“Miller’s hard-right, pro-military point of view is not only accounted for in his own work, but in the larger project of mainstream Hollywood cinema. American movies, in the main, often agree with Frank Miller, that endless war against a ruthless enemy is good, and military service is good, that killing makes you a man, that capitalism must prevail, that if you would just get a job (preferably a corporate job, for all honest work is corporate) you would quit complaining. American movies say these things, but they are more polite about it, lest they should offend. The kind of comic-book-oriented cinema that has afflicted Hollywood for 10 years now, since Spider-Man, has degraded the cinematic art, and has varnished over what was once a humanist form, so Hollywood can do little but repeat the platitudes of the 1%. And yet Hollywood tries still not to offend. Does that make American cinema cryptofascist? Is “cryptofascist” a word that you can use in an essay like this? I keep trying to find a space somewhere between “propagandistic” and “cryptofascist” to describe my feelings about Miller’s screed. But perhaps it’s more accurate to say the following: whatever mainstream Hollywood cinema is now, Frank Miller is part of it. And Frank Miller has done Occupy Wall Street a service by reminding us that our allegedly democratic political system, which increases inequality and decreases class mobility, which is mostly interested in keeping the disenfranchised where they are, requires a mindless, propagandistic (or “cryptofascist”) storytelling medium to distract its citizenry. We should be grateful for the reminder. And we might repay the favor by avoiding purchase of tickets to Miller’s films.”
Why is it that most mainstream fictional accounts of the future always depict a society filled with people homogenized to the point of automation? Everyone wears the same shit, eats the same pill-food and life is like a factory line. Maybe it’s because the culture that produces these accounts synonymizes the destruction of diversity with progress. So eff that noise, the future I envision will be filled with difference; until Lord Xenu breaks out of his intergalactic prison cell and blows us all up again.
Peace.
“After losing her job, Bialek allegedly turned to Cain for help. Allred said on Monday, “Mr. Cain instead decided to try to provide her with his idea of a stimulus package.”
Sex puns in the news are the best.
I have the sudden urge to point out the unabashed bad-assery that is Edward Said’s Orientalism. The first time I was introduced to his work was through my brother, and it was as if this giant wave of understanding kicked my ass through my mind. Being a South Asian immigrant in Canada the foundations of Orientalism were something I always understood but never had a word for, it was a structure-less cloud of feeling, thought and experience that I could never translate into something intelligible or discernible (as most meaningful things are). Said did just what I couldn’t, in a way he legitimized the experiences of so many. So thank you Said you sexy bastard, you laid the foundations for further exploration, which in my case is needed to escape my propensity for jingoism. In fact I even disagree with you. Maybe the orient, instead of being a description, is an experience, equally skewed but entirely different in intention. Whatever, I love you dude.
So I’m visiting New York for the first time this weekend and naturally the first that comes to mind is same-sex marriage. The LGBT community finally gained a significant victory in New York in their collective struggle for an equal footing in their lives as citizens of the United States. All those who fought for the outcome In New York have made the world just a tiny bit better.
As same-sex marriage becomes legalized in an increasing number of states it’s clear, at least to me that the debate surrounding this issue will have to take the next step, moving beyond constructed notions of tradition, marriage and family to a discussion on sexuality itself. The arguments around homosexuality are centered upon the rhetoric of choice. Bigots and generally raging douchebags like the American Family Association (AFA) will argue that gay people have a choice in being the way they are and willingly choose a life style of “Moral Depravity”. While many gay rights activists retaliate to this nonsense by highlighting the close ties between their sexuality and identity and showing us that there really is no choice “you are born that way”. Breaking the barrier this rhetoric creates will be the next step the LGBT community will need to take to secure it’s freedom and equality. When the AFA claims that sexual orientation is a choice the answer should not be “No it’s not” but “So what?”. After all, as complex as the spectrum of human sexuality is, someone out there might have made a conscious choice to be in a gay relationship. This is the crucial next step for the LGBT community to take, a step so nonchalantly bad ass that it’s bound to succeed!
Peace.
