Examining Alex Jones's Film "The Obama Deception"

Alex Jones’s film “The Obama Deception” set out to prove that despite what we believe President Obama is no different that former President Bush. According to Jones, President Obama is just a pawn put into office by the New World Order to lead the United States and the rest of the world into a time of martial law and total chaos. Jones’s sees President Obama as more of a politically correct media poster child than as a leader who can change and save our countries future.

For me this movie was an all out assault on my brain on all three levels. The music and the voice of the narrator, Jones, created an almost doomsday feeling that lasted throughout the entire movie that left my reptilian brain and stomach unsettled. That feeling of uneasiness spread into my limbic brain as the images that streamed across the video screen were too much to process with all the different audio (narration, music, creepy use of megaphones, ect…). Emotionally this film didn’t scare me as much as it made me uneasy. I felt like the film put my whole way of life into question. I almost felt defensive while we watched the movie. I didn’t know if I should let the issues Jones’s was covering into my brain for processing or if I should block them out to preserve my sanity. The images that were most unsettling for me surrounded the idea that martial law is inevitable. The images of police wearing riot gear in a concrete and chain link city were very emotional and almost raw. This image was combined with Jones’s terrifying narration tone and creepy background music was very powerful and even thinking about it now I am getting that same feeling of looming dread. Like I said in the introduction, this film was almost too much for me to handle speaking from a neocortex standpoint. The amount of information that Jones throws at the viewer is insane. There were too many new terms, new players, conspiracy theories, and way too much bull horn for me to process through my higher levels of thinking. The only way that I would be able to clearly process this whole film through my neocortex would be in 10 minute segments. Even then I don’t know if I would be able to completely process or even wrap my head around Jones cites throughout the film.

This film used every technique of persuasion that they accused the new world order of using! I think for me the most overarching persuasive technique used in this film was fear. I was afraid throughout the whole film! The scene that I talked about above when Jones’s is talking about Obama’s plan to create government militia that will carry out the president’s order(s) once martial law in enacted. Secondly I think that the way Jones used symbols throughout the film was sneaky and in a lot of way brilliant. Through the use of over advertised symbols Jones was able to create a feeling within the viewer that made them relate advertising they saw for Pepsi to the campaign ads they saw about Obama. Jones was able to use everyday symbols to create a sense of panic about our countries future. Jones also used flattery to make his audience feel smarter than the New World Order thinks they are. I felt like this technique was apparent throughout the film, but especially at the end when Jones presented viewers with a list of things that educated/aware Americans could do in order to stop the New World Order from successfully taking over our country. This sense of flattery also fed into the technique of group dynamics when Jones said, “this is what WE must do.” “This is who WE are up against.” “We don’t have to let this go on any longer.” Jones appealed to our sense of group dynamics and our human desire to belong with phrases like this.
A lot of the questions that appealed to the group dynamic aspect of the film were rhetorical questions, “how did it get this bad so fast?” “How did this happen without anyone knowing?” that were followed directly with a perfect pause, which is all timing. Jones’s ability to perfectly time the music and the visuals on screen was one of the strongest pulls at my limbic brain throughout the film, and really made the message he was trying to convey that much more effective. Another technique that Jones combined with timing is the use of repetition. I think the scene the sticks out the most in my mind is when Jones is going though Obama’s cabinet members listing the secret, conspirator groups they belong too. Not only were the organizations’ names repeated, but the page set up that was used was repeated over and over. Personally for me I felt that the technique of persuasion that Jones’s used the least effectively were testimonials. The people who he presented as experts did not hold a lot of credibility in my eyes, and they seemed to have been chosen at random. However his choice of “experts” may have been deliberate as he tried to appeal to as many different demographics as possible.

Jones opened his film with a value message that he carried throughout the film, “in this film we are going to prove…” His entire film was centered on the idea that the American people not only wanted the truth, but they deserved it. Jones was able to use this message to make himself look like he was trying to save the public from the dishonesty surrounding us at every turn. Jones used a million production techniques to make his film more emotionally powerful. I think two of the best examples of production techniques used in the film were the use of music and the shaky camera work that Jones used while he and his team were “followed” from the Marriott in Virginia to a local strip mall. This shaky camera work made the viewer feel like they were right there with Jones in the car, and it also created a false sense of a chase. The combination of production techniques and expert pacing made this film seem ever more dramatic than it really was. The fast pace of the film made it hard to process individual concepts or ideas, making the viewer essentially passive. However the strongest parts of this film were the ones that created individual meanings for the viewers through emotional transfer. These two production techniques were used in tandem to heighten the feeling of impending doom that Jones created throughout the entire film. Jones expertly tapped into emotions, specifically fear in order to make us more receptive to his messages. Through this feeling of fear Jones was able to target each individuals own worst fears, which only made his messages more powerful.

I think this film represents a huge aesthetic shift. Twenty years ago a film as politically charged as this one wouldn’t have ever been shown outside of a shady basement party, let alone in a university setting. This film represents a huge change in what we consider private and taboo. Today politics is a huge part of polite dinner conversation and it is no longer considered taboo to talk about personal political beliefs. This film takes something that used to be very private and thrusts it into the public, easily accessible, and best of all free. This free access also shows how much of a personal shift there has been when it comes to how easy it is to download and view films such as this one. Everything is public when it hits YouTube.

The topic that I was most excited to research after watching this film was the New World Order (NOW). I was surprised at how much information is available when it comes to the NWO. Many of the websites that had information on it were run by people who seemed to share Jones’s political and social beliefs, but other sites laid out that a new world order was the idea that a singular governing body would one day rule. The information that I found on the NOW ran the spectrum from extremist to completely harmless that I think the research that I did made me more objective and much less afraid. I spent the rest of my time researching the history of our country’s system of banking. I love history and I enjoyed digging into our government’s past. Even though I had taken numerous American History classes it was a lot of new information for me to process. There were hundreds of acts and pieces of legislation passed in the early days of our government that brought us to where we are as a country economically today. The research that I did into our nations banking history was eye opening and it made me want to write up a little summary and hand it out to people on the street. No one has a clue about our country’s banking system and I think that if we understand our past it keeps us from repeating the same mistakes in the present.

I think the two texts that we covered this semester that feed right into this type of film was Project Censored and Amusing Ourselves to Death. Like project censored Jones’s film set out to expose the issues not covered or talked about by mainstream media and both of these mediums presented powerful cases. However I find myself much more confident in the research done and presented in Project Censored than I do with Jones’s film. I connected Postman’s Huxleyan Warning direct to this film. We must be conscious and carefully media consumers if we are going to make educated and informed choice regarding our future.