Saturday, January 27, 2007
Silent movies
Screenwriter Andrew Klavan has written an outstanding op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times on the inability of Hollywood to produce heroic movies about the war against al Qaeda. Here's a teaser:
[M]oviemakers have a legitimately baffling problem with the nature of the war itself. In order to honestly dramatize the simple truth about this existential struggle, you have to depict right-minded Americans — some of whom may be white and male and Christian — hunting down and killing dark-skinned villains of a false and wicked creed. That's what's happening, on a good day anyway, so that's what you'd have to show.
Moviemakers are reluctant to do that because, even though it's the truth, on screen it might appear bigoted and jingoistic. You can call that political correctness or multiculturalism gone mad — and sure, there's a lot of that going around. But despite what you might have heard, there are sensible, patriotic people in the movie business too. And even they, I suspect, falter before the prospect of presenting such a scenario.
We cherish the religious tolerance of our society, after all. Plus, we're less than a lifetime away from Jim Crow and, decent people that we are, we're rightly humbled by the moral failures of our past. We've become uncomfortable to the point of paralysis when reality draws the limits of tolerance and survival demands pride in our traditions and ferocity in their defense. We can show homegrown terrorists in, say, "Déjà Vu" or real-life ones, as in "United 93," but we can't bring ourselves to fictionalize the larger idea: Islamo-fascism is an evil and American liberty a good.
Which is a shame. It's a shame for so powerful an art form to become irrelevant because we can't find a way to dramatize the central event of our time. It's a shame that we live under the tireless protection of lawmen and warriors and don't pay tribute to them. And purely in artistic terms, it's a shame that so many great stories are just waiting to be told and we're not telling them.
Klavan is almost right. As Wretchard wrote before me, it is not merely a "shame" that the iconic institution of American mass media cannot find it within itself to celebrate the victories of this war. It is a scandal, an outrage, and a travesty, and it is symptomatic of a more fundamental confusion abroad in the land:
Some individuals may find it convenient to blame President Bush for all the reversals that have taken place since he started fighting the War on Terror. And doubtless many reversals are the result of the President's mistakes and his alone. But to a certain extent whatever failures have befallen are partly ours too. The desire for safety without paying the price; the hope that evil men will back down simply because we believe they will. All will have its price. And it would be well to remember, for those who rejoice in watching George Bush pay the penalty for his errors, that the Wheel may round on us too. That one day we may awake to world grown weary of our childhood. Alone in the movies. And the lawmen gone away.
Does the entertainment industry really believe that white men can't be right, and brown Muslims can't be wrong, or does it simply wish that were true?
13 Comments:
By 
Colin, at
Sat Jan 27, 01:05:00 PM:
...which is almost more a problem for the movies - declining as the centerpiece of American culture - than for that culture. There's much less need for a movie version of the war when we can find videos by those soldiers - many of them, though by no means all, white and male and Christian. TV shows like 24 and THE UNIT fight a rearguard action. LOST and maybe even more JERICHO, in which the mysteriousness of the enemy is central to plot and concept, are even more the pure products of the syndrome you and Klavan describe.
If we screw up this war, and so are forced to fight a much bigger one, we might look for an overwhelming "return of the repressed" in popular culture. For now, as with so much else, we're still enjoying the luxury of a useless where not negative popular culture.
By DEC, at
Sat Jan 27, 01:35:00 PM:
One definition of Caucasian from Webster's online dictionary: "...of, constituting, or characteristic of a race of humankind native to Europe, North Africa, and southwest Asia and classified according to physical features -- used especially in referring to persons of European descent having usually light skin pigmentation."
In other words, Arabs are Caucasian. Jews are Caucasian. Persians are Caucasian.
Most Afghans are Caucasian, too. (Look at Hamid Karzai.)
Don't let the desert suntans fool you. This is largely a conflict between white guys.
Most people in Arab nations (at least the entrenched elite in my circle of friends) pay little attention to skin color. "Some people are cooked and some people are uncooked," an Egyptian woman once told me. "Otherwise, there is no difference. That is what people say about race in Egypt."
The "uncooked" people are the individuals with light skin.
By allen, at
Sat Jan 27, 03:00:00 PM:
Posted earlier at the Belmont Club
"Unlike the electorate, the political class fully comprehends the value of a good distraction.
___The Two Year Program of Catching and Releasing Iranian Saboteurs___
What would have happened to the Bush administration and the Republican Party in the 2006 election had the public known of the two year policy of catching and releasing Iranian saboteurs - some of whom killed American troops?
Where were the military bloggers, who knew or reasonably should have known of the two year policy of catching and releasing Iranian saboteurs – some of whom killed American troops?
The administration and their friendly military bloggers will be pleased with the distraction of the slap on the wrist planned by the United States Senate next week, with Republican senators in tow.
1/27/2007 11:53:50 AM"
By Mark in Texas, at
Sat Jan 27, 03:26:00 PM:
My big question after reading Andrew Klavan's piece is "How come we haven't outsourced our entertainment to India?"
There is certainly a market for movies with Americans as the good guys. It is just that Hollywood refuses to make them - either for the reasons that Klavan lists or just because the people who run Hollywood don't like America and Americans very much.
The people who make movies in Bollywood, however, would probably have no scruples against depicting "right-minded Americans — some of whom may be white and male and Christian — hunting down and killing dark-skinned villains of a false and wicked creed" if they could make money at it. I am sure that they could get American actors with name recognition to act in them. I'll bet that Gary Busey and Billy Zane are available.
How come we are not outsourcing our entertainment industry to India?
By 
, at
Sat Jan 27, 03:26:00 PM:
And remember that back in 1939 when the classic movie GONE WITH THE WIND premered the strongist word ever used was DAMN now the go throght the whole bathroom luanguage
By Miss Ladybug, at
Sat Jan 27, 03:46:00 PM:
I don't know who writes/produces "The Unit", but the writers/producers of "24" are conservative, and they catch crap for their depictions of Arab/Muslim terrorists. I hardly watch "entertainment" TV anymore - my "shows" are "NCIS", "Ugly Betty", "Bones" and the various versions of "CSI". Movies? I used to love to watch the Oscars and tried to see all the nominated movies. Not anymore. In the past year or year and a half, I'd say I've seen maybe 4-6 movies in the theater. I'm interested in seeing "300", about the Battle of Thermopylae. However, I wonder how long it will take for the PC crowd to realize that "Persian" = "Iranian".... I would love to see Mike Yon's "Gates of Fire" turned into a major motion picture. I understand Bruce Willis is very interested in that story...
But even when they do take "conservative literature" and turn them into movies, they can't leave the story alone. When they took Clancy's "Sum of All Fears", they changed the villians from Middle Eastern Muslims to Eastern Europeans, and that was BEFORE 9/11 happened.
A lot of movies I might otherwise enjoy, I won't go see because I am aware of the actors political views, which I do not support, and I refuse to pay to see a movie when I know some of the money will end up in that actor's pocket through residuals written into their contracts, which could very well end up being used to support causes contrary to my beliefs. Gary Busey and Billy Zane were added to the list of actors I won't support after their turns in that Turkish movie, "Valley of the Wolves Iraq".
By , at
Sat Jan 27, 04:09:00 PM:
How come we are not outsourcing our entertainment industry to India?
We outsource the markets. There's a lot of B-grade US produced movies that don't get high profile showing in this country.
All the low budget Golan-Globus type schtik leaps to mind as the best example.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Sat Jan 27, 09:56:00 PM:
While there are certainly some on the left who are reflexively unable to see international situations in anything other than racial terms, I think the greater portion doesn't want to see Americans winning that way. They want Peace Through Music.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Sat Jan 27, 09:59:00 PM:
While there are certainly some on the left who are reflexively unable to see international situations in anything other than racial terms, I think the greater portion doesn't want to see Americans winning that way. They want Peace Through Music.
By Georgfelis, at
Sun Jan 28, 02:36:00 AM:
Upper-Crust Hollywood has a habit of ramming into the closed door and declaring victory. I’m a bit weird in the way that I assume people vote for movies with money, instead of by rigged Academy Awards. So a movie that makes a Billion dollars would be considered twice as good as a movie that makes a half-Billion dollars.
Hollywood says: Christian movies don’t make money. Mel makes “Passion of the Christ” Hollywood says: We need soft-core porn in a movie to make money. Pixar makes… well, about a dozen G rated megabucks. Hollywood declares people don’t want to see Islamic Terrorists portrayed as Islamic Terrorists. I watch 24.
By Joe Buzz, at
Mon Jan 29, 08:43:00 AM:
Hollywood is too busy making movies about important stuff....barnyard romance.
By Colin, at
Mon Jan 29, 12:19:00 PM:
As I've thoght the issue over, I've begun to think that Klavan and the rest of us are letting H-wood off the hook to easily. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, there's a happy multiculti story to tell - of brave representatives of every ethnicity and diverse nations and culturs banding together to defeat semi-psychotic zealots supported by people who represent every ethnicity, and diverse nations and cultures, but whose major exponents happen to be white and Euro-American. It would be easy to create a plot that was ethnically balanced on both sides. The reason that Hollywood can't do such stories is that it's too heavily invested already in the latter group.
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