The Wake

“We think we’re in the present, but we aren’t. The present we know is only a movie of the past.” — Ken Kesey Only three weeks after the chaotic RNC in St. Paul, the Hollywood production “Battle in Seattle,” narrating the 1999 WTO protests, came blockbusting into Minneapolis at the Uptown. In the aftermath of severe police intervention in the anti-war activities in St. Paul, the film’s dramatic representation of similar events drew on our own memory to make a powerful statement on oppositional politics and globalization. While filmmaker Stuart Townsend concludes the film by proclaiming the WTO protests a “success” story, it would be hard to consider our St. Paul anti-war/RNC activities a success: we were crushed by police force, our mainstream media stifled debate, the convention went off without a hitch, and the movement appeared fragmented and, at times, marginal.

Too many of us went to St. Paul to “recreate ’68,” to become the movie star, to become the sexy activist…when we become the star and they become us, actual politics doesn’t matter anymore.

The quote by Kesey (above) has something to do with this failure, which is highlighted by the appearance of the high-budget film by Townsend, as well as “Chicago 10: Speak Your Peace,” a film about the anti-Vietnam War organizers who went on trial for conspiracy after the 1968 DNC in Chicago. Our generation is in a unique position in history, as we are on the forefront of the cultural wave moving on the impulse of mass media, electronic respiration, and brutally pervasive advertising campaigns. In order to organize for the future, we need to address the ways in which the fabric of the “present” is undergoing drastic changes as a result of our highly mediated culture. And if the “present is just a movie of the past,” we miss out on the particularities of the present, which are buried under this super-representation. This matters for politics, as it contributes to a partial understanding of the challenges we face as radical thinkers and organizers.

One consequence of media culture is the redrawing of cultural maps. From the street to the screen, our senses are open to the events unfolding around us in real space as well as in media space. From the screen to the street, our political goals are already molded into the system we are trying to transform through street mobilizations and protests. The map of political culture is being redrawn in this space between the “reality” of the street and the “screens” of media. Media and consumer culture have been informing the “real” of our generation in new ways that challenge the basic of the “real” itself. This has unavoidable consequences for progressive politics and the conditions for organizing opposition to the terror wars.

Some would argue that films like “Battle in Seattle” are useful tools in the struggle. Townsend attempts to objectively represent the events of Nov 30 to Dec 2, 1999 in Seattle, Washington. It opens with a brief history of trade globalization since World War II and situates us in the struggle over third world livelihoods and national sovereignty. Dramatic scenes of police mobilization against the protesters are forceful and full of emotion. These scenes are long, tense and elicit sympathy with the victimized protesters. By the end, it appears that Townsend’s sole political objective is to expose the brutality of the state, which is not a new phenomenon and should be expected by the political opposition. As a political film, however, it has many flaws. Townsend sacrifices his more profound political statements for the sake of theatricality and entertainment.

For example, consider the most dramatic scene of the film involving Charlize Theron, who plays a woman working in a downtown boutique. Her character is married to a riot cop and they are expecting a child. In the build-up to the first day of protest, road-blocks and rioting, Townsend takes us inside the designer boutique to get a glimpse of her daily life. The dialogue explicitly addresses the absurdity of consumer culture, as her coworker pressures her to start shopping for baby clothes and Theron ironically comments on the captivity of her daily life as a worker and consumer. The central significance of her character, however, is monopolized later in the film when she gets unexpectedly caught in a police sweep. She is hit in the stomach by a cop and the baby dies. While this scene is successful in exposing the horror of police brutality, it distracts us from the initial purpose of her character, which was to make a criticism of consumerism and globalization. This more complex point is downplayed for the sake of drama.

Indeed, seeing St. Paul entirely militarized was a dramatic experience and many were brutalized by the police. The point is that this political film becomes facile by emphasizing only one aspect of the events. In other words, the activist-centric attitude of the film–shared by the anti-war movement in the Twin Cities–fails to address other social realities and opinions. This ignorance erects another obstacle towards successfully mobilizing against the war party convening in the Excel Center. By refusing to reform our radical rhetoric, we push away potential allies and give the media the material it
needs to portray us as out of touch, unreasonable and immature fringe radicals. Or we provide our opponents an opportunity to plant among us those who will definitely act in those ways. More importantly, radical rhetoric closes the possibility of engaging those with whom we disagree and need to persuade.Too many times, we speak right past each other.

The most obvious way to view and criticize a film like “Battle in Seattle” is to consider its legitimacy and affectivity as a political tool. Brett Morgen, director of “Chicago 10” spoke to this possibility after the screening of his film a couple of weeks ago at the Walker. He admonished those who think that film can adequately reconstruct any particular historical moment and admits that his film was “Yippie-centric.” (The “Yippie’s” being one of the main anti-war groups, the Youth International Party). Making a film about 1968 in 2003 says more about 2003 than it does about 1968, he argued. Morgan seemed annoyed to have to emphasize the significance that half of the film is animated: his goal was to entertain viewers, not make any bold political statement. (“How could you take it seriously!? Half of it is animated!”) By using comedy, rock and roll music and focusing on the crazy antics of Abbie Hoffman, a Yippie leader and co-founder, Morgen made the Yippies seem outrageous and hilarious in their anti-war activities. He refused to be labeled a journalist and smugly stated he was a moviemaker. His goal, he said, was to create a mirror for the viewer, in which they would ask themselves: What would I do when faced with a line of advancing riot police in the heat of the moment?

This kind of argument is concerned with the problem of appropriating reality in art. The philosophical debate has to do with the problems of totalizing representations. In other words, Morgen spoke to the impossibility of appropriating reality through cinema. An even more interesting question, however, involves a reversal of this mode of criticism, and this is what Kesey suggests. In order to address the challenges of contemporary political culture from an oppositional perspective, we need to consider how “reality”– understood in relation media forms like film, in this case - appropriates us as individuals in its pervasive web of representations and dream-making capabilities. This is the hyper-real proposition that must be addressed for the new electronic century.

This is a pertinent question, as our generation has been exposed to mass media in an accelerated and more comprehensive way than prior generations. We need to interrogate the subterranean changes that accompany capitalist culture as it approaches its hyperreal phase. While the objective impulse
behind the protest movement is explicitly political, I fear there is a backside to this on a subjective level that results in its neutralization. The objectivity of the protest is politcal: anti-war activity directed towards the main war-making party. The subjectivity of the protest is narcissistic: protesting
becomes more about expressing yourself as an “activist,” a “radical,” an “anarchist,” or whatever name-tag is popular, than it is about actually organizing effective opposition. The objective-subjective intersection effectively cancels out the possibility of forcing real change from the street, and we are
neutralized in this emergent form of social domination.

The larger significance of films like “Battle in Seattle” is that it is through these mechanisms that identity is formed in ways that are complicit with the power structure. Maybe we oppose the system, but we are powerless to transform its foundation, as we are too self-absorbed and self-righteous to change our organizing strategies in ways that speak to today’s cultural situation and in ways that actually work. As activists today, we are subjectively trying to relive experiences that have already taken place. This is why we fail. Too many of us went to St. Paul to “recreate ’68,” to become the movie star, to become the sexy activist played by Martin Henderson and Michelle Rodriguez. When we become the star and they become us, actual politics doesn’t matter anymore; organizing real opposition no longer matters. It’s about successfully playing into a paradigm that has been pre-constructed for us and that makes us feel important, part of the group, radical. This simulation takes us away from the real, in terms of public policy and affecting livelihoods.

Has there been a post-RNC debate among the oppositional groups here in the cities? I feel that we are dazed by the preemptive police raids and by the preemptory police force that was used against us in overwhelming fashion. We glimpsed what war might really be like and are reeling from the shock. While we are wrapped up in this daze, there is little debate about what we need to do in the future to be better prepared for these encounters. Focusing on the “RNC 8” legal proceedings is important, but shouldn’t blind us from the many internal obstacles we face. The terror wars are not going to end, and we need to seriously think about what we are going to do in response. If organizing ineffective protests that are crushed by the police is an appropriate end, and we are somehow content with letting that happen and then denouncing state terrorism, our voices and efforts will continue to be lost
to the roar of the imperial machine. Or, worse, add to its roar.

If we want to challenge the establishment, we need to think about how best to generate a larger, more sensible movement that employs more creative tactics that will speak more adequately to the realities of today’s political culture. Before transcending and transforming social dominance, we need
to better understand how that dominance is structured in today’s media culture, and how it has structured our own culture of protest.