Two reactions to THG were telling.  First, some people had the audacity to be upset that the lead character was played by an actress who’s figure was NOT emaciated.  In fact, the lead actress’s figure was—in objective terms—amazing: perfect curves and a slim waist.  Yet many Americans have been conditioned to see only a disgustingly skinny figure as the aesthetic ideal.

Second (and even more disturbing), many were “disappointed” that two of the key characters were played by black actresses—characters who were actually described as dark-skinned in the book.  Apparently, the romantic ideals of some still exclusively involve white people.  One doesn’t have to witness Revisionist Zionism or Hassidism to see that racism is alive and well in America.  To this day, racist perspectives permeate our pop culture due to old provincial mindsets and stubborn parochialisms.

The cinematic rendition of The Hunger Games was a missed teaching opportunity.  Here was a chance for a major production in pop culture to address some important themes—thereby delivering to a wide audience a scathing commentary on current American dysfunctions.  The story was perfect for illustrating how unjust it is when a privileged few dominate and exploit everyone else…by using methods other than brute physical force.

As we well know, the parable is a potent pedagogic device.  The world saw with Orwell’s 1984 that fiction can be a powerful tool for showing the iniquities of radically right-wing modus operandi (e.g. oligarchs aggrandizing themselves at the expense of the rabble, while keeping everyone “in line…all in the name of “freedom”, of course).

Alas, a prime opportunity to teach valuable lessons was squandered by Lionsgate, the studio standing to cash in on this market-friendly, dumbed-down production.  (One wonders when such a prime opportunity might arise again.)

That said, THG the movie is a chance to illustrate the Carnival Of Distractions that is our current pop culture.  The dystopian future in the story involves an extreme plutocratic order: a cabal of oligarchs dominating a supplicant proletariat by—in part—keeping everyone distracted.  Distracted how?  By providing captivating entertainment, of course.  Panem’s “Capitol” is an entrenched aristocracy that schemes to exploit the supplicant population by keeping everyone preoccupied with hyper-sensationalized—and utterly mindless—programming.  Ergo, the pliable rabble is persuaded to go along with the extreme socio-economic stratification (and thus kow-tow to the system of highly-concentrated power foisted upon them).  Sound familiar?

This isn’t merely a story about the powerful exploiting the marginalized; it’s about HOW the powerful can maintain a system in which proletarians are marginalize-able.  This could have been an eminently edifying parable for the American movie-goer: a way to wake people up to what’s going on in the real world.  Instead, it was a tragically missed teaching opportunity—though a venture that will make Lionsgate ga-jillions of dollars…which is, of course, the only purpose of making movies these days.  (In an age where “The Tree of Life” is considered “deep” and “philosophically profound”, the bar has been set very, very low.)

The irony is that THG itself ends up being a diluted version of the very thing that is (implicitly) indicted within the story.  It is a vapid piece of entertainment that could have been (should have been) so much more.  In the end, its success was based on sheer hype…NOT based on the profundity of the parable it could have been (but wasn’t).  This irony was surely lost on most of the eager viewers…fans that seem uninterested in learning anything important from the pop-fiction with which they are so infatuated.

It is safe to say that very few viewers learned the important lessons that a more thoughtful adaptation of the novel may have taught.  The catch is that the REASON so few will learn anything from this movie is hidden within the movie itself—reasons that would have been explained by a better movie.  Few movies are (inadvertently) meta-critiques of the very phenomena of which they are a part.  In effect, THG was an accidental piece of post-modernism.

Think about it: How many viewers will take home the lesson that this dystopian future (like most dystopian futures depicted over the years) demonstrates why right-wing policy is a very, very bad idea?  How many viewers will see the (blatant) parallels between the plutocracy that is Panem and the plutocratic elements of American society?  How many will recognize Panem’s Capitol as right-wing politics / economics taken to its logical extreme?  Let’s review:

• Manipulating people by exploiting destitution…and fear?  Check.
• Controlling the masses by ensuring a sustained sense of insecurity and dog-eat-dog competition?  Check.
• Placating the rabble by keeping them constantly amused?  Check.
• Glorifying the rich and powerful?  Check.
• Painting a blatant ameritocracy as magnificently meritocratic?  Check.
• Inculcating the citizenry with the idea that the “haves” matter more; and the “have-nots” don’t matter as much?  Check.  (There should be no doubt that the Panem oligarchs used “trickle down” arguments to legitimize the maintenance of their exorbitant privilege: “The better off WE are, the better off everyone else will be.”)
• Demands by those in power for “loyalty”?  Calls for “patriotism” to keep the rabble “in line”?  Check. Check.
• The criminalization of anything “subversive”?  Check.
• The iniquity of highly-concentrated power?  The dangers of romanticizing of avarice?  The glorification of gratuitous affluence? The inanity of fetishizing decadence and glamour?  Check. Check. Check. Check.

(We could go on and on.)

Meanwhile, millions fixated on the contention that the lead actress’ figure was insufficiently emaciated.

The Carnival of Distractions is here on full display.  As Stuart Klawans put it in The Nation magazine: “Only a movie (or rather a motion picture event) might call into existence the very dynamic that it pretends to criticize.”  It’s safe to say that 99.9% of the audience entirely missed the point that could have been made had the movie version of THG been done more intelligently.  (Imagine reading Orwell’s 1984 and concluding: “Winston should have been wearing trendier clothes!”)

One can imagine someone leaving the movie theater in March, noting: “Whew, that was a fucked up world!” …then proceeding to vote for Republicans less than eight months later.  (Indeed, pop culture offers a splendid anesthetic for the epidemic cognitive dissonance with which America is currently afflicted.)

Does vacuous entertainment itself lead to fascism?  No.  But vacuous entertainment is predicated on some of the very things that characterize an incubator for plutocracy: mindless hyper-consumerism and an audience that is kept chronically distracted…while the well-positioned few laugh all the way to the bank.  This tragically-missed teaching opportunity tells us a lot about American pop culture.  Pop culture, we find, is not something that is amenable to making important points about the world.  As with church, people watch TV and go to movies to FEEL good, not to learn anything.  Supply meets demand.

The cause is being promoted via a Youtube video—which has been viewed by about 60 million people.  But what is it really?  It’s a fundamentalist Christian evangelism project operating under the pretenses of stopping a venal cult leader in central Africa (a notorious madman named Joseph Kony, who is presently operating his “Lord’s Resistance Army” in northern DRC and southern CAR).  The disingenuous promotional video makes the audience think that the cause is strictly secular—and dedicated explicitly to capturing Kony IN UGANDA.

What isn’t mentioned is that it is NOT secular, and that Kony is NOT in Uganda.  Moreover, if the “Kony 2012” cause really cared about the things it claimed to care about (egregious injustices and on-going crimes against humanity), it would be concentrating on Palestinian rights—which the U.S. CAN directly do something about (since the U.S. government actively supports the humanitarian atrocities systematically perpetrated in Palestine).

Alas, due to the nature of Youtube and social networking in general, NONE of this is revealed to the viewers.  The format of Web 2.0 isn’t conducive to genuine edification nor to meticulous critical analysis (i.e. things that would be an integral part of ANY noble cause).  Nobody seems to know much about Jason Russell, the fanatical Christian narrator of the glitzy video.  He is passed off as just a regular guy who is promoting a noble (secular) cause.

Of course, ALL the reasons Jason gives for promoting his cause would apply EVEN MORE to fighting for Palestinian rights.  Unsurprisingly, this crucial point isn’t mentioned.  And here’s the really creepy part: the money people are duped into giving goes to an organization called TRI.  But exactly what “TRI” might be is never specified—in the video OR even on the “Kony2012” website!  (It doesn’t even exist on Wikipedia…nor does it come up on a Google search.)  Bizarrely, the symbol of TRI is an up-side down peace sign.  It’s all very weird.

If Jason really meant what he says (about all humans mattering, regardless of ethnicity), he’d certainly be focusing on Palestine.  (Jason calls his movement “Invisible Children”.  Well, Jason, what about the invisible children in the poor neighborhoods here in the United States?  Or in Palestine?  Any plans to do anything about THOSE people?)

This is the kind of thing that happens with the new social media technology.  There is neither social responsibility nor intellectual stimulation involved with the use of social networks.  There is just spur-of-the-moment, knee-jerk reaction—encouraging everyone to be chronically, pathologically mercurial.

Deputies confirm a man called around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday to report that he accidentally shot his 33-year-old wife with a cannon ball from his homemade cannon. He and a friend were working on the cannon. A Cal Fire dispatcher said the man had been drinking and was “freaking out.”

Read the rest of this story at http://www.10news.com/news/30617814/detail.html

In efforts to save money I’ve had a few nights in this week and my movie qeue has been my best friend. I caught up with flicks I missed in the theatre for whatever reason, and the first on my list was J. Edgar starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by the legendary Clint Eastwood.
I was so surprised and distraught (as I’m sure the rest of the entertainment community was) that this film wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar, even for Hair and Makeup which was amazing. The movie was full of flashbacks so the characters were in prosthetics half the time, and these characters really looked freaken old!

The first thing I thought was how the characters were all so complex, each having both good and bad battling within them. Even the secretary, played by the beautiful Naomi Watts, had good intent but ultimately allowed a crazy person tap the White House and have everyone’s mail and memo’s recorded.
The only reason I feel people would disapprove of this movie is because there were such deeply rooted and deeply implied homosexuality within one of America’s most masculine  departments. Maybe conservatives squirmed in their little seats because they felt a chill of reality seeing two white men show affection on the big screen. Maybe the thought of America’s representatives that we honor each day by following protocol that he invented, could be everything they stood against.

But who knows? Maybe I’m way wrong and this whole Oscar snub was really a terrible mistake.

Regardless, it was a great movie and full of Eastwood’s famous dramatic lighting and spot-on acting. If you remember Harrison’s interview with Eastwood on the red carpet premier in the beginning of the summer. 

Tonight I’ll put away my DVR controller and play around on my new Kindle! I downloaded The Rum Diary because the movie adaptation is in my queu ready to be watched!

Washington’s caucuses come just three days before Super Tuesday, when 10 states hold primaries and caucuses on March 6. And because of that, all four major GOP presidential candidates have campaigned in the state, hoping that a strong finish there can carry over to Tuesday.

“You have an opportunity to shift the election again,” former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania said Thursday while campaigning in Spokane.

“Everybody is focused in on Super Tuesday. You are the voice that is going to speak very loudly before Super Tuesday and put this race on a whole other plane,” Santorum added at an event hours later in Pasco.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/02/politics/washington-caucuses/index.html <—-watch the video

The charismatic French star has been the toast of the Hollywood awards season for his starring role in silent movie The Artist, and completed his collection of industry accolades by taking home the Best Actor Academy Award at Sunday’s ceremony.

Dujardin received the superstar treatment when he returned to his homeland’s Charles de Gaulle Airport with his Oscar in hand and was greeted by hordes of cheering fans.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/02/29/jean-dujardin-the-artist-oscar-mobbed_n_1309167.html

Kim appears to have targeted the bank’s manager, Michelle Kwon, taking her as a hostage instead of trying to commit robbery, police said.

Kim reportedly entered Buena Park’s Saehan Bank late Thursday morning, brandishing a weapon pointed to the ground. He ordered all of the employees and six customers out of the bank, but had Kwon stay behind, police said.

A tense standoff began, with police using a robot to deliver a phone so negotiators could talk to Kim.

At about 3 p.m., police shot Kim when he appeared in front of a glass door with a gun pointed at Kwon. He apparently went to the door trying to retrieve an item that he demanded from police, who refused to say what the item was. Kim was critically wounded and taken to the UC Irvine trauma center. Kwon escaped unharmed.

Two officers suffered minor injuries in the shooting. Both were treated and released.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/03/police-identify-myung-jae-kim-as-gunman-who-took-hostage-in-buena-park.html