by Nathaniel R
I've hesitated writing anything about the current state of the US since this isn't a politics site but a film site. But it's naturally been difficult to concentrate on movies these past few days. You may have noticed the postings were fairly sparse after our big Friday event (which was recorded a couple of weeks back). The real world is definitely burning. Sometimes you can only stare at the flames and wonder how much they'll consume. And wonder what is your individual and/or collective place in stoking them or extinguishing them, because aren't we always doing one or the other if we're not preventing them in the first place?
The US is a scary place right now. It's an especially scary time for black people of course. Black Lives Matter. That should be obvious to everyone. It's soul-crushing that it still apparently isn't to far too many people. The US has an anger problem (in general) but in this case the anger fueling the protests is entirely justified...
In my most hopeless moments I feel like this is the end. How can this country even survive until an election (it's half a year away still!) And even once it gets here, the election will surely be fraught with mischief from the ruling party and their trigger-happy racism and power lust. The President has already essentially declared war on his own citizens by sending in the military to peaceful protests and with his threat to make Antifa, which stands for Anti-Fascism, a "terrorist organization". It's obvious but it needs to be said over and over again. Antifa a) isn't an organization and b) literally every single American who is smart enough and decent enough to understand the concept of democracy IS anti-fascist. If dissent is "terrorism" than we have already lost our democracy. What a wretched disappointment we are the memories of Americans who fought and died in World War II to save the world from fascism.
We have a sociopathic narcissist childman in the White House. We have almost no elected GOP leaders with the backbone to oppose him and disrupt their own party's enabling of his most destructive autocratic fantasies. (They have proven time and again that they will cower too him; They all must be voted out.) We have a radicalized right-wing that is armed to the teeth with zero love for the concepts of unity, fairness, racial equality, and democracy. Our only hope is to vote Democratic in such massive numbers in November that no amount of fraud or voter suppression or fear can stop us. And then we'll have more hard work to do to restore the country to some semblance of a functioning place again and work to improve it for people of color. (And, hell, while we're at the improvements, for all of us. Consider that it might have been nice to have universal healthcare and a robust social safety network in place during a pandemic, you know.)
The current government cannot fix any of our problems. They have neither the will nor the backbone nor the basic morality.
It's a scary time. One dear friend of mine who has been living in this country for 30 years, told me he's flying back to his home country in a week's time (with no return ticket). I wanted to climb through the phone and into his suitcase.
Let's end with a note on the movies because it's easy to get caught in this swirling fear and depression about our immediate future. Films have always been our favourite escape. Two or three years ago I attended a panel about Presidential depictions in film at the Middleburg Film Festival and the topic kept coming back to Nixon, previously the most hated US president. Not coincidentally he's the one that Hollywood has been most fascinated by. The panel suggested that Trump would eventually have many movies made about him given his innate corruption and disruption. It sounded like an accurate if upsetting prediction (Trump would love that). Hillary warned us and even before she did many of us knew this could only spiral towards immense trouble for the country. If the world survives the our Failed State implosion, what kind of movies will be made about this time? We should each be thinking of the ways we want to be remembered. Fascists and their supporters and enablers are never the heroes in the movies or in the long arc of history.
We now return to the the regularly scheduled movie programming. We hope The Film Experience and its reel obsessions can be some kind of oasis for you from the horrrible real world. Writing about movies (when we're able to concentrate that is) is an oasis for us here behind the scenes. But please use this space if you have any feelings you just need to get out right now. Sometimes you have to just let it out. We hope all TFE readers are well and safe and hanging on and finding little pockets of happiness where they can.