D. Newman - Like It or Not, Movies are the New Books

The earliest cultures recorded their histories on rocks and cave walls, then pottery.  We can assume the practice next moved to an oral tradition.  Homer's 'Odyssey' and 'Iliad' were memorized and vocally passed down for centuries.  They had over ten thousand lines each.

Eventually the spoken word was chiseled and made beautiful.  Written alphabets were developed to record it.  Man's foremost technology was born.

For the next several thousand years, mediums for cultural preservation remained limited to books and art, until, of course, the electric current was harnessed.  This changed everything.

The Zoopraxiscope, circa 1885.  Considered
the first 'movie' camera.

Surpassing Gutenberg's printing press, this new sorcery made the bequeathing of history and tradition infinitely easier.  Film and radio entered the historical sphere.  Eventually the two were combined when audio was introduced to the local Nickelodeon.  From there, visual and audio recordings evolved together substantially, and have long sinced reached a point of common triviality.  We now take them vastly for granted, whereas upon their conceptions these new media were probably regarded like the great dinosaurs of Writing and Art - that is, as technologies to be used primarily for preservation of culture and knowledge, rather than entertainment.

Of course, the opposite is true today.  For the Homers and Sistine Chapels of yesteryear, we now have Ke$ha and cat videos, WorldstarHipHop, and something called Conchita Wurst.

But this is not to say there's no preservation of refined culture today, and in fact, I'm here to say the opposite.  I admit to being a harsh critic of modern celebrities.  But I don't think pop culture has replaced the more meaningful elements of our times.  It's only distracted from them.  So no, I wouldn't say the abundance of recording media available to the masses has ended the preservation of life's more important and pleasing traditions.

However, I do worry it's stolen the masses' attention from these precious, fragile things.

This newfound triviality of modern recording mediums, coupled with pop-culture-obsessed buffoons, have given video recordings an undeserved, black sheep reputation in the world of higher learning.  Movies and modern music supposedly do not carry as much weight as their literary and visual-art counterparts when referenced for pearls of wisdom or cultural markers, and this is very unfortunate.  Moving pictures and recorded audio are simply the advanced versions of the paintings and scribblings of antiquity.  Again, I blame the masses.

Who is to tell me Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" didn't properly teach of the spiritual disintegration of a man when he puts success and wealth before relationships, yet Milton can be referenced when attempting the monumental task to "justify the ways of God to man"?  Dickens conjured on the value of holidays?  Who dares challenge Bob Dylan's grasp of the changes of 1960s, with lyrics the likes of

"Come mothers and fathers throughout the land / and don't criticize what you can't understand / your sons and your daughters ate beyond your command / your old road is rapidly agin'."

Who says Cobain or Vedder weren't the epitomic faces of 1990s youth, alienated by old mens' politics and the music industry's heartless establishment?  Who will say only Shakespeare's sonnets can be referenced for musical wisdom?  Who will say they weren't Tyler Durden incarnate when that character declared

"We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."

It's for these reasons I feel no shame claiming certain modern movies and music in my limited academic settings as valid and valuable reference points for describing life and the social sciences.  My worth to college professors and other such academics is no issue to me.  They're merely priests of cultural Marxism and the murderous Washington regime anyway.  America should've long since dismissed them as worthwhile sources of wisdom or accurate perspective.  It may be the case that not only academia, but we lowly commoners too should begin referencing trends in those mediums in order to better predict our nation's future course - events, feelings, and spiritual state.

Trends in film and song are indicators of the feelings of a population's collective consciousness.  A single film or song can be seen as a thought, blasted forth into a nation's invisible, shared brain through its synapses - the wires of a nation's electric grid.  And of course, evil men can grab hold of collective thought-producing mechanisms, like film, television, media, and more, introducing propaganda en masse that fools citizens on an individual level into accepting these men's pre-packaged, poisoned 'thoughts' as their own.

A film reference I am particularly fond of making is in Steven Spielberg's "Hook."  The following exchange reflects perfectly the experience I had, against all odds, at coming to realize the truths of the Bible.  Peter's initial disbelief and uncomfortableness at Granny Wendy's revelations perfectly mirror the feelings of any Christian newcomer:

Granny Wendy: Hand me my book [the original Peter Pan novel], please. It's time to tell you, at last.
Peter: Tell me what?
Granny Wendy: How far back can you remember, Peter?
Peter: I remember the hospital on Great Ormond Street. You worked with orphans. You arranged for the adoption by my American parents.
Granny Wendy: You were 12, nearly 13. I mean before that.
Peter: There's nothing before that.
Granny Wendy: Try, Peter. Do try.
Peter: ..nothing..
Granny Wendy: (looking away in memory)You know, when I was young, no other girl held your favor the way I did. I expected you to alight on the church and forbid my vows on my wedding day. I wore a pink satin sash. But you didn't come.
Peter: (confused) Grandma...
Granny Wendy: Yes, I was an old lady when I wrapped you in blankets. A grandmother. With my 13-year-old granddaughter asleep in the bed. Moira. And when you saw her, that was when you decided... not to go back to Never Land.
Peter: (stunned) Where?
Granny Wendy: To Never Never Land.
Peter: (panicking) I'll get Moira.
Granny Wendy: I've tried to tell you!
Peter: (nervous) Maybe the tea's ready.
Granny Wendy: I knew you'd forgotten!
Peter: (trying to walk away) I'm not ready to deal with this now.
Granny Wendy: (waving the book) The stories are true, I swear to you! I swear on everything I adore. And now he's come back to seek his revenge. The fight isn't over for Captain James Hook. He wants you back. He knows you'll follow. Maggie and Jack to the ends of the earth. And, by heaven, you must find a way. Only you can save your children. Somehow, you must go back. You must make yourself remember!
Peter: Remember what?
Granny Wendy: Peter, don't you know who you are?

Yes, the stories are true, aren't they. And 'Hook' is indeed on his way back. We must remember who we are.