"He Loved Big Brother"

[poliphilo]

In Peter Mullan's terrific movie about institutionalised abuse, The Magdalene Sisters, an archbishop treats the imprisoned girls to a Christmas showing of The Bells of St Mary's and the sadistic, power-mad sister in charge stands up and gives a cooing and ingratiating little speech about how she used to go to the movies with her father and how she liked the westerns best.

And the realisation dawns that not only does this terrible woman believe that God is on her side, she also, God help us, believes that she's cute.

Monsters never think of themselves as monstrous. Stalin loved drinking games. Hitler was fond of children and dogs. Mao went among his people with a great big silly grin on his face.

I won't (because I'm a bit of a fraidy cat) mention the names of any grinners, smirkers and jokers who are still alive and in power.

Sister makes her twee little jokes and the girls laugh at them.

The self-delusion of the ruler is perfectly matched to the self-abasement of the ruled.

Comments

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

It's one of my quarrels with Tolkien and his school that they completely misrepresent the way evil presents itself. It isn't big and black and brazen, but has a sickly sweet charm and talks the language of patriotism and religion

My instinct here is to leap to Tolkien's defense. And in fact I will. The evil we know may have that sickly-sweet charm, but its effect is certainly big and black and brazen. Or to put it another way...

Taken individually, Tolkien's orcs were kind of goofy in a malignant way. Taken en masse, they're lethal.

And fear, real heart-stopping fear, is big and black and looming like a ringwraith in full sail. At least it is for me.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Tolkien presents good and evil in fairy tale terms. I guess I'm OK with it really.

But it would have been interesting (more interesting?) if Mordor had been given the kind of seductive glamour that the Third Reich had.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Let's not lose sight of the fact that LOTR was intended as a sequel to The Hobbit -- a children's book -- and then took on another life. A children's book might have labored under the "seductive glamor" concept.

(Does we love our lovely LOTR, Precioussssss? Oh, yes we does)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I love Tolkien too.

When I was at school I had an enlightened English teacher who read us LOTR in weekly instalments (during the two final periods of a Friday afternoon.) This was in 1959-60, long before Tolkien became a cult.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Wow. I don't believe it was available in the states that early. I bought an edition in 1966, which I think was also before it became a cult, but not much.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

For several years I felt a sort of proprietorial interest in Tolkien and when people went on about this cool new book they'd just discovered I would smile smugly and say, "well, actually...."

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

"But it would have been interesting (more interesting?) if Mordor had been given the kind of seductive glamour that the Third Reich had."

but... doesn't it, in some ways? LOTR can be sort of read as an allegory about WWII. saruman is certainly seduced by the power of mordor. maybe the "seductive glamor" would have been a little more evident if the army had been a human army and not an orc army-- although there were humans fighting on mordor's side- the pirates and the people from the south...

or perhaps, the ring portrays evil is more the way you're talking about. it tempts pretty much everyone with thoughts of the good they could do by wielding it- i'm thinking of boromir, galadriel, and gandalf, in particular- but it's really the ultimate artifact of sauron's evil.

just thinking out loud.

also, did you know that stalin tried to assassinate john wayne? i may have posted about this before.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Someone said that the Ring comes close to being the central character in LOTR. Maybe it was Peter Jackson, maybe it was Tolkien himself.

Jackson had a huge replica ring made so that he could stick it in the foreground of a shot and it would dwarf the actors behind.

I seem to remember hearing that about Stalin and Wayne- quite possibly from you. Do we know why Stalin ordered the hit?

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

stalin loved movies- particularly american cowboy movies- but he hated the fact that he liked those movies because their themes of individualism were so anathema to soviet idealogy. one night after watching some john wayne movies, he drunkenly ordered that assassins be sent to LA, but before they could get there, stalin died and brezhnev called off the hit.