Myth in Mass Media

The movie "Shooter" with Mark Wahlberg, is a great example of the myth "Presence of a Conspiracy."  It is a movie, where an ex-Marine sniper is commissioned to organize and scout an assassination attempt on the President's life.  An agency intercepted a supposed transmission about a group that will make an attempt on the President at one of the three public rally's he will attend.  Turns out, the people who came to him were only looking to set him up because of a military operation that went wrong during his Marine career; they claim he knows too much about a covert operation and is expendable.  The protagonist (Wahlberg), after the President is murdered becomes the USA's top fugitive and he strives to make his name clean.  The antagonist (Danny Glover) and his agency break into Wahlberg's home and steal his sniper rifle to frame him with the Presidents murder.  This conspiracy was broken through the help of a rookie agent in the FBI who believed that Wahlberg's character was innocent.  The movie goes through a maze of lies, secret government cover ups, and a lot of bullet action.  In the end, Wahlberg's character proves his innocence by demonstrating that his rifle was not the one who killed the assassinated victim.  It turns out that he takes the firing pins out of all his weapons after using them.  He was able to tie up his lose ends and in the end  eliminate the people who tried to ruin his life.  It exemplifies the conspiracy myth because one person is brought into an operation on a set of lies then has to prove his innocence.  The Kennedy Assassination comes to mind, the movie is a lot similar to how everything went down

One hybrid myth in text that just occurred was at the Australian Tennis Open, January 25th, 2009.  It incorporates the value of a challenge myth and pull yourself up by your bootstraps myth.  Roger Federer was quickly down two sets to none and facing his quickest elimination in his professional career.  He came back to win, and did it against a crowd that had turned on him when he was down by those two sets.  The story can be found here: http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tennis/aus09/columns/story?columnist=tandon_kamakshi&id=3858898.

The other hybrid myth that exists is also from the world of sports.  It happened in the 2009 NHL All-Star game.  Incorporating the coming of the messiah and eternal return myths, the Eastern Conference team, who was up by three goals in the second period allowed their lead to slip away.  Everything fell apart for the team, nothing was going right, and they managed to end regulation with a tie score.  Neither team scored in overtime which meant the teams would go to a shootout to determine the winner.  After 9 chances combined, no goals were scored.  On the Eastern Conferences last shooter, Alex Ovechkin scored the goal against the odds and led his team to victory.  The story can be found here: http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/recap?gameId=290125031.