I don't think Gollywood cares one iota whether this question is ever answered.
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The film also raises a more serious question: Do the media themselves create a further incentive to terrorism?
We're stuck in a life-and-media loop
James P. Pinkerton
April 20, 2006
Here in the middle of the "long war" against terror is America ready for a movie about a serious attempt, by Arabs, to assassinate a U.S. president? Does it help if it's a comedy?
"American Dreamz," which opens tomorrow, is played for laughs - but the topic of terrorism, as the movie also makes clear, is deadly serious and deadly real. The film also raises a more serious question: Do the media themselves create a further incentive to terrorism? That is, does the prospect of being on worldwide TV make terrorists even more eager to do their bloody worst?
Written and directed by Paul Weitz, of "American Pie" fame - or infamy, if you prefer - "Dreamz" is premised on a live talent competition, a lot like "American Idol." It then takes the "Idol" premise and torques it up, showing us politicians in Washington and terrorists in far-away camps, equally hooked on the show.
Along the way, "Dreamz" satirizes everything and everybody in our celebrity culture; in the film, political power, star power - and, literally, explosive power - share the same stage. Still, the dissing of a distinctly George W. Bush-like president is noteworthy, as is the sympathetic take on the lead terrorist; that's Hollywood politics for you.
Yet "Dreamz" has something important to say about a phenomenon that's sure to haunt us in the future. The film speaks about the power of the media to change our behavior and, in turn, about our behaving in ways that change the media. In other words, life and the coverage of life have become a kind of Mobius Strip, in which one thing loops back on the other, in mutual and endless reinforcement.
If this Mobius-Stripping of life is confined to "pseudo-events," such as goldfish-swallowing or streaking or becoming an overnight "Idol," then no great harm is done. Indeed, looking back merely to the last decade, one thinks of a time when Americans seemed to be sustained on pseudo-events of a kind; the Internet was real enough, in its fashion, but the theoretical trillions of dollars that piled up during the dotcom bubble were mostly smoke and mirrors. And in retrospect our politics were perhaps evanescent, too - what was all that big deal about Bill Clinton? He was a rock star, many thought, and so of course he had a lifestyle to match.
But were the Internet and Clinton the biggest news stories of the era? It certainly seemed that way at the time, especially since both stories were driven by the "new media" itself. Talk about a Mobius Strip: The Internet covers the Internet, and we are told that Matt Drudge's hat and the stock price of Amazon.com are news stories of earth-shattering importance.
But then on 9/11 came the real earth-shattering news. We turned on our TVs, clicked online - maybe even opened a newspaper - and discovered that others, too, had learned our media tricks. Without seeking to trivialize an enormous crime that killed about 3,000 people, one can also say that airplanes crashing into the Twin Towers was perhaps the most spectacular media stunt of all time. Yet there was nothing pseudo about the human tragedy of that day, or the wars that have erupted in the years since.
9/11 vaulted Osama bin Laden into a kind of immortality. In our minds, he's immortal like Hitler; in the minds of others, he's a timeless hero - an idol. Indeed, popular "new media" around the world, most notably Al-Jazeera, remind us that it's possible for others to share our slick sense of production values and yet not share our political values at all.
In the meantime, as violence rages around the world, any terrorist knows that America is the place to be, in terms of wreaking violence, sending a message and gaining fame - and fans. That's a perverse incentive system, to be sure, but it's the stuff that "Dreamz" are made of.
James P. Pinkerton's e-mail address is pinkerto@ix.netcom.com.
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