Lost America
0 comment Thursday, May 29, 2014 |
I just came across this post, which is from several months back, on Stuff Black People Don't Like. The subject is Turner Classic Movies.
Pre-Obama America (POA) is gone, dead for the ages. Acting as celluloid mausoleums interning and memorializing a long dead nation, movies depict this era that has passed into the pages of history, haunting all those who view the images and forever taunting them with a glimpse of stability and an uncompromising belief that tomorrow would be better than the next day.
[...]
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is a channel devoted to showcasing the glories of Pre-Obama America, as chronicled in film. Timeless classics that still resonate with viewers who watch them today (look over the American Film Institute�s Top 100 Films ever made and notice this startling truth � that POA is immortalized in motion pictures and they will forever plague those who bemoan that era for wanton cruelty) realize all that has been lost in the span of a few generations by the vivid reminder that John Wayne, Cary Grant and James Stewart provide.
[...]
Turner Classic Movies represents a window into a past that few could ever believe existed, were it not for films starring such men such as Clark Gable, Errol Flynn and Charles Bronson among others.
No, these films remain vestiges of a time that taunt us with simplicity, reminders of a greatest generation that dies daily and would rather cling to memories of a past then remain agitated by glimpses of a horrific future broadcast on the nightly news.
And that, is the most potent weapon that Disingenuous White Liberals and those who find employment and promotion thanks to BRA fear. Memory, remembrance of things past and that could be once again.''
Overall it's a very good piece, with the comments being the weak point, degenerating into arguments and straying off topic, unfortunately. It should have been a good discussion, sadly.
The blogger implies that because of the nature of the films shown on TCM, and because of the fact that old movies keep alive the memory of a vanished era, it would be subversive to today's powers-that-be. It is too ''hideously White'', and it shows a past that is greatly at variance with today's moral dictates as delineated in politically correct dogma.
Regular readers here know that I am an old movie fan, and that I was a watcher of TCM since the 1980s, and in more recent times, a frustrated observer of the changes that have been taking place at TCM over the last several years.
I am not sure if the blogger is aware that TCM is doing its own little PC soft shoe, with a great to-do about 'Black History Month' every February, and occasional marathons of old movies with all-black casts, those movies being made for black movie theaters way back when. And TCM has also prominently featured the black movie critic, Elvis Mitchell, probably to fulfill the 'diversity' mandate and avoid charges of being 'racist.'
One way in which TCM seems to be trying to evade the 'subversive' charge from blacks and the PC left is by showing increasing numbers of newer movies, those from the era when political correctness and 'diversity' became mandates. Starting in the late 60s, or even the earlier 60s, suddenly it became de rigueur to have a certain number of black characters in movies. Movies of that era, overall, began to carry counterculture messages and leftist themes, as well as sexually explicit and profane content.
Was this just a reflection of a changing America? It should be evident to anybody who pays attention that the movies from the 60s onward depict an America, or a world, that bears little resemblance to the old America as seen in the true classic movies. Someone who had never seen America might think that the post-1960s movies depicted another country altogether. Yet to my surprise few people born after the start of the PC era seem to notice the sharp divide between the old movies and the later post-60s movies.
I often wonder if TCM will slowly phase out the old movies altogether, or show them occasionally as museum pieces, for historical interest. I've noticed when certain very politically incorrect movies have been shown in the past, especially movies which involve blacks, there will be some sort of interpreter from the 'African-American community', who will tell us in professorial tones how the movie was racist, and how such unfortunate attitudes were extant in those day. We apparently need to be lectured and given warnings about the violations of taboos with certain movies.
TCM has also made a great show of having 'gay and lesbian' themed movies, with similar sermonettes by some guest representing the GLBT (did I get that right?) ''community.''
In other words, TCM, instead of just showing us some wonderful old movies, feels the necessity of telling us what to think about the movies, or issuing caveats about the naughty content.
I think it's well to remember the example of American Movie Classics, or AMC, which once showed uncut, no-commercials, old movies, most of which were from the 30s through the 60s. Slowly AMC morphed into a commercial-ridden channel which shows third-rate movies from the 70s and 80s, along with their own series like 'Mad Men' which seems to be highly popular. But it is no longer the home of the classic old movies, as its name once indicated.
TCM, with its increasing emphasis on post-70s movies, is in danger of becoming AMC's twin.
TCM is, I think, subversive in a good way, a necessary way. Just as I've written in other posts, I think that we are being manipulated to forget the past, the old America which was not shackled by political correctness and contrived 'diversity.' It's vital that we keep some visual reminder of that past, or we will lose our moorings, and become more and more an amnesic people.
I asked a few paragraphs ago if the movies merely reflected a spontaneously changing society, or if they actually played a part in engineering those changes. Obviously I think the answer is the latter. The movies -- and the other arts -- have given birth to this upside-down world in which we live. Life comes to resemble art, not vice versa. As people become dumbed-down and passive they become something resembling blank slates on which the manipulators can write what they choose.
Mindless, sensationalistic, shocking entertainment dulls the sensibilities and creates a jaded, cynical populace. What we take in through our senses while we passively watch entertainment can have a real impact on us. This is why many billions are spent on advertising and media: it works. It leads and shapes our attitudes and preferences and wants.
As long as TCM still does its innately subversive thing in showing old America in enjoyable and well-made movies, it is or can be a force for good. I hope it is not censored off the air, or given the death of a thousand cuts like AMC, making it a shell of its former self.
One last thing: there are always the cynics and curmudgeons who say, of old movies, that ''the world was never like that. It's all fantasy. It's a whitewash.'' I say no, there once was an America much like that in the movies. Of course some things are prettied up, as with all movies, but the movies for the most part captured the old America as I know it from experience and from the stories told by my elder relatives. It did exist. The naysayers simply want to have us believe that it never existed because they want people to think there is no alternative to this dystopian world in which we now find ourselves.
Don't believe them.

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