Propaganda is in the Eye of the Beholder

"Brokeback Mountain is a politically correct piece of anti-family and anti-American propaganda aimed at poking a finger into the eye of the 128 million Christians who go to church every week."

Ted Baehr, Christian Film & Television Commission

"I realised that what he was up to was propaganda in the cause of the religion he believed in."

Children's author Philip Pullman on The Chronicles of Narnia

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Propaganda n. The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause; material disseminated by the advocates or opponents of a doctrine or cause.

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Propaganda is a neutral word. Propaganda is merely a message meant to influence beliefs or opinions; in Spanish it simply means "advertising." In modern American culture, however, "propaganda" means, at best, an unbalanced exaggeration or, at worst, manipulation through the deliberate portrayal of falsehood as truth.

If you accept that "propaganda" is simply advocacy for a certain point of view -- which you must, since that's what it means -- then really all art is propaganda.

The idea that you can criticize art as "propaganda" and somehow be taken seriously must stem from the belief that artists are not allowed to have a point of view, or that they should not communicate it, or that as members of the "cultural elite" their views are out of touch and irrelevant, or, at least, that they should only communicate things which are pleasant and non-controversial. But as human beings never agree on anything, the idea of "non-controversial art" is a non-starter. Back when the first Neanderthal painted a mammoth on the wall of a cave, you can be sure two other cavemen got in an argument over whether it was any good.

The question is not really whether Brokeback Mountain or The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe can be said to promote certain ideas, but whether they promote falsehoods.

"The real object is to demonstrate that homosexuality is normal, " wrote R. Cort Kirkwood for The New American in his lengthy and emphatic essay Homos on the Range. Mr. Kirkwood did not see Brokeback Mountain: "You needn't lift the lid on a garbage can, after all, to know what's inside." And what's in the trash, according to Kirkwood? "Homosexuals aren't like everyone else; and not just because they can't tell the difference between an entrance and an exit: they also expect society to accept, tolerate and legalize their sin."

Peter Bronson, writing in the Cincinnati Enquirer, agrees: "It dishonestly portrays selfish betrayal of family and marriage as a brave struggle against repression, as if homosexual love is more noble than traditional marriage."

Art, however, is not used to “settle” a discussion, but rather to provoke it. Brokeback Mountain no more proves homosexuality is normal than The Ten Commandments proves God parted the Red Sea…

…which brings me to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The propaganda controversy swirling around this film is not so much over its Christian content, but rather its target audience: children. The concern is whether children, too young and too naïve to be able to detect artistic bias, are being presented with ideas they don’t know how to defend themselves against. Are they being indoctrinated against their will?

Please forgive the lack of juicy quotes attacking C.S. Lewis’ agenda. It turns out when you do a Google search for “Narnia” and “propaganda,” instead of a lot of hot-tempered liberal screeds about the evils of religion, you get academic essays rebutting Christian assertions that the film is good propaganda by saying things like, “C.S. Lewis warned us not to read too much Christian theology into the stories of Narnia.” Liberals, it turns out, need to work on their inflammatory rhetoric.

“Much of the controversy generated before the film’s release concerning its potential overt Christian propaganda turned out to be hot, empty gassing,” wrote one reviewer, adding, “[it’s not] propaganda except in the perception of the religious or secular fundamentalist. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe brought me much comfort and joy as a Muslim child growing up in Wales." [emphasis mine] Yup, that’s right, here’s a Muslim movie critic defending Narnia on IslamOnline.

Art can certainly be moving, but its critics in this instance grant it more power than it has. Taking a child to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe no more plants a covert time bomb in their minds destined to turn them into Jerry Falwell than Brokeback Mountain will make them queer. Though he was referring to the latter film, Andrew Sullivan’s statement applies equally to the value of both movies: “That is what great art does: it reveals the truth we are too scared to see and the future we already, beneath all our denial, understand.”

The Value of Art

In advance of the Oscars next Sunday, there's a post germinating in my mind on the cultural divide over Narnia and Brokeback Mountain. In the course of my research on the conservative Christian response to Brokeback, I noticed a number of people gleefully point out that while the film garnered the most Oscar nominations of any work this year, its overall earnings at the box office don't rank anywhere near the top grossing films.

I find this specious for many reasons. The year's top moneymaker, Revenge of the Sith, came out in May and is already on DVD; Brokeback opened in December. Furthermore, Brokeback is an arthouse film, not crowd-pleasing blockbuster. The subject matter is mature and controversial, with an admittedly limited appeal. March of the Penguins it is not. But what does that have to do with the quality of the film? Are they trying to argue that if Brokeback was as good as "Hollywood" and "the liberal media" say it is, it would be making the same money as Star Wars? And, who said Revenge of the Sith was good?

Judging a work of art by its popularity is a risky proposition. The Phantom of the Opera opened in London in 1986 and is presently the longest running show in Broadway history; it has been seen by an estimated 52 million people. But does it belong in the theatrical pantheon alongside Hamlet and Hedda Gabler?

What about The DaVinci Code, another work that has some Christians concerned? It's been on The New York Times bestseller list since April, 2003. I thought it was great. But if I were in the business of giving literary awards, Dan Brown isn't anything close to Garcia Marquez or Barbara Kingsolver or Salman Rushdie.

Should the controversial nature of the story prohibit it from award consideration? Richard Strauss' Salome was pulled from the boards of the Metropolitan Opera after a single performance in 1907 and banned until 1934. At the risk of getting an angry email from Antonin Scalia protesting my endorsement of the theory of evolving standards of decency, you'd be hardpressed to find a serious person today who would criticize Salome's artistic worthiness on the basis of its twisted eroticism.

Does Brokeback promote a specific agenda? That's a topic for a different post, but the tactic of accusing a work of art of pushing subversive ideas is an old one. Going back to the Metropolitan Opera, its 1950 production of Don Carlo was vociferously protested by people who accused it of being a "pro-communist" opera because the Spanish Inquisition comes off rather badly in it.

Furthermore, sometimes a work's limited appeal is testimony to its sophistication. (And sometimes it's not: raise your hand if you saw Gigli. Exactly.) When I first heard Alban Berg's Wozzeck at 18, I was appalled. Now, not only do I appreciate it, I find it unspeakably beautiful and emotionally gripping, but it took six years of hard study at a conservatory to learn enough about composition to understand what's happening in the score.

At the heart of this conundrum is the ancient argument over just what, exactly, "art" is. Remember Piss Christ? Damian Hirst's pickled shark? Some people seem to be under the impression that in order for art to be art, it has to be "good," which means to them that they have to like it, or, at the very least, understand it. But if it elicits such an extreme reaction as inspiring protests and debates in Congress, my guess is, it's art.

The bridge at Multnomah Falls. 

From Cape Horn on the Washington side of the Columbia River, looking east. 

Horsetail Falls. 

Cut and Run, Don't Walk

I have long maintained that we have an obligation to the Iraqi people: after invading their country following mistaken accusations that Saddam Hussein possessed banned weapons of mass destruction (later, "weapons of mass destruction related program activities") and actively maintained ties with Al Qaeda leadership, the least we could do was rebuild and repair the infrastructure that was damaged in the process and help guide (without controlling) the formation of a new representative government.

I am, sadly, no longer convinced that success is possible, at least not now.

I've written a lot about what "democracy" means: not just majority rule, but civil protections for minorities, freedom of speech, and the rule of law, accompanied by explicit rights such as rights to counsel, due process, appeal, habeas corpus review, etc.

Unspoken and unwritten in all our great founding documents is that democracy is the best substitute for violence. Not an antidote, mind you, but a substitute. The idea of western democracy was created by people who had fully accepted that the best way to solve problems was to sort them out rationally, not to kill people who disagreed with you.

Of course you can look to America and see violence all around: school shootings, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Los Angeles riots, etc. But these are extraordinary events, not daily circumstances. Yes, we've had presidents assassinated and abortion clinics bombed, but generally our public differences are resolved through civil means.

Look at the current fight over gay rights: yes, there's anti-gay violence now and then, certainly more than we'd like, but the "fight," such as it is, is in the courts and the voting booths, not in the streets. As a culture, we have renounced violence as a solution. Democrats don't bomb Republican campaign offices. Republicans don't kidnap Democrats' children. We don't take innocent reporters hostage and make unreasonable, unanswerable demands. Catholics won't allow me, a Protestant, to take communion at their altars, but they're not plotting the demolition of Grace Cathedral.

Look at the 2000 election. Sure, many of us feel the result was illegitimate, and it's not contested that Al Gore received more votes nationally than George Bush. But such is our commitment to civil society and respect for the law and each other that we acquiesced. We knew there was another chance in 2004. And there will be another one in 2008. That same situation in many other parts of the world would have resulted in burning cars and martial law and politicians fleeing for their lives. Not here.

The middle east hasn't gotten there yet.

Violence and rivalries, probably evolutionary leftovers from the days when it really was survival of the fittest, still abound. But we channel them into things like sports. We can assume a local identity, such as being a Yankees' fan, and we can enjoy our rivalry with the Red Sox -- which has lasted a century now -- but a few idiots aside, this doesn't result in violence. It mimics it, in a way, but it also replaces it.

In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, President Bush made a lot of facile comparisons between Saddam and Iraq and Hitler and Germany. Historians and middle-east experts cautioned, however, that the more appropriate analogy was Yugoslavia: an artificial nation comprised of disparate ethnic and religious groups arrogantly stitched together by foreign powers who thought they knew better.

How will you prevent civil war, the skeptics asked the President, once you have freed Iraq from the iron grip of Saddam Hussein? How will you keep the majority Shiites, long oppressed, from retaliating against their minority oppressors? Instead of receiving an answer, we were accused of being unpatriotic. In the President's mind, fantasy-based optimism is a more responsible position than pragmatism that takes into account unpleasant realities and potential outcomes.

Democracy won't take hold there until the people decide they really want it for themselves. It is not for America to bestow. Right now they seem content to slaughter each other. They are not going to end centuries-old hostilities because Condoleezza Rice asks them nicely. The United States should be ready and willing to help when our help is invited. Until that time, let's not waste lives, money and energy on people who don't appreciate it.

Support the troops. Get them the hell out of there.

Frozen Waterfalls

Just about an hour away from downtown Portland, Oregon is the beautiful Columbia River Gorge, with its many spectacular waterfalls. While I was home the temperature dropped to around 20, but there was no precipitation so the roads were clear and dry. My father and I drove up and got some pretty amazing shots of frozen waterfalls. I'll probably post a few more during the week.

If a picture's worth 1,000 words, here's 1,000 reasons why I love Oregon. 

Wahkeena Falls breaks through the rocks. 

For comparison, Multnomah Falls in springtime.

Multnomah Falls, the second highest waterfall in the United States. 

I'm Still Single Why, Exactly?

Me with my mom's beloved pooch Maxine. Max does this amazing impression of Medusa from Clash of the Titans.

Back

Sorry for the silence. Got back late last night. Swamped at work, feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Cool photos to come.

I Have Beheld The Future, II

In Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal, Kundry is a woman condemned to earthly immortality. Forced to endure an endless existence, every time she awakes from her periodic deep sleeps, she utters a bloodcurdling scream.

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I went to visit Grandmother yesterday. The last time I was in Oregon, about six months ago, I had an experience with her that wasn't super pleasant. Shortly afterward, she was determined to be a danger to herself and to others, and was placed in a home where she is monitored and treated with anti-psychotic drugs. She believes she is "recovering" and going home soon, and we encourage that particular delusion.

Her range of emotions has been greatly stunted by the drugs, which is a good thing. She's relatively coherent: she knew who I was, where I live, what I do for a living, and has been following the Olympics on her TV and wanted to know what I thought of the Flying Tomato. I did not desire to test whether she remembered the events of last August. She speaks in a fairly level monotone, clear and precise, but slow. Her facial expressions don't seem to change much, but she did say she was pleased to see me and gave me a nice hug and a peck on the cheek.

My father and I stopped by to chat with her during lunch at the home. It seems an okay enough place; my family does not have any money, so she's in a charity facility run by the Catholic Church. (As my grandmother is a devout atheist, I cannot help but enjoy the irony that she now sleeps every night under a large, rather ostentatious crucifix with a cement statue of Christ out the window.) She shares her small, dark, awful room with four other women. At one point she asked me to turn on the light, and I was distressed to see that the single, weak fluorescent fixture made no noticeable change in the room.

The dining/community area is a large, open, sunny space, but it does feel awfully institutional. Easy-listening music plays constantly.

I can't imagine how she endures her time there. I am not exaggerating when I say my Grandmother is the only resident who can articulate a sentence, let alone complete one. Many of the residents can no longer feed themselves. I watched as an aide held a piece of fish on a fork up to the mouth of a gentleman seated behind me. He stared past the fish. She tapped his chin with the fork, and he made no response.

At another table, a family had come to visit their father. "Hey dad, do you remember me?" The man sat, with his hands folded in his lap, staring downward, and did not answer.

My father, who has been regularly visiting for several months now, has gotten to know the quirks of the other folks. "Don't make eye contact with that one, or she'll come over." Or, "Keep some distance from her, she likes to grab people."

In an easy chair by the window, a small-framed, pudgy woman had fallen asleep. Two aides went to wake her so she could eat. Startled, I suppose, by the ruinous shock that her nightmare was real, trapped in a body that can no longer stand, her mind imprisoned behind a mouth that can no longer talk, she did the only thing she still can: she screamed.

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They say to be careful what you wish for. I wish to not end up like that.

I Have Beheld The Future

I had an unexpected experience this morning.

I scanned my own groceries.

Yes, here in humble Beaverton, Oregon, I beheld a sociological and technological advance that is probably decades ahead of New York City, assuming it would even be possible there.

At first I was intimidated. I felt nervous, thinking, "Am I really supposed to be doing this?" But there were no checkers in sight, just scanning stations all set up with touch-screens, shopping bags, and an ATM. It was amazing.

My first time scanning groceries, and already I'm better at it than the girls at my Associated back in Manhattan who've been doing it for years. Swipe, beep, swipe, beep, swipe, beep, total, done. I now have even less respect for them than I did before. It is as easy as I thought it was.

I am Here

On vacation through Tuesday. I may or may not be blogging very much depending on a) if anything interesting happens, b) the muse inspires me, c) how much fun I'm having, or d) how much time my mother spends on eBay.

The Cheney Thing

Am I the only one who thinks the press is overreacting to this whole Dick Cheney shooting an old man in the face thing? It was a hunting accident. It happens.

Cheney could have handled this better. I mean, holding a press conference to announce that you shot -- excuse me, peppered -- an old geezer with buckshot would certainly be novel, but having your host, a beltway lobbyist, give an exclusive scoop to a regional newspaper hours after the incident sure makes it sound like they needed time to get the story straight.

Here are my questions: have you ever been around quail? They're beautiful. They're small. They don't really fly. Not like ducks, or anything. When panicked, they can flap themselves straight up in the air to escape from danger (usually terrestrial predators), but they're about as aerodynamic as a chicken. What kind of sadistic fuck enjoys blasting away cute, quirky, defenseless birds with a shotgun? Answer: our Vice President.

Now, I'm not a hunter. I confess, I'm not aware of hunting etiquette. It makes sense to me that if you're around people with guns -- people who intend to use them presently -- you'd want to let them know where you are. Still...Mr. Whittington is seventy-eight years old. How fast does this guy move? I'm supposed to believe that he just appeared out of nowhere?

Despite all that, what is wrong with the media? They're clearly just out for blood. So he didn't have the $7 license to shoot caged birds. Big. Effin. Deal. Cheney's clearly deceived us on so many other issues, it's not a stretch of the imagination to think he's fibbing here, too. But let's analyze this.

There are two possibilities. A) it was an accident. B) it wasn't an accident.

Now, just for the entertainment value of conjecture, let's suppose Possibility B. What are some possible motives for the Vice President to shotgun a senior citizen? Maybe he said, "Hey Dick, I read your wife's novel. I see where your daughter gets it."

Does the press really suspect that this was something other than an accident? If it was an accident, which it almost certainly was, isn't that the end of the story? Come on, mainstream media. You've got bigger quails to fry.

A view across the Harlem River at The Bronx. 

George Washington Bridge. A little blurry, sorry...hard to hold the camera still enough in the dark. 

Heather Garden, Ft. Tryon Park