Politicians, Beware

The following quote from Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (Mark XIV) can apply to anybody. However, for some reason, I thought of politicians when I read it: "Where the principle of men's profession of religion is carnal and worldly, and the serving of a secular interest, the very same principle, whenever the wind turns, will be the bitter root of a vile and scandalous apostasy."

The Corporation: Institutions, Individuals, Ethics

The following review was posted earlier today on cinekklesia. To see a reader's comment (and my response), check out the original entry.

For a non-economist, I sure have a strong interest in economics. I even like watching documentaries about topics in the field. One that I highly recommend is Stopwatch: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the "Taylorization of America", which is about a turn-of-the-century efficiency expert who ended up affecting our everyday lives more than we know. Another excellent production is Thus Galbraith: The Life and Times of John Kenneth Galbraith, regarding the iconoclastic, left-wing economist (interestingly, this documentary was narrated very graciously by William F. Buckley, Jr., an icon of 20th Century American conservatism).

Now comes Jennifer Abbott and Mark Achbar's The Corporation (2003), a left-wing critique of what (by their telling) is the most dominant, pervasive institution of modern times. Those who know me and my libertarian views may wonder why I enjoy watching left-wing documentaries. Simply put, any well-crafted documentary about any interesting topic deserves recognition — even if I happen to disagree with some of its fundamental premises. (In fact, only by having our most deeply held views challenged do we grow intellectually and even spiritually.)

Regardless of one's political/ideological preferences, a viewer can learn a lot from The Corporation. For example, did you know that corporations exist in a nebulous linguistic space? They only officially "are" when the state grants them a license to do business. Theoretically, the state has the power to revoke the license of even the biggest players; doing so would cause such giants as Microsoft, GE, and Boeing to cease, well, existing. (Practically, this almost never happens.)

You already knew that? Okay, how about the fact that one of the biggest revolutions in jurisprudence occurred when US courts started to recognize corporations as "people." Corporations aren't just buildings and contracts and marketing departments; they legally share the same plane as individual human beings — this explains why they can buy, sell, and be treated as plaintiffs and defendants in court.

The Corporation's most interesting aspects center on its dissection of its subject. While many Americans accept the corporation as a given, its genesis and continued existence actually have a slightly artificial feel. In other words, corporations exist because we, as a society, allow them to exist; they do not arise ex nihilo.

Another interesting aspect of this documentary is its use of psychiatric metaphors. Since a corporation is legally a "person," Abbot and Achbar reason, then one should be able to diagnose it like any other individual. In addition, since the raison d'etre of most corporations is profit (a true statement: any ideologue—socialist, libertarian, or otherwise—should be able to acknowledge that), then our "corporate citizen" most likely would be diagnosed a psychopath, due to its narcissistic pursuit of self-interest without any regard for others' welfare. To bolster their diagnosis, Abbot and Achbar list a litany of corporate wrongdoing, which, if committed by an individual, would land that person in a prison or a psychiatric institution.

The Corporation's analysis starts to get fuzzy when it looks at the question of blame. While corporations are legally "people," we presume that they are not ontologically so. In other words, while I can sue Microsoft, I know that there is no Mr. Microsoft with whom I can relate on an interpersonal level. While I can have dinner with Microsoft's most famous representative, Bill Gates (on his dime, of course), I cannot do the same with a "Ms. Microsoft" (or her many offspring: Windows, Encarta, etc.). Such "people" do not exist.

This lends weight to the idea of corporations as amoral institutions. (If a corporation has any moral code, it boils down to this: make as much profit as possible for the shareholders by increasing revenue and lowering cost.) When we say that a corporation has no heart and soul, we don't just mean that metaphorically; it is literally true. How can one place moral blame on any entity that holds legal personhood and yet has no soul?

Abbot and Achbar fumble at this point because they get caught up in this ambiguous question without successfully resolving it. Some of the intellectuals and activists they interview note that executives who work for corporations may be very nice people themselves, people with whom we would want to interact on a personal level, but the structure of the corporation strips away those individual niceties; the soulless beast takes charge, turning even CEO's into mere cogs. (One of the most provocative moments in the film comes when a former CEO notes that the general public has a misperception about the power of corporate executives; more often than not, they are actually beholden to forces beyond their control — namely competitors and shareholders.)

So, if the corporation is not a "real" person and if its employees have no substantial agency, then is nobody to blame when something goes awry? The problem with such a view is that it ignores the moral responsibility of each individual employee. A corporation may not be a real person, but it is made up of people who can and do make choices. If a CEO believes that a particular course of action is morally correct but contradictory to shareholder interest, then he/she must decide between the morally correct choice and financial security (i.e., his/her job). Remember: corporations would not exist if we, as a society, did not allow them to exist, and corporate malfeasance would not exist if individual employees did not facilitate such behavior.

I am not saying that such choices are easy or that anyone can lay claim to a moral high ground. I hypothesize that most of the people reading this review have witnessed some morally questionable behavior in their schools or workplaces but have decided that it is not worth resigning in protest. Perhaps we think that the offense is relatively minor and not worth our jobs. Perhaps we tell ourselves that "we have to choose our battles" and that this particular battle is not worth waging.

In any case, once we become conscious of a morally problematic situation or structure, we then have to make a choice. While The Corporation's analysis may be overly simplistic (e.g., in its demonization of corporations, it downplays [1] the value of competition and consumer choice in restraining immoral behavior and [2] the negative effects of state actions, many of which cause even more harm than corporate malfeasance), the movie does raise the important issue of consciousness. We have a responsibility to be aware of the world around us, to avoid isolating ourselves in echo chambers that merely reinforce our pre-conceptions. While I would encourage Abbot and Achbar to take a more favorable view of the free market (could their critiques result from their own self-imposed echo chamber?), I applaud them for having made a fascinating and provocative film.

The Terminal: More than Fluff?

The following review originally was published on cinekklesia on June 1, 2005. As Paul Marchbanks, cinekklesia's coordinator, would say: this is "a spoiler-filled response" (i.e., don't read it if you still plan to watch the movie)!

I wanted to watch this movie largely because of the popularity of Paul Marchbank's review, which so far (as of May 31) has received four comments (over 25 percent of cinekklesia's feedback!). I have not read Paul's musings on this film, and I'm curious as to how much we'll differ.

Unfortunately, after looking forward to finding something pithy to say, Stephen Spielberg's The Terminal (2004) left me feeling vacuous (as Gertrude Stein once opined of Oakland, California: "There is no there there" [emphasis mine]).

Tom Hanks plays Viktor Navorski, an Eastern European who arrives at New York's JFK Airport in the hopes of beginning an American holiday. Unfortunately, while he is flying to the United States, military forces in his homeland stage a coup, and his country dissolves into war. He cannot fly back because the old government is gone, and he is technically not a citizen of the new regime; however, he cannot enter US territory because the State Department does not recognize the legitimacy of the new leadership (and thus, won't process his passport).

Thus, Navorski is stuck in a political/bureaucratic limbo at the airport. The local head of immigration/customs enforcement, Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci), tells him that he can remain in the sprawling international lounge (essentially, a shopping mall) until matters clear up. However, the civil war is no overnight affair, and Navorski ends up staying in the airport for months.

During the course of The Terminal, we learn that Navorski is a survivor. He makes money by returning luggage carts (25 cents a cart); when Dixon takes that enterprise away from him, he subsists on crackers and condiments. He eventually (and inadvertently) lands a job with a construction crew rebuilding part of the airport.

Navorski also becomes a folk hero to the low-wage employees of JFK. While Dixon wants him to attempt an escape so that he can be arrested by the Port Authority (and thus, become "someone else's problem"), Navorski steadfastly refuses, choosing instead to follow the Standard Operating Procedure that Dixon represents. Ironically, by steadfastly adhering to the rules, Navorski becomes a thorn in Dixon's side, much to the delight of those who labor under the bureaucrat's panoptic gaze.

While The Terminal is not necessarily a bad movie, it has nothing that makes it aesthetically worthwhile. The themes are hackneyed: immigrant trying to accomplish something in "America," the little guy standing up to the "Man," and "meaningful" romance between people "searching for something" (Navorski falls in love with a flight attendant played by Catherine Zeta-Jones — a subplot so trite and inconsequential that it barely deserves mention).

In all fairness, I did enjoy Tucci's portrayal of a petty bureaucrat, who exists solely to further his career, and Spielberg does make a timely and important comment on an agency's stupid and dehumanizing attempts to prevent people from voluntarily associating with one another. However, these points are minor in relation to rest of the film's energy, which is spent on telling us...well, not much, actually.

It appears that ultimately, The Terminal is fluff, which is not surprising, given the director and lead actor's status as mainstream Hollywood heavyweights. However, is it good fluff? Unfortunately, no. Good fluff, while not intellectually or cinematically brilliant, doesn't leave one feeling vacuous when the credits start rolling. For example, Ocean's Eleven is nothing but fluff, yet at the end, I felt good about having witnessed a clever heist spiced with wisecracks (unfortunately, the sequel was not nearly as good). To go further down the food chain (or up, depending on your tastes), Godzilla 2000 further epitomizes fluff — fluff that builds community. Try watching it with some close friends and you'll see yourselves laughing in harmony at the travails of the Godzilla Protection Network. While good fluff usually doesn't edify, it does fills the audience with something (entertainment? good times?).

Thus, the main lesson from The Terminal is actually one pointed at Hollywood writers and directors. If you're going to make fluff, then make fluff...and have fun with it. Don't try to "salvage" your work with paeans to overworked themes and trite heroes. Fluff is its own reward!

Spartan: A More Intriguing Secret Agent

The review below was published originally on cinekklesia on May 25, 2005.

Paul Marchbanks, cinekklesia's founder, coordinator, and champion, is also a pusher. A movie pusher. He gets you started on one film until you're hooked to the goodies that he's got stashed in his special DVD case at home. (Unlike most pushers, however, Paul doesn't charge for the product.) A couple of years ago, he started pushing entire seasons of 24 and Alias on his friends. What? Paul, the quiet, erudite man of literature trading in televised spy shows? It was a surprising turn of events, but I have to admit that the shows were entertaining. Paul was a crafty, convincing dealer.

However, after watching several seasons of both shows, I am now disaffected. It's not Paul's fault, of course. He's just a middle-man; he's not ultimately responsible for the quality of the product. Having watched David Mamet's Spartan, I now realize that neither 24 nor Alias do justice to the secret agent motif (not even close).

The problem with 24 is not the fact that the main agent, Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), is the jack-of-all-trades spy, who unrealistically performs any and every task with the utmost precision and heroism (while pulling the all-nighter, no less). The show's main fault lies in its continual devolution to heavy-handed statist propaganda, defending torture in the name of national security. The show's writing always has been lackluster at its very best, but its mediocrity has been tarnished by its championing of an essentially authoritarian vision of the political life.

Alias isn't so heavy-handed in its statist propaganda; rather, it's naive and annoying. There are too many "beautiful people" on the cast, who can travel around the world at a moment's notice, complete a dangerous mission, and then return to the office the following day, looking sharp and rested. (At least 24 makes its protagonist look sweaty and exhausted.) In addition, two of the main characters, Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) and Marcus Dixon (Carl Lumbly) express a hypocritical self-righteousness that makes my stomach churn. In every episode, they blather about the evils of the supposed "bad guy," Arvin Sloan (Ron Rifkin), without recognizing that their entire profession revolves around deceit. Finally, while 24 wallows gleefully in torture, the producers of Alias show their agents bending over backwards to avoid killing "innocents"; thus, while 24 is immoral, Alias pushes a stupid and naive view of covert ops: "our" agents are "good" — they wouldn't kill anyone unnecessarily, right?

Spartan provides an intelligent and nuanced antidote to the aforementioned drivel. Val Kilmer plays Scott, a secret agent who has a supposedly simple mission: rescue a politician's daughter, who was kidnapped from her home. The running theory is that she was taken by a gang of human traffickers, who plan to ship her to Dubai in order to sell her as a prostitute; the theory also supposes that the gang has no idea who they're holding.

During the mission, Scott takes on a protégé, Curtis (Derek Luke), and teaches him how to remain solely focused on the mission. Scott breaks arms, shoots innocents — does whatever it takes to get the job done. Unlike the agents in Alias, Scott doesn't try to save civilians' lives — what's a life when you've got a job to do? Contra 24's Jack Bauer, it doesn't appear that Scott has any nationalist or utilitarian notions of the "greater good"; like a machine (though more nuanced than, say, the Terminator), his only concern is with the mission. As the movie itself notes: he's a doer, not a planner.

Of course, David Mamet being David Mamet, Spartan has a twist. While in Dubai, Scott and his team see a news report that the politician's daughter was found off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. The DNA tests prove that it's her, and apparently, her body washed ashore with that of her professor (naughty). Yet, we later discover that maybe "her body" really wasn't her body after all....

You'll have to rent Spartan yourself to see how the rest of the plot unfolds. However, for our purpose here, I should note that Mamet portrays a very slight, nuanced shift in Scott's persona. When the latter realizes that things aren't as they seem, he goes "rogue," conducting his own investigation, seeking the truth, and risking his life in the process. Mamet isn't heavy-handed with this portrayal; he doesn't show Scott renouncing his chosen career or questioning his government. Rather, we see him listening just a little bit to his conscience and exploring where that takes him. Such a slight, yet meaningful, shift in his character's perspective (all within two hours) is more than the emotionally immature Sydney Bristow can muster in several seasons.

One final note: Mamet is smart to avoid linking his film with current events. While 24 and Alias are full of references to contemporary terrorism, the Patriot Act, etc., Spartan relies on timeless themes: crime, conspiracy, corrupt politicians. Thus, Mamet makes both a non-political film and a highly political film; by not explicitly tying his work to the here-and-now, Mamet makes a broader statement that would have resonated twenty years ago and could resonate easily twenty years hence. His timeless advice? Listen to your conscience and don't forget that politicians, as a class, are morally bankrupt!