A VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS
By Rich Trzupek
The Talkies
So here�s my problem with going to the movies�and understand that I love going to the movies. But the villains, with few exceptions, are always me. Assuming that you flip to page eight on a regular basis, you know that I�m not really a journalist. Writing is much-loved passion, but I can hardly afford to do it on a full-time basis.
In my �real life� I am a scientist by education, an industry representative by profession and a conservative by conviction. I also don�t believe that I�m a bad guy. Screwy to be sure, but not actually evil.
Yet, when I go to the flicks, the villain almost always falls into one of three categories that define a large portion of my life.
In Hollywood reality, scientists are bad, bad people. They always seem to be using their knowledge for evil, or at least foolish, purposes.
At best (if we can call it that) Hollywood scientists make incredibly stupid decisions, like resurrecting dinosaurs that want to eat everybody . At worst, they use their skills in an ultimately futile effort to kill James Bond.
I have never done any of those things. I happen to like James Bond. I don�t know any scientists who don�t feel the same way. Moreover, we take the responsibilities of knowledge pretty seriously. It kinda goes with the job.
That message is imbedded, starting in college and continuing throughout our professional lives : �Get it right.� Which is why we�re constantly looking over each other�s shoulders, wringing our hands and looking for the fatal flaw.
Do we get it it wrong sometimes? Of course we do. But, in a world where life expectancies, incomes and standards of living continually increase, you�re going to have a very difficult time convincing me that science has hurt us, in the balance.
The evil industrialist exists, but in nowhere near the numbers that Hollywood would lead us to believe. The bad guys are out there, but they have a tough time being bad in our regulated world. Most (and no, not all) of the critical decisions are made by people like you and me, at much lower levels, who must deal with painful bureaucratic reality on a daily basis.
Moreover, most of the business world is in the hands of small business, not the big multi-nationals. At that level, where the businesses are much more connected to the real world, intentions are much more pure.
In Hollywood, conservatives are unfailingly portrayed as cigar-smoking, greedy bastards who can�t wait to kill a pile of puppies in order to turn an extra bit of profit. They are also always rich, white males. Unless they're racist crackers of course.
In a way, I don�t have a problem with that stereotype. It�s nothing but a cartoonish generalization, but that�s what villains are about. The problem is that the stereotype is never, ever balanced by anything approaching a sympathetic portrayal.
We never see Afro-American conservatives. We don�t get to meet thoughtful, middle-class conservatives who battle the excesses of big government. A conservative who silently supports worthy charities, volunteers his time to help kids, despises racism or can laugh at himself? They don�t exist on the silver screen. But that�s pretty much me. Why am I�and all the people like me�invisible in Hollywood�s eyes?
You can have your right-leaning villains, but how about giving us a couple of heroes battling left-wing fanatics, just to achieve some semblance of balance. And don�t tell me that left-wing villains don�t exist. If the Kennedy�s happened to be Republican, Hollywood would be falling all over itself to reproduce Chappaquidick, drunken excesses and random rapes on film.
The last liberal villains that come to mind trace back to �On the Waterfront,� when the union movement was portrayed in terms of exploitation and extortion.
That film is 50 years old. Are all unions that corrupt? Of course not, no more than all conservatives (or even anything but a fraction of us) are the son-of-a-bitches that Hollywood so adores.
Yet there are plenty of despicable union leaders out there. While they might not represent a majority of organized labor, there are certainly enough to warrant our attention, particularly in a Hollywood that claims it�s so committed to making the world a better place.
Perhaps they are, if you believe that eliminating every competing world-view is the way to make that world better. If on the other hand, solving problems means exposing hypocrisy and evil whenever it exists, regardless of ideology, the silver screen isn�t going to help us much.