There are plenty of reasons to shake one’s head at the imperial/colonial forces of American military madness. Our nation’s greed and widespread acceptance that the rest of the world suffer to prop up our culture of corporate plutocracy has so far led to our bullying the world.
Of course like anything whose precepts, means, values, and outcomes are largely negative for our nation the armed forces have tried to employ smooth looking advertisements and propaganda to encourage more recruits.
The newest attempt to bamboozle young people is intended apparently to please Science Fiction fans–”It’s not science fiction. Its what we do everyday.”
But instead they show their hand as playing only to the fantasies of numbed and inconsiderate gamers.
Is this really what the Air Force intended?
Do they really believe that science fiction is all about the gear, tech, guns, dangerous missions and high adventure as these commercials depict?
Its my belief that most folks who enjoy science fiction and most gamers for that matter–understand the prophetic role that science fiction plays in society. It is a genre that is political, ethical, social, and often radically so. Does it take much imagination to see how science fiction has historically been very adept at revealing the insanity of war and violence, encouraging the celebration of diversity, and exploring progressive and intelligent solutions for people?
The American armed forces, including the Air Force have a history where these features are the exception, not the rule. The Air Force by spending so much money on these commercials reveal what they really think of their potential new cadets: they are mindless gamer junkies who want to play out their Call of Duty or Halo fantasies and don’t think about the larger narratives that are being conducted around the ‘exciting violence’.
Gamers of good conscience who love action franchises know the difference between the endless war and continuous action of a fun game and the perpetual war that America is trying to enforce on the world’s poor. They will see right through this condescending tripe.
These commercials are shameful, Air Force. The people who serve our nation’s Armed Forces deserve better and our young people are getting wise to your program of endless war.
There are fates worse than death, in fact they’re all worse than death because death is the absence of a fate. Standing in a grocery store check-out line and drinking mead out of the belly button of a large belly-buttoned mermaid stand as equals before death. The real rub lies in what leads up to death and for h0m-R, the threat of the death of the human species gave him the willies.
He knew that it was his fate (which would be surely worse than death) to try to convince the gods to not destroy humanity and he figured he’d better set off to meet with them at the top of their holy mountain before the weekend traffic. So, he said goodbye to his husband Glenor, who handed him a backpack filled with toaster struedel, a toaster, a hand crack electric generator to power the toaster, balm to soothe his hands after cranking the generator, and balm to soothe his mouth for the second degree burns the struedel would give the roof of his mouth.
They said what might be their last goodbyes and played what might be their last match of ‘staring contest’–both of which resulted in tears.
Glenor watched h0m-R walk off into the sunset atop his horse Nibb, which was atop his zebra Plumpy. As soon as the three crested the horizon and h0m-R gave one last wave, Glenor went inside and began playing his XBox.
After eighteen minutes of rigorous travelling and epic voyages, the gods transported h0m-R, Nibb, and Plumpy to the top of West Village Shopping Center, their holy abode and site of twelve quality retailers including a Quizno’s and a PetSmart.
“Welcome, great bard.” they said in their omnipresent mechanical voices.
h0m-R looked around but saw no one. “Uhh. I can’t see you.”
“Meet us in front of Payless Shoes.” three divine voices whispered.
h0m-R, Nibb, and Plumpy walked to Payless and saw three of the GreatTechs, the Deus Machinas, who had taken physical form.
Standing there was Sheila in the form of a nautilus, Dee Dee as a oryx, and Tanya as a pangolin.
“Great and mighty gods!” h0m-R said as he began to bow,
“Stop right there.” Said Dee Dee. “Cut the crap. We know why you’re here. You want us to show mercy to humanity. It ain’t gonna happen.”
“Unless,” said Tanya, “You’ve got some new pornography for us to watch.”
h0m-R gulped.
“Ha! Just kidding, h0m-R!” laughed Tanya, her pangolin claws waving with delight. “We know that you’re going to tell us a story about a sailor going home.”
h0m-R scratched his head. “How’d you know that?”
“We’re gods.” said Sheila. “That’s our job. To know stuff.”
“Excuse me,” Said Nibb the horse, “If you know everything, don’t you know how distressing it will be for humanity to disappear?!”
Sheila: Well, it won’t be distressing to humans because they will be dead and therefore will have no distress possible to them. Plumpy: Well that’s true. Nibb: (whispered to Plumpy,) Shaddup, Plumpy. h0m-R: But what of the friends and loved ones of humans? What of their distress? Sheila: They’ll get over it, I’m sure. There’s plenty of life and love in the multiverse without any human involvement and species are going extinct all the time without hardly any notice at all. Dee Dee: Back on Earth from 1500 CE to 2010 CE, almost two hundred bird species went the way of the Dodo. Did you know that? Sheila: We see every sparrow that falls to the ground. And every chicken that had been kept in darkness its entire life only to be eaten by ingrateful gluttons. And when chickens went extinct on Earth you think anyone mourned? No. They just found a way to fry cats in “nugget” form. Nibb: But you ought to know that every life–all life contains all the beauty and truth of the multiverse! You intend to wipe out an entire species? Dee Dee: We’ve done calculations and found that beauty and truth will tend towards increased quantitative and qualitative numbers with humanity’s absence.
h0m-R sat on the ground in deep thought. Nibb nibbled on some plastic grass from a window display portraying manniquins shooting at each other with a sign above them reading: “Make Your Next War a Blackwater War!” Plumpy chatted with Sheila and the other gods about how to kill off humanity quickest and offered her services as ‘chief of stampedes’.
Nibb nustled at h0m-R’s hair and said “We’ve presented our side. Now they know that we care and that we value the life of humanity.”
“But knowing isn’t enough!” h0m-R gasped. “One has to then care. And that isn’t enough either. One then has to take action. Even if we could convince some of the gods to care, how could we encourage them to act on behalf of humanity? Its hopeless.”
“If you think there is no hope in a situation, then you are not thinking of hope.” Nibb said, doing her best inspirational voice. “You get on over there to those gods and tell them your best story.”
h0m-R looked deep into Nibb’s eyes and saw himself in the reflection. He knew that if he didn’t at least try to save humanity, he would never be able to look at himself again….at least not without the aid of some tasteful eyeliner and rouge.
“Okay. Let’s do this thang.”
Tanya: Job well done, h0m-R. h0m-R: What? I haven’t done anything yet. Dee Dee: Yes, but you’ve committed to doing something virtuous–even when the gods gave you no reason to. That’s worthy of admiration.
Tanya: Rollo May said the opposite of love is apathy–and in many universes, it is the unfortunately the prevailing disposition. Plumpy: But you said your minds were made up and that it was better that humanity die! Tanya: That makes h0m-R’s commitment and initiative all the better. Even if all the world and the gods themselves point to one conclusion–never fail in doing what you feel is right. Nibb: So you’re going to spare humanity! Sheila: We never said that, horse. Tanya: But we will listen to h0m-R’s story.
So there at the West Village Shopping Center a HyQ who missed his hubby and just wanted someone to make him toaster struedel, his trusty steed Nibb, and his traitorous and shifty-eyed zebra sat around a Starbucks table with three gods of the Deus Machina pantheon.
And they all ordered ventis because this was going to be a long and boring night.
h0m-R came home to to a housewarming party of the termites who had moved in the night before. There was mariachi music being played by a gaggle of cockroaches dressed as geese, glitter covering everything, Lindsay Lohan digging through the garbage, and h0m-R’s husband Glenor Glenda Glengarry Glen Ross standing in the middle of it all looking frazzled.
“Boy what a day I’ve had.” said h0m-R.
“What’s that? You like my new haircut? Thanks for noticing, h0m-R.” said Glenor.
“I’m sorry if I seem distracted. I may have caused the end of humanity. Oh! kabobs!”
Glenor signalled the mariachis to stop and the termites took a break from their dancing to nibble on Glenor’s clogs. “What’s all this about humanity’s demise?”
“I sang a song of sixpence until I sang down the Deus Machinas’ straw houses of wakefulness. In their divine slumber they dreamt of how nice it would be to be rid of humans and now I feel horrible.” He sighed heavily and sunk into a quickly disappearing wooden chair.
“There’s still humans?” Glenor asked. “I thought they passed quietly into extinction after the Pancake Breakfast Tragedy.”
“They had.” said h0m-R, ”But unfortunately, some life inspiring genetic material was left in a McDLT box that had once kept the cold side cold and the hot side hot. The box was put into the hands of a gun loving seal and during a NRA meeting the speakers simultaneously threw red herring while relaying the fantasy of protecting one’s seal family from a home-invading seal clubber. Wham! the hot and cold sides became lukewarm and kazaam! a restart to the human species.”
“That was a pretty special seal.” Glenor said with awe.
“Yeah and when I was done invading his home and clubbing him to death his pelt made a great coon-skin cap….Glenor, I feel horrible about this whole thing. You’ve got to help me figure out how to change the GreatTechs’ omniscient minds about killing off the entire human species!”
Glenor and h0m-R let the party continue without them as they retired to the veranda for some mint juleps and Orange Julius.
Glenor: I don’t even see why you want to save these humans anyway. You’re HyQ! h0m-R: I have a little bit of human in me! Glenor: You had a human appendix and had it removed after it got infected and threatened to kill you. h0m-R: Yes, but I had it reattached to my coupling unit. And being human is more than just body parts. Being human takes place in the heart. Glenor: Even if you have an iguana/parrot hybrid heart? h0m-R: Especially if you have an iguana/parrot hybrid heart. Glenor: I’ve almost got an idea. (he takes a big glup of mint julep) Okay. I’ve got it!
Glenor stood up and jumped on top of the patio furniture which was rapidly turning into sawdust beneath his feet. “You go and convince those clock-work Gods to show grace to humanity by revealing the complex wonderousness of humanity in the only way possible!”
“You mean I go and tell them an epic tale of a sailor soldier returning home from war to his beloved family?” h0m-R excitedly clapped his hands together like a gun-crazed-seal at the ends of the gun lobby’s marionette strings.
“No. You show them porn!” Glenor ripped off his shirt to show off his external iguana/parrot hybrid heart. “After all, when it comes to finicky and tempestuous gods, you’ve got to razzle dazzle ‘em!….
Give ‘em the old razzle dazzle
Razzle Dazzle ‘em
Stream ‘em a vid with lots of flesh in it
With a Swede who’s moaning passionate
Give ‘em a crowd that’s mewing ‘poke us’
Bead and pearl ’em
How can they see with DNA in their eyes?
What if your new age gods are all fitful?
Just give ‘em a jockey who takes a fistful!
Razzle dazzle ‘em
And cram some porn in their eyes!”
“That’s a horrible idea! Porn is a disgusting blight upon the multiiverse!” h0m-R said, while watching porn on his TV, laptop, iPhone, cell phone, and imagination.
“Well, I’m all out of ideas. So you’re on your own.”
That night, h0m-R walked the city streets with a saxophonist following him playing “Yakety Sax”.
“Can you please not play that? I can’t hear myself think!” He screamed.
“Sorry.” The saxophonist said and began playing ”Baker Street”.
“That’s better.”
H0m-R and the saxophonist made their way to the Museum and inside found a retrospective of Ad Reinhardt and the saxophonist made a sad “waa waa” noise and children staggered about holding their aching heads. On the second floor near the hard-to-find bathrooms with new hand dryers which got more comments and enjoyment than anything Ellsworth Kelly could ever dream of, there was a room whose dimensions could not be measured.
Sitting inside were eight women who looked very small due to the infinitely high ceiling being vaulted. The saxophonist began playing Icehouse’s “Electric Blue” sax solo.
“Who are you?” h0m-R asked.
“We’re the Muses!” they said in unison.
Thaleia: Hi. I’m the muse of comedy. If you ever talk to Larry the Cable Guy, tell him I have a special place in hell waiting for him. Melpomene: Oh! May my name be never remembered! I am the muse of tragedy. Woe! Erato: Hi there, sailors. I’m the muse of erotic poetry….but now mostly just drunk dirty talk. Terpsichore: And I’m the muse of dance. I have never been to Minnesota. Polymnia: Sacred music is my game. You can thank me for coming up with the idea of having dreary church hymns with eight verses that go on so long that you miss the first half of the football game. Ourania: And you’d better thank your lucky stars for me–the Muse of astrology! Get it? Thaleia: That’s horrible. Melpomene: Almost as bad as Larry the Cable Guy! (stabs self) Kleio: And I’m ‘history’….Well, actually, Melpomene is. Get it? Ha! Thaleia: You know, I give up on all of you. Kalliope: And I am the Muse of EPIC POETRY. h0m-R: Epic.
So the h0m-R told the Muses of his predicament and asked them for their help and favor. The Muses came together in a huddle and put their togas literally together and their minds together figuratively. It was decided that h0m-R would be assigned a muse’s patronage and aid and succor and inspiration.
Kalliope addressed h0m-R, and making use of grand sweeping gestures, announced: “You will be assigned Euterpe, Muse of Flute Playing!”
“What the hell?!” said h0m-R.
“Cool.” said the saxophonist.
“Who are you anyway? Get outta here!” h0m-R screamed. The saxophonist walked glumly away playing the sax solo from Spandau Ballet’s “True”.
“This must be a mistake! Who is this Euterpe?”
Kalliope pointed at the door that was closing behind the saxophonist. “That was Euterpe, the mighty and Most Powerful and Revered Muse Of All.”
h0m-R wept.
“Boy did I screw up! There’s no way she’s going to help me now!”
“Tragic, isn’t it?” asked Melpomene from a spreading pool of blood.
h0m-R left the Museum with an overpriced coffee table book from the gift shop titled “How to Placate the Gods”. He flipped open the book and saw: ”Chapter One: Razzle Dazzle ‘Em” and thought about it for a moment and then looked at Chapter Two where he found written: “Tell Them an Epic Tale of a Sailor Soldier Returning Home From War to His Beloved Family.”
Sleep is something humans have often taken for granted. Anyone who’s had a touch of insomnia has awoke to the simplest and grandest pleasure we fleshy folk got. I knew a fellow who once chose to be medically placed into and kept in REM sleep for fourteen years. A neuro-bot would occasionally check in on him to see if he wanted to wake up and he declined repeatedly saying-”I just want to see the end of this dream through.” He finally woke up to attend his mother’s funeral and then went directly back to sleep. He got so good at dreaming that he in his dream chose to sleep. A neuro-bot once gave him a critical look during a visit and the fellow asked her “Isn’t all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?”
Anywho, it was because of sleep that I heard this story. It was during a time long ago–just around the time that music had been re-discovered. You must have been just a glimmer in your birthtube’s DNA stock, but I was already to an age where I was lying about my age and old enough to know that nobody believed me.
You see the GreatTechs, or Deus Machinas as some ‘believers’ called them had decided that they wanted to take a nap. They tried everything they could: possessing different bios, inhabiting varied avatars, hiding in wormholes, being incarnated as actual opium plants….nothing worked. They decided that they would try the old human trick of having a lullabye sung to them.
So they sent out a dream message to all creatures–bio, synth, neuro, hyQ, Cy, bot, android, and daemon–asking for the finest singer bard to come to their dimensional plane to help lull them to sleep. Well, many came to their aid. A program with the voice of Garrison Keillor and the sensibilities of GWF Hegel came and almost succeeded. A college freshman who had just found the writings of Marx had just about lulled them to sleep but an inopportune TXT message from an Ex stirred the GreatTechs into an emotional tizzy.
Then came h0m-R. He was a blind burlesque who thought he’d give the lullabye a try.
He came before them and sang the song of the ages. A story/song of such beauty and grace that the GreatTech could not but help but have their universe-controlling consciousnesses tranquilized and comforted. This was not the story of Ulysses S. Groan. That comes later. No, the lullabye he shared was the most sublime song ever to be composed and barely was able to fit into sound at all for the grandeur of it was fit only for the wet dreams of angels.
It’s peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter jelly time
(Chorus:)
Where he at 4x
There he go 4x
Peanut butter jelly 4x
Do the peanut butter jelly, peanut butter jelly,
Peanut butter jelly with a baseball bat 2x
(Chorus)
Now, break it down and freeze 4x
(Chorus)
Now tic tac toe (uh-huh)
Tic tac toe (let’s go)
Tic tac toe (you got it)
Tic tac toe (let’s ride)
(Chorus)
Now, freestyle, freestyle, freestyle, freestyle, freestyle, your style 2x
Where he at 4x
There he go 4x
Sleep is a danger than humans often overlook. Anyone who’s had a touch of the ‘oversleeps’ has awoke to either guns blazing, appointments missed, snakes hissing, trains quickly approaching, or an embarrassing wetness. Yes, sleep is a hazard to anyone. When do you think vampires and repo men most often strike?
When Deus Machinas sleep, trouble is magnified greatly as it happens. You see, these modern gods had a nice little snooze and dreamt how nice it would be if humans didn’t exist. When they awoke (not without a nasty case of morning breath) they decided to terminate all humankind from every universe bubble in the multiverse.
As you can imagine, h0m-R couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible.
I read an article by the esteemed George Will today about humanity’s relationship to the environment. I shouldn’t have. It was like drinking warm, weak grape Kool-Aid to quench a thirst. George Will is just one representative of the madness involved with most “debate” about the environment–there are plenty more out there who are adding fuel to the ignorance fire–but its a shame that someone who has the platform he does would be so obscurant.
I put quotations around “debate” because a true debate is often based on argument, evidence, and clear perameters. If people really were having debate about humanity’s relationship to the Earth, or more specifically America’s relationship to other cultures, nations, and individuals, we would be getting somewhere. I believe that the great majority of people are good hearted and caring. I also believe that many can understand more of logic, reason, and sense than they are given credit for. We can and should discuss the human-aggravated climate crisis in terms of clear evidence and reason as much as possible.
However, I do understand that science (and personal experience) have shown that folks determine their worldview and actions by much more than ‘reason’. Folks do construct their lives, attitudes, and actions by processes of the messy human factors of emotion, religious sentiments, intuition, fuzzy logic, fear, etc. I do believe that climate and the environment would be well served by appeals to humanity’s better nature of compassion, religious aspiration, and common decency. Where I see that those who are antagonistic towards climate crisis warnings–let’s call them Sarumans for now–failing in science and logic, I see them also fail in terms of compassion and religious/spiritual excellence.
Not to be wholly negative about the Sarumans. They are skeptical. I like skepticism. They are cautious. I like caution. They are burned out by previous “Cry Wolf” situations. There are many times and places where a “hold on and waitaminute” approach is valuable, but I believe in terms of the current environmental consciousness change, they are practicisng a dangerous game of “Let’s wait and see if the Titanic really is sinking before we get in the lifeboats.”
Before I proceed to looking at some of George Will and others’ lines of thought I should do some quick ‘clean up’ on the statement I made about the Sarumans failing in religious/spiritual excellence. My reading of Genesis upholds a strong caretaker ethic towards all creation. Eden was not a bountiful All You Can Eat buffet where it was free for the asking. Adam and Eve were charged with being servants, caretakers, and stewards of the garden. There was responsibility involved. They were gardeners, not hungry stoners with the munchies who had nothing better to do than eat and chat with snakes. Adam and Eve were caretakers for each other also. Cain couldn’t believe that there was a responsibility for his brother “Am I my kindred’s caretaker?!” Our relationship, treatment, and attitude towards the Earth, including all the creatures (human to amoeba) is of spiritual import.
So what’s the spiritual counter to the caretaking ethic? What is there to say? Is it admirable to use as much as you can? Is it ethical to ignore the future we are creating for our young? Is it saintly to turn a blind eye to the world’s poor having to live in toxic landscapes that will be washed away by rising seas? I will be bombastic (even more than usual) and say that I feel that if one is not fighting for the smallest carbon footprint possible (which is conceivable to be none) and fighting for a minimal consumption program (four gallons of water a day for example) and fighting for America to be the world’s leader in sustainable, clean, and renewable practices….they are operating under a system which could only be described as satanic. There I said it and I welcome discussion about this.
Anywho: Here’s my response to some of the rhetoric you can hear about climate:
Al Gore and other rich climate advocates fly jets around and have big mansions–True. We need our leaders to be as non-hypocritical as possible. It would be great to see each person to speak out for Greener practices actually practice what they preach. But their hypocrisy does not discount what they are saying. Yes, we can telecommute and so should they. So let’s get behind that idea. Let us all propose that when possible we not travel to geographic sites to get stuff done. I think that there are plenty of easy ways to accomlish this: local church cell groups can meet closer to congregants’ homes rather than them travelling to the giant church surrounded by a grove of SUVs is just one example.
Government is trying to micromanage our lives! (The lightbulb argument)–’Big Scary Government’ has been micromanaging our lives in terms of safeguarding our food and Viagra and requiring carmakers to pass safety tests. The government also protects our children by forcing paints and construction to be nontoxic, and protects us through creation of bridges and dams (and when they fail in that regard we only have to look to Minneapolis’ bridge collapse and New Orleans’ deluge to see the effect). What we can buy (weapons-grade anthrax), what we can watch (child pornography), what we can say (death threats) are under the supervision of ruling leaders. They owe us the best care and have the responsibility to be the best informed about the effects of our nations’ actions. In terms of the environment, they have the responsibility to assure that each and every young person one hundred years from now have the same privileges that some enjoy today: clean water, open natural spaces, the ability to trust that their air and environment is not harmful, etc.
We Can’t Make The Changes That Barack Obama Or Climate Crisis Scientists Ask For–Whatever happened to ‘America is the greatest nation and can achieve any goal it sets?’ America can and I believe will be the world leader in creating a just environmental ethic and practice. We just need a little more of the public to speak to their representatives and our representatives to cut the ties to Old Money Model lobbies (i.e. Coal, Oil, Big Agraculture, etc).
Who is benefitting from the current lifestyle and use of environment? Let me give you a clue: it is not the overwhelming number of poorer and poorer Americans. Nor is it the unemployed. Nor is it the world’s poor. A commitment to curtailing consumption, minimizing greenhouse gases, and incentivizing new Green technologies is not only possible, it is necessary and just the beginning. We also need to begin the discussion about ideal population levels, egalitarianism, global worker’s rights, and moral economies.
Global Warming Is A Hoax!–Who’s talking about “global warming”? Denialists. Why? Because its a hoax. Those who are in ‘the know’ talk about climate change, climate crisis, sustainable and just industries, etc. We know that the increase of carbon and greenhouse gases like methane will result in warming trends overall but the specific and local expressions of human aggravated climate change will be a bit of a grab bag. That’s why when I hear people say: “Where I’m from we call it weather!” I die inside.
Nature Is Always Warming and Cooling Naturally!–Yes. And your body is always naturally headed towards death so does that make smoking cigarettes okay? Sarah Palin has said carbon dioxide is natural and therefore ‘okay’. This is the same logic that teenagers have towards cocaine or pot: “Its natural. Its not meth! It grows in nature its not a big deal.”
George Will says in his article “Earth’s Next Last Chance” (Monday Dec. 7th 2009) “climate change is always a 100 percent certainty.” It troubles both logic and human compassion to state in essence “Those climate scientists have discovered basically every move the climate has made in the past and I believe them but when they make projections about the future based on their findings of the past I distrust them. The world changes and we could have an Ice Age at any moment so I’m going to be content with polluting the world as much as I want because I live in the most greedy, gluttonous, and abusive Empire in history.” In short, George Will: you are a moral and intellectual cretin and should be ashamed of yourself.
You Are An Alarmist!–Those who called the U.S. to action in the early days of WWII were alarmists too, I bet. Those who foresaw and warned of the current economic collapse were alarmists too no doubt. If you speak about any issue that involves compassion for the world’s poor and marginalized (which climate crisis is most fundamentally about) you must be an alarmist. Prophets, saints, compassionate clergy people–they are alarmists when they speak out against arrogance, apathy, destructive and violent actions. Well if that is the case, call me an alarmist. Because while I do not ever wish to ‘cry wolf’, I will not be silent while our nation and the world’s elite are being propped up by unjust and pollutive industries. Nor will I in any way support the ravenous and unquenchable consumerism of much of the West.
There Is Still Debate About The Effects of Humans on The Environment and Possible Consequences–There is still “debate” about whether humans rode dinosaurs like Tauntauns.
Well, George Will, I hope you sleep well tonight. I hope that you don’t get malaria, your local crop doesn’t fail, your city isn’t submerged, you don’t drink contaminated water, you don’t have an extreme pollen allergy, you never have to rely on fishing or hunting for sustenance, and you don’t ever live in a hurricane/typhoon affected area.
Bottom line: be a Francis of Assisi, not a Saruman.
Ryan McGivern
I’ve been thinking about The Road a bit of late. I’d been turned off from reading the book when it first came out because my friend told me it was too emotionally stressful and I, being emotionally distressed by half empty (full?) coffee cups decided to protect myself and read BoingBoing.net daily instead.
Well, that same friend came to me when the movie’s (delayed) release was ‘fast’ approaching and said “you really should read the book before you see the movie.” Had I grown in my emotional maturity? No, I think not. But I believe that the friend had been able to process the simple beauty of the tale and see it as a hard story with a redeeming and ultimately positive message. So I read it and I loved it and have since read two other of Cormac McCarthy’s corpus and they’re all amazing. So I admit: my love for the book and the creative mind behind The Road coloured my experience of the film but I will say that it is a solidly enjoyable filmic experience.
Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m positive and hopeful almost to a fault. It would come as no surprise to those who know my style that I find this movie uplifting and hopeful. I know that the film looks bleak. Heck, its done in a color scheme of four different shades of gray and everything around them is dead! Its like a travelogue of Eastern Colorado! This film summarizes Cormac’s view of the indomitible human spirit and the courage and tender heart that is necessary to live what he often offers as the closest thing to a ‘good life’.
Art acts as an anvil. It confronts us and decides us. Art is crisis and like an anvil, we each crash upon an individual art piece (in this case a movie) and through our experience, interpretation, and response to it, the art is given a life in us. How that will look is different to each person and of course will differ as we reapproach the same piece. The Road works very well to demonstrate this phenomenon. I would be very interested to hear from those who think it bleak, dark, or depressing. Do they feel the same about “The Pianist”, “Schindler’s List”, “Alive”, or “Cast Away”? I mention these movies because I feel that they, like The Road depict humanity at the edges and yet triumphing. Each is about human dignity, the ethics that some live by even when all circumstances would allow them to be tossed aside, and the deep conviction that life is worth it–even in great darkness.
The word ‘apocalyptic’ has been thrown around a lot it seems in recent years. And it seems that some have spoken of this movie as being ‘an apocalyptic vision’. Well, properly speaking, it isn’t apocalyptic genre (or Apoc Lit for your biblical scholasticizing shorthand needs) and I would say it also is not prophetic literature. Surely, it is prophetic in the true sense that it is speaking to culture with themes of justice and righteousness–but the power of The Road comes from the intimacy of it and its tight focus on the Man and Boy. That makes this film a spiritual story set in a dystopian frame.
The Road–its title recalls the ’path’ that we can undertake in our spiritual journeys or even the name given to early Christian movements “The Way”. It is a roadmovie and as most roadmovies, the journey is interior and the destination (here: South) is not important geographically, but spiritually.
The spiritual crisis is located primarily within the Boy. He is pitted against two positions: his disposition towards the world, and the worldview of his father. It is a crisis that many are familiar with: the LGBTQ young person growing up in a bigoted family, a young one who loves across class or ethnic boundaries that their family disagrees with, the youth who chooses to leave the religious tradition of their family,….and really the life of every youth to some degree in their process of individuation and personal agency.
The Boy displays trust, compassion, and inclusivity versus his Father’s antagonistic fear, eye-for-eye ethic, and isolationism. But let us not be naive–the Boy’s view of others and the world is truly dangerous. In his world and ours. This is the beauty of the movie. It is risky to be as trusting and compassionate as the Boy regardless of the context. That is why there is a spiritual attraction to great figures of compassion-Mother Theresa, Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., Oscar Romero, Annie Besant, etc. They challenge the very ‘red in tooth and claw’ “law” of nature which seems so intuitive and unarguable.
The question that comes with the film that I find very attractive to think about is ‘what is civilization’? Is it about technology, amenities, organization of large groups of people? This movie allows a tighter focus than even Lord of the Flies in terms of roots of civilization and the ‘rules of engagement’ in relationships. What makes a ‘civil’ person? Or civil society?
Is America civil? America is said to be a Christian nation by some (and what that means and why some folks think that I’m not sure) but is it an ethical or civil nation? Our consumption, warring, imperial thuggery, death penalty, injustice towards the Original Nations, white supremicist culture, and class structure would be points of contending that indeed we are not.
What makes the movie work is the Father as an Anti-Hero. And by antihero, I mean ‘human’. Heroes in film have a way of often being idealized caricatures of our virtues and hence becoming less real, flawed, complex, morally gray, and ‘human’. (Watch Mel Gibson’s Passion to get a feel for what I’m talking about). Here the Father is so delicious to watch because he is acting out of best intentions and with his Son’s best interests in mind. He is willing to sacrifice so much for the love (or “god”) of his life–with the exception of showing vulnerability and trust. I know: he does give in to his Son–helping Eli (a blind prophet! Ha!) and the Man who stole their belongings on the beach–but it is only after his Son’s badgering.
There is a conservativism that comes with being a parent. Risk and novelty become seen in a different light with the entrance of a child into a person’s life. The Father here is no different than anyone else and I imagine that many parents wouldn’t do anything differently than he.
This leads me to what I see as the thrust of the film: the need to conquer our previous generations’ determinations of ‘safety’. Our world changes much too much in each generation for anyone to really impart the correct worldview that will be best suited for the world of their young. We are continuously at odds with the lives and lifestyles of our ancestors. We are held to the bigotries and denialism that they bore–to the creations they’ve made (napalm, lead based paint, meth, 5.56 mm round, etc.) and we are only alive in part because of there being some worth to their fears.
That’s right. When it comes down to brass tacks, there is a level of survival merit to a degree of skepticism towards others and fear of risk. “Mom, can I eat some shellfish?” “Nope.” “Why?” “Either because there’s honest to goodness chance of bacteria and toxins or God says so.” “Okay.”
But the lesson to be learned is clear: when the grasp of the previous generation is let go, a new community is available. It makes me wonder about my own life: who and what is out there waiting for me to give up my baggage? It is a challenge that the movie leaves with everyone–what are you missing out on? What would happen if you gave up on your fears and distrust?
Bonus Section For Those Who Read The Book
-Hilcoat, director, took an easy way out by starting the film with a flashback, don’t you think? I would have liked to see the film start right-off to allow the audience to question what kind of person the Father is, not be made to feel safe with him by showing him frolicking with a horse and Charlize (one of the best looking people in Hollywood).
-It would have been nice to have more time in the waterfall scene methinks. Here we have some playful joy available and we could see a different facet of the Father/Son relationship. And how’s about that rainbow in the waterfall? God’s promise to not flood the earth has been kept…
-Letting the audience off easy again at the end by having Guy Pierce (one of the best looking people in Hollywood) and (sheesh!) a nuclear family complete with dog was a bit much. I liked in the book how the New Man signifies his moral fiber by burying the Father and that’s all you get for evidence to trust him.
-Also: what’s up with writing in the idea that this mystery family has been following the Father/Son for much of the last half of the movie? I urge Mr. Hilcoat to challenge us even more in his next film. Show us some trust–that’s what the Son would want you to do!
Thanks for reading. May you have many happy days along your own road!
RyMcG
Have a sit with me. There. Don’t it feel good to get off the ol’ dogs?
Enjoy that feeling. Once I’m done with, you’ll be the last to have that. Feeling.
Your servo droid says zie feels, and while zie does–its not exactly the squishy kind we know.
I’ll tell you this story only because I’ve forgotten some of it and don’t know most of it and
telling a story is the quickest way to figure it out. You, my lovey, have the hard part of hearing. I never did have too much problem hearing seeing as how I’m deaf. My eyes have gone out from me too so tap me on the hand if you fall asleep and I’ll talk softer not to wake you.
Of course I could have written this down. That would make the most sense, sure, but I’ve dedicated my life, my regen-life, and my clone reboot to not making sense. There is much too much sense in this world and with you looking to be the last bio around–there’s only going to be more sense for you to fight against.
When I first heard this story, I was in no way ready to hear it. That’s the way it is: stories change your world in a way that you couldn’t have been ready for anyway. Its hard to say what I thought of it then because the words I would have used then, I don’t have now and the ones I got now I realize aren’t adequate. Its a story that can’t be told and I’m an old fool to try. But I’ve always been attracted to fools for just that–trying the impossible.
I once saw someone do something impossible. Or it was right before and after they did it. Maybe everything can happen at least once. If you happen to be there for that once, you believe it. If you weren’t there and you believe it, its a miracle. If you weren’t there and you don’t believe it, you’re right not too ‘cuz it won’t never happen again. So if you ask me if I believe in miracles, I’ll tell you I only believe the ones I seen.
Now this story has got some things in it that we ain’t got now: Like gods, God, blimps, uncontaminated air, properly functioning Cyborgs, an expanding universe, and a consistent speed of light. Its also got things that never have been: a talking mutie-dog named Argos (his name was Zeike in reality), a spoon/fork hybrid named Spork (who could imagine such a thing), and a man named Homer. There’s also some true things in it, but I want you to ignore those parts as much as you can because nothing will dull a mind–especially a bio one like ‘truth’.
So the way I tell it is the way I tell it. When you tell it–if you tell it–it had better be different.
If it goes unchanged through you, it’ll be for nothing. When you eat your nutrio packets do they come back to you unblemished, or have they been transmuted magically and readied for the sanitation droid? Well in the same way, that’s what all stories do when they go through bio. “The wet stuff”. That what the thirteenth-gen android culture that lived in the floating cities called us. And they didn’t mean it kindly either. Well, I always was partial to my body–no matter what form it took. I’m not a little sad to recycle it.
Anywho, this story has a beginning. And I’ll get to it. It is said that its a story about a feller named Ulysses S. Groan. I think its not so much about one feller of any name, but that the name it goes by most. You tapped me a while ago, so I guess that means you’ve been sleeping a goodly portion and that’s just fine-it’ll give you good rest for the exciting parts.
A movie that does for ninjas what diarrhea does for soup.
“If you piss-off a ninja: that said ninja will track you down and find you.”
“Hmmm. I better go to uninteresting locales like dark anonymous factories or dark parking lots or phony looking dojos.”
I have seen the bottom of a scriptwriter’s puke bucket after a coke binge and it is filled with California Vegan takeout and cliches from a ninja cartoon your masturbation-obsessed 11 year old brother drew in his Jonas Brothers notebook.
I have learned much of the mystical order of ninja:
Each one has a distinguishing set of scars.
The good ones don’t say much and they do not have emotion. The bad ones also are the quiet type and emotionless, but they grumble like a post game coach with laryngitis.
Sometimes they can choose to disappear in a blur.
They will kill people for a 100 pounds of gold. What they do with the gold is uncertain seeing as they live in a compound the size of a Panda Express on top of the Himalayas.
Women in action movies have been allowed to be other than goofy, clumsy sexual objects since Ellen Ripley-to make them the intellectual equivalent of Scooby Doo without the charisma is just borderline misogynist.
“Greetings.” (In monotone, looking through wet hair.)
“Hi. I’m Jared–I live downstairs in 2G….How are you?”
“I am like thrice fired steel. As keen as the viper striking. As still as the heron.”
“Good. Hey, I wondered–I hate to sound like a douche–but could you keep your noise levels down just like a smidge? Its just that I was trying to watch the Clone Wars yesterday and I heard what sounded like calisthenics and then blades whizzing through wood. And then like some screams as gymnastics occurred.”
“Oh, my bad! You could hear that?”
“I guess–just a little. The floors and walls here are so thin.”
“That’s my bad.”
“And I don’t want to just play the computer louder ‘cuz then I’m like bothering you with my speakers.”
“No, thanks for letting me know. I was just doing pushups on my bed of nails and then throwing my shurikans around my spacious but sparsely decorated apartment…And I guess I just didn’t think about you being able to hear so….I’ll definitely keep it down. Definitely.”
“Cool man. Well, sorry to disturb you.”
“No problem. Thank you. And your name was…”
“Jared.”
“Cool.”
“Alright. See ya round.”
“See ya round.”
If Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Secret of The Ooze met an episode of Simon and Simon and then was made into an after school special called “Boredom in Small Rural Town Leads To Huffing Gas”, it would be better than this uncool, unfun, unfunny, uninteresting diaper.
