Sinking Ships

THE myth-making property of Hollywood movies is indeed most often employed these days on behalf of a left-liberal agenda. The fact is even more evident in historical films than in science fiction, as two of this season’s Christmas blockbusters make clear. Not only are Steven Spielberg’s Amistad and James Cameron’s Titanic both named after ships, they both marry impressive cinematic sophistication to a moral drama of babyish simplicity. To be sure, anyone faced with the daunting necessity of having to make back an investment of $75 million (Amistad) or $200 million (Titanic) had better keep it simple. But there are ways of giving the public what it wants without making such ludicrous demonstrations of the obvious.

Not that anyone is disposed to quarrel with the proposition that white slave traders and their apologists were evil men or that rich people who are contemptuous of the poor and try to keep women from having fulfilling lives and careers are, uh, ditto. Yet at the same time, you can’t help noticing that these are rather easy targets in this day and age. There’s not much chance of our having to pay a price for booing and hissing these once-powerful but long- dead white males. And it is much easier for Hollywood to hate them than, say, the living Muslim slave traders of the southern Sudan or glamorous rap artists who celebrate the macho joys of insulting and beating up women. Moreover, the resurrection of historical racists and sexists as cinematic bogeymen brings with it a political message of a rather more dubious quality.

About the Author

James Bowman

THE myth-making property of Hollywood movies is indeed most often employed these days on behalf of a left-liberal agenda. The fact is even more evident in historical films than in science fiction, as two of this season’s Christmas blockbusters make clear. Not only are Steven Spielberg’s Amistad and James Cameron’s Titanic both named after ships, they both marry impressive cinematic sophistication to a moral drama of babyish simplicity. To be sure, anyone faced with the daunting necessity of having to make back an investment of $75 million (Amistad) or $200 million (Titanic) had better keep it simple. But there are ways of giving the public what it wants without making such ludicrous demonstrations of the obvious.

Not that anyone is disposed to quarrel with the proposition that white slave traders and their apologists were evil men or that rich people who are contemptuous of the poor and try to keep women from having fulfilling lives and careers are, uh, ditto. Yet at the same time, you can’t help noticing that these are rather easy targets in this day and age. There’s not much chance of our having to pay a price for booing and hissing these once-powerful but long- dead white males. And it is much easier for Hollywood to hate them than, say, the living Muslim slave traders of the southern Sudan or glamorous rap artists who celebrate the macho joys of insulting and beating up women. Moreover, the resurrection of historical racists and sexists as cinematic bogeymen brings with it a political message of a rather more dubious quality.