As I am writing this on Valentine’s Day, I would be remiss if I did not say a few things about the holiday. First, at the flower plantations in South America that export cut flowers to the US, children make up 20% of the labor force, most workers barely earn a subsistence wage, and work hours are extended dramatically the week preceding Feb. 14. Second, between 89 and 93 percent of the sexual partners that you have had carry an STD of some kind, some of which can cause you to get pregnant from kissing. Third, it was sweet of him to send you those chocolates, but you’re not exactly fitting into those size 6 jeans like you used to, are you babe?
In this country, it isn’t enough to not like something – you have to not like it and try your hardest to ruin it for anyone who might. This is why little boys rip the heads off Barbies, why the Christian group Focus on the Family accuses SpongeBob videos of promoting homosexuality, why Hillary Clinton became Senator of New York.
When I was in kindergarten we had to make dinosaurs out of construction paper. I was the only boy who chose to make a pink dinosaur, so Tommy Poretta intentionally spilled black paint all over it. I can still remember him laughing at me, the flesh on his fat face rippling and undulating like an American flag in the wind, a flag representing a nation of Tommy Porettas, a nation of morbidly obese idiot children throwing their paint on everyone else’s dinosaur. (1)
I thought of Tommy recently when I went to see a movie. Shocked to find that tickets were sold out to the Ice Cube vehicle “Are We There Yet?” (“AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted Family Film”), I decided to see “Million Dollar Baby.” Leaving the theater, I walked by a man in a wheelchair who was camped outside and distributing pamphlets that attacked what I thought was an excellent movie. The pamphlet was endorsed by both the Christian right and disability groups. The attacks were ridiculous; these spineless protestors don’t have a leg to stand on.
The problem with the movie is that it is sophisticated and nuanced; it beautifully explores its complex and troubled characters. This is a problem because it means it is for adults. It is not for children who tend to comprehend things in either black or white, who can’t understand subtlety and would inevitably reduce such a movie to the most crass and immature interpretation. It is not, then, for Focus on the Family, for the Christian Coalition, for people from Kentucky, or for disabled people who insist on superimposing their own lives and situations onto the movie before deciding to not only dislike it, but try and ruin it for others.
Tommy Poretta would not understand this movie. He also wouldn’t be able to understand foreign policy, other cultures or the politics of war. (2) He would need to be told, “you’re either with us or against us” and “the terrorists hate our freedom.” He would need euphemisms and distortions to simplify and overshadow the truth about illegal wars, the stripped civil liberties and torture. He would need country songs to affirm his nation as the best and sound bites of intolerance from radio show hosts to confirm that his fear and hatred is acceptable and mainstream. He would need Ward Churchill with his unpopular opinions kicked out of all academia and would need attorney Lynne Stewart in a cell for the next 20 years. He would need propaganda and flag waving to supplant any real inquiry into the conditions of Iraq’s “free election.” He would need a President who simply recites clichés about “freedom” and “liberty” instead of someone who asks real questions and examines complicated issues. Tommy would need these things because he is a child. The rest of us need these things because we are Tommy.
This nation of Tommys, this Chuck E. Cheese Country, is not confined to those land-locked red states with jug-band based economies. Look how easily some of these enlightened liberals are offended, how they shudder at certain terms and, should you use a word that they do not like, how quickly they’ll enroll you in a forced “diversity workshop.” Children reduce complicated decisions to a simplistic “yes” or “no,” sort of like a giant checklist in a Wesleyan community forum.
I know I should have just wished you a happy Valentine’s Day and moved on. Instead, I spilled paint on your dinosaur-shaped Valentine that on the inside says “Our love will never go extinct” or “You’re my Velocirapture” or some crap. This country needs to start acting its age, which means contemplating the complexity of certain issues and eschewing the trend of rabid anti-intellectualism. People like Tommy don’t encourage discourse and debate, but rather censorship and intimidation. At some point, we are going to have to make the conscious decision to grow up and shed our child-like mentality – because we can’t always wait for a bus to come and do the job for us.
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