The Media "Leonards" - a new meme

[arendt]

Why? Why? Why can't I see an escapist movie without coming
up with some political allegory? I need some down time.

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The Media "Leonards" - a new meme
by arendt

Now that the Matrix meme has had more than its moment colonizing our political
consciousness, I would like to propose a much less grandiose, and more compassionate
meme for the current state of American politics: Leonard, the guy with "the condition"
in the fabulously inventive detective movie "Memento".

You need to have seen the movie to really get the meme, but here is a summary
for non-viewers.

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Memento - a synopsis

Leonard's condition is, technically speaking, "anterograde amnesia". That is, he
remembers his life up to the point of "the incident" - a blow to the head during
his intervention in the rape/murder of his wife; but he is unable to form any new
memories after that time. This kind of condition is, admittedly, extremely rare; and
its portrayal here is Hollywood heroic. Leonard performs far more capably than
any actual person afflicted with this condition ever could.

Nevertheless, the plot line motivates this defective-detective's competence by
making his former occupation "insurance fraud investigator". The two plot
lines most relevant to this essay show how people react to a person in Leonard's
condition.

First, close friends cannot accept that this is really organic and permanent damage.
The intactness of the person's earlier self and memories misleads them. So, they
keep telling the victim to "snap out of it", mistaking physical condition for mental block.

Second, unscrupulous people recognize the condition for what it is, and use it
to their own advantage, because "I can say anything I want to you, and in ten
minutes you won't remember it happened."

The movie is about how Leonard tries to track down his wife's killer while suffering
from his "condition". He writes notes to himself and keeps voluminous files. But,
he is unable to hold the entire collection of data in mind long enough to think
it through. So, he makes snap decisions about what is important and tattoos
those "digests" of information onto his body. Unfortunately, when confronted
with people he has never met before, his limited mental faculties are overtaxed.
He is forced to decide whether or not to trust people based on "feelings", because that
subsystem is not affected by his amnesia.

Unfortunately, in tracking the criminal, Leonard falls among drug dealers, undercover
cops, and other manipulative people that live at the border of law and lawlessness,
and cross back and forth over that border. In his incapacitated state, Leonard is
no match for these slimeballs. And, the fact that the movie makes that point
without ever beating you over the head with it is why this is such a great movie,
and a great meme.

Oh, yeah, the meme.

----

Our mass media should be called "Leonards", because they can only construct
coherent narratives about America for times before "the incident". After the incident,
they have to rely on tattoos and other forms of self-mutilation. Their "incident" was the
right wing mugging of the free press, enabled by the repeal of the Equal Time
provisions, the copious subventions of fanatics like Richard Mellon Scaife, and the
relaxation of ownership rules. This incident happened as soon as Bill Clinton
unexpectedly beat George Bush.

The mainstream media was mugged by the tabloid media. Garbage, innuendo,
and rumor, unmitigated by the slightest intervention of fact-checking, flowed
like a sewer into mainstream discourse. For four years, the installed hit-man Ken
Starr was the source of an unending stream of baseless accusations, dutifully
reprinted by the tabloid-ized media. Republican operatives masquerading as
journalists, like the infamous Arkansas Project and the scurrilous Matt Drudge,
dished dirt to willing buyers throughout the mainstream media. Then Fox TV
came up to speed, and the mugging was complete.

As with Leonard, the mugged media still sounds convincing when it refers back to
analysis done before the incident. But, such analysis is increasingly outdated, and is
becoming unconvincing. The "liberal media" meme died with the "incident", yet it is
still spouted whenever anyone dares to criticize anything Republican. We won't
even get into criticizing Ariel Sharon, as that could get us knee-capped.

The old stereotype of tight-fisted, but principled, conservatives is still in place, despite
the fact that today's GOP is chock-full of the most rabid weasels, corporate pirates,
PNAC fanatics, corporate welfare recipients, and self-destructed ideologues like
Newt Gingrich and Bill Bennett.

Finally, the stereotype that 'America is always the good guy' is the trump card played
against the media Leonards by the Bush Cabal. But, after two bombing campaigns
by the U.S. in three years against almost defenseless Moslem adversaries, resulting in
unchecked anarchy and organized crime, the rest of the world knows we are led by
dangerous and unprincipled men; and our soldiers know that the Bush administration
finds them quite expendable.

The media is having difficulty, but it still tries to rationalize today's events in terms of
yesterday's stereotypes. These confabulating lapses into vanished stereotypes are
evidence that, while American mass media journalism was not killed outright, it has
been damaged with the same degree of irreversibility as Leonard. Further, its condition
resembles Leonard insofar as the press is unable to "connect the dots" about anything
to do with post-incident GOP criminality. Yes, they print a few factoids of truth, always
on page 27B on a Saturday; but they never return to those facts, never connect them.
Like Leonard, they know that "12 pages of the police report are missing", but they don't
know who took them, or what those pages contained; and they don't have the capacity
to investigate such a complex question on their ratings and entertainment-driven news
budgets.

Hence, their is no investigation of the 2000 election fraud in Florida, of the 9-11
incident and the quick destruction of its evidentiary debris, of the pack of lies that excused
the war against Iraq, of the statistically startling results reported by electronic voting
machines in the 2002 elections, or of the failure and quiet cancellation of the exit
polling system in that election. These issues all require complex thinking and research.

Instead, the media Leonards' fleeting attention is captured by manipulators (warmongering
politicians, theatrical terrorists, sensational and lurid murder trials) with agendas. The media
Leonards find these events "significant", and tatoo them on our body politic via endlessly
repeated soundbites ("Bring em on.", "Smoke em out") and film clips (WTC collapse,
Saddam statue toppling).

But, just as Leonard was bamboozled by too many facts and not enough comprehension,
so too are the Memento-ized media. First, the bent cops told them the killer was hiding
in Afghanistan; so we pulverized it. But, somehow we missed Osama, whom Seymour
Hersh claims was spirited out of the country by Pakistani intelligence (an ally that only
an incompetent like Leonard would fall in with). Oh, and the media don't have the
attention span to notice that opium production is back in Afghanistan, as are the
Taliban. There is almost no news coverage of the ongoing mutiliation of that sad
country.

Next, the bent cops told the media Leonards that Saddam was coming to kill them with
big, nasty WMDs. And, the Leonards fell for it again. Now, all kinds of people are coming
after the Leonards and some nearby involvees (like most of America), and the Leonards are
beginning to wonder if maybe those so-called cops have been lying all along. Too bad
that beginning is as far as their damaged brains allow them to get. The bottom line on
our Memento-ized media is that:

You can't wake a man pretending to be asleep, or a man in a coma.

If, after the last three years, the American people can't see that this is not the same old,
factual, sober American media we used to respect, then their clinging to the image of
an honest media that is dead and gone could be fatal to them. America needs to see this
damaged media for what it is: a dangerous loose cannon, available for use by any
pack of unethical scum with the money and the will to manipulate it.

We need to gently, but firmly, get the media Leonards into a locked ward before they cause
themselves or the American public any more harm.

[slappypan]

1. interesting post

In the movie, Leonard became complicit in his own exploitation. His condition gave his life purpose, and he was willing to commit horrible acts to keep the dance going. It's an interesting metaphor for our mass media. Leonards are very dangerous.

[Lizz612]

2. I like it.

You're right, "short attention span" or "bad memory" doesn't cover the dangerous incompetence that media displays. Problem is the movie is not as well known as it should be.

Ps. Guy Pearce is really attractive.

[arendt]

4. Judging from the lack of response, you're right: the movie is not known

My opinion is, that like most men, he looks better
clean-shaven and well-dressed than with three
days of stubble.

At first, I thought it was Tim Daly (Wings) with his
hair bleached blonde. Note the facial similarity.

But, I was impressed with the acting. He was very
convincing.

arendt

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. Christ, I thought you were talking about Cosby's flick for a second.

Thought provoking post. The media's culpability is always a sore point with me. The most interesting part of your comparison is the media's inability to access institutional memory. Hmmm...

[arendt]

5. A good night kick - n/t

n/t

[arendt]

6. Monday morning kick for this lead balloon n/t

n/t