'American Beauty' W.A.P, 'Cuties' and the KKK: History, Time & Political Correctness vs Art

I love film. I love movies so much that I spent most of my time in high school skipping almost every period after lunch to sneak off to the movie theatre at the mall. I would watch anything and everything. It didn’t matter, a movie was a movie.

One thing about watching anything is that you quickly realize, people will actually make anything. A movie isn’t a just a movie, and a good movie is hard to come by. Many of us unwittingly hold this aesthetic criteria in our heads based on the time that we live in, that allows us to experience, interpret and enjoy films, and filmmakers are aware of that. Film has the ability to leave culture vulnerable and open for future scrutiny. Films reflect the culture and time it was created in, more accurately than any other medium, with visual, sonic and literary references, beliefs, meanings and motifs. Sometimes, the present may not align with the moral compass of the past or future. Which begs the question: What exactly is the purpose of film?

Film creates the need to accurately reflect the culture of the times the story takes place in, and it always reflects the time it was created in because its creators are trapped in time. It has a unique ability to represent time itself. Space and time are primary organizing structures of film. Cinema space is a wholly visual place, and it is quite objective because it is a genuine visual space whose visual reality is immediate and inescapable. In French film theorist André Bazin’s ‘What is Cinema?’ he argued for an utter realism in cinema justified by film’s unique ability to represent time itself. “Cinema is objectivity in time … Now, for the first time, the image of things is likewise the image of their duration, change mummified as it were”

You can watch a movie that is trying to depict a certain place in time and we can be instantly transported there based on the clothes people are wearing, the conversations they are having, the slang and references they use, different advertisements and billboards, songs on the radio, food and drink. We can recognize a place in time and space through culture. Culture is a grouping of memories trapped in space. Popular films are able to depict stories that shape historical events and public knowledge of those events. Film isn't history so its not burdened with factual transcription, it's more concerned with the feel of the times. Movies try to accurately depict that feel, and by doing that, the medium itself becomes a replica of the times. Like how black and white movies, Westerns, Blaxploitation and our modern Superhero movies, represent a certain period in time. The movie becomes a piece of culture, with different quotables, jokes and moments that make us travel through time. Movies encapsulate our culture and by reflecting it back, we arrest memories in space. From a social standpoint, as time goes on we get different, newer and hopefully more forward thinking and progressive cultural norms, but film retains the feel of the era it was created in, created for and created by.

As the culture matures we shed some outdated norms, ideologies, belief systems, and we mature and create better worlds. In the past 20 years we have had exponential cultural shifts and we are continually seeing more. Especially recently, since the Covid-19 pandemic and the various “new norms” that have unexpectedly entered our lives. As we learn more, and as we outgrow certain modes of being, we recognize where we have made mistakes and we attempt to correct those mistakes. In our cultural epoch of political correctness, how much historical curation are we willing to allow? History has always been curated by the winners but for the first time in history, the world has a global record of everything anyone has said or done, so all of humanity is able to hold each other morally accountable.

For centuries, paradigms of power shaped history. In 'Telling The Truth About History' Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt and Margaret Jacob show how the history of the United States has changed over time. First history is focused on the Constitution as being based on self evident truths, discovered by philosophers and wise Founding Fathers, in 1913 though, Charles Beard emphasized the economic position of the Founding Fathers and how it was in their material interest to break from the mother country. It would take until 1980 for a Peoples history to appear, in the form of Howard Zinn's 'The Peoples History of The United States' giving those people a voice and a role to play in History.

The paradigms of power that shaped history have not disappeared, they have only continued to change with the times and the amount of information we store. We exist on a global record of information. Our world is riddled with street cameras, phone cameras, facts, pictures, video and identification. In this global record of information, the people have taken the mantle of history curation and have incorporated a variety of perspectives that weren't in the forefront. Things like Black history, Women's history and Queer history are making their way to the mainstream perception of history. Through the lens of the oppressed, many of the outmoded codes of conduct are being revealed as problematic, and because of the amount of individual information and history that is stored, people began getting exposed. History is picked apart with a modern moral lens.

The 'cancel culture' that requires constant and public curation of the individuals past, really starts after the 2016 United States Presidential election. Former Reality television star, pro wrestler and United States President Donald Trump had some footage leaked of him stating he likes to “Grab them by the pussy.” The “them” in question being, quite literally, any woman. This happened during the “Me-Too” movement.

Widespread media coverage and discussion of sexual harassment, particularly in Hollywood, led to high-profile firings, as well as criticism and backlash. Women were capable of accessing social media and for the first time in history, all women in the world were able to unite and share their terrifying experiences with men, specifically men of power and wealth using their positions to prey on them. The high profile conversations being started were pervasive on the internet and everyone's past came into question. Everyone was telling their stories, and many of the stories were decades old. The world was forced to look into history for a moment as a reflection. At that same time, a racist 70 year old pervert, started running the strongest military the world has ever known, and unwittingly acted as a direct reflection of the time of his upbringing, forcing the country to wake up and look at where they come from through the lens of the oppressed.

The United States, like every other country in the world, is a country riddled with a dark history. A history of criminals and savages that colonized lands, raped, pillaged and murdered everyone in sight. History is the echo of savages that progressively had to tone it down for various reasons. There’s still a lot of barbaric things that happen, wars, countries and lives stricken with turmoil and human malevolence, but objectively there has been global progress and many of us are shielded from many harsh realities that have been historically thought of as predetermined factors of existence.

The reason why Americans were sedated from this constant reminder that history is a red carpet of barbaric savages, was because of Barack Obama. 8 years of a Black President had created the narrative that we had transcended primitive concepts like race. For a second, we had this young, urban, Black Man leading the Country to a new frontier. Obama was a symbol more than anything else. Obama became President after the 2008 financial crisis. While many lives were in disarray, Obama's slogan was “Hope.” As a symbol of hope his administration led some of the most forward seeming bills that involved things like legalizing gay marriage. Obama led the movement of historically disenfranchised communities overcoming their struggles, and in that way, brought their stories and history to the forefront.

Obama was a symbol and symbols are transcendent in meaning. Matter is highly concentrated energy and symbols are highly concentrated meaning. As the Jackie Robinson of American Presidents, the man had to be perfect. He had the perfect family, the perfect life, the perfect dog, the perfect hobbies and the perfect walk. He was the most photographed man in history and every time you saw him, Obama was cool, friendly and witty. His public image was so perfectly curated that his symbol drew us into his world.