From: yunus@loro-next.Stanford.EDU (Jonas Sami Celebiler)
Subject: Re: Trashiness and Banality  and deconstructing Bullies and Wimps
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 92 03:11:32 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.023920.19152@leland.Stanford.EDU>  
yunus@loro-next.Stanford.EDU (Jonas Sami Celebiler) writes:
> 
> I agree with the fact that the trashiness or junkiness or baseness  
> (however you want to put it) of American narratives, and American arts  
> (not Art) in general, is a big problem and could possibly be the cause  
for  
> much of the misconceived attitudes and ideas that America as a nation  
and  
> Americans as individuals infortunately have today.
> 
> I just watched "Romancing the Stone", and I has happy to see that it was  
> really a terrible movie.  It is loaded with assumptions, myths, and  
> prejudices.  Some of them I can name below:
> - Miss Wilder's savior in the middle of the Columbian countryside is an  
> American
> - The symbol of power which allows the "good guys" to escape from the  
> Columbian offficials, is, in the middle of the Columbian countryside  
> again, a Ford Pickup. and American car.
> - The antagonists, are Columbian, or dark skinned Americans.
> - They are very "cruel" and ill-meaning, but never achieve anything and  
> are in fact treated in a much more cruel way by the "good guys" 
> - The whole plot itself is inspired with prejudice and jingoism: it is  
> that two Americans go to Columbia kill off bothersome local officials,  
and  
> run away to make it rich with the stolen historic national heritage of a  
> developping nation.
> 
> After talking with a few people about this, I came to the sad feeling  
that  
> people condoned this movie regardless of the attitudes it puts forward,  
> with the excuse that "it's just entertainment, and just to be taken  
> lightly."  I don't take my brains lightly, and I don't take the  
education  
> of children and all people  for that matter, lightly.  It is not the  
> government's job to condone or condemn such works, for that relates to  
> censorship and is unnessecary.  It is the role of the general people,  
the  
> public,  the duty of all those who can think for themseles enough to see  
> these things, to condemn them for themselves, for their children, but  
not  
> to censor such things, but to inform of the negative ideas and  
assumptions  
> in such works, in fact to encourage other people to watch such movies  
and  
> to see and point out forthemselves what's going on.
> 
> As to the concept of "light entertainment," I find it to be a  
nonexisting  
> distinction, and therefore harmful.  I find people, especially in the  
> United States of America where everything intellectual is so-labeled and  
> thereby either revered or despised, that people want to make a  
distinction  
> between "movies" which they don't think about and "films" which they do  
> think about.  Whereas in reality, one must see that both are but the  
same  
> form of the arts, an audio-visual form of communication.  Both are  
> governed by the same rules and needs and limitations.  Both are in fact  
> the same medium.  The only difference is that we condone stupidity in  
one  
> and believe that we enjoy ourselves in watching them, and that we think  
> overintensively of the other and believe we don't enjoy ourselves  
watching  
> them.  Both are but the same, and hopefully when seen that way one sees  
> that all are movies, but some are just slightly bad movies, or very  
stupid  
> movies, or good movies.
> 
> I believe there are more than the two genres of fictional and  
> non-fictional.  There are three genres, fictional-imaginary,  
> fictional-real, non-fictional.  The worst of all three, at least  
> especially in modern American cinema is the second of the three.
> 
> Possibly it is this materialistic and self-centered ("it is only for my  
> entertainment") attitude toward the arts that is evil.  In other words  
it  
> is not the actual products of the junk culture that are to be fought  
> against.  Censorship should be fought against at all costs, and has  
never  
> helped anything anyway.  But the attitude that such junk (expressly  
> unintellectual arts that supposedly are to appeal to the senses) is  
> permissible, acceptable, and actually even part of a culture (whereas it  
> is actually the exact opposite of what culture is), that attitude is  
what  
> is evil and should definately be fought.  And evil I truly believe it  
is,  
> because not only has it screwed up the minds of Americans, but the  
> American junk culture is spreading around the world, and not only badly  
> influencing the people of other nations, in the same way as it badly  
> influences the American people, but also actually destroying other  
> cultures.