Time and Social Satire
I've written a number of posts (at least three) on the development of cinema in the last 100 years, dealing with a perceived change in narration, more and more invention of reality instead of observation of it, and in production culture, a shift from competition to marketing costs.
Today I was compiling a list of films that can be seen as social satires (employed metaphors notwithstanding), and although this looks on the face of it like a very subjective approach, the result was rather objective in nature.
That people didn't feel like laughing during the first two dents is understandable enough. But the situation during the latter two dents is quite different from that. There is no grief. There's nothing sobering, really. I would venture to say that the end of the Cold War ushered in a monumental phase, in which one wouldn't mock, but rather draw up great plans for the future. But that did die down after a few years. Of course, the revival of social satire in the 2000s happened mostly outside of Hollywood. But even so the latest dry spell has to have a cause of its own. Is it a monumental phase again? Possibly, but there's no ambition, no wondering what may be. This time it could only be a resolve to right known wrongs, which, of course, would be delusional to the extreme, since no wrongs have been righted so far.
Anyway, the easiness is gone, people are preoccupied, preoccupied with their fate, our time is deemed historical. Yet the scope is mere legislation, reforms here and there - it doesn't match, instinct and reason are divorced and have been for some time.
The root of this is not racial, that Obama is considered black, nor religious, that he is considered to be too close to Muslims, the root is not that the American system seems endangered, the root is that the American system seems to have been altered without prior discussion and so people are wondering what they're in.
But they don't realise this. They rationalise their state by pointing to single problems that should be dealt with in their opinion and possibly also have to. But that will never do. This weight will only fall off their shoulders when the people ascertain their sovereignty by making the path from their political decisions to the rules they abide by transparent, which means no more social satires in the foreseeable future, since that is a monumental task in waiting.
So that then is the path out of the current partisanship, but something of importance has to be implanted before to guide the erring for otherwise they wouldn't have erred like this.
Today I was compiling a list of films that can be seen as social satires (employed metaphors notwithstanding), and although this looks on the face of it like a very subjective approach, the result was rather objective in nature.
1933 Laurel and Hardy: Sons of the DesertThere are four dents here: The first after World War 2, far more pronounced in the United States than in the United Kingdom by the way, the second when the Vietnam War turned ugly under Nixon and Kissinger, the third after the end of the Cold War and the forth when Obama took office.
1934 It Happened One Night
1934 The Thin Man
1936 After the Thin Man
1939 Another Thin Man
1941 Sun Valley Serenade
1942 The Major and the Minor
1944 Arsenic and Old Lace
1951 The Man in the White Suit
1952 The Card
1953 Roman Holiday
1955 The Trouble with Harry
1957 The Naked Truth
1958 Ni Vu, Ni Connu
1958 I Solti Ignoti
1959 Some Like It Hot
1959 I'm All Right Jack
1959 Our Man in Havana
1960 School for Scoundrels
1961 Murder She Said
1961 One, Two, Three
1961 Lover Come Back
1963 Murder at the Gallop
1963 The Thrill of It All
1964 Murder Most Foul
1964 A Shot in the Dark
1964 Murder Ahoy
1964 Send Me No Flowers
1965 The Great Race
1966 The Fortune Cookie
1967 Hoří, Má Panenko
1968 Alexandre le Bienheureux
1968 The Odd Couple
1969 Cactus Flower
1972 Le Grand Blond avec une Chaussure Noire
1976 The Bad News Bears
1976 Le Jouet
1978 The End
1979 Monty Python's Life of Brian
1979 Being There
1979 Going in Style
1980 Airplane!
1980 Caddyshack
1982 Tootsie
1983 National Lampoon's Vacation
1984 Top Secret!
1984 Best Defense
1985 Lifeforce
1985 Back to the Future
1985 National Lampoon's European Vacation
1986 Crocodile Dundee
1986 Ruthless People
1986 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
1986 Kin-dza-dza!
1987 Raising Arizona
1987 The Secret of my Success
1988 Coming to America
1988 They Live
1988 The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
1989 Her Alibi
1989 Weekend at Bernie's
1989 The 'Burbs
1989 Fletch Lives
1989 Back to the Future 2
1989 National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
1990 Back to the Future 3
1993 Groundhog Day
1997 Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie
2000 Meet the Parents
2001 Le Placard
2001 Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain
2002 The Gamers
2004 Shaun of the Dead
2004 Meet the Fockers
2005 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
2007 Hot Fuzz
2007 The Hammer
2008 The Gamers: Dorkness Rising
2013 The Gamers: Hands of Fate
That people didn't feel like laughing during the first two dents is understandable enough. But the situation during the latter two dents is quite different from that. There is no grief. There's nothing sobering, really. I would venture to say that the end of the Cold War ushered in a monumental phase, in which one wouldn't mock, but rather draw up great plans for the future. But that did die down after a few years. Of course, the revival of social satire in the 2000s happened mostly outside of Hollywood. But even so the latest dry spell has to have a cause of its own. Is it a monumental phase again? Possibly, but there's no ambition, no wondering what may be. This time it could only be a resolve to right known wrongs, which, of course, would be delusional to the extreme, since no wrongs have been righted so far.
Anyway, the easiness is gone, people are preoccupied, preoccupied with their fate, our time is deemed historical. Yet the scope is mere legislation, reforms here and there - it doesn't match, instinct and reason are divorced and have been for some time.
The root of this is not racial, that Obama is considered black, nor religious, that he is considered to be too close to Muslims, the root is not that the American system seems endangered, the root is that the American system seems to have been altered without prior discussion and so people are wondering what they're in.
But they don't realise this. They rationalise their state by pointing to single problems that should be dealt with in their opinion and possibly also have to. But that will never do. This weight will only fall off their shoulders when the people ascertain their sovereignty by making the path from their political decisions to the rules they abide by transparent, which means no more social satires in the foreseeable future, since that is a monumental task in waiting.
So that then is the path out of the current partisanship, but something of importance has to be implanted before to guide the erring for otherwise they wouldn't have erred like this.
Labels: 23, formalisierung, geschichte, gesellschaftsentwurf, gesellschaftskritik, gesetze, institutionen, psychologie, wahrnehmungen, zeitgeschichte, ἰδέα, φιλοσοφία
Eingetragen Am/um
19:45
