I might have written about this before and I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself.
I can’t stand hearing about “evil.” Osama bin Laden is evil. The virginia Tech shooter is evil. Doctors who perform abortions are evil. What does evil even mean? Doesn’t it mean amoral without reason? It means even more than that. Horrible without reason. Horrible to be horrible. The Virginia Tech guy wasn’t disturbed or upset, he was evil. Terrorists do the things they do because they’re evil and evil people hurt others. What a silly, reductionist way of thinking about the world. It’s not even silly, it’s destructive.
The problem is that outside of action movies “evil” is at best nonsense. It doesn’t describe anything. Evil is just something that evil people are. Evil people do evil things. You define the word by using the word. It’s nonsense. This is all well and good for comic books, but in the real world it moves past benign nonsense and becomes dangerous.
When we call the Virginia Tech shooter and bin Ladin evil we get nowhere. We pass them off as some sort of inscrutable enemy. There’s nothing to understand beyond their evil and therefore there’s nothing to do but fight them and hate them. We need not ask why the US has a higher rate of mass shooting than other nations because the Virginia Tech shooter is evil. We only ask whether we should have recognized his evil, not whether there’s something we might change about our society. We don’t need to try and fix Iraq, we just need to stop the evil insurgents and sectarian militias.
What a stupid way to think about the world. We’re too lazy and afraid of what we might uncover if we try and understand the world, so we just give things empty labels and call it a day.
I went with Leslie, Dave, Ben, and Mike to see 300 this evening. It was disappointing. That's saying a lot, because I expected to dislike it. I wasn't a fan of Sin City (another film based on a comic by Frank Miller), so I was expecting have similar feelings about 300. I expected to think it was neat looking for the first fifteen to twenty minutes and then have a strong desire to either take a nap or leave. Both films are entirely devoid of any kind of meaning, relying entirely on creating a unique visual experience and lots of “cool” deaths. I'm rarely impressed by “cool” deaths, they just feel pathetic. I'm slightly more swayed in a video game like Prince of Persia, but for the most part I find them dull at best and barbaric and pathetic at worst. I am, however, willing to take a peak at truly good visuals. Both Sing City and 300 are all about the presentation.
Unfortunately the visuals in both films can't hold my attention for very long. I saw everything I needed to see in Sin City after the first scene and the same holds true for 300. My hope with 300 was that I would get to see poetry in motion. Unfortunately this only happened once. They rest of the film was a series of tableaus. Tableaus are great, but what's the point of film if you have are stationary pictures? Why not sell me a really neat PowerPoint presentation? I'll take ballet over this stuff any day.
A few nights ago Beki and I had a conversation about whether or not there was really a place for “escapists” films. I get frustrated by folks saying, “It was just a silly movie and that's all it was trying to be. I don't always want my entertainment to be serious or important.” I certainly understand this sentiment; I've said it myself, and I certainly have a love for mindless films (I'm a huge fan of the The Transporter movies and look forward to seeing Crank). But I'm not sure that we should demand nothing of our escapist films. I think we ought to demand that they not be demeaning and condescending. Beki held up the new Hugh Grant film Music and Lyrics as a good example. One of my favorite bloggers also wrote a post that made a similar argument. I think they're both right on. A film like 300 is nothing more than two hours of harmful stereotypes about what makes “men” “Men” and “women” “Women”, stupid platitudes, and stupid amounts of blood.
I'm all for pretty movies, but let's keep them to twenty minutes if that's they are.
Filed under: Alcohol, Concert, Dancing, Food, Music, New Mexico, Society, Soviet Defectors
Last night I went with Beki, Ben, Dave, and Leslie to see The Red Elvises. I hadn't seen the Ybor City staple in several years and was pretty stoked to see their giant red bass guitar and hear their Soviet surf-rock in all it's glory. They played at the Santa Fe Brewing Company, which has decent micro-brew, but pales in comparison to Sarasota Brewing Company. I had an extremely mediocre hamburger, which was especially disappointing because I so rarely eat meat these days. The venue was, like so many places in New Mexico, in the middle of nowhere; an oasis of light, wood, and cars.
The Elvises were as great as I remember. I'd have never thought a really loud whistle could add so much to a rock song, but the bassist used it to great effect (using his mouth, not a whistle like your middle school coach used). They had a really good keyboard/accordian player. She was short and Russian and wriggled around to great effect. The sax/flute/clarinet player was pretty good. He even played a lot of baritone sax, which I happen to love. The drummer was quite good as well. At one point all five of the band members played a drum solo that culminated in everyone leaving the stage to drink beer. It was just the drummer up there going off for five minutes. He's no less than six feet six with a huge wingspan. He moved from a funk breakdown to surf groove to a Don Cabellero freakout to his best Elvin Jones impression. It was pretty impressive.
The Elvises (which is really just the guitarist and bassist) are incredible showmen. They've taken the do-it-yourself way of conducting a music career and run with it. At the end of the show, after doing four encores without actually leaving, they announced that they were, “The Red Elvises; your favorite band!” It's amazing what two Soviet artistic defectors with a dream can do.
The crowd was a strange one. It ranged from high schoolers to middle-aged women in terrible jeans. One of these drunk forty-something crushed Beki's toe with her high-heeled black boots. The older men spent the evening trying to holler at young girls. I've often cringed at men coming on to women, but never has it been so upsetting. Everywhere I looked there were men leering at these women. I can't imagine what that must feel like. Whenever Chantal and I would ride our bikes to downtown Sarasota, she would marvel at how no one would honk at her when she was with a man. I thought that was telling, but seeing it in such full force last night took my understanding to a new level.
Today featured the best hamburger I've ever had and surrealist film. But I'll save that for tomorrow.
Filed under: African American, Favorite, Film, Society, Thought Provoking
I just saw a documentary on HBO called Bastards of the Party. It's part essay film and part history lesson about the history of LA black gangs. It's told through the words and questions of a gang member trying to figure out how the Crips and the Bloods came into existence and how to change them. It's moving and horrifying and frustrating. Everyone needs to see this film.
