Soylent Green came out when? This is something I can know instantly, isn't it? 1973, as it turns out. And people reduce the film to those four words:
Soylent Green is people.
But that was never the appalling thing about Soylent Green. That was just good recycling. With the benefits way outweighing the costs. I never had a problem with that part. So much for the punchline. The pollution depicted in the film was brilliant. You could reach for your inhaler just watching the screen, it was that bad.
But the worst thing by far depicted in Soylent Green was exactly the same thing that I saw depicted tonight at the movies watching David Fincher's The Social Network.
Don't get me wrong. Aaron Sorkin's screenplay is perfect. Jesse Eisenberg gives exactly the performance he's hired to give — he's got the broody/despicable/pathetic guy down pat. With the casting of Eisenberg, the real Mark Zuckerberg doesn't stand a chance in the sympathy department, does he?
From my point of view, Soylent Green, The Social Network, oh, and Dead Poets Society — and a whole lot of other other-people's-favorite films — are all the same horror show.
School boy movies have even more in common. The smart-boy thing. The wannabe envy. The struggle to make it into the inner circle. To be accepted. The privileged oppressing the less privileged. The underprivileged/socially inept/ethnic guy breaking through the barriers that keep him oppressed.
Oh, and the reward of getting laid.
This latter appears to be the primary function that women play in these films: a repository for sperm. Though I'm not even sure if the smart-boys care whether their aim (or timing) is particularly accurate. And they're certainly not out to please anyone but themselves.
What makes all these movies unbearable isn't the precious dialogue or depiction of boy-brilliant angst (with an occasional milli-second of male sensitivity thrown in, though not, I should add, in The Social Network).
No, what makes them unwatchable is the women-as-furniture thing.
Gratuitous misogyny.
Soylent Green was explicit in this. Women were depicted quite literally as furniture that come with the apartment you (male) rent. In 1973 when the film came out, this was something no one seemed to even notice — it was so ubiquitous not only in film, but in our daily lives. Ms. magazine first appeared on the stands in 1972 and just the title attempted to convey the idea of women not being any man's property. Clearly the Soylent Green 'future' hadn't gotten the message yet.
But neither has The Social Network.
I'm not mad at the film, per se. I think what enrages me is that the depiction of women in this film may well be correct. That these young men with the big ideas still perceive women as perks and playthings, no different than say, drugs, alcohol, loud music and dark clubs with flashing lights. Slithery women populate The Social Network just as they populated Dead Poets, Soylent Green and god knows how many other movies. We should make a list. Or maybe not. It's too depressing.
Granted, The Social Network provides a sole female voice protesting the treatment of women. But it is drowned out by every other female voice in the film just fine with bimboification. With not being the brilliant innovator but the door prize.
I remember seeing Dead Poets with a group of friends when it came out in 1989. And over dinner afterward, they raved about it, how great, how sensitive, how well played... And I sat there grumpy, seething and enraged — that sole voice at the table that couldn't stand the film for what it did to women. They hadn't noticed.
Well, the movies haven't changed much, have they?
1972,
or 1989,
or 2010.
I'm still watching the same bloody scene played out again and again — with reviewers clearly not watching the same movie that I'm watching. Not seeing the same thing that I'm seeing.
But nowadays, when I go to the movies, I'm sitting next to someone who not only sees the pattern, but also feels the outrage.
In other words, these days, I'm sitting next to a woman.
And she's a filmmaker.
So watch out...
Showing posts with label Soylent Green. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Soylent Green. Show all posts
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
the soylent solution
Was watching Tom Brokaw's repeat 'special' called "Boomer$" tonight, and maybe Rh is right not to bother watching news media.
First of all,'boomer' is such an ugly word — and Brokaw's cute dollar sign at the end does not help make it a term of endearment. I think the term is designed for us (or you) to despise it. 'Post-war generation' seems more apt to me. Although, I always thought 'Children of the '60s' was what it felt like (not children in the '60s, but of the '60s). Which maybe fits the claim that we spent our youth playing at being children. M always said he was reborn in the '60s (in Berkeley of course), and that works too. Point is, we identify with the era of the'60s more than we identify with being part of a population explosion that went on for a couple of decades.
Brokaw's show manages to blame the 74 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 for all the ills and recklessness of American (and perhaps global) society. Blaming especially the optimism he claims this generation has had. An optimism that, he says, led us to have high expectations of our own limitless opportunities, unable to think of the consequences of our own actions, irresponsible, irrepressible, frivolous, self-indulgent consumerist morons. Except for Tom Hanks, whom he appears to reprieve for his appreciation of Brokaw's favorite generation ("The Greatest Generation") who fought WWII. He makes it sound like Woodstock produced nothing more than mud and trash — as if (except for Ritchie Havens) nothing much really happened there. He shows us mini-mansions, and icons of the early high tech years implying that the 'boomer' generation alone is responsible for the financial meltdown, the sub-prime mortgage crisis, moral decay — you name it, it's our fault. And the fault of optimism.
Optimism, Brokaw says, meant that this generation did not prepare itself for the possibility that they might not get the next raise, that they might actually get laid off, that they might not ever get another job again. And when disaster struck, they used their credit cards to tide them over — thus increasing the national debt. Just the image of the name of his program — Boomer$ — reduces an entire generation (if that's really what we are) to nothing more than that dollar sign at the end. Somewhere along the line it's people like Brokaw who stopped calling us citizens and started calling us consumers. And post 9/11 that was turned into some kind of (temporary) virtue as we were told to go out and spend, like that was our job... Consume, we were told. We'll nail you for it later.
To balance things out, Brokaw covers the everyman heroes of Vietnam, four of the kids who lost their lives during the Civil Rights Movement, and a few seconds of the Women's Rights Movement. His critique culminates with his evaluation that we boomer optimists have been left not just unremarkable, but "unrealized" — by this he means to say that because all is not well in the world, and we are not all thriving and enlightened, that as a generation we have failed. (And here I always thought it was only the Buddha who was fully "realized").
And here's where his view of my generation missed the mark.
Ours is not a generation of optimists. We were not raised in a vacuum of privilege: We were raised on the tales (and results) of our grandparents' experience of the Depression. We were raised with the emerging details of the horrors of the Holocaust poured into us. We were raised with American responsibility for the use and abuse of nuclear 'solutions', raised with the McCarthy period, with the fear of impending global nuclear disaster, the assassinations of those we thought would make a difference. We were raised with the KKK burning crosses on our lawns or the lawns of our neighbors or loved ones. We were raised with Nixon and Watergate... Optimists? How could we be optimists? Has he ever listened to our music? The words, I mean. Believe me, we're no optimists.
The one thing being part of a post-war baby boom did give us was numbers. Just that, nothing more. And nothing less, either. For numbers led us to not feel like self-indulgent individualists. Having a generation, having those numbers, meant that when we had an opinion, we could express it collectively. Brokaw missed the mark when he skimmed over Martin Luther King, Jr. finding only the kids willing to go out into the streets and protest, while their parents declined to put themselves forward. That's the real story of my generation: We went out into the streets. Together. We took collective action.
Brokaw's Boomer$ ends with a projection fit to scare the shit out of every American not of the Boomer body. The most egregious acts of the post-war generation are those we are about to commit. Retirement, with the distinct possibility of longevity. Blame us for the future decline of the American Empire. Gotta blame someone, since that decline is inevitable. Might as well be Boomer$.
Having been raised on the Holocaust (and being a devout and life-long pessimist), I know an impending disaster when I see one. Eric Hoffer told us long ago that the easiest way to unite a divided populace is by instilling in them a hatred of a common enemy. My generation treated that conceptually. We united for or against principles — not segments of the population.
When one population, and one alone becomes the focal point of all that is wrong in a society, it's time to be sure you've got your passport in hand. And strangely enough, a growing number of my generation are getting out now while they still can.
After Brokaw, the Soylent Solution seems downright imminent. Not the Soylent-Green-is-People Solution. Americans (of any generation) aren't fit enough to eat. No, it's the other Soylent Green Solution. Instead of Assisted Living Facilities for us as we age, no, Brokaw helps set the stage for that other solution, the Holocaust solution that I was raised to expect again one day, Soylent Green's 'Assisted' Suicide Facilities, maybe at least with the Pastoral Symphony option still available? In holographic splendor maybe. And we're collectivists, remember? If you're gonna do it, make it a Woodstock moment.
Charlton Heston: "I know, I know. When you were young, people were better."
Edward G. Robinson: "Aw, nuts. People were always rotten. But the world was beautiful."
So much for optimism.
First of all,'boomer' is such an ugly word — and Brokaw's cute dollar sign at the end does not help make it a term of endearment. I think the term is designed for us (or you) to despise it. 'Post-war generation' seems more apt to me. Although, I always thought 'Children of the '60s' was what it felt like (not children in the '60s, but of the '60s). Which maybe fits the claim that we spent our youth playing at being children. M always said he was reborn in the '60s (in Berkeley of course), and that works too. Point is, we identify with the era of the'60s more than we identify with being part of a population explosion that went on for a couple of decades.
Brokaw's show manages to blame the 74 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 for all the ills and recklessness of American (and perhaps global) society. Blaming especially the optimism he claims this generation has had. An optimism that, he says, led us to have high expectations of our own limitless opportunities, unable to think of the consequences of our own actions, irresponsible, irrepressible, frivolous, self-indulgent consumerist morons. Except for Tom Hanks, whom he appears to reprieve for his appreciation of Brokaw's favorite generation ("The Greatest Generation") who fought WWII. He makes it sound like Woodstock produced nothing more than mud and trash — as if (except for Ritchie Havens) nothing much really happened there. He shows us mini-mansions, and icons of the early high tech years implying that the 'boomer' generation alone is responsible for the financial meltdown, the sub-prime mortgage crisis, moral decay — you name it, it's our fault. And the fault of optimism.
Optimism, Brokaw says, meant that this generation did not prepare itself for the possibility that they might not get the next raise, that they might actually get laid off, that they might not ever get another job again. And when disaster struck, they used their credit cards to tide them over — thus increasing the national debt. Just the image of the name of his program — Boomer$ — reduces an entire generation (if that's really what we are) to nothing more than that dollar sign at the end. Somewhere along the line it's people like Brokaw who stopped calling us citizens and started calling us consumers. And post 9/11 that was turned into some kind of (temporary) virtue as we were told to go out and spend, like that was our job... Consume, we were told. We'll nail you for it later.
To balance things out, Brokaw covers the everyman heroes of Vietnam, four of the kids who lost their lives during the Civil Rights Movement, and a few seconds of the Women's Rights Movement. His critique culminates with his evaluation that we boomer optimists have been left not just unremarkable, but "unrealized" — by this he means to say that because all is not well in the world, and we are not all thriving and enlightened, that as a generation we have failed. (And here I always thought it was only the Buddha who was fully "realized").
And here's where his view of my generation missed the mark.
Ours is not a generation of optimists. We were not raised in a vacuum of privilege: We were raised on the tales (and results) of our grandparents' experience of the Depression. We were raised with the emerging details of the horrors of the Holocaust poured into us. We were raised with American responsibility for the use and abuse of nuclear 'solutions', raised with the McCarthy period, with the fear of impending global nuclear disaster, the assassinations of those we thought would make a difference. We were raised with the KKK burning crosses on our lawns or the lawns of our neighbors or loved ones. We were raised with Nixon and Watergate... Optimists? How could we be optimists? Has he ever listened to our music? The words, I mean. Believe me, we're no optimists.
The one thing being part of a post-war baby boom did give us was numbers. Just that, nothing more. And nothing less, either. For numbers led us to not feel like self-indulgent individualists. Having a generation, having those numbers, meant that when we had an opinion, we could express it collectively. Brokaw missed the mark when he skimmed over Martin Luther King, Jr. finding only the kids willing to go out into the streets and protest, while their parents declined to put themselves forward. That's the real story of my generation: We went out into the streets. Together. We took collective action.
Brokaw's Boomer$ ends with a projection fit to scare the shit out of every American not of the Boomer body. The most egregious acts of the post-war generation are those we are about to commit. Retirement, with the distinct possibility of longevity. Blame us for the future decline of the American Empire. Gotta blame someone, since that decline is inevitable. Might as well be Boomer$.
Having been raised on the Holocaust (and being a devout and life-long pessimist), I know an impending disaster when I see one. Eric Hoffer told us long ago that the easiest way to unite a divided populace is by instilling in them a hatred of a common enemy. My generation treated that conceptually. We united for or against principles — not segments of the population.
When one population, and one alone becomes the focal point of all that is wrong in a society, it's time to be sure you've got your passport in hand. And strangely enough, a growing number of my generation are getting out now while they still can.
After Brokaw, the Soylent Solution seems downright imminent. Not the Soylent-Green-is-People Solution. Americans (of any generation) aren't fit enough to eat. No, it's the other Soylent Green Solution. Instead of Assisted Living Facilities for us as we age, no, Brokaw helps set the stage for that other solution, the Holocaust solution that I was raised to expect again one day, Soylent Green's 'Assisted' Suicide Facilities, maybe at least with the Pastoral Symphony option still available? In holographic splendor maybe. And we're collectivists, remember? If you're gonna do it, make it a Woodstock moment.
Charlton Heston: "I know, I know. When you were young, people were better."
Edward G. Robinson: "Aw, nuts. People were always rotten. But the world was beautiful."
So much for optimism.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
check list for the living
When a good friend checked herself into a posh home for unencumbered elders ... I stopped seeing her. This, despite that she now resided 60 miles closer than she had before. This despite my longstanding secret desire that she move those 60 miles closer.
It took me over a year to visit her in the palace of the still-living. Maybe longer. It was one village I knew I'd never blend in with. For one, I don't speak the language. For two, well, there's everything else. The resident elders have 'drinks' in each others' apartments and then descend to the wood-paneled dining room below (or was it mirrored, or was it both?). Each apartment has a nominal kitchen, but all meals are provided in the Dining Hall below, and the meals are elegant, refined, healthful, and tasteful (in both senses). Jackets are required for men, at least for dinner.
The apartments have call buttons throughout in case of emergency; they have maid service, and linens are provided. I'm not sure if they do all the laundry for you or just provide the linens and towels. There's a pool, a gym (with trainers), rides to and from the opera, the Fromm Institute, wherever. There are high level lectures, a library, holiday celebrations, expeditions. And they let in a certain percentage of Jews. I'm not sure if they've got an actual policy on this. As I said, while this place would make a fascinating study, I'm not the person to do it.
The one visit I did make completely freaked me out. So much for objectivity. So it's also possible I've gotten a lot wrong. But this is how I remember it. I was, however, given the grand tour. There's an infirmary. More than one, I think. Short term and long term. And meds are provided. Doctors. Nurses. All your terminal needs are attended to.
It's a gamble to move in, really. You pay up front for your apartment as well as a monthly — but you won't be selling your apartment when you're gone. It gets reabsorbed into the body (as they put it in Invasion of the Body Snatchers). (I, clearly, am 'not of the body').
The residents don't seem to die, they disappear (another reminder of the Body Snatchers).
"Nobody," my friend told me, "ever speaks of death."
What they say instead, is that an apartment is available.
Residents disappear into the infirmary, and sometimes return for a while. My friend refers to herself and her fellow residents as 'inmates.' and these inmates are all on death row. Although the dates for execution remain indeterminate.
I'm not quite sure why this place scares the shit out of me. It's not just that it seems out of place, belonging more on the Upper East Side. Although a place on the Upper East Side would feel more authentic than this. It's not the tall columns, the sculptures, and flower arrangements. Not just that the place makes me feel like a peasant whose taken a wrong turn and still has mud on her boots. It's not just that 'drink' is not my choice of drug, and it's certainly not that they're 'old' since I do qualify age-wise to be incarcerated in this Death Palace.
It's not just that I can't make conversation to save my life, or the goyische formality and upper crust posture. Or the lack of diversity, including economic...
Where's my anthropological sense of adventure? Where's my enthusiasm to visit my friend? Where's my sense of humor? The place is really hilarious.
Remember Dylan's 'he not busy being born is busy dying'?
It was an anthem. We loved it, repeated it. Had contempt for all those busy dying. The inmates in the Death Palace have already taken care of their 'busy dying' and now are very busy living. Painting, writing, learning, hiking, traveling. With Veblenian vigor. They are, for the most part, pre-terminal. Or at least they start out that way. They've uncluttered their lives, as well as their belongings. They've made room for, well, the pleasure of pleasure.
So how come I can't stand the place?
I think I'm still immersed in the clutter of a messy introspective life. And still immersed in the time consuming lot of 'busy dying' — of sorting out paperwork, of getting things in order (and not just for me). I've spent, I now realize, exactly one year busy living with the dying. One year since my dad's diagnosis. My mom's incapacity. Being consumed with advance directives, hospice, hospitals, and residential treatment centers. Falls in the night. Emergency calls, caregivers, fear of the phone ringing. Paying the bills, paying the taxes, paying the lawyers. Documentation. Documents. Grave diggers. Visitors. Stuff. Distribution of stuff. Recovery. Relapse...
For me, death and dying is a bewildering, messy affair.
But for the inmates at the Death Palace, it's all neat and tidy, squeaky clean and, well, just plain invisible. Just another apartment on the market. Know anyone interested?
It took me over a year to visit her in the palace of the still-living. Maybe longer. It was one village I knew I'd never blend in with. For one, I don't speak the language. For two, well, there's everything else. The resident elders have 'drinks' in each others' apartments and then descend to the wood-paneled dining room below (or was it mirrored, or was it both?). Each apartment has a nominal kitchen, but all meals are provided in the Dining Hall below, and the meals are elegant, refined, healthful, and tasteful (in both senses). Jackets are required for men, at least for dinner.
The apartments have call buttons throughout in case of emergency; they have maid service, and linens are provided. I'm not sure if they do all the laundry for you or just provide the linens and towels. There's a pool, a gym (with trainers), rides to and from the opera, the Fromm Institute, wherever. There are high level lectures, a library, holiday celebrations, expeditions. And they let in a certain percentage of Jews. I'm not sure if they've got an actual policy on this. As I said, while this place would make a fascinating study, I'm not the person to do it.
The one visit I did make completely freaked me out. So much for objectivity. So it's also possible I've gotten a lot wrong. But this is how I remember it. I was, however, given the grand tour. There's an infirmary. More than one, I think. Short term and long term. And meds are provided. Doctors. Nurses. All your terminal needs are attended to.
It's a gamble to move in, really. You pay up front for your apartment as well as a monthly — but you won't be selling your apartment when you're gone. It gets reabsorbed into the body (as they put it in Invasion of the Body Snatchers). (I, clearly, am 'not of the body').
The residents don't seem to die, they disappear (another reminder of the Body Snatchers).
"Nobody," my friend told me, "ever speaks of death."
What they say instead, is that an apartment is available.
Residents disappear into the infirmary, and sometimes return for a while. My friend refers to herself and her fellow residents as 'inmates.' and these inmates are all on death row. Although the dates for execution remain indeterminate.
I'm not quite sure why this place scares the shit out of me. It's not just that it seems out of place, belonging more on the Upper East Side. Although a place on the Upper East Side would feel more authentic than this. It's not the tall columns, the sculptures, and flower arrangements. Not just that the place makes me feel like a peasant whose taken a wrong turn and still has mud on her boots. It's not just that 'drink' is not my choice of drug, and it's certainly not that they're 'old' since I do qualify age-wise to be incarcerated in this Death Palace.
It's not just that I can't make conversation to save my life, or the goyische formality and upper crust posture. Or the lack of diversity, including economic...
Where's my anthropological sense of adventure? Where's my enthusiasm to visit my friend? Where's my sense of humor? The place is really hilarious.
Remember Dylan's 'he not busy being born is busy dying'?
It was an anthem. We loved it, repeated it. Had contempt for all those busy dying. The inmates in the Death Palace have already taken care of their 'busy dying' and now are very busy living. Painting, writing, learning, hiking, traveling. With Veblenian vigor. They are, for the most part, pre-terminal. Or at least they start out that way. They've uncluttered their lives, as well as their belongings. They've made room for, well, the pleasure of pleasure.
So how come I can't stand the place?
I think I'm still immersed in the clutter of a messy introspective life. And still immersed in the time consuming lot of 'busy dying' — of sorting out paperwork, of getting things in order (and not just for me). I've spent, I now realize, exactly one year busy living with the dying. One year since my dad's diagnosis. My mom's incapacity. Being consumed with advance directives, hospice, hospitals, and residential treatment centers. Falls in the night. Emergency calls, caregivers, fear of the phone ringing. Paying the bills, paying the taxes, paying the lawyers. Documentation. Documents. Grave diggers. Visitors. Stuff. Distribution of stuff. Recovery. Relapse...
For me, death and dying is a bewildering, messy affair.
But for the inmates at the Death Palace, it's all neat and tidy, squeaky clean and, well, just plain invisible. Just another apartment on the market. Know anyone interested?
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