Welcome to the Jungle

Life in the USA -- A Hardscrabble Reality For (almost) All of Us

I’ve decided I should start commenting each time Netflix supplies us with a new slab of propagandistic, celluloid slop. They seem to be able to churn out dreck that looks and feels like it comes straight from a filmmaking conglomerate with a pricey and highly efficient mass production line— Fordism in service of the Arts and Entertainment Industry. This is how consent is maintained: through a glut of non-stop ideological messaging that comes from the top down and ensures that the citenzry never dare resist the forces of capital and Empire.

I’ve been trying to share this with those close to me, at least those with a conscience who are on the fence and sick at the prospect of voting for Kamala Harris. It’s hard to get people to be diligent about critical literacy when they are barraged by an incessant stream of ideological messaging. One friend of mine is particularly angst-ridden and he’s had the courage to be upfront in his exchanges with me. He’s very intelligent, but he’s also starting to realize that political awakening is a painful process that demands a price.

That sometimes includes alienation, a loss of friendships.

Much to his credit, he’s hung in there. I told him yesterday that the hard decision isn’t choosing between Trump and Biden. The difficult decision is the one he’s really considering, maybe even unconsciously: to stop participating in another senseless and futile lesser-of-two-evils farce and refrain from voting for major parties. We discussed how ubiquitous propaganda has become; it’s a part of our TV shows, our commercials, the memes and the pop-ups you see every day on your phone and laptop, our videogames, the principal’s welcoming address at the elementary school where your kid is acting in the Christmas play. They’ve created propaganda that does not present as propaganda, but rather common sense, fact, the obvious truth. Its enunciation proceeds from an authoritative, invisible source, and is woven into the fabric of the everyday.

This is what Lefebvre was trying to tell us, and it’s a perfect example of Gramsci’s concept of hegemony.

The ruling class can also employ force and will turn to fascism before they ever allow an anti-capitalist solution, socialist or otherwise.

Another way they maintain hegemony — and Gramsci is the undisputed Marxist authority on that subject matter — is by doing what I outlined above. They control the dissemination of cultural information, both image and text, style and content. They do so while overseeing the cultural institutions themselves as well as the means of distribution, censoring those whose views threaten the dominant discourse and status quo.

This current heap of rubbish, Land of Bad, comes hot on the heels of Netflix's dreadful Trigger Warning, the Jessica Alba pro-Empire commercial that reminds us all it’s fine to slaughter brown people as long the blood is being shed by a woman who’s also a person of color.

You can read my take on the Jessica Alba recruitment film here. But while it’s fine to laugh at this trash, that’s not a reason to ignore what it is and what it promotes.

In any case, Land of Bad, despite its slightly better-than-average 6.6 IMDB rating, is no improvement at all, and the lead, some underwear model named Liam Hemsworth, makes me want to invest in his character about as much I want to spend time at my local impound lot.

Plus, the plot is essentially improvised: a tech specialist who steers drone bombs down to where brown people are resisting Empire misses his transport and has to join a squadron of special forces psychos who are off to trek through a jungle to save a CIA asset. The asset is never identified, and apparently, no one can think of a reason to ask why they’re off to no man’s land or to provide a justification for the mega-violence that they’re about to unleash.

In that respect, it immediately reminded me of the daily realities of the workers in this country and anywhere else in the world where the forces of capital are met with zero resistance. Do what you’re told. Even if you have no business participating in guerilla warfare in a third-world jungle halfway across the globe. We fight in jungles abroad and live in jungles at home, all so that a tiny fraction of humanity can shit in gold toilets and lead their crude, uncultured, and vapid lives in the pursuit of filthy lucre and dominion over others.

But back to our nervous, cleanly shaven, bright-eyed little beaver, who works with bits, bytes, and widgets and now finds himself in the belly of the beast, where things instantly go haywire. The rest of the film is just a bunch of two-dimensional brown villains trying to kill our hapless little Bambi-esque Boy Scout who strayed too far from the comfort of the Empire’s cozy safety net.

Of course, they trot out the same old hackneyed tropes every time one of these abominations is birthed. Russell Crowe — a bedraggled mess who, by the looks of things, was fresh from having made a quick dash for fentanyl and cheeseburgers with his pal David Hasselhoff — is the requisite hero-in-waiting, the enlightened man. He’s an essential cog in this myth-making formula. He shows us that no matter how dysfunctional the institution is, it will eventually be saved by a righteous and rugged individual, one whose American exceptionalism proudly proclaims that no matter how ugly things get, it’s always better to side with the Empire because evil motherfuckers lurk in every nook and cranny of our lives. And you had better not forget it.

So of course Crowe, who pisses off his commanding officer with all his pesky integrity, steps in to save the day. A trusty cliche rides horseback atop a timeless trope, bringing home the same message you’ve heard a thousand times, only it’s tarted up in a sexy, new skirt and some high heels.

I know it’s tiresome, but staying aware while your mind is assaulted is of paramount importance right now. If we don’t change — if we don’t start refusing to participate in this manmade death spiral — then we’re just like battered women in an abusive relationship, looking for reasons to do the same self-defeating thing as our lives disintegrate.

I’ll be the first to admit that there are consequences involved in taking that initial step forward. I’ve had a hard time taking first steps in my own life, believe me. But anything else right now is without question a step backward, into a hell of our own making and a world that only a sociopath would want to inhabit.

Signing off my high horse.

Peace be upon you,

P