Materialism and film

Many films deal with the idea of 'materialism' and how we tend to define ourselves with the objects which we own. The two films which I am going to be discussing are Fight Club (mainly) and Trainspotting.

As we know, Fight Club satirises society's (and our own) attitudes towards the world and the narrator, Edward Norton, almost mocks us in our ways. Initially, he too lives in a materialistic reality... until he blows up his own apartment.

Here are some of my favourite quotes from Fight Club which encapsulate the ideology of the film:

"Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables – slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won’t. We’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off."

"You are not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your fucking khakis. You’re the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world."

The main character later adds: "I am Jack's wasted life".

I feel strongly that the way our world functions is severely fucked up. Edward Norton is correct in the sense that the large majority of us work endless, monotonous 9-5 jobs...for what? So we can receive a pay check? So we can buy things? So we can 'make a living'? So we can try to feel 'normal'? Whilst Fight Club may be a slight generalisation of all members of society (as some of us may actually enjoy our jobs, maintain happiness and not depend upon material things to fuel our egos), it still holds a valid point and reveals our sheer hypocrisy. Whether the route which Jack takes in an attempt to reject convention is sustainable or not, is a different matter.

Similarly to Fight Club, the 1996 film Trainspotting also sets out to undermine society's values:

Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourself. I chose not to choose life. And the reasons?

The irony in the narrative stems from the the word ‘choose’; as mere products of society, can we ever truly choose? Must we face that our entire lives remain governed by social, financial and political structures?

If you have ever watched Trainspotting, you will be aware that (in the end), the main character Renton eventually buys into society after he has stolen a large sum of heroin profits from his 'friends'. However, it can be sensed that he is not entirely comfortable with his new stance: causing us to doubt its authenticity and predicting that his attempt to be 'normal' could backfire.

The freeze frame which we see of Renton echoes the opening sequence of the film, yet is entirely ambiguous. It may now seem that he is lonely in existence, which is perhaps a necessity of the first steps towards buying into conventional society.

For practical reasons, it seems that we MUST buy into our materialistic world...to some extent.

Presidents of the USA

All of the previous presidents of the United States of America all have one thing in common. Every single one of them have been characterised as a Christian. All have also used their faith within their election campaigns. Many have been 'accused' of being atheists and it baffles me that the word 'accused' has been used in such a context, as if not being religious is an immoral thing. The voting citizens of America do not seem to have any concern for their president's intelligence, qualifications, rationality or knowledge on fundamental matters. Their only concern appears to be that their glorious president believes in mythical tales which have been 'documented' in the 'good book' and that they make multiple references to God during their public speeches.

The most evident acts of hypocrisy are made by George Bush. Apparently, he is very concerned with 'morality'(his idea of it), so much so that he stated he was against abortion. Firstly, the act of abortion cannot be categorised as either moral or immoral- each case is different. It is most certainly immoral to use abortion as the equivalent of contraception, or to repeatedly cover up an affair. However, how can any empathetic human being label a 13 year old girl who was a victim of rape 'immoral' for CHOOSING to have an abortion? How can an abortion be 'immoral' if the Mother has the knowledge that her child will be severely deformed and suffer physically as well as mentally?

Anyhow, Mr Bush seems to be extremely 'pro-life' in this case. However, he contradicts this with the act of war which he instigated against Iraq. When asked how many Iraqis had been murdered by the US forces he replied with a sense of apathy and estimated it around 1 million, expressing that this number should rise and that he wasn't really 'keeping track'. Previous to this, he stated: "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."

Clearly, Christianity does not equate to morality, nor does any other religion. No president thus far has been an atheist, a Jew, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Sikh or an 'adherent of any specifically non-Christian religion'. However, many glorify the idea that Obama is the first African-American to hold down the president title and feel that their world is progressing in the sense that we are moving towards 'equality'. Ethnically- yes, perhaps. But there still remains prejudice against any leader which is not Christian yet this is dismissed as a trivial issue. It's still discrimination, but on other grounds.

The Final Girl Theory

For my Film Studies AS, we briefly touched upon the 'Final Girl' theory whilst studying the Slasher films Halloween (1978) and Scream (1996). The Final Girl theorist Carol J Clover noted that this figure within the Slasher genre is typically: intelligent, maternal, androgynous, insightful and has equal masculine/feminine traits. Many would interpret that the final female survivor as 'empowering to women'; I find it quite the opposite. The 'Final Girl' often dresses masculine, has an ambiguous name and is afraid of sex- quite often they are a virgin. Now, if we look at the typical MALE protagonist they generally resemble the highest, optimum idea of masculinity. They do not require feminine traits to allow them to survive or out run a psychotic murderer. So, this leads me to ask: why is an assumption made that a female is somewhat 'incomplete' if they embrace their femininity? Why do they require equally masculine traits to live whilst a male does not require any sense of femininity?

The school system

Recently, I've come to notice something very significant about the education system. It's always been visible to me, but more so in the last few months. As a person, I am not judged upon my sense of morality, my self-esteem, my perception of the world, my mental health nor my physical health, in particular. I am judged solely on a few GRADES on a piece of paper. And these grades are a product of a few exams or pieces of coursework which mainly test my ability to regurgitate information back into my 'own words'. For example, yesterday I got handed back my Theology mock exam. My teacher was satisfied that I 'thoroughly knew the syllabus' but criticised a certain paragraph I wrote which had 'too much originality' and 'wasn't on the specification'. Now, what I'd essentially done is THOUGHT about the question, explored it, and come up with a point which was different to what we'd done in class. It just displays that individuality is suppressed whilst conformity is encouraged. Shouldn't it be the other way round?

Furthermore, our grades do not define us as individuals. We only have to observe a few examples to see this is the case. The obvious one is of course, Lord Alan Sugar; he left school without a single GCSE- now he has an entire business empire and is said to be worth over £1,000,000,000. Another example (a favourite of mine) is Stanley Kubrick. He performed extremely poorly at school and left at age 15. Kubrick has an IQ of over 200, one of the highest recorded. His films are intelligent, sophisticated and hold deep subliminal meanings. He is an all round genius, in my 'humble opinion'.

I'm not trying to say everybody who fails school is an absolute genius because, arguably, there are a lot of less intellectually capable people in this world. But what I am saying is that the school and grading system does not truly measure ability. It's a mere generalisation of the idea of intelligence. Whilst revising, I revise information which I have been given, and I revise through 'memory techniques' as opposed to broadening a spectrum of various ideas. It seems that I am not being encouraged to 'think' which seems particularly fitting with the principles of our government and society.

females and sex

I feel like if I admit I have sex for pleasure, and nothing but that, society will label me with derogatory terms. Surely it's instinctive? Would males be as criticised for admitting that?

Me in 2 sentences

“I am a lover without a lover. I am lovely and lonely and I belong deeply to myself.” - Warsan Shire

Nature vs. nurture: psychopathology

Psychopathology: the study of mental illnesses/abnormalities

I'm really torn in the 'nature vs. nurture' debate with regards to psychopathology so I'm going to try and hold as much of a holistic view as possible. We've been studying this in Psychology and I've been pondering on it a lot.

Essentially, many psychological abnormalities are caused by an imbalance of neurotransmitters/hormones in the brain. For example, high levels of dopamine= potential schizophrenic. There is also no doubt that medication can relieve the symptoms of certain mental disorders. However, can drug therapy really be defined as a cure?

I'm more drawn towards the idea that, in some cases, these abnormalities can be triggered by our cognition/thought processes alone: leading to a change in our very biology. The potential for depression is there within us all, it surfaces through our environment, our experiences, external processes. For example, an individual may be regarded as psychologically healthy, then something traumatic happens to them, causing them to become depressed, or have bipolar. The predisposition for that mental state already existed, but the world around them simply revealed it.

Biological methods for managing depression do work... whilst you're taking them. If a person is to cease taking their medication, it is highly likely that they will relapse. I feel that, sometimes, cognitive therapy is the only way which an individual can take the first steps towards becoming healthier and happier. Issues must be discussed. And if you do not wish to do that, it is essential that they must at least be expressed otherwise they will simply build up, repressed, and surface in much uglier ways.

people watching

Inevitably, I do this every single day of my teenage life. It's difficult not to observe others around you, briefly, for a moment or two. And I'm not quite sure whether it makes me happy or sad. Probably neither. Just sort of melancholic. Maybe. A way to describe it would be 'monotonous'; as humans, we are ever-changing pieces of floating mass, and it's beautiful. However, it doesn't mean we change anything about our saddening routines. That is why I walk a longer way home, or to somewhere I don't know, just because. Just because it breaks into that monotony for a short while at least.

The lottery and the British film industry

The government are planning to put approximately £300 million pounds of British lottery money into film in the upcoming years. As a film lover, I should be happy about this. But I'm not. This is being done simply to produce more money and boost the economy. 'Art' is being produced for the economy. Art is supposed to be done for Art's sake. It should not be exploited. The result of this will most likely be various releases of cliché British films, with no significant message or ideology to project onto film.

the illogical concept of nationalism

National pride- priding yourself on something which requires no talent or skill, inherited by accident...your nationality.

Physicists and funerals

I saw this and thought it was beautiful. So, obviously, I had to share it.

“You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got. And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.

And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen.”

— Aaron Freeman, “You Want a Physicist to Speak at Your Funeral”

Morality does not come from the Bible

There are many bible passages I'd consider as immoral. The God of the Bible also allows slavery, including selling your own daughter as a sex slave (Exodus 21:1-11), child abuse (Judges 11:29-40 and Isaiah 13:16), and bashing babies against rocks (Hosea 13:16 & Psalms 137:9). Surely, morality is not from religion? To be able to 'cherry pick' certain quotations and passages, one must have an underlying sense of morality?

Science vs. Religion

It may appear that the relationship between science and religion is in the form of a never-ending battle. The scientific method relies on reason and empiricism, whereas religion acknowledges revelation, faith and sacredness. However, can they coincide and slot together harmoniously?

One of the strongest challenges to religious belief is Darwin's unveiling of twenty years of work in the 'origin of species' and his theory of evolution. It displays that different species evolved from one common ancestor: contradicting the Church's teachings. Darwin proposes that those with stronger characteristics survived as they lived for longer and therefore produced more offspring; many would suggest that this is certainly a more plausible explanation than God. Evolution shows that nature follows no set pattern: highlighting the question- is God required within the equation?

The Big Bang theory states that the current Universe came into existence approximately 13.7 billion years ago. Matter was tightly packed together in a zone of infinite density or singularity, which exploded. This theory is supported by empirical evidence such as the red shift: displaying that our Universe is expanding. This is called red shift. It is a change in frequency of the position of the lines. Astronomers have found that the further from us a star is the more its light is red shifted. From this, we can infer that distant galaxies are moving away from us, and that the further a galaxy is the faster it is moving away. Since we cannot assume that we have a special place in the universe this is evidence for a generally expanding universe: supporting the Big Bang theory's claims of expansion. Furthermore, Scientists claim that the possibility that matter is eternal is highly likely. The first rule of thermodynamics is that matter can neither be created nor destroyed: showing that there is no need for a higher deity's contribution for its existence.

On the contrary, we must acknowledge Science's distinctive flaws. American biochemist and author, Michael Behe, puts forward his idea of irreducible complexity: stating that modern biology casts doubt upon Darwinism. He uses the analogy of the mousetrap to communicate his essential concept. If we observe a mousetrap, it can be acknowledged that all of the parts are required for the mechanism to function and if one were to be taken away it cease to do so. In other words, it is either 'all or nothing'. Similarly, when a blood clot forms in the human body, it does not clot throughout the entire system; the proteins we own permit this. Behe asks: what is the evolutionary advantage of possessing just one protein which is required for this? If evolution is correct, why was a single protein passed down to younger generations if it had no survival enhancement? There are many variations of Creationism, mainly across America, including: flat earth creationists, young Earth and progressive. It is believed by many creationists that biblical accounts should be deemed as literal truth as they are the 'word of God'. A mainstream creationist would hold the belief that planet Earth is a mere 6000 years old; the Omphalos argument, proposed by Philip Gosse, argues that the appearance of age was put into the Universe by God. Fossil evidence is often perceived as supporting the idea that evolution in one abrupt moment, such as the biblical flood which begins in Genesis 6:6. However, progressive creationists accept that species have changed but it is due to God creating a new 'wave' of plants and animals in different time periods.

Piere Teilhard de Chardin was particularly in favour for Science and Religion to co-exist; he believed that Science permits us to see God and is similar to a mirror in which we see the creator. Chardin also argues that evolution is purposeful, species gradually become more complex: suggesting they are working towards a goal, known as the Omega point.

The Bible

Despite being a non-theist, I have observed that the Bible, in some parts, has wonderful pieces of Literature which I find beautiful. Some lovely metaphors and symbolism also. For example, in Exodus in the covenant with Moses, the intimacy of 'God' is depicted through: "I carried you on eagle's wings, and brought you to me". I find this absolutely enchanting. I sound rather silly, but there's just someone about it. Okay I know I'm just being weird. Oh well.