Cinema
I was very disappointed in Ben Affleck last evening, when I attended a movie at the suggestion of a friend. The Cambridge-raised actor, producer and director of major Hollywood films has recently offered us "The Town", a dreary epic of violence and the cult of victimization. I watched the film last evening in a crowded theater and walked away shaking my head.
I am disturbed by the portrayal of violent sociopaths as sympathetic characters, who are simply misunderstood victims of their environment. This does not bother me just because it idolizes bad behavior. It offends my intelligence because it is a lie.
The rapper culture that has taken root in America and spread like a virus around the world is a strange mutation of the rebel-without-a-cause culture that preceded the social revolution of the 1960s. The portrayal of criminals as misunderstood underdogs was charming and understandable in the previous Great Depression of the 1930s. However, we now have the science and information to understand that this economic depression is in part a result of the rapper culture and other erosive media messages, which have corrupted our government, our financial institutions and our own minds. The messages that 'bad' and greed are good have fertile soil in the minds of alienated human beings in industrialized, impersonal cultures.
And now Ben Affleck has added another fuming pile of twisted relationships, violence and crime to the heap we are already buried under by the mushroom cloud of capitalist media. As a humanist, committed to nonviolence and promoting peace, I watched in horror in the theater last evening as three African-American teenagers cheered at every machine-gun blast and death. We have just had an execution of five black citizens in the Mattapan neighborhood. One of them was a toddler.
The millions of dollars that were used to make "The Town", as well as the profits garnered from it, could rebuild the whole neighborhood of Mattapan in Boston. That amount of money, dedicated to youth intervention, education and facilities could prevent violence and create a peaceful environment for generations of citizens.
As I looked around at the relatively young audience, I wondered how many of them would vote Libertarian or Republican. I wondered how many would be duped byTea Party manipulation to dismantle government regulation and fair taxation. As they cheered at the massacre of policemen in the film, I wondered who among them would stand up and protect a fellow human being from violence at their own peril. The answer seems quite obvious.
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| Photo: Wikipedia |
"The Town" is a euphemism for Charlestown, Massachusetts, a section of Boston. I grew up just across the Mystic River in Chelsea, an equally working-class city on Boston's northern border. The Charlestown of "The Town" is no longer a real place, despite the contemporary setting of the film. That Charlestown died decades ago with the gentrification of the neighborhood and the integration of the huge city housing projects with a more racially and ethnically diverse population. But, I am not upset by the film's anachronisms and bad accents.
I am disturbed by the portrayal of violent sociopaths as sympathetic characters, who are simply misunderstood victims of their environment. This does not bother me just because it idolizes bad behavior. It offends my intelligence because it is a lie.
The rapper culture that has taken root in America and spread like a virus around the world is a strange mutation of the rebel-without-a-cause culture that preceded the social revolution of the 1960s. The portrayal of criminals as misunderstood underdogs was charming and understandable in the previous Great Depression of the 1930s. However, we now have the science and information to understand that this economic depression is in part a result of the rapper culture and other erosive media messages, which have corrupted our government, our financial institutions and our own minds. The messages that 'bad' and greed are good have fertile soil in the minds of alienated human beings in industrialized, impersonal cultures.
And now Ben Affleck has added another fuming pile of twisted relationships, violence and crime to the heap we are already buried under by the mushroom cloud of capitalist media. As a humanist, committed to nonviolence and promoting peace, I watched in horror in the theater last evening as three African-American teenagers cheered at every machine-gun blast and death. We have just had an execution of five black citizens in the Mattapan neighborhood. One of them was a toddler.
The millions of dollars that were used to make "The Town", as well as the profits garnered from it, could rebuild the whole neighborhood of Mattapan in Boston. That amount of money, dedicated to youth intervention, education and facilities could prevent violence and create a peaceful environment for generations of citizens.
As I looked around at the relatively young audience, I wondered how many of them would vote Libertarian or Republican. I wondered how many would be duped byTea Party manipulation to dismantle government regulation and fair taxation. As they cheered at the massacre of policemen in the film, I wondered who among them would stand up and protect a fellow human being from violence at their own peril. The answer seems quite obvious.
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