Matt Taibii brings more heat with his words on True/Slant than just about any writer in the country right now. He opens his discussion of Michael Moore's new movie [warn: loads video] by focusing on recent years in the U.S. through Moore's lens:
Even just looking at the historical context provided by Moore’s own
movies, the progression is kind of scary. Back when Moore made Roger and Me, he was describing how blue-collar workers could no longer could find jobs to support themselves. In Bowling for Columbine
he talked about the workfare programs we cooked up to keep those
ex-employed blue collar workers alive, how brutal and inhumane those
programs can be.In Capitalism: A Love Story we’re now talking about how the
compensation for professional jobs we used to consider upper-middle
class, like the job of airline pilot, have dropped below subsistence
level. This is a portrait of a society steaming toward a feudal
structure.
Taibii then steps back to look at the really big picture. It's not pretty.
The theme Michael Moore is addressing here, i.e. the rapid peasant-ization of
most of the country, is basically a taboo subject for every other major
media outlet in the country. The vast majority of our movies are either
thinly-disguised commercials for consumer products (Law Abiding Citizen), remakes of old shows and movies designed to transport us back to the good old days when life was better (i.e. Fame)
, or gushy nerf-tripe with no hard edges crafted to serve as escapist
fairy tales for stressed-out adults wanting to dream of happy endings (Love Happens).What we call a “good movie” is usually also escapism…
Agreed, but the columnist/reporter/writer goes on to complain:
But we’re living in a time of extreme crisis almost nothing on TV or in
the movies is designed to get us thinking about how to fix our
problems.
Well, first of all, one must point out that Moore himself offers some ideas, including a famous one from FDR, the Economic Bill of Rights he laid out in his l944 State of the Union address.
But more importantly, to imagine that dramas should offer solutions to problems, in the way that candidates offer plans to voters, is mistaken. Dramas seize on ideas in the mass consciousness and bring them to life, and life by its nature can never be predicted. One cannot know where the public consciousness will be led, before the guide appears.
Classic example: the hero of My Man Godfrey. This 1936 hit movie is almost always mentioned by critics and writers as one of the key films of the Depression, and for good reason, but it offers absolutely nothing in the way of "getting [the moviegoers of the era] thinking about how to fix [their] problems."
As a commentator on imdb puts it (well):
What is worth noting
though is that in many ways it is a commentary of the times by
comparing the 'haves' and 'have nots'. I would encourage everyone to
watch with more than a comedic eye. Through Godfrey, director Gregory
La Cava's film speaks volumes about the conditions of the 1930s. The
U.S. was plunged in a depression that forced thousands to the
breadlines. The film opens with a treasure hunt and one of the items to
find is a forgotten man. The rich set out to the city dump to locate
him with no regard for his plight or his dignity.
The message of the movie couldn't be simpler, especially for the distaff half of the population. It's that you might find your dream man — played by Robert Powell, one of the handsomest men in Hollywood history — reduced to abject poverty, living on a pile of ash, and showing a flash of temper when looked down upon. That's it!
After decades if not centuries of Calvinist prosperity-is-next-to-saintliness thinking, for the glossiest of Hollywood movies, starring the biggest of stars, to focus on an impoverished man living on the street, and depict him as an unhappy but utterly sensible and ultimately charming man, well, it's a revelation.
Similarly, the dramatic revelation about our era will probably arrive completely out of left field, and give us a new hero or heroine or heroism we never could have been able to imagine, before his arrival.
Here's William Powell, usually seen in a tuxedo, as Godfrey:
Kit Stolz 