Liberalism, universality and the theory of humyn nature: from "Persepolis" to "The Matrix"
2008 February
State use of "Persepolis"
By way of prefacing this discussion of petty-bourgeois theoretical movies, MIWS will share the results of its 15-minute quick-and-dirty Internet investigation of specific institutional uses of non-theoretical, but "universal," "Persepolis" (2007). In its review of this reactionary petty-bourgeois movie, MIWS discusses how "Persepolis" lent itself to CIA, Pentagon and State Department use. "Persepolis" will not decrease anti-Iran sentiment in the Western imperialist countries. The supposed universality of "Persepolis" serves to facilitate a neo-colonial colonization process while supporting war against Iran in specific ways. The movie's theme of lifestyle repression and Liberal outlook in general reinforce chauvinism and the war climate against Iran. "Persepolis" prepares public opinion among First World intellectuals and middle-class liberals to attack Iran under the pretext of assisting opposition forces there. In writing its review, MIWS did not explore the u.$. government's use of the film. Typically, in a review, MIWS focuses on the content of a movie and makes some theoretically and analytically informed assumptions about the movie's audience. Because of the narrow audience of "Persepolis," the rarity of the movie as a film screened in the First World portraying Iran in today's climate, and the film's peculiar message, "Persepolis" calls for additional attention. "Persepolis" has a targeted, but internationally consequential, predictable impact. "Persepolis" would also be reactionary seen by the general population, but has a special role in cultivating the notion of a third camp between imperialism, and Iran and Muslim oppressed nations in general.
MIWS does not lead specific public opinion battles and has not started a campaign against "Persepolis," but it is helpful for purposes of illustration to look at a concrete struggle involving a film such as "Persepolis." It turns out that the State Department (state.gov and america.gov), the u.$. military (famously the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where Persepolis has reportedly been required reading), the Mujahedin, and a certain crypto-Trotskyist party and its counterrevolutionary international society, have all promoted, shown or used Marjane Satrapi's work. MIWS could have cheated readers out of a scientific analysis of "Persepolis" and emphasized what Satrapi had said about her own work, and her neo-colonial and Liberal statements favorable to imperialism and the Western model. MIWS could mention that Satrapi directly compared Iran to China during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, as "dictatorships," as quoted in an early 2007 New York Times article on the making of "Persepolis" -- and paraphrased in a Sun Times article a year later in advance of a local opening and quoted in a separate PersianMirror interview also after the film's release. The Cultural Revolution comparison seems to be a recurring thing in Satrapi's discussion of the film. But that would be easy. There needs to be a scientific materialist analysis, and the "director's commentary" isn't always going to be reliable.
Scientific analysis requires both theory and concrete analysis, with correct focuses. There is an institutional element to understanding "Persepolis." It may not matter what Satrapi says. The majority of it could just be spinning for different audiences. One day, "Persepolis" will be an anti-war movie. The next day, "Persepolis" will be an anti-dictatorship movie. Another day, "Persepolis" will be a universal movie about growing up or love. All of that may be true in a petty-bourgeois way, but what is not subject to dispute is the fact that the amerikan State Department, the amerikan Department of Defense, expatriates allied with u.$. imperialism, and phony "Maoists" attacking the united front and scientific class analysis, have all seen merit in "Persepolis" or the comic books. There is an underlying imperialist unity there, one in which the majority of amerikans are treated as a progressive force for change in Iran. On the other side, there is Iran itself and various people exposing, not obscuring the psychological warfare against Iran. A struggle has congealed around Satrapi's work specifically, whether Satrapi admits it or not, and counterrevolutionaries lauding and distributing "Persepolis" to the First World petty bourgeoisie are in league with the state.
One may wonder whether the u.$. government treats Iran films equally. Maybe, Satrapi's work is getting no more attention than other Iran films and literature. As a point of reference for comparison, one can look at indicators of state use of other Iran movies, such as "Children of Heaven" (1997) and renowned director Abbas Kiarostami's work. There are several times as many references to Marjane Satrapi as there are to Abbas Kiarostami on federal, state and local .gov Web sites. This is out of proportion to Satrapi's importance in Iran-related literature and film historically. However, MIWS found positive or vague State Department references to Majid Majidi's "Children of Heaven," though the State Department appears to have less use for "Children of Heaven," which doesn't seem to have been as central in State Department propaganda as Persepolis has been.
The most substantial positive State Department reference to "Children of Heaven" MIWS found appears in a cultural awareness context. A State Department Washington File article contains: "Conveying human universalities is one way the Trust in Culture strives to increase understanding of the Islamic world. For example, "Children of Heaven" may have taken place in Tehran, but the family values and struggles it depicts are known worldwide." Here, so-called family values are counterposed to extremism, whilst in other places, where First World liberals or females are the audience, patriarchy is associated with extremism. The united $tates has an interest in fostering an image of a "moderate" Islam, while keeping the topic of Islam inflamed overall and ruthlessly attacking any actually existing Islamic resistance to imperialism, with tactical exceptions. The united $tates uses rhetoric about "moderate" Muslims for political correctness, public relations and diplomacy reasons, to prop up its international reputation, and to cultivate lackeys and collaborators. The Washington File article discussing "Children of Heaven" indirectly raises the united $tates' role in Afghanistan in relation to the Soviet invasion. The State Department selectively uses history to promote cooperation with the united $tates on Middle East policies.
MIWS came across a non-government review of "Children of Heaven" that praised it for allegedly having Christian values. If an idea about shared "family values" or religious values discourages support for attacking Iran, then so be it. Liberalism is playing a big role in support for attacking Iran. MIWS is more concerned about supposedly universal movies that depict discontented oppressed nation people with which Westerners identify on a Liberal basis, than with movies that suggest cross-national similarities, but not in a way that centers on Liberalism. "Children of Heaven" depicts inequality, but main character Ali's family's struggle is connected to Iranian nationalism, without portraying Ali's family's interests as antithetical to those of the Iranian bourgeoisie. (Neo-colonialism tries to co-opt oppressed nation nationalism and split Islamic forces. There are lackeys who claim to be nationalist. So, it is necessary to point out that "Children of Heaven," in comparison with "Persepolis," does not exclude Iranians' uniting with any Islamic force. Also, neo-colonialism uses Liberalism in a self-serving way, currently emphasizing individual rights connected to culture, lifestyle, and politics, more than national self-determination, and makes exceptions for u.$. militarism and colonialism. The reader should keep this in mind when it is said that imperialism uses Liberalism against the oppressed.) In the State Department article, "Children of Heaven" appears more as dressing, not itself central in the article. A "universal" movie can cut both ways, decreasing some chauvinism (chauvinism that happens to interfere with neo-colonialism, as opposed to direct control or annihilating an oppressed nation with weapons) while supporting neo-colonialism, but there are differences between "Children of Heaven" and "Persepolis." Because of these differences, "Children of Heaven" is better in comparison. When the bourgeoisie says that a film is universal, it is trying to say that it is class-neutral. But different responses to, and treatments of, "Children of Heaven" and "Persepolis" show that film is not class-neutral. Reactionaries have criticized "Children of Heaven" as prettifying dictatorship, but there has been much unambivalent First World praise for "Children of Heaven," most of which is not reactionary or regressive in content, unlike praise for "Persepolis."
In another State Department article mentioning "Children of Heaven," the context includes: "While these Iranian films are touring the United States and wooing new fans at every turn, they have met with very different fates in their home country of Iran. Those films that have the most dubious prospects in Iran, paradoxically have the most success in the United States. Directors in recent years have begun to address Iran's social problems such as prostitution, prejudice, drug abuse, and discrimination against women in films, which have difficulty in gaining the approval of Iranian censors. Those same films are the award-winners in the United States." The First World bourgeoisie has an old practice of picking and choosing art in enemy countries. When it comes across art in a "totalitarian" country that it needs for some purpose or just likes subjectively, as with art in the Soviet Union that didn't match a stereotype or preconception of what Soviet art was, the bourgeoisie tries to find signs of dissidence and even claims that the art is subversive. Also, perhaps, the united $tates knows that praising a work may cause a conflict in the art's country of origin. In this State Department article mentioning "Children of Heaven," the message is that Iranian so-called extremists are against exploratory art in general, art's being an exploration that the powers that be suppress. There is a related notion among the petty bourgeoisie that film itself is universal; controlling it becomes, in the Liberal view, the practice of parochial, provincial dictators or philistine political leaders and know-nothings who criticize art they don't understand. Good art, supposedly, is either secretly subversive, has an aesthetic that is more important than any political element, or is an inquiry into universal social problems. The State Department, like the first one MIWS mentioned referring to "Children of Heaven," speaks in terms of universality. Jafar Panahi's and Abbas Kiarostami's "Crimson Gold" is supposed to educate amerikans about "universal urban alienation and inequality." One gets a sense of how someone with a "Marxism" and postmodernism background may find employment with the State Department.
The article portrays Iran, an oppressed nation, as having the economic inequality and neuroses of the united $tates, a First World country. At the same time, the article speaks of "injustices," particularly related to lifestyle and religion, supposedly unique to Islamic and theocratic countries. The idea, shared by fake Marxists allied with the State Department, is that Third World countries have the same essential class structure as First World countries, but that the Third World is more repressive. Like the fake Marxists, the State Department emphasizes different things and chooses rhetoric to use according to what suits its immediate goals. The State Department distances itself from Iran as seen "on the news," hiding its responsibility for rabidly chauvinistic portrayals of Iran, but praises an Iran film for being refined and exposing inequality and difference in Iran. In this respect, there is no expressed difference between these fake Marxists and the State Department. Both have similar parasitic and white nationalist goals.
Regarding State Department articles about Satrapi's comic books and larger work, the Statement Department extols Persepolis as an influential series inspiring "democracy" globally. It is a universal story about "dictatorship," experienced by people with universal humyn characteristics. Appealing to First World females and politically correct First World males, one article describes Satrapi as an Iranian womyn enjoying life and freedoms in the West. A book that is supposed to impart understanding about Iranians to a First World audience is used to carry out u.$. imperialism's public opinion goals in relation to preparing for war against Iran. The supposed universality of liberal individualism is an ideological underpinning of u.$. imperialism's diplomatic and military maneuvers justified as "supporting democratic movements." Expanding on the liberated Iranian wimmin theme, another State Department article, published the same day, discusses "memoirs written by women of Iranian heritage that discuss the loss and nostalgia from having to leave their home country, as well as taboo topics such as sexuality and love." Focusing on sexuality, the article states that Iranian wimmin are concerned with correcting "the media's depiction of Iranian women concealed by veils and seemingly without a voice" -- another example of imperialism's trying to play on an image of Iran it has created. Discussing Marjane Satrapi's work on "the right of women to enjoy sexual gratification," the article raises the idea that the principal contradiction in Iran in its pursuit of "democracy" is not imperialism, but "patriarchal culture."
That is all on the Internet for anyone to see. MIWS hasn't even scratched the surface. Yet, there are so-called communists who do not say anything much more decisively anti-imperialist than State Department propaganda. The u.$. government and ardent racists and chauvinists sow the seeds. Fake communist parties translate the ideas into pseudo-communist rhetoric. Then, pseudo-communists openly call for the united $tates to bomb Iran in spreading capitulationist and collaborationist ideas internationally.
"Untraceable": the theory of humyn nature and a mass-appeal film
By contrast to movies that lead people to the u.$. government in indirect ways, MIWS would prefer that there be movies that are unapologetically pro-agency. These are less useful as "leftist" lackey recruiting material. They present less problems as far as not confusing as not confusing state recruiting or propaganda with party-building or revolutionary theory. One such movie is "Untraceable" (2008), showing in mainstream theaters, about an elusive serial killer who streams live snuff-like Internet video of sadistic torture and killing, which are enabled by viewers themselves. Each video download brings the victims closer to death through Internet-connected contraptions. The more popular the videos are, the faster the victims die. The name of the killer's Web site and the text on the Web site are such that it is clear to viewers that they are working with the killer. MIWS finds "Untraceable" interesting, not because of the pro-FBI, pro-police message that is common in amerikan movies, but because nauseating "Untraceable" is a visceral movie, but has some intellectual content at the same time. "Untraceable" raises questions about the essential nature of people's interest in violent spectacles, which are at the same time often private, anonymous experiences, not collective experiences in public. Besides the "Saw" series, there are several movies similar to "Untraceable" in terms of having a theme of morbid or sadistic entertainment, such as "The Running Man" (1987) (which deals with both sadistic entertainment, eerily like today's reality TV, conspiracies, and zealousness about meting out punishment to criminals), but for MIWS, "Untraceable" was more reminiscent of the Spanish movie "Tesis" (1996), about a mystery involving snuff films and people's fascination with violence in general. A student's exploration of entertainment violence leads her to a disturbing discovery involving her own university. While on video, Alejandro Amenábar's "Tesis" is less known in English-speaking countries. MIWS addresses it to talk about how the petty bourgeoisie thinks about alienation in society.
Both "Untraceable" and "Tesis" are set in imperialist countries, and both movies raise the question of whether captivation with violence, in entertainment or on the street, is something specific to an imperialist country or reflective of so-called human nature: why are people attracted to the sight of violence and go so far as to seek it out. Why is there a demand for these things; what is wrong with giving people what they want; and where does it end, are questions that "Tesis" and "Untraceable" raise. Is the boundary just legality, legal Liberalism? "Untraceable" leaves the demand for violent sadistic entertainment unexplained. As the worst of amerika expresses itself, the FBI can only hold things together, against the serial killer, the viewer "accomplices" who watch his video streams, and the media, which contributes to the violence by reporting it. "Untraceable" depicts a situation and a system that are beyond any individual's control. Amerikans have material comforts, but something is wrong. They have become distant from each other. Shortening that distance with technology, with electrons moving at the speed of light, they are still alienated, hurting each other. The self has become externalized and objectified. On the screen, there is no reflection of the self; there is just a stranger from which viewers can be emotionally detached. A few people who know the killer's victims may be disillusioned, but there is no end in sight to the self-inflicted violence. There is no proletariat in the Euro-Amerikan nation and thus no possibility of commodity fetishism's giving rise to false consciousness in a Euro-Amerikan proletariat. Without exploitation within the Euro-Amerikan nation and without a theory of international exploitation, the petty bourgeoisie senses a problem, but can only grasp at an explanation. With amerika at the apex, the petty bourgeoisie wonders whether further progress is possible, whether Liberalism has run out of steam, whether amerika's flaws are ultimately ingrained in the humyn species. The result is postmodernism, or repression and psychology.
The serial killer in "Untraceable" prevents people outside the u.$. from watching his videos and participating in the killing. With millions of amerikans tuning in to the killer's Web site, "Untraceable" portrays amerikans as severely alienated from each and morally decadent. It is a bleak picture. MIWS can imagine many amerikans being offended by the movie. "Untraceable" elevates the FBI and distances it from the population that it serves, which gives rise to the freaks who visit the serial killer's site, but "Untraceable" not do much to help the united $tates' international reputation and punctures amerikans' heroic image of themselves. So, MIWS cannot much object to "Untraceable" in that context. Unfortunately, the main female FBI agent character (Diane Lane) laments that the NSA, which has more international computer investigation capability, isn't more cooperative with the FBI. This is in keeping with the current real world practice of using various apolitical crimes to justify expanding repression, even labeling those crimes "domestic terrorism."
Despite the movie's seeming harsh critique of amerikan society, the FBI's conflict with the serial killer is explicable, in that the FBI sees the killer as an instigator and a destabilizing element. The FBI's solution to the decadence is law enforcement: repression. The psychologist's solution would be therapy or treatment. The serial killer speaks the most truth out of all the characters in the movie, but his individualist solution, which feels good to him but has no chance of success, or changing society's relationships and dynamics, is to just teach people a lesson. Without a real solution to the violence, alienation and decadence it portrays, "Untraceable" ends up as petty-bourgeois movie taking people back to the individualism that it criticizes as being irrational from the viewpoint of the population as a whole. The petty bourgeoisie, the lone individual, is left with taking mental refuge in her or his own style and lifestyle, having been placed, or having located herself or himself, ideologically outside the struggle between the global bourgeoisie and the global proletariat.
First World theoretical films, and "The Matrix" as a garden-variety liberal-individualist movie
"You are a true believer. Blessings of the state. Blessings of the masses. Thou art a subject of the divine. Created in the image of man, by man, for man. Let us be thankful we have commerce. Buy more. Buy more now. Buy more and be happy." --OMM, "THX 1138"
"You are a true believer. Blessings of the state, blessings of the masses. Thou art a subject of the divine. Created in the image of man, by the masses, for the masses. Let us be thankful we have an occupation to fill. Work hard; increase production; prevent accidents, and be happy." --OMM, "THX 1138"
The violent, sadistic and technological elements of "Untraceable" recall George Lucas' 1971 "THX 1138." Given the popularity of Lucas' work in general and the amount of intellectual interest in the "Matrix" series, "THX 1138" seems to be surprisingly little known outside of sci-fi fandom, film buff circles, and film studies. In MIWS's discussion of films similar to the "Matrix" series, featuring artificial intelligence or machine control, Godard's "Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution" (1965) sprang to mind before "THX 1138." "Alphaville" is going to be more of a reference point internationally, but "The Matrix" probably inherits more directly from "THX 1138" than from "Alphaville."
The topic and seriousness of "Untraceable" will be associated by some with an "art house" feel in spite of the movie's conventional thriller style. Yet, without organizing into concepts or explaining what it depicts, "Untraceable" is not a theoretical movie, and the questions it raises are shoved into the background by the action and suspense. They give the movie an idiosyncrasy, but for most viewers, "Untraceable" will be thriller, a bad one, judging by reviews. The movie's petty-bourgeois messages will be absorbed unconsciously, even while repulsing those who feel attacked by the film. Although "Untraceable" is not a theoretical movie, its topic is dealt with in "THX 1138," which is arguably a theoretical movie, relating, among other things, consumerism to social atomization, and subjectivity to the media. MIWS defines theoretical film broadly to include films where the theory that the film tries to impart does not necessarily appear explicitly in dialogue or on-screen text. (MIWS raises a few questions in this article that it will have to deal with further in separate articles. The problem of classifying films as theoretical films, if one is not simply to consider the filmmaker's stated intentions, has partly to do with the variation in what may be considered theoretical films, and the audience's knowledge or level of cognitive development. To take examples from one director, there is a difference between Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket," which MIWS does not consider a theoretical movie, and "A Clockwork Orange." Yet, "A Clockwork Orange" is different than a Marxist Godard movie that is theoretical in an explicit way. Like "The Matrix," "A Clockwork Orange" may be more cerebral for some and more visceral for others, or more poetic than theoretical.)
Before MIWS goes into "THX 1138" and related movies, MIWS would like to point out something about analytical writers' responses to "The Matrix." MIWS has read many analyses of the "The Matrix" and its sequels and has rarely come across more than a passing reference to another science-fiction film or more than a superficial or formal comparison that doesn't address a pattern in society's culture, larger than the "Matrix" franchise. Instead, there is more emphasis on philosophical and religious themes that people have discovered or raised in the context of the film for pedagogic purposes. "Marxist" writers also use "The Matrix" for pedagogic illustration instead of looking at the film's role in the society in which it emerged, and in doing so use the film for white chauvinism or social-democracy, or draw incorrect analogies. MIWS has explained these things as idealism. First World analysis of "The Matrix" is largely idealist, but there may be specific, important reasons why writers ignore other films. In analyses, there are more references to Buddhism or Western philosophy than to "THX 1138," and part of why that is probably has to do with intellectuals' cultural tastes that inappropriately shape judgment of a mainstream film. Many petty-bourgeois intellectuals consume highbrow art in art houses, playhouses, art galleries, etc., or spend more time reading books for leisure. They may see the occasional dating or celebrity infatuation movie, but otherwise have specific non-mainstream interests. This limits what they can say about a mainstream film contextually. Unable to put "The Matrix" in the context of other films, intellectuals may end up using an idealist, narrow empirical or subjectivist method that treats "The Matrix" in isolation from other films and society, or focuses on formal elements. (Professional popular bourgeois film criticism typically focuses on formal elements, but MIWS would expect unknowledgeable writers to focus on formal elements in a limited, unsystematic or idealist way.) There are intellectuals who love to watch and talk about "The Matrix," but would not be able to say anything about relevant films, simply because they have not seen them.
"THX 1138" is relatively unknown, which may make it seem irrelevant. Even "Alphaville" will be unknown to many intellectuals in English-speaking countries today. However, "THX 1138" and "Alphaville," together with "The Matrix" and numerous films that seem to be dumbed-down or overproduced versions of "Alphaville," are important, because they form a cultural pattern articulating the outlook of the petty bourgeoisie. (There are a number of feature-length allegorical movies that MIWS could include in this article, such as drama, ghost and zombie movies. MIWS focuses on sci-fi to make an already unwieldy article more manageable.) Focusing on the movie's middle-class outlook and the anti-machine movement back story, MIWS has already identified two ways in which "The Matrix" is petty-bourgeois or bourgeois, in addition to discussing the movie's limited pedagogic and strategic usefulness for communists. That is still valid within the contexts of those analyses, but understanding the film's place in a broader cultural trend would be difficult without examining other films or other cultural things, and their social and ideological context.
"THX 1138" resembles "The Matrix" not only visually in some parts and plot-wise, but also in terms of themes about consciousness, self-imposed limitations of one's freedom, rationality, conformity, solitude, indoctrination, repressed humyn impulses, sex without true love, the controlled substitution of one impulse for another, mortality, reproduction, machine/technological control or worship of machines or technology, and individual powerlessness. All of these themes are found in "Logan's Run" (1976) and "Alphaville." The same themes are approached in different ways, and the films have different emphases. Also, there are various overlaps between these films, but not all of them. Where others see an underlying commonality of genre -- dystopian science fiction -- or an inquiry into everyday life or the nature of reality or perception, MIWS sees a pervasive petty-bourgeois liberal individualism. It is precisely because the films focus on the consciousness and individual powerlessness of First World middle-class individuals, yet does not depict the struggle between the global proletariat and the global proletariat. The films are critiques of social organization, social structure, in the abstract, or try to straddle anti-capitalist critique and anti-communist critique.
Revisiting "THX 1138," MIWS saw a resemblance to a consciously theoretical approach commonly associated with Godard, as well as aspects of Kubrick's varied brand and style of commentary. The similarities with "Alphaville," often lumped with films in the sci-fi genre, were particularly prominent. "THX 1138" is not "Star Wars" and, like "Alphaville," combines elements of sci-fi genre conventionality and minimalist theory or social criticism films -- in a way that is not typical in science fiction, despite sci-fi's past association with social and philosophical commentary. With an opening clip from the old film serial, "THX 1138" contrasts itself with "Buck Rogers," as if to set itself apart and declare its seriousness in relation to previous science fiction. MIWS was intrigued and took a look at George Lucas' DVD commentary ("The George Lucas Director's Cut"). Unless MIWS is mistaken, Lucas does not mention "Alphaville" in this commentary, but does cite Godard as an influence (in addition to comparing "THX 1138" with Truffaut's "Fahrenheit 451" (1966), which is thematically similar to "THX 1138" in more ways than one might think, including the female-as-salvation motif and the idea of auto-eroticism in a totalitarian society). However, the original short film version of "THX 1138," "Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB" (1967), that Lucas made when he was a University of Southern California student was compared by u.$. critics to "Alphaville" after festival screenings. Lucas speaks of a generation of filmmakers, of which Lucas was a part, that was influenced by Fellini, Godard, Kurosawa, and Truffaut.
It is very interesting to listen to George Lucas' commentary, which MIWS refers to here only to make a point about the practice of making theory films for First World audiences. Although people see social allegories throughout the "Star Wars" series, and the production of that series was mostly self-financed, and American Zoetrope-produced "American Graffiti" (1973) made Lucas famous, MIWS was not familiar with Lucas as someone interested in making Godard-type independent movies; many filmmakers living today are as old as George Lucas and could claim to be part of the same generation, or be influenced stylistically by the top directors of the 1950s and '60s; so, Lucas' age would not have led MIWS to suspect. It is clear that Lucas understands the difference between his current work, and theory movies and movies that contain unabashed social commentaries. Not all strongly critical social commentary movies are theory movies, but they stand in contrast to the majority of Hollywood movies. Lucas seems to regret his current focus on high-budget popcorn movies, and is cognizant of the influence that Hollywood financing has on the ability to make critical movies and get them seen, having experienced distribution problems firsthand with Warner Bros. and "THX 1138" when he was making movies through American Zoetrope.
What George Lucas is saying warrants attention. Lucas is saying something about the limitations of independent filmmaking. Lucasfilm is a privately held company and represents a fusion of production and authorial vision. While not the quintessential auteur, Lucas himself has directed or written some of the films he has produced. Yet, Lucas is saying that his current work has shortcomings, at least for what he wishes he were doing. One can have independence but still get caught up in making blockbusters, watering down one's vision, and caught up in the Hollywood dynamic.
It is not that Hollywood cannot make movies with social or political commentary. "Syriana" (2005) and the "Bourne" series come to mind, also "Rendition" (2007) and other so-called War on Terror movies. Besides "Untraceable," another movie with social commentary that happens to feature a serial killer is "American Psycho" (2000). Currently, even the Disney movie "Enchanted" (2007) contains social commentary, having to do with gender, though "Enchanted" ends without saying anything new overall. For the agitation that is needed in the First World, "Syriana" and the "Bourne" series are better than "The Matrix," but they remain petty-bourgeois. They could not be anything else, because there is no First World majority that has the ability to understand any movie as a communist movie concretely. No amount of vision or money can change this. It is not just a matter of First Worlders' filtering what they see and hear through their preconceptions and everyday experiences; in the First World, the contradictions in the superstructure are those between exploiters. These are what animate the majority of First Worlders.
So, MIWS would go further than George Lucas in saying that the filmmaker's independence is not the crucial issue. There is a structural situation such that movies seen by First Worlders can be petty-bourgeois at best. Within that, there are differences, and one can speak of the possibility of limited progress within the First World movie culture. The question arises, is Lucas' "THX 1138" a good film in that context; is Lucas' example worthy of being duplicated.
George Lucas is fond of his youthful filmmaking days, and hearing him speak, one almost has hope in the rare farsighted amerikan filmmaker. But MIWS actually would not consider "THX 1138" a good movie by any standard. There are alternative social commentary movies dealing with Western culture that are better, such as "American Psycho." "THX 1138" tries to juggle a critique of capitalism and a critique of communism. If the story is familiar, it is because the viewer has already heard it in George Orwell's 1984. While criticizing both the absurdity of consumerism and the collectivism and scientific rationality of the dictatorship of the proletariat, working for and from the masses, and the de-individualizing tendencies supposedly present in both capitalist and socialist industrial countries, "THX 1138" takes the viewer back to capitalism via Liberalism.
"THX 1138" shares with "Alphaville" a theme of emotion-versus-rationality, sex, and love. A female is programmed to have sex with visitors to Alphaville. In the underground world of "THX 1138," people use mechanical devices and pornography to masturbate; sex is just another factor in the calculating bureaucracy's planning for efficiency. In "Logan's Run," to have sex people put themselves on a "circuit" and seem expected to follow through when they match up with someone. In the lucid dream of "Vanilla Sky," people fall in love, but the love is tainted by culture (the tech support guy in the movie says "iconography" -- the elements of David Aames' dream, including his romantic fantasies, are drawn from pop iconography), imperfect memory, and the shifting identities of self and others. In "The Island" (2005), the computer-assisted administrators of the fake utopia prohibit Jordan Two-Delta and Lincoln Six-Echo from being close to each other with a "proximity" rule. Even in "The Matrix," which one might think uses romance just as a necessary ingredient of a popular semi-Hollywood production, love plays a particular role. Trinity is destined to fall in love with Neo before she meets him, but Trinity and Neo cannot have true love until Neo leaves the programmed computer-generated world, what Morpheus calls a dream world.
To have true love, two people must leave the system, escape, or be outside of the system. With the possible exception of "Vanilla Sky" (despite being seen as a love story), which terminates in a nihilist postmodern way, the films MIWS listed draw the viewer back to romance again and again after raising a similar critique of society. ("Vanilla Sky" alludes to the emptiness of, or uncertainty in, consumerism and affluence -- a typically petty-bourgeois, narrow and vacillatory way of understanding those things. For love, "Vanilla Sky"'s message, since it puts the reliability of love as a haven into question, could be at most "try harder" or "accept unhappiness," which may ring hollow. Or if love for David Aames is bound up with iconography and memory, to have true love, then, one must attain an unmediated awareness of the present -- in other words, practice Buddhism.) The films do not tell viewers to take refuge in love in the way many films do -- within the system -- but the critique of society is still individualist in presupposing the individual, their autonomy, and their freedom to pursue an indefinite happiness, as the decisive question. The escape from the system is an escape through love or into love, and an illusory abstention from the global class struggle. The petty bourgeoisie opposes classless "totalitarianism," but imagines itself as drifting above or beside the class struggle.
By contrast to these films, love took a backseat to serving the people and overthrowing oppressive class and gender structures in revolutionary China. During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Zhou Yang's works on literature and art, in spite of having been distributed internationally, were criticized as upholding the bourgeois Theory of Humyn Nature in connection to romance, and Zhou Yang was overthrown. Zhou Yang was in a top leadership position in the Communist Party, and Zhou's line, as he had written and publicly expressed it, was counterrevolutionary. There was at the same time a global struggle against revisionism, after which white chauvinists pretended to uphold the Cultural Revolution while propagating Liberalism exactly as the masses had opposed it. In the First World, where there is the leisure time for love, people have much time to think about it, obsess with love, and exaggerate the problems of an inadequate love life. Partly, the dynamics of romance and sexuality do have the potential to come into contradiction with class and nation. Thus, there are critiques of the state and social and economic organization from a romance angle. But these critiques emerge from the anxieties and thinking of the bourgeoisie and the gender-privileged and are shaped by their outlooks. They are not revolutionary critiques. In general, their effect in shaking people out of apathy is to draw them toward liberal-individualist social-democracy, "socialism" preserving the individualism and parasitism of the West.
Godard's "Alphaville" is no exception. In this article, MIWS considers "Alphaville" primarily as a sci-fi genre movie that may be the only early-Godard film some First Worlders have seen, but it needs to be said that there is nothing uniquely Marxist about this particular film. This is especially true in the context of the English-language films with which "Alphaville" has been compared. Like "THX 1138," "Alphaville" raises emotion as a reason to oppose control and rational central planning, connected to the masses or not. If someone's emotions or lifestyle rub up against the system, that is enough to oppose it. No additional rationale is needed. The society stifles humyn nature, replaces human emotional subjectivity with an unhuman collective tyranny of logic, rationality, and science. If society undergoes a difficult transition where there is still repression, alienation, and de-individualization, it must be overthrown. "Alphaville"'s criticism of the absence of autonomy and love in a society driven by efficiency and technical progress is not basically distinguishable from liberal individualism.
Where there is repression, there is a spectacle of violence or death, is the implication with some films. So it is in "Alphaville," with the public executions at the swimming pool. In "THX 1138," there is the police-brutality channel that THX 1138 enjoys watching. In "Untraceable," which in this context looks like a more circumscribed, watered-down, or gruesome, version of "THX 1138," there is a focus on entertainment violence in the media and pop culture.
"Alphaville" and "THX 1138" are supposed to depict emotionless societies, without love, nor hate, but there is (to use these terms more often used for poetry than for science) arguably a deadened hate. If love is an emotion and is part of humyn nature and that's mainly what there is to say about it, there is no reason why hate should be different. Either THX's watching the beating channel reflects a natural humyn emotion, or the violence is just people's hurting other people, that is, hurting themselves. A recurring idea in "THX 1138" is that THX is participating in his own subordination, maintaining the system that oppresses him. THX, the bald, anonymous everyman, watches himself being beat, metaphorically. At the same time, "THX 1138" depicts a classless society; this is also how society appears in "Alphaville," "The Island," and so forth. People have jobs, functions, but that is determined by an abstract state standing above, or permeating the population, non-centralized. Despite the class differences within the Matrix simulation, this also describes the relationship between the machines and the humyns stuck in the power plant in "The Matrix." These depictions represent the petty bourgeoisie's view of itself as classless individuals, individuals grouped together in relation to the state, or a group or caught in between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. In all three cases, the underlying outlook is Liberal. With "The Matrix," there is just an added militancy that makes for a good popcorn action movie, or emotional fuel for a militant petty-bourgeois movement for more imperialist super-profit.
Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" (1985), "Vanilla Sky," "The Truman Show" (1998), "Stranger Than Fiction" (2006), "A Clockwork Orange" (1971) (which MIWS includes tentatively), and several other movies, represent a departure from some of the things MIWS has talked about in this article, and also a retention of other things. However, they are variations on the Liberal individualist theme. Some critique the First World middle-class condition; others critique power and social organization in the abstract or explicitly include a critique of communism. Many are distrustful of utopia or progress, and almost all speak to a de-individualization, coupled with a rigid atomization of society. If there is an escape, whether it is THX's making it to the surface, Natacha Von Braun's leaving Alphaville as it implodes, or Neo's waking up from the Matrix, it is an individual's escaping from the system, from the familiar but unsatisfying, into the unknown, with no definite future, showing the way for other individuals, like themselves. There is only a vague dream, an itching for something different that one imagines would be allowed by Liberal freedom of the individual. These stories have no endings, because outside of the class struggle, there is no ending. There is just a dead end, nothing. (Of course, one of the motifs of these films is that the bourgeois hero is discouraged from leaving the dystopian society for the outside, but they don't show life afterwards. If MIWS seems to be an instance of what the films are criticizing, it is because these films are opposed to a materialist theory of change.)
The dictatorship of the proletariat in the First World
In regard to critiques of communism, the cop-out would be to say that a negative depiction does not truthfully represent the dictatorship of the proletariat. Maybe, a seemingly anti-communist film just critiques Soviet revisionism and state capitalism. Then, one could evade having to address Liberalism and individualism, the content of critique, and either dismiss the film or praise it as a bold critique of imperialism and social-imperialism.
In fact, George Lucas suggested that "THX 1138," portraying collectivism, was partly a critique of the Third World communist movement, including the Cultural Revolution, and specifically compared clothing in China to the pajama-like white clothing worn by the populace in "THX 1138." On the one hand, "THX 1138" illustrates the danger inherent in making a theory movie for First Worlders, a topic that MIWS will return to shortly. However, when it comes to people's wondering whether "THX 1138" and similar movies accurately portray the socialist future of the First World, MIWS will own all of it. Yes, First Worlders will be controlled, and repressed as they try to overthrow the proletariat. Yes, like anything else pertaining to social relations and how society organizes itself and allocates its resources, reproduction will be subject to state administration. Yes, there will be indoctrination. The majority of First Worlders are exploiters, and First Worlders will have to undergo indoctrination to prepare themselves for life as full members in socialist society.
The proletarian state will be authoritarian toward the majority of First Worlders, because it is not possible to practice the mass line with the oppressors, whose interests and demands differ from those of the oppressed. The First World mass of exploiters is no different than the bourgeoisie; it is the bourgeoisie as it exists in reality, today. The bourgeoisie will call the authoritarian government inhumane, but because it equates Liberalism with humanism and treats further revolution as antithetical to humanity. Of course, MIWS is saying nothing new here, but it has everything to do with how to understand theory movies such as what "THX 1138" is aiming to be.
Whether the audience's reaction is negative or positive, a movie that portrays socialism in the First World will be either misleading or anti-communist if it does not also depict global class struggle and provide the concepts necessary to understand that struggle. It will be misleading if it portrays First World socialism as a higher stage of liberal democracy, instead of a dictatorship of the oppressed nation proletariat over the oppressors. It will be anti-commmunist if it negatively portrays First Worlders' experiences under the dictatorship of the proletariat, but does not depict economic and social conditions cross-nationally.
After "THX 1138" came out, the bourgeoisie used it to deride the Chinese revolution.(1) MIWS has not read a biography of George Lucas, but Godard's work was discussed and debated at the University of Southern California film school in the 1960s, Godard visited USC between 1966 and 1968, and "La Chinoise" (1967) was screened there in 1968; after brief research, MIWS finds it likely that Lucas was exposed to Godard's Marxist work. Lucas' commentary shows that he was not completely oblivious to global political events, but made a film that critiqued both the First World and the "socialist" world in general at a time when anti-imperialist and socialist struggle was raging in the Third World. Subjectively and intentionally, "THX 1138" may have been an anti-communist movie. But more importantly, objectively it could not have been anything but anti-communist or petty-bourgeois. This is also true of "The Matrix," as a movie focusing on First World alienation. The films contain systemic or sweeping critiques of society, but do not depict global class struggle. Their perspective is confined to the First World. Within the First World, there are classes, but the struggle between them is submerged. The labor aristocracy and the imperialists are political allies, and they are united as partners in the exploitation of the Third World. Consequently, the films can only show the abject quantitative struggle of individual First Worlders. In doing so while putting forth the individual's struggle as liberation, the films are confined to a Liberal direction. If a film is pessimistic about progress and the Liberal promise, but otherwise has the same characteristics as these films, it may not end up as a Liberal movie directly, but end up being an individualist movie in another way, existentialist or nihilist. It will reinforce Liberalism by necessity, because existentialism and nihilism in practice are Liberalism.
If a film misrepresents the class structure of the First World, represents the oppressor nation working class as other than an exploiting labor aristocracy, it will be fuel for social-democracy, equality just for u.$. citizens or whites, but here MIWS deals with films that depict oppression in a largely affluent society. Problematic theoretical films, from the standpoint of assessing theory related to liberation, aren't just social-democratic or utopian films that portray the First World working class as a revolutionary proletariat. They are those that acknowledge First Worlders' high standard of living, but portray them as oppressed, without depicting international struggle and national economic and social conditions comparatively and dynamically.
Unifying films from "THX 1138" to "Brazil" is Liberal individualism. There is a unity. At the same time, there is a variation. For example, "Logan's Run," like other movies of its time ("Soylent Green" (1973)), responds to the overpopulation fears of the 1960s and '70s. Also, "Logan's Run," "THX 1138" and other post-apocalyptic films may reflect concerns about nuclear weapons and war. The principal content of these films is liberal-individualist. The anti-communism of "THX 1138" belongs to the same trend as films that don't focus on socialism, but deal with the alleged oppression of First Worlders. They are part of a spectrum of petty-bourgeois thinking about First Worlders' oppression and liberation, or what is supposed to be oppression of First Worlders.
Whether or not a film portrays socialism, in critiquing society in a wide way, interrogating the nature of society, a film places First Worlders in relation to socialist transition, in ideology and in actuality as the dictatorship of the proletariat in the First World becomes a reality through the Third World's struggle. Even if First World living standards were average, Marxist since Lenin have recognized that decreases in production output during expropriation and revolutionization contribute to counterrevolution. It is an issue that Arghiri Emmanuel dealt with systematically in his work on the state. The pressure for efficiency gives rise to counterrevolution, which the proletarian state then has to repress without becoming a state of a new bourgeoisie. In thinking about this, it becomes even more clear that a film that depicts oppression from an individual perspective in isolation from struggle is regressive in paving the way for counterrevolution. Except in the eyes of anarchists who view the overthrow of the state as the ushering in of a dynamic that will spontaneously bring about classless society, socialism is a protracted, difficult struggle. It is an arduous struggle not just for communist leaders, but for the population as a whole, because the masses must become masters of their own destiny. Socialism is not a First World welfare system. It is multi-generational struggle requires widespread and self-motivated sacrifices. If for any reason life after the seizure of power is less enjoyable for an individual than before, the expectation that a less oppressive society should be more liberal or more comfortable than the old society will lead to a clash with reality. Socialism is war, and the conditions of socialist society are war conditions.
In addition to defining the status quo in opposition to fascism (represented as Nazism) and communism, the bourgeoisie in various ways and guises, to hedge its bets for the anti-capitalist-leaning, tries to suggest that there is a road in between the status quo and the path of the oppressed. For decades, there has been neither-capitalism-nor-communism, or just neither-consumerism-nor-communism, the motif of "THX 1138." Now, there is "neither imperialism nor Islam," represented in "Persepolis." The critique of alienating, intolerant, manipulative society in other, non-dual forms is a Liberal cover for imperialism, too: "The Matrix"'s depiction of alienation and the subordination of individuals by the power structure renders liberation as a more Liberal parasitic society in which individuals know the rules and their limitations and negotiate them to their advantage. In criticizing manipulation and indoctrination as such, "The Matrix" reinforces Liberal criteria for evaluating social systems, and leads back to the imperialist system, with all its comforts and familiarity, the system that "The Matrix" appears to critique.
To the extent that some may defend "THX 1138" as a Marcusean critique of the First World (and for that matter, perhaps "Alphaville" may be rescued from interpretation as a pretentious but banal liberal movie by reference to Marcuse), it precisely illustrates what is most wrong with Herbert Marcuse's theory. Marcuse's theory of liberation acknowledges the high standard of living of the First World, but attributes it to productivity, rather than international exploitation. The theory recognizes the absence of revolution in the First World, but attributes that absence to false consciousness of oppressed First Worlders. THX works in a high-tech ultra-Tayloristic robot factory and epitomizes a labor aristocracy concept of productivity. Although in the movie this is a symbol of THX's self-subjugation, herein lies a foundation for the movie's anti-communism, as socialism would take away the fruits of so-called productivity from First Worlders. So-called productivity is the appropriation of labor from proletarian nations. Socialism ends this appropriation. The labor aristocracy and the larger First World petty bourgeoisie wants a way out that doesn't lead to communism and a loss of material wealth. The petty bourgeoisie laments the pointless of consumption, but in any actual situation where First World living standards are threatened, it defends them to the hilt. In "THX 1138," love appears as more important than consumption, but "THX 1138" portrays consumption in a particular way: consumption is meaningless and ephemeral, but also meager, the stuff of prison rations, and intangible (television). THX and LUH 3417 thus seem highly productive, but exploited. "THX 1138" doesn't show anyone analogous to a Third World worker. There are just hairy little humanoids/mutants on the city periphery who attack THX and whose symbology is ambiguous.
There is in fact a trend among intellectuals that recognizes that the First World working class is not revolutionary, criticizes the labor bureaucracy, and even says Maoist-like things about the global configuration of revolutionary forces and parasitism, but without a theory of international exploitation, it gravitates toward various false-consciousness explanations of the First World political situation. Consequently, the ideas of the Frankfurt School, Marxism-influenced members of the International Psychoanalytical Association, and liberally or culturally oriented figures of the so-called New Left (with which Arghiri Emmanuel is unfortunately lumped despite the marked difference between his ideas and those of other New Left-associated thinkers), find resonance today among people who may seem to agree with the labor aristocracy thesis but constantly emphasize superstructural things -- culture, ideology, discourse, the media, etc. -- and have nothing scientific to contribute about economics, and often nothing new to say about superstructure either. Notions of First Worlder false consciousness amid affluence exert much influence on people who might otherwise think about class forces more scientifically. In the filmic context, MIWS has to give credit where credit is due. Given a choice between individualist mainstream sci-fi movies with the dream/illusion and liberation motifs, MIWS applauds "Total Recall" (1990) for portraying an affluent First World individual as an ex-enemy ally of the oppressed, but not himself oppressed, just entangled in spy intrigue. At the same time, MIWS acknowledge the more important role that more agitational films, such as "Syriana," some historical films, documentaries, and exposés, have to play in the First World than any theoretical or non-theoretical film dealing directly with systemic liberation or oppression.
The majority of discourse about alienation, anonymity, emotion, efficiency, the repressiveness of industrial/technological society, rationality and irrationality, love, the closure of discourse, indoctrination, and manipulation, as criticism of First World society is connected to a notion of false consciousness and/or the absence Liberal freedom and rights. The revolution idea in "The Matrix" is just gloss for the same old liberal-individualist ideas. For many, "The Matrix" is a point of reference for discussion, due to its popularity, but there should not be slicing and dicing and hairsplitting just for "The Matrix." Among other things, MIWS has showed with this article that "The Matrix" is part of a long-existing trend of petty-bourgeois societal critique. Many derivative films and ideas may be dealt with by consistently applying correct comprehensive lines on the labor aristocracy, Liberalism, and the Theory of Humyn Nature, and handled by a general analysis of related films. Treating each film or idea in isolation would be idealist or contemplative.
Notes
1. S.K. "Future Imperative," Time, 1971 March 29, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944339,00.html
"The government -- a wretched wedding of Mao Tse-tung and the Internal Revenue Service -- treats each person as a consumer-producer who lives to enhance the glorious state. In a world of progressive monotony, Lucas flashes some bright signs of humor: when THX (Robert Duvall) watches television, he turns to a channel where a beating proceeds incessantly -- the violence and sadism of today's viewing, minus the annoyances of plot. When THX is tried for the forbidden act of lovemaking, his judge is a computer."