Oscar reflections

Human beings are strikingly easily manipulated. Otherwise brilliant people can be lead to believe some rather asinine, illogical things. The key is to change the semantics to more positive connotations and to place the accomplishment of the goal above all else. That is to say, euphemize away all of the un-pleasantries and if a bit of dishonesty is needed to achieve the greater goal, well then so be it.

German philosopher Herbert Marcuse was particularly adept at this practice, and his academic descendants are gleefully carrying the torch. Marcuse had, in my opinion, quite a curious view of the world. Like most other Marxists, he believed the ultimate utopia was a world-wide commune.

Unlike most other Marxists, however, Marcuse admitted that such a goal was likely never going to come about through traditional means. In Marcuse's view, the general population was simply too stupid to know what was best for it, and thus required some strategic nudging to achieve this utopia.

In doing so, Marcuse adopted some eerily Orwellian beliefs, which were actually little more than quite simple — but powerful — changes in semantics.

On the subject of tolerance, tolerance was redefined to essentially mean intolerance. The free flow of ideas, in Marcuse's view, was not intended to be free. To this end, only opinions that advanced "the cause" were allowed to be discussed. All other opinions were not, well, tolerated.

Indoctrination was to be referred to as education, as that sounded much more pleasant. Students were no longer to be taught how to think. Rather, they were to be taught what to think. And again, they were only to be taught things that advanced the cause of Marcuse's utopia.

A similar modus operandi has been at work in this country's cinema industry. Now, I'm not here to rail against 'liberal Hollywood,' but it can hardly be argued that film isn't used to change, or even manipulate, attitudes.

Look no farther than this year's Oscar nominees. Two of the five films nominated for Best Picture positively portray homosexuality. One film portrays Senator Joe McCarthy as a rabid, illogical anti-communist alarmist. Another film attempts to show that terrorists have feelings too.

George C|ooney is nominated (Editor’s note: he also won) for a film that might as well have been written by Sadd@m Hussein, portraying American oil executives as fat, corrupt and evil. Fe|icity Huffm@n is nominated (though did not win) for playing a man that wants to become a woman.

Suchs films seem to be somewhat of an anomaly for this year, but there have been similar films nominated for Oscars in the past -- The Shawshank Redemption that tells us that prison guards are sadistic and unconcerned with the guilt or innocence of their prisoners; the Green Mile that tells that murderers are good people and that innocent people get put to death; The Cider House Rules that tells us that being against abortion is archaic and closed-minded; and Dean Man Walking that, again, tells us that heinous criminals have feelings too.

Now, I'm not cynical enough to believe that the people that make such movies have motives as nefarious as Marcuse, but their goals and methods are the same. Such people have a world view that is at odds with reality, and so it is in their interest to create some sort of alternative reality more compatible with their world view. And since most of the industry shares this world view, they fall all over themselves trying to give awards to each other in self-congratulatory love-fests for their "brave" or "ground-breaking" film making.

Moreover, many people buy into it. Over the summer, there was a lot of buzz about the line in Revenge of the Sith that said "This is how liberty dies...with thunderous applause." Completely overlooking the fact that it was, indeed, coming from a science fiction movie that involved space travel and english-speaking aliens. In other words, it wasn't real. But people didn't care because it validated their opinion.

The same is true for many of the Oscar-nominated films both this year and in the past. They're not real, but people look past that because they validate their opinions. No matter how many movies are made that rail against the death penalty, however, the fact remains that the vast majority of criminals on death row are absolutely abhorrent “people” (I use the term loosely) that did unspeakably heinous things and deserve to die.

No matter how many films are made that rail against “McCarthyism” the fact remains that Joe McCarthy, while coming across as a frothy-mouthed alarmist, was actually correct in his suspicions in many cases.

Contrary to George C|ooney’s belief, most American oil executives aren’t corrupt. And yes, no matter how many movies are made about it, homosexuality is still outside the realm of normal sexuality. Anything that affects less than ten percent of a population cannot really be considered normal, yes?

I’m not saying, of course, that people shouldn’t make movies that fudge or even wholly disregard reality. They absolutely should. Movies serve as a nice, sometimes even necessary, escape from reality. Life would be quite boring without them. But they should be taken for exactly what they are -- escapes from, not reflections of, reality.

During tonight’s Oscar broadcast, one award recipient said, quite accurately, that ‘film is not a mirror to be held up to society, it is a hammer with which to shape it.’ I completely agree. I just think we should be careful about who we allow to shape it, lest we go the way of the Romans -- or for that matter, the Europeans.