if she's just making a tempest in a teapot.

What I'm actually curious about is The Da Vinci Code. I can't recall why I let myself be dragged to it (ETA: Wait, I DO recall, she dragged me because she was a little freaked by the Christians protesting it but still wanted to see it so she had me go with her, and while she liked it I got bored and was actually tempted to sleep through the rest of it), but even though I suspended disbelief (just as I do Harry Potter, X-Files, etc), I never forgot it was fiction. If I was somehow impressed enough to think it COULD be true (though I found the movie too farfetched for that) I'd have still researched it before seriously considering it. So when we left I was just thinking the Christians protesting it must be really bored. One old lady asked me if the movie changed my mind about Christ and I said no and she smiled like she was relieved, apparently thinking I was "still Christian" rather than I'm not a Christian in the first place (but even if I was, it's FICTION, back when I was a neopagan witch I didn't mistake this for real life!).

Yet here she said this:

quote:
The day after "Inferno" was launched with the usual Dan Brown-associated brouhaha, my brother e-mailed "OMG!" telling me he was devouring the thing on his e-reader. All day long I received notes from worried friends and family, concerned that Brown's conspiracy-minded readership would turn its sights on the council, or me, and my global health work.

Brown's ability to raise this kind of intrigue was demonstrated with his first blockbuster, "The Da Vinci Code" which spawned an entire genre of dark Vatican-oriented novels that imagine self-mutilating, power-grabbing monsters lurking in medieval dungeons beneath St. Peter's Basilica


Is this true?

And on second thought I'm also recalling how often people mistake real life for Hollywood scenerios, and sometimes it gets so absurd that back when season 6 Buffy was airing with Willow's "magic addiction" there were a lot of Wiccans who talked about their addiction to magic, which blew my mind. And once someone asked a question on a pagan board I used to be a member of about what to do about the spirits raping her and her children, and I didn't get a response when I asked why she didn't leave or at least get her children out if they're actually being beaten and raped on a daily basis, that is until someone told me the movie that just aired featuring the very scenerio didn't answer that question either and then she said it was not a movie, it was her life (but still no answer why she stayed, and made her children stay, to be repeatedly raped).

So maybe it happens...though I'd like to think not more than one in 10 million readers/viewers would.

IMPORTANT: I'm not asking about those who believe something like that happen for some other reason, so for example if said person ALREADY believed something similar to what the movie promoted and thought the author was "in the know" then that does not count. Likewise, being inspired by the fiction to do REAL research (actual books, serious vids, etc, not just some quick net search) also doesn't count. To count, you'd (or someone else) would have to believe it primarily BECAUSE of the fiction novel or movie itself.

And I'm not trying to put down conspiracy theories in general, I'm only asking about people who embrace them because of fiction.

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Lei_Kuei
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posted June 21, 2013 06:48 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Lei_Kuei     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Yea I saw that article this morning and I was like wtf...?

I wouldn't go so far as to say "believe", but intrigued enough to look into such because how interesting the fiction was

RAW's Illuminatus still cracks me up, and leaves me wondering just what if?

quote:
What I'm actually curious about is The Da Vinci Code.

What aspects specifically?

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You can't handle my level of Tinfoil! ~ {;,;}

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Ceridwen
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posted June 21, 2013 11:47 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Ceridwen     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I certainly get motivated to research things, if a film triggers my curiosity or something resonates.
But believing something just because Hollywood portrayed it?
No.

Everything has to go through my very personal mental filter, until I would say I might believe it (and even then, I am always aware of the possibility that it`s just in my own mind anyway.)

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PixieJane
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Posts: 2481
From: CA
Registered: Oct 2010

posted June 21, 2013 06:20 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for PixieJane     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
What I was curious about were all the protestors who were acting like the movie was an assertion rather than a story. How could anyone not know the difference?

But then I got to wondering maybe some people don't.

Still, it seems especially strange to me...I truly believed Freya communed with me (now I'm more agnostic, but I still believe something supernatural/metaphysical happened, perhaps similar when the Goddess rose in the Illuminatus! Trilogy and different people were seeing different goddesses), but my reading a fiction series of the Scandinavian gods and visiting Freya's realm in a D&D game were just entertainment not meant to be taken seriously. And fiction, at least for me, doesn't compare to a sacred experience anymore than I'd mistake playing in a water sprinkler to swimming in the ocean. But maybe many who are religious (perhaps even quasi-religious) are merely so because they were raised by parents & peers to be that way and never knew a truly sacred experience that confirmed their religion to them so could be easily swayed...

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Padre35
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From: Asheville, NC, US
Registered: Jul 2012

posted June 21, 2013 08:02 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Padre35     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

Suspect it is human nature Pixie Jane, and not without reason as society today is something of a artificial creation.

For example how many are concerned about job security? If the mgr says something that could be nothing or it could mean "that is your job", the mind works towards "omg, I'm going to be fired!" instead "well that was nothing, go away"?

I do think there are wheels within wheels, there are levels of decision making in this world non insiders shall never see, nor know about..and suspect intuitively.."we" know it.

For example the S&P watchdog who openly emailed some other sycophant about the scam they were running on investors in the later 00's..we "know" it..just never could prove it.

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7thGuardian
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Posts: 932
From: Transylvania
Registered: May 2012

posted June 22, 2013 12:11 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for 7thGuardian     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
CNN talking about conspiracy theories... that's like McDonald's talking about healthy diets. ^^

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