#302 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Friday March 18)
Good morning,
Some miscellanea…
Hardly a day goes by when someone writes about the death of the movie theatre. Most movies are now released by companies that weren’t created for the purpose of content creation. And most movies are released on TV concurrently with, or a short time after, their release in the movie theatres.
One day movie theatres may decline further and we may miss them. They are among the last communal experiences we have left. There is nothing quite like being in the dark, unable to “multi-task” and being forced to share the moment with other people in “real time.” They were already on the decline before COVID but now they seem yet another quaint reminder of how we used to live. Their ubiquity will be missed. That said, I don’t miss much the inherent aggravations of having to deal with the bad habits of other guests. You know, the talking, the eating, the rush to the rest room mid-movie and, worst of all, the bodily functions.
We live in an era where the conversation with friends often sadly morphs from “what are you reading now?” to “what are you watching now?” No longer do we have to wait for a film to come into town, nor regret that we didn’t move quickly enough and it is supplanted by the next blockbuster. Now it’s all available all the time and it is hardly an “experience” any more. Our primary entertainment venue has become our living room. It’s not hard to see that communal experience lost to hanging around the TV at home. But once, tit was different…
SEND THE BRAT DOWN
As hard as it is for young people these days to perceive that there was a time before streaming, it is really difficult for me to imagine the days before TV. But those days existed. The movies were everything—we talked about them at school and stood on line for the privilege of being among the first to see a new release.
My father was the youngest of three children. My father told me the story of when he was little more than a toddler living in a walk up tenement in New York. He worshiped his older brother, George, and always wanted to play with the “big boys.” One day when George was going to the movies with his friends, he didn’t want to take his baby brother. But he made the mistake of turning around to see my father, peering out of the open window, tears streaming down his face. As an early indicator of George’s fundamental kindness, he saw his baby brother and yelled up to their mother, “Okay, send the brat down.” My father regularly repeated this story, which helped shape his fond relationship with his brother.
MY EARLY MOVIE EXPERIENCES
Movies were a big part of my growing up—as it was for our kids. My father loved the movies and none more than Westerns (a passion that found its way through the genes). We had a quaint neighborhood movie theatre in Anaheim, located on Brookhurst Avenue, eponymously named “The Brookhurst Theatre.” When I say “neighborhood theatre,” I mean it. It backed up right against a residential neighborhood. Going to the theatre was a big deal. Nothing was as much fun as a Saturday double feature, which tended to have “kid friendly” movies. The kids piled in and it was pandemonium before the show began. But before the lights fully dimmed, a gray-haired man in suit and tie (I presume he was the owner) would get up in front of the screen and lecture the kids that he expected them to be on best behavior. For emphasis, he pointed out that he knew our parents and if we misbehaved “we’d hear about it.” In later years, the “Brookhurst Loge” was erected next door. It was the theatre that had the newly-minted “R-rated” fare. Needless to say, it was a big deal to be taken to the Brookhurst Loge by one’s parents. A rite of passage…
PRIVILEGE, RACE, AND THE “ZERO SUM GAME”
We are at a complicated juncture in our nation’s history. It is heartening that the realization of the inequities in our history are being recognized, talked about, and taught in schools. And opportunities are expanding to people for whom opportunities were not historically available. It is my hope that all of this does not “crowd out” from our conversation the very values, laws and institutions that have allowed us, despite these historic shames, to have achieved so much in this country. We are at a moment when Abraham Lincoln’s adage that we are a government “of the people, by the people and for the people” stands a chance of expanding to include previous groups of people who previously were not included as part of “the people.” And this is a good thing, finally validating the wisdom of the experiment in a free people managing their own destiny, as imagined by a bunch of white landowners.
One of the challenges of this moment is to be able to balance the obligations to correct past wrongs and elevate underserved communities, while not reducing the status and achievements of others. It will be a messy road ahead to atone for past wrongs, provide opportunities, and preserve some sense of meritocracy,
A few random thoughts:
I believe more than ever that our efforts should be to “make the pie bigger.” This means, among other things, that colleges, particularly elite institutions, should increase enrollment to allow for greater representation of underserved populations, while not reducing access of other populations. I think, for instance, that Asian-Americans have a legitimate complaint that they ought not be made to sacrifice in order to resolve past injustices to other minority groups.
It’s unreasonable to believe that all problems in this country are necessarily the result of white privilege or intentionally racist policy. Some of past discrimination is class-based, immigrant-based or just indifference. Some problems are not related to (or only tangentially related to) issues of race. Class, social status, level of education, even geography, contribute to the inequities in our system—and, importantly, all systems. This is not to say we shouldn’t address the racial inequities extant in our society—quite the contrary—but it is important to realize that not all problems, and not all of history, is defined by or explained by issues of race.
People need to stop deifying bad actors. Kyle Rittenhouse may have been found not guilty, but he was a bad actor. Jessie Smollet was a bad actor trying to capitalize upon claims of racism.
CHOOSING YOUR RACE
I read an interesting piece by Jonah Goldberg, wherein he made the following observation about choosing one’s race. You may recall the story of a woman who lived much of her life as a Black woman, though no part of her background suggests she was anything but white. While I still think Rachel Dolezal was wrong, it nonetheless is an interesting question, particularly given that race is a non-scientific construct anyway. Here’s what Goldberg has to say:
“Rachel Dolezal declared herself black because she wanted to enjoy black privilege. And, a bunch of actual black people said, ‘No friggin’ way.’ This was an informal sumptuary law at work. There’s all sorts of fascinating inconsistency wrapped up in all of this. Why is it verboten to identify as a race other than the one you were born with but glorious to identify as a sex you weren’t born with? I don’t have a great, never mind pithy, answer to that question. But it is interesting nonetheless.”
These are complex times.
Have a good day,
Glenn
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