Evil Capitalism and Other Thoughts on Film

When I was in high school, I was so in love with the idea of socialism and communism that I routinely touted the evils of capitalism in anyone's face - every chance I could get. I have found though, that living hand-to-mouth for 10 years since leaving high school has changed my ways and my mind. I no longer force my strong opinions down anyone else's throat, and I no longer hold fast to the idea of nonconformism being the only way for me. In fact, perhaps the pinnacle of my own changing views can be best illustrated by my purchasing a brand new Jetta in 2006 and choosing the color black because it matched my shiny, new, and fancy (at the time) phone. Thus was my first undeniably consumption-for-the-sake-of-consumption purchase. The event also coincides with my emergence into a higher tax bracket after accepting my first "career" job and entrance therefore into--I suppose--the middle class.

I have since drooled over designer fashions and bigger, better, fancier gadgets. I have toned my consumer lust down quite a bit since then, but it still lingers. I'm okay with that (though I know for sure that I will owe a sum of $1 million to my old friend Aaron Coleman as life has proven me MUCH more conservative a thinker than he will ever be).

But I still cringe at the utter nonsequitor that is this country's Republican party and the dogma of us versus them that feeds this terrible pattern of babies making babies who all vote GOP (don't believe me? Show me one girl from MTV's 16 and Pregnant who is not from a red state). This weekend I watched "Capitalism: A Love Story" by the ubiquitous Michael Moore. Now, Mr. Moore's film-making certainly leaves a film buff like myself wanting as far as cinematic talent goes, but the underlying messages are clear and true. I wished he had gone farther. I wished he had eschewed the old black and white film and monsters montage crap to give us real facts, real data. He didn't bring up anything I didn't know - though everything I know about Collateral Debt Obligations and default swaps I owe to This American Life. When he surrounded the Chase Bank headquarters with caution tape, it felt trite. "Sicko" had an amazing climactic confrontation scene, where Michael, along with some victims of the US Healthcare Industrial Complex, attempted to get into Guantanamo Bay to be seen by the first-rate medical professionals stationed at the dicey facility. That was an amazing film, and I really wished "Capitalism" had pushed the same limits. It's almost as if the train-robbery that this country's economy has been perpetuating for so long is too scary even for Michael Moore to truly tackle.

If I have any recommendations coming out of this, it is to call to you, Dear Readers, to be educated. Do not take what you see from either Michael Moore or Bill O'Reilly at face value. There is more. This life is a layer cake of onion skins and one pleasantry gives birth to the next evildoing. Read the newspaper, watch movies, listen to Ira Glass (thank God for Ira Glass). And above all, do not simply make your own choices - own them.

Little Bee and Me

I recently finished reading "Little Bee" by Chris Cleave. Usually, I find it tiresome to read women-centric books written by male authors, but I didn't even notice a man was writing until the very end when I read the acknowledgments. Perhaps it helped that there was no sexuality in this book. This book was about the horrors of humanity, the horrors of gaping wounds left on one's neck after a bullet has grazed you there. You may walk around for hours afterward -- bleeding, puss oozing from an unhealable wound trying in vain to clot itself up, but eventually you will succumb and die.

The horror, the horror. Joseph Conrad's famous line is relevant here because what we learn from Little Bee's story is that the horror is not only all around us, outside of us, but it is also inside of us. Inherent to ourselves, inevitable in our relations with those around us. We deceive our lovers and partners, we murder other tribes for their resources. We, in effect, hang ourselves by our own rope every time.

This book is powerful. It also made me stop and think about my own prejudices and remember just how horrors commited by one people against another are a major part of everyone's history. Genocide was not invented by Hitler's Third Reich, and it is important to remember that. No one people or nation is worse than another, but it is shocking to see that this is happening today, transpiring right this very second. How can we live with this cognitive dissonance? Because we have to. Life is about happy mediums. Can there be happy endings? No, but there can be bittersweet ones.