Money And Nihilism

It's okay to like a movie, even when it's objectively bad. Sometimes a movie is so bad that it becomes a comedy, even if the intention was to deliver a horror movie or a crime drama. And it's okay to like bad movies, as long as you know they are bad, or at least don't try to convince yourself or others that the movie was good, just because you enjoyed watching it.

_{Image by @markheybo - source:}

Unfortunately it's becoming quite a risky business to try and review a movie or tv series in an objective manner. It's even denied that something called "objectivity" is possible nowadays, due to the dominant nihilistic idea that that "values" are purely subjective, and ultimately meaningless. When a reviewer concludes, based on well defined metrics, that a movie is bad, the nihilism that defines our times soon comes to the surface with comments that boil down to things like: "the film was bad for YOU maybe, but for ME it was great" or "YOU interpret that scene as X, but I interpret it to mean Y," and therefore all criticisms are invalid. Nothing real exists, its'all in your head and in my head, there is no truth but your truth for you and my truth for me.

A movie is a production of many people in different functions performing different tasks. We have scales for each of these tasks; we can separate good actors from bad actors, good directors from bad directors and so on. What does "meritocracy" mean if it were not for the existence of these scales? Is there no difference between a real actor like Daniel Day Lewis (go see "There will be blood" if you haven't yet) and someone who "phones in" their performance? Same goes for writing credits; a good story consists of certain structural elements that have crystallized through many centuries of story-telling, like a coherent plot, setup and reward, internal and external consistency, character arc's and so on. Film is just another storytelling art that communicates the story through language, visuals and sound, the latter two mainly used to enhance the emotional response in the audience. Psycho and Jaws wouldn't be half as scary without their famous tension building music. Visual storytelling is an art that results in an immersive experience that only this art-form can produce. Hitchcock was a master in using the "negative space" of the visuals; he understood that sometimes things get scarier when you DON'T show what happens, and only hint at a horrible event through sounds, because then you leave it to the imagination of the viewer, and we can imagine quite a lot. Ever seen American History X? Remember that scene when Edward Norton commands that African American boy to "put your mouth on the sidewalk"...? The sound of cracking bones was enough for one of the most horrible scenes I've ever seen, more horrible than any of the Saw movies ever managed...

Point is that there are objective metrics we can use to judge if a particular movie is good, reasonable or bad. When I first saw The Force Awakens I enjoyed it very much; J.J. Abrams did a great job re-capturing the look and feel of the original Star Wars movies. And that's exactly what made me enjoy this bad film, and boy was it a bad film. Not the complete disaster that was the next one, The Last Jedi, but a bad movie nonetheless. For Disney, Star Wars is an investment that needs to make them money, as they payed 4 billion dollar to George Lucas for the IP rights. So when the fans start complaining online and point to the obvious plot holes, weak character arcs, the contradicting of things that happened before and the character assassination of Luke and Lea Skywalker, the mainstream media reacts by saying they are afraid of change and especially afraid of strong female characters... None of that is true; it's that this strong female lead contradicts everything we've come to know about being a Jedi during the 40 plus years of the franchise's existence. Like, becoming a Jedi requires TRAINING, years and years of hard physical and mental training. When Luke refused to complete his training and went to face Darth Vader, he LOST miserably and he lost a hand... Rey on the other hand can do the Jedi mind trick out of nowhere, only 15 minutes after a scene in which she thought the Jedi were a myth... That's what we call a Mary Sue, but it's asking for online harassment to say such un-woke things...

Making a movie, telling a story is much like anything else we produce in life; when it comes from the heart, from a genuine love for the subject, product or art, there's a good chance something good will come from it. Unfortunately we have come to a point in our history where we do things, produce things to make money; not the love for or interest in something, but the prospect of making money has become our main motivator in life. Really, if I ask young folk what they want to do with their life, what they want to "become," 9 out of 10 times the answer is "don't care, as long as it makes money." And preferably quick, so there's time left to enjoy it. That's the mentality with which the new Star Wars films were made, and nothing good came out of it. Money should be something like happiness; not something to strive for, but a side product of fulfilling your true self, finding your passion and nurturing your talents. And if your passion results in something that a whole lot of us like too, well, good for you, you've "made it" in the way we're told our economy is supposed to work; you've done the world good by being yourself. That's the fairy-tale.

_{Zizek v. Zizek - On Victimization, Nihilism and the Underclass}

But that's not how the system works; not by "being yourself" or "finding your true passion and talents" will you make it (unless you're incredibly lucky), but by being selfish, by doing that which will maximize your chances to maximize your personal wealth. Becoming a whole person is not why we go to school; we prepare ourself for a function in society that will generate income. Most kids that want to go to an art school or something like ballet class, are told something like: "that's not going to pay your bills dear, best you do a REAL study first..." So much of our social fabric is defined by our relation to material wealth and the money needed to get it. We do this by playing by the rules of capitalism, which are fairly simple; by satisfying your own material self-interest we do what's best for the larger society. We all have, I believe, an inner urge to become "whole," to find our true purpose in life, as we all yearn for our lifes to have meaning. Capitalism's singular focus on the accumulation of personal wealth, combined with this inner search for our true identity, has resulted in a state of mind in which we literally identify with the stuff we buy. You are what you can afford to have; "brand loyalty" is one effect of this mechanism, the muggings among school kids to steal each other's Nikes is another. Commercials don't talk about a product's features, but tell you why YOU deserve this product, why "you're worth it." And we indeed attach much of our personal "worth" to the status-symbols we can afford to wear, drive or use.

I'm sure that getting a pair of the latest Nike sneakers will bring a short shot of endorphin, a fleeting moment of satisfaction. But I doubt you'll tell your grandchildren about that momentous event when you left the store with your new sneakers. Instead, you'll tell them about the great times you had with your best friends, your parents, your friends in school, your husband or wife; think back on your life and I believe you'll soon realize that the happiest moments had nothing to do with what you have, but who you love, who you share the joy of experience with, with who you share good and bad times. Or at least I hope that's still true... You're not defined by what you have, instead you recognize who you are through the eyes of those who you share your personal space with. Shared experience is one way to find happiness, dedicating yourself to something you know to be true to yourself is another; these are the ways to find your meaning in your life, to make you feel that you have purpose. The happiest moments of my life are given to me by some of the poorest people I know, in a material sense poor. But boy are they rich in warmth and willingness to share everything they have; I've long wondered about this strange phenomenon that poor people are always willing to share and rich people cry when their taxes get raised by a couple of dollars. I wonder no more; people who share, don't play by the rules of the game, so they never had a chance to "win" in the first place... And the painful thing is that they get to be scolded for being poor, for being a burden to society, for not being productive and so on.

There are so many instances where we put aside our emotions or go against our real interests and passions for the benefit of satisfying our amplified material "needs" first. Individualism is as rampant as materialism, for a large part as a result of the part we're supposed to play in the capitalist economy; the rational, self interested accumulator of personal wealth. Becoming individual "happiness machines" has separated us from the society that produced us, resulting in a largely atomized society in which the individual is the arbiter of all truth, much to the demise of the shared truths we once derived meaning from. There are no good or bad films. If a film makes a lot of money it must be a good film. If I make a lot of money I must be doing something good, even if it has bad consequences for a lot of other people. I don't let emotions or moral considerations come between me and a lucrative opportunity which makes me a lot of money, so I'm smart... Okay, that's enough for today. You can enjoy bad movies, nothing wrong if you really enjoyed and liked The Last Jedi. But don't try to defend it as a good movie; it's a nihilistic piece of nothingness without good or evil, a well defined hero or antagonist, a meaningful plot that leads somewhere or characters that have learned, lost or gained something at the end of their non-existent arcs. It focused on the glimmer and glitter at the surface, great effects and sounds that stir up emotions, but emotions based on nothing else, nothing substantial that's story- or character related. It suffers from the nihilism that comes with the singular focus on making money and pushing a political agenda, instead of focusing on telling a good story.

I believe that the purely individualistic nature of our economy has produced a society in which many people struggle to find any meaning in life. Instead they're told in a thousand ways that their success in life, or even their very own identity and sense of self-worth are dependent on their ability to satisfy their own selfish needs, dependent in other words on their ability to consume. Being told that it's more important to be a good consumer than to be a good, informed and responsible citizen, more important to be continuously entertained than to be curious about life, the economy or politics... If the answer to all questions in life becomes "money" or "me," is it any wonder that nihilism spreads like wildfire?

Excuse the elongated freestyle rant my friends; I hope you can forgive my laziness, as today I really didn't feel like providing links to all films and other stuff discussed... I promise I'll do better next time :-)

_{Dr. Cornel West: "There can be no democracy when nihilism rules"}

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