Wednesday, January 16, 2008
The Bush Effect
There have been a slew of movies and TV show episodes that have come out recently that all deal with a central core theme: doing the right thing, fixing wrongs, and trying to achieve atonement for those wrongs.
These have always been big themes in dramatic screenplays, but it seems to me that they are occurring with greater frequency, and in unexpected places. It appears that writers are trying harder to fit these themes into their scripts.
The largest example is one that no one has really talked about. In the summer of '07, a blockbuster movie came out called Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End. This movie was recently rated as one of the most underwhelming movies of 2007 according to Entertainment Weekly readers, I have a separate blog entry about the silliness of that. But for the purposes of this entry, the plot is the important thing. People found it convoluted, which is fine. But why was it convoluted? Because people kept switching sides, switching allegiances, making back-room deals to try and get what they wanted. The screenwriters performed these machinations for entertainment value, and perhaps just out of sheer audacity and bravado, to see how complicated they could make things, how tight they could spin the top before they set it loose. But then they did something interesting. They showed quite clearly the consequences of those actions, how everyone's own interests conflicted with each other. Kiera Knightley's character had to deal with the fact that she had sent Johnny Depp's character to his death when they resurrected him. Orlando Bloom's character had to deal with the repercussions of backstabbing everyone to try and rescue his father. Along the way, those who had made poor decisions attempted to correct their actions and atone for them. Most notable was Jack Davenport's character, who chose to save his own hide by selling out the pirates, and then realized his mistake and freed the pirates at one point, only to lose his life in the process. The movie was all about living with the consequences of one's choices, and trying to correct them when they proved to be the wrong ones.
Another movie released later in the year, around the holidays, is I Am Legend. Ostensibly a simple sci-fi zombie movie, like all interesting movies it anchors itself on something much more real and grounded. From the beginning we see that Will Smith's character feels personally responsible for practically destroying humanity, and that he is willing to go to incredible lengths in order to fix the problem, staying in the city, maintaining a lab where he runs experiments to try and find a vaccine, even capturing zombies for the purpose of trying to cure them. From the beginning to the end, he lives consumed by his guilt over the mistake he believes he has made, and is determined to fix it. In the end, he gives his life to make sure the cure is preserved. Again, the theme of the movie was atonement for one's mistakes, even at the cost of one's life.
Then today, I watched an episode of Law & Order. Like all the best episodes of that franchise, it started in one direction and ended in another one entirely. It began with a dry cleaning service being sued by an irate customer because he received the wrong suit pants, and ended with a low-price mega-chain superstore being grilled for covering up the import of antifreeze-filled toothpaste. Along the way, a former police inspector sold his soul to the mega-chain superstore in order to protect his well-paying job. Many Law & Order episodes have ended with someone lying and being proven wrong, this is not entirely new. Most such episodes end with the person needing to live silently with his/her treachery, and/or being prosecuted for perjury. This one, however, ended in dramatic fashion with the police inspector up on the stand purging his soul, ratting the company out for its conspiracy, and cleansing his conscience. For once, the character did the right thing and achieved atonement at the end of the episode.
Why the seeming barrage of plots that involve characters trying to correct their wrongs and achieve atonement? I think there's a simple reason for that: our lovely boy-President. A person who won't come clean, a person who lies, a person who does things for all the wrong reasons, and doesn't care that he is dragging the entire country in the process. We all want to see people do the right things on TV and in the movies, because in real life we see a President who is not doing the right things.
Congratulations, George W Bush. This is your effect on Americans.
These have always been big themes in dramatic screenplays, but it seems to me that they are occurring with greater frequency, and in unexpected places. It appears that writers are trying harder to fit these themes into their scripts.
The largest example is one that no one has really talked about. In the summer of '07, a blockbuster movie came out called Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End. This movie was recently rated as one of the most underwhelming movies of 2007 according to Entertainment Weekly readers, I have a separate blog entry about the silliness of that. But for the purposes of this entry, the plot is the important thing. People found it convoluted, which is fine. But why was it convoluted? Because people kept switching sides, switching allegiances, making back-room deals to try and get what they wanted. The screenwriters performed these machinations for entertainment value, and perhaps just out of sheer audacity and bravado, to see how complicated they could make things, how tight they could spin the top before they set it loose. But then they did something interesting. They showed quite clearly the consequences of those actions, how everyone's own interests conflicted with each other. Kiera Knightley's character had to deal with the fact that she had sent Johnny Depp's character to his death when they resurrected him. Orlando Bloom's character had to deal with the repercussions of backstabbing everyone to try and rescue his father. Along the way, those who had made poor decisions attempted to correct their actions and atone for them. Most notable was Jack Davenport's character, who chose to save his own hide by selling out the pirates, and then realized his mistake and freed the pirates at one point, only to lose his life in the process. The movie was all about living with the consequences of one's choices, and trying to correct them when they proved to be the wrong ones.
Another movie released later in the year, around the holidays, is I Am Legend. Ostensibly a simple sci-fi zombie movie, like all interesting movies it anchors itself on something much more real and grounded. From the beginning we see that Will Smith's character feels personally responsible for practically destroying humanity, and that he is willing to go to incredible lengths in order to fix the problem, staying in the city, maintaining a lab where he runs experiments to try and find a vaccine, even capturing zombies for the purpose of trying to cure them. From the beginning to the end, he lives consumed by his guilt over the mistake he believes he has made, and is determined to fix it. In the end, he gives his life to make sure the cure is preserved. Again, the theme of the movie was atonement for one's mistakes, even at the cost of one's life.
Then today, I watched an episode of Law & Order. Like all the best episodes of that franchise, it started in one direction and ended in another one entirely. It began with a dry cleaning service being sued by an irate customer because he received the wrong suit pants, and ended with a low-price mega-chain superstore being grilled for covering up the import of antifreeze-filled toothpaste. Along the way, a former police inspector sold his soul to the mega-chain superstore in order to protect his well-paying job. Many Law & Order episodes have ended with someone lying and being proven wrong, this is not entirely new. Most such episodes end with the person needing to live silently with his/her treachery, and/or being prosecuted for perjury. This one, however, ended in dramatic fashion with the police inspector up on the stand purging his soul, ratting the company out for its conspiracy, and cleansing his conscience. For once, the character did the right thing and achieved atonement at the end of the episode.
Why the seeming barrage of plots that involve characters trying to correct their wrongs and achieve atonement? I think there's a simple reason for that: our lovely boy-President. A person who won't come clean, a person who lies, a person who does things for all the wrong reasons, and doesn't care that he is dragging the entire country in the process. We all want to see people do the right things on TV and in the movies, because in real life we see a President who is not doing the right things.
Congratulations, George W Bush. This is your effect on Americans.
