The Politics of Ignorance
May 7th, 2004

Disney’s assertion this week that they would rather stifle a film critical of the President of the United States than become involved in partisan politics is surprisingly hypocritical. Disney and the Hollywood film industry have always been involved in politics, but they are the politics of ignorance rather than the politics of information. Disney’s feature Pocahontas featured a happy Native American girl living in some sort of magical fairyland, leaving out her kidnapping by white settlers and forced conversion to Christianity. The lyrics to “Arabian Nights”, the opening song to Disney’s feature Aladdin, had to be changed for video:

Oh I come from a land, from a far away place
Where the caravan camels roam,
Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face,
It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.

Last week’s theatrical releases present a new diatribe about how to feel strongly about an issue about which you know nothing. “Godsend” is a movie about parents whose eight-year-old son is killed in a car accident. Distraught, they have him cloned. By the time his second eighth birthday rolls around, the clone has become evil. You could write the most informed, well-balanced book on the pros and cons of human embryonic stem cell research, and fewer people would read it than see this movie. But in Hollywood, you can make any movie you want – as long as it doesn’t involve facts. If you get Reality involved, you’re in trouble.

I don’t think that Disney has an agenda to keep George W. Bush in power. I believe they are catering to what the public wants – or at least a cross section of the public. But is our attitude towards facing reality misguided? Look at how movies are rated. “Saving Private Ryan”, a World War II film that pictured a frightening depiction of D-Day, was rated 18A (in Canada, I think the American equivalent is NC-17). The average James Bond movie garners a PG-13 rating. The difference? Well, people kill people in both films. It’s just that when James Bond kills people, they don’t die screaming, in a pool of blood, or with their intestines visible. So what desensitizes us to violence more?

Look at the situation in Iraq. We seem to be cool with all the people dying there. What we can’t deal with are the images of torture of Iraqi prisoners that came back to us last week. This sort of thing is, of course, totally commonplace, as Canadians who remember Somalia can tell you. But for a while, we had ourselves fooled. The images on CNN a year ago would have you convinced that technology had progressed to a “James Bond” level of war, where America can kick butt without being inhumane – meaning that Iraqis wouldn’t die screaming, in a pool of blood, or with their intestines hanging out. We know this isn’t true. But if we took it upon ourselves to remember this, we might be able to better gauge whether the horror and pity of war are worth the objectives we are trying to achieve. We are starting to realize that in Iraq, we made the wrong call.

Disney’s stated reason for rejecting the Moore film is that it may alienate some viewers. This displays total contempt for the American public. Americans want to be informed. They want the freedom to make up their own mind about issues. In fact, they are better at this than any other country in the world. That is what makes the current trend away from freedom of speech so dangerous. Under the guise of protecting the public from Janet Jackson’s nipples, the FCC has rewritten the rules about how published material is to be handled, and openly acknowledged that their new regulations may make D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce censorable material. If this sort of thing is happening in America, where does that leave the people of Hong Kong? Or Iran? Or Indonesia? Countries where democracy is hanging by a thread, or is just showing the faintest signs of entering people’s hearts and minds, suffer to lose the most.

Note added in proof:
Michael Moore's film has now been released in United States. It is propoganda. Click here to find out why it's still a great film.

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