Rashomon Effect: What It Is And How It Affects Our Perspective
There are many ways of telling the same reality, given that each person can perceive the world in a radically different way from how the rest of their peers do, giving rise to misunderstandings and multiple visions of the same fact.
And this is what it refers to the curious Rashomon effect, a phenomenon whose origin is in a film by one of the greatest filmmakers of the 20th century who, through his particular film, marked a before and after in the history of cinema.
We are going to look in greater depth at this phenomenon, what implications it has beyond the fictional narrative and what importance it has shown to play in fields such as justice and psychology.
The Rashomon effect is a phenomenon that is produced due to the subjectivity and personal perception of each person when recounting the same real event. That is, it is the fact that several people, who have experienced the same event, try to describe it, but mixing their perception of what they experienced, which makes each person explain it in their own way, forgetting or exaggerating some aspects or others. Despite the number of versions that may arise, these turn out to be plausible, making it difficult to choose just one.
This effect is very recurring in the narrative, that is, whether in a special episode of a series, part of a movie or chapter of a book, it is very common to find several characters who expose their reality, from their own point of view. , which is, as it should be understood, totally subjective. Resorting to this type of resource, in which the first-person or omniscient narrator disappears to give the spotlight to characters who may be more testimonial, helps to break the monotony of many fictions.
With the case of the Rashomon effect it is understood that reality in a given story is something that depends entirely on one’s own subjectivity, and that factors such as the limitation of the information received, age, gender, memory, the influence of others or someone’s beliefs are aspects that influence the way a story is relived. The stories that the characters tell can be true and, at the same time, apparently incompatible, unless one of them lies.
Origin of this effect
We owe the name of this effect to the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa who, in 1950, presented the film Rashōmon, a film based on two short stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. The plot of the film is that of the murder of a samurai and subsequent rape of his wife in 12th century Japan, and how several characters try to find out, through their testimony, who was the true culprit of such a heinous act, before deciding the execution of who, supposedly, is the material author of the events.
Throughout the film, each character remembers through flashbacks, presenting stories within other stories, and each of them being seen as something potentially true, which makes the plot complicated. Rashōmon shows how All these stories, from a certain perspective, are something that cannot be taken as false that the reality they describe depends on the context, background and conditioning of each subject.
Kurosawa’s influence on general culture
With this way of describing the plot of his film, Kurosawa made his film have a significant impact throughout the world. Furthermore, this influence was not only in the world of the arts, but also in the legal field, psychology and philosophy.
With Rashōmon There were many series, movies and books that tried to imitate this same style, in which there is no specific narrator All these stories, combined, allow us to have a deep understanding of the real situation.
Just to mention a few series and movies, below we have a list of these works of fiction in which the Rashomon effect has been used at some point: how I Met Your Mother (2005-2014), lost (2004-2010), The Affair (2014), Captives of evil (Vincente Minnelli, 1952), The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer, 1995), Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999), Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001), Tape (Richard Linklater, 2001), hero (Zhang Yimou, 2002) and Loss (David Fincher, 2014).
But, as we already saw, this effect is not just a matter for directors and writers. In the legal field, the Rashomon effect is mentioned when there is a case in which the witnesses are indicating testimonies that are either apparently contradictory to each other, or too many things happened to take only one of their stories as valid.
Turning to social sciences, especially social psychology, the term “Rashomon effect” is used to refer to situations in which the importance of a certain event, a value or a goal, in abstract terms, is not the subject of dispute, but there is various visions or evaluations regarding the why, how, who and why of it
The effect and the media
Although the media try to be platforms whose objective is to describe reality as objectively as possible, the truth is that on many occasions they fail in this attempt. You could say that their way of seeing things and (why not say it more directly?) their ideology mix with the way they give a certain fact. It is because of that The idea that the media deceives us is very widespread
Each media outlet approaches the same news in a different way, omitting some data and highlighting some others. This would fall into the category of misinformation, but it serves as a clear example of how capricious the Rashomon effect can be, which can occur perfectly without us realizing it.
Given that there are so many media outlets and that each one explains what is best for them, it can be understood that there are multiple stories that are broadcast on our television screens, or come to us on the Internet and in newspapers, and that all of them Together, they would allow us to know in the greatest depth possible what has really happened. Although, of course, this would imply having to review the same news but in several media.
