Movies have potential for expanding education and awareness

Explosions, helicopters, firefights and a love story: At a first glance, the 2006 thriller “Blood Diamond” seems like a movie that has something for everyone and offers little else.

Is also offers something else: an education on a persistent problem in a far-off place.

“Blood Diamond” revolves around two key characters. One is Solomon Vandy, a native Sierra Leonean fisherman whose village is invaded by rebel forces fighting the country’s government. These rebel forces enslave the villagers to mine for diamonds and kidnap children to train them as soldiers. The other is a white South African mercenary Danny Archer, portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio, who sells guns to the rebels in exchange for diamonds, which he then sells to big European diamond corporations.

This movie reveals how the diamonds that end up in jewelry stores today may be the products of bloodshed in West African countries, where corrupt European and South African diamond magnates ignore that some of their diamonds were mined by enslaved villagers.

Additionally, by juxtaposing a white Rhodesian, who was able to use his connections with powerful people on the continent, with a native black Sierra Leonean villager, the film sheds light on racial inequality that has persisted in countries like South Africa and Sierra Leone long after apartheid and European imperialism supposedly disappeared.

While “Blood Diamond” spreads awareness about an issue that was largely unknown at the time of the film’s release, other movies go into further detail about social problems that have persisted for years.

In 2013, “Dallas Buyers Club” created a Hollywood blockbuster out of the true story of Ron Woodroof, a man who lived in Texas in the ‘80s. When Woodroof is diagnosed as HIV-positive, he is shunned by friends and family, fired from his job as a rodeo cowboy and thrown out of his home.

Woodruff is treated with experimental drugs that, though approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) at the time, are ineffective. When he goes to Mexico, a man gives him drugs that improve his condition; however, while the drug is not FDA-approved, it is still legal. Woodruff decides to take these drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border and sell them on the streets of Dallas.

Though the movie’s plot is compelling and at times comical, the film’s premise is based on the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. The movie also makes moviegoers aware of a phenomena known as HIV discrimination, which was at its height in the 1980s, when the disease was newly discovered and barely understood. HIV discrimination still occurs today, despite the scientific advancements that have allowed us to understand the virus.

Another notable example of a film that brought a social issue to the public eye was the 1993 cult classic “Free Willy,” which tells the story of a captive orca named Willy befriending a foster boy named Jesse, who decides to work toward freeing him.

The captivity of marine mammals like orcas and dolphins in captivity for human entertainment is well known today, but in 1993, people were not nearly as aware.

The film starts with a heart-wrenching scene of a wild orca being captured from his pod and transported to a small tank in an Oregon theme park where, years later, the depressed orca befriends Jesse. This scene is powerful because, until the mid 1990s, nearly all captive orcas were born in the wild, meaning that the beasts that performed for tourists at SeaWorld once swam freely in the ocean.

The film ends with the release of Willy into the wild, where he reunites with his pod, as an emotional Jesse, looks on from the dock.

The film, which grossed $153.6 million on a $20 million budget, sent such a powerful message that, Keiko, the orca whale that portrayed Willy in the movie was, at the demand of fans of the film, later returned to the wild himself in 1995.

Movies like these educate viewers about topics that may have otherwise remained obscure and sometimes can prompt these movie-goers to take action themselves, whether it be shopping consciously for diamonds, boycotting orca shows, or even just treating HIV-positive individuals with decency.

Because they also have more entertainment value than documentaries, these films manage to both achieve commercial success and spread awareness about social issues.