Dancing on the point of a pin
For much of the last four decades, the culture factory in the United States has been creating a Little Weimar, anti-military, hedonistic and ever more decadent. Much of this has taken place outside of the vision and focus of Americans, in venues not directly receiving the quick judgment of the marketplace. These include areas protected by tenure or similar arrangements (universities, public education, federal judiciary) and activities funded by trusts, foundations and corporations.
These protections from the marketplace have created an environment conducive to greater and greater excesses. A lie unchallenged can be embroidered over decades. Made-up footnotes turn into made-up books. An outrageous movie lauded at a film festival raises only the question: how can you top that?
Over a period of decades, the lies and excesses, always compounded but never questioned, become secure and comfortable; that is why the downfalls are so swift. In every case — Trent Lott, John Kerry, Dan Rather, Ward Churchill, Eason Jordan — a single event becomes a doorway to the past. Invariably, that past becomes a gift that keeps on giving, as a long series of similar statements, actions or prejudices is revealed. As Arnold Schwarzenegger famously said when he avoided the problem by acknowledging bad behavior and pre-emptively apologizing to anyone who might come out of the woodwork: “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” To date, he is the only one who has handled the situation well.
To be sure, there are people like Ward Churchill for whom there is no such thing as handling the situation well, since his falsehoods are so many and so outrageous. But Churchill is an interesting case for another reason. Despite, or perhaps because of his virulent anti-Americanism, Churchill has been the recipient of awards and honors from organizations backed by major foundations and other non-profit organizations. Joel Mowbray at Front Page Magazine and Roger Kimball at The New Criterion have details.
This focus on the funding of fraudmakers suggests a new front may be opening in the war of the New Media versus Little Weimar. To date, the primary contribution of the blogosphere to this war has been its unparalleled ability to do fact-checking, spot inconsistencies and falsehoods, and establish patterns of words or behavior. The other elements of the New Media, like talk radio and Fox News, can also do these things of course, but the blogosphere has a unique capability. Alone among the New Media, the blogosphere is able to use a million sources to compress time, to illuminate and display patterns formed over decades and distill the results on a single written page — and to turn the world’s focus to that page.
So far the focus has been mostly on individuals, and maybe a little bit on individuals as they are portrayed as stand-ins for organizations: Lott for the GOP, Churchill for the Academy, Jordan for CNN or the Old Media, etc. But as the Kimball and Mowbray angle reminds us, there is an enormous amount of money involved in funding activities that the majority of Americans find unworthy.
A case in point might be the Sundance Film Festival. Here is the brochure of films shown in 2005. It’s a doozy. From the festival opener, Happy Endings, through Crispin Glover’s What is It?, through Inside Deep Throat, to Hustle and Flow, there is a similarity of theme. Hint: Hustle and Flow is described as “the story of a hardworking pimp having a midlife crisis.” If you haven’t got it yet, Police Beat asks the question: “what is it like for a Muslim West African immigrant to become a Seattle policeman and fall in love with a white woman who doesn’t believe in monogamy?” For the kids, there is The Education of Shelby Knox, described by Sundance as follows: “a 15-year-old girl’s transformation from conservative Southern Baptist to liberal Christian and ardent feminist parallels her fight for sex education and gay rights in Lubbock, Texas.”
Or, if your tastes run to the F911 genre, there is Why We Fight, not the Frank Capra version, about which was said: “If, like many, you experienced a sense of dread as the Iraq war inexorably approached, the film will answer lingering questions not just about how we fight, but why. If you were supportive of the war as a cause for freedom, it may even make you reconsider.” And what would life be without a cinematic tribute to the 1964 Soviet/Cuban propaganda film I am Cuba.
We are all for the freedom of artists to do whatever they want to do,and for Sundance to show whatever it wants to show. But here’s the question. First, take a look at the list of some of the sponsors of Sundance:
The 2005 Sundance Film Festival’s sponsors help sustain the Sundance Institute’s year-round programs to support independent artists, inspire risk-taking and encourage diversity in the arts. This year’s Festival community includes: Presenting Sponsors—Entertainment Weekly, Volkswagen of America, Inc., and Hewlett-Packard Company; Leadership Sponsors—American Express, Andersen Windows and Doors, Cingular Wireless, Delta Air Lines, DirecTV, Intel Corporation, and Sundance Channel; Sustaining Sponsors—Adobe Systems Incorporated, Aquafina, Blockbuster Inc., CESAR Food for Small Dogs, Moviefone, The New York Times, Park City Visitors Bureau and Film Commission, Sony Electronics, Inc., Starbucks Coffee Company, Stella Artois, Turning Leaf Vineyards, and Utah Film Commission.
The questions: do the sponsors know or care what their money is supporting? do the consumers of the products and services of the sponsors know or care about what their money is supporting? do the hard-pressed workers at Delta Airlines, which is trying to pinch every penny possible to stay afloat, know or care that company money is supporting these activities?
Sponsors of artistic productions and corporate activities are sometimes called “angels”. In the days to come, as Kimball and Mowbray are doing with the ones supporting Ward Churchill’s benefactors, some of these angels may find they have been dancing on the wrong end of the pin.