Film in the age of Global Harming
The creativity in this year’s Film Festival is a welcome respite from Hollywood’s adolescent fantasmagorical Doomsday epics, whose stars are computer-generated creatures and other special effects, with only cameo appearances by real persons, particularly real persons with cleavage. Packed with apocalyptic destruction, such films are appropriately called “blockbusters,” a WWII reference to bombs that devastated entire city blocks, killing many talented filmmakers.
Fortunately, dedicated scientists at Steiner’s Social Research Laboratory in Sonoma have studied the plague of Doomsday epics. After processing copious amounts of data — and numerous trips to the men’s room — they’ve constructed a hypothesis that seems as good as any.
Movies, invented at the end of the 19th century, blossomed as a comforting distraction from the terrors of the 20th Century: World War I killed tens of millions; a global flu epidemic then killed tens of millions more; the Great Depression starved many who were left; then World War II killed millions more who were not yet done starving; and so forth. Movies became a sanctuary where Americans sat in the dark watching imaginary people living exciting imaginary lives, and ate popcorn. Even bad movies seemed better than the reality outside.
But since 9/11, movies have had to up their game in order to distract Americans from life in the 21st century. Indeed, if daily newsfeeds are an indication, human civilization is fast approaching a point where an invasion by alien hordes of grotesque blood-sucking zombies from another galaxy would serve as a Welcome Distraction.
Steiner scientists cite the following insane evidence of human-caused Global Harming:
Islamic crazies are burning captives alive, rekindling a tradition not seen since Catholic crazies burned Joan of Arc as a witch, so horrifying Protestant crazies that they abandoned witch-burning in favor of witch-drowning, which is now the Women’s Rights plank in today’s Republican party platform.
Epidemic diseases are reappearing, driving terrified parents to protect their children by not vaccinating them against epidemic diseases. It’s ignited a Great Debate among network anchor-models and other intellectuals on whether, when it comes to safeguarding the nation’s health, parental choice trumps godless science. [Note: “health” does not include Family Planning, where in some circles parental choice is trumped by a fetus’ Right To Be Born, Get Sick and Die because its parents won’t vaccinate it.] Still unsettled is whether Cujo and Muffy can safely skip their rabies shots.
Amidst historic drought, including the first January on record without measurable rainfall, Sonoma County officials defend downtrodden millionaires in the wine and tourism industries by steadfastly refusing to ban new water-sucking developments, vineyards, wineries and luxury tourist resorts. Said millionaires have plans for massive “Ag Mall,” winery and resort projects throughout the Valley and the county. That these projects will require a zillion acre-feet of non-existent water is testament to the Can-Do spirit of Crony Capitalism that single-handedly defeated Communism and Democracy in only 25 short years.
Ground Zero (really) for human rights, our nation struggles with how best to kill people who’ve killed other people in order to deter the killing of even more people. Specifically, states are seeking better drugs to execute low-income criminals without inducing fits of vomiting among the invited witnesses. Given the dire side-effects warnings in their TV ads, who knew it would be so hard to get drug companies to make stuff that intentionally kills people? Now there’s talk of bringing back public hangings. Held during Super Bowl halftime when most witnesses are self-sedated and corporate sponsorships are possible, the idea could be the savior of an NFL desperate to deter player domestic violence.
Alarmed by such findings, Steiner scientists are developing a shot-and-beer vaccine against Sheer & Utter Stupidity, the most virulent form of the affliction. However, FDA testing has reportedly been stymied by lack of a statistically significant sample of volunteers who are not already seriously infected.
