Is Gun Control Debate Missing The Point?

The brutal and tragic killing of 12 people in a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado has raised the thorny issue of gun control in an election year. Not surprisingly both Obama and Romney, fearful of being targeted the politically powerful National Rifle Association have dodged the issue and stated that they are committed to defending the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees citizens the right to bear arm. For or against gun control has become the central focus of the political debate.

But what if the entire debate is, in part, besides the point? Don't get me wrong, the American obsession with owning M-16s and Uzis is a clear signpost that America is a sick society. The fact that it is easier to get guns than it is to get decent healthcare or to organize a union is also a symbol of America's bizarro world priorities. And it is those priorities that ought to be interrogated because they are ultimately at the root of America's gun crime world record.

First, the idea that mass killers - or even just run of the mill murderers - are the result of gun availability or not misses the underlying point: why do so many Americans solve their problems with weapons? I mean, why would a guy who had a bright future, like James Holmes, do such a thing? Why would high school students show up to school and shoot their fellow students? Let's try to pick this apart.

There's an element of chickens coming home to roost in all of this - obviously not that any of the victims deserved what they got but rather that America valorizes violence in its foreign and domestic policy and, as a reflection of that, in its popular culture. The US spends more on the military than the next ten biggest military spenders combined. They spend as much on the military as on education and sixty percent more on the military than on welfare. America holds its pre-eminent place in the world order, as the empire that rules other empires, by use of that enormous military might. It propped up the Egyptian dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak by supplying weapons and money for weapons. It sells plentiful weapons to Saudi Arabia that are used, in part, to suppress their own population. The lion's share of aid to Israel is also in the form of military equipment. In fact, America is the world's largest supplier of weapons used in global conflicts.

Given the importance of weapons to the US political and economic system it's no surprise that the foreign policy response of the USA involves violence or the threat of violence. After 9/11 the first response of America wasn't to examine why they were targeted, it was rather to organize a war... against two countries that weren't responsible for the 9/11 attack, Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, America has invaded more countries and overthrown more foreign government than any nation in history.

At home the response to social problems and social movements is also profoundly influenced by the role of violence. From the violent repression of the Black Panthers in the 1970s to the police brutality by leading NYPD officers that brought the Occupy Wall Street movement to national attention, violence is the go-to response to political movements. It's no surprise that America incarcerates people at a higher rate than any other country on the planet. Punishment for deviancy is a core American value.

And this dependency on violence to maintain America's dominant position in the world order can't but help find its expression in popular culture. Of the top ten highest grossing films of 2011at least eight have plots that revolve around violence, or in which the problems of the lead character are solved through violence. I'm no prude and I like a good action movie; this isn't about judging people's personal tastes but rather making the point that American society is steeped in violence.

But it doesn't end with valorizing violence. That valorization itself is rooted in the fact that America is the most unequal society on the planet. America NEEDS violence to sustain that inequality - that and a stiflingly conservative and narrow ideology that labels anyone who disagrees with the main tenets of US foreign or domestic policy (never mind challenging the dominance of the market) as "UnAmerican." In part because social and political responses to inequality are shut down, the frustration that working people feel is often channeled into interpersonal violence, both verbal and physical. Secondly, the inequality and repressive laws, for instance around drugs, lead many poor people into a life of crime, understanding that "crime" is itself defined by those with power. It's OK to steal the homes and livelihoods of millions of ordinary workers (in fact, you will be rewarded with a bailout when the pyramid scheme comes crashing down). But if you sell a bag of weed or crack cocaine you will spend some serious time in jail. When people are defined as living outside the law they are the subject of violence, both by state institutions like the police and prison system, and from outlaw gangs who compete through violence as a side effect of their outlaw status.

Finally, the military and repressive priorities of the US federal and state governments and the lack of a comprehensive and universal health care system, austerity to social programs at the state level, etc. means that deeply disturbed people are on their own. The destruction of any institutions of social solidarity - outside of the family, which lacks the training and resources to tackle mental health issues - means that someone as deranged as James Holmes is left to fend for himself. He had more opportunity to purchase guns and ammunition online than he did to receive treatment. If the money spent on the US military were instead spent on a comprehensive network of support services - from welfare to mental health services and more - it would be less likely that someone like James Holmes would fall through the cracks. And it would also create a paradigm shift in some of the dominant values of American society, making it less likely that his mental derangement would lead him towards violence.

Gun control? Sure. But it's time to talk about the sickness at the heart of American society that is at root - not least because that is exactly the model which Harper's conservatives would have us emulate here in Canada.


Obama, Romney back gun owners as they decry shootings - The Globe and Mail:

'via Blog this'

Inception: Victory of the Banal

Look, I don't care what the reviewers say: Inception was just not that great a film. I guess after seeing the low ratings for Repo Men, a film of much greater intelligence and caliber, I shouldn't be surprised that the morons who write film reviews would be drooling all over this. After all, it had everything that they love - lots of cartoonish violence, some solid thrills, beautiful leading actors, and a turgid, pretentious and yet ultimately vacuous plotline.
Now, don't get me wrong but there were was lots of tension and many high speed thrills. With a budget this high - $160 million - you'd have to hire the most incompetent team of filmmakers on the planet not to come up with something at least impressive to look at. There were even a couple of clever ideas in the film.
But mostly it was so haphazardly orchestrated and directed and, yes, shot, that it needed all the bells and whistles (and the way over the top soundtrack) to cover up for all the emotional and plot holes within it.
Let's start with the acting and the dialogue. Until the action really ramps up and the actors stop talking except in urgent commands - "Get him to the safe!" - it is almost unbearable.
Writer/Director Nolan seems to have never heard of a contraction or he believes that actors should speak the Queen's English: "you would not want to do such a thing..." But it's worse than this, it's often unclear why the actors are saying their clunky lines. There is anger when there ought to be simple explication and there is DiCaprio's endlessly heavy droning about some pseudo science that makes no sense.
But at core the problem is that this is a heist film without any heist. In heist movies there's supposed to be some great prize as the main storyline. Could you imagine Ocean's Eleven without the stacks of cash in the basement vault of Bellagio's? Would Inside Man work if it weren't for the hidden information in the vault? What about Italian Job without the gold?
And that's just it: Inception's heist has no gold. It's no wonder that the motivation for the characters' actions is a total mystery.
Ellen Page is totally under-used in the story. In fact, after the introductory sequence where we see her ability to play the role of an architect she contributes nothing whatsoever to the "heist." She could be removed from the script and nobody would notice. All we're left with is her interest in the inner life of DiCaprio's character, for reasons that are obscure to say the least. And what of the rest of the team who aren't there for the thrill of entering the dreams of rich guys? Beats me.
Nor do we understand the motivation of Saito (Ken Watanabe), the Japanese businessman who hired DiCaprio to do the job of planting an idea in the mind of an heir to a business empire (Cillian Murphy). Does he just want to eliminate the competition, which would make him a fairly unsympathetic character, or is there some greater good in his mind, which would justify him being the palsy-walsy of DiCaprio. This is never ever made clear. And what super-powered businessman would put himself on the line to execute a dangerous job? Why does he take this risk instead of leaving it to the professionals?
So, we have a heist movie without a treasure and with no motivations for most of the major characters. What we're left with is a lot of razzle dazzle to make us forget that we don't care about what they're going after. In fact, the whole central storyline is so irrelevant that, in the end, we don't even know whether it worked and what the fall-out was from their "inception".
This leaves us with DiCaprio's subplot about wanting to get back to his kids because he's been accused of killing his wife and needing to get over the guilt surrounding her death. Not a bad B-story except that it doesn't really affect the main story - sorry, the brief intervention of a train was fun but it didn't change anything - and it isn't really much of an obstacle in the heist story when push comes to shove.
Besides acting and motivation, even the shot choices are not particularly interesting or well chosen. Often times the shots are out of focus or too close or just not particularly interesting.
There are a number of slow motion shots within the van that the characters are riding in within a dream. Almost all of these shots have a close-up on Joseph Gordon-Levitt, DiCaprio's sidekick, with Watanabe seated behind him. But these guys are tertiary characters by this point. Where is our lead? We don't see DiCaprio and rarely even see Ellen Page, who are now the central characters.
And, finally, not to rain on anyone's profundity parade but the thematic exploration of "what is more real: our dreams or reality?" is not particularly original in content nor in its presentation. The story never managed to rise to the level of speaking to some kind of general experience in the way that The Matrix did or, earlier, Blade Runner. Or, frankly, the much maligned Repo Men.
That film reviewers have gone ga-ga over Inception is not particularly surprising, I suppose. They also drooled over writer/director Nolan's previous offerings in the Batman franchise. And his film Memento is supposed to be a "big idea" film by a "big idea" filmmaker.
Inception, like Batman, is a product of its own massive marketing campaign: tens of millions have been spent telling us what to think of the film (it's deep, complex and visually stunning) and the reviewers play their dutiful role of parroting Hollywood's self-aggrandizement.
In fact, you don't even need to go see the movie. You already know that it is great; an "entertainment experience" as they say. You will be moved, changed, transformed. This is an IMPORTANT FILM. Except that it's not. It's just weak, bloated and pedestrian.

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Hancock: Delivers Too Much & Too Little

After being repulsed by rich, white guy, Bruce Wayne running around in a rubber suit in The Dark Knight, I was ready for a down and out black superhero in the latest Wil Smith video release, Hancock. I loved the last Wil Smith film I saw, I Am Legend. And, what? Shit blows up and the superdude doesn’t like cops or ridiculous uniforms? Sign me up.
Well, not quite.
Sure, Hancock has some funny bits – the armor piercing ejaculation was worth a guffaw and his drunken flight, bouncing a vanload of baddies off nearby buildings. I love that stupid shit. The whale toss? Classic.
There were even a couple of good stories in there – the hated superhero who needs a publicist to improve his image and the superhuman who’s lost his memory and now wanders alone and embittered imagining that he is the only of his kind. But that’s where the problem started. When you’ve only got an hour and a half to two hours – unless you’re making Batman films – you’ve got to be efficient and that means one story only. The result here is that neither story gets its due and none of the relationships are properly developed.
Charlize Theron spends the first half of the film throwing looks and/or jibes towards Wil Smith, setting us up over and over for something significant to happen. But then we have to wait until we’re over halfway into the film to find out what the deal is. By then we’re getting bored.
Boredom is especially a problem because the director, Peter Berg, has chosen to truncate the first story – the recuperation of Hancock’s self-image and public popularity – largely through a montage sequence, in which events are more or less repeated with slight variation. This prevents any drama or identification from developing. Then Hancock is redeemed in the eyes of the public – after years of being a much-hated public nuisance – with one daring rescue that takes up perhaps five minutes of screen time. Suddenly his anger issues are resolved and we move onto the next story between he and Charlize (never mind the total disappearance of the Jason Bateman subplot that drove the first half of the film).
Beyond these story issues, I have to ask, does anyone else out there think that it’s stupid for a superhero who is immortal, can fly, stop bullets, etc. to spend his time stopping dudes from robbing banks and liquor stores? Is that really the best use of their time? I dunno, how about that war in Iraq, or the Congo, or Afghanistan. Why not, you know, stop Israel from bombing the shit out of Gaza. And why not break the siege that is starving the population? How about those death squads killing trade unionists in Colombia and other places?
Instead, we’re led to believe that the biggest problem facing us is petty crime by (usually) black and brown people. That might make sense if you’re trying to sell homes in gated communities but its pathetic in a superhero story. I wouldn't pay to see this film in a movie theatre, I admit. But a five dollar video rental isn't so painful. Besides, it isn't as long as that stupid movie about the guy in the bat suit.

Batman is an asshole

Okay, everybody loves the fucking guy. Not me.
Look, here’s some damn BILLIONAIRE playboy, who arrives at parties with multiple women on his arm, like some goddamn pharaoh, who slips into a set of Kevlar long underwear and runs around tackling “evil.” Well, the last time I checked, the only people that billionaires thought were truly evil were the poor, the rebellious and the undisciplined. Oh, yeah, and democracy.
But everybody says that The Dark Knight is art. It’s “soo complex and dark”, they say. And Heath Ledger (RIP) is stunning in it, isn’t he? Wow, what acting.
Horseshit.
First, Heath Ledger was great in Brokeback Mountain. He managed to capture the complexity of a gay cowboy, forced to live a lie and struggle to find dignity within it. The movie was too long for my tastes (a habit of the director’s, I’ve noticed) but it was sublime nonetheless.
But the character Ledger plays, the Joker, has no character arc whatsoever. He runs around acting crazy, killing people and spouting ridiculous grade-school philosophy. He learns nothing and doesn’t change an iota. No, he is simply a cipher for some gushingly liberal point – people are good at heart. All this nonsense about what a great role he made it is reminiscent of Paris Hilton’s fame. She’s done nothing to warrant fame – in fact, as far as I can tell she’s utterly without skills or talent – but she’s famous for being famous. Everybody says it was a great role and thus it becomes in the common mind a great role.
The same goes for the raspy voiced Batman – dude, somebody give Christian Bale a Hall’s willya? I will give him this: he at least has some variety in his performance, from the suave and conflicted billionaire, Bruce Wayne, to the principled but violently animalistic superhero, Batman.
So, why did all the reviewers cream their jeans for The Dark Knight? Because it had pretension to be art, generated through a self-fulfilling marketing campaign. And because it had a stupid, liberal message to it – but one that could appeal to conservatives too.
That message? We mustn’t let the enemies of civilization bring us down to their level. Yup, profound, isn’t it? Here we have the Joker, who wants to destroy civilization (read: America) for no discernibly rational reason. Gee, I can’t imagine why anyone would have a bone to pick with the US of A (cough, cough, Chile. Cough, cough, Iraq. Cough, cough, Afghanistan, Central America, Cuba, etc). The Joker is, in reality, the personification of blowback made incomprehensible. He is depoliticized crime – and we all know that crime is bad, a threat to civilization, etc. And he is a terrorist. Have you got the picture yet? Those guys who blew up the Twin Towers – they were the Joker. They were trying to destroy civilization because they hate our values – not because of anything we’ve ever done to anyone in the Middle East (just as an example that popped into my head).
And Batman? Batman is what we would like to do. He is, as Commissioner Gordon informs us in the final scene, “the hero we deserve but not the hero we need.” Batman is arbitrary, violent power. He will stop the Joker, but his methods are a threat to us all.
So, yes, we’ll whip him out every once in a while – in fact, that’s what the Joker is hoping (presumably because he has a death wish as well as a desire to undermine society’s values) – but we really shouldn’t. And we should spurn the principle that Batman represents. Not because that principle isn’t effective but because of the abstract liberal values that society needs to keep functioning – accountability, rule of law, arbitration. In other words, we need to use Batman, but we need to pretend we abhor his methods – you know, like extraordinary rendition, torture, assassinations, etc. That Batman’s methods are the only effective means to defeat evil (read: terrorists) is reinforced by the fact that the crime-fighting DA, Harvey Dent, is destroyed both morally and physically by the terrorist. Batman, the counter-terrorist, is incorruptible.
Batman is the War on Terror. He is the principle of class justice – that is, the ruling class against the anarchic masses – the foreigners and African-Americans who make up the mobs in the film, the freaks, the mentally unstable.
So, like I said, Batman is an asshole and somebody oughta stop this guy, expropriate his fucking property, jail his colonialist butler and nationalize Wayne industries.