Political life is a Cabaret, old chum

I think the main reason I like Cabaret (1972, Bob Fosse) so much is it's one of the few mainstream films that really seems to "get" fascism. Aside from that, of course, it's a fantastically choreographed film, with some inspired shooting; take, for instance, the scene in Max's blue room, where Max, from our perspective stealing Sally away with consumate ease, and Brian, seething with repressed emotion, are seperated only by an elaborate clock. Or the event of the old man's beating, interspersed with the entertainment being offered inside the Kit Kat Klub. Heavy handed as it may be, it forces us to confront whether enjoying escapism, however satiric, is ever justified in times of such political turmoil. The Nazis don't march into the film, they seep in, scene by scene, and by the time of the wonderful closing shot, we're almost wondering how it happened.

Which leads me back to my original point. In 1935 Walter Benjamin in his seminal essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction wrote: "Fascism leads logically to an aestheticization of political life." Off the top of my head I can think of no better representative scene than that in the beer garden. A young boy, beautiful, with blonde hair and blue eyes, leads a chorus of the uplifting lyrical song "Tomorrow Belongs To Me." The camera slowly allows us to discover his Nazi uniform, immediately distasteful to us with the benefit of hindsight but completely innocent within the context of the other singers. Only Brian, Max and an old man who has seen it all before refrain from partaking.

"NOOOO! Don't tarnish us with politics, too! Please!!"

I can't help but think that old man should be unnecessary today in our culture of immediate information access. But really, all one has to do is take a piece of right-wing literature and to replace "Muslim" with "Jew" and "terrorist" with "banker/communist" and you're well on your way to being back in the late Weimar Republic. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

Indeed, the word "terrorist" has undergone an interesting etymological change in recent years (it would be fairly clumsy to say since 9/11). Whereas it once meant, more or less, the process of intimidating a population or government by attacking non-combatants, it has now become almost exclusively a term for guerrilla warfare undertaken by Muslims. I have too often heard the term "Islamists" on television to attribute it to a mere Freudian slip for those who mean "Islamofascists;" it has now become an acceptable synonym in some sections of the media for Middle Eastern terrorists/insurgents. Among (I think it was) Wafa Sultan's claims were that Muslim/Christian violence and Muslim/Buddhist violence are both one-way streets, with the Muslims being the aggressors. This kind of wilful ignorance, that seems to have no knowledge of the Muslims who are beheaded in Indonesia or mutilated by the Lord's Resistance Army or who go missing every year whilst "in custody" in Burma, seems pervasive. I suppose all those Muslims in Srebrenica shot themselves to make the Christians look bad, too.

"Praise Jesus," said Ochola John, after being treated so nicely by the Christians.

Perhaps I am simply attacking easy targets. But it took what would in any other circumstances be called a war crime for many people to stop sympathising purely with Israel in the recent Gaza fighting. Even Gordon Brown called the deployment of white phosphorus on a UN humanitarian aid centre to be "indefensible." In my ongoing quest to be outraged, I am eager to read the response from Fox News. But whatever the swing in opinion, I doubt anything will be done. The aestheticization of politics was once done by uplifting music and patriotic propaganda, now it actively feeds stupidity with slogans and pervades the language like the virus once attempted by William S. Burroughs. According to Benjamin, the response from the left will be to politicise art. Expect my first book to be filled with subtexual vitriol.

My Anti-Drug

Sometimes you don't know how bad you felt until you have an eggy in the basket the next morning.

I've been doing an experiment involving cheese and bad dreams, and it's working. The fact I know about the experiment is probably throwing off the accuracy somewhat, and some would question why I'd want to have a bad dream, but to hell with it. Every dreamless sleep is, in my opinion, a missed opportunity. I'm at a stage where I'm using Red Leicester to trip and egg in a basket to come down again, and if that doesn't make me the envy of Englishmen everywhere, then nothing will.

Halfway through my breakfast I was reminded of V For Vendetta. I've recently re-read it, having had all happy memories bludgeoned out of me by the film version. And it's actually as good as it ever was. I'm not going to wax lyrical on how Alan Moore is the Thomas Pynchon of comic books, but, as everyone and his dog knows by now, he's a beast and a half.

Perhaps, though, I was a bit mean to the film the first time around. It did have Stephen Fry. It did have John Hurt. It did have Stephen Rea, if I remember correctly. It did have a man in a Guy Fawkes mask doing in a party of fascists. It did influence Anonymous. And it did piss off religious groups and homophobes.

Here's a runthrough of what I said about it the first time:

"The Wachowskis sink their fat jaws into the neck of Alan Moore's story and suck all the interest out of it, leaving a corpse of a film for McTeigue to put a mask and a silly wig on. If you're sad enough to have read the graphic novel then my complaints become clear.
Originally the story was a commentary on Thatcherism. Very British, very meaningful, very poetic even in its politics. It was about anarchism vs fascism, two awful ideals battling over Britain's future and leaving the reader unsure who to root for. The film is intended as a criticism on W. Bush's less libertarian policies such as the Patriot Act. It's about a freedom fighter vs the Nazis: totally uninteresting. Even when V resorts to more extreme methods (putting Evey in jail) he comes across as no more psychotic as a parent playing a prank on a child.
It's truly a testament to the mollycoddled, easily-offended sensibilities of the Baby Boomer generation that such a watered-down, unimportant film like this created such an uproar in certain circles. Portman's acting is dreadful, and while "cool" action sequences have their place, you can't approach subject matter intended to be taken seriously with such a cartoonish feel. It's not quite as dreadful as the other adaptations of Moore's work, but that's not saying a lot."

Hmm...nah, actually, I can stick by that. The book has a power undeniable to anyone who is English and, with the sinking feeling of one slipping into a nightmare, doesn't dare switch off the news; whereas the film was basically an American liberal wetdream represented by a cartoon. This outright rejection probably has something to do with my being a philosophical anarchist as well, I suppose. Though, I think even if I wasn't I would have thought the film was a pile.

But then... Stephen Fry. Making eggy in a basket.

I'll give it another watch just for that.