Hollywood Strikes Back

Better late than never, so they say, and that's the best way to describe Hollywood and the media's slow response to the fascist drift that describes the political climate in today's United States. Hollywood can perhaps be excused for its slow start. In the immediate wake of the nation's post-9/11 trauma, an opportunistic Bush cabal beguiled Hollywood moguls to perform their civil duty and contribute to the propaganda barrage by promoting nationalistic themes and exercising self-censorship, with the idea that this would help salve the nation's hurt. Yet some media artists, such as the Bay Area rapper Paris not only rejected the invitation to suspend disbelief, but immediately launched a counteroffensive only to find himself largely ignored by the mainstream media. Later, rap group 4o. del Tren produced a scathing, high quality song and video, Supadubya, but was largely ignored.

Yet the ice has thawed, despite the rendering of Michael Moore's name as synonomous with treasonous extremism, Hollywood is no longer afraid of entering into the cultural fray. Perhaps the first major commerical film (and perhaps unlikely one) that made unmistakably clear references to the Bush cabal was the final installment of the Star Wars saga, The Return of the Sith, with lines from the corrupted Anakin, "If you're not with me, then you're my enemy," and the powerful line from Natalie Portman, "This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause." Others have extended the comparison both in print and in art.

Yet recent movies V and Syriana make even bolder statements. Syriana, a movie both starring and produced by George Clooney (and filmedby Participant Productions, a film house that, through a dear friend of weazl, has expressed some interest in his film), is one of the few films that presents the CIA as assassins of heads of states (or potential heads of state, in this case), and as willing to lie shamelessly in real time, even at the expense of its employees. It also comments on America's true unwillingness to tolerate progressive governments in client states because of the attitude of a zero-sum game perception regarding economic resources and prosperity. The film also makes strong statements about corporate corruption, and its tolerance, even among government officials. Unfortunately, the film simply offers a glimpse into this world, and doesn't really offer an opinion. And the glimpse is sufficiently small and the plot sufficiently complex to prevent people unfamiliar with the details of the intelligence world and the US' role therein to make much of the elephant in the room.

But then there's V, by the Wachowski brothers of Matrix fame, that extrapolates America's fascist trends approximately 25 years ahead, where corrupt governments stage calamities for political gain, and engage in torture, demagogery, repression of dissonant voices, and medical experimentation upon its citizens. Sound familiar? (It should) Yet in this version, the Lefties abandon the Martin Luther King-Ghandi-Christlike response of turn the other cheek, but rather the hero engages in blood revenge, engaging not only in "counter-terrorism" (if there is such a thing), but unapologetically murders the news hatemongers, and corrupt politicians up to the heads of state. The subtheme is very much derived from both the neo-con and radical Islamist playbook of a sleeping majority who will be awakened through acts of violence much in the vein of Sayyed Qutb, Ayman al-Zawahri, and in this particular film, Guy Fawkes. And while the film is solidly in B grade territory, it is quite interesting to see a film challenge the paradigmatic notion of a non-violent Left, developing motifs on the big screen discussed by scholars such as Ward Churchill in his Pacifism as Pathology. (Be ready for the brickbats to be thrown by the unmedicated Right upon mention of Churchill's name, after he was roundly denounced for comments he made about the victims of 9/11, charges of shoddy research and attacks on his geneology) Nevertheless, a simple twist of the idea that only the Right can engage in unrequited violence makes this film worth seeing for this reason alone. And surely is an idea that the warmongers, CIA assassins and bully fringe will hope doesn't take root.

It is no suprise that Harvard educated Natalie Portman is once again the leading lady in an anti-empire film. She has compared actresses who go to Hollywood to get rich to prostitutes, and in a video produced for Saturday Night Live is definitely trying to move beyond stereotypes.

And one step leads to another. And now Charlie Sheen has stepped directly into the belly of the beast with his challenge of the 9/11 fiction. As to be expected, the Right winger attack dogs were unleashed to attack the messenger and not the message, though surprisingly CNN ran a piece that was far more balanced than what Americans have normallybeen trained to accept, stories that equate suggestions of government involvement with treason, despite damning evidence not only of a "conspiracy," but a full exploration of the means, motive and opportunity for the commission of the crime. And for those who simply want to watch the "Cliffs Notes" video highlights version, watch Loose Change)

In short, Hollywood is slowly waking up, as are the American people, about their "leader" and about his crimes, and the misery he's inflicted. While long, long overdue, it's about time. And then it'll be only the beginning.