I like the 2000 film, Battlefield Earth. I’m not proud of the admission. Seriously, BE is barely a movie at all and the subtext is horrible. The book BE is based on was written by L. Ron Hubbard who struggled with mental-health issues as well as a deep-seated distrust of psychiatry. The villains in BE are called “Psychlos.” So, yeah, someone’s Freudian slip is on full display.
BE is a guilty pleasure because it’s also loud and fun and a thoroughly over-the-top camp-fest.
Last week, I wrote of how we judiciously assess our favs before sharing with others. Truly, we don’t want to be judged by what we enjoy—joy-shamed, if you will. So, we’re careful with our darlings. Honestly, I think writers are the worst about this. Mostly, because criticism is how we learn and grow as writers. As a result we get REAL good about judging other people’s joy.
True to form, I criticize a lot of writers that a lot of people enjoy as a means of pointing out how, or how-NOT-to write better. The tricky part is that I enjoy (most of) those writers. I cut my teeth on their stories. I firmly believe their stories have merit and we can learn from their work. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother with them.
Positivity often pops up in some fairly jaded places.
My Missus, Gaye, is currently recovering from breast-cancer surgery. Her comfort book is Hillary Clinton’s What Happened, (but we’re fine now, really, not hardly angry at all, anymore, she can stop rage-strangling the Kindle anytime she wants). Her comfort movies, (television, whatevs…) is Sex and the City.
Yes, like many trendy-styles, it is brash, tacky, and primarily a thing of its time. SaTC is also an excellent example of character development and story arc, (even amid contract disputes) with compelling stories and enraging situations. So, yeah, I watch as well.
So good is the writing that you see past the “you’re so brave,” clichees of Samantha’s cancer episodes. Charlotte’s journey to adoptive parenting—with all the entitlement of a lawyer-husband and a Park Avenue address—hardly rankles when taken with the excellent writing and fantastic acting. Substance is key.
Gaye and I went through the adoption process without success. It’s hard and cold without money or prestige. It would be easy to hate these story lines based on the blatant privilege alone. But Kristen Davis’ nuanced performance perfectly distills down on the optimism in the face of heart-breaking bureaucracy. Rather than entitlement, her success (no less clichéd) feels hard-earned and rewarding to the viewer.
While far from a NYC publicist with a model-turned actor boyfriend, Gaye felt a kinship with Samantha. A self-described former Dairy Queen employee, Samantha did not come from money. She obviously clawed her way from the sticks and got herself to one of the most fabulous cities on earth at the first opportunity.
Yet, for the kinship, Gaye also felt betrayed by Samantha’s cancer diagnosis when the storyline originally debuted. It felt shoehorned in and distinctly contract-dispute-y.
But watching in retrospect, on the heels of her own cancer battle, Gaye recognizes the fear in Samantha’s voice as she sees pieces of herself falling away with her chemo-blasted hair. When Samantha laments that she will never be the same again, Gaye grieves the same loss. It’s the fear that most (if not all) cancer patients have in common: losing themselves to the disease and treatment.
When Samantha, speaking at a fundraising award ceremony, drenched in sweat, shucks her wig, acknowledges the unspoken side of cancer treatment, and does so with a gang of f-bombs, Gaye could see the path to finding herself in her own battle against cancer. She could see her way through a process that often obliterates identity. She could see herself beyond cancer-patient status. That’s what good stories do. They give us victories to sustain us in our own troubles.
Sometimes the silliest moves are the most soothing.
When Battlefield Earth came out in 2000, I hardly noticed. Between night-shift work and early-morning classes, (and a house I foolish bought before I graduated from university or secured a job) I had no time for movies, good or otherwise.
A couple of years later, I had a degree but still no “grownup” job. I also had too much time to brood. The dot-com bubble had popped. Enron had just begun to meltdown. Jobs were tight. Worry and late-payment notices snapped at my heels.
I ate too much bad food, worked too many overtime hours, and moved too little. My weight ballooned. It was a miserable circle.
Several years later I would figure out it was depression. At the time, it was just misery. Meanwhile, Battlefield Earth was in heavy rotation on basic cable. I would leave my hourly-wage job early in the morning with no classes to attend, few prospects, and infuriating hurdles for the scant jobs out there. Desperate, I would find something mindless on television to clear my worries so I could sleep.
At least twice a week, it was Battlefield Earth.
Unencumbered by the socio-sexual consciousness or gender-commentary of Sex and the City, BE doesn’t do subtle. It’s good/evil at play in a simple, simple story.
Our hero, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, (Barry Pepper) has no doubts, no dark night of the soul. There’s no crisis of trust between him/his fellow humans. Our villain, Terl, (John Travolta) is unambiguous and unencumbered by lost faith or mission-fatigue. His tragic backstory is sleeping with the wrong person’s daughter and drawing a crap assignment. So, no, there’s no character arc.
There’s scarcely a story arc. Hell, there’s scarcely a story.
If not clear, BE is non-challenging, soothing even. Jonnie, Terl, and Ker, (Forest Whitaker) camping it up, helped me turn off the worry for a little while. After an hour or so of what, at best, is a live-action cartoon, I could tune out the feelings of utter failure and just sleep.
No, I’m not comparing my mild depression to my wife’s battle with cancer. In fact this isn’t about me at all. This is about stories. Specifically the stories that sustain my Missus, right now. If you want to read more about her cancer journey, you can find it here.
This is also about the power of story to take a reader somewhere else when they’re stuck right where they are.
When Gaye watches SatC, she gets the subtext and commentary—but that’s not what she watches it for, especially now. Gaye watches for the clothes and art used in the show. She watches for the street-views of a city we only visited for a few days but fell for nonetheless. Mostly, she watches it to see women winning. While she watches, she doesn’t think about cancer or treatment.
That’s a damn-good story.
The photo above, Battlefield Earth is the property of Morgan Creek Productions/Warner Bros. Pictures. It is used here for educational/illustrative purposes as covered by the Fair Use Doctrine.
No comments:
Post a Comment