Go and watch She Hate Me, Spike Lee's latest film. (It may still be out in some local theatres back home, or already on DVD; I caught it on DVD here, complete with a Spike Lee commentary track, for only two bucks. Go figure.)
If you check out www.rottentomatoes.com, a movie site that tabulates film critics' reviews from across the country and then somehow comes up with a collective score, you'll see that She Hate Me received the whoppingly-high score of 20%. (Meaning, 80% of critics hated it.)
Not a good omen, right?
Ah, but I'm of the belief that you must go and search out that which others collectively despise, because those are usually the very same things that give off glimmers of brilliance.
She Hate Me is a satire and a drama, and it does not fit into any box, and it does not want, or allow, any of its characters to fit into a box. It is messy and sprawling and uneven. It is about sex and money and power and money and sex and money and family and money and sex and what we will do, or think that we have to do, for sex and money. It is about our own images of morality.
It is raw and shaky and not altogether cohesive, like a lot of Spike Lee's films. It is ragged. It juts out. It is sprawling and a little unfocused. Kind of like life (only better lit, with a pretty cool music score, too, which life, unfortunately, lacks.)
Much of the criticism directed at the film had to do with its 'realism'.
A young black executive who is laid off from his corporation because the owners are crooked, callous, Enron-type scumbags who've stolen all the company's money decides to become a stud-for-hire and impregnate lesbians who are unwilling to risk having sperm-donors be the future fathers of their unborn children.
The idea is ludicrous, I grant you that.
But here's the thing: Lee's not going for realism.
It is a satire about money and power. He is playing and toying and challenging the stereotypes we all have about each other. He is asking you to consider what you know and why you know it.
"It's ridiculous that all these lesbian women are enjoying having sex with this man! How condescending! What a patriarchal male fantasy!"
That's what much of the criticism amounted to.
Hmmm. Do you think that maybe, just maybe, Lee is playing with our image of the black super-stud? Do you think he's possibly using these scenes to point out the ridiculousness of such stereotypes: Wow, here's a guy so skilled, so potent, that even lesbians love him!
Or consider the Italian woman he sleeps with, who, when telling him about her family, says: "Relax -- not all Italians are in the Mafia, you know."
And then we see that, of course, her family's in the Mafia. Her father even spouts long passages from The Godfather.
Stereotypes.
About race, ethnicity, sexuality.
This is a film that comes at you in a thousand different directions. It is long (perhaps too long), and the ending is not only somewhat unlikely, but a touch absurd, too.
That's why I liked it.
Movies are not made to be judged equally. Movies are not made equally. They are worlds unto themselves. She Hate Me is about the new age we live in, refracted and reflected. And yet, don't think of its world as our world. People and places are exaggerated and distorted to make a point. Characters and their actions can be seen as metaphors for entire segments of society.
I'm not saying you have to love the fim, or even like it. Humor and style and technique are personal, and you may not respond or react to how they're used here. That's fine. That's the essence of what makes movies work -- our likes and dislikes, our strange passions and quirky loves.
But it just seems that so much of modern cinema is made to be easily chewed, digested, forgotten about. It tells us what it's going to say, says it, then tells us again what it said. We leave the theatre smiling and happy and wondering what's on the radio. She Hate Me left me entertained, yes, but also bewildered, confused and unsure about what I'd seen or what it was supposed to mean.
The film allows you to be a co-conspirator, and it expects you, demands you, to bring your own ideas and insights along for the ride.
Saturday, February 26, 2005
THE ROCKETS' RED GLARE, THE BOMBS BURSTING IN AIR, THE TRUE NORTH STRONG AND FREE, WE STAND ON GUARD FOR THEE
So Canada has decided to opt out of the missle defence shield that American wants to implement up in the sky sometime soon.
I know, I know -- you're dismayed, confused, disappointed.
No?
Okay, maybe you haven't heard this news yet, and wouldn't exactly feel disturbed one way or the other now that you have heard it.
I'm with you.
It's does have at least the potential of being interesting, though, if only because it strikes at the heart of certain Canadian insecurities and contradictions, of who we are and where we want to go.
I think what happened is, Paul Martin, Canada's Prime Minister, bowed to political pressure from within his own party, other parties and Canada itself. Before he was prime minister, he was for the shield; now, looking at another re-election, possibly sometime soon, he's against it.
The thing is, let's say there's a missle launched from some bad and evil and petty country, and that missle is targeted at Dubya's bedroom window, and to reach said window, it has to fly its merry course over Canada's airspace.
If Canada isn't in on this super-duper shield thingee, theoretically, Dubya would have to pick up his bedside phone and ask Prime Minister Martin for permission to shoot down that pesky missle, and Paul would have to think about it, consult some people, get back to Dubya first thing in the morning, sleep tight now.
Does that sound likely?
Uh-uh.
We know that the States would want to down that missle whether Canada is with the program or not. End of story.
The larger issue is one of Canadian soverignty, and indepence, and not-relying-on-all-those-crazy-Yanks-down-south.
Canadians have a really weird relationship to Americans. We watch all of their movies and TV, and read their authors, and play their music, and shop over the border whenever we can, and lose our freakin' minds when Conan O'Brien does a week of shows in Canada featuring only Canadian guests, but we still like to assume that we're better, superior, more enlightened than our next door neighbours, even though a heck of a lot of Canadians don't actually know any Americans personally.
I think Canada is a fundamentally different breed of country than America, if only because we've grown up in the shadow of a superpower, but we're not a superpower, and so we've had to figure out, and are still endlessly figuring out: What are we, then, if we ain't the big kid on the block? (Hopefully not a New Kid on the Block, because that band broke up a long time ago, and they were pretty lame to begin with.)
I'm not saying that Canadians opposed to the shield are wrong; they're morally right in their own minds, and you can never cavalierly dismiss someone's morals. Hell, I'm inclined to oppose the shield too, if only for patriotic reasons.
Are these reasons pragmatic or practical, though?
Hmmm.
That's more difficult.
We live in a tough, unforgiving age. In other words, bad stuff, really bad stuff, can happen quick, soon, now.
America is going to do what they want to do whether we like it or not.
The question is, how do we respond? How do we stand up for ourselves? How do we chart an independent course while being, essentially, dependent on the States for our security and well-being? After living in Japan (thousands of years old, with their own freakin' language) and Cambodia (thousands of years old, also with their own freakin' language), I've finally realized how young Canada is, how fundamentally immature and developing this great country is, this cultural mosaic of every language and shade known under the sun.
We've still got a long way to go, though. Got a lot of questions to answer. A lot of uncharted waters to navigate through.
I don't have any answers, but the questions keep coming, and how we respond to those questions in a mature, realistic fashion is what will allow the ongoing Canadian experiment to reach the next level, and the next, and the one after that.
I know, I know -- you're dismayed, confused, disappointed.
No?
Okay, maybe you haven't heard this news yet, and wouldn't exactly feel disturbed one way or the other now that you have heard it.
I'm with you.
It's does have at least the potential of being interesting, though, if only because it strikes at the heart of certain Canadian insecurities and contradictions, of who we are and where we want to go.
I think what happened is, Paul Martin, Canada's Prime Minister, bowed to political pressure from within his own party, other parties and Canada itself. Before he was prime minister, he was for the shield; now, looking at another re-election, possibly sometime soon, he's against it.
The thing is, let's say there's a missle launched from some bad and evil and petty country, and that missle is targeted at Dubya's bedroom window, and to reach said window, it has to fly its merry course over Canada's airspace.
If Canada isn't in on this super-duper shield thingee, theoretically, Dubya would have to pick up his bedside phone and ask Prime Minister Martin for permission to shoot down that pesky missle, and Paul would have to think about it, consult some people, get back to Dubya first thing in the morning, sleep tight now.
Does that sound likely?
Uh-uh.
We know that the States would want to down that missle whether Canada is with the program or not. End of story.
The larger issue is one of Canadian soverignty, and indepence, and not-relying-on-all-those-crazy-Yanks-down-south.
Canadians have a really weird relationship to Americans. We watch all of their movies and TV, and read their authors, and play their music, and shop over the border whenever we can, and lose our freakin' minds when Conan O'Brien does a week of shows in Canada featuring only Canadian guests, but we still like to assume that we're better, superior, more enlightened than our next door neighbours, even though a heck of a lot of Canadians don't actually know any Americans personally.
I think Canada is a fundamentally different breed of country than America, if only because we've grown up in the shadow of a superpower, but we're not a superpower, and so we've had to figure out, and are still endlessly figuring out: What are we, then, if we ain't the big kid on the block? (Hopefully not a New Kid on the Block, because that band broke up a long time ago, and they were pretty lame to begin with.)
I'm not saying that Canadians opposed to the shield are wrong; they're morally right in their own minds, and you can never cavalierly dismiss someone's morals. Hell, I'm inclined to oppose the shield too, if only for patriotic reasons.
Are these reasons pragmatic or practical, though?
Hmmm.
That's more difficult.
We live in a tough, unforgiving age. In other words, bad stuff, really bad stuff, can happen quick, soon, now.
America is going to do what they want to do whether we like it or not.
The question is, how do we respond? How do we stand up for ourselves? How do we chart an independent course while being, essentially, dependent on the States for our security and well-being? After living in Japan (thousands of years old, with their own freakin' language) and Cambodia (thousands of years old, also with their own freakin' language), I've finally realized how young Canada is, how fundamentally immature and developing this great country is, this cultural mosaic of every language and shade known under the sun.
We've still got a long way to go, though. Got a lot of questions to answer. A lot of uncharted waters to navigate through.
I don't have any answers, but the questions keep coming, and how we respond to those questions in a mature, realistic fashion is what will allow the ongoing Canadian experiment to reach the next level, and the next, and the one after that.
CALL YOURSELF HUMAN
It's fascinating, how you can be walking along, thinking thoughts, counting steps, wondering what to eat for dinner, wondering what you always wonder, and then have your life flip-flopped and tweaked.
Yesterday, I was heading home from work, my white-dress shirt gradually growing damp with sweat as the hot Khmer sun slowly made its lingering descent. (A Cambodian dusk is always a welcome event.) Approaching the stoplight at Sihanouk and Monivong, I heard the excited chatter of children up above.
"Hello! Hello! Hello!"
There were maybe six of them, waving at me, smiling. I waved back, smiled. Cambodian children embody goodwill.
And then the nun came out.
Like, a real nun, the Mother Teresa kind, wearing the same blue and white traditional garb.
"Hello!" she said. "Come inside, come inside, sir."
She grabbed my arm and tugged me along, this smiling Cambodian woman. I checked out the sign on the side of the building: SISTERS OF MERCY MINISTRIES, I think it said.
What am I going to do, say no to a nun? (Even agnostics have to hedge their bets every now and then.)
Up the slight row of stairs, and there they were -- kids, a couple dozen of them, from infants to ten year olds, playing on the ground, resting in their beds. Some of them were smiling and healthy. Some of them just layed there, their eyes distant and blank. I met one boy, perhaps two, who had no hands; they looked as if they had been hacked off, leaving only two little stumps. So I smiled and shook the stumps.
Does that sound strange? It is. It's strange and bizarre and heartbreaking beyond belief, shaking the stumps of a two year old boy. It makes you feel sick and guilty and helpless.
The nun pointed out another child that had just arrived that day. He had five brothers and sisters, and the father had just been killed in a construction accident, leaving the mother unable to care for this newborn. So, here he was. The nuns took him in, no questions asked, mind the stairs on your way out. Simple. There was an Asian-Canadian woman there from Toronto, where I went to university, helping out with the kids. Strange, the connections that can be forged so far from home.
Have you ever been in an orphanage? After teaching in a few of them, I can reassure you that they are very, very humbling places. And a Cambodian orphanage can take the cake. Any worries you have about your own life are thrown out the window, instantly. You don't want to consider the lives of these children in the future. Even their lives now are somewhat sad, or completely sad. One little boy just came up to me and grabbed onto my leg and wouldn't let go, as if I were his favorite uncle, not some total stranger. The nun told me that these children have very few people to talk to, hug, hold. Come back anytime, she said. Anytime.
And, of course, as the announcers on TV would say, 'these are the lucky ones'. And they are. There are a lot of kids in Cambodia that dwell on the streets, sleep in the rain, scavenge for food. These kids have light, space, warmth.
I'll come back, if only to chill with the kids for a little while. If only to get in touch with something that is so remote and yet so near.
I walk by this place every day! I'm outside, and they're inside, and that's the conundrum right there. None of this is different from what goes on back home, of course; none of this is necessary unique. It's the details and degrees that are different, the hacked off limbs, the deformities from birth. I have hands and some of them don't; I have a place to go to, and they don't.
Maudlin, I know, and self-pitying, and all those other emotions that Cambodia drags up from inside you. A perpetual pity party, if you want to look at it that way.
But it's important, I think, to remember that there are places, on the same roads that we walk, the same streets that we drive, that are filled with the forgotten, the left behind, and those who dedicate their lives, with no reward, to helping them get by. It's important to remember what society chooses to forget.
If we don't, how else can we truly, honestly call ourselves human?
Yesterday, I was heading home from work, my white-dress shirt gradually growing damp with sweat as the hot Khmer sun slowly made its lingering descent. (A Cambodian dusk is always a welcome event.) Approaching the stoplight at Sihanouk and Monivong, I heard the excited chatter of children up above.
"Hello! Hello! Hello!"
There were maybe six of them, waving at me, smiling. I waved back, smiled. Cambodian children embody goodwill.
And then the nun came out.
Like, a real nun, the Mother Teresa kind, wearing the same blue and white traditional garb.
"Hello!" she said. "Come inside, come inside, sir."
She grabbed my arm and tugged me along, this smiling Cambodian woman. I checked out the sign on the side of the building: SISTERS OF MERCY MINISTRIES, I think it said.
What am I going to do, say no to a nun? (Even agnostics have to hedge their bets every now and then.)
Up the slight row of stairs, and there they were -- kids, a couple dozen of them, from infants to ten year olds, playing on the ground, resting in their beds. Some of them were smiling and healthy. Some of them just layed there, their eyes distant and blank. I met one boy, perhaps two, who had no hands; they looked as if they had been hacked off, leaving only two little stumps. So I smiled and shook the stumps.
Does that sound strange? It is. It's strange and bizarre and heartbreaking beyond belief, shaking the stumps of a two year old boy. It makes you feel sick and guilty and helpless.
The nun pointed out another child that had just arrived that day. He had five brothers and sisters, and the father had just been killed in a construction accident, leaving the mother unable to care for this newborn. So, here he was. The nuns took him in, no questions asked, mind the stairs on your way out. Simple. There was an Asian-Canadian woman there from Toronto, where I went to university, helping out with the kids. Strange, the connections that can be forged so far from home.
Have you ever been in an orphanage? After teaching in a few of them, I can reassure you that they are very, very humbling places. And a Cambodian orphanage can take the cake. Any worries you have about your own life are thrown out the window, instantly. You don't want to consider the lives of these children in the future. Even their lives now are somewhat sad, or completely sad. One little boy just came up to me and grabbed onto my leg and wouldn't let go, as if I were his favorite uncle, not some total stranger. The nun told me that these children have very few people to talk to, hug, hold. Come back anytime, she said. Anytime.
And, of course, as the announcers on TV would say, 'these are the lucky ones'. And they are. There are a lot of kids in Cambodia that dwell on the streets, sleep in the rain, scavenge for food. These kids have light, space, warmth.
I'll come back, if only to chill with the kids for a little while. If only to get in touch with something that is so remote and yet so near.
I walk by this place every day! I'm outside, and they're inside, and that's the conundrum right there. None of this is different from what goes on back home, of course; none of this is necessary unique. It's the details and degrees that are different, the hacked off limbs, the deformities from birth. I have hands and some of them don't; I have a place to go to, and they don't.
Maudlin, I know, and self-pitying, and all those other emotions that Cambodia drags up from inside you. A perpetual pity party, if you want to look at it that way.
But it's important, I think, to remember that there are places, on the same roads that we walk, the same streets that we drive, that are filled with the forgotten, the left behind, and those who dedicate their lives, with no reward, to helping them get by. It's important to remember what society chooses to forget.
If we don't, how else can we truly, honestly call ourselves human?
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