The Oscars are nearly upon us. (Okay, please try to keep reading) One thought prompted by this circus and what goes on in films is how films can carry messages very different from the intentions of the film-maker. A classic example is the 1987 film, Wall Street, in which Michael Douglas gave what I thought was his greatest performance as Gordon Gekko. Gekko is what your average lefty Hollywood producer imagines is a capitalist: incredibly greedy, callous and crooked, stamping the lives of good honest hardworking people, blah, blah, blah. And yet we know that in the course of the speech, Gekko gives his tremendous “greed is good” speech, which I sometimes think reads like Ayn Rand on acid.
A friend of mine, Libertarian Alliance founder Chris Tame, once told me that during this stage of the movie, he burst into applause, much to the surprise of the other cinema-goers. I wonder how many other folk have had the same reaction to a speech or line in a film where without realising it, a pro-capitalist point has been made in a way the director probably had not intended? Has anyone got any examples?
The movie is The Terminal (2005), co-produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. Many many examples in that movie. One comes out of the cinema feeling that it was devised as a film denouncing the absurdity, ani-humane nature of Bureaucracy in general.
But taking into account who the producers/directors are, I am sure that was not their intention.
“…Ayn Rand on acid.”
She’s on acid?
Or the reader is?
Americans who’ve seen Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report may have had the same reaction. This caricature of right wing proganda just happens to be right on many of the issues.
Well, in a sense all of Hollywood is putting out a similar message, even if they don’t know it. Every time Pitt or Clooney lectures me on how I should be helping the poor saps in Africa wuth my har-earned wages my hackles rise. Last time I fixed a computer (my business BTW) I made forty quid. How much did you make for your last gig George?
In case any of you are wondering, this isn’t a lefty rant. If you can make 20mil bones for starring in a film, fair play to ya. Just don’t lecture the rest of us on how we are all destroying the environment, dooming Africa or being beastly to muslims. I had the greatest respect for Madonna during her 80s “material girl” phase. Now that she’s consorting with the likes of Geldof and claiming to be (sort of) Jewish-lite I think she can fuck off.
And that wasn’t in any way anti-semitic. I’m sure “Our Madge” has pissed off enough Rabbis with her Kabbalah nonsense. When the US-born Italian Catholic conjures up a golem, I’ll take her seriously.
Still. I want Madonna back on track. I have a weakness here, goddamn it. She’s 47 and can put her leg behind her head. That’s wasted on the oaf Richie…
Nuff said, best stop before this gets X-rated.
A recent episode of Battlestar Galactica, season 2, “Black Market”.
I sided with the traders in the black market for the most part. Too bad they were coupled with murder, theft, and the sale of children.
They could have gone a bit further, but basically the message was “Trade is fine. Unmonitored ‘black’ trade is fine. We’ll keep an eye out for slave drivers and medicine hoarders”.
If you haven’t watched the show, check it out.
The new Battlestar was a good show up until they took that break halfway through this season (season 2). Since then the plots haven’t really been consistent; it’s not clear that the writers have a plan for where things are going.
I’m a big fan of the show, but I have to say that “Black Market” was the lowest point of its run. I recommend all of season 1 and eps 1-13 of season 2.
I think that episode was more about the futility of trying to regulate the economy than a ringing endorsement of free trade. The idea was clearly that clamping down too hard on the black market doesn’t eliminate it, just makes it nastier. It left the moral question open, however, and seemed to end with the implication that the President would deal with the black market later, when the situation with the cylons is over. So we get a pragmatic argument for not coming down too hard on the black market, but the episode still falls short of what most libertarians would probably like to have seen.
(On a Battlestar sidenote related to another thread – smoking is a big fixture in the show. The ship’s doctor, in fact, smokes, and there was a good episode in season one where the president – who had cancer – is being examined and Dr. Cottle lights up. She seems surprised and says “DO you mind?” He replies “Yes, actually, I do,” and keeps smoking. Ron Moore confirms on his blog that that scene was meant to be a shot at the PC anti-smoking crowd. Arriba!)
The film Other Peoples’ Money was great — you’re set up to think it’s another film about a corporate raider getting ready to rape a family-owned business, and who will be stopped by a quirky Capraesque campaign. It turns out that the corporate raider is the hero…
Of course, MY perfect example of this phenomena comes from Rob Reiner (uber-HollywoodLib), Aaron Sorkin (West Wing), Tom Cruise, and Demi Moore…
Col. Jessep (Jack Nicholson): You want answers?
Lt. Kaffee (Tom Cruise): I think I’m entitled to them.
Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Jessep: You can’t handle the truth!
Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives…You don’t want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at (Hollywood) parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.
We use words like honor, code, loyalty…we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use ’em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I’d rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to!
========
After which, Kaffee (Cruise, through Sorkin and Reiner) righteously sends Jessup to prison.
For standing on that wall for us.
Thanks guys. So noted.
“Network” is still the best about the lunacy of TV.
“Serenity” has a very nice climactic moment when the hero broadcasts a distress call from a planet that was destroyed when the chemical additive which the government introduced into the atmosphere, intending to make everyone feel happy (like airborne valium, apparently), actually caused such a loss of motivation that people stopped eating and drinking and just died.
There’s a secondary effect that makes it even better, but I don’t want to spoil it any more than I have for those who haven’t seen it yet.
“High Noon” and /or “The Magnificent Seven” as an allegory for those times when an attempt to stand up to evil results in denial, betrayal, and abandonment by the very people who are being defended. Of course, that never happens in the real world. Cough, cough.
And, of course, any STNG involving the Borg.
That’s enough for right now. The subject makes me lonesome for my college kid. God, but we had some good conversations about movies. Think I’ll call him and burn up some long distance minutes.
I always thought that the dramatic arc of “Dead Man Walking” undermines its own anti-Death Penalty message. There’s no particular speech or dialogue. It’s just that it seems that the film unintentionally makes the pending execution the vehicle for the redemption of the criminal murderer played by Sean Penn. They protray the guy as a low-life swine, who only takes responsibility (finally admits his guilt) and asks for forgiveness in the face of his approaching death.
The film lightly touches on more persuasive arguments against capital punishment, such as the involvement of politics, race, economic status (the fact in particular that the man who committed the crime with Penn’s character gets off with life because he can afford a better lawyer). But it quickly abandons those ideas to focus on the drama around Penn’s and Susan Sanrandon’s characters. It tries to make an emotional appeal based on the fact that Penn’s character starts off as a loathesome criminal but eventually becomes at least partially sympathetic, partially human as he confronts death.
There was a sort of evil equivalent to Wall Street in the form of Pretty Woman, where evil corporate raider (basically Gordon Gekko In Love) has a change of heart and instead of turning the derelict docks into a nice waterfront development, decides to turn it back into, erm, docks. “We’re going to make lots of lovely ships”, announces the union leader triumphantly to the evil lawyers.
Even as a vaguely lefty student at the time, I remember feeling that if the docks had been a miserable failure up to that point, it wasn’t clear why they were now going to make money, and I felt sorry for the evil lawyers. Which I suspect wasn’t the aim of the film.
One of my favourites which i have quoted here before is “A Matter of Life and Death”/”Stairway to Heaven” which is about the rights of the uncommon man against the system.
Peter Carter jumps out of his burning plane with no parachute and is “missed” in “your accursed English fog!” by his (French) conductor who is to take his soul to Heaven. He was ready to die, did not and then falls in love – his cllaim to superior rights. Heaven wants to balance the books, irrespective of the subject or the impact or lack thereof.
It is a great film touching on reason, emotion, nationality, tribe, race, history shared.
The story is cleverly interwoven with the pilot’s brain condition, which causes visions hand explains his dialogue with the heavenly participants.
Dr Reeves: I cannot deny that I hope, know that I know that this jury will be prejudiced in favour of my case, for I am pleading for the rights of the individual against the system.
Farland: But it is also against the Law, Dr Reeves, the eternal law of the universe. Nothing is stronger than the law. The whole universe is built upon it.
Dr Reeves: This is a court of Justice, not of Law…
later…
Dr Reeves: The rights of the uncommon man must always bed respected.
My vote goes to Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket.
I think we were supposed to be repelled by his sadistic humiliation of the new recruits in Vietnam. He ended up having some of the best lines in Hollywood history.
“If you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training, you will be a weapon. You will be a minister of death praying for war. But until that day you are pukes. You are the lowest form of life on Earth. You are not even human, fucking beings. You are nothing but unorganized grabastic pieces of amphibian shit. Because I am hard you will not like me. But the more you hate me the more you will learn. I am hard but I am fair. There is no racial bigotry here. I do not look down on niggers, kikes, wops or greasers. Here you are all equally worthless. And my orders are to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to serve in my beloved Corps. Do you maggots understand that?
“How tall are you, private?”
Private Cowboy: “Sir, five-foot-nine, sir.”
“Five-foot-nine, I didn’t know they stacked shit that high.”
“Who said that? Who the fuck said that? Who’s the slimy little communist shit, twinkle-toed cocksucker down here who just signed his own death warrant? Nobody, huh? The fairy fucking godmother said it. Out-fucking-standing. I will PT you all until you fucking die. I’ll PT you until your assholes are sucking buttermilk.”
“That’s enough; get on your feet. Private Pyle you had best square your ass away and start shitting me Tiffany cufflinks or I will definitely fuck you up.”
Private Gomer Pyle: Sir, yes, sir.
“Holy dog shit. Texas? Only steers and queers come from Texas, Private Cowboy. And you don’t look much like a steer to me so that kinda narrows it down. Do you suck dicks?”
and of course,
“I’ll bet you’re the kind of guy that would fuck a person in the ass and not even have the goddam common courtesy to give him a reach-around. I’ll be watching you.”
The manner in which the blanket is provided must be questioned.
If it is not, and if the blanket may be provided in any manner, then the character’s preceding line of
We use words like honor, code, loyalty…we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something.
cannot apply because there is no room for honour or code where anything goes. The whole point of honour and code is to ensure that not just anything is acceptable. Extremism in defence of liberty is, in fact, a vice because it negates the very thing you are trying to defend.
EG
And more on topic, greed is intrinsically neither good nor bad, but is a powerful motivating factor for development and therefore is necessary. To that extent, you can say greed is good.
As within anything in the real world, there are limits. Uncontrolled greed is not good because it brings with it irresponsiblity and excess in exploitation.
EG
The first two times I saw A Few Good Men, it was the movie and it was just entertainment. Later, I started to make a real effort to understand political processes and ideologies, that process continues but recently I went and saw the West End show and it was a very different experience indeed.
Liking the notional bad guy more than any other character really does something to your brain.
I agree with Euan to the extent that soldiers should be professional in the way they go about things, but that doesn’t make Jessep wrong or Aaron Sorkin right.
The manner in which the blanket is provided must be questioned.
If it is not, and if the blanket may be provided in any manner, then the character’s preceding line of
We use words like honor, code, loyalty…we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something.
cannot apply because there is no room for honour or code where anything goes. The whole point of honour and code is to ensure that not just anything is acceptable. Extremism in defence of liberty is, in fact, a vice because it negates the very thing you are trying to defend.
Out fucking standing. One of the funniest things I have read for a long time. I like a man who can laugh at himself.
So what do you think code and honour are for?
EG
Andrew X
Ahhhh thanks for that, happy memories. I could listen to Jack Nicholson launch into that all day. Result – one eviscerated pissy liberal lawyer.
Greed is a semantically loose word. To those who see greed as bad equate it as being unnecessarily self interested, hoarding, illogical. Those who don’t see it as bad hold a meaning of “enlightened self-interest”, sort of softened around the corners. So debating the statements without clarification is useless.
Toolkien, I’m not sure I’m with you. m-w.com defines greed as follows (one definition only): excessive or reprehensible acquisitiveness : AVARICE.
Morally, “reprehensible” acquisitiveness must be, well, reprehensible.
The reason it is good is because, as per Smith, the private vice it inspires or constitutes motivates actions that cause public gain in aggregate (obviously, some greed-inspired vices have a net cost to society, but the balance is positive). It isn’t that those of us who like greed think that greedy people are cooly rational and brilliant people. We understand that lots of people are irrational, frequently bad and/ or nutty people. Their self-interest is often far from enlightened (I was talking to a probate litigator yesterday who came up with many, many, horrific examples). Still, on balance, their greed drives them to make the world the wonderful place that it is. Those who oppose greed either fail to appreciate this or have some kind of natural law or subjective view that the individual vice is bad, regardless of its impact. This is not a linguistic difference.
In “The Aviator,” when Hughes is at the villa of his girlfriend’s family, the mother says, “Money means nothing to us here.”
He replies, “That’s because you already have it,” and proceeds to rip them a new one.
And, the walls came tumbling down.
I think the question, Euan, is what is extreme? War is itself extreme, and the things you would consider extreme in your comfy livingroom versus what you would consider extreme on a battlefield while hot metal is flying around your head and your mate’s intestines are gurgling out on your boots may be two entirely different things.
Of course war is extreme. That’s not really the issue.
The question is whether, should war lamentably prove necessary, standards and rules should apply in the conduct of that war. It is generally accepted that they should, and this is what the Geneva and Hague conventions are about. War is undoubtledly a horrible thing, and the privations the soldier must face are for most people beyond imagining, but that doesn’t excuse brutality or crime. The military does not get a free pass just because its members volunteer their lives for their country.
And why should they? Other armies have managed to fight and win desperate wars for national survival without resorting to atrocity and crime. A fundamental decency pervades such armies, the idea that even if you are going to kill Johnny Foreigner you can at least do it with honour and within clearly understood and accepted rules. Thus, you don’t execute prisoners, you respect surrender flags, you try to avoid civilian casualties wherever possible, you obey the law and, when your enemy is on his knees in surrender, the first thing you do is extend your hand to him and lift him to his feet because the question is settled and those who remain have to get on with their lives. This appears to be an alien concept among certain modern elements who fetishise the military.
Crime and atrocity will nevertheless happen, but the foregoing only makes it more important that when they do happen they are stopped and the perpetrators punished, for if you win at the price of savagery, what have you won?
EG
Back to Jonahthan Pearce’s original question. The game of Monopoly was pretty much ripped off from something called “The Landlord Game” – which was expressly design to high-light the evils of capitalism.
High Noon was supposed to be a lefty movie protesting “McCarthysm” but its stance against pacifism — specifically having the pacifist Quaker character played by Grace Kelly pick up a gun to defend her husband from thugs — is very “right wing.”
The Polish anti-communist movement of the early ’80s used Gary Cooper as Marshall Caine as one of their rallying symbols. I’m sure the Hollywood 10 would not have appreciated the irony.
Oliver Stone DID intend Gordon Gekko to make a pro-capitalist point, his goal was to make the movie complicated. But it always did seem to me that Michael Douglas ran away with the role and somehow brought Gordon Gekko to life in a way that even Stone didn’t intend. Douglas certainly deserved his Oscar.
Susan, glad you mentioned High Noon. It was originally, as you say, thought of as a left-wing movie, but then left-wing and right-wing are hollow expressions in my view. It is really about how an individual – the sherriff, played by Cooper – stands up for justice while everyone else abandons him.
A lot of Americans identify with Cooper. I can see why. What a magnificent actor he was.
Of course war is extreme. That’s not really the issue.
…and the dance begins.
Other armies have managed to fight and win desperate wars for national survival without resorting to atrocity and crime.
Name one. Remember, you specified “desperate wars for national survival”.
Crime and atrocity will nevertheless happen, but the foregoing only makes it more important that when they do happen they are stopped and the perpetrators punished, for if you win at the price of savagery, what have you won?
Survival, which is a requirement for accomplishing pretty much everything else on the agenda.
Britain in WW2? Britain in the Napoleonic Wars? You can even consider the generally honourable and decent conduct of the German Navy in WW2, as opposed to the (politicised elements of) the army and air force.
There isn’t really a directly applicable American example, because America has never fought a desperate war for national survival, unless you count the revolutionary war. Although American forces have generally fought decently, most of their wars have been either of conquest or intervention.
The end justifies the means, eh?
Survival at *any* price? It is simply not true that fighting a brutal and indecent enemy justifies you in also sinking to brutality and indecency. If anything, it’s counterproductive since behaving in a decent and civilised manner is far more likely to encourage the civil population to support you, and this is not insignificant in war.
Soldiers in the British army are taught from the very beginning that they *must* obey the law even in war. They are told of the Geneva and Hague conventions and what they imply. They are told that they are not permitted to obey orders which contradict these conventions – not that it is not good to obey such orders, but that they are *forbidden* to obey them.
No army is completely free of brutal people, and no war has yet been fought where no atrocity was ever committed. But nevertheless, the point is that it is entirely possible to maintain and use an army which has drummed into it the idea of lawful and decent conduct, and this is idea will generally be put into practice.
War is hell and sometimes mistakes are made & excesses take place, but there’s a vast difference between acknowledging that and giving armies a free pass to do what they want. In the modern west, this latter view seems to be an overwhelmingly American one, at least going by public comments, although I doubt very much if it is shared by American military commanders. It seems to be held by people whose thinking of the military is dominated by Hollywood’s view of it.
EG
I love Gekko’s speech and remember saying “Sound!” the first time I saw it in full. At least Wall Street was better than another fave of pro-capitalist anti-commie movie fans: Red Dawn! (Wolverines!)
*: I had a problem the RD cause it made jocks out to be the heroes. In fact it would not have been the jocks fighting against the Soviets but the geeks & the nerds.
EG:Although American forces have generally fought decently, most of their wars have been either of conquest or intervention.
Or loss-leaders in revenue and market share growth strategies…
Britain in WW2? Britain in the Napoleonic Wars? You can even consider the generally honourable and decent conduct of the German Navy in WW2, as opposed to the (politicised elements of) the army and air force.
Nope. I’ve seen too many analysis & criticism pieces of the old SeaLion plan to think Britain was fighting for survival in WW2, and if Adolf couldn’t pull off a trans-channel invasion, you’re going to be hard-pressed to convince me that Napoleon could. At most, Britain’s alternative to fighting was a negotiated peace that would leave someone dominating the continent- not the end of Britain (which, at the time, was still a global empire, not a couple of islands off the coast of France).
And even then, stuff like the bombing of Dresden took place. Try again, please.
Survival at *any* price?
Mr. Gray, you are welcome to take the position that there are some things you would rather die than do to protect you and yours.
I shall take the position that whoever threatens me and mine are in for one hell of a fight, and that my conduct shall be directly related to the behavior of the other side. If they conduct themselves decently, so will I, if they do not, may god have mercy on them.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? At the time, there was a real belief that Germany could have successfully invaded England, and many strategists since have agreed that, had Germany been able to defeat the RAF, there is no military reason why they could not have done so. Equally, in Napoleon’s time there was a real fear that the French could do the same, but in that case it was French inability to command the sea that prevented it.
The strength of the British Empire lay in Britain, just as the strength of the Roman lay in Rome, and so on. Remember also that Britain was bankrupt by 1940 and dependent thereafter on American largesse. A defeat on that scale would have been a serious blow to Britain, and it would have nailed the empire too since the myth of invincibility would be punctured and the independence movements strengthened. This is exactly what happened in the Far East, after all.
You will have noticed, I assume, my comment that all wars involve some atrocity?
Fair enough, but you cannot then say that you have an moral superiority to your enemy, since you are letting his morality define your permissible actions. That’s really stupid, and it is, I am quite sure, not an attitude shared by the professional officers in command.
Then again, they didn’t learn their military strategy and ethical standards from Tom Clancy novels. Unfortunately, it seems that many pro-military civilians in the west did do exactly that.
EG
You will have noticed, I assume, my comment that all wars involve some atrocity?
I also noticed the comment where you gave “Britain in WW2?” as an example that was supposed to support your assertion that “Other armies have managed to fight and win desperate wars for national survival without resorting to atrocity and crime.” I challenged you to name one.
Is your memory failing, Mr. Gray, or were you deliberately giving an answer you knew was false and hoping I wouldn’t notice?
Anyway, back to square one, then: name one.
Just one. You’ve got all of recorded human history to draw from, surely you can fine one example to support your assertion.
I think that the way people take messages/ideas from films differs according to culture.
I remember seeing Scarface in the US a little after it came out and people being horrified at the violence. I saw it a little later in the Dominican Republic where people did not even bat an eyelid at the most gruesome bits. Instead they got up and cheered when Al Pacino goes into a car dealership, pays cash (that he just earned by killing people and selling drugs) for the flashiest ride in the store and drives right out.
This was another Oliver Stone film, so perhaps any admirable qualities he builds into the “bad” guys are more than intentional. The character was brutal, but he was strong, straight-dealing and had no time for weakness or decadence.