My list of movies to rush and see before the Golden Globes and Oscars of 2010:
Am I ashamed as a recent film school grad / film blogger that I have not seen some of these films yet? Yes. Very much so. I blame the overpriced movie tickets.
AP Photo/Luca Bruno
I would like to make it very clear that this post is in no way my saying that I believe Amanda Knox is guilty for the murder of Meredith Kercher. I want to make that known because, basically, I don’t know whether she’s guilty or not. The more I read up on it, the more conflicted I feel.
Rather, I’d like to bring up some questions that have been concerning me:
Yes, of all the questions to ask about this case, these are the ones I’m asking. Because frankly, the media is not addicted to this story only because they seek out justice. Sure, that’s part of it – Americans think she’s innocent and should not spend 25 years in Italian prison, and Italians are convinced she’s guilty based on evidence that really isn’t evidence at all and think she should rot in prison.
Americans, in the meantime, are adamant that this is a patriotic issue. “Italians hate Americans” is one of the reasons you hear constantly about why Amanda Knox has been such bait for the Perugia government.
So Americans can’t stop talking about how much they love her and want her innocence proven, and Italians can’t stop talking about how much they hate her and know she’s guilty. If Amanda Knox wasn’t a seemingly-wholesome and pretty white college student, would our media still be so hung up on her case? And likewise, would the Italian media still be so obsessed if they couldn’t say things like, for instance, she has “the face of an angel, but the eyes of a killer”?
Again, not saying she’s guilty or not guilty. I’m also not saying that I don’t feel sorry for her, because honestly it is eerie to see a girl my age (also in love with Italian culture) going through all of this, sentenced to 26 years in a foreign country, with the possibility that she may not be guilty at all. I don’t know how to feel about the crime, but I know how I feel about the media’s obsession with it.
Our media has been called out on spending too much air time on white females who are murdered or go missing. (See: “missing white woman syndrome”.) So if Amanda Knox wasn’t white, young, and beautiful, would the intrigue and passion for the case all but disappear? Or is it really an issue of patriotism and justice?
