FILM// THE POLITICS OF ILLUSION

The politics of Illusion, a film by Message is the Medium

This film is about you, rumor, legend, myth, Derrida, stars,
Barthes and a french guy named Xavier, 30 years old.

Rumor has it, Xavier, dressed head to toe in Acne, with
a Lanvin bow tie, dances just like Michael Jackson.

This film attempts to unravel the nature of communication through an analysis of its mechanisms.

From rumor to legend to myth...

As we declare in the film, "Truth is illusionary but rumors are real."

In 1902 when Louis William Stern experimented on rumor involving a "chain of subjects" who passed a story from "mouth to ear" without the right to repeat or explain it, he found that the story was shortened and changed by the time it reached the end of the chain.

The three basic characteristics that apply to rumor:
1. They're transmitted by word of mouth;
2. They provide "information" about a "person, happening, or condition";
3. they express and gratify "the emotional needs of the community."

Rumors often reflect public desires and wished-for outcomes. In the academic discipline of folkloristics, the truth value of legends is irrelevant.
It's not whether the story told is true or not, it's the fact that the story is being told at all.

Myth is a system of communication, it is a message.

This is radical advertising.