Jim: [walking around deserted London] Hello?
When I interviewed Gavin Hood earlier this year, he said one thing that made an impression. It made an impression particularly because he is a person in the business of playing let's pretend, let's make movie magic, putting wishes on the silver screen. He said he was interested in making movies about characters who didn't like themselves very much. Because, he said, at one time or another, all of us are conscious of aspects of ourselves that we don't like, and probably don't like to acknowledge. In other words, he was flirting with versimilitude [or truthlikeness].
I believe that tendency to avoid the lesser in ourselves, reveals a lot about why we don't like to acknowledge what is happening outside of us.
Hood explores characters that we might not like very much, but that ultimately, perhaps, are worthy of of redemption. With Tsotsi it is a obsessive and heartless criminality, with Wolverine it is uncontrolled rage. Even in Hood's Rendition [about a man who is imprisoned without trial] there is that same conflict, except this time it is expanded to the state, but the hero is once again an anti-hero.
In flicks like The Matrix the heroes are actually revolutionaries - acting against the state, including the police. The FBI's Agent Smith becomes like a permeating virus.
The idea of a virus - something small and apparently invisible, able to create systemic collapse in society is also interesting, both as a metaphor and based on the simple mechanics - an extremely subtle near non-intelligent substance [there's uncertainty whether a virus can even be classified as a living organism] - I find this fascinating, and somewhat troubling. What else can blindside us but something unseen, unacknowledged until its reality infuses directly into our own?
But coming back to Hood, what impressed me was his dedication to inner realism. And the reality is that inside each of us there is conflict. Isn't there?
I was at a popular discotheque in Johannesburg last night, and while I had a number of impulses to approach some beautiful creatures on the dance floor, we have to learn to control all those impulses, or suffer the consequences when we don't. There's conflict right there. But going puppy-dog according to each impulse and you'll eventually have beer bottles breaking off the back of your head.
I suppose I realised I have grown up since my forays onto the dance floor in my 20's. And a stand-up comic once joked that the only difference between one's 20's and 30's are that in one's 30's one doesn't have to go to nightclubs every weekend, jump around, trying to look happy while secretly wanting to go home. So it's an interesting tight rope walk, and the alcohol also asks us to abandon inhibitions, to be someone else - either more or less of who we really are. But even when we're all out there having fun, there is still a more subtle dance of male/female power sharing going on. It's also true that a pretty face has the same realities each of us have - bills to pay, legitimate concerns and then, issues.
My stream of consciousness also went to London, this weekend, via the David Boyle flick 28 Days Later.
What struck me this time round, in contrast to when it first aired, was its relevance. There was something very compelling about empty cities, a man walking alone through then, plastic bag in hand, shopping by basically picking up the detritus left behind [no longer produced, simply discarded, oorskiet as the Afrikaner says].
Could this be the consumer of the future? Could this be the future of shopping?
Jim: Do you know I was thinking?
Selena: You were thinking that you'll never hear another piece of original music ever again. You'll never read a book that hasn't already been written or see a film that hasn't already been shot.
Jim: Um, that's what you were thinking.
Selena: No. I was thinking I was wrong.
Jim: About what?
Selena: All the death. All the shit. It doesn't really mean anything to Frank and Hannah because... Well, she's got a Dad and he's got his daughter. So, I was wrong when I said that staying alive is as good as it gets.
Jim: See, that's what I was thinking.
Selena: Was it?
I think 28 Days Later does a sterling job to also inform us how to make sense of what might become a hopeless confluence of events. We will find a purpose to our lives and a reason to live [rather than merely survive] based on our bonds to one another. It won't be our relationships to our homes or our cars or our money that will guide our every day actions - and if you think about it, that is quite a sick present day motivation. We will revert to a more human, and certainly simpler approach to everyday life. What 28 Days Later surgically removes are the horrors involved in stripping a city population of its innards. Witnessing this is likely to induce convulsions of the mind. It only shows us the aftermath that is picking up the pieces subsequent to all the fighting.
Major Henry West: This is what I've seen in the four weeks since infection. People killing people. Which is much what I saw in the four weeks before infection, and the four weeks before that, and before that, and as far back as I care to remember. People killing people. Which to my mind, puts us in a state of normality right now.
I'm uncertain whether our problems and the disintegration in the fabric of society that is currently underway [a more appropriate word is perhaps collapse, but it is a staggered, step-by-step process rather than a one-off event] - I am uncertain whether a virus will be at the root of this. It may well be. It may be the current swine flu, or it might be a hybrid of highly pathogenic avian flu and swine flu. It might be something else altogether. But conditions are certainly ripe for a deep slaughter of the human population - by disease. Based on a number of factors:
- populations under stress
- increased poverty
- populations struggling to prop up their immunity [in terms of health care, not having the resources to afford medications]
See: Medical aid crunch hits SA families hard
- and huge proportions that are already sick and vulnerable to a pandemic purge
See: 1 in 10 Adults Over Age 40 Worldwide May Have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
See: UNAIDS estimates that in 2005 there were 5.5 million people in South Africa infected with HIV — 12.4% of the population. This was an increase of 200,000 people since 2003.
In South Africa the total population has already started shrinking. That means more people are dying than being born. The number of funerals taking place around the country are testimony to the highly increased mortality rate. And what are the implications of this higher mortality rate?
- sky high crime
- riots
- corruption
- xenophobia
Selena: It started as rioting. But right from the beginning you knew this was different. Because it was happening in small villages, market towns. And then it wasn't on the TV any more. It was in the street outside. It was coming in through your windows. It was a virus. An infection.
Well, swine flu certainly has the potential - alone - to precipitate widespread disruption, and eventually, anarchy. But probably, the worldwide economic malaise, which many leading economists falsely believe to be temporary [that is, there will be a cyclical 'recovery'] has far greater potential to induce widespread rioting, dterioration and panic. What is a consumer to do, after all, if he or she can no longer consume? If he or she has lost his or her job? And the critical threshold comes when the number of have nots in developed countries outnumber the minority with jobs. Do we expect those people to happily co-exist side by side? Or will the disenfranchised middle class, suffering the threat of disease and crime and other threats to their survival and happiness, will the have-nots now known as the former middle class, vent their rage on the ponzi schemers, bailed out banks, and soon ordinary corporations who had profit as a motive, but no real stake in shaping and building communities. Of course they will!
It is hard to imagine a population used to convenience food and convenience stores suddenly adapting to inconvenience.
Selena: He was full of plans. Have you got any plans, Jim? Do you want us to find a cure and save the world or just fall in love and fuck? Plans are pointless. Staying alive's as good as it gets.
One of the major implications of The 2nd Great Depression [The Greatest Depression] is simply this, poverty. Interestingly the last decade or so has shown the greatest increases in wealth the world has ever known. Yet: 380 million people lived under the poverty line in 2005, compared with 200 million in 1981. That is only in sub-Saharan Africa. The number of poor people in the world - extremely poor - is over a billion, around 1 in 6. It is when this number rises to 2 in 6 or 3 in 6 that the prospects for peace begin to dissipate rapidly, as a war for resources becomes the order or reality. A war for resources - what does that mean? Simply, people, governments, nations fighting for food, clean water and shelter.
Sergeant Farrell: Well, I think Bill's got a point. If you look at the whole life of the planet, we... you know, man, has only been around for a few blinks of an eye. So if the infection wipes us all out, that is a return to normality.
Perhaps for the planet, certainly not for us. But it must be pointed out, 'wiping out' implies an instant process. It is likely to take some time, and it is already underway. In South Africa it is perhaps further underway than many other countries.
I am not going to discuss climate change - something I consider our greatest challenge, and most underestimated. Climate change probably represents the greatest threat to our world's potential food crops and also the inspiration behind a host of new pandemics in store.
Frank: You'd never think it. Needing rain so badly. Not in fucking England!
What lies behind our habit of lying to ourselves? There is a Bryan Habanna advert where he encourages children to keep their hands clean using Protex anti-bacterial soapwash. The premise is correct - hands should be kept clean. But the product is not. An anti-bacterial soap used on a large scale by consumers only fosters ant-biotic resistant bacteria. Not a good idea.
So why is this advert out there?
Why are human beings so conflicted?
Why is there so much information at odds with reality?
Because profits can be made.
Antibacterial soaps are used in households across the country where they amount to a $16 billion-a-year industry. Some 72 percent of all liquid soap sold in the United States now contains antibacterial ingredients.Because money is more important right now. And the fact that we each go to a job, and participate in Consumption, enables this process. Religion also encourages us to ignore reality.
I'm going to close by talking about Michael Jackson. I saw a colleague sporting a t-shirt, and she had bought another for her son. I have recently studied some high profile criminal cases and looked at what is known as statement analysis. Simply put, there is a technique to lying. It is a fascinating study and if you want to decide for yourself whether Jackson was a child molester, I suggest you read this:
Michael Jackson's Child Molestation Charges
More: I Know O.J. Did It
Scott Peterson - Did he kill his wife and unborn son?
While all the above characters were guilty, only Scott Peterson was eventually convicted. OJ was found not guilty of killing his wife, but convicted of a different, secondary offence years later.
I was appalled to discover this year that a jury found the New Zealander David Bain not guilty of murdering his family.
So the question arises - if all these people were guilty, how come juries could not see it? After all, the science of lying is simple:
Avoiding the truth. This means the criminal will never say: "I did not molest the boy," but rather, "I would never hurt a child. Never, never, never." A criminal won't say, "I did not murder my wife," but, "I had nothing to do with it." It is hard for guilty people to directly deny the crime.
Gordon: "Did you indeed commit those murders?"
Simpson: “No, I did not commit those murders. I couldn’t kill anyone. And I don't know of anyone that was involved. Anything that I might say along those lines would be pure speculation."
So why did we believe that Simpson and David Bain were innocent? Why do we wear t-shirts that depict Michael Jackson as a hero? Simple. Because we are as conflicted as they are. And we share their refusal to deal with our own truth, just as they do. The result of this whether we believe in heaven or hell, is we eventually end up in hell, simply because in nature, reality always catches us, no matter how much money we have or how good we are at spin, or bullshitting or selling advertising or make believe and lets pretend. That sense of inner conflict is simply a reminder that there will be a consequence for our denial of reality, and it's simply this: we postpone the inevitable.
Conflicted
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