Middle of The Road (Civil War, TLOU, Poor Things)
And why the centrist didn't cross it.
If I watched Alex Garland’s Civil War 10 years ago, I would have loved it and I wouldn’t have been able to explain why. Maybe I’d wax poetic about Rob Hardy’s cinematography or revel in the intensity of certain scenes. I’d likely say something along these lines:
"The way the film mixes media, incorporating its core subject—photography — is stunningly realized. Several key moments are captured in still frames, acting as thematic tableaus and allowing the viewer to distance themselves from the events occurring on screen in a manner similar to the fictional journalists the film depicts. Garland’s interest in this moral gray area is clear, but he respects the audience enough to let them make their own conclusions."
It would be right up my alley! Growing up on repeated viewings of playthroughs of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, falling in love with The Coen Brothers’ bleak western No Country For Old Men, feverishly playing through every Call Of Duty campaign (mediated of course by Spec Ops: The Line). Never thinking too hard about these properties I guzzled down, their contradictions with my developing worldview wasn’t a problem.
Partially because these media intentionally leave no taste in the mouth, no discernable message or prescriptive view on their subject matter. Only that these things happened and they were intense. Morally “good” characters are put into positions where horrific violence becomes their only option. Of course we had to torture the political prisoner, he was going to blow up the whole city! (See Jacob Geller’s video on Call of Duty torture scenes)
Often post-apocalyptic in some sense, the world is in disarray — social contracts in flux and the very organization of society up for grabs, usually just requiring a sad dad to murder 30 dudes with his bare hands. We enter these worlds with no answers and are left to passively watch events unfold. Trolley problems on exponential scales and every shade of the moral gray on display. Acts that exist in a vacuum, intentionally out of the context of real or fictional history, never letting us truly engage with them in a meaningful way beyond: “Hmm, maybe I could cave someone’s head in if they tried to kill my daughter.”
The real world doesn’t work like this. To reference the vice president, we did not in fact fall out of a coconut tree; all the events that occur on this planet exist within the endless pages of history and should therefore be judged within that context. This makes what occurs between business as usual and apocalypse equally (if not more important) than what happens after. How the hell did Joel (TLOU) go from single dad to one man army? Questions like these are never answered with anything more than “you don’t want to know…”
It’s just the way it is. Accept it or die.
This core philosophy is at the core of the centrism pervasive in our society and subsequently the media we produce. Look to electoralism where we’re told we must accept a lesser evil, rather than no evil at all. What’s packaged as ambiguity is really quite black and white: this is the only way forward. If our protagonists don’t do these horrible things, someone else will, or even more horrible fates will befall them. Similarly, if we don't vote for war criminal #2, fascist #4 is finally going to spell the end of this empire!
A false axiom that’s present in all of the properties I mentioned above. Why then did I continue to suck down all this slop when it was directly at odds with my belief system (and taste)? The answer I've come to over the past few years is that the more ‘ambiguous’ these media get — by burying vacuous ledes with flashy cinematic technique and hints at thematic depth, the harder it becomes to discern the the shit from the shit. Stunning you with flawlessly composed shots, thrilling action and emotional intrigue, surely all signs of something great.
But that lede that they work so hard to bury doesn’t exist. Spend all the time you want digging it up, you’ll still only be left with a loose threads, which any idiot can walk away with and tie to whatever they want (having found an intentional thematic connection). Endless hours spent by film bros dissecting the totally real and intentional nuances of Nolan movies without coming to any real conclusions. Why’s that such a bad thing? Do we really need to be force-fed rhetoric through everything we consume?
First of all, there's plenty of examples of thematically and ideologically rich media which don't come across as preachy. More importantly, the phrase I wish I never had to hear again — apolitical — is totally meaningless. Everything anyone's ever said or done in the history of our species has been political. This notion that avoiding making radical claims and riding the fence is somehow above politics is laughable. Not saying anything at all, or worse yet, provoking intense subjects and issues only to bail before the finish line, is one of the most political statements of all.
Take the misguided allegory at the core of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part 2: the Israel-Palestine conflict. Haphazardly malformed and disfigured into a domestic war between religious zealots and a pragmatic militia, the game tries its best to whitewash Neil Druckmann’s (an Israeli) real opinions on the subject (and fails). There is no semblance of symmetry or back and forth in the genocide Israel is committing against the Palestinian people. Neil Druckmann comes away from the subject with the message “Violence Bad” without considering or respecting the historical context in which that very violence exists within. In the world of The Last of Us, a fungal infection devastates the world and opposing factions form to try to rebuild society. In real life, fascist zionists decided that Palestinians have no right to exist. Adding to the dread, the game tries its best posture progressively by featuring queer characters and relationships on screen, completely at odds with its core messaging. It's clear to see just how much an apolitical game like The Last of Us Part 2 has to say.
Even when creators are better at disguising their metaphors and real beliefs, someone will come along and fit their own fucked up peg of a perspective into a property’s amorphous hole. Online dirtbag “leftists” like Adam Friedland podcast to audiences far and wide, cracking holocaust jokes, exchanging misogynist stories, you name it they've done it. Whether they have genuinely progressive worldviews or not, a huge portion of their fan base aligns differently. Reading any comment section on posts from figures like this results in endless examples of mask-off fascists laughing along with the boys. Finally someone who's not scared to say it! Influencers claim to have no control over their audiences as if they haven't cultivated them for their entire careers. If you often find yourself in the same room as Nazis, you might just be one of them. Edgy irony with your friends whose opinions you're familiar with is one thing, but projecting that irony out into the ether of the internet is a surefire way to find people who resonate a little too hard.
Starship Troopers is an interesting case of an ironic adaptation of explicitly fascist source material. The original Robert A. Heinlein novel glorifies a fascist military state. Paul Verhoeven’s film, on the other hand, tries to take that concept overboard to the point of satire, exposing the insanity of the book’s ideology. It doesn't stick the landing as far as I'm concerned. Spending most of its runtime shoveling battlefield action down the audience’s throat, it's not hard to see how many freaks gobbled up the film as war porn — just like the novel — gleefully cheering on the murder. The overtly propagandic tone of the film is never subverted and holds strong even to the end with a big capital A American emotional payoff, leaving little room for introspection. Sure, someone who knows what the film is going for is going to have no problem identifying the satire, but examining the fanbase tells a different story.
Yorgos Lanthimos’ filmography fits into the niche nicely, often being nihilistic renderings of society and relationships without the finesse necessary to keep from tripping over themselves. Reminding me of Ruben Östlund’s equally infuriating Triangle of Sadness, Poor Things is an exercise of conscientious objection to engaging with the issues its director, Lanthimos, pretends to be so interested in. Rich European white dads who used Marx to get pity sex in college flailing in a frenzy over how Freaking Messed Up capitalism is only to conclude that the human condition is to suffer. It was hard not to laugh out loud when Emma Stone’s character in Poor Things went on a journey of self discovery and radicalization only to decide to carry the bourgeois torch of her weird dad. Little on the nose, big guy. In the stupid boat movie, the premise is promising, with the cruise ship acting as a hyperbole of our culture’s treatment of immigrants as second-class citizens of servitude, before immediately devolving into vomit humor and a juvenile retread of (the awful) Lord of the Flies. Ruben Östlund promises he knows how much it sucks to be a lower-class person of color, but still thinks they would turn one of his pretty little twinks into a sex slave at the first opportunity. Please don’t do yourself the disservice of watching his other films, which somehow manage to be less funny and more offensive.
Getting back on track from that little tirade, I want to make something clear: I’m not condemning all metaphor or interpretive media that depict harsh subject matter. My issue is with those who use these techniques to obscure their own lack of understanding or to maliciously whitewash opinions they’re too scared to say outright. They should be used to enhance the discussion of nuanced issues through adept usage of literary devices, making the process of deciphering the creator’s message more rewarding and more importantly helping it stick with the audience long after consumption.
Twin Peaks (and much of David Lynch’s other work) balances respectful and well thought-out depictions of intensely daunting subjects with Lynch’s signature visual style and cinematic intricacies. Using genres and formats the viewer is likely familiar with (soap opera, serialization) the show disarms its audience before revealing the rotten underbelly of its quaint pacific northwestern town. One that the audience is also likely familiar with, forcing them to engage with the topics in novel ways. It’s very possible to do this right which makes how wrong we seem to get it now so frustrating.
A big turning point for me with these media was reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. I was so excited to finally read the inspiration and practically source material for one of my favorite games The Last of Us! Having all of the pretty set dressing and engaging gameplay stripped away, the true nature of the genre revealed itself to me. Hollow nihilistic excuses for conservatism (if not fascism) created by men who feel threatened by their (thankfully) unvalidated masculinity, inventing situations in which enhanced extensions of themselves get to exercise patriarchal fantasies of violence. At least McCarthy wasn’t too scared to hide it.
The general praise and approval of ‘apolitical’ media is frightening to me. I’m never sure if fans of the stuff lack the literacy to understand the centrist garbage getting beamed into their brains or if that’s exactly why they seek it out. Maybe the warm embrace of reactionary validation is just too easy of a pill to swallow. If you’re going to take anything away from this I hope its this:
Pay attention in English class and argue with film bros.
It’s been a long while since my last post, haven’t felt confident in writing lately, sorry! Back on my annoying criticism shit so additional apologies if you wanted more depressive ramblings.