”Radical Beliefs of Joe Steel”

The project above is a movie trailer of the movie ”Radical Beliefs of Joe Steel.” This trailer begins with Rhode Island in a peaceful and blissful state, then progresses to the main conflict of the movie.

Plot Summary: On September 23rd, 2003, Joe got up and called 5 of his best friends who worked at a local news-based television on the island. He explained to them about his hatred towards Capitalism and Democracy and was prepared to give a speech about equal pay and rights to the local people of Rhode Island to start a revolution. Once the speech got out, half the population that included all the middle class and poor citizens began protesting in the streets. The governor of Rhode Island did not negotiate with Joe Steel, and so all the protestors marched towards the governor’s office to overthrow him. They all stormed in the office and took control of the whole building. For the next two months, Joe together with his 5 close friends decided to make new policies about wages and rights. Although he made wages equal for everyone, he began tightening the civil rights of the people. Nobody would speak against the new governor and the local media news got censored before any news got released to the rest of the United States. People began questioning if Joe was the right leader to govern Rhode Island, and soon they started seeking help from the Federal Government. FBI agents surrounded the governor’s office on November 30th, 2003, and they arrested Joe Steel for establishing socialist ideas and taking away the rights of the Rhode Island citizens. The former governor returned to his post and the people began living their normal lives again with plenty of rights. 

Research elements: In the previous assignment, core assignment 2, the biography ”Joseph Stalin’’ written by Francis Roland Hingley gives background information about the life of one of the most famous dictators of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin. The article starts by giving details about the early stages of his life, where he began to use nationalistic speeches to influence people, and finishes by concluding that he became one of the cruelest leaders to ever live. This article was used to invent the main antagonist of the movie ‘’Radical Beliefs of Joe Steel,’’ who is Joe Steel. Joe is short for Joseph, and Stalin can be translated into steel. This was done intentionally in order for the audience to understand that Joe Steel is simply a modern era Joseph Stalin. In addition, Joe Steel has exceptional skills in communication, making him a very good public speaker(just like Stalin), and he was able to use this to influence the people of Rhode Island to overthrow the governor of that state. The other article ‘’Putin’s Russia’’ written by Elizabeth Teague suggests that Stalin and Putin have been known for limiting the rights of the people and centralizing the power to the leader of the government. In the movie, Joe Steel had hatred towards the economic system of capitalism, however, once he gained control of the state of Rhode Island, Joe began censoring the media and stripping away the civil and political rights of the people in order to have better control of the state, just like Stalin and Putin. 

Creative Style: Throughout the movie ‘’Radical beliefs of Joe Steel,‘’ the color red has been very prominent. This type of color shows up on the clothes of a group of men that include Joe Steel and his friends. In the entire movie, there is a repetition of the color red on their clothes. This is done purposely because this color is typically known to be used in order to represent extremists that believe in marxism and a communist government. Another prominent factor for this movie will be its theme song. The dominant key in this piece of music is the minor key which has been labeled as sinister, dark, and known to create negative emotions. Throughout the movie, this minor key will come up once the peaceful state of Rhode Island gets turned into chaos, where a huge number of protestors begin marching towards the government institutions and the governor’s office. 

The genre of this movie is crime/drama. One recurring scene of the crime/drama genre is when the antagonist reaches the peak of his/her goal and then begins making fatal mistakes that eventually lead to them losing everything they had achieved. In this movie, Joe Steel managed to overthrow the governor and establish a communist government but then the policies he created, made the people question his authority, and eventually, they stopped supporting him. In the end, he loses all the power as a leader of Rhode Island and gets arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Target Audience: The whole purpose of this movie is to educate people about the terrible and cruel consequences of the communist/socialist political ideologies. To be specific, one of the target audiences of this mini-movie are children that are at a young age, and young adults in their teenage years. The reason being is that children and teenagers can be easily influenced for the worse if left in the wrong hands, so a movie that clearly explains why a communist/socialist regime is one of the cruelest and terrible forms of government, will give them a clear idea that democracy is the best way to go for governing a country. In addition to young people, the movie was designed to target people (typically adults) who criticize democracy in the United States. Many people criticize democracy in the US because they claim that the executive branch with the President hold a huge amount of power. Although the president is the figure and leader and has most of the power in this country, his power is limited by the judicial and legislative branches. Meanwhile, in a communist regime, the leader is not limited in power at all and has full control of the country.