Your Film Professor

(In light of what is going on in Gaza right now — at best a crimes against humanity ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, at worst outright genocide — I thought I would re-post what is to my mind one of my most important blog posts.)

I am starting a new series, focusing on “lessons” we can all learn from films. My first “lesson” comes from Bulworth (1998, Warren Beatty), a film that is becoming more important by the year as its prescient sensibility comes to be realized.

I was also partly inspired to write this post by all of the inspiring stories of those courageous and compassionate individuals who risked their livelihoods and, in some cases, their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust, Sir Nicholas Winton‘s story above just being one of these inspiring stories. (Of course, such heroic, inspiring deeds can be found whenever and wherever injustice, oppression and atrocities happen. That’s what gives one hope in our species as acts of inhumanity are countered by acts of altruism.)

In the language of Bulworth, Sir Nicholas Winton is a “spirit,” an individual who didn’t just save 669 Jewish children’s lives, he spent his entire life doing good progressive (“spirit”) work, well into his senior years, his remarkable string of good progressive deeds documented in the above clip.

However, whenever I see these clips being posted and/or shared on social media sites, I wonder if those who are doing the posting and sharing are actually inspired to live the good (progressive) work of those who they are passing on?

(As I write this piece, the Trump “zero tolerance” separation policy has been enacted, where the Trump administration ripped “immigrant” and “refugee” children away from their parents and interned them in “shelters” (now, apparently, interning them indefinitely, another kind of inhumane act), a heinous policy that, I would contend, is in the same vein as past atrocities such as the above, kids during the Holocaust getting sent to concentration camps. Of course, what happened to the Jewish kids is way more heinous — most of them were inconceivably gassed — but in both cases, an inhumane act is being perpetrated, kids being dehumanized. And I’m sure if  Sir Nicholas Winton were still alive today, he would be doing his part to end this inhumane separation and indefinite internment policy.)

And that is the question I want to pose for this post: Are you a “ghost” or are you a “spirit”? Before I get to that, let me preface my larger rant with some contextualization, e.g., where this “spirit”/“ghost” metaphor comes from.

Speaking directly into the camera this time — speaking to us — “Rastaman” tells us to be a “spirit,” not a “ghost.”

In the film Bulworth, we hear this refrain, “you can’t be no ghost, be a spirit!” from an African American bum, or Rastaman, as he is referred to in the credits (significantly, played by activist poet and playwright Amiri Baraka). Rastaman has been acting like a chorus in the film, directing this line to the main character in the film, Jay Bilington Bulworth, a senator running for re-election. The point is that Bulworth has sold out to corporate lobbyists, in effect become a “ghost,” emptied of meaning, aimless, purposeless, lost, or more to the point – or more to the crux of this metaphor – he has lost his humanity, e.g., he is a “ghost.” That is, by not progressively serving the people he is supposed to serve (instead serving corporate interests), he has become in effect, aimless, lifeless, “dead.” In the course of the film, as he attempts to end his own life via hiring an assassin, Bulworth rediscovers what got him into politics in the first place, progressively fighting for the civil rights of Others (e.g., African Americans) and progressively fighting for working class interests. In this way, he becomes reborn into a “spirit,” repurposed as alive again so to speak, inspiring Others in his pursuit of truth and social justice, fighting for the rights of Others, being a voice (literally in the case of Bulworth–for more on this element, see my post on Bulworth) for the voiceless, empowering Others just as Others empower him. The final frame of the film is Rastaman now looking directly into the camera and directing this line not at Bulworth but rather at us the spectators. And that is where I want to advance this idea, at you who are reading this piece right now, the general populace.

What Senator Bulworth ultimately discovers is that being a selfless, inspiring, meaningful “spirit” means that he has learned the true meaning of having “spiritualism” in his life, not via some religious means but through living a life of altruism, activism, having purpose and meaning in his life, meaning determined by being progressively engaged in advancing the many causes of humanity. For Bulworth that means fighting for Others (African Americans, working class) and being a voice for the people instead of corporate interests. For us too, being a “spirit” can mean investing one’s self in identity politics (fighting for the rights and well being of African Americans, Hispanics and Latinos, Native Americans, Muslims, LGBTQ people, women, and so on); and fighting for the rights and well being of the working class, and the poor; and, vitally, it can also mean fighting to keep our environment healthy and flourishing, including fighting to end climate change — a threat to our very existence — and fighting for a sustainable lifestyle and fighting for the many phenomenal species that inhabit our world; and fighting for the many core necessities necessary for the “pursuit of happiness,” e.g., the right to healthcare, affordable prescription drugs, housing, and education (including higher education); and fighting to maintain a “fact based” worldview, where knowledge is based on sound discourses (e.g., science, scholarly studies, peer reviewed journals, and so on) and not ideological (Orwellian) manipulation; and fighting against the many inhumane and heinous acts in the world (e.g., sex trafficking, wars, genocide, oppression, and so on); in other words, to be a “spirit” means being invested in the issues that impact one’s life and the lives of Others, the latter point especially important since everything we do impacts the lives of Others, from buying clothes made in sweatshops to letting our government and corporations do as they please, including enacting policies and choices that detrimentally impact the lives of Others and supporting dictators who oppress and abuse their people and in many cases commit atrocities and even genocide.

This latter point is especially crucial, since many people choose to disengage from the arena of “politics,” an arena where their voice could do the most good. One of the things I often hear from people is that because they find “politics” so unpleasant and corrupt they just can’t bring themselves to invest themselves in it. And there is some truth in this position, e.g., like we see in the film Bulworth, wealthy lobbyists (lobbying for corporate interests and the interest of the wealthy-ideological) do buy off politicians, a quid pro quo scenario that is all too “normal.” “Money in politics” sickens the majority of people, but, then strangely, they choose to disengage from such a pay to play system rather than do their part to fix such a plutocratic, kleptocratic, corporatocratic sensibility.

Whatever your reasoning for not investing yourselves in “politics,” I would strongly argue that such a choice makes you a “ghost,” because in making this fundamental choice you have in effect abrogated your responsibilities as a human being to invest yourselves in the issues that impact the lives of Others. If you check out of “politics,” in effect, what you do is give free rein to politicians and corporate/Wall Street and wealthy ideologue interests to do as they please, and in a capitalistic arena where greed and mercenary gain is actually encouraged if not expected, to let them do as they please amounts to not only letting our democracy slip away from us, it also means that Others here in this country and around the world will suffer, since transnational, globalized capitalistic interests and world (ideological) powers will make bodies disposable, destroy the environment, and subject people to unspeakable atrocities just to advance their (mercenary, geo-political, ideological) interests. In terms of our country, some pundits and scholars have argued that we are becoming – or have become – a plutocracy/corporatocracy, where instead of a democracy, we have rule by corporate power/Wall Street, capitalistic interests, which, in turn, means that our government is more interested in what transnational, globalized corporations and other capitalistic (Wall Street) interests are interested in – e.g., unsustainable profit, growth and expansion – instead of what they are supposed to be interested in, addressing the needs of the people.

In short, in other words, what I’m asking you to do is to re-think what it means to be a “spirit” – to be “spiritual” – not through, or only through, a God or other divination but through investing your self in your humanity, which necessarily includes investing your self in Others as they invest themselves in you, and, yes, vitally, that includes investing in “politics.” So…be a “spirit” not a “ghost,” begin living a truly meaningful (progressive) existence, not only the fundamental way to make the world a better place, but also the true source of enrichment and a deeper and fuller happiness.