Friday, May 30, 2008

It is only a movie

The new Indiana Jones movie hit the movie theaters last week. People who knew me in high school know I have a long history of being a movie nerd so it would not shock them I went to the midnight showing. People who have known me only over the last few years would be shocked because sleep is now the most coveted thing in my life.
It was a fun movie and I would recommend it. That is I would recommend it unless you are a card carrying Russian communist. They seem annoyed.
This is yet another example of people have entirely too much time on their hands if they can complain about what the Russian Communist Party is complaining about. They are calling for a nationwide boycott of the movie (in Russia, I’m not in trouble for seeing it in Kansas). According to CNN’s website the group says the film “aims to undermines communist ideology and distort history.”
This is why as a political party the communists are as viable as the Whigs. They actually believe the aim of a Hollywood movie is to do anything other than make more money than can fit into Lenin’s tomb, Stalin’s moustache, Khrushchev’s shoes and blanket the whole of Siberia in stacks of thousand ruble notes.
Accusing an Indiana Jones movie of distorting history is like accusing water of being wet, accusing Yao Ming of being tall, or accusing Immanuel Kant of stating that our understanding of the external world has its foundations in both experience and a priori concepts offering a non-empiricist critique of rationalist philosophy. Well, duh.
If the communists think the general public is going to movies to get accurate history than all Americans must believe communist women in 1957 had Thelma Brooks 1920’s hairdos, carried rapiers and had accents which were Russian sometimes but not throughout all their dialogue. We must also believe that a man with a bullwhip can defeat a platoon of machine gun toting soldiers and the Ark of the Covenant is sitting in a warehouse in Nevada because if it was on display at the Smithsonian the government’s insurance premiums would go through the roof because so many patrons’ faces melted off when they looked at it.
It’s a movie for goodness sake, not a doctoral thesis. Sit back and enjoy the snappy dialogue, the action sequences, and the computer generated ants.
Hollywood can’t win. It doesn’t matter who the bad guy is there will be some group organizing a boycott or picketing the theaters. I am glad I grew up in a time when people were not as touchy. A time when people had a clue and did not believe everything in the movies was real. A time when people could relax and allow themselves to be entertained without worrying about hurting the feelings of any and every subgroup of the world’s population.
Twenty years ago the movie “A Cry in the Dark” with Meryl Streep and Sam Neill was in theaters. It was based on a true story about a mother put on trial for the murder of her child. She claimed the child had been spirited off by wild dogs during a camping trip in the outback of Australia. Neither the restaurant chain nor any group of Dingo Anti-Defamation lawyers got mad.
In 1978 “Dawn of the Dead” was on screens throughout the country. For those of you unfamiliar with the film it follows a group of not dead people being menaced by undead people. There was one instance in San Francisco of a group of decomposing people from the group Z.O.N.K. (Zombies Only Need Kindness) picketing a theater in the Haight Ashbury district, but since they moved so slowly and their chanting was completely unintelligible no one really cared.
In 1968 “Rosemary’s Baby” came out. I was only six at the time so I did not see it, nor did I pay a lot of attention to news reports, but I am willing to bet there was no petition drive by Satan-worshipping New York apartment dwellers asking Paramount Pictures to soften up their portrayal.
So to those Russian Communists complaining about Mr. Spielberg’s latest film I say chill out. Take a lesson from the League of Bald-Headed Megalomaniacs who resisted the temptation to picket Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Marathon Man, Apocalypse Now, Flash Gordon, Superman (I and II), Austin Powers (I, II, and III) or Iron Man. It would have been exhausting.

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