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"The Day the Earth Stood Still" lacks edge, but also is not enough to
avoid being fuel for a green fascist movement
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Directed by Scott Derrickson
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation and Earth Canada Productions
Rated PG-13
103 minutes
2008
2008 December
[Contains some spoilers]
"The Day the Earth Stood Still" is partly about technology versus
nature. Keanu Reeves seems to specialize in movies about technology
recently. Politically in these movies, it has to be said that Reeves
may have been at his best in "Johnny Mnemonic" (1995), ridiculed by
critics on artistic grounds. In less controversial aspects, the
"Matrix" movies are similar to movies that came before and after
dealing with perspective, technology, consumerism, and
mind-alteration. The "Matrix" trilogy will be less remarkable as
excitement about it wears off. What is more controversial from a
Marxist point of view makes "Matrix" petty-bourgeois or even
counterrevolutionary.(1) Like "The Matrix," "The Day the Earth Stood
Still" raises the idea that the humyn species' problems are due to
humyn nature. At least, "Johnny Mnemonic" refers to the profit motive
of capitalism, without emphasizing humyn nature and neither
pretending to be revolutionary nor focusing on economic oppression of
so-called workers in the First World. Unfortunately, most thinking
about the profit motive of corporations today in the First World is
fascistic in direction, not communist.
The theory of humyn nature was a focus of struggle during the Chinese
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and has always been opposed by
Marxists. Various revisionist "Marxists" acting like the United
$tates is China in the 1960s nonetheless uphold a classless and
groupless theory of behavior, ethics, or social organization, that
places humyn essence or individuals at the center of an explanatory
or moral framework. Chinese people are 20% of the world, and so James
Hong makes an appearance in "The Day the Earth Stood Still"
apologizing for the bourgeoisie in both English and Mandarin: Humyn
nature dooms the humyn species, he says, but humyn life is worthy of
love and imitation while it lasts. It is a bourgeois position that
sees the problems of capitalist society, but sees nothing existing
beyond that society. It in fact perpetuates that society by holding
up life in the First World as something to which everyone should
aspire and discouraging opposition to imperialism by attributing
imperialism at home and neo-colonialism in the Third World to humyn
nature. Amusingly, "Mr. Wu" and the alien messenger, Klaatu, played
by Keanu Reeves meet at a McDonald's restaurant in the United $tates,
McDonald's being an international business franchise coexisting with
various cultures and simultaneously being a common factor.
Multiculturalism plays a role in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" in
other ways, rallying different nationalities in the United $tates for
external repression of non-Amerikans.
MIWS does not favor killing the humyn species to save Earth as a
life-supporting planet (although MIWS supports revolution and even
voluntary humyn extinction might require revolution to take place
first) and found the idea of Earth's rarity as such a planet strange
in a contemporary sci-fi movie. And, obviously, the situation of a
group of non-Earth species intervening to save Earth from humyns is
fantasy. However, people should contemplate what if Klaatu is correct
in his calculation: "If the Earth dies, you die. If you die, the
Earth survives." If more (presumably "intelligent") species were
possible with the humyn species' death sooner rather than later, why
would someone oppose the aliens? The answer that "The Day the Earth
Stood Still" suggests is that the humyn species should live as long
as possible, which could be a kind of chauvinist idea if
intelligent/sentient life did exist on a multi-planetary scale and
prioritizing a longer life for the humyn species entailed hurting
intelligent life as a whole. Again, fantasy, but "The Day the Earth
Stood Still" begins with fantasy and ends up with a vague answer,
which leaves the door open to Amerikan chauvinism and keeping
Amerikan privilege, to a real-world problem, not balancing humyn
interests with the interests of humyn-like life as a whole, but
preserving a planet in which humyns can live.
For radical environmentalists associated with the idea of putting the
Earth's long-term survival before everything, "The Day the Earth
Stood Still" is not just science fiction, and there are real-world
controversies over anthropocentrism, which in this context means
putting what humyns want, or Homo sapiens' length of survival, first.
Others who would never sacrifice the humyn species for Earth's sake
are concerned about anthropocentrism as an attitude, particular forms
of which they believe are counterproductive even for humyns. "The Day
the Earth Stood Still" raises an anthropocentric argument, that
humyns should try to survive at all costs, and tries to make it seem
compatible with Earth's life-supporting ability, thus diluting
opposition to anthropocentrism. This makes "The Day the Earth Stood
Still" go well with wildlife channel programs about sharing the
planet with polar bears and other cute animals. The movie suggests an
urgent need to do something for the environment, but the solution
can't be too frightening. The aliens back down from their initial
position for a compromise with uncertain results. The hope is that,
having faced annihilation, humyns will come up with a solution or
accept a different lifestyle. Whether this actually works isn't
shown, saved for a boring sequel that won't be made. Ending
imperialism involves violence, but the structural change needed to
sustain lifestyle and living standard changes on a large scale and
eliminate narrow class and national interests threatening the
environment isn't always the stuff of exciting movie action.
The impetus for "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is obviously interest
in global warming. Most of this interest is anthropocentric,
primarily fear that global warming will hurt humyns, another reason
why "The Day the Earth Stood Still," suggesting that the solution to
environmental change comes from outside anthropocentrism, is
confusing. It is not that anthropocentrism is the main obstacle to
thinking about global warming, and people working toward a human
society without oppression are not necessarily opposed to
anthropocentrism strongly, but the movie favors comfortable solutions
in general, if it does not just raise anxiety about environmental
problems. The lifestyle change "The Day the Earth Stood Still"
suggests would require what would be a catastrophe, economic and
social, in the eyes of First Worlders even if environmental disaster
is averted.
Klaatu appears as knowledgeable, rational, and powerful, and not
scary himself. He has a humyn form. His true form would only scare
humyns, he says. In "The Day the Earth Stood Still," the aliens don't
have an ugly or terrifying physical appearance. The movie is not
racist in the way other movies about a non-humyn enemy or potential
enemy are; although, the aliens in "The Day the Earth Stood Still"
don't come off as being evil. They manifest mostly as semi-biological
technology, presumably reflecting a balance the aliens have found
between nature and the technological needs of intelligent species.
This is largely the extent of the redeeming content of the movie.
There seems to be nothing repulsive about the humyns either except
the smug Secretary of Defense character representing an
administration willing to drug and interrogate the aliens' messenger.
The Secretary of Defense blames her belligerence on her unseen boss.
"The Day the Earth Stood Still" is short on answers, but has a lot of
hope: hope that people will overcome religious apocalyptic ideas
encouraging apathy, for example, and do something about the
environment, and hope that the United $tates specifically will
change. In December 2008, it might as well be hope that Barack Obama
will do something about the environment. Despite campaign rhetoric,
about the United $tates' stockpile and nuclear weapons in general,
rhetoric effectively perfuming U.$. imperialism and making U.$.
foreign policy more palatable, Obama environmentalism is more likely
to look like bombing Middle East countries, and economic and
political rivalry with other countries, than eliminating any U.$.
weapons voluntarily.
"The Day the Earth Stood Still" relates humyns' threat to Earth, to
technology. The aliens seem to target structures and vehicles,
example, and little split blood is shown in the movie, which shows
destruction, but avoids gore. Questions of the relationship between
humyns and technology, or technology versus nature, in the abstract
aren't particularly interesting to scientific communists as ongoing
concerns. There is a hundred times more discussion of technology in
the abstract in various contexts, than concrete discussion of the
distribution of technology and its access and how that came about. As
the First World's access to technology is based on an exploitive
relationship with people outside the First World, technology in the
abstract is mainly an exploiter concern and more particularly a
petty-bourgeois concern, a concern of people who are neither
exploited nor wealthy enough to appreciate the full benefits of
technology and the class power that is the basis of its distribution
and use. Similarly, the larger theme in "The Day the Earth Stood
Still" of man versus nature is a distraction when there is much less
discussion of imperialism's contribution to, and specific First World
countries' relative and specifically per-capita share in,
environmental problems. The United $tates and New York are at the
center of events in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" because the
United $tates and New York are the center of the universe to liberal
Amerikans, but Amerikans' relative responsibility for what is
happening to Earth in the movie is not explored. The United $tates is
shown having a lot of destructive military firepower, nothing that
viewers would not know about already. Somebody born yesterday could
get the impression that the United $tates maintains a military just
for defense against invaders. The message of the movie could be:
"Don't blame Amerikans. Blame everyone." International comparisons
need to be carefully conceptualized, and the distribution of
emissions isn't necessarily the same as the distribution of money in
the world, for example, but there is a general lack of method whereby
people fail to make international comparisons systematically and fail
to scratch the surface of how observed international differences came
about, and Liberalism results. In "An Inconvenient Truth" (2006), Al
Gore mentions the United $tates' per-capita contribution to global
warming, but underlying that contribution are a living standard based
on international exploitation and power differences. Eliminating
these things requires a struggle against the United $tates, and they
influence policy-making. Amerikans cannot take initiative to end
their own exploitation of others, and the United $tates cannot
exercise "leadership" on solving environmental problems other than by
trying to create policies on its own terms or to get something else
it wants, such as cooperation in a war to prop up an economic system
that contains the long-term potential for the greatest damage to the
environment.
First World exploiters have discussed more sophisticated ideas about
the environment than those suggested by "The Day the Earth Stood
Still," and to some extent it is easy for MIWS to criticize this
movie for theoretical purposes. MIWS would judge the movie in terms
of its being good or bad for public opinion and division of First
World exploiters within an environmentalist discourse, but the whole
of the First World green movement has been chauvinist, racist,
bourgeois, and economic-nationalist. Without specifically and
explicitly presenting a Third World position on environmental
problems (and thus risking not having mainstream distribution), it is
a problem even for a film to just raise environmental issues, and the
choice could be between films with varying degrees of white
chauvinism or nationalism. Products of First World environmentalism
are backyard environmentalism, so-called stewardship of land taken
from oppressed nations in the first place, Whole Foods selling more
"green" products, green marketing of various products and economic
activities, defaming indigenous and Third World people over the
environment and animal rights, bashing Mexican migrants and
legitimizing white settler control of occupied Mexico, singling out
Islamic and Jewish slaughtering practices for criticism, Third World
population control, and calls to nationalize industries and large
corporations without ending international exploitation.
Again, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" obviously has an element of
sci-fi fantasy, but the movie raises the idea of an intervention by
an outside force, which is relevant to reality. In the real world,
the United $tates has little internal social basis for revolution or
other progress, and any progress that does manage to take place will
come mainly from actions by people outside the United $tates. "The
Day the Earth Stood Still" shows people around the world living in
various economic circumstances when the aliens arrive, but the movie
suggests that humanity as a whole has no overall motivation to
change, which is wrong. The movie does, however, reflect reality
accurately when it shows some Amerikans celebrating what they think
is the apocalypse. The fact is that decadent people in the United
$tates are more likely to remain apathetic even in the face of
calamity than fight for change, unless the change is fascist change.
Humanity versus efficiency and rationality is a well-trod theme in
science fiction. People who already control industry and technology
have the luxury to philosophize on the topic. Having attained wealth,
the bourgeoisie starts to fear the consequences of the scientific
culture it fostered for economic reasons. The revolutionary movement
of the proletariat is a scientific movement, needing to be
discredited with anti-scientific postmodernism, for example. In "The
Day the Earth Stood Still," a multi-species force that has waited for
change for a long time and studied humyns takes matters into its own
hands and presents itself as an invincible force with an impeccable
rationale. In place of this fantasy, one can contemplate a
multi-national force led by a scientific proletarian movement that
has studied Amerikans and cannot wait for revolutionary consciousness
to develop among exploiters.
Perhaps in a role as a diplomat and not just a messenger, Klaatu
initially tries to talk with world leaders as in the original 1951
movie and is obstructed by the U.$. government. The U.$. resistance
does not make a good impression on Klaatu. The response of the
microbiologist character Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) is to take
Klaatu to a 'real' leader, a Nobel laureate who did work on
biological altruism and apparently now spends his time trying to
solve difficult, unsolved mathematical problems. Unable to come to an
understanding with scientific-minded Klaatu by herself, Helen Benson
presents the Nobel Prize winner scientist to Klaatu.
When the shit hits the fan and others have failed, people look to
Nobel laureates for direction. They are perceived as being smart in
general. Going to a Nobel laureate rather than an anti-Amerikan
leader is not surprising in a Hollywood movie, but it is notable that
a couple of scientists out of three hundred million Amerikans have an
influence on Klaatu despite information he has that humanity can't
change. And this is after Klaatu forms a negative impression of
political leaders by interacting with bureaucrats in the United
$tates and trying to talk with establishment leaders in New York,
rather than talking with leaders in the Third World, which makes up
the majority of the world's population. The idea that a handful of
smart scientists or engineers, government officials or not, without a
particular social and political theory can 'save the nation',
combined with faith that Amerikans know best and will do what is good
for the world by putting themselves first, is rooted in technocracy,
a fascist petty-bourgeois movement. Coincidentally, "The Day the
Earth Stood Still" was released the same day President-elect Barack
Obama's choice of physicist and Nobel laureate Steven Chu for
Secretary of Energy became known. Chu has done work on technological
solutions to global warning. More important in the present context
than what Chu will actually do or what the reasons for his selection
are is the message that it will send about scientific expertise in an
imperialist country government as part of an emerging "post-partisan"
regime.
If there are just the humyn species and individuals, not classes,
nations, and groups, Klaatu's actions make sense. Intellectuals
anywhere could represent humanity as a whole, at least for Klaatu's
learning purposes. Klaatu can even understand the so-called human
condition by observing a few individuals, a theme in the movie. In
reality, there are classes and other groups, and on world scale. So,
the depiction of Klaatu's allowing himself to be influenced by a
smart minority in the United $tates is problematic, not to mention
that this happens on an emotional basis. The Nobel laureate admits
that Klaatu cannot be persuaded by intellectual means, but clearly
presents a contrast with the defense secretary. Change cannot be put
on hold because of the presence of some smart or farsighted people in
the First World who may not even be doing anything to oppose the
imperialist system in action. The old theme of emotion versus reason
is used in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" to support an idea of
halting progress because of some individuals.
The 1951 movie supposedly inspired bourgeois internationalism, and
the 2008 one is said to support international cooperation on
environmental challenges, but the latest movie also supports
multicultural unity within the United $tates in response to a threat
or danger. The aliens in the movie aren't evil from Helen Benson's
perspective, just doing what they think they have to do, and
obviously there is no such thing as aliens attacking Earth, but
Amerikans will insert various perceived problems in place of the
aliens, from global warming attributed to China, to militant Muslims.
A subtle theme in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (2008) is
overcoming cultural differences. This appears innocently as resolving
ordinary step-mother-step-son tensions between a white female adult
and a male child who happens to be Black, forced to live with each
other as a result of a marriage ending with the boy's father's death.
Jacob's father was in the military. Amerikans have a hard time
agreeing on exactly what to do about global warming, but they do get
excited about the idea of blowing up the infrastructure of Third
World countries pursuing nuclear energy, while holding up their
military including females and non-whites as proof that Amerika is a
force for freedom. Progress is not made mainly by getting Amerikans
to come together. Science-fiction fantasy brings Amerikans together
through a movie for future attacks on Third World people and other
reactionary and repressive actions.
The 1951 "The Day the Earth Stood Still" alludes to Albert Einstein
as being the smartest persyn on the planet. Famously among people
considering themselves some kind of socialist, Einstein wrote the
essay "Why Socialism?". The reason MIWS thought of this essay aside
from the Nobel laureate connection and movie trivia is that it
happens to represent some of the problems MIWS has discussed: namely,
the notion that intellectuals can inspire movement toward a goal that
is not guided by scientific method and theory, and the practice of
thinking about concepts but not having a concrete analysis. While
confusing the question of whether "only" "experts" on society have a
right to talk about socialism, with issues of determinism and
formalism in social explanation and of differences between social
inquiry and fields such as physics, casting doubt on whether there is
a science of society and social change at all, offering an
individualist critique of capitalism, and reducing "socialism" to a
mere, economic goal and an end, "Why Socialism?" states that workers'
wages are determined by "minimum needs" and secondly by supply and
demand, and says other things that are true about capitalism in the
abstract.
Of interest to environmentalists will be Einstein's response to a
statement, albeit made in the context of "the threat of another
[world] war," questioning whether humanity should not disappear, "Why
are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?".
Einstein attributes the statement to hopeless and lonely alienation
connected to "the economic anarchy of capitalist society," discusses
the changeability of humyn social behavior, and argues that "human
beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution,
to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel,
self-inflicted fate." While "Why Socialism?" reads like the writing
of an intellectual who has recently become acquainted with some
concepts in Karl Marx's works, others had written about imperialist
exploitation and the large size of the First World bourgeoisie by the
time "Why Socialism?" was written. "Why Socialism" says nothing about
First World class structure and international exploitation
concretely. There is nothing in the essay that most people in the
First World supporting economic regulation, unions, progressive
taxation, and a welfare state, could disagree with in terms of actual
substance. "Why Socialism?" does not explain, for example, why the
anarchy of capitalist society cannot be ended without proletarian
revolution. At this time, Amerikans calling for "green jobs," "energy
independence," full employment, and nationalization of automobile
manufacturers, are good candidates for supporting the planned economy
with "democracy" discussed in Einstein's essay. White-nationalist
mainstream Amerikans supporting state capitalism and welfare state,
with environmental and non-environmental justifications, without
opposing international exploitation and the expansion of war are
precursors to fascism. They act with, not against, the apocalypticism
in the United $tates that leads to both passivity and an
intensification of reactionary movements.
Notes
1. "The machines are the proletariat: "Matrix" as a
counterrevolutionary story," http://maoist.ws/reviews/movies/matrixmachi
nes.html