Directed by: Billy Ray
Starring: Hayden Christensen, Peter Sarsgaard, Chloe Sevigny, Rosario Dawson
Written by: Buzz Bissinger, Billy Ray
Runtime: 94 Minutes
Summary: The true story about a rising journalist who was on top of his game. As time progressed, his editor uncovered that over half of his stories were fabricated.
I remember watching this movie for the first time in my high school journalism class. It was shown to us so we could truly understand the obvious ethics of journalism. Since then I’ve come back to it several times. I don’t have a rhyme or reason why, I just really like the movie.
Stephen Glass was a rising journalist at an emerging paper in Washington DC. The narrative story of Stephen’s rise and fall happens at a quick pace to keep us as the audience involved. Furthermore, the characters are easy to connect with. Even though Stephen severely breaks the law, you can’t help but feel bad for him. His actions are intolerable, however, he evokes sympathy as he is his own worst enemy.
To this day, I think to myself, “How bad does he feel about this actions”. When someone commits any crime as bad as that, how do they tolerate such guilt?
I started pondering certain consequences after some of my negative actions. I’ve never committed a crime or plagiarized a story, however, I have hurt people’s feelings and spread rumors in the past.
When I do something bad, whether its telling a lie, hurting somebody’s feelings etc… I usually become super anxious. My body is physically reacting to my bad behavior. On top of physically being uncomfortable, I ruminate certain thoughts in my head over and over. I think “you are such a bad person”, “what the fuck is wrong with you”, “you deserve absolutely nothing” over and over in my head.
Last week somebody told me a secret about a social acquaintance that I know. I innocently told all of my friends over dinner during a bachelorette. The tequila was flowing and it caused me to word vomit.
A few days later when I was back in Chicago, the cannon ball of guilt hit me hard.
I started regretting my actions. I would literally be driving in the car and the ruminations would begin. At one red light I would think: why did you open your mouth. Green Light: you fucking suck.
I told myself that I NEVER want to feel like this again; lesson learned.
That evening I did a hot yoga class and reflected upon my actions. I guess sometimes you need to do things that make you feel like shit to understand the consequences of acting out of line.
Yoga Pose: Triangle Pose