Agitprop

It isn't what we say or think that defines us
but what we do, 
--Sense and Sensibility,  
 Jane Austin 
______________________

Since the recent movie theater shooting occurred at a what was to have been a showing of  the film "Lone Survivor", we will address the event in two ways: today, the film as a misbegotten film effort to apotheosize a failed mission, and next, as the sort of media which serves as an irritant to a society whose attention is already stretched thin.

Marcus Luttrell's "Lone Survivor" turned a failed mission (Operation Redwings, 2005) into a celebratory media momento mori. But the the deaths of the 20 fine United States Special Operations Soldiers served no military function, therefore the fight served nothing of value to the outcome of the war. The operation was actuality a dereliction of leadership and a morally bankrupt interpretation of soldiering values. When myth, entertainment and propaganda steal the truth from an event, we are delusional.

Ranger asks -- in opposition to the "Code of Conduct" and the creeds of an imagined warrior caste in the U.S. military-- "What if the SEALs of Lt. Murphy's team had surrendered?" There is precedent for this sort of action (an entire U.S. field Army surrendered at Corregidor and Bataan.) When there is no military purpose served, then why fight to the death? Surely Murphy's team knew they were dead when the hostiles gained contact.

In previous RAW commentary on Redwings, we have written that the Murphy team should not have launched this mission. However, once engaged and the the odds were clear, surrender was an option, even if a risky one; "slim" is better than "none". 

The reasons for not surrendering are to prevent routs, penetrations and all those things that were not present at this fight. No other American units would have been endangered if the Murphy team had surrendered. So what were they fighting for? This must be determined before sending Soldiers into harm's way.

"Lone Survivor" is posed to become a hit, in the same way as did the the Navy's Disneyfied film, Act of Valor; as did the propaganda film "Hurt Locker", by our own Leni Riefenstahl (dir. Bigelow.) Symbol and reality are separate, and when the story is better than the reality, we will always go with the tall tale. 

But soldiering is an act of logic and cold calculations that should not be mixed with romantic warrior ethics of fighting to the death. Our Soldiers are not Ninja, Samurai or Kamikaze, yet they are depicted as such. 

In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, we prefer the comfortable and reliable bland to the real, and we have become complicit in broadcasting the simulacrum through our media. In our Age of Spectacle, we will always prefer the performance to the actuality.   

We could not win the war, but we could take a trivial, tragic defeat and transmogrify it into a heroic, death-defying battle. Defeat then becomes a mythic victory when the man who could be the truth-teller becomes complicit in his own dream.

This is alchemy, and it can only occur in a setting of willing blindness.

The Last Picture Show

Garbage. All I've been thinking about
all week is garbage.
I mean, I just can't stop thinking about it. 
--Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989)

 There's a dark and a troubled side of life
There's a bright, there's a sunny side, too 
--Keep on the Sunny Side, The Whites

you’ve got to ask yourself one question:
"Do I feel lucky?"
Well, do ya, punk? 
--Dirty Harry (1971)
_____________________ 

The liberal New York press had a heyday deriding Florida's most recent unnecessary shooting at a theater in Wesley Chapel, a town with a name that sounds like a sanctuary. How soon they forget their own subway vigilante, Berrnard Goetz (found guilty after shooting four black teens for attempting to mug him, was found guilty of only one charge -- carrying an unlicensed firearm.)

The latest absurd shooting was committed by a retired police captain against a fellow moviegoer who did not cease from texting upon his request that he do so. There are so many aspects to this tragic event which could have headed it off at the pass.

The film was "The Lone Survivor", about a violent engagement that took place in Afghanistan in 2005 (Operation Red Wings.) What is the audience for such a film? Not that films are going to become gentle morality tales anytime soon, but perhaps violence breeds violence?

Despite Luttrell's denial, movies like "The Lone Survivor" apotheosize the fighter and romanticize the fight. Survivor Luttrell was telling a tale of standing one's ground, even when that ground is not exactly one's own.

It can be confusing to differentiate the good kind of standing one's ground from the bad (unnecessary) kind. The book/film depicts an ultimately failed attempt to stand one's ground, and a thoughtful viewer might wonder if surrender might be a better choice than fighting when one is outgunned and out-manned. But surrenders don't make glamorous movies, do they.

Films like this entrench the "Us-versus-Them" mentality. Hence, the guy texting and throwing popcorn is operating outside of the rules, and a larger threat is required to subdue him. So effectively has our society conflated the Unreal Reality Show mindset with real life that many may find it hard to differentiate the rules which bind us a participant in a society versus being a participant in a "reality" construct of it, as in film or video games. We now accept violence as a viable reaction to any irritating situation.

Further, what is the wisdom behind allowing older retired cops to carry a firearm, carte blanche? Retired police should have to pass the same licensure as any other citizen. The 71-year-old retired police captain who fired the shot showed he was not in control of his emotions.

As in Terror incidents, the shooter threw off indicators of his instability weeks earlier when he went off on another texter in the same theater. Why didn't the theater management alert the local police of the initial incident, and why was the perpetrator not identified on his next trip to the theater? There should be an armed guard in movie houses, as there is a sky marshal on air flights. In addition, ushers should patrol the aisles (as in the past), to report any nascent or evolving incidents.

These, and more, are questions we must ask as society before the next movie shootout in the aisles.

We will address related issues next. The retired police Captain was not Adam Lanza, nor was his victim, an Afghan veteran. Our society has a problem, and the shootings are evidence of that.

Forgetting the coldness in the statement, but the number of casualties resulting from movie theater killings pales in comparison to say, annual deaths by auto accident or medical mistakes, but still: One goes to the theater as respite and refuge. It should NOT be a threat environment.

So what gives?

--Jim and Lisa