Why have our movies become so dark, showing a government so evil?

Larry Kummer, Editor

11 years ago

Summary: The evolution of America has accelerated as we slide down the long-feared slippery slope leading to the end of the Second Republic (founded on the Constitution). Each event appears clear in the news, but the cumulative effect — the rise of a New America — is too large for us to see. For perspective let’s look at our heroes in print and on screen. Their foes display our fears; their relationship to the government reflects our relationship to it. We might pretend not to see what’s happening, but our mythical heroes see the darkness falling on us — and have changed accordingly in ways that reflect our weakness. When we decide to become strong again, we’ll find new myths (or reclaim the old ones). {First of two posts today}

“People need stories, more than bread, itself. They teach us how to live, and why. … Stories show us how to win.”
— The Master Storyteller in HBO’s “The Arabian Nights”

Our fictional heroes reflect our dreams of individual empowerment, along a gamut from James Bond to Superman. Less often remarked, some of our myths show our awareness that only through collective action do we have strength. In the real world unions, associations, and governments created the middle class and brought full civil rights to women and minorities. Many of our stories feature heroic organizations — such as the British Secret Service, Triplanetary, U.N.C.L.E, GI Joe, and S.H.I.E.L.D. Heroic individuals and organizations protected us against criminals and foreign powers.

No longer. The war on terror has revealed that our government might have become our greatest foe. On TV we see stories with ample precedents in history, but unimaginable to most Americans. President Obama personally selects America citizens for assassination, without formal charges or trial. The NSA taps our phones and monitors our emails. Police patrol our streets with military equipment (just like Fallujah), eager to use force (e.g., SWAT teams killing when delivering summonses).

Fiction often mirrors our fears and our view of the world. As do our films today. Soldiers take Superman away in handcuffs. SHIELD launches helicarriers equipped for surveillance and assassination. Government agents attack Captain America. Action adventures routinely feature government officials as the bad guys. The next sequence of Marvel films feature the Civil War series, in which the government regulates — forcibly enlists — mutants in its service.

In this world trust becomes rare. Heroes in TV and films are often told to “trust nobody” (e.g., in “The X-Files” TV show, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”, and “Captain America: Winter Soldier”). Sometimes the moral of the story is the even more extreme “trust nothing”, with the usual exceptions of love — or friends and family. It’s excellent advice for peons. Taken seriously this prevents people from working together through existing organizations, which shatters even the strongest people into powerless shards. We become individuals and families helpless before the mega-corporations and government agencies that run our world, and helpless before the 1% that own it.

Movies and TV are our myths. Today they give us nothing to inspire people to work for social and political reform.

The missing link

Dedication matters more than technology, the willingness to pursue rational goals at great cost over many years. Intelligence and passion matter. But none of this accomplishes much without organizations, which gives us planning, leaders and followers, accumulating individuals into something greater.

Organizations cannot function without a shared vision of the possible. For that we rely on our myths, rooted in our past. Napoleon sought to imitate Alexander the Great. The Founders look to build a better Roman Republic. Israel looks to ancient Israel. Myths create our vision of what’s possible for reform.

This creates a problem for Americans, so ignorant of our past (and despising much of what little we know about those sexist racist dead folks). When our myths turn dark and depressing, what remains to inspire us? We can dream of being Wonder Woman or Superman, but this provides no models or ideals to spark action. I wonder about the future of the millennials.

What next?

A breath of our inspiration
Is the life of each generation;
A wondrous thing of our dreaming
Unearthly, impossible seeming —
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are working together in one,
Till our dream shall become their present,
And their work in the world be done.

— Arthur O’Shaughnessy, “Music and Moonlight” (1874)

I suspect we turn to fantasy about heroic individuals striking down the evil government — Captain America: Winter Soldier is a typical example — as a stage in our surrender. It’s an adaptation to defeat, since we choose not to accept the burden of self-government and the endless struggles that requires. It’s an old story. The reaction of the Roman people to the Republic’s fall was resignation, as seen in the popular philosophies of the Empire: Stoicism, Epicureanism, Hedonism, and Christianity.

We need no new myths. The old ones remain potent; when we wish to act we will find them as inspiring as they were for our forefathers. Nothing can happen until we reach that point. So the strategic goal of reformers must not be specific policy changes, but nourishing the small spark of independence within our souls. Then much becomes possible.