I don’t know why it bothers me so much.
Ben and I recently had an interesting conversation about Banned Books Week. His take on it was that instead of exhibiting everyone’s HS reading list of books that deal with issues of poverty and racism, banned book week should examine contemporary standards of censorship and limititation of expression. And very important too is instead of treating ourselves to a pat on the back since we no long outrightly ban books, we should turn a critical eye both inward and outward to inspect what prejudices, blatant and subtle, plague us today. And, more importantly, how those prejudices are manifested in the mass production and consumption of media and culture.
This idea fits well with a conversations I recently had about The US vs. John Lennon. Instead of filming a documentary about an incident that happened thirty years ago–one that we all can recognize today as a grave injustice–and leaving it at that, the film would ideally tell John Lennon’s story and relate it to the contemporary landscape in which dissenters find themselves. Too often we allow these cutesy retrospectives to pass for progessive thought. These retrospectives do not make our power-hungry officials uncomfortable (let’s bear in mind that such films are, after all, produced by conglomerate media firms), nor do they challenge any modern-day standard of how a citizen, a musician in this case, should behave. Though we see a surge in violence against peaceful demonstrations, it is unlikely that George Clooney or Angelina Jolie will find themselves 6 ft under due to their (relatively) outspoken politics. Instead, viewers of The US vs. John Lennon will walk away from the theatre with a mild disgust for what was just presented to them, but ultimately satisifed that such an atrocity is in the past and (whether or not this is TRUE is another question) certainly could not happen in modern times.
Though the ostensible goal of these pieces may be to provide an engaging historical account of a particular event or era, ultimately, what these retrospectives do is present a distorted picture of the present. Rather than presenting a realistic portrait of how the present may eerily resemble the past, instead consumers of said films are subtley brought to believe in a modern reality that simply does not exist. This should surprise neither the consumer nor producer, since as mentioned earlier, the producer does know exactly what effect the piece has on its captive audience.
Worse yet are the neohipsters who gobble this garbage up. Supposedly the spokespeople for progressive lifestyles and politics, 20somethings who show up at the theatre with their Chuck Taylors neatly laced and wearing a Velvet Underground tshirt (that i got at Beacon’s Closet man, only $15, and its faded in all the right places) only perpetuate the cycle of deception. Unquestionably, John Lennon was an outspoken critic and a brave human being. But the idolatry and mysticism that comes to surround such actions only further alienate the audience. Instead of identifying with such a figure, he or she is made to be a towering figure, heroic and of superior intellect and bravery, and ultimately suffers their downfall because of it. How many Brooklyn hipsters do you know who would die for their vegetarianism or luke-warm resistance to the Starbucks mushrooming along Williamsburg’s streets?
And so John Lennon is a larger-than-life figure, one who was sacrificed so that we, the generation of half-assed war critics and armchair activists may live. And this is all wrong, because the underlying theme of the film should seek to remind the audience that had more people been as brave as the Beatle, perhaps we’d find ourselves in a different political situation today. We might not need to offer up a cultural figure, or ourselves, and at the very least perhaps we’d be more prepared to speak real ideas. Similarly, if a climate more hospitable to open discourse were available today, perhaps there would be more than a handful of Senators willing to speak on Guantánamo, or maybe more than 2 people would be signed up for the MoveOn.org showing of an Iraq war film I plan to attend on Saturday. Better yet, maybe the Iraq war film would be shown in theatres. Perhaps it could take the place of the US vs. John Lennon.
And no, I haven’t seen the film. I invite you to tell me to shut up.
