My fiction teacher was saying today that in the past twenty or so years, fiction and fiction reading has declined. It's not only the onset of 'screens', like televisions and computer screens. Many studies have looked into this and one of the theories is that is has been since 9/11. It comes out of fixation, like a car accident. It's the thought that there are so many horrific, real and far more tangible things happening in the 'real world', why would I need a
book, a piece of fiction to take me to a place of fixation, to capture my attention. Non fiction has risen in popularity as fiction has declined. It's interesting because a lot of the people I know, when things get cruddy, they want to escape. They find the most entrancing kind of fiction, that will temporarily relieve them of their preoccupation with something they can't ignore. And I am part of that trend. Film, books, magazines, blogs. I am interested in the people interacting with this world as I am. It's the feeling that we are not alone in the big, magnanimous cruddiness. We are not alone in witnessing suffering, in desiring change and in seeking fulfillment.
Umm...Blab.
Anyhoo, the most recent residents of my dvd player were Captalism: A Love Story and Addicted to Plastic. I remember seeing Addicted to Plastic on the shelf in Blockbuster and feeling depressed already. And so my husband, feeling the same voyeuristic masochism as me, brought it home. After I had spent six straight hours immersed in a renaissance literature essay. It's the end of semester, aka Boob Tube Rescue.
Ever since the huge BPA-scare when I was in high school, I have forever eyed plastic of any recyclable and otherwise distinguishable variety with a severe sense of paranoia. I silently consign myself to a slow death every time I heat anything in plastic and I can't use our microwave anymore. I should also add a disclaimer to this diatribe that I am a self-identified obsessive personality. (Which is kind of like saying I am a self-identified hypochondriac but at least it's self-identified). So needless to say this Addicted to Plastic movie made me feel nervous. I found this movie to be slightly more feel-good than a lot of other movies, like say The World According to Monsanto which was like a dash through court cases and autopsy reports with tin-foil hats. AtP made an effort to identify the truly pervasive problem that plastic poses to the environment, wildlife, food sources and humans but it spent equally as much time on what was being done about it. Did you know that Denmark has a recycling turnout of over 90%? Did you know that Canada and the US combined only recycle on 5% of their recyclable waste? That's really stupid. And did you know that we ship/sell our recyclable waste overseas so that impoverished and overpopulated countries like India can deal with it? Excuuuuse me?
Despite my tirade, this is a great movie and I found it largely unbiased.
UNLIIIIKE...Michael Moore! Capitalism: A Love Story was classic Moore. Matt actually wrote a hilarious post on his blog about the movie. The movie is not really about Capitalism at all. It's about corruption, the corruption of banks, wall street and government. But it is not about Capitalism. Moore is an obvious proponent of Socialism but using the film as proof, he doesn't seem to acknowledge Socialism as equally susceptible to corruption. Matt is on this Milton Friedman kick lately. He has a tab on his computer that links to clip after clip of Friedman debating other people in defense of the American Capitalist system. Now I am not a capitalism-can-do-no-wrong kind of person. I think it's a flawed system just like everything else because it relies on humans, who are inherently flawed. But Friedman makes a good point. Moore goes so far in his movie as to interview bishops and priests as to their opinions of capitalism and for them to denounce it as sinful. It's a wonder most people look at Christians as fanatical kooks.
What I think both of these films bring up, however, is that as residents of this earth, we have this expectation that our systems and our world should be able to function and continue regardless of what we do to them, and they should do it flawless and without consequence. We want to be able to check out so that we can 'fulfill all of our desires for our life'. Which makes me think of that part in Wall-E when we see all of the humans on the ship hundreds of years in the future. I don't want to be like that. Doesn't seem fun at all actually.
On a fun note! *Because blogs like this always need fun notes. Tomorrow is Good Friday!
She's almost here... :)
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