yay cultural treachery (kinda)

i wz only half watchin ENEMY OF THE STATE (1998) f.will smith, gene hackman last night (bcz i wz flickin over to HOUSE yes HOUSE i sed HOUSE — and then also after a doc abt the cult of steroids), but if ever you want to contemplate how mainstream cultural norms can slam into reverse this is yr movie:
the NSA (= nationanal security agency now routinely hyped by the bush aministration as a necessary and useful tool IF ONLY IT IS ALLOWED TO FUNCTION* W/O OVERSIGHT) is here i. out of the control and in the pocket of its own sinister boss; ii. taken down by the put-upon w.smith in combo w.vengeful loony loner hackman (kinda revisitin his role in THE CONVERSATION)**; taken down in the most BLOOD-DRENCHED WAY***

*its function is eavesdropping: in the film it is infested by gen X hacker types who run a vast cybernetix’n’satellitecam web to SPY ON EVERYTHING — instead of eg establishing shots you get fabulous birds-eye zooms in the exact spot smith is standing
**so its “line” is BIG GOVT IS EVIL, which in 1998 wd have (more or less) been an anti-clinton conservative-libertarian position — haha smith is a LAWYER (i think) (HOUSE i tell you HOUSE!)
***no spoilers but the mismatch between the “event” smith “engineers” and some kind of acceptable comforting closure has become almost as vast here as the plot elements in the die hard trilogy

(such shifts aren’t new — and despite my komikal hed i’m not suggesting the BBC spotted what i’m highlighting and ran it yesterday for this very reason: my guess is the exact opposite, that they filed it under OK-action-thriller/affirms-the-status-quo, and that no one involved in its marketing EVER particularly caught onto the many little mindbombs inadvertewntly sown into such routine density of texture)

1. FT's koganbot on August 19th, 2006

   Haven’t seen the flick, but off the top of my head I’d say that a particular plot element is absolutely standard: whether the threat is internal (e.g., the govt.) or external (terrorists, blackmailers), the hero who saves everything is a renegade who takes matters (and often the law) into his own hands, and we are saved by the action of this individual acting either alone or with the help of several other renegades and misfits. Note that this pattern is much more common in movies than in TV series, which follow a set of characters from week to week.

2. FT's pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør on August 19th, 2006

   that’s what i meant by “OK-action-thriller/affirms-the-status-quo” — the FORM is absolutely standard; it’s the specific details — in particular the NSA (mentioned by name) and the denouement — that show how times have shifted

   also interesting: smith never discharged a weapon himself (except he might have done while i wasn’t watching!)

3. FT's pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør on August 19th, 2006

   looking at a plot summary on wikipedia, i see the the mcguffin as far as the NSA is concerned is SPECIFICALLY a bill allowing expansion of the NSA’s surveillance powers

   my contention is that this element has switched (retroactively) from being an amusingly paranoid, implicitly rightwing mid-90s “GOVT=TOO BIG” trope — the whole thing only plausible in the context of an obviously not-meant-to-be-politically-TRUTHFUL thriller (thriller as diversion not thriller as challenge); and only explored insofar as it sets the plot running — to a real active hot potato*; at which point a whole bunch of probably inadvertent stuff also switches on in curious ways (smith being black versus the roomful of computer nerds with gelled haircuts eg) (one of whom was OZ FROM BUFFY and DOCTOR EVIL’S SON)

   in the early 70s, in THE CONVERSATION and THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR and THE PARALLAX VIEW, more or less the same trope was by contrast very leftwing and quite dark (they all have bleak endings) (the villain is the CIA; the “ending” is that trust in the state will be betrayed)

   *in the die hard movies, the idea of terrorists blowing up planes and big US buildings was pleasingly absurd and cartoonish — it told you “sleep safe, none of this can happen to you”; now it’s the kind of thing you have to handle very delicately if you don’t want to be caught “commenting”