A couple days ago I went to see the movie "Captian Phillips". After seeing this movie it totally changed my opinion on pirates. In the past I thought of pirates as Johnny Depp looking characters. I pictured them as being on wooden ships looking for gold treasure with big beards and eye patches. After realizing that modern pirates are nothing but thugs who have assault riffles and thieve from innocent people, I feel like they should be called "Ocean Thugs" or something like that. The term "Pirate" gives these thugs attention from all over our nation and thats just what they want. If an abduction of two people occurs in South Carolina its lucky to make the city news but if "Pirates" kid nap people it's a nation ordeal.
I hope big cargo ships and other traveling boats with innocent americans will increase security onboard so these "Thugs" will stop preying on innocent people and getting tons of attention.
I agree. I also thought of "pirates" as people who look like they are from Pirates of the Caribbean, not the way in which we use the word today. I found it pretty interesting how you said that giving these thugs the term "pirate" gives them almost a sense of infamy. I agree, however, I did not really think of that myself until you mentioned it. The term "thug" better suits these people than does "pirate", as these people have little in common with the traditional thought of "pirates".
ReplyDeleteOf course, pirate originally meant a type of criminal. The term "piracy," though, seems to have a different, less romantic connotation. I haven't seen Captain Phillips, but I wonder if the podcast implies that there actually is more to piracy than mere thuggery. At the very least, the model is something more like the mafia than it is street crime.
ReplyDeleteI believe that with the release of captain phillips, we will begin to see a change in the idea of pirates in hollywood. I think more movies like this will come out and over time, the "traditional" romanticized pirate theme will fade out and be replaced by the more modern pirate.
ReplyDelete