Cynthia Samuels

THE DARK KNIGHT, HARRY POTTER, LORD OF THE RINGS, DARK U.S. DAYS AND POLITICS

I used to see Christ symbols everywhere. It drove my mother crazy; no matter what film or book, I’d find some kind of symbol in it. And Christ symbols were fashionable then (Ingmar Bergman, Robert S. Heinlein.) So I guess it’s no surprise that I found implanted meaning, this time political messages, in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (the loss of Hogwarts students’ freedom and rights to Dolores Umbridge) and the Lord of the Rings – listen to this:

"It’s
like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of
darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end
because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it
was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it’s only a passing thing.
The shadow even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun
shines it will shine out the clearer. Those are the stories that stayed with
you. That really meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why,
but I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. The folk in those stories
had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. They kept going because
they were holding on to something." "What are we holding onto
Sam?" "That theres some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth
fighting for"- The
Lord of The Ring– The Two Towers

Now The Dark Knight joins my array of political films. Think about it. Irrational evil — the Joker (the late Heath Ledger, as good as the reviews but somehow a bit Al Franken-esque)– drives Gotham City to such anxiety that its citizens are willing to surrender freedom and privacy and even to turn on their Bat-benefactor, to return order to their streets. Sound familiar? Throughout the film members of the community at large, as well as Bruce Wayne/Batman (Christian Bale), his beloved Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal,) DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and even the sainted Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) face — and often fail — deep ethical temptations (including abusing prisoners — sound familiar?) — and, surprisingly, those who face the most horrendous choice are criminals and civilians whose behavior is far more laudable than that of any of us (including me) who know what’s been done in our name in Iraq and have mourned but not acted to stop it.

[SEMI-SPOILER ALERT] This gigantic challenge, issued from the Joker himself, is a formidable and hopeful moment in the film. Many have written that the film is dark and without humor but I don’t think so. This scene, in particular – and I don’t want to be too much of a spoiler — seemed to me to be there to remind us that there is always the potential for good. Even so, the film is crammed with talk, as in Sam’s speech to Frodo, and especially from the wise Albert (Michael Caine) of the pain and sacrifice required in the battle against the troubles ahead.

Maybe it’s a reach, and I can hear your saying "Hey, it’s ONLY a movie!" but there you are.

BARACK OBAMA, BERLIN, AND WHAT WE SHOULD AND CAN BE

First I got this email from a young friend: "LOVED IT – Just brilliant and I am happy to vote again." Then I watched The Speech again early this morning on C-SPAN and marveled at the reaction of 200,000 Berliners in a city that has been, in recent years, a tough room for American leaders. We’ve spent a lot of time in Berlin, so I know the city; in my parents’ lifetime it was the capital of the most racist country in the world but now it’s urbane, cerebral and pretty sophisticated, with a stunning history and a development we’ve watched throughout the last ten years that is unparalleled. War(and communist)-ruined buildings and just plain ugly ones have finally been replaced by gleaming new market and skyscraper squares, there’s fabulous mass transit as well as renewed activity in its two opera houses and many theaters and ballet companies. OH and enough museums to keep you busy for months. Just the kind of place to be particularly hostile to a president like George Bush.

So what did Senator Obama bring that made the difference? David Brooks was pretty harsh in the NYTimes: " Obama has benefited from a week of good images. But substantively, optimism without reality isn’t eloquence. It’s just Disney." To be fair, I guess it can sound that way. The reality, to me though, is that after eight years of a president of whom we could not be proud and whose policies, war, rhetoric and attitude shoved our allies far from our side, a bit of warmth and solidarity is a legitimate introduction. Beyond that, the most profound thing about the speech, in my view, wasn’t Obama but the response to him. Sure, Europe is liberal and politically correct (except, often, about their own immigrants, unfortunately) and a black candidate (even half) for president in the US is attractive, but it’s more than that. It looked, at least to me, like Europeans have been longing for a United States they can believe in again; that perhaps part of the reason Europeans have been so angry at us is that beneath the rubble of the Bush years, we still represent a promise and ideal that Europe has been furious that we’ve abandoned.

Of course, I could be projecting my own heartbreak over Abu Ghraib and the Patriot Act and all the other profanities done in our name; at the horrific lack of inspired leadership both at home and abroad just after 9/11, at the war (How could it happen again – after Vietnam; the same lessons never learned, the same hubris?), at the craven attitude toward energy and life at the bottom end of our economic ladder – at all of it. But I don’t think so. Rather, it seems that under all the anger Europeans have manifested toward the United States, they, like us, want an American leader they can believe in. An America they can believe in. And Barack Obama is about as close to that is you can get without moving to another dimension.

The foundation laid by that inspiration will get us, and our old friends newly re-engaged, through the terrible, tough days ahead. Without a leadership of hope and belief, natural allies outside our borders will be lost to us, as they so sadly have been these past years. And as Senator Obama reminded us, we can’t afford that. Not now.

MARRIAGE, TRADITION AND MY MOTHER’S WEDDING RING

This is the hand of my soon-to-be daughter-in-law. The ring on her finger is 65 years old. At least. I know this because it was my mother’s wedding ring, which she wore until she died, and which I have worn ever since. And now, another generation of our family will wear it as a wedding ring. It’s a joy for me and symbolic of so much: continuity, Amy’s acceptance of us as part of her life, her respect for Josh’s origins, and, as she readily acknowledges, a love of tradition and history.

When your child decides to get married; it’s a big deal. New configurations must be established as two families converge: new sensibilities, new rituals and traditions. More important than all of that though is the wish, the hope, the prayer, that these two people, one of whom you have loved with your whole heart since he entered the world and one you have learned to love — that they will find happiness, the strength to weather inevitable storms, a continuation of the laughter and friendship they so clearly share, of the closeness each feels with siblings and parents, and as much joy as can be apportioned to them.

Seeing this ring, part of my own family since before I was, moving forward in this way, means all those things, stands for everything eternal that we seek and sometimes find. It’s a gift beyond measure to me and to the family we’ve been and the one we, and they, are still becoming.

BloggingBoomers Carnival #78

Divorce, marriage, coffee, retirement — you name it and, this week, it’s probably floating around someplace among the posts at Blogging Boomers Carnival #78. See for yourself.

OVER ALREADY: BLOGHER ’08

This photo was taken at the closing plenary of BlogHer08 and I’ve barely covered the event at all. There are so many moments I’d love to tell you about: readings by bloggers whose words hold incredible power; one by one they reveal intimate moments of sadness and joy, anger and hilarity. The words, drawn from their posts, are the clearest evidence of the power of this institution, not yet five years old and already a gigantic force for good in the lives of the women who have come here. So many more.

We’re all on our way home now; to Austin and Sacramento and Virginia and Manhattan and Minneapois, energized for another year, ready to write and comment and commit ourselves to that which we create. From these two days we’ve learned about traffic and writing, activism and art, gender and age tribalism, friendship, sisterhood and the joys of San Francisco. What we gain here informs the rest of our year: makes us wiser and funnier and more determined. And really, whatever I would have written had it not been for Sabbath obligations and general exhaustion boils down to that. So thanks Elisa and Jory and Lisa (and Jill and Mary Margaret and Kristen and Asha and Erin and Sarah and Devra and Jill and Kari and Beth and Tekla and Catherine and the other Catherine and Morra and Nicole and Liz and Kelly and Jen and Julie ) and all the other beautiful bloggers who, when we’re all together, raise the roof of whatever building we happen to be in, and also – every one of our spirits and our hearts.

BLOGHER OPENS

Here they are – the Founding Three. These are bad pix because I used my phone; camera cable’s too much trouble. There are 1,000 women here – the energy is palpable. It’s quite a thing to see because I attended in 2006 when there were around 500, 2007 when there were 800 — now there are 1,000. Doubled in three years. Pretty cool.

The hugeness is more palpable this year; you can’t do it all and some choices are bound to be wrong. I was in what was clearly going to be a great session and left to attend something else I had to go to; hard thing to do. No matter where you go in something this rich and dense, you’re going to miss something else.

It is thrilling though, to hear all these smart women say such great things – all in the same building I’m surprised that the hotel hasn’t levitated yet. More when I feel more organized.

E3, FABLE II AND BEING THE PROUD MOM

I’ve written often about the ways life changes as your kids grow up and become adults. We are blessed that both of ours have brought us so much joy. This public accomplishment is really just icing on the cake; moment by moment is where the real wonder comes. Even so, how could I not post it here?

The man on the right is my older son Josh. Speaking at E3! (The annual video game trade show in LA) On G4 TV. About Fable II, a game he has been working on for a very long time. How cool is that?

THE OBAMA NEW YORKER COVER. YES, THE NEW YORKER

OK. What do we think about this? I can tell you one thing. It hurts to look at it, even though I guess I understand what the artist, Barry Blitt, says he was trying to do. Rachel Sklar’s Huffington Post interview with the magazine’s gifted editor David Remnick explains further.

Obviously I wouldn’t have run a cover just to get
attention — I ran the cover because I thought it had something to say. What I
think it does is hold up a mirror to the prejudice and dark imaginings about
Barack Obama’s — both Obamas’ — past, and their politics. I can’t speak for
anyone else’s interpretations, all I can say is that it combines a number of
images that have been propagated, not by everyone on the right but by some,
about Obama’s supposed "lack of patriotism" or his being "soft
on terrorism" or the idiotic notion that somehow Michelle Obama is the
second coming of the Weathermen or most violent Black Panthers. That somehow
all this is going to come to the Oval Office.

The free speech and marketplace of ideas concepts that I’ve treasured all my life clash with my reaction to all of this; I know that. The Constitutional protection of freedom of speech exists to guarantee the right both to speak and to hear not only popular, but also unpopular ideas. We don’t need to protect the popular ones; it’s the ideas that enrage people that need the protection. And I’m all for that.

But for a responsible and respected publication like The New Yorker to abuse that freedom by offering such blatant stereotypes to make its point, particularly when the subjects are the first African American Presidential (Columbia and Harvard-educated) candidate and his (Princeton and Harvard-educated) wife, an accomplished attorney — each of whose life trajectory suggests two stars who did everything expected of them to grow into exciting, productive citizens — seems to me abusive and dangerous. In an effort to make a point about the hate that’s being distributed concerning these two, they’re feeding it.

It will be interesting to see how many right wing websites and publications make use of this image. There’s been plenty of reaction so far and most of it is far more sophisticated than I could dream of being. I’m having too much trouble with my emotional, gut sense of right and wrong to be very thoughtful; this just feels wrong – perhaps even more so because of who printed it. I’ve been a New Yorker groupie since I was a high school kid in Pittsburgh wishing I was in Greenwich Village living the life of Susie Rotolo. Like this – walking through the Village with Bob Dylan.

So it’s particularly disturbing to me that something so terribly offensive was pubished by this beloved icon.

The stereotypes don’t fit the Obamas, obviously. That’s what the New Yorker is trying to demonstrate by feeding these stereotypes out there in such a naked way. But even if they did, how many of us who ever cared about anything is willing to stand by every position we adopted in our younger days?

Congressman Bobby Rush was a Black Panther. Now he’s chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection, serves on the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet and is a co-chairman of the Congressional Biotech Caucus. Isn’t that what we want? Growth.

Even if the Obama’s were flamers back then (and I don’t think they were, by a long shot), isn’t the American way for young activists to rebel, maybe the wrong way, early in their lives then "grow up" to ultimately help to make change from inside? Justice Hugo Black, one of the great justices of the 20th century, started out as a member of the Ku Klux Klan – then went on to be a staunch defender of civil liberties for all. If we deny our future leaders the capacity to grow and question while they’re young, we will end up with leaders who may be what we deserve, but not who we need, by a long shot.

I guess what I’m saying is that this effort to force Americans to confront political trash talk by offering up a visual representation of it all is, to me, a terrible mistake. An image that casts a shadow over the remarkable symbolic gift of this landmark candidacy – an image that lingers like a scar.

THEY WILL CAMPAIGN AGAINST US UNTIL WE’RE ALL DEAD – AND MAYBE AFTER

From the day Richard Nixon was nominated in 1968 until Tuesday afternoon, forty years later, when John McCain began running this “Love” commercial, Republicans have been running against us. All of us who share a history of opposing the Vietnam war and working to elect an anti-war president. Against everything we ever were, believed, dreamed, voted for, marched against, volunteered to change, spoke about, created, sang, wrote, painted, sculpted or said to one another on the subway or the campus or anyplace else from preschool parent nights to Seders to the line at the supermarket.

How is it possible that what we tried to do is still the last best hope to elect a Republican? They used it against John Kerry. They used it against Max Cleland. They did it every time (well, almost) they were losing policy battles in the Clinton years. They called CSPAN and said unspeakable things. And now they are using the history of people my side of sixty to run against a man who was, if my math is right, seven years old during this notorious “summer of love” which – I might add, had nothing to do with those of us working to end the war. In fact, there were two strands of rebellion in those years. The Summer of Love/ Woodstock folks and the political, anti-war activists.

At the 1967 National Student Association Convention in Maryland, I saw a room full of students boo Timothy Leary off the stage, literally. We didn’t want to “turn on, tune in, drop out” we wanted to organize against the war. The anti-war movement was not a party. I know that’s not a bulletin but it is so hard to see all of us reduced to a single mistaken stereotype. Those who chose to find a personal solution weren’t nuts; communes and home-made bread were a lot more immediate gratification than march after march, teach-in after teach-in, speech after speech. “If you’re goin’ to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.” Tempting, romantic – and not us.

Even more painful is the fact that the cultural and political divide is still so intense that research (I assume) told the McCain guys that this commercial would work. That our patriotic, committed efforts to change our country’s path, and the cultural alienation that drove others toward the streets of San Francisco, combine to become a stronger motivator than all the desperate issues we face today, this side of those 40 years. Perhaps even worse, these Bush years have dismantled so many of the successes we did have, so that in addition to facing, yet again, this smear against the activism of 1968 (and I repeat, that was forty years ago — longer than most of the bloggers I know have been alive) there’s the awareness of what we did that has been undone.

I need to say here that I grew up on the shores of the Monongehela River in Pittsburgh and my classmates were kids who mostly went into the steel mills or the Army after high school. I knew plenty of supporters of the war. I went to prom and hung out at the Dairy Queen with them. But it never occurred to me to demonize them, to hold against them their definition of patriotism.

I’m not writing off or looking down upon those who did support the war; I’m saying that this cynical, craven abuse of the devotion of people on both sides to the future of their country is reprehensible and precisely the kind of behavior that has broken the hearts of so many Americans, on those both sides of the political spectrum, who just want their candidates to lead us in hope for what our country can be, not defame others whose dreams aren’t quite the same as theirs.

JEWISH BLOG CARNIVAL- TRY IT OUT

I am now a member of a Blog Carnival called Haveil Havalim, a community of Jewish bloggers submitting posts of interest to the community interested in Jewish issues. Today’s link, my first appearance, is called Daled Amos. You’ll find it interesting, I think. And if you want to know what the words mean, read this, written by the founder. Meanwhile, take a look.