On Wednesday, January 13, I attended the film Shattered Glass that was playing in Commons Lecture Hall. This movie was about a young, talented writer named Stephen Glass who works for the prestigious magazine, The New Republic. Glass always stuns his co-workers with new, creative, and fascinating stories for each magazine. Glass writes his most compelling piece, titled Hack Heaven which amazes everyone working for the magazine. However, the new editor, Chuck Lane, become suspicious of the article after receiving information from other sources that claim the information is false. After much investigation, Lane concludes that over half of Glass’ articles were fabricated and that his sources were made up. Glass’ co-workers have a very hard time accepting the fact that Glass was lying and they get very angry at Lane. Glass tries to conceal his lies but only manages to dig himself deeper which leads to a suspension and ultimately being fired from his job at the magazine.
This compelling movie shows us a real and personal struggle with evil for Glass. He wants to be the best writer as well as go to school and become successful. This stressful schedule leads him to cheat and lie, a pitfall of evil that consumes him. His greed for fame and recognition causes him to affect not only his life, but his co-workers and the overall magazine reputation. Glass’ sin is very obvious, he literally lies about his whole purpose of his career in order to become famous and appreciated. This sad movie of a talented man who goes downhill reminds us more in depth that we live in a sinful and greedy world. Once we become consumed in the idea of being the best that we can, we will do anything to achieve it. This is clearly shown through Glass who is determined to succeed at everything, even if that means spinning a web of lies. The sinful empire consumed Glass and his entire life and reminds us of the dangerous and greedy world that we live in.
Discussion Questions:
1. Why were Glass’ coworkers reluctant to accept Chuck’s claims that he was invented up his stories?
2. What lessons can we learn about evil and how it affects our life?
Why do you think filmmakers chose to tell this story? Sure, it's an inherently interesting (and true!) tale about someone getting caught in a web of lies; but what might they be saying about the world of the film (our world, as it's a true story)?
ReplyDeleteIt seems that this story has a variety of implications related to the fast-paced, high-powered nature of national political journalism. What does this pressure do to a person? Is the pressure appropriate? How might someone be influenced to lie in an effort to alter his reporting? Those sorts of things might be interesting to explore.