When I was young, back in the 1970s, disaster movies were in vogue. Perhaps the most memorable was Jaws (1975), but before that were such
noteworthies as The Omega Man (1971), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Airport and Earthquake (1974). Afterward came such screen gems as Rollercoaster (1977), Meteor, Hurricane, and The China
Syndrome (1979). All in all, there were more than fifty such major
Hollywood disaster productions released in the period.
And everybody
was going to see them and talking about how great the special effects were or
how spectacularly people were shown dying in them.
Odd, don’t
you think?
How can you
be entertained by your own destruction?
But people
are.
“… the only emotion people feel nowadays is interest or the lack of it. Curiosity and interest and boredom have replaced the so-called emotions we used to read about in novels or see registered on actors’ faces. Even the horrors of the age translate into interest. Did you ever watch anybody pick up the newspaper and read the headline PLANE CRASH KILLS THREE HUNDRED? How horrible! says the reader. But look at him when he hands you the paper. Is he horrified? No, he is interested. When was the last time you saw anybody horrified?”
— Walker Percy, in Lancelot
Reality TV
And it’s not
just phony disasters. Think of how many people continue to be fascinated with
the myriad conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination, the
Oklahoma bombing or 9/11. Or think of how many people turn on the evening news
or watch the internet for the latest details in this or that fiasco around the
world. Slow motion replays of tidal waves engulfing costal Japan. Footage of
raging California brush fires or the latest Kansas tornado. Mudslides in
Honduras or China. Massacres in Somalia. Terrorists running amok in Kenya. Rocket
attacks in Israel. Bullets pinging off helmets in Iraq. All kinds of fun.
Remember the
brief and one-sided Gulf War of 1990, featuring General Schwartzkopf’s
televised briefings of drones striking various targets? They called it the “Nintendo
War”. And just after it was all over, I remember one wise guy posting the line,
“Hey, how come they cancelled that neat Desert Storm show?”
I think a lot
of people felt that.
A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight
Why do we
laugh at disaster?
I’d like to
think it indicated some kind of courage or hopefulness on our part, but I
really don’t think it does. Really, it does not rise above prurient curiosity:
we like to see destruction and death, and to ooh and aaah — not in sympathy,
but in sheer amusement. We like other people’s disaster; and even when it gets
close to home, as in the Louisiana hurricane or the Calgary flood, we get a
thrill out of the very closeness of the thing — “Oooh, just missed me”.
Would we even
flinch if our neighbour were murdered in his bed? Or would we watch the reruns
of the cops picking up the bodies and call all our friends to pick up the feed.
I don’t know.
I don’t want to be cynical about human nature … but sometimes, how can you not
be?
The Bible talks about this. Peter says, “In the last days, mockers will come”. They will say, “Where is the promise of [the Lord’s] coming?”
What are they
asking for?
Jude says it
escapes their notice. It escapes their notice that God is very, very good at judging
the wicked. He’s done it in the past. He judged Sodom, he judged Egypt, he judged
angels and he judged the whole earth in the Flood. Yes, the Lord knows how to keep the ungodly for the day of destruction.
But they do
not fear. Rather
they mock — they laugh. They laugh even when judgment arrives. They do not
recognize the signs of their own destruction. Rather, Russia rises and they are
amused. Syria slaughters its Christian citizens, and they stand and watch. The
Mideast explodes and threatens Israel, and they turn up the volume. The
portents of disastrous plagues, environmental destruction and death rise around
them, and they settle back in their La-Z-Boy recliners with a cold beer in one
hand and a sandwich in the other, and watch how it all plays out.
Amusing Ourselves to Death
The Academy Award-nominated 1994 movie Quiz Show tracks the story of the infamous “21” game show fraud of
the late 50s. The opening credits are set to the jazzy notes of Bobby Darin’s 1960
hit, “Mack the Knife”.
The film portrays how wayward academic and unlikely TV hero Charles Van Doren
was lured by avaricious NBC executives to sacrifice his integrity and
reputation to sustain their greed. When the deception was exposed, it
culminated in a very public congressional inquiry, with Van Doren as the
ultimate fall guy. Other than the permanent destruction of Van Doren’s
credibility, the repercussions turned out to be negligible. NBC went on, its
sponsors continued, quiz shows went on, the executives escaped responsibility
and the American viewing audience continued to love its entertainment as much
as ever. In the film, cynical NBC executive Martin Rittenhome quips to
prosecutor Richard Goodwin in the aftermath, “The audience didn’t tune in to
watch some amazing display of intellectual ability. They just wanted to watch
the money”.
The end credits of Quiz
Show are also soundtracked by “Mack the Knife”. But this time, it’s Lyle
Lovett’s slower and much more sinister rendition of the same tune, “Moritat”
(1990). It is only then that
the viewer gradually comes to realize the sort of horrible lyrics that have
been hidden beneath the boppy Bobby Darren tune:
“And the ghastly fire in Soho,Seven children at a go —In the crowd stands Mac the knife, butHe isn’t asked, he doesn’t know.”
“Mack” is a remorseless killer, an assassin of young women,
helpless children and vulnerable old men.
We’ve been snapping our fingers to the sound of murder.
As the credits roll, director Robert Redford gives us a
slow-motion pan of quiz show audience, everyone laughing and applauding, in
slow motion. The effect is haunting. Smiles turn to the grimaces of jackals,
laughter into a bellows of stupefied amusement, the whole scene into a cabaret
of moron clowns. No one “gets it”. They’re just being entertained.
Entertained
by their own destruction.
The End
Well, in his
masterful poem The Hollow Men, T.S.
Eliot penned this oft-quoted line: “This is the way the world ends: Not with a bang but a
whimper”.
But T.S. Eliot was wrong. It ends in neither.
It ends in a roar of idiotic laughter.
Should idle speculation be answered with idle speculation? Isn't that what you are doing here, perhaps in a sudden sense of frustration? What you are up against is probably hardwired biologically and spiritually and is mediated by adrenalin. A need to escape boredom, or in Star Trek parlance "to go where no man has gone before." This is really an ancient trend as shown in this article describing inscriptions on an ancient rune stone.
ReplyDeleteThe key to these ancient riddles may lie
in a father’s love for his dead son
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-key-to-these-ancient-riddles-may-lie-in-a-father-s-love-for-his-dead-son-a7013281.html
This inborn trend seems to motivate certain types to seek out, and not care about, danger whether it be physical or spiritual. It's useless to fret about if that's not your cup of tea even if it often seems foolish. And, let's face it, it does often proof quite entertaining, and if it wasn't for the outlier types we'd all still be riding around in horse and buggy. I for one would not willingly have stepped into a heap of metal fully expecting it to lift me up into the air. So should we complain if that's what is needed to move the world forward? Should we all be sedentary by the rules kind of people and would that suffice to move the world forward?
My opinion? I set a trap, because, think about it, how can anyone be more effective and quietly energetic in moving this world forward then that person who has allied himself with the most powerful force in the universe, his creator. No matter who you think you are, you are not able to go up against " Our Father, who art in heaven … thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven…"