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(Fwd) Re: Star Wars... It's not the hype
Dear Listies,
I have found this discussion on Star Wars interesting. I recognize
that my own dislike is somewhat cranky, as expressed. I hope it
doesn't come across as highbrow snobbery, though. If I didn't feel so
alone in my cynicism for these movies, maybe I wouldn't be such a
crank about it.
Well, anyways, to respond to those who believe that Star Wars
exemplifies the appeal of great myths to all ages:
I do think it would be wrong to be anti-mythical, to sneer at any
movie set in a fantasy world. I don't think all movies should have
scripts only intellgible to an educated elite, or that movie makers
have to comply with every natural law and be brutally realistic at
every turn. And Narnia is a beautiful world.
Let me clarify one of my major complaints with the film. I complained
that it presented violence as computer enhanced spectacle. Some
responded by saying it really wasn't all that violent or all that
spectacular, or even computer generated.
Well, perhaps you miss the point of my comment: The problem with the
violence of Star Wars is that it is totally unlike the ugly and
complicated kind that transpires in the real world. Instead it is
a childish fantasy fulfillment: The kind of violence children want
when they are at play, in which the "bad guys" are annihilated. The
kind that is occasioned by neither irony, regret, or pain, that
evokes no empathy or reflection. Video game style.
To clarify my point: I have no objection to violence in the movies.
However, when the violence is so giddly celebrated as the workings of
Good that the audience can merely enjoy its orgasmic fruition without
being challenged with a meaning beyond "hooray the bad guys are dead"
I think the movie is lacking something important.
An example of a great, yet violent, movie, is Sling Blade. Here, the
final "murder" of the brutal boyfriend is not only cathartic, but
rich with troubling questions about its own necessity, about the
immensely humane (ironically) mind of the killer. Here, we have an
act of violence presented as the only defense against an evil so
insidous and beyond the reach of law that we are puzzled by our need
to approve the killing in spite of its legal status as a murder. By
reflecting on the moral puzzle of this movie, we are stretched and
challenged to think about moral problems in new ways.
In contrast, Star Wars style violence is exactly the kind that does
not provoke tough questions, or demand empathy, or understanding,
that has no ironies. And it is a kind that we, as a country, no
longer feast upon by merely watching movies. We have the likes of the
Gulf War, Libya, and Kosovo, presented to us as infotainment which we
can enjoy while our fighter pilots kick foreign ass. And in the
future if the Republicans get their way, while our own "Star Wars"
missle defense protects us from nuclear retribution from any of the
many countries we offend so frequently.
Follow-Ups: