Rivera-State of Play

Corporations have a hand in every corner of American’s lives-or at least they try to. Many people who analyze America say that we are a country driven by greed. Now, that is not for me to say, but I can’t deny that major corporations have a certain affinity towards the big bucks. In “State of Play” the audience has a chance to see an example of how American businesses attempt to undermine democracy by turning war, not into an attempt for a greater peace, but a money-gathering market.

The corporation the film deals with is PointCorp, which is in the process of setting up a “Killer-for-hire” process to be used in future combat situations. The film’s leading man, Cal, drives the story by investigating information he receives from various sources, then checks that information with his congressman friend, Collins. The incident in the film that holds the most ground with showing how PointCorp tries to undermine democracy, is the scene where Cal and Collins discuss how PointCorp is doing more than just creating a mercenary-run war, but they are plotting to cooperate with other defense contractors in purchasing various surveillance and defense contracts, thus creating a monopoly over the security of America. Now, the point of this scene was to instantly paint PointCorp as the villain in the film, and potentially tie it to other issues in the film. But the real emphasis should be noticed-just how easily a corporation can create a monopoly over America’s democracy.

What should be noticed in today’s world is how dangerous this situation can be. Enron ruined hundreds of people’s lives, and went unnoticed for years. By corporations growing too large, they certainly, even if not intentionally, take away from American's rights. Everyday, this was even an issue in the film, newspapers print articles that are not driven by the need to inform the public, but to sway their views on certain individuals that have had their right to privacy violated. The democracy we hold as our governing body would be null, and if we let it go that far, who is to say that it would not go even further? What would the world be like if our safety and privacy was under control by a monopoly? I don’t want to find out.

Oria, State of Play

Large corporations acting as individuals undermine democracy because democracy is defined as, “a government by the people and for the people.” If corporations are acting as an individual, then that does not support the idea that democracy. It takes power away from individuals. This is because corporations are a group of people making decisions and not just one individual person. Corporations have a large amount of resources and money to sway and bend the government to do as they please. They can greatly affect the outcome of politics by sponsoring the candidate that will turn out the best outcome for their corporation. This significantly tips the balance in a way that just one individual can never possibly do.
This is seen throughout the entire film, it was the cause of all the chaos and commotion; a large corporation, Point Corp, acted through an individual, Sonia, Baker to gain information from Steven Collins. The scene that reveals this information is the one in which Dominic Floy is being questioned by Cal. He says that Sonia was hired to be on Collins’ staff as a double agent for Point Corp. They paid her monthly to divulge information about Collins in an attempt to keep their corporation around. Only when she stopped being useful to them, is when I believe they had her killed.
These corporations that are attempting to bend the government for their own benefit, are totally undermining the whole meaning of democracy; it weakens the ideas of this government. Democracy is not defined as for corporations, by corporations but, for the people, by the people.

Curtis State of Play

For a democracy to flourish, an individual needs to have power. He needs to feel free and empowered; he needs to feel in control. But, when a myriad of large corporations are functioning as an individual, using their excessive funds to gain control of the government, the actual individual feels undermined and unimportant, thus becoming disillusioned by democracy, thus discrediting democracy.

In State of Play, the mega-corporation PointCorp is the corporation compromising the individuals’ role in democracy. The business is apparently comprised of several small corporations, building their fund together and functioning as one. PointCorp, which is a private defense contractor, is the parent corporation and stands gains a staggering $40 billion in profit from their mercenary activities in the Middle East and domestically. Throughout the film, the company is attempting to create a monopolize and privatize United States security,

PointCorp is able to pay of members of congress, and, it is assumed, various others members of government. This is blatantly illustrated by the use of Rep. George Fergus, in the film. Fergus was the reason PointCorp was able to dig further into Congressman Collins’ area of government; he suggested PointCorp spy Sonia to Collins, knowing full well that the corporation would be gathering information to further their corrupt business. PointCorp easily pays off Fergus; he is easily manipulated into doing whatever they ask of him, because they have the money to pay him. Fergus would not, however, immediately carry out the wishes of an average Joe he met on the street. 

Leary State of Play

In the movie, State of Play, it definitely shows how necessary privacy is for a democracy to grow. A democracy is supposed to be a government ruled by the people, for the people. Without privacy for the people, it wouldn’t be a democracy because it would be going against the people and what is best for the people. Privacy is something that we as citizens are entitled to and if we don’t get that privacy that we deserve then many things would go wrong and this democracy would fall apart.

One scene in the movie that really supports this idea is the scene towards the end of the movie when Collins is telling his side of the story to the reporters. It starts out with the tape recorder being turned on and a mirror image of Collins in the table. This is showing that they are about to record Collins’ side of the story which is a loss of privacy because they are in a way pressuring him to be recorded and to use his words for the world to know what he has done in his personal life. Next, Collins starts to tell the story while it zooms in on his face and there is a shadow casted across his face. This could represent the situation that Collins was in where there is both a dark and innocent side to his story. The dark side being where he was cheated on his wife, and the innocent side where he actually got played in the end by Sonya. The camera then goes around the whole table, zooming in on each individual face in order to get a sense of closeness to the characters and feel how each of them relate to Collins story. In the middle of his story, the camera cuts to a different scene where Robert Bingham is putting on his army uniform and assembling his gun. He does everything very slowly and makes sure everything is perfect. While you see him getting ready, Collins is still telling his story except now his sentences are getting cut off early. Each sentence he says is about how privacy was being violated with everything that has happened in this situation. I think this is a very important part in the scene because it shows that since so many people had their privacy taken away from them, information that was never suppose to be uncovered was found out and multiple people got killed or hurt throughout this. The only reason innocent people were killed was because there was a loss of privacy where if someone knew something then they had to be killed. This would have never happened if this story hadn’t of dragged on to the point that so much unknown information had to be uncovered to find out the truth.

This is why I think privacy is necessary for a democracy to flourish. If we had no privacy like how no one in this film had privacy, then our democracy would fall and many people would get killed, just like what also happened in this film. This is a great example of what could happen to us if we let our privacy be taken from us.

Lanaux State of Play

Large corporations undermine democracy which is a government of the people. The corporation in the movie, Point Corps, is a military company that is being investigated for its ties to the murder of Sonia Baker and was illegally forming monopolies. The scene illustrates the undermining of the democracy is when Collins and Della are interviewing Dominick Foye in a hotel about Point Corps. They learn that the corporation hired spies for their business deals and would kill off the people who did not do what they wanted. Corporations undermine a democracy because they try to act as individuals and have extreme power to influence people and election results. They gain more power by stealing the individual rights of a democracy. Point Corps was a big example in how too much control in a corporation can affect our country's democracy.