RYNSA: WORDS

Chicago writer, performer, teacher, and filmmaker, Robyn Okrant, has just completed a new book chronicling a year of (get this) living according to the advice of media-mogul billionaire and cultural icon, Oprah Winfrey. No, no, really… one full, calendar year! Nutz.

From her website, Ms. Okrant coyly explains the impetus behind Living Oprah:

“I believe Oprah to be the single most influential person in the media today – especially when it comes to impacting women… I wondered what would happen if one of us committed ourselves whole-heartedly to her lifestyle suggestions. Would the financial and time costs of living as Oprah prescribes be worth the results?”

Honestly, there’s no way I could do something as masochistic as this. Beyond the everyday tedium of having to watch Oprah, read Oprah, and then do Oprah’s bidding, in the end I’m fairly certain I would not have learned anything new. I don’t need to be water-boarded, for example, to know that torture sucks, and I certainly don’t need to follow the half-brained, neoliberal, new age, new thought nonsense of Oprah frickin’ Winfrey to know that her ideologies are fundamentally corrupt. Ultimately, in my estimation of things, this life-style stunt amounts to a kind of death by a thousand cuts, and it’s definitely not worth all the hardship. I’d much prefer a quick and painless ending.

That said, I must admit that I’m happy Ms. Okrant was more courageous than me. She is clearly willing to subject herself to whole lot of costly, sanctimonious, froo-froo, snake-oil bullshit, and she should be lauded for her resolve through what must have been a very difficult year. But more than that, Orkant has decided to write about her experience and expose (we can only hope) the absurdity of Oprah’s worldview, to which I am exceptionally grateful. It’s high-time the suburban set were confronted with the dangerous bigotry of their televised savior’s magical thinking. Maybe Living Oprah, the book, is just the literary insight we need to finally stop ourselves from living Oprah, the phenomenon.

LINKS:
Living Oprah Blog
Chicago Tribune Article
NPR’s All Things Considered
MSNBC Report

Yesterday, I joined my wife and two of our friends at the colossal El Con theater for a matinée viewing of James Cameron’s (newest) cinematic opus: Avatar. It was quite the adventure, right down to the NASA-sleek, black, horned-rimmed 3D glasses handed out to us at the box office. We brought our own snacks, of course (microwave popcorn and seasoned almonds), and Yan got her first taste of the big-time American theatrical experience. All in all, everyone seemed to have a really good go of it, even despite the stiff $9.50 ticket price and the bladder-test of a two hour and forty-one minute runtime.

Like most big-budget holiday blockbusters, Avatar had been highly touted in the mainstream press, and it continues to garner rave reviews from a multitude of professional film critics. From the venerable Roger Ebert, to AO Scott (one of Ebert’s replacements on At the Movies) — both of whom likened their Avatar viewing experience to the first time they saw Star Wars in 1977 — to Manohla Dargis, Joe Morgenstern, David Edelstein, Michael Phillips, and many more, nearly everyone seems to dig this movie!

It’s important to note that Avatar was an incredibly expensive film to produce, coming in at just under $240 million officially. It currently ranks as the fourth most expensive film of all time, according to Wikipedia, and still some sources suggest that this exorbitant number falls way short of its true cost. The NY Times, for example, estimated Avatar’s price tag at much closer to $500 million, particularly considering Mr. Cameron’s personal financial contribution and other international marketing expenses.

And yet there is every indication that Avatar will make back all its money and then some. According to Box Office Mojo, in only one week of release Avatar has already raked-in upwards of $160 million domestically and over $255 million from foreign cinemas. With several more weeks in theaters and a slew of future sales in DVDs, books, children’s toys, video games, clothes, etc., there is no doubt that Avatar will be a monumentally commercial success.

So, after the screening, and with all this pop-cultural buzz in mind, Xu Yan returned to her reclusive comfort zone in the back corner of our rental house and I ventured out to a local bar with the rest of our group — my fellow Tucson film nerds — to drink beer and discuss the movie in greater detail. Generally speaking, like everybody else, we were all impressed with Avatar’s motion-capture animation technology and the fantastic art direction. But we also each held serious reservations about a number of the film’s nonsensical plot points and the problematic socio-political message(s) therein. Here’s a very rough overview of our more pointed criticisms:

• One friend wondered why there weren’t more portrayals of color, namely blackness, both within the fictional, blue-skinned race known as the “Na’vi” and the invading human population, and he scoffed at the utter lack of LBGT representations among both their ranks.
• Using a feminist lens, my other friend expressed concern about the long-standing Hollywood habit of perverting reality and distorting images of the female body, particularly evident in the unrealistically slender, muscled and sensuous physical features of the lead female character, “Neytiri.”
• And, finally, in keeping with my own political struggles, I lamented at what seemed to be a complete denial of economic class stratification in the filmmakers’ decision to assign antagonist credentials to a cliche military machine and NOT the greedy, callous, Earth-based corporate interests that were ultimately responsible for initiating both the imperial pursuit on the distant planet Pandora and the genocidal violence against the indigenous people. Argh!

Clearly, Mr. Cameron has much to learn about storytelling if he is to satisfy our little gang of disgruntled Tucson film-buffs. Race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, class… we definitely tried to hit ‘em hard, as it were, and in the end Avatar was left somewhat wanton. The fatal flaw of this film, in my opinion, is its unwillingness to acknowledge and celebrate sentient diversity — a fear of difference.

Let’s get right to the point: the Na’vi people are an incredibly homogeneous species. As one of my friends described it that afternoon in the bar, “no one has an eating disorder,” and he’s exactly right! In some ways, what we don’t see is more telling than the great spectacle (heavily marketed in the media) that we all paid so much to experience in the first place. We don’t see any fatties, no one with a physical or cognitive disability, no one who expresses political dissent against the Na’vi leadership, no variation in skin color, no kinky fetishes, no dialects, no slang, and on and on. In essence, we don’t see any of the things that make civilization simultaneously rich with meaning and also very, very challenging.

Cameron and company have pretty much edited out the complexities of life in a naked attempt to force an emotional bond between the movie-going public and the super-human (by definition) Na’vi people. Avatar’s version of “noble savagery,” as portrayed through the main protagonist’s intimacy with this idyllic, peaceful, and spiritually-connected little nation of stretchy smurfs, might make for compelling (even romantic) fodder for the big screen but it is ultimately a kind of bad anthropology. This film can in no way serve as a poetic allegory — much less a visionary model — for anything we might make manifest in contemporary society, for this day or tomorrow. Though they have been carefully and painstakingly crafted by a contingency of talented artists, writers, and computer technicians, the Na’vi are little more than giant blue puppets, hollow signs for a director that doesn’t want to get his hands dirty trying to flesh-out something “real,” something we can all recognize within ourselves, a common humanity; Cameron ignores all those tedious little differences that distinguish sentient beings from inanimate objects.

This failure to appreciate the importance of diversity is certainly disappointing.  However, to Cameron’s credit, Avatar is not merely a character study in interpersonal dynamics.  Regardless of any imperfections three dudes in a bar might find to beef on, Avatar still stands-out as a coherent, beautiful, entertaining, and sometimes even awe-inspiring cinematic achievement precisely because the filmmaker has bigger goals in mind. Beyond the sexy bells-and-whistles of how it was produced, not to mention two surprisingly effective performances from young actors Zoe Saldana (“Neytiri”) and Sam Worthington (“Jake Sully”), Avatar ultimately serves as a vehicle from which to advocate for a grander and more complex understanding of our global network systems, be they ecological, cultural or even technological.  In other words, we are not-so-subtly asked to remember that everything is connected.

There is one scene in particular that fully articulates the praise-worthy underlying ethic of Avatar.  During the final third of the film, Sigourney Weaver’s “Grace,” the rugged and passionate botanist in charge of the Avatar science program, implores Giovanni Ribisi’s “Parker,” a sarcastic, upper-level corporate lackey and the top-dog behind the mining effort on Pandora, to reconsider his insistence on removing the Na’vi and destroying the land.  The dialogue proceeds in rapid-fire [SPOILER ALERT]:

JAKE:  You say you want to keep your people alive?  You start by listening to her.
GRACE: Those trees were sacred to the Omaticaya in a way that you can’t imagine.
PARKER: You know what?!  You throw a stick in the air around here and it’s gonna land on some sacred fern, for Christ’s sake!!
GRACE: I’m not talking about some kind of pagan voodoo here.  I’m talking about something real, something measurable in the biology of the forest.
PARKER: Which is what exactly?
GRACE: What we think we know is that there is some kind of electro-chemical communication between the roots of the trees, like the synapses between neurons.  And each tree has ten to the fourth connections to the trees around it, and there are ten to the twelfth trees on Pandora.
PARKER: Which is a lot, I’m guessing.
GRACE: It’s more connections than the human brain. Get it?!  It’s a network.  It’s a global network and the Na’vi can access it!  They can upload and download data — memories at sites like the one you just destroyed.  Yes!
PARKER: (beat) What the hell have you people been smoking out there? They’re just goddamn trees!
GRACE: You need to wake up, Parker.
PARKER: No, you need to wake up!
GRACE: The wealth of this world isn’t in the ground, it’s all around us!  The Na’vi know that and they are fighting to defend it…

In this dark era of slash-and-burn disaster capitalism, environmental degradation, and a plague of massive disinformation campaigns from a handful of elite economic entities hell-bent on maintaining their power and turning a profit at the expense of the natural world, Avatar offers a timely, grand, and much-appreciated word to the wise. I sincerely hope the audience is paying attention.

LINKS:
Wikipedia: Avatar
Review: At The Movies

Well, November 28th has finally rolled around, which means my favorite international holiday can officially begin (in North America, at least, for you Brits and Aussies, etc., will just have to wait until tomorrow).  That’s right, kiddies!  Today is ‘Buy Nothing Day’ (insert cheers and applause)!!!  Your one chance every year to refuse the perpetuation of crass consumerism, and to promote more ecological and sustainable economics.

Come on, dude!  Everybody’s NOT doing it!  Even the right Rev. Billy is playing his part with his Union Square Dance Your Debt Away party up in New York City!  So get yer little bum out there and start NOT buying things!!!

Buy Nothing Day, Links:

Wikipedia
General Info/Advice
BND United Kingdom

Buy Nothing Day, News:

LA Times
Chicago Tribune

UPDATE:

Clearly these Wal-Mart shoppers in NY state could use a little Buy Nothing Day.  Just stunning…

They’re at it again, god bless ‘em! Those rascally Yes Men, masters of the fine art that is ‘culture jamming’, have hoaxed the American media. This time their ruse involved printing and distributing a fake version of the New York Times, predated to July 4th of next year, and chock-full of unlikely, progressive ‘if only’ scenarios otherwise uncommon to corporate news outlets. The headline of this imposture edition, for example, simply reads, “Iraq War Ends,” a short three-word sentence that seems to sum up the hopes and dreams of many concerned citizens around the country (maybe the world?) in the post-election, Obama era of American politics.

(See Rocketboom, Boing Boing, The Huffington Post, or the NY Times online Arts section for more details and imagery.)

I am particularly fond of the fictitious editorial, presumably written by NYT columnist Thomas Friedman, brilliantly titled “The End of the Experts?”  In it the phony Friedman declares, “I will keep my opinions to myself.”  He goes on to aks:

“…why are newspapers like the New York Times letting people like me make fools of themselves, mislead the American people, and, worst of all, give their wives a lifetime of ammunition? To err is human, but to print, reprint, and re-reprint error-mad humans like me is a criminally moronic editorial policy.”

Here, here, faux Thomas Friedman!  For once, I couldn’t agree with you more.  Let’s hope the publishers of the fake New York Times can inspire the publishers of the real New York Times to get real for a change.

This so-called ‘economic meltdown’ in my own beloved United States is, in my opinion, nothing more than a carefully-crafted misnomer designed to camouflage the much more comprehensive villainy of American capitalism. You can’t ‘meltdown’ a global system that has been gradually tearing away at economic sustainability for years! Everything that we’re experiencing now is the entirely predictable outcome of numerous erosive, bipartisan, neoliberal policy decisions dating back to the 1980s; policy decisions that privileged unregulated money markets and corporate interests over the needs of the state and its people.

Honestly, this was inevitable. We could see it coming from a long way off. Sunset, if you will, has finally fallen on Reagan’s ‘Morning in America’.

For details on we how got here I refer you to the writing of journalist David Sirota, author of The Uprising, who has recently provided us with a summary bibliography of key texts, and in only one sentence. From the Huffington Post, he says:

“As I note, this week we will see Thomas Frank’s wrecking crew using Naomi Klein’s shock doctrine to justify a bigger free lunch than David Cay Johnston ever imagined.”

For the life of me, I simply cannot understand how anyone could continue to espouse, or even attempt to justify, the philosophies of ‘free-market’ neoliberalism. The great, green capitalist machine has not righted itself, and now we’re expected to burn 700 billion US dollars (OMFG!!!) to cushion the fall of those who passionately claimed the market would save us. Ultimately, this massive and unprecedented bailout of the financial sector amounts to a soft landing for the least deserving and most hypocritical among us.

Politically, both the republicans and the democrats have apparently converged to reform the fascist party, an orgy of wealth, exclusivity, and corruption. With rare exception (thank you Mr. Kucinich), there is no dissent, no opposition in Washington. There’s the money, and then there’s us. The US is officially a capitalist wasteland where gains are privatized and losses socialized, and the working poor always, always foot the bill.

If ever the phrase ‘the emperor has no clothes’ was relevant to our national discourse, it would be now. And like many of my countrymen and women, I’m just sick of it. Disgust prods me awake at night, like a wiry, old finger jabbing me in the ribcage. I can’t get that ethereal Dorthea Lange photograph out of my head: a furrowed brow and three kids, the world in black-n-white, to have and to have not.

In all probability it won’t be as bad as my night frights suggest. And I hate that fear can grip me so. But then again, what do I know? I’m not a money-man… I’m just one of the millions who have to pay for it when the money-men fuck up!

Argh!!!

On the August 12th episode of Filmschool — an excellent podcast/radio show out of the University of California at Irvine (KUCI 88.9 FM) — hosts Nathan Callahan and Mike Kaspar interviewed author and filmmaker Dorothy Fadiman about her new cinematic project, Stealing America: Vote By Vote. This feature length documentary explores voting fraud and the overall integrity of American democracy vis-a-vis the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004.

Beyond simply calling into question the legitimacy of the final tally, Fadiman and company (including usual leftist suspect Peter Coyote as narrator) call for widespread reform of the national democratic system. On the website for the film viewers are encouraged to “become part of the solution” and “…get active in the fight for our democracy” by registering to vote, writing letters to persons of interest, making phone calls, wearing stickers and/or buttons, and a whole slew of other tasks. In other words, exactly what you might expect from a director that recently published a book entitled, Producing with Passion: Making Films that Make a Difference.

In that I haven’t yet seen this film (or read Fadiman’s book) I won’t comment on the strength of its message. I suspect that in my case, irregardless of craft, it will be just another case of preaching to the choir. I mean, is this really still in doubt? Aren’t we already aware of the problem? And, more importantly, will placing a microscope over the many flaws of the electoral system be enough to elicit a response from what appears to be a fairly disaffected American citizenry?

God, I sure hope so…