Are We Really This Dumb?

Fred Crane died today, at the age of 90.  He was the actor who played the role of Brent Tarleton in the 1939 classic, "Gone With The Wind."  His character is remembered primarily for speaking the first lines of the film, "What do we care if we were expelled from college, Scarlett?  The war is going to start any day now, so we'd have left college anyhow."

I've often remembered that line as I've winced over George Bush's many gaffes and policy blunders.  Bush was a shining example of the "Gentleman's C" at Yale.  Having gained entry thanks to his legacy status (his father and grandfather were both Elis), he obviously didn't feel pressed to exert himself in the classroom.  As the family name opened doors in New Haven for W., so would they open doors in the world of business and politics to follow.

And now we're presented with John McCain as a candidate for president.  McCain's father and grandfather were both admirals in the U.S. Navy and, like Bush, he cashed in on his legacy status and followed them to the Naval Academy.  I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he, also like Bush, didn't exactly apply himself to his studies -- he finished ranked 894th in his class of 899 cadets.  Like President Bush, McCain is comfortable with his academic performance, capable of  joking about it on the campaign trail. 

Which is fine, I suppose.  History is certainly replete with examples of men and women who have gone on to great successes after indifferent academic careers.  But what's troubling is the thin, sneering veneer of condescension that the Republicans use so predictably every four years to smear their opponent as an elitist intellectual, as if being smart is a bad thing.  Troubling, not so much because they do it, but rather, that it works.  

I've been watching for some time now, and I'm pretty sure America is getting stupider.  Presidential politics aside, the lowest common denominator grows lower and commoner by the year.  In 2007, a study by the National Endowment for the Arts found that Americans between the ages of 15 and 24 averaged two hours a day watching TV and only seven minutes each day reading.  In 2002, only 52 percent of Americans read a single book voluntarily, down from a whopping 59 percent in 1992.  

Television is not exempt.  Always the cotton candy of popular media, today's prime-time fare has regressed to where it's positively drool-inducing.  "Your Show of Shows" "The Honeymooners" and "All In The Family" -- all smart, topical and popular shows of previous generations -- have been replaced by the current hits, "American Idol" "Deal Or No Deal" and "24" -- all dumb, fantastical and, yes, wildly popular.

And cinema's no better.  It has now completely surrendered to an audience still dreaming of obtaining their first driver's license.  Now, this is not scientific.  I'd research the exact numbers but it's too painful -- like watching Larry Bird steal Isiah Thomas' inbounds pass for the seven millionth time.  But, basically, a third of all tickets in this country are sold to films made by Pixar, a third are sold to variations of a romantic comedy starring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey (or, if they're busy, Cameron Diaz and . . . oh, pick one), and a third are sold to Batman and other movies based on comic books.

The last type is the worst.  Not because comics are inherently inferior to bubble gum romance or Disney on steroids.  The problem is, somewhere along the road these superhero movies started to be taken seriously.  And not just as works of art but as socio-political statements.  

"The Dark Knight," the latest, and most commercially successful, installment in the Batman franchise, has sold around a half a billion dollars in tickets to date.  It has been been written about ad nauseum -- reviewed and deconstructed in every magazine, newspaper and blog this side of the Wall Street Journal.

Oops, scratch that.  The Wall Street Journal did, indeed weigh in.  On July 25th, Andrew Klavan wrote the single most preposterous review I have ever read.  It's not that he makes the comparison between Batman and George Bush, or "The Dark Knight" and the war on terror.  Those are obvious metaphors that even the director, Christopher Nolan, cryptically concedes were intentional.  

But Klavan goes off the deep end when he argues that the film should be a call to arms for conservative artists in their battle against the left-wing "realism."  He says,

"Why is it then that left-wingers feel free to make their films direct and realistic, whereas Hollywood conservatives have to put on a mask in order to speak what they know to be the truth?  Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense -- values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right -- only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like "200," "Lord of the Rings," "Narnia," "Spiderman 3" and now "The Dark Knight."

and,

"Leftists frequently complain that right-wing morality is simplistic.  Morality is relative, they say; nuanced, complex.  They're wrong, of course, even on their own terms."

and,

"The true complexity arises when we must defend these values in a world that does not universally embrace them -- when we reach the place where we must be intolerant in order to defend tolerance, or unkind in order to defend kindness, or hateful in order to defend what we love."

and finally,

"As Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gorden says of the hated and hunted Batman, 'He has to run away -- because we have to chase him.'

"That's real moral complexity."

No, that's really dumb.  It's why we've lost over 4,000 men and women in Iraq.  It's why in Britain, our closest ally left in the world, 35 percent of the people now consider us a "force for evil."  (That's not Iran or Iraq, folks, that's frigging ENGLAND.)  It's why offshore drilling for oil is even a campaign issue.

America likes to keep it simple, stupid.  At the Saddleback Forum, Pastor Rick Warren asked Barack Obama if evil exists and, if so, should we ignore it, negotiate with it, contain it or defeat it?  Obama gave one of his typically nuanced answers, metaphorically conceding that he wasn't God and that evil would always exist.  The best we can hope to do is act as soldiers in the battle against it and confront it with humility, as often evil has been perpetrated in the name of confronting it.  That's a nice, subtle way of injecting the atrocities of the Bush administration's war -- Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Extreme Renditions, Black Site Prisons -- into the conversation without getting down on the ground and rolling around in the mud.  It was classic Obama, love it or hate it.

When his turn to answer came, John McCain replied, steely-eyed, "Defeat it," and promised to pursue bin Laden to "the gates of hell."   The crowd went crazy.

It was like being at the theatre, watching "The Dark Knight."  The Joker would pull some strings and the entire Gotham police department would rush to his proposed target, only to discover he was playing them.  At which point, they'd pivot and rush, en masse, to the next potential catastrophe.  It reminded me of nothing so much as a soccer game among eight year-olds.

  

And it made me tired.  My problem with "The Dark Knight" wasn't conservative vs. liberal.  My problem was that, ultimately, it was dumb.  It was often incoherent and it went on way too long.  After awhile, the explosions and special effects lost their ability to shock and awe.  I became unwilling, finally, to suspend my disbelief.  I spent the last half-hour waiting for the credits to appear.

Come to think of it, it did resemble the Bush administration after all.

So that's where we're at.  Batman's our foreign policy model and another cowboy's running for president.  Are we getting dumber?  Stay tuned.