DISTRICT 9

Brian & I just watched District 9!!! VERY cool movie! :D

It sort of reminds me of the original V miniseries in that, if you re-watch it as an adult, you find it's just straight-up a dramatization of the Nazi Party taking over Germany. As a kid, I never had a clue how political V was. I was just watching this cool show about alien invaders and resistance fighters. (You know, like the Rebels in Star Wars. I had no idea those patriots who tried to undermine the Nazis were known as "the Resistance", lol. I rarely paid attention in History class.)

So watching District 9, I got this sense that there was some real-life commentary going on (largely, probably, because this seemed too realistic to have merely sprung, uninspired, from the mind of any writer). I suspected that the fact that the alien ship comes to rest over Johannesburg, South Africa was significant, and from what little I know of African politics -- namely from reading books like Last Chance To See and watching films like Hotel Rwanda -- I suspected that a forced, "legal" population relocation might be somehow historical.

I had NO IDEA, however, about the District Six relocation beginning in 1968!!!

DUDE! Humans can do AMAZINGLY SUCKY things to each other!

I know, I know... Here's this white American getting the smallest glimpse of what has happened in part of Africa and going "People don't really behave like that!" I am, in many ways, the stereotypical American, blissfully oblivious to the horrors endured by much of the rest of the world.

And I am not proud of this fact.

But, in my defense... Well, not really in defense of my ignorance, but rather, to explain it... Our "news" media appears to do everything they possibly can to prevent us from knowing what's going on in the rest of the world. I think Eddie Izzard best illustrated this (quite humorously) when he was going into a bit about events happening elsewhere in the world and stopped himself, asking "Do you know about this-- Are you aware there's other countries? I'm just saying, you've got to flip through a fair few channels before you come across something [involving the rest of the world]".

Eddie was taking a friendly jab at us, and his audience erupted in applause. (I'm guessing cats who could appreciate an intelligent, English transvestite comedian in the late '90s has, themselves, noticed the lack of media coverage about what was happening in the rest of the world.)

But I'm not a political blogger, and this isn't about world politics. There are a lot better-informed dudes & dudettes out there that can speak much more intelligently than I can about real-world stuff.

I would, however, I'd like to give it up for the Sci-Fi writers!

I mean, you can go back to Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone episodes of the 1950s & 1960s which, viewed now, were amazingly bold in the way they spoke on racial prejudices of the time. Same with Gene Roddenbery with the original Star Trek in the 1960s.

Actually, off the top of my head, I can go back to Ishiro Honda in 1954, who sort of explored and helped to exorcise the experience of the horrors of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki with his Sci-Fi/Horror opus Gijira. An artist digested some truly horrific experiences, then created one of Japan's most lucrative exports!

More than that, we -- Americans -- were able to get a glimpse of the horror of nuclear holocaust from the eyes of the Japanese (well... you know... in it's heavily-edited-for-American-audiences version Godzilla (1956)) , the victims of our government's actions.

And we friggin' ate it up, lol!

And sense then, there have been scores of brilliant Sci-Fi writers who have found ways to take hard truths and difficult-to-swallow social truths and turn them into highly-entertaining (and, more importantly, thought-provoking) Sci-Fi stories!

Now, the snootier among you... Actually, I can't imagine anyone snooty wasting their time on my little blog, lol! I should imagine that my writing style and choice of topics (namely, what I've been up to lately) would immediately repulse anyone looking for pretension who accidentally stumbled onto this thing. :D

So, okay... Snooty folks might argue that human being should seek out the social horrors happening all around us and complain about them often and loudly. (And if I honestly believed our governments and their corporate rulers were listening to us and cared what we think, I would agree.) But I argue that we're not wired to seek out stuff that's going to depress us and enrage us, and that's probably for our ultimate best good. I mean, we NEED activists, don't get me wrong! But I don't think my mom (for instance) would, in any way at all, benefit by being aware of all -- or even most -- of the ugly stuff happening in the world. What could she do to change it? Would her mental or physical health be improved by worry over these things? And if not, should she be forced to pay the emotional toll for actions whose debtors sleep really, really soundly in expensive, comfortable beds?

However, if we don't know our history, we are doomed to repeat it.

I believe the human race needs to learn from the mistakes of its Past (and Present).

And one way of doing that is through Story.

Now, granted, my mom's not going to watch a movie like District 9, or even V, and her demographic has other genres of film/TV/novel to point out Mankind's shortcomings.

But what if, back in the 1980s, when I was in school, my History teacher had asked, "Okay, class, this week we're going to watch V. There will be a test on it, so no sleeping during the movie."

I don't care if there were a test on it, I would have gladly and enthusiastically watched the miniseries again!!! I would have thought this was the coolest teacher in the world!!! :D

Then imagine the following Monday. We discuss the movie for a few days, take the test, maybe get our tests back that Friday and he then tells us, "Next week we begin our discussion of the Holocaust, the actual historical event that inspired the miniseries we watched last week."

I would have been SO INTO that lesson!!!

At first, granted, I would have been disappointed to learn that aliens hadn't tried to colonize the Earth back in the 1940s. But you can bet your ass I would have remembered every detail of those lessons.

As it is, I remember staggeringly large numbers of horrible events that I wanted to forget as quickly as I was told them. And if memory serves, the coach who taught me about the Holocaust was actually quite an engaging and compelling teacher! (I remember being thoroughly bewildered by this Odessa, Texas football coach who was also amazingly intelligent and articulate, and who made the material in our text books actually sort of come alive! The other coach/teachers who stand out in memory were... well... underwhelming, academically.)

My point is that fiction -- entertaining, first, and thought-provoking on top of that -- can, and does, teach lessons to people who would normally run from a political conversation, much less a political publication!

I am one of those people.

Not proud of it, but just being honest.

If you try to start a political conversation with me, I'm leaping through the nearest escape hatch. "Political conversation" is really just folks complaining about how some things are and bitching about how some (they believe) things should be. I don't care if you're talking about Politics, religion, sports, filmmaking, literature, paranormal investigation or just whatever, political conversations are either two people bellyaching together or two people arguing with each other. You're damn skippy I'm gonna flee from that nonsense!

But if you've got something intelligent to observe about a current or past political situation, you put it in an essay or a non-fiction book.

And if you want to get your message out to the largest number of people, change the "bad guys" of your piece to extraterrestrial entities and make sure it's really well writen!

Folks like to learn things. It's what we're wired to do, I believe. I think that's our primary mission in this phsyical reality. We're constantly learning new stuff... But only the stuff that interests us. And stories -- the good ones, the ones we watch/read over and over -- cause us to expand our understanding of human existance and Truth. But it lures us in by entertaining us! :) We go for the special effects, or to have a laugh, or because we're looking for something easy to do after work or on the weekend. But we take away something to think about, some exercise for the mind, something we can debate with our friends, or just within ourselves.

And I don't think that's a bad thing.

That is to say, I don't believe that the fact that human nature is to want our spoonful of medicine coated with sugar is a "fault" or short-coming.

In fact, I really don't think I want to be around someone who actually seeks-out pain and unhappiness.

Blah.

Okay, I've gone on long enough, lol.

GOOD WRITERS RULE!!! :D