On Hollywood (Part - 1)

Hollywood films portray the typical picture of Capitalist society[1]. No film is an exception to capitalist values and thoughts and is the dominant theme of all. Unlike Bollywood, which is mix of secularist system and Eastern culture[2], Hollywood is based on Western culture i.e. pure secularism[3]. Since concept of good and bad is relative and is not absolute in secularism (Capitalism), so there are no fixed values and morals to be adhered to. Something can be good and moralistic for one and could not be for others since the arbitrator is human mind.


Even Christian values and morals are not absolute in Western society where Christianity makes a majority. The effect of these principles is widely visible in Hollywood movies. While theme of love, sacrifice for moralistic values and religion dominates in Bollywood movies, Hollywood give minimal weightage to these issues rather deal these issues in a radical way i.e. truth loses and falsehood wins (Basic Instinct, and many other thriller and horror films etc) where the perpetrator got scot free.

2. There are other Hollywood movies which deal with the theme which has nothing to do with the real world and nowadays these films dominate the market. They manipulate science in a mythical way. These are scientific fiction movies. To general masses, especially in developing and underdeveloped countries these films mitigate the difference between real scientific advancement and mythical science. These films project the technological advancement of West in an exaggerative way. Apart from it, these films give a ‘mythical’ solution for the problems of society by depicting an imaginary protagonist (Spiderman, Superman, etc.), who with his superman capabilities helps the needy.

3. Precisely, we can divide the various themes of Hollywood movies in following categories:
(a) Current reality based theme.
(b) Scientific fiction based theme.
(c) History based theme.
(d) Superstition based theme (horror and mythical) following the principal of “suspension of disbelief” propounded by an English poet S.T. Coleridge.

4. Effect of Capitalism on Hollywood: The Capitalists concepts are evident in the theme of almost every movie. These concepts are:-
(a) Individualism: Individualism is the outcome of concept of Individual Freedom which theoretically seems enchanting but gives way to utmost kind of selfishness. A daughter or a son need not to take care of liking or disliking of their parents if they are happy with otherwise. From parental relationship to all other kinds of blood and non-blood relations, everybody becomes individualistic. Father is duty bound to take care of his baby child but as soon as she/he becomes adolescence, she/he can sue his/her parents in the court if they stop them to commit consensual unmarital sex. Parents are not liability of their children except admitting them to the Old Houses. Poor son/daughter is not a liability of rich parents once they grew adult. The common proverb is such a society is “it is your problem not mines”. (True Lies: Father Schwarzenegger knows that his daughter’s friend is going to have her but he could not stops them, in spite that he was feeling embarrassed.
(b) Materialism: Sensual pleasure, worldly pursuit and instinctive needs are given utmost importance and presented as a sole objective of life.
(c) The present life is the beginning and the end. No accountability after death. Therefore no good end for the noble and no bad end for the evil.
(d) Revolt to God: Man doesn’t need guidance from God and can manage his affairs on his own. Not only this, man can even turn down super natural calamities (Twister, Volcano, etc.) and also bring about great (natural) disasters.
(e) Survival of the fittest: Only strongest, clever, fit etc. would win in the last (Basic Instinct).
(f) There is no God: Any disaster could befall on man and on earth (Day After Tomorrow) as it is not protected by an unseen Superbeing or Superpower. The Creation of the universe and its management is just a coincident. Anything could happen in these chains of co-incidents which harm mankind. So it is man (currently U.S.) who has to stop it by utilizing his wisdom.
(g) Feminism: Male domination should be ended in the society.
(h) Commercialization: The best is the actress who can instigate the sexual instinct in the best way. Even if she is playing a superhero, she has to wear mini skirt and expose her body. Although, the theme of the film has nothing to do with this treatment as it is purely an action or scientific fiction movie. The “glamour” element is necessary to sell the film.

Worship of Individuals
Kumbh Mela is known for world’s largest gathering of the members of Hindu community for spiritual purpose which come from all corners of India and abroad. There is another largest mass gathering conducted in a very twenty-first century manner. It is hyped over the cable and satellite receiver networks, the World Wide Web, mobile phones and by word of mouth. The spirit of worship ran freely through acres of column inches in tabloids, broadsheets and magazines. Every faith has its equivalent as the Ganges for Hindus. This is cult of Hollywood and the 'Mela' here being the Oscar's ceremony. To date there are no authorised accounts on how many members of the faith exist. It is estimated that there are millions of members of the cult that worships celebrity.
In a way not dissimilar to Hinduism, the rituals of this faith are extremely diverse. These involved camping out all night just to see a glimpse of an Oscar nominee, or queuing up in the rain for hours to be able to claim to be one of the first of "the public" to see the fourth sequel to a film whose original was released in the 1970s. Rituals also include the daily reading of the verses of the celebrity magazines. These scriptures giving detailed accounts of the celebrities' daily lives, whilst the photographs they provide give something they can aspire to. The worship of celebrity is an issue that seems to dominate the flow of information to the public. This is supposedly the epoch of the information revolution. However the channels of information seem to be clogged up with information on celebrities. More, defiantly, has become to mean less in terms of information. The insatiable desire for information on the trivial, untrue and tragic is merely a byproduct of a mindset that has been instilled in the general public by the powers that be. This is the nature of capitalism. In order for the system to work the people's minds have to be disabled or disengaged. Thinking has to be discouraged.

Escapism
Humans have been created with an enquiring mind, and the desire to seek out the truth of what life is about. The system cannot beat this trait out of humans, so as an alternative the system ensures that minds are occupied with the trivial. Western society has lost its sense of reality. When this happens societies have to seek refuge in various forms of escapism. The dispirited, confused and hopeless people of the West retreat into the inner world of subjectivism and fantasy.
Materialism and self-absorption take the place of true worship, an enquiring mind and community spirit. The pathological symptoms that manifest are a retreat into fiction, a desire not to participate, but to remain as an onlooker, and to hold reality at an arm's length. It is in this atmosphere that the film industry comes into its own.
This explains how films have come to play such a major role in the western way of life. Films have become a metaphor for real life. People speak, write and communicate in clichés taken from film scripts. The mere passive occupation of the human mind is actually only half the story. There is also the active indoctrination of the human mind with corrupt thoughts and emotions. Films and the mass media industry have an important role to play in this process.

Hollywood and Colonialism
The history of Hollywood movies is a history of corporate America messing with people's minds. Hollywood has epitomised the upholding of the golden rule of the American way of life, the rule being that, those who have the gold make the rules. Films have painted a picture of Blacks, Native Americans, women and just about every non-American creed, race and culture in a manner that came to define these groups in the 20th and 21st century. The Apache, Blackfoot and Xu have been portrayed to the world as being the bad guys and the cowboys were the gallant heroes of How The West Was Won. The European marauders invaded the land of North America. They farmed the land in an intense and exploitative manner, clearing out acres of natural animal habitat in order to herd cattle. They built railroads to transport livestock and other booty around the country and also to bring the wealth from the west and Midwest to the colonial capitals of the east of the Union.

They had to massacre the Native Americans in these earlier times. Then, to add insult to injury, Hollywood portrayed these proud tribes that lived at peace with the environment, as bloodthirsty savages that killed at will just to obtain a scalp as a trophy. The Native Americans now live in economic deprivation in communities riddled with social problems, drug and solvent abuse, poor housing, and no prospects of competing on an equal footing with those that raped and plundered their land. The violence of the founding of the US became sanitised for the white Europeans by Hollywood.
The escapism of the movie theatre created a blurring between fantasy and reality. The public would leave the cinemas taking home whatever message Hollywood wanted them to take. On the way home from the theatre people could stop at a McDonalds, eat the beef of the Wild West, eat the apple pie of the wholesome mid-west, get the free toy of a Disney character, such as Pocahontas, and contemplate on how good the American dream really is. They could reflect on how the conquering of the "Red Man" was not pretty, but was necessary, in order to build this great American dream. Thus Hollywood would dispel any element of guilt that the conqueror may have harboured in their hardened hearts and at the same time reinforce the policy of destroying the Native American nation.

The Hollywood treatment of the Native Americans is paralleled in its treatment of Blacks. The very first moving images made by Thomas Edison portrayed stereotypes of black savages boiling people in pots ready to be eaten. This theme was carried on to the first-ever Hollywood blockbuster, the silent movie of DW Griffith, Birth Of A Nation. The first ever feature with a soundtrack, The Jazz Singer, was one where a Russian Jew (Asa Yoelson aka Al Jolson) blacks up his face and re-enacts racial stereotypes and gets paid for doing this on the stage. The first glorious "Technicolor" movie, Gone With the Wind, was set on the Southern plantation. The film is a stream of subtle images of Blacks in Uncle Sam's intended role for them. There weren't any Black characters central to the plot nor did any have a major role, although Blacks appear throughout the film. They are always cooking, cleaning and generally serving the every whim and desire of the white stars and starlets in the film. The other image of Blacks, apart from servant or savage, was that of entertainer. Thus Blacks were shown as having rhythm, they were shown as dancers and singers and performers to please the white audiences. This sent home another stereotype that had more resonance in the ghetto. The message being that the only thing that the Black people are good at is moving to the rhythm of 'black music'. This was given the grandiose title of dancing. Later on, the people of the ghetto started to believe in this myth themselves. That is, the myth that god had given black people brains in their feet, and that they could dance their way out of a life of poverty. So many aspired to degrade themselves by playing their dancing roles for the movies, whilst those good honest white folks insisted that they had no rhythm and could not entertain. However they were good at collecting money from the punters who wanted to see the Black people performing circus tricks. This is a tradition firmly established in the early days of Hollywood, and was seen in the first version of the musical Showboat. However the blatant racism of Showboat was toned down in the later remakes of the film. These were released at the time of the cold war, where the Soviets made an issue of the way the US exploited their own citizens. Hollywood was sensitive in that period to exposing any narrow opening in the armour of the "land of the free."

However this tradition continued with vigour through the "Blacksploitation" movies of the 1970s. Today this good American tradition of exploiting blackskinned bodies is kept alive on MTV. Today the music video fulfils the role of plantation slave master, African slave trader, pimp, player and hustler. Thousands of black kids all over North America and Europe practice their moves and study videos in the hope that they could one day be like their heroes of the three-minute music clips. Their only dream and aspiration in life is to gyrate their bodies in time to a programmed drum machine. There are a substantial number of Blacks in the US. However the image of America to the outside world through Hollywood lies exclusively in white hands. So the images of Tarzan, spear throwing and cannibals that swing from trees, are the images that Hollywood provided the world with.

Hollywood’s Treatment with Women
The other major group that has been given the Hollywood treatment is women. The misogynist, racist cartel that ran Hollywood exploited women more than any other sector of Western society. Women were used, and still are used, purely to appeal to the most base of human drives, which is the sexual instinct. The female form is exploited as part of story lines, the female form is exploited in trailers, and the female form is exploited in the hyperbolae generated by the general media in order to promote a film in more indirect advertising. The etymology of the maxim "sex sells" could easily be traced to Hollywood.
(To be continued)
[1] Here capitalist means society that is based on secularism and having democracy as their political setup.
[2] Eastern culture is amalgamation of Islamic philosophy, Hindu philosophy, Persian philosophy and many other philosophies originated in the East.
[3] Separation of religion from politics.

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On Western Civilisation

In the aftermath of the events of 11th of September there has been much discussion regarding the ‘Clash of Civilisations’ as Samuel Huntington put it. America and the Western powers have portrayed the current conflict as a war between the ‘civilised world’ against the ‘uncivilised world’. George W. Bush said on September 20th 2001: “This is not, however, just America's fight. And what is at stake is not just America's freedom. This is the world's fight. This is civilization's fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom.”



Todays world is dominated by Western civilisation and the root of many problems facing the world today whether on a domestic level or an international level are sprouting from it.

The governments survey figures of Western countries like Britain show that one-fifth of the population, that is 12 million people, live in poverty. Three million children in the UK live below the breadline. In US there are 4 million people homeless. About 15 million children -- one out of every four -- live below the official poverty line. In New York City 10,000 children are homeless and the mayor has issued beggars with credit card machines, so that local people can give them donations with their American Express card?
At the domestic front, the crime figures show that in the last year there were 38,000 sexual offences committed, over one million cars or something stolen, nearly one million burglaries, and almost three-quarters of a million violent crimes committed. There is unlikely to be anyone who has not experienced first-hand the crime epidemic in one form or another.
Drug addiction is rampant in the Western societies where the number of heroin and cocaine addicts are growing to the extent that in Australia they have now have official government centres where people can go and inject heroin safely.

The ideas of freedom and democracy espoused by the West which are supposed to bring about equality have come to nothing. The issue of racism exist with the same severity as in the past and is even institutionalised as proven by the Stephen Lawrence affair and in the famous killing of Rodney King in America. Right wing racist groups find breeding grounds on dilapidated council estates and areas. After the events of 11th of September we found that many immigrants were attacked in Western societies, mosques were stoned and Muslim were subject to verbal and physical abuse. Currently Indians also witnessing racism in Australia where there are incidents of racial harassment everyday reported by the media. This also reflect the intellectual heights that western civilisation has developed into its people!

The situation is no different in the United States, Germany or other Western countries. Recently a book entitle “The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq” by Helen Benedict exposes the harsh realities of life in the US military for women. While proclaiming the champion of women’s right globally, the US is proven to be spectacularly failing to protect the security and needs of females in armed services. With female soldiers often fearing rape and harassment from their male colleagues more than the enemy they are fighting in order to spread ‘freedom and democracy’, it is the values of the US forces which are exposed as being barbaric and backward rather than those of ‘the enemy’ in Iraq, Afghanistan and other Muslim countries. If according to several studies of the US military funded by the Department of Veteran Affairs 30% of military women are raped while serving, 71% are sexually assaulted, and 90% sexually harassed, one has to wonder if this is how the men of the US armed forces treat their own women, what sort of behaviour would they exhibit with those they consider to be their enemies?
We need to understand what is the root cause of these problems and why these societies have been unable to deal with them? If we go the depth of these problems we find that the foundation upon which Western society and Capitalism is based upon is flawed and corrupt.
Capitalism, which calls for the separation of the religion from life. It insists that man has the ability to decide right and wrong for himself according to his natural impulses and has inbuilt guide of pain and pleasure. He should be free to do as he pleases, seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. It does not matter whether they believe in a Creator or not. The ideas of freedom, individualism and utilitarianism or expediency or self benefit are a lethal cocktail that produce corrupt personalities.

We find that Western societies are characterised with all of these problems, so people will steal to satisfy their material benefit – even the politicians of the West do this as all the scandals have proven.

Even the former President of the United States Bill Clinton was prepared to lie under oath in order to save himself. In reality petty theft and the corruption in Western politics have the same cause.

Harold Shipman, the Hyde general practitioner, killed at least 15 of his patients who had come to him expecting care, compassion and empathy. In pursuit of some perverse form of pleasure and joy he murdered his innocent victims.

Dennis Nilsen killed 16 young men; the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, killed 13 women; Fred West murdered 12 people including his first wife and daughter.

John Haigh who was known as the “acid bath vampire” drunk the blood of his six victims before disposing of them in vats of acid; these people are all the products of the capitalist way of life.

On the other hand it has been widely propagated that Western civilisation has eradicated sexism and racism and other prejudices – a claim that is completely false.
Women here only earn on average 60% of what men earn thirty years after the sex discrimination act? Women are portrayed as objects and are used to sell everything from chocolates to cars. The media coverage is full of reports of racist attacks undertaken by people exercising their freedom. Even if we look at the foreign policy of the Western powers we can see that these same values of greed and material benefit are the basis for their actions.

Everyone knows that the Western powers entered the Gulf War due to the Oil in that area. Not to help the people of Iraq. Senator Bob Dole of the United States said in the Gulf War “we are not going to war to bring back the Emir of Kuwait because that does not deserve a single American life”. Once American senator even said, “God made a mistake when he put the oil in the Middle East, we are here to correct this mistake.”
As far back as 1944 the US State Department outlined the reasons for its involvement in the Gulf when a document described the Arabian peninsula as constituting “a stupendous source of strategic power and the greatest material prize in the world’s history”
America and its allies have attacked Afghanistan without a shred of evidence in order to achieve its interests. It is clear that America wants to achieve its strategic and economic interests in the region. To quote the American House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, Committee on International Relations:
“One hundred years ago, Central Asia was the arena for a great game played by Czarist Russia, Colonial Britain, Napoleon's France, and the Persian and the Ottoman Empires…One hundred years later, the collapse of the Soviet Union has unleashed a new great game…Today the Subcommittee examines the interests of a new contestant in this new great game, the United States. The United States has energy security, strategic, and commercial interests in promoting Caspian region energy development.” [THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1998]

The results of the American foreign policy are clear:
Over a three million people have died in Iraq since the Gulf War; this is the so-called ‘ethical’ foreign policy that characterises the capitalist nations. Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 are thought to have killed 140,000 and 70,000 people respectively the effects of which we still see today. The US has provided arms and support to Israel which has committed atrocities against the Muslims. Even some of the thinkers, journalists and officials in the West have realised this.
Steve Erickson of the Herald Tribune said, "How can you call a nation civilized that massacred the indigenous red Indians and brought in Africans as slaves to build it?"
John Pilger wrote in The Irish Times “Far from being the terrorists of the world, the Islamic peoples have been its victims - that is, the victims of American fundamentalism, whose power, in all its forms, military, strategic and economic, is the greatest source of terrorism on earth.”
Ramsey Clark, Former U.S. Attorney General said, “The greatest crime since World War II has been U.S. foreign policy.”
The United States uses the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to keep the so-called developing world under the shackles of poverty and economic hardship.
Countries like Pakistan spend almost three-quarters of their wealth in paying back the interest on their debts; new loans are taken to pay back the interest and the vicious cycle continues.
Millions go hungry in Africa, even though at one time it was the bread-basket in the medieval ages. At the same time the Western countries dump wheat, coffee and other produce in the sea in order to artificially inflate the price.

According to UN statistics there are over two billion people in the world who live on less than $2 a day? The disproportion of the wealth from the First world to the Third world is massive. It is estimated that the 3rd world has 75% of the worlds population but only 17% of the world GNP and 8% of the worlds Industry. Despite the fact it contains most of the worlds resources.

It is no secret that the Capitalist multi-nationals like Gap and Nike exploit the people in third world due to cheap labour and have devastating working conditions with women working 12 hour to 18 hour shifts.

The poisonous fruits of Western civilisation are apparent. The reality of the world today is that it stands in an abyss of exploitation, chaos and despair; the strong oppress the weak, the rich oppress the poor, and the ignorant rule over the enlightened.

The solution is not that an individual stood up to eradicate all this corruption like what we see in Hollywood or Bollywood movies, which is a myth and self-deception. Neither it should be resolved with the patch work in the current system as it has been already done hundred of times. Until the emergence of a whole new system which should be based on rational creed from which emanate the system of life addressing all problems of mankind, these problems will persist. It should be neither Capitalism nor Communism but rather radically different, which provide a different outlook to see the world and define it with new concepts.

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