SPOILER ALERT ON ALL SHOWS
There are a lot of movies/series that I’d like to
ethically review. The focus is the
deeper cultural messages they implant. However,
I just don’t have time. I am trying to
finish up my novel and send it out before 2022.
I also need my poetry for spiritual survival. The catharsis keeps me sane and connected to my
spirit guides.
Given lack of time, I am reduced to sketches. Here are five of them. Four movies and a series recently featured on
Netflix. The only one I really liked was Midnight Mass (see 5).
SPOILER ALERT ON ALL SHOWS
(1) Marshall (2017)
Marshall is a fictional account of the early legal battles and brave brilliance of Thurgood Marshall. It does a great job showing why he is deservedly considered a true hero and leader in the fight against racism. It advances the rights of Black people, especially men, and to a lesser degree Jewish people, and maybe White women.
The movie has a significant ethical flaw. It embraces sexist myths about rape. Namely, that if a victim doesn’t yell or fight or use any opportunity to flee or call the police, then it saddles them with the legitimate suspicion that they weren’t really raped, or that it was all their own fault.
In the movie, the defense team, which includes Marshall, argues that the woman on the stand wasn’t really raped because she had opportunities to scream to a police officer, and also to use the phone to call the police.
Hence, the defense argues, because the woman didn’t speak up, she is lying. This has been a standard generic argument, used to protect rapists and sexual abusers, probably forever.
As Alanis Morrissette said, “Women don’t wait. Our culture doesn’t listen.”
It is a common psychological response to freeze up during threat or violence. The victim simply can’t move or make decisions, out of fear, shock, and other complex emotions and factors.
Freezing up doesn’t mean the victim should feel guilty, or in any way deserves blame. Nor does it mean they (female or male) were not raped, the conclusion drawn by Marshall's defense team in the movie.
In a dramatic scene, the lawyer working with Marshall is gagged by him in front of the jury. He does this because the women on the witness stand says she was gagged. He then lets out a huge scream, one easily heard throughout the courtroom.
This super-loud scream is meant to shame the woman on the stand, and to prove that she couldn’t have been raped. Why? Because she was in the back seat of a car, when a police officer pulled over the alleged perpetrator.
First, to repeat, yet again: no one is to blame for freezing up when assaulted or threatened. Fight, flight and freeze are all common responses.
Second, note that women are taught to be silent, and not complain or make a fuss, as part of a traditional sexist culture.
Third, leaving the above aside, research show there are good evolutionary reasons to freeze up in dangerous situations. It seems to be built into us as a survival mechanism.
In the past, if you tried to run from or fight a pack of wolves, or a nearby lion, chances are high you would die. If you remain still, though, the predator might not notice you, or might think twice.
In the movie, if the woman screamed out, the driver could have overpowered and killed the police officer who stopped the car. It was a rural deserted road, late at night, and the driver was alleged to have a knife. A knife is actually better than a gun in hand-to-hand combat, especially if the officer is surprised by the adrenaline-hyped attacker lunging out of the car.
A better tribute to Thurgood Marshall would not have emphasized the power of sexist myths to impress a jury. Yes, in the movie, the woman wasn't actually raped. But that doesn't mean you should attempt to sell Marshall's prowess by spotlighting the defense's use of such myths. Culturally, these myths protect rapists and thereby encourage rape and sexual assault.
In effect, the producers make a statement against racism by hugging sexism.
#TributeFail
(2) Birth of the Dragon (2017)
This action & adventure movie about Bruce Lee’s early life is amazingly sexist. It boils down to a simple formula. Kung fu fighters are all male; and the best kung fu fighter is also the wisest spiritual leader on the planet, and other males should adopt their approach to gain wisdom and rule.
In short, the more people you can beat up, the better you are in all ways.
Women, so this worldview goes, can’t do any of this, and so they are natural followers. There are zero empowering roles for women in the movie. There are only two female actors of note in the whole thing. One is the evil antagonist, the stereotype of the wicked whore, who runs a sex trafficking and slavery operation. The other is the passive, all-good angel, who is also the romantic interest of a secondary male character (yes, he is going to save her).
As with many sexist movies, the few women are either cookie-cutter whores, goddesses, or mother-types, who support males that have the power and adventure.
The two greatest kung fu fighters in the movie are Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man. Each is in effect a god at beating up other men . Many scenes are shown of gatherings where these awesome men demonstrate their physical superiority, and hence their right to lead and demand fealty. For most of the movie, Bruce Lee acts with the arrogant, taunting machismo of a bully, a bully who says he loves capitalism and power.
Making the egregious ethical message worse, neither of these great enlightened masters cares about ending the slave-traffic. Their spiritual enlightenment, derived from their ability to kill with their hands, doesn’t concern itself with the lowly fate of imprisoned women.
At the end of the show, almost as an afterthought, Bruce Lee does end the slave trade in Chinatown. But it never was his primary goal, and he does it by offering the Madame, and the men who control her, lots and lots of money.
Movies like this send a sad, primitive message to their intended target audience of young men. They promote a macho ideal, one that has led civilization down the path of war for twelve thousand years. If male chest-thumping continues to be our masculine norm, we are a doomed species.
It is happening now. Huge-ego men are rising up as leaders around the world (Trump, Modi, Xi, Duterte, Orvan, Erdogan, Jon-un … ). As has happened before, for thousands of years, the saber-rattling of these sorts of males will lead to war. The war will, at some point, expand to become a World War, which today means nuclear annihilation.
Despite the very real implications, the trajectory of real doom, our entertainment industry continues to promote and make money
off selling poisonous masculine norms to young men.
(3) Paradise Hills (2019)
This is a movie about rich teenage girls who are sent away by their parents for therapy. The heroine finds out that the therapy involves a Stepford Wives-like transformation, one that creates conformist obedient servants who happily obey their powerful families and future husbands.
The movie succeeds in making a strong statement. Women and girls in every society on the planet face control techniques, similar to those in the movie, from birth. When that tactic fails, sheer violence is the ultimate arbiter. Paradise Hills taps into that, and sends a message of rebellion against the norm.
Despite the effective slam of oppressive techniques, the big focus is on ‘first world problems’ faced by the middle and upper class--though not entirely.
The worse part of the movie is that, though the protagonist escapes, she never actually challenges the system. As with Birth of the Dragon, ending slavery and mind control isn’t the goal of the heroine. She doesn’t bring down Paradise Hills (though she kills its abominable administrator), and we can presume she lets it continue to destroy the minds of innocent girls who are sent there.
All in all, the movie makes a good statement about how women are
expected to knuckle under and accept social stereotypes and masks, with nary a squeak of complaint.
(4) No One Gets Out Alive (2021)
If you can look below the brutal misogynist plot, which invokes the bloody BTK treatment of dozens of women and girls (the true number is never revealed), there is a trenchant allegory here, one that is so painful because it damns how we live today in the real world.
The protagonist is a young undocumented immigrant woman. Although she is a good person, she is met with cruelty, false kindness, and backstabbery at every turn. Her only true ally is a relative who cannot save her from a horrible fate.
White American men, benefitting from their privilege, are at the forefront of belittling, abusing and deceiving her (but they are not alone). Money is used to coerce. At other times, simple brute force becomes a very physical bludgeon.
This movie is so brutal and violent, focusing on predation of young women, that I couldn’t watch it all. I read the summary on Netflix.
I don’t see how it is entertainment, except for callous people who are numb to the obvious allegory and indictment.
Truth is, in our society today, undocumented immigrants, especially women, are treated violently and viciously in great disproportion. It is also true that, in parts of Mexico, especially around the maquiladoras, murders of young women take place in large numbers with relative impunity.
This movie might succeed, through its shock power, as a way to generate empathy. It paints a dismal, depressing picture of what an undocumented woman might face, coming to the USA. It portrays White privilege in total, honest ugliness.
I do have some doubts that the producers of No One Gets Out Alive even noticed the ethical potential of this gruesome story. It has the ability to make us think. However, the slaughter could also desensitize viewers, rather than open minds to greater empathy.
There is no ‘moral of the story’ built into the script. All that the audience gets is: the world sucks for immigrants, too bad, and if you’re female without the protection of a man, expect to be beaten down, one way or the other.
Again, it is disgusting that this movie can be marketed as “entertainment.” This isn't entertainment, it is an exposé. Of course, we lap this stuff up, and that only makes us look worse.
(5) Midnight Mass
Fresh from watching this, I think this is one of the best Netflix series I’ve ever seen. It succeeds in demonstrating how evil can assume the role of good, and how it can convince a lot of people that they are righteous, even while they perpetrate great horror.
In the series, the majority of the island dwellers are seduced and deceived. How? Through well-spoken rhetorical statements, and psychological manipulations, by powerful personalities. And yet that wouldn’t be possible, except for the people’s own biases, vanities, and self-deceits.
This movie contains one of the greatest villain portrayals I have ever seen. Not because she is mighty like a Maleficent, but because she is led by her prejudices to twist everything into a conscience-breaker of convincing lies. She speaks so well, so seamlessly, without ever questioning herself, that her silver tongue swiftly recruits and dominates the weak. Never once does she question her own motives. The actor excels in this dark role.
Even at the end, when everything is ruin and blood, the islanders don’t face their seduction by darkness. The progression of their delusion is realistic. There’s no magic spell or ancient evil relic that renders mind control. The debauchery proceeds through nothing more than believable psychological process.
Miraculous events do occur, ones without logical explanation, and there is a monster lurking beneath it all. However, this creature relies on a certain zealous follower, who insanely believes he is doing good while he proselytizes, recruits and controls the others for his secret master. On its own, the monster has many vulnerabilities and weaknesses. It cannot even speak.
This tale realistically shows how the masses can be misled by a charismatic personality, in this case a male, backed by a codependent yet sinisterly competent female worshipper. The people of the island sacrifice everything, even the lives of their own family members--and they still don’t get it, even when they themselves burn.
Midnight Mass, perhaps more than any series I’ve seen, calls out how vulnerable we are to evil. And yes, evil can become so manifest in our daily lives. Consider fascism. When fascism rises, those opposed to it are good by default, if only because they embrace some modicum of reason, fairness, and respect for life, while rejecting a cult mentality.
Sans actual monster, the transformation in Midnight Mass can happen in the United States, or in any country in the world. It is hard for me to believe that Trumpism didn’t somehow influence the producers (apparently it didn't, given the timeline on wiki).
Excellent acting.
Fantastic writing by Mike Flanagan and others.
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