Reality Bites

Is it just me, or is it true? Do most, or at least an awful lot of folks, take reality to be something far different from what reality actually is?

I'm not talking about the particular behaviors which seem to be in vogue these days. Similar things have likely happened all through history and we ought to be careful about giving them too much power over our thoughts and concerns. Perhaps what I'm thinking belongs in that category as well I suppose.

What worries me the most is that too many people seem to think of reality as gritty, gross, and crass. They see reality through a cynical lens, a view which quite naturally makes all things suspect. That's not exactly appealing.

I prefer the reality of Frank Capra. When at the penultimate moment of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington the Vice President recognizes Jimmy Stewart over Claude Rains during debate in the US Senate I want to jump up and scream 'Yes! That's what I'm talking about!' precisely because it's about the good guy, a really good guy, winning. When George Bailey is back at the bridge where he first met Clarence (in It's a Wonderful Life) begging for his life back and the snow starts falling again, I get chills. The good guy overcomes his cynicism and is rewarded. 

Yes, yes, yes. That may not be reality either. The good guys lose an awful lot, too often, really, in this world. I get that. But they do win sometimes. And if my choice is cynicism or inspiration, well, I'll take Capra's reality all day long.

Get Real

Years ago we took our then young sons to see the then new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. A friend asked what I thought of it. "Well, it was all right for a kids movie, but there was some mild swearing I don't think was necessary."

"Don't be such a Dad!" he chided me. "They were only going for reality."

What, again, was the movie all about?

Teenage. Mutant. Ninja. Turtles. 

I don't think reality was high on the menu.

Trusting in Reality

The moral relativist claims that we can know nothing on our own. My question for him, beyond, 'Then how can you know that?', is, 'Why don't you want to trust your senses?'

Why not trust them? Sure, they can be fooled, but can the tomfoolery not be discovered by clear thought, a presentation of the valid evidence, or exposure of the true villain, among other remedies? By and large, hot is hot, hard is hard, and mathematical progression continues uninterrupted by what we might wish. Why won't you believe your eyes, ears, nose, and touch, your own rational thoughts indeed, as need be?

The only reason I can think of is that any valid thought might interfere with what you might want, and we can't have objectivity ruin a night on the town, can we, brother? For you see, a proven truth in one area necessarily suggests there are provable truths elsewhere, including perhaps those which may affect how you want to behave. That simply destroys any moral chance of, well, doing an awful lot of immoral things.

Such a shame that human beings have to consider the weight of their actions to be fully human.

Reality Check

My cousin Carol and I have sons about the same age. Needless to say, they were both excited about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies which came out in the early Nineties when they were 9 or 10.

Carol and I were discussing the films after they had seen them. I remarked that they were all right movies for kids our boys' ages, but that I didn't see where one of the characters had to say 'damn' repeatedly at one point. "There are younger kids watching these things," I remarked.

She replied, "Oh, don't be such a dad. They were only going for a sense of reality."

Teenage...Mutant...Ninja...Turtles. And she was concerned about reality.

I think that's one of the problems with movies these days. I'm really not against swearing on screen to make a certain point or to emphacize an emotion perhaps, but have we forgotten that movies are NOT REAL? As such, why ought they reflect any particular reality?

The defense of nudity in love scenes, for example, is that we need that reality. The fact is that that takes away from the suspension of belief which is supposed to make films engaging. Rarely does a man see a naked woman and think, 'this really has me into the point of the story.' He sees a naked woman and isn't overly interested in plot development. Bernadette Peters once said she wouldn't do a nude scene because she would no longer be seen as her character, but as Bernadette Peters with her top off. She's right.

Why can we show certain things for reality's sake but not others? My aunt used to say that if reality is what you're looking for then Ingrid Bergman should have actually been burned at the stake when she played Joan of Arc. 'But you can't actually kill someone for the sake of the show.' Of course not: but then can we have actors and actresses actually doing a likewise immoral act (for a man feeling up a woman is actually feeling her up; it's not pretend like a gunshot wound can be) for the sake of reality? Or actually swearing when it's poor taste?

It's cafeteria storytelling, my friends. Liberal storytelling: the producers and directors and actors want what they want because it's what they want. The quality of their production, and our aversion to calling things right and wrong, are all that suffer.

We're better people than that.