"He Loved Big Brother"
Feb. 25th, 2005 10:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloIn Peter Mullan's terrific movie about institutionalised abuse, The Magdalene Sisters, an archbishop treats the imprisoned girls to a Christmas showing of The Bells of St Mary's and the sadistic, power-mad sister in charge stands up and gives a cooing and ingratiating little speech about how she used to go to the movies with her father and how she liked the westerns best.
And the realisation dawns that not only does this terrible woman believe that God is on her side, she also, God help us, believes that she's cute.
Monsters never think of themselves as monstrous. Stalin loved drinking games. Hitler was fond of children and dogs. Mao went among his people with a great big silly grin on his face.
I won't (because I'm a bit of a fraidy cat) mention the names of any grinners, smirkers and jokers who are still alive and in power.
Sister makes her twee little jokes and the girls laugh at them.
The self-delusion of the ruler is perfectly matched to the self-abasement of the ruled.
And the realisation dawns that not only does this terrible woman believe that God is on her side, she also, God help us, believes that she's cute.
Monsters never think of themselves as monstrous. Stalin loved drinking games. Hitler was fond of children and dogs. Mao went among his people with a great big silly grin on his face.
I won't (because I'm a bit of a fraidy cat) mention the names of any grinners, smirkers and jokers who are still alive and in power.
Sister makes her twee little jokes and the girls laugh at them.
The self-delusion of the ruler is perfectly matched to the self-abasement of the ruled.
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no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 03:38 am (UTC)Yes. There are a lot of nasty links between kitsch, sentiment, fascism and death. This is why I sa that irony is our only hope, even though that's about the least ironic statement I can muster.
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Date: 2005-02-25 09:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 03:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 05:24 am (UTC)My instinct here is to leap to Tolkien's defense. And in fact I will. The evil we know may have that sickly-sweet charm, but its effect is certainly big and black and brazen. Or to put it another way...
Taken individually, Tolkien's orcs were kind of goofy in a malignant way. Taken en masse, they're lethal.
And fear, real heart-stopping fear, is big and black and looming like a ringwraith in full sail. At least it is for me.
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Date: 2005-02-25 06:30 am (UTC)But it would have been interesting (more interesting?) if Mordor had been given the kind of seductive glamour that the Third Reich had.
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Date: 2005-02-25 06:45 am (UTC)(Does we love our lovely LOTR, Precioussssss? Oh, yes we does)
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Date: 2005-02-25 07:01 am (UTC)When I was at school I had an enlightened English teacher who read us LOTR in weekly instalments (during the two final periods of a Friday afternoon.) This was in 1959-60, long before Tolkien became a cult.
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Date: 2005-02-25 08:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 08:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 07:04 am (UTC)but... doesn't it, in some ways? LOTR can be sort of read as an allegory about WWII. saruman is certainly seduced by the power of mordor. maybe the "seductive glamor" would have been a little more evident if the army had been a human army and not an orc army-- although there were humans fighting on mordor's side- the pirates and the people from the south...
or perhaps, the ring portrays evil is more the way you're talking about. it tempts pretty much everyone with thoughts of the good they could do by wielding it- i'm thinking of boromir, galadriel, and gandalf, in particular- but it's really the ultimate artifact of sauron's evil.
just thinking out loud.
also, did you know that stalin tried to assassinate john wayne? i may have posted about this before.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 07:18 am (UTC)Jackson had a huge replica ring made so that he could stick it in the foreground of a shot and it would dwarf the actors behind.
I seem to remember hearing that about Stalin and Wayne- quite possibly from you. Do we know why Stalin ordered the hit?
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Date: 2005-02-25 02:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 08:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 08:55 am (UTC)The last fantasy series I read was Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. That really had me hooked.
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Date: 2005-02-25 09:15 am (UTC)I understand what you mean about Tolkien. Saruman had a bit of the seductive thing going, but not enough self-deception, you know? If you know the Harry Potter books, I'd like to point to the fact that Delores Umbridge, self-important bureaucrat, is much more scary and dangerous than Voldemort, self-styled Dark Lord, bwahahaha.
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Date: 2005-02-25 09:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 09:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 10:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 02:46 pm (UTC)i would have liked to have seen the scouring of the shire as well, it's one of my favorite parts.
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Date: 2005-02-25 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 04:02 am (UTC)It also shows how flimsy the power of the tyrant is. How much it depends on assent and collusion.
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Date: 2005-02-25 05:48 am (UTC)I'm going to strive for this in my work, but I'm not sure I'm going to succeed.
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Date: 2005-02-25 06:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 07:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 07:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 06:48 am (UTC)hi. i come to you via
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Date: 2005-02-25 06:55 am (UTC)And I'm adding you back.
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Date: 2005-02-25 11:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 02:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 03:02 pm (UTC)No-one is all bad, just as no-one is all good.
I wouldn't have liked to have taught Stalin's kids. Would one have dared give them anything but top marks?
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Date: 2005-02-25 03:17 pm (UTC)That was the message.
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Date: 2005-02-25 04:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-26 07:40 am (UTC)Kate and talked yesterday about how one always knows the truth about oneself, even while one is blustering and pretending on the outside.
But that isn't entirely true--there comes a point, for some people, when the outer person can be just a human-looking shell, while something entirely other lives within.
In Franz Werfel's wonderful book The Song of Bernadette, a novel about the life of Bernadette of Lourdes, she is being interrogated by a bishop, and he asks her: "What is sin?"
She answers: "The love of evil."
It's an interesting answer.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-26 09:50 am (UTC)The sister in the film believed that she was a good person who was punishing sinners and leading them into the paths of righteousness.
She would happily have agreed with Bernadette.
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Date: 2005-02-26 01:46 pm (UTC)a war between Heaven and Hell, with God as a disinterested scorekeeper.
There are strict rules, and one is that if you commit suicide, you go to Hell, period. The movie's Hell that looks like Dore's illustrations of the Inferno.
Evil and Good aren't mentioned, really. Just rules--Christian rules.
--
As for the nun in the movie, you are correct; and I have read that the Nazis listened to music to calm them while they were doing their "difficult work." They may have even felt--yes, I suppose they did feel--that they were eradicating evil.
--
Having just returned home from the movie Constantine, in which a psychic man battles demons and watches the battle on earth between Heaven and Hell, I am feeling woefully unable to articulate anything coherent about the nature of evil.
(The bleakest part of the movie was the concept of God as disinterested scorekeeper. Evil and good aren't as relevant, or as black-and-white, as the list of rules--Christian rules. For example: if you commit suicide, you're off to Dante and Dore's Inferno Hell. Period.
Of course, there are loopholes, as we know. But suicide doesn't seem to have any.)
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Date: 2005-02-26 01:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-26 01:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-26 02:03 pm (UTC)I love that film!