Wednesday, September 05, 2012

The Bad Guy



Last night were the provincial elections in Quebec and we had quite a double header at my place.  It started with Raiders of the Lost Ark and ended with the 1987 classic, Masters of the Universe.  I probably watched the latter because I had just seen the amazing Frank Langella in the Robot and Frank and I had just seen the not so amazing Dolph Lundgren in the Expendables 2 (which was amazing).  I didn't want to watch a play by play of the elections.  Watching these movies was like fast forwarding to the ending of the provincial elections.

The most striking thinkg about Raiders of the Lost Ark is the wanton slaughter of Nazis.  Back in its day this was a PG movie and if you remember people get run over by trucks, mutilated by airplane propellers... We see guys melting, we see guys heads explode in a gory mess!  Indiana Jones has one solution to any conflict : over the top violence.  It's easy to forget how ridiculously violent and gory these movies were because ever since the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones and movies in general have become more tame.  Raiders of the Lost Ark takes place in a moral vacuum, probably because we are okay with watching the 'bad guy', this time around Nazis, getting brutally murdered for over two hours.

Masters of the Universe was considerably lighter fare, but what struck me as I fell asleep was how Courtney Cox explains to He-man that she was attacked by monsters.  I wondered to myself, do Skeletor's minions consider themselves monsters?  I wonder what Beastman would say if he heard Courntey Cox speaking that way. He'd probably say, "Hey, I'm just doing me.  I gotta eat, I gotta live.  People were calling me a monster long before I started working for Skeletor.  People were calling my parents monsters!  It's like every morning I wake up and the whole world is against me.  So if you're scared of me, remember, I do this because I'm scared of you!"

"I'm just trying to do me!"
I fell asleep, and when I woke up my first thought was, "Geez, Beastman really let himself go."  I then realized that I was watching the news and Pauline Marois had just won a minority government. I soon learned that two people had been shot and eventually we learned that one of them had died.  Sadly, nothing was different from the over the top fantasy movies I had been watching, there were good guys, bad guys and violence.  

Granted the man who committed this crime was insane and should not be considered representative of any specific demographic.   But I'm just writing this as a reminder to myself not to demonize people who exist at another end of a political spectrum.  Don't get me wrong, the PQ relies on xenophobia and discontent to get their votes and I am convinced that their platform is senseless and destructive.  But you think about the millions of people involved, Anglophone, Allophone and Francophone turning on their televisions, reading news articles and everyone is trying to convince us that the world is out to get us.  Francophones who voted PQ are probably looking at the world and feeling as if they are surrounded by people who hate them, people who want to humiliate them and people who want to oppress them, whether that feeling is justified or not.  Anglophones and Allophones in Quebec were coming from a similar place when they look at polls (which were completely bogus by the way) and hear Pauline Marois' rhetoric.  So instead of voting to make this province a better place we voted out of fear of the other guy.  I'm not saying its right or wrong, or that there is a solution to any of this, just noticing a sad truth.


I look forward to the day when we don't have the words 'je me souviens' on our license plates.  I like Quebec, I really do.  But everyone who lives here comes from a background where they can hold onto grudges, be angry, be bitter, be afraid ... If somehow people can get over that, maybe we can be a little more productive than we have been in the past.

Most likely if you're reading this you're of a similar political persuasion as me and you're not happy to see that Pauline Marois is now our premier.  But, that's democracy and it's a good thing!  Jean Charest has been premier for almost a decade!  So at least people who thought the Liberals needed a wakeup call get to have their way.  With a minority government the PQ won't have the power to do something crazy in the near future.  Everyone wins and everyone loses.  Seems fair.  Maybe next time things will go our way, maybe they won't.  In the meantime we still live in a fairly comfortable place and we have the option to leave this province if things become unbearable.  Just hoping we can live and let live and violence and hate won't become the standard under Marois' leadership.

2 comments:

Vrej said...

I think Beastman is aware he's a monster. I mean, his name is BEASTman!

Masta said...

He probably changed his name to beast after years of being called one. Poor guy.