One good way to send a message to billions of people internationally is to draw it on the moon. I can actually think of a better one: use a box office hit movie instead.
On Saturday night I found out why Hancock was the top movie over the 4th of July weekend - what with the monumental special effects, the Will Smith/Charlize Theron/Jason Bateman starpower and the foul-mouthed-devil-may-care protagonist who cleans up his act. Everybody loves character development.
The last thing I expected was a positive pitch for public relations. Ray Embrey (Bateman) is a public relations... guy. (In various movie reviews he's called a "public-relations man," "PR whiz," "public relations guy" and "public relations executive," not to mention "a publicist," so I'm not even sure if his character had any idea what he did for a living).
Bateman's character really stole the show for me. Well, I was nothing short of awed to witness such a strong positive take on public relations - Embrey is a kind-hearted, almost angelic family man whose primary (or only?) project is promoting his "All Heart" logo, which recognizes large corporations that give away products for free to those in need. He pays attention to his son. He treats others professionally and disarmingly charmingly, and he takes it upon himself to give Hancock (Smith) a much-needed public image makeover after Hancock saves Embrey from being flattened by an oncoming train.
The Embrey character is, quite literally, flawless. Brave, loving, forgiving, always using words when others would resort to fists... and he is a career PR guy. As an aspiring PR whiz myself, I paid close attention to the most positive portrayal of the public relations field I've ever witnessed.
Frankly, I think it's awesome. There are good journalists and bad journalists, good politicians and bad politicians. It's about time people started to realize that there are good public relations guys out there as well as bad ones. In fact, I have every intention of being one of the good guys myself. Enough about PR "machines" and twisting the truth - if there's a sweetheart PR executive on the movie screen, it can happen in real life, right?
For more thorough reviews of the movie Hancock, visit any of the links in the third paragraph. This post is about my perspective on the story.
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