I have always been one to try and look into things, and try to find some underlying meaning...whether it is there or not. Recently I wrote on whether people read way too far into things or not. I think that I show the balance between reading into material because I can really dig far, or I can just look at the surface to find the idea. I have been studying the structuralist critics as well as the deconscructionalist critics.....especially Jacques Derrida. I thought that I would share my insights on 'reading into things'......I really think this piece can be applied to this class.
Is There a Difference on the Movie Screen?
When the credits roll at the beginning of the motion picture Remember the Titans, it tells the audience that the following movie is ‘based’ on a true story. The theatrical trailer for the movie, Dreamer, states that it is ‘inspired’ by a true story. To most people, the two words, based and inspired, seem extremely similar. To others, the two words could not have a more different significance. The dictionary definition of based is, that it means to establish as a fact or conclusion. The meaning of the word inspired is, to give rise to, to bring about, or to cause (Dictionary 1). They are two different words, which happen to have similar meaning. Or do they have a similar meaning? The words could quite possibly arouse an interesting discussion between an everyday average person, a poststructuralist like Jacques Derrida, and one English major.
When asked what she thought the difference in meaning of the words inspired and based, my college roommate looked at me as though I had gone off the deep end. For in her eyes, there hardly seemed to be a difference at all. They both are relaying a message of a true story to an audience, though some aspects of that story may have been left out or added. When she made her main argument, she stated that the only idea that might lead her to believe that there was a difference was that ‘based’ might show a slight bit more truth in the word. To an everyday person, who has no connection to an English class or to a critic, the two words only differ slightly. In her closing statement, she said that she honestly would not think anything of the difference if she heard one or the other. They are two words that share a similar meaning, therefore making it hard, or unimportant, for one to eek out all of the reasons why or why they are not parallel.
Now if a poststructuralist, such as Jacques Derrida, were to be asked this same notion, there is no question that he would answer in a different way. Because of Derrida’s idea of freeplay, that everything can be broken up and rearranged, the words could not possibly mean the same thing or remotely close to the same thing. If Derrida were to begin to deconstruct the word ‘based’, he would have to start at the center, also known as the Bricolage. Where this word came from and how is it used in the context would be an ideal central place. Derrida says, “This field is in fact that of freeplay, that is to say, a field of many substitutions in the closure of a finite ensemble” (Derrida 886). He would break down the word and see the many patterns or ideas that come from the word’s core, as well as its history and function, and then put it back together in bits and pieces to create an extremely fine definition. This means that once he got this definition, it is safe to say that he would look at the language that surrounds the word. When Derrida can understand the relationship the word has to the surrounding language, he will put it back together in a way that makes total sense to him with information to back up his analysis.
The only way that ‘based’ and ‘inspired’ were to be the same to Derrida is if they were able to be broken down and put back together similarly based on their center, which is next to impossible. This is impracticable because if the words have slightly different definitions to begin with, affirming their freeplay as like terms is not possible. The word ‘based’ comes from the thought of factual information, and ‘inspired’ comes from bringing about an idea. Two words would allow Derrida to say that these movies were not in the same category, and these words are factual and idea. They are the root of the word, and once it is broken down there is a huge difference. A poststructuralist would say that there is an extreme variation in a movie that is based on a true story and one that is inspired by a true story.
The English Major writing this paper would also have a more poststructuralist view to the two words. I believe that when looking at the roots of the words and breaking them down, the differences are obvious. I do not know how far I would take the matter, but I would say that though they do share similar definitions, the similar is too different to put the two movies in the same category. I would have to classify the movie based on a true story as very accurate with a few hits and misses here and there. On the other hand, a movie inspired by a true story would simply be a vague telling of something that was found to be affirmative. Similar does not make the words the same, and that is why the movies are unlike one another.
There are many arguments that arise when depicting two words such as the ones discussed above. As mentioned before, poststructuralists would have a hay-day deciphering the definitions of the words, and everyday people might see a few differences here and there. Reader-response critics would state that people can make what they want of the words, for it is what their background and knowledge comprise of that make up their thoughts. Others might merely state that the two words are the same and we are reading way too far into these simple letters thrown together. Whether we are or not, one thing is for sure, and that is that these words do not look the same on a page, so making the statement that they mean the same thing would make no sense. ‘Based’ on the things that I have been ‘inspired’ by, I believe that there is a huge difference between movies that are based on true stories, and ones that are simply an inspiration.
