Mary Clancy, the ne’er-do-well protagonist of the 1966 comedy The Trouble With Angels is the Catholic education system’s worst nightmare: she is clever, irreverent, wise beyond her sixteen years, and full of “scathingly brilliant ideas.” She is sent (along with her best friend and most loyal follower, Rachel) to St. Francis Convent to be “straightened out.” It is there that she meets her foil and foe — the venerable Reverend Mother (played by the equally venerable Rosalind Russell), a stern nun with a fondness for order and cooperative, obedient young women. Shenanigans, of course, ensue.
For most of the film, the plot is episodic and predictable. We follow Mary and Rachel through their four years of high school, which are peppered with pranks and subsequent punishments. The Reverend Mother can be seen lurking around corners and smiling ruefully at the folly and preciousness of youth before putting on her stern mask to punish the girls. She intends to expel them at one point, but her heart is softened by these two girls’ (especially Mary’s) particular need for a strong mother figure and a firm-but-gentle guiding hand. It is all very ’60s.
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. Karl Marx
Growing with two parents who escaped the Holocaust, from Germany and from Austria, there was no ambiguity in my mind about Adolph Hitler or the Holocaust. He was evil, to an extent beyond any other person, and the Holocaust was an event, sui generis, beyond any other event. For years my dreams were inhabited by desperate attempts to escape jackbooted storm troopers who were searching for me, or trying to survive after having been captured by them. I was horrified at other evils, but this lay beyond them, as the far marker of human cruelty
In political debate that made me very wary of cheap comparisons to the Nazis or Hitler. I’m not alone in that of course: Godwin’s Law, created by Mike Godwin, famously states that, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” and goes on to note that whoever raises the comparison is considered to have lost the debate. (The technical term for this logical fallacy is “Reductio ad Hitlerum” Really.)
But the problem with that moral stance, viewing Hitler as an evil beyond all other human possibility, is that it diminishes the chance of our recognizing or preventing such evil from occurring again.
Yesterday I posted some ecofeminist reflections on Avatar. Today I want to take on the racism issue that several Goddess Scholars as well as bloggers here at Tikkun Daily have raised. Originally I thought this movie was carefully crafted to bring the (mostly) white audience into an understanding that indigenous people already have — the importance, even sacredness, of their world ecology. The hero is Jake Sully, a human who becomes a Na’vi, thereby moving from one world to the other. He begins by betraying the people who ultimately become his own, so it’s not like his first actions are laudable — he’s actually an anti-hero in the beginning, not meant to be liked. But he realizes his mistake, and fights to rectify the situation.
This plot structure reminded me of one of the most subversive literary strategies I’ve encountered when it comes to women’s issues, used by Jean Auel in Clan of the Cave Bear. Every reader of this book has to identify with the female protagonist Ayla, even men, because she’s the only Cro-Magnon person in it; the rest of the characters are Neanderthals. As a result, men get to experience the degradation of rape, and hopefully understand it from a woman’s perspective.
I think the same sort of thing happens in Avatar. Indigenous folks don’t have any trouble identifying with the Na’vi, but for those white folks for whom that’s a stretch, they can identify with Jake, moving from invader to become a part of the land (indigenous). My first thought was that this narrative strategy might actually win us some allies in our environmental fights. And I recognized it as a part of the strategy that I use in my work — to invite people to become indigenous, i.e. a part of the land they inhabit, something we ALL need to do more of. Pat Monaghan on the Goddess Scholars list summarized this take on the the plot most succinctly by saying
A man, crippled because of his involvement with militaristic capitalism, is helped by five female powers (an Amazonian pilot, a sage scientist, a lover-huntress, a female shaman, and the Goddess herself) to discover that his culture is utterly wrong. Through them, he learns to give up the apparent privilege that comes with the culture and to literally become a being that was not only alien but defined as “enemy.”
I’ve really been enjoying the Avatar discussion, both here on Tikkun Daily and on the Goddess Scholars List I belong to. I waited until I’d seen the film to read any of the posts, because I didn’t want to prejudice my reaction to it.
The GoddessScholars’ discussion reminded me a lot of a Women and Science Fiction class I taught in the 1980s. In my classes I always had a check-in before we began (despite the fact that they were university courses), because then we had deeper discussions. One of the odd things about the Women and Science Fiction class that semester was that there was a sizable minority (about 7 women out of 24) who were big football fans. When they checked in they would say things like, “I’m doing great. The Packers won.” Or: “I’m really down. The Vikings lost.”
The discussion I remembered as I was perusing the GoddessList concerned the subgenre of Sword and Sorcery. This subgenre is a lot like Dungeons and Dragons — magic is real, and life is more or less medieval, and battles take place with swords and magic (and battles take place pretty frequently). When I asked whether the class thought Sword and Sorcery was amenable to a feminist message, there was a clear split between the football fans and the rest of the class. The fans were sure this subgenre could be used to send a feminist message, while the others were astounded that anyone could hold such an opinion when the writing was rampant with violent images of battle.
Like my students, some of the women on the GoddessScholars list believe (as I do) that feminism is only compatible with pacifism, while others think that there are situations where war may be necessary and (perhaps) just. Some of the women on the list are also survivors of interpersonal violence (as I am, as a rape survivor) and didn’t want to submit themselves to film violence that might trigger post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As a result, some of the GoddessScholars have avoided Avatar despite its Goddess content.
I actually hold a different opinion than these polar opposites. Although I’m a pacifist, I believe there can be anti-war literature and films that involve warfare, for e.g. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. War is shown as so horrifying that almost any reader or viewer, even those who started out believing in the possiblity of a just war, ends up repudiating that view.
A radical change in the social infrastructure of any society must be preceded or accompanied by a change in its consciousness. I first posted this article analyzing the content of Jackson’s videos on Daily Kos and ePluribus Media after his death in July of 2009 .The start of the new year seems a good time to repost here at Tikkun. Perhaps this diary will add to the ongoing dialogue sparked by Avatar about the role movies play in the evolution of our collective awareness.
Jackson frequently invoked two powerful archetypes central both to the experience of PTSD, and to the evolution or maintenance of empire: playful Hermes, puer aeternus, child genius, trickster, thief, messenger, god of healing, the lyre and all that is liminal; and the more menacing Dionysius, lychenthrope, trickster, Lord of the Animals, Beast Within.
I waited out most of the 1980s in Japan, and had not seen any of Jackson’s videos before his death. I am prone to obsession with symbolic content. Before leaving for Japan, I watched An American Werewolf in London at least 20 times. Once I belatedly started watching Jackson’s videos, I could not stop. They were filled with archetypal content.
“The fun of the story for us,” say the Coen Brothers, in their gloss on A Serious Man, “was inventing new ways to torture Larry.” He’s the only nice person in the film, and if torturing nice people is your idea of a good time, this might be the film you’re searching for. Or if you have always wondered what self-hating Jews really look like, here’s a matched set of brothers to demonstrate.
It’s a natural phase to go through as a child, that when your life is miserable, you take out your toys and torture them. But by the time you’re in your fifties, surely it’s time to move on. Much has been made about the similarity of A Serious Man‘s setting to the Minnesota world the Coens grew up in. But surely even Minnesota, let alone Hollywood, has therapists that could help? Torturing two-dimensional puppets is no occupation for two grown men, let alone the basis of an entertaining spectator sport.
Kathryn Bigelow’s film THE HURT LOCKER is an explosive device buried deep in a somnolent country. Marketed as an action movie (“As tense and compelling an action drama as you are likely to see all year,” claims critic Eric Snider in his review on films.com), this intense on-screen portrait of a three-man Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in Iraq is actually a subtle critique of a deadening and unendurably trivial stateside culture, and it raises some questions we need to be asking ourselves.
My spouse Mark and I watched Doubt last night. We both found it quite thought-provoking. Not because it concerned clerical pedophilia, but because it made us think about how we judge situations and people.
As many of you know, the movie takes place in a Catholic middle school in the Bronx during the fall and winter of 1964. The main characters are a new, progressive priest in the school (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) and the conservative Mother Superior, who has run the school for many years (played by Meryl Streep). The dialogue is extremely stylized and the acting so fantastic that the movie really got under my skin. I found myself rooting for the priest, hoping against hope that he hadn’t had sex with any of his students. This was an unlikely stance for me, since I’ve been actively involved in the movement against predatory sexuality.
Part of the reason for my feelings was Meryl Streep’s acting. She presented Sister Aloysius as a stern, unforgiving disciplinarian with no compassion and little give-and-take. We first see her striking and/or scaring some of her charges as they attend mass. Her lips, often puckered in disgust or condemnation, make a beautiful middle-aged actress look like an ugly, withered, old woman. We meet a person who has given up on life and lives by the limiting and limited rules she has inherited in a top-down organization, the Catholic Church. She’s a walking stereotype of the “Right Hand of God.”
Everybody wants to talk to someone…
Everybody wants to talk to someone…
My job is to discover the one you want to talk to and become that one.
A U.S. Army interrogator…
Those lines in the song you are about to hear sum up the job of a U.S. Army interrogator. Recognizing that everybody wants to spill their guts to someone, an interrogator has to figure out who that person is, and become that person, so that the detainee/prisoner, talks to the interrogator.
John Crigler, performing his original composition, “A U.S. Army Interrogator.”
We’ll post more segments here which came from an incredible gathering of people that took place in June 2009 that included a former Army interrogator, a former senior CIA analyst, a psychologist compiling powerful oral histories from people who committed torture from WWII until today, an award-winning religious/political columnist who also happens to be a Presbyterian minister, and victims of torture.
We’re editing the videos now and will post new ones as they are ready.
In the July/August issue of Tikkun Magazine, which you can pick up at your favorite local independent bookstore or order from the Tikkun web store, Daniel Brook writes about why Jews should seriously consider becoming vegetarians. Rabbi Michael Lerner thought we should add a little something beyond Daniel Brook’s powerful writing and so we are presenting here two video segments provided by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).
I saw Stardust again last night, and if you want a stunningly good fantasy movie and you missed it the first time, see it. I read my first Neil Gaiman novels last year (American Gods and Neverwhere) and we saw and loved Coraline recently: one of the year’s must see movies. I hadn’t realized Stardust was made from a Gaiman novel, and when that came up in the credits this time and I now recognized his name, it explained to me how a movie that has so many trappings of fantasy froth could actually be a decent, intelligent, totally enjoyable movie. It’s Gaiman, I said to my son, that explains it, and he agreed.
Stardust is a light and humorous as Coraline is dark, but both have heart and soul. Stardust has very English humor, it seems to be made by people who grew up on Monty Python and were visually educated by Terry Gilliam, but it is just a better film than anything from those sources, with the exception of Time Bandits. The story holds together better. And the humor has point, including De Niro as the gay pirate captain, who alone is worth getting the movie for.
I saw Stardust again last night, and if you want a stunningly good fantasy movie and you missed it the first time, see it. I read my first Neil Gaiman novels last year (
