Total Rehash
I’ve figured out what Hollywood and Washington D.C. have in common.
God and I went to see the new remake of Total Recall this week. Like any big budget Hollywood special effects extravaganza these days, it looks amazing. The craftsmanship that goes into blockbuster movies today is incredible. In every way but one. And that one is what God and I figured out this week that they have in common with most of our nation’s politicians, especially the conservatives: Hollywood does not believe in, or at least has no respect for, intelligence. Most filmmakers have really bought in to the old saying seeing is believing. If they can put the image of a tunnel through the center of the Earth in front of us, they assume we’ll believe that it is possible. They don’t care that a middle school level of science education can expose the lack of science in their science fiction. And politicians don’t care that basic fact checking shows that they lie, over and over again they flat out lie and just assume we’re too stupid to notice.
I’m a better audience than most of my friends. Have I mentioned that most of my friends are smart? I do buy into the believability of the absurd; at least through to the credits. The better the film, the longer past the credits I can hold on to my belief. Also, the more the filmmaker’s make it clear that they don’t themselves believe in their own absurdities, the longer I can hold on to my belief. In the Harry Potter movies and other fantasies, I know that the people in charge know that it’s all make believe, so I don’t mind making believe. But with something like Total Recall, I’m not sure that they don’t know that chemicals in the air don’t respect zone borders, so it makes it hard for me to believe not just that people are safe in the zone, but that there really can be a woman with three breasts.
Oh, and speaking of multiple breasts, Hollywood, if you’re going to have two female leads, could you do something to make it easy to tell them apart?
And politicians? Well, they’re not going to change so long as the system means we really only get to choose between two of them at a time.
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