is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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How Tom Cruise Will Destroy The Earth.
How Tom Cruise Will Destroy The Earth.
Evany and I went to see Mission Impossible 3 last night while Marco and Stephen watched a very important television show about Jesus. That show was so long that E and I still got to see it after the movie, when we rejoined the boys for some beer-drinking and sports-talk. And, of course, when we walked in the door post-movie, Stephen�s first question was �How was it?� My reply: �Retarded and entertaining, just as I expected.�
It was both those things, retarded and entertaining. Normally I enjoy seeing a summer blockbuster or two, for the summer-feeling of it, for the crazy action and not-so-suspenseful suspense, and also perhaps to remind the tiny nihilist who hides in me somewhere of just how bad Hollywood is, so she can luxuriate in its decline. And normally I forget everything about the movie the minute I leave the theater. That�s a good thing, because I�ve got a lot on my mind already and do not need to offer up any brain-estate to Hollywood summer blockbusters.
However, Mission Impossible 3 has stuck with me not because it is good but because a few of its assumptions about What The Audience Will Think are particularly annoying to me. This morning as I was snuggling with Daisy-dog on Special Couch #1, I was thinking about how it was impossible to care about anyone in the film, except maybe the poor normal nurse woman (PNNW) that the Tom Cruise Ethan Hunt (TCEH) character marries. I think the movie expects us to feel bad for TCEH, because he is madly in love, and he cannot tell the whole truth of his job and his past to his love, and he is torn between giving up that career to live a safe life with her and saving an agent he trained (and also capturing Bad Truman Capote). Oh. No. A moral dilemma! Does TCEH choose love, or join a secret death squad that will put anyone attached to him in danger? Tough one! And so he doesn�t make a choice. He wants both. He is American, after all.
And then the movie wants us to feel good at the end when TCEH saves the girl, and then the girl saves him, and then they get to go on a honeymoon, because they are so madly in love. I mean, what does a couple madly in love want more than a honeymoon? (Oh, maybe this: My love, I beseech thee not to marry me and then run off to join a death squad without informing me of the danger in which this puts me, now that I�ve become a permanent star in your constellation, by choice and by law.)
But, (and here�s the source of my lasting annoyance) let me tell you, even though I told my student that I�d rather be lied to than date a bunnykiller, the worst thing ever would be to find out that you had been lied to by a life-long killer of much more than bunnies. And to find that out because you are being kidnapped and tortured due to your connection to this killing liar! TCEH thinks he is forgiven? And that his lies are justified? PNNW forgives him after all she�s been through (been through because of those very lies)? (I suspect their love is based on Stockholm Syndrome. Or Hollywood plot-writing.)
I don�t care if my closeted (YDKWIM*) CIA IMF BF supposedly undertakes all his killing sprees in the name of the U.S. Flag (and, let�s face it, too many killing sprees get justified that way already. Am I supposed to be moved by that cause or its implacable logic?). I don�t care if he does bad things for "good" reasons. There is No Way that some PNNW who had devoted her life to healing sick and injured people is going to turn around and go straight to honeymoon with TCEH. (Some forms of disbelief cannot and should not be suspended for the sake of a narrative arc!)
And so, I learn today, from a dumbass movie, that my capacity to allow others to think differently from me, to forgive them for their stumblings and their failings of foresight, to let them make their mistakes, and to love them anyway, or at least, if I can�t love them, recognize the frailty of human decision-making and all things human� in other words my intent to treat all human beings as human beings who deserve my respect even when I cannot give them my agreement, all that ENDS RIGHT HERE, where some insane self-righteous scientologist or secret military man thinks love will save the day, and will kill anyone who gets in his way to prove it. AS IF THAT PROVED IT.
TCEH, your love will destroy the earth.
I guess the nihilist in me is Very Very Tiny.
So now I�m thinking maybe Mission Impossible 3 is actually a brilliant metaphor for what is wrong with the U.S.�s universalizing mission to make the world safe for democracy. No, that�s not really what I�m thinking! I�m thinking that the movie sucks!
1:17 a.m. - May 24, 2006
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