Annoying as the Che adulation is, a recent comment by a 14-year-old on an online movie message board was truly disturbing: "I just saw The Motorcycle Diaries, which further made me question: Why is communism bad? . . . Young people are told how bad communism is, but we are not told why. . . . The Motorcycle Diaries showed me how Ernesto Guevara wanted to help people. . . . But this did not explain why he was such a 'bad' person and apparently deserved to be murdered by the U.S."Johnson suggests The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression.
Is this a legacy of dangerous ignorance that the makers of "Che" wish to continue? Might this teen be taught that the product of Guevara and Castro's "revolution" is a nation whose inhabitants still risk their lives to escape--and an estimated one-third die trying? A nation where neighbor spies on neighbor, where dissent lands one in the clink--or worse--and persecution is punishment for everything from religion to homosexuality?
I have my own ideas. How about a movie with a female heroine who stands up to authority and doesn't back down? In Life and Death in Shanghai, Nien Cheng recounts her experience during the Cultural Revolution. In between shots of our heroine getting tortured, enduring solitary confinement and refusing to back down, the film could show Red Guards looting China's cultural heritage.
Then there's Journey Into the Whirlwind, Eugenia Ginzburg's account of 18 years in the Gulag during Stalin's great purges. There's even a sequel about Ginzburg's life in Siberia. Just imagine those sweeping shots of the frozen tundra as our heroine trudges over the permafrost.
Nicole Kidman, call your agent.
Update: "[K]iss my Cuban-American ass, Hollywood. You bunch of panzy ass, holier than thou, self-righteous, morally abject, living in lala land collection of hypocritical elitist pricks." ~ Val Prieto
Crossposted at Outside the Beltway.
No comments:
Post a Comment