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Featuring the Fabulous Dadbots: Mark M., Dave S. Mark O., Dennis C., Paul C., and Geoff Carter
Hey bots,
I wrote this a couple weeks ago and thought it might be a good jumping-off point for a new thread.
-G
Justice For All? Violence at the Movies
Movies are by far the dominant popular art form in American. Books have become passe. Theater is hanging on, not quite dead yet, but definitely not the force it used to be. Sports, particularly football and basketball, are still popular, but the laconic and deliberate former national pastime—baseball—has been bleeding fans for years.
But movies. Movies are fun, action-packed, beautiful, and visionary. Right? Sometimes, but not all the time. Movies can often be banal, predictable, and shallow. Preeminent film director Martin Scorsese has compared modern superhero movies to amusement park rides—and he’s not far off. Gratuitous action and excessive violence supported by glossy CGI seem to be the order of the day. It’s what the people want—right? All you have to do is look to the superhero genre. There are a total of forty films in the Marvel Universe—forty. That’s not even starting to look at the DC Universe.
In her scholastic work Sensational Designs, Jane Tompkins coined the term “cultural work”, which defines the impact books and films have on culture. She maintains fiction (or film narrative) works as a way for “providing society with a means of thinking about itself, defining certain aspects of a social reality which the authors and their readers shared, dramatizing its conflicts, and recommending solutions”. She also avers that fiction—as well as cinema—cannot be divorced from the culture from which it sprang, a point-of-view that differs with traditional modernist definitions of art.
So where does that put us in terms of today’s cinema? What sort of cultural work is done by The Avengers or The Black Panther or Die Hard or The Hate U Give? One could argue that our collective conception of right and wrong or good and evil is reflected in The Avengers or any of the Spiderman incarnations, and that violence as a means of serving justice is acceptable—even preferable, especially when one considers that the villains in some of these films are beyond reason. Who could argue with Thanos or Ares or The Green Goblin? They’re driven to evil because of madness, whether it’s self-induced, like the Green Goblin or The Lizard, or whether it springs from megalomaniacal psychoses as in archvillains like Thanos or Ares.
Some villains, however, like the antagonists in Die Hard, are not mad. They are thieves posing as terrorists, deliberate and rational in their evil, yet the justice served them is every bit as violent as that served to the madman. Reason doesn’t seem to matter. Violence works on any of the bad guys, and this is a reflection of a long-standing trope in our culture that goes all the way back to the Western. In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a film that embodied the quintessential battle between violence and the law, Ransom Stoddard, the rational attorney, still had to shoot the titular villain. Violence won out over the law.
In today’s cinema, justice still often reflects the cultural values of the law of the gun—that might makes right. Granted, to many, this is a much more satisfying process to watch than the drudgery of democratic decision making seen in a film like Women Talking, even though that film’s cultural work is more realistic—and probably more important than another gun battle or superhero melee.
When justice is directly addressed in modern cinema in works like Till or Just Mercy or The Hate U Give, or If Beale Street Could Talk, the narratives address the struggle to correct the wrongs inflicted by a misguided and often racist society—an obvious reflection of the current state of race relations in our culture. If the aim of the filmmakers is to educate as well as to light a fire for change, they seem to be accomplishing their purpose.
Somewhat related to this sort of cultural work was the release of Marvel’s The Black Panther, a film which self-consciously (and self-righteously) proclaimed it as “a cultural moment” and as a film which highlighted a superhero from an African nation. African American fans turned out in droves to see it. It became a tangible and not just an implicit cultural event.
Other films, like Hell or High Water or The Old Man & The Gun question the nature of justice itself as it exists in a corrupt and morally bankrupt system. Films like these provide a rationale for the existence of—even the necessity for—the outlaw and reflect many Americans’ frustrations with their lives. They provide a fantasy template for escape. Who hasn’t fantasized about being a noble—and perhaps lovable—outlaw? Recent legal dramas like Trial of the Chicago Seven, Marshall, or On the Basis of Sex also focus on the impact of the legal system on the marginalized and discriminated and the limited recourses available to those victims.
In the same vein, films like Call Jane, Women Talking, or Hidden Figures take on the problems—and solutions—women encounter in their struggles for equality, recognition, and simple survival. Solutions are manifold. Some can simply do it better, as the women in Hidden Figures do, or do it together—organize—as the women in Women Speaking do, or do it illegally, like the women in Call Jane do. It is significant to note that all the above films are based on true stories. This desire to build a narrative on real-life events to further this cultural work supporting women’s rights might speak to the very possibility of gaining equality. It’s been done, so let’s do it again. Or it may, by informing the audience to the difficulties of the struggles, stoke determination.
The cultural work of movies might affirm or question our cultural values. Some tropes like the Western hero have been around in one incarnation or another, forever. What is John McClane but a cowboy? He even calls himself Roy Rogers. Battles between good and evil are often—too often—settled with a gun. This is yet another holdover from the Western.
While these themes are deeply embedded in many of our new films, other more current tropes are appearing. Women, minorities, and other marginalized groups are not only finding voices in the new cinema, they are at the forefront of a body of cultural work that not only questions but specifies courses of action. They are templates for a changing society.
And while the supers battle evil in yet another incarnation of the same story we’ve heard time and again, other films are exploring the (re)definitions of citizenship, womanhood, friendships, sexuality, and more. Generally speaking, these films tend to humanize their characters, to render them and their struggles accessible to everyday people. Films don’t have to just be a carnival ride on a closed loop; they can take us places we never dreamed of.
Sources
- Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs. Oxford University Press, 1986. p. 200
–Geoff
‘bot centric this am….
Geoff: That is a very good piece. So many ways to react to it. I have 4:
- Does film shape the mores of our time? Well, they certainly mirror it and look no further than yours truly for “reminds me of…” regular film references. Below came from an associate of mine—Lieutenant Curley, re Scorpion cops in Memphis.
“The main thing for those in both groups is to see themselves as the tip of the spear, the bad asses, the iconoclasts, the wolf pack, the action movie heroes, the Yipee- ky-yi- yay mutherfuckers. Yep, I blame Hollywood” (DCurley)
And film is oodles more powerful—more reach, more whiz-bang than the other arts…..compare and contrast that to Vermeer, who is in the news lately—“rediscovered”—big exhibition in the Netherlands. Did his thing in the 1600s! But more lasting than Marvel—let’s hope.
- You do yeoman’s work making the plea for more slice of life movies…(more “Majestic” movies—thankfully most cities have a refuge theater for these…or at least they used to. Jim Jarusch movies. Oriental Theater. When I visited a friend in Melbourne they had one, called Valhalla. Saw Koyaanisqatsi (Hopi for life out of balance) there. And so depressing the endless Superhero movies/budgets. 40! you say …for F’s sake!….did not know that. I hear they are dying off, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
- Violence and the gun—here’s where the slice of life movies offer refuge. Yet even then…I saw one recently about a NYC blogger—had the promise of being a very current mirroring of our times and a talented up and coming writer/director/actor—BJ Novak—from “The Office”. He has a lot of that thoughtful, witty, direct, cutting, Woody Allen formula to him. Plus he’s diminutive and I think the same ethnicity (but not going to fact check now). Regardless, this movie is not great, has a couple of moments—does a bit of Texas culture ‘splaining’… Both making fun of and providing empathy for…yet in the end it takes a stupid turn ending with a gun. Ashton Kutcher does a good job as a transplanted song producer from back east—who finds easy pickens in Texas. Vengeance—but consider yourself forewarned. I watched it on flight.
- Which brings me to the homeless problem. We just spent a wkd in SF—son lives in the Marina district (near the Presidio). All the wonders of one of the world’s greatest cities—but that nbhd is the exception. But my oh my—not sure if it is me, aging or the homeless issue being at a crisis point—I say it is. Market, Mission…there are some really tough ‘hoods. A few takes on this—one does connect to film:
- 40 some year cab vet, originally form Hong Kong—wish I could’ve recorded this. Talked non stop—this was not a conversation—we tried to engage a couple times but he had his spiel—maybe he’s learned, from tips, that it works. Had a sliver of the buddhist zen….kept talking about healthiness, staying calm, not yelling at wife, not eating bad foods—they are bad for the organs, liver, kidney and cause anger to well up in your eyes (5 refrains on this angry red eye thing….). Vegetable oil, not peanut oil… Go home use remote, watch TV…sleep better, do not yell at wife… Driving: stay 7 ft back…too many accidents…don’t use Uber—10k dollars of liability insurance vs his cab which has “1 million hundred thousand dollars”. Watch out for homeless—they jump out in front of car—take your home.
- 2nd cab driver (normally I use Ubers—and we mostly did, but they are no longer inexpensive). Explained they are not homeless, rather they are drug addicts. The cartel is behind this. Lost souls drift into the city in their teen years and get addicted, end up on the street. He sees the cops come by and discreetly—no photos—zip up the dead into body bags. Exposure has got to take plenty—our weekend was cold, windy and rainy. Some truth to that but this guy was off the deep end. Yet I can see how the city does that—all the crime….the Orc invasion (organized retail crime—Walgreens….deodorant resells well on the internet…who knew?).
- My wife, after being called a bitch a 3rd time as a street person kicked a box in our direction. …it didn’t help I picked a tough walking route to our restaurant—(ironically: Burma Love). She came away thinking the de-institutionalizing pendulum swung too far. Informs me it happened during the Reagan years. Perhaps catalyzed by One Flew Over…(the Cuckoo’s nest)—finally got to the film connection.
-Dave.
I guess my first response to Geoff’s essay is this. Spending that much time at the cinema, Geoff, when the hell do you find time to write?
I like the concept of “cultural work”. I’d say that an even more effective medium than movies for performing cultural work is advertising. We are assaulted hundreds to thousands of times per week with clever, slickly produced advertising campaigns that seek to represent a curated vision of the world– one that the consumer wants to participate in, by purchasing the product or service. This is why, when you watch the NFL or other national programs, racially integrated and black middle class families are way overrepresented. By buying Cheerios, we’re supporting that happy world. Or consider T-Mobile ads. I do not connect in any way with the jarring hip-hop sensibility that T-Mobile presents in its quick cut ads, which are essentially short music videos. But they’re not trying to reach me. They’re going for a demographic that wants to be part of that cool world.
I would define cultural “work” as doing more than reflecting society. It’s an attempt to change society. We’re not just selling the product, we’re trying to change the consumer so they want that product. I would assert that there is no doubt that advertising succeeds in changing actual attitudes–not just attitudes about the product, but attitudes of the consumer to the larger society.
Watching the Super Bowl, I saw the usual set of ads that tried too hard to strike a cool, humorous tone, usually by employing some popular celebrity, but simply fell flat. Sorry, cultural work not gettin’ done there.
Shifting from advertising back to cinema, there’s a piece of cultural work that I wish Hollywood would stop doing. And that is the normalization of gun violence. Bang bang shoot shoot. I recall (this may be inaccurate, it’s a memory) that a few weeks after the Sandy Hook massacre, an action drama starring (I think) Brad Pitt and Denzel Washington was released: Two Guns. Really? And the ubiquitous movie poster showed the two stars pointing their guns, of course.
Just as there are interest groups that speak out and protest whenever racist, sexist, ethnically insensitive, homophobic, or (the latest) anti-trans attitudes are displayed in a movie, there should be an uproar over commonplace violence in movies. There’s no question that TV and movies have contributed to the normalization of guns in society. And it’s ironic that “Hollywood” — a community that prides itself on its progressive values — is one of the biggest promoters of violence in American society. The dollar signs are covering up the blind spot.
– Mark
Hey bots,
Yeah, I agree that the smash-bang violence and gunplay in film is way over the top. When my daughter Frankie was working for a pediatrician in Chicago, that doctor told her he was absolutely appalled at some of the minimization of head blows in films, saying any one of the hits in Spiderman movie would result in mortal injuries. I was just watching Men in Black II last night (go ahead and slap me). In an early sequence, Will Smith’s character is riding on top of a speeding subway and bangs his head on an overhead trestle—and simply shakes it off.
Another aspect of cultural work I’ve been noticing a lot lately is class equity. Movies like Parasite, The Menu, The White Lotus, and Triangle of Sadness—all great movies—address the inequities of wealth, especially as it pertains to abuses by the rich. Whether the cultural work is descriptive or prescriptive is sort of a chicken or the egg question. Like Mark’s Cheerios ads, are they encouraging change (maybe revolution?) or simply detailing the unfairness of capitalism and the nastiness of those lucky enough to benefit from it?
Of course, the same is true of films addressing racism or gender questions.
–G
Another one for you class equity list Geoff: Shoplifters–out of Japan I think.
Saw The Menu….no like…difficult to suspend belief that long…but love that Queen’s Gambit actress. (Anya Taylor Joy)
And…so…..just how many times have you seen Men in Black II? J.
Trust you’ve all seen Peanut Butter Falcon, CODA and Shape of Water. All highly acclaimed, some best picture, all were mostly soft and beautifully shot, yet all needed the current of violence as a plot heightening device. In CODA it was v. small.
–Dave
Aye, you lads are dishin’ out quite a menu of food for thought with this dialog addressing that madly spinning circle of life influencing art influencing life influencing art influencing life… But..as the undergrad t-shirt asks, “Is it art?’ Are shoot-em-up movies and superhero flicks and McDonalds ads art? In the sense of them being creative media that reflect our culture, I’d have to grudgingly say yes. They are the “cultural work” (yes, nice term) that tell the stories that we identify with, that advance the mythology of how we see ourselves and who we tell ourselves we are.
And just what are these myths? Like Mark says, in advertising we are sold aspirational stories about how certain products can ensure close friendship and economic equality among different groups of an ethnically diverse population. Sure, it’s a myth, but I’m ok with that. If life imitates art, thanks MickyD.
But Hollywood perpetuates a more pernicious myth. In so many top grossing movies, the heroes are generally (Thanks Dave) the tip of the spear, the bad asses, the iconoclasts, the wolf pack.. (off-hand, I’m thinking current hit film franchises: The Fast and the Furious, Iron man, Top Gun-Maverick, The Avengers) It’s the American myth of the “rugged Individual”, or a team of rugged individuals who know what it takes to get shit done.
And, nope, shit don’t get done by following some namby-pamby rules. Rules are made by bad, narrow-minded people. They are tools for the weak and hold down the rugged, often misunderstood, individual from achieving his or her goals. Our American hero solves problems with way cooler tools than rules–gettin-er done with like guns and fighter jets and bombs and other stuff that blows up in a fire storm–which, of course, provides a spectacular flaming backdrop from which our hero can calmly stride toward the camera carrying his or her problem-solving weapon of choice.
Buried deep in our psyche I think that’s partly how we see ourselves. C’mon, admit it. Wasn’t there a weird. satisfying stirring in your soul when Dirty Harry said “C’mon punk, make my day,” or Mel Gibson shouted “Freeeeedom”? Why is that? And just think of what a constant barrage of this myth does to someone struggling with mental illness and alienation.
The trope of iconoclastic heroes solving problems by using their mad skills in all sorts of methods of violence is still soooo pervasive. With 2023 starting out with one or more mass-shootings in the US every day you’d think some other storylines would be twitching in the consciences of even the most coke-addled Hollywood script writers and producers. Like Mark said, Hollywood seems to respond to various interest groups protesting the studios for (rightfully so, I think) lack of representation, stereotyping, etc.–but the elephant in the room is still carrying an AK47. “Ok, Not Vin Diesel in that scene .. We’ll have a gay, asian, trans kid mow down the enemies with an AK. Problem solved. Everyone happy now?”
Not sure how to stop it, but, in regard to gun violence, that life/art/life circle seems to be spinning out of control.
— DC
If we were sitting around beering over this I’d quickly play act and note ya’ll (self included) are a bunch of wimps—have no appreciation for the USA saving the world (WW II… “winning the west”—i.e. overcoming the savages, (Apaches)– as Geoff notes), and that there are some very bad actors out there worldwide and this type of talk is exactly why we never want a dem, much less AOC in charge of a defense budget. I bother you with that stupidity just to note where so much of the hero, almighty gun stuff got its green light and why it is never going away. I suppose we should be thankful that on Oscar night, the liberal academy dismisses most of the blockbusters a priori.
Shifting to pop psychology. Maybe we’ve all been bullied, gotten the short end of the stick—passed by at work, been ridiculed in a social setting…everyone has had losses along the way and it is Psych 101 that, at least for the ones that were in fact our own faults, to project them onto others—they are the bad guy—and they should be blown to pieces. Movies do that for that id crouching behind our mental sofas.
One could generalize—and I will: there are (2) distinct flavors of violence out there.
A. One that my wife will watch and
B. One that she will not watch a second of.
A includes Arnold movies, Star Wars, Potter, Lord of the Rings…more—the common attribute being they don’t indulge in violence, don’t linger over it, (you may be thinking that’s a stretch for Arnold movies—it is—ignore that for now), these A categories don’t descend into that deep twisted, interpersonal type of violence. Which category B flourishes in and is occupied by one and only one director: Quentin Tarantino. Kidding, there are oodles more (Robert Rodriguez, Guy Ritchie, even the Coen Brothers….Fargo, No Country…). But I think experts (where is “Filmington” when I need him)?, would concur, Tarantino is central to this vanguard. Often referred to as a guilty pleasures….the ones where you feel like a voyeur….when you don’t click past it fast enough.
Here is a famous film interview critic—forget his name, Indian—or British—who challenged Q about this. Q stormed out of the interview.
Tarantino Interview
-Dave
I think you both have hit the nail on the head, that violence in films—particularly the righteous violence of the outsider (see Western heroes or renegade cop films) confirms a basic American cultural value: violence is a—or the—solution. We see this in film, in sports (What a hit! That really rang his bell!) and in video games. Maybe a real-life corollary of this is the growing prevalence of young men obtaining semi-automatics and shooting the hell out of something to vent their frustrations.
We just saw Top Gun: Maverick this last week, (Kris likes to see all the Oscar nominations—I’ll blame it on her) and while it has pretty cool battle scenes and pyrotechnics, there’s nothing new there. It’s the same old formula movie complete with yet another happy ending. These are cardboard characters balancing on a flimsy plot line with transparently maudlin attempts to tug the heartstrings. It reminded me of reading to my daughter when she was very young—not that she liked violent war stories, but that she wanted me to read the same story over and over again. It’s the same with these action thrillers. Same character types, same plots, and same outcomes. All this is is cultural affirmation.
This was the top-grossing film of 2022. People want to see this story over and over. An acquaintance of mine who’s a veteran raved about the film, even praising one of the tired subplots (old pilot tries to redeem past transgressions) as outstanding. He just likes to see these movies; it’s what he’s into.
Dave makes a good point, too, about the gratuitous and excessive violence out there. There’s a couple of scenes in The Watchers where legs are being loudly snapped and blood is spurting all over the screen, making a pretty good movie cringeworthy. Tarantino is one of the worst with this—in terms of cultural work, I’m not quite sure what it means. If anything.
Anyway, I’m going to go unlock my gun safe and lock and load. Dave’s right. It’s time to man up.
—G
I tried to watch Django. The story, the dialogue, and the characters were all good. But the over-the-top gore was too much. Really sickening sound effects. So I didn’t get halfway through it. I guess I’m with Jenny on the gratuitous violence.
–Mark M.
In addition to Tarantino, I have now scratched another “highly respected” director from my list of any films I’d care to witness. Panos Cosmatos. The film “Mandy” was on someone’s list of top Nicolas Cage films so I checked it out. From the opening credits (in horrible fuzzy blood red gothic typeface) with a woozy song background, I knew I would hate it. It starts with a totally unbelievable depiction of Cage as a 80’s Northwest lumberjack of some sort and went downhill from there. I’ll admit, gothic horror revenge flicks aren’t my thing, but the over-the-top foreshadowing in every damn scene had its effect on me. It foreshadowed two hours of an exercise in endurance and boredom to keep my eyes on this thing. I lasted 15 minutes. At least Tarantino works some cheeky dialogue and humor into his flicks before the gratuitous violence starts. Yuk.
MarkO
Well, well, well, my little droogies. Squirrelling a little a bit at the ultra-violence, are we? You know it’s just good clean fun, like listening to our own very dear Ludwig Van…
You know, Tarantino, Cosmatos, and Rodriguez an some of the other purveyors of nasty—and popular—violence out there begs the question of what cultural work films like Django or Mandy or The Watchmen are doing. Are they affirming an existing cultural value or working to voice an innate (dare I say latent?) one?
When A Clockwork Orange first came out, it was considered shocking enough to be rated X, even though it seems tame compared to today’s fare. Have we grown more acclimated to excessive violence? Or are we supposed to get used to it? If films reflect cultural values and work towards confirming or establishing norms, who the fuck have we become?
—G