When I Was A Child

When I was a child, I collected photos of movie stars, carefully clipping them from the newspaper every week, and scotch-taping them into a spiral notebook in lieu of a real scrapbook. I watched every movie that was broadcast on TV, carefully noting how the female stars dressed, wore makeup, coiffed their hair, and how they behaved or treated others.  From the movies I learned about fashion and beauty, love and happily-ever-after, and about exotic, romantic places far from a farm in the middle of America. And, as you might expect, when I was a child, I wanted to grow up to be a movie star.

That was back in the day when most movie stars actually tried to be decent people who wouldn’t shock the old folks back home in Indiana—or in any other place in middle-America—where the traditional values of “Mom, apple pie, and the Fourth of July” were upheld. I especially admired Doris Day with her squeaky-clean, all-American, girl-next-door image. For those of you too young to remember her, as of 2009, Doris Day was the top-ranking female box office star of all time and ranked sixth among the top ten box office performers (male and female) of all time. Surprised? Impressed? Me too!

When things began to change in Hollywood, I was a teenager. The huge scandal with Eddie Fisher divorcing Debbie Reynolds to marry Elizabeth Taylor was a highly disturbing and deeply disappointing tragedy in my view. With all the anguish a thirteen-year-old can feel, I was angry with Eddie Fisher, I lost respect for Elizabeth Taylor, and I felt sorry for and empathized with Debbie Reynolds. I struggled to comprehend how any decent, self-respecting man could justify abandoning his wife and little daughter, even if it was to marry “the most beautiful woman in the world” (that’s what they called Liz Taylor). Carrie Fisher (“Princess Leia”) was age two when Eddie dumped her mother to marry Liz. Before the dust could settle on that disaster, Liz dumped Eddie for Richard Burton. It made your head spin. My movie star icons now seemed indelibly tarnished and unfathomably flawed.

Although my esteem of movie stars in general had been shaken, I continued watching movies in spite of the tarnished and flawed stars in them. When I graduated from high school and was gainfully employed, I saw nearly every movie that came to town in addition to watching the movies being broadcast on TV. As the years passed, I continued to love watching movies of many kinds. (I also continued to be disappointed in movie star lifestyles.)

One of the things I’ve loved about movies is that they create an alternate world that offers a brief escape and respite from the day-to-day reality and cares of this life. If the movie progresses and ends satisfactorily, it can even be therapeutic. Unfortunately, there is also a potential downside. Escapism may become an addiction. Too much time spent in the alternate movie world may render a person unable or unwilling to grapple successfully with the real world. Other “side effects” may occur as well. (I am sure you can supply your own lengthy list of “side effects.”)

I watch relatively few movies these days in contrast to my viewing habits as a younger person. The two major reasons for the change: (1) there are fewer movies that appeal to me, and (2) I have more important things to do.  I am working on articulating further reasons . . . .

Something along the lines of … “putting away childish things” … “not trying to keep one foot in Babylon and one foot in the Kingdom of God … “this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God” … .

I think you get the picture.

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Hollywood's Breach

The other evening, the Knight and I watched “Breach,” a 2007 movie which I had wanted to see for quite a long time. The movie is based on the true story of Robert Hanssen, an FBI agent, convicted of spying for the Soviet Union / Russia for more than two decades.

Alas, the movie lacked 3 key elements which the Knight especially enjoys in movies: lots of stuff blowing up, lots of car chases, and lots of people getting the tar kicked out of them. You know, gratuitous special effects violence. (LOL) Nevertheless, even with none of that, the two-hour production was nerve-wrackingly tense. We knew from the first few minutes of the movie what the outcome was going to be, but it was still tense.

My interpretation of the film was that it was an interesting study of pride and anger. Agent Hanssen was angry because he felt that his keen intelligence and brillant work were neither sufficiently recognized nor justly rewarded by the FBI. As a consequence, he sold out to the Russians for big bucks as his way of punishing the FBI for dissing him. Ultimately, his pride and anger became a self-destruct-mechanism—first, it slowly pulled him apart as he lived two different lives, and then it triggered his final traitorous act which resulted in his arrest and imprisonment. It was a sad, cautionary tale about pride and anger.

Hollywood, however, was not satisfied with a psychological portrait of Robert Hanssen the traitor along with a chronicle of the careful work done by the FBI to nail the guy. The screenplay writers and the director decided that they needed to spice up the story for the big screen by adding a few fictitious elements, namely, “sexual perversions” and religious hypocrisy or fanaticism (Catholic). And, Hollywood style, they also felt the need to make political commentary. Several major scenes were entirely fictional, as listed in Wikipedia:

• The real O'Neill knew going in that Hanssen was the subject of a counterintelligence investigation. There was no cover story about sexual perversions, and no dramatic meeting where O'Neill learned the truth.

• There was no extensive contact outside the office between O'Neill and Hanssen as portrayed in the film (the O'Neills visiting the Hanssens, the Hanssens dropping by O'Neill's apartment). However, Hanssen did take O'Neill to church.

• The scene where Hanssen takes O'Neill out into the woods and drunkenly fires his pistol is fictional.

• Unlike in the movie, O'Neill never saw Hanssen after the arrest.

In my opinion, all of the scenes depicting sexual and religious “deviancy” were distasteful and added nothing of value to the movie. On the contrary: these scenes detracted from the story and its presentation, and distorted the truth. These scenes could have been deleted and some more accurate parts added, along with some terrific acting, to result in a more powerful story. Truth need not be fictionalized to make it compelling. Resorting to cheap sensationalism and an appeal to anti-religion sentiments were unnecessary.

As the distasteful and repulsive scenes transpired, it was as if obnoxious commercials were interrupting the story. During those scenes I began thinking about the writers and the director, and the ax they were obviously grinding, as well as their cynical opinions of American movie-goers. They obviously did not want anyone to leave the theater with any feelings of respect for the FBI, since the movie included scenes that belittled the FBI, in general, and suggested that the FBI itself could be blamed for Hanssen’s actions. Hollywood apparently also believes that religiously-minded people are dangerous or mentally unstable—they definitely are not “normal.”

How Low Is Too Low?

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I am continually amazed at the low quality of so much of TV programming. It's not just so "mediocre" that it is an insult to one's intelligence-- although that would be sufficient reason to complain. Some of the new programs promised to begin next month look to be worse than the worst currently showing.

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"How low can you go?" used to be the challenge in doing the "limbo" (for those too young to know--the limbo is a "dance" from the West Indies where you "dance" under a stick that progressively gets lower and lower). Today, striving to get as low as possible seems to be Hollywood's most earnestly sought goal.

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How low is too low???

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