Re: Matriz reloaded

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There is nothing wrong with seeing a movie and having political thoughts
stimulated by it anymore than walking down a sidewalk and seeing
political implications in street scenes. But if you want those thoughts
to add up to soemthing, you need to look at life, not movies. Life is
good and should be enjoyed while one can, young or old.  Some are born
old in spirit and others die with a young heart at old age.  This youth
thing is part of the America culture and in reality there is nothing
particularly attractive about youth.  Youth can be excused for not
having the time or the discipline, or even the curiosity to be informed,
but youth cannot be excused for strong opinions based on ignorance.
Many of the Chinese revolutionaries were in their teens when they joined
the revolution. Zhou En-lai was 24 when he participated in the founding
of the Chinese Communist Party and Mao was 27.

Nancy Mitford's best-loved novels are The Pursuit of Love (1945) and
Love in a Cold Climate (1949). She also wrote biogrophies: Madame de
Pompadour (1953), Voltaire in Love (1957) and Frederick the Great
(1970). She was also the editor of Nobless Oblige (1956), a collection
of essays that revealed the behavioural secrets of the British upper
class. The book coined the speech classification 'U' (upperclass) and
'non-U'. She also wrote the Sun King, a biography of Louis XIV in 1994.

Many working class youths are much more serious and intelelctual than
middle or upper class youths in rich neighborhoods. Movies are
entertaining, at least some of them, and enetertainment is good. But
entertainment is just entertainment.  For politics, you need reality,
not entertainment.

Henry C.K. Liu

Xenon Zi-Neng Yuan wrote:
> At 10:22 AM 5/14/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>
> > Reds strikes me as similar to Doctor Zhivago, with heavy doses of
> > personal sentimentality using revolution as a backdrop.  It has as
> > much to do with the October Revolution as Gone with the Wind has with
> > the Civil War, or Cecil B. DeMille films has to do with the Bible or
> > the Roman Empire, or Lawrence of Arabia has to to do with Arabism.
> > Reds portraits the communist movement the way some hollywood films
> > portrait the Nazi regime, exotic mixed with eventual disillusionment.
> > The only reason Reds appears sympathetic is because the pop culture
> > has become so used to demonic caricature of communism and the USSR,
> > that a mild form of condamnation appears courageous.
> >
> > The Matrix is an entertaining film, nothing more.  Nancy Mitford
> > defines  highbrows as those who look at a suagage and see Picasso.
> > Those who watch Matrix and saw revolutionary messages are mere
> > revoultioan highbrows.  It is just a film to make you part with the
> > price of admission.
> >
> > Henry C.K. Liu
>
>
> umm...  i don't want my youth to be a constant cop-out here, but from my
> admittedly inexperienced view sometimes a lotta cmrds here (sorry that
> i'm only replying to henry's post here, i'm respectfully including
> others as well) get a bit harsh with their characterizations.  sure,
> maybe i'm a bit "highbrow" to think the matrix has *some* useful
> political messages despite its flaws, but it's just an interpretation
> like someone else here said, and i suppose i shouldn't expect everyone
> to see it the same way.  i really hope i'm not way out of line here to
> attempt to challenge this, but off the top of my head, i have no idea
> who this nancy mitford is, and i don't think most youth, let alone
> working class youth of color, would.  and for that matter, although i've
> wanted to see "reds", i haven't gotten to yet - meanwhile most youth
> would think i'm talking about a baseball team from ohio.  but yet we've
> all seen the matrix.  certainly, i think that's an unfortunate
> phenomenon, and we should strive to change this order of things, but
> let's accept that this is the way it is for most people at the moment,
> and work from there.