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Working on the solid nonviolent principle that we should transform our enemies, PN brings you a
slightly tongue-in-cheek column dedicated to getting to know our "enemies" better.
Love your enemy ...... everyone can change
Sian Glaessner
We all like to be entertained don't we? And isn't it great that the hero gets the girl, the poor get
rich and the good guys (us) always win?
Yes. The enemy this time is the sweetest of all - Hollywood. After all, how could anyone criticise that
which gives pleasure to millions? Well. Hollywood might have been making us laugh and cry for generations but beyond the
glitz and glamour there's the reality. A reality of oppression, exploitation and propaganda. So go on - add your pennies
to the piles of cash the studio execs rake in time after time: after all - its not doing anyone any harm is it? Is it?
Actually, it is...
How the west was won
First - oppression. The nasty reality was that for decades the Hollywood studios acted like senior clan members in the KKK.
Prejudices were confirmed with every flicker of the silver screen. Black people were imprisoned in the apologetic girning
of "Jim Crow" and Native Americans were, well, absent, as Hollywood ensured only one "authorised" US version of "How the
West Was Won".
These films were the classics of the post-code, post-war era that have informed American and World cinema ever since.
They provided the dominant aesthetic to which international cinema would eventually be forced to succumb. [I had to look
"post-code" up, so I guess it deserves an explanation: between 1930 and 1967 the Motion Picture Association of America
adopted a set of production rules which placed limitations on artistic expression - notably to only present "correct
standards of life" and that "no picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence
the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin." How dull, no wonder
they had abandoned it by the "permissive" sixties! -Ed]
A mans' world
Then - exploitation. Race and gender suffered at the merciless hands of generations of WASPish film directors. From the
barely pubescent chorus girls of the Busby Berkely spectaculars, to the more recent overtly sexual (but mostly submissive)
soft porn sirens, it has been clear that Hollywood is a "man's business". Even where female characters or actresses were
allowed to rebel against type, there was no challenging the male gaze of the camera.
Teaching Stalin
And lastly - propaganda. Post-code Hollywood was consciously a propaganda machine. It was so effective that Stalin sent
his best directors there to learn and copy. From Casablanca to Forrest Gump the message has hardly wavered. Individuality
triumphs so long as that individuality does not diverge from the WASP vision of what all Americans should be.
There is a sentimentality and a self righteousness in this Hollywood vision - a rhetorical zeal that admits no
opposition. The politics of authors, and directors, of screenwriters and actors fight a losing battle against the politics
of the Hollywood production machine.
Sugar-coated pills
So what's there to love? Well. Precious little. But recognise it for what it is, a sweet machine churning out sugar coated
pills of ideology that lobotomise the thinking man and woman, and there's a chance to fight it, to change it.
As the workers called for ownership of the means of production, so now it is time for the viewers, the audience to
call for ownership of the "dream factory" of Hollywood.
Suggestions of candidates ripe for redemption should be sent to editorial@peacenews.info
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