| Of Culture and Consequence
After September 11, U.S. pop culture may face its greatest challenge.
Much that's been written and said about the terrorist attacks of September 11 has, by necessity, amounted to little more than speculation, guesswork and ill-informed opinion. In this regard CNN has led the way, not allowing an absence of hard evidence to stand in the way of its apparent mandate to fill every day with something on the outrage. As a result, CNN – in concert with the entire American media – has contrived to do what it does best: filter what is a genuine crisis through the distorting lens of U.S. pop culture.
Consider the following. A hastily arranged and widely televised concert featuring the entire gamut of American pop music to raise funds for the victims. CNN's barrage of easy-to-digest slogans underlining its coverage – "America Under Attack," "America's New War," "America Stands Strong" – just in case viewers couldn't work it out for themselves. An endless search for interviews with people who may or may not have anything meaningful to say on the subject. Even President Bush could do no better than dig into the barrel of pop culture, invoking childhood memories of mythic "Dead or Alive" posters in his call for justice. In short, the horror of September 11 has been made slightly more palatable, slightly easier to absorb, only by recasting it in the language and values of U.S. pop culture.
Problem number one: pop culture is too lightweight to do the job. Several commentators have already noted some signs of this. Hollywood studios have delayed or recalled the next crop of "disaster" movies because, in the words of one reviewer, "they expected audiences to shy away from violent or intense stories and embrace only comedy or family fare." Globe & Mail critic John Doyle even suggests that comedy, not truth, is the first casualty of war, as comics suddenly shy away from irony – the mainstay of post-Seinfeld humour – and Politically Incorrect's Bill Maher is censored for his "off-colour" remarks. In short, pop culture might not want or be able to deal with the events of September 11 or their aftermath.
Too bad. For more than 50 years, American pop culture has flirted with fictionalized disaster – in novels, on radio and TV broadcasts, in film, in music – and so now it has a moral duty to confront the real thing.
Problem number two: U.S. pop culture has never dealt well with the question of consequences. The vast majority of Hollywood films and TV movies follow a basic pattern: evil is inflicted upon the world; good battles with evil, often facing temporary setbacks; good finally triumphs, with evil brought to justice. And with that final resolution, the audience can leave the theatre safe in the knowledge that order has been restored and the world is safe once more.
But wait. What about all the innocent lives that are shattered along the way – the sidewalk pedestrians, subway crowds and, yes, airplane passengers that such movies regard as so much expendable flesh, whose only purpose is to raise the stakes in the "good vs. evil" battle? Do we ever see the terror on their faces as they realize they are going to die? Do we ever get to see their families coping or failing to cope with their losses? Of course not, you say, they're just fictional characters, they didn't really suffer, they didn't really die. But Hollywood – and by extension all pop culture – can't have it both ways. If we are to care about the leading characters enough to follow their onscreen "lives" for two hours or so, then we must also care about the fate of all those who suffer as a consequence of their actions along the way.
In any case, pop culture has always blurred the line between fiction and reality. So-called "reality" TV is just the latest manifestation of this confusion. Millions of Americans (and Canadians) have come to care passionately about the fate of well-fed, over-privileged and self-absorbed men and women, "stranded" in the Australian outback, incarcerated in a fully-furnished penthouse, or cast adrift on the Love Boat. All this weekly drama, of course, plays out nightly while pictures of starvation, misery and deprivation around the world have failed to move Americans to any sort of humanitarian action.
Perhaps all this will change now, in the aftermath of September 11. Perhaps American pop culture will take a hard look at itself, reassess the casual way in which it has treated death, mayhem and destruction over the years, and consider its own culpability in making money out of human suffering. Perhaps, but it's also likely that by this time next year things will be back to normal, with Hollywood and the other usual suspects turning chaos into cash.
Still, between now and whenever, there is time to reflect further on what we want and expect from our shared culture, our popular entertainment... on what sort of world we really want to share with others.
Damn you America – this time learn. |
