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Sa Skimrande

The truth is on the screen, we don't like ourselves.

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Yesterday in my Xmas defence I had gone out and bout a load of £4 cheap DVD's ro watch and I watched them all at least twice throughout the day but a theme emerged in my choice of DVD's to which I feel the same and that is the fact that western people don't like themselves very much and certainly do not trust authority.

 

The DVD's-

 

Last of the Mohecans,

 

The last Samuri

 

Transformers

 

But the feeling I got most in the former two was our history is not as glorious as it is made out to be and the latter the typical US distrust of their government again, but that is common n many American made movies depicting their homeland.

 

Now I have long held political education exists through art and what are movies if they are not art, but the Last Samurai was particularly poignant in it's revelation that everything in this world is motivated by comercial greed, people don't matter, when there is financial profit for a minority to be made.

 

Does anyone else feel we don't like ourselves as a culture very much ?

 

As let's face it, we are all casting about looking for something to believe in, be it foreign religions and philosophies, methods of health care and well being, it is as if we are a lost people looking for something real to sustain us, and so I think as to what this thing is and realise what it is, it is that we are an undisciplined culture where everything we do is a fraction of what we could be capable of because the sense is why bother and so, we self destruct and part of our self destruction is we seek to destroy what others have in the process, perhaps a spite fuelled action- destroy what we cannot have ourselves.

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I think it has potential to be a good topic - I just wanted to check whether he thought what he is suggesting anyway (prior to watching the films), or whether the films prompted the thinking that may have been there beforehand, or whether the dvd's are the entire source of the thinking....

 

Also technically it depends on who "we" refers to - all people or British people... but this sentence suggests UK based

 

"Does anyone else feel we don't like ourselves as a culture very much ?"

 

And although I have not seen The Last Samuri, I have seen the other 2 at some point and they are both based in America (I think - Last of the Mohicans was something I haven't seen in years and years).

 

Also regarding American productions - they are possibly more American focused, and so I wondered whether "we" meant people generally or people in the UK - America has a lot of money in the movie industry - more than we (lol) do, and as such I reckon that they will have a certain slant on what the British culture is like.

 

Just wondering :)

 

As it happens I do think there are signs that we - as a UK/British culture do have issues with valuing or liking ourselves in certain respects, but I can also think of examples where certain things are valued but on smaller scales and not necessarily national ones - whether that still counts as everyone as a culture or select groups, communities etc is open for debate.

 

Anyway... was just wondering what ignited the thought process as it interested me :)

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Are your musings based on the 3 dvds or is your thinking based on broader thinking that that?

 

Much broader experience through the moving image but when the mood is low I am more open to what is being insinuated in a story beyond the bright colours, special effects noise and action. I have asked a variation of this question before on many other websites and very few see it but there are some who are also of an artistic mentality that agree with my observations for art is education and a lot of art education itself is teaching the ability to see beyond the obvious.

 

Critical theory studies on my art degree course I hated it with a vengeance because I found it wholly confusing, but as some years after that course I have had time for the education to sink in and now I am beginning to see beyond the obvious and so that hated course I am recognising it's value now, it's just a pity it moved at such a pace I could not keep up and so failed as far as examinations were concerned.

 

But I am getting the feeling that we as a society, western society particularly through the medium of the moving image don't like ourselves very much and we are in effect lost and perpetually scratching around for something to believe in.

 

And from such productions as Last of the Samuri and the Mohecans the reference to militaristic commerce is not in the slightest veiled. But a common feeling through much of the moving image is the ridiculing of authority and individualistic profit whilst at the same time promoting something purer we could have lost in our commercial existence.

 

Now the movie transformers, many may laugh and wonder, but that movie moved me to tears in what was said in parts.

Edited by Sa Skimrande

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