Speaking in November 2009, American social-critic Christopher Hedges argued as to how America's decline, certainly as an empire, was inevitable – he lamented how Americans have become 'disconnected from who (they) are, what (they) represent and where (they're) going' and how they have essentially been kept in a perpetual state of adult-infancy through a series of badly judged political decisions over the last 40 years. The result of this, he asserted, was that people will begin to 'search for a demagogue or a saviour that promises moral renewal, vengeance and the glory.'
On the back of this, and if the depiction of America (or more importantly, Americans) in Bobcat Goldthwait's film "God Bless America" is at all accurate, I would say that there was almost certainly something in the fact that the British Channel 4 network decided to air "God Bless America" on the night of Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 US Presidential Election. To understand the deeper meaning of this, one needs to first understand the hypothesis of Goldthwait's film, but also be a little more familiar with the basic view of those such as Hedges who, if his public lectures and television interviews on the topic of America's direction are anything to go by, seems to have had much of what he has to say heard and then adapted to the screen right here.
In conjunction to his other remarks, Hedges commented on as to how America is shifting from a 'print' based society to an 'image' based society – how it was 'moving away from nuanced thought and from the struggle with ambiguity' for 'jargon and clichés'. He continued: 'We are seeing the dying gasps of a culture that is severing itself from print and entering an age of terrifying illiteracy', which will in turn supposedly give rise to certain horrifying things....
The crux of this evident in "God Bless America" – an ambitious, morbid comedy which seems to fuse the droll, even blackly empty, tonality of "America Psycho" with the sheer terror of the apparent barrenness of life as terrifically demonstrated in "Taxi Driver". It is confrontational and quite upsetting, but then most films which try to explore the fatuity or frustrations of a given era are.
Narrative is secondary to subtext here, but for the sake of simplicity I will reveal that the film centres around a middle aged American man called Frank (Joel Murray), who is divorced; lives alone and struggles over custody of his young daughter. He hates his life and those around him. Oddly, he seems to insist on engaging with the very thing he despises most: television, which glamorises fatuity; revels in the obscene and promotes a sort of sordid liberalism where everyone, no matter how contemptible they really are, is a champion in some of the ways Hedges argued. Away from home, he finds himself unable to escape the idiotic monotony of his co-workers and neighbours, who speak of nothing else but low-brow pop-culture. An exemplar of this divide lies in as to how he trades a BOOK with the receptionist at his desk job.
Frank is tipped over the edge when he is fired, in what appears to be a statement from the film on how maddening modern political correctness is when it comes to talking to/making moves on women, before completely loses contact with his daughter. Put briefly, the ingredients bubble up into an explosive rage forcing him across America and it isn't long before he and a young female accomplice named Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), whom he meets along the way, are in way over their heads.
The film's tone is flippant throughout, and events seem to have been transplanted to an unreal universe which still strangely seems to be grounded in the real world. The characters are often viciously unlikable and hideously hypocritical – Roxy's left-wing mantra sees her rage against right-wingers who lobby for foreign wars and are against gay-marriage yet exudes a punk-fascism herself.
It is remarkable as to how cine-literate the film is – done deliberately, I'm sure, to disorientate the audience as it makes its overall point on the commoditised nature of American culture. Roxy's backstory is remarkably similar to Mallory Knox's in "Natural Born Killers"; a scene in a lay-by with a state trooper calls to mind "Psycho"; the leads dress at one point like "Bonnie and Clyde" and Samuel L. Jackson's riff on AK-47's from "Jackie Brown" is rehashed seemingly without shame.
Goldthwait's film is not generic, yet we have seen films like it in the past; it is satirical, yet seems to rage against a society whose fascination with funny quick-fixes and the visual image essentially began in the 1960's with a boom in the satire genre. It despises popular culture, yet cannot help but draw influence from it so as to either prove its point or garner a few laughs. The film plays like an amalgamation of the ideas put forward over time by various commentators warning where television; celebration of trash and the Capitalist free market might lead. It is Neil Postman merged with Hedges by way of the now conventional point on how the Western world has largely adopted the model of the universe found in Aldous Huxley's novel "Brave New World": where Orwell feared totalitarian regimes banning books, the reality now is that no one is willing or able to read them having been 'educated' out of liking high-culture and taught to sneer at intellect.
Few things have changed since "God Bless America's" release, but then it has only been three years. In Britain, the 2016 series of "X-Factor" made popular a would-be rapper named Honey-G, who was evidently terrible, and yet came to represent a true-to-life version of the Steven Clark character found within this very film – the fact they are so bad makes them so good. The fact "God Bless America" is as good as it is warrants you seeing it.
On the back of this, and if the depiction of America (or more importantly, Americans) in Bobcat Goldthwait's film "God Bless America" is at all accurate, I would say that there was almost certainly something in the fact that the British Channel 4 network decided to air "God Bless America" on the night of Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 US Presidential Election. To understand the deeper meaning of this, one needs to first understand the hypothesis of Goldthwait's film, but also be a little more familiar with the basic view of those such as Hedges who, if his public lectures and television interviews on the topic of America's direction are anything to go by, seems to have had much of what he has to say heard and then adapted to the screen right here.
In conjunction to his other remarks, Hedges commented on as to how America is shifting from a 'print' based society to an 'image' based society – how it was 'moving away from nuanced thought and from the struggle with ambiguity' for 'jargon and clichés'. He continued: 'We are seeing the dying gasps of a culture that is severing itself from print and entering an age of terrifying illiteracy', which will in turn supposedly give rise to certain horrifying things....
The crux of this evident in "God Bless America" – an ambitious, morbid comedy which seems to fuse the droll, even blackly empty, tonality of "America Psycho" with the sheer terror of the apparent barrenness of life as terrifically demonstrated in "Taxi Driver". It is confrontational and quite upsetting, but then most films which try to explore the fatuity or frustrations of a given era are.
Narrative is secondary to subtext here, but for the sake of simplicity I will reveal that the film centres around a middle aged American man called Frank (Joel Murray), who is divorced; lives alone and struggles over custody of his young daughter. He hates his life and those around him. Oddly, he seems to insist on engaging with the very thing he despises most: television, which glamorises fatuity; revels in the obscene and promotes a sort of sordid liberalism where everyone, no matter how contemptible they really are, is a champion in some of the ways Hedges argued. Away from home, he finds himself unable to escape the idiotic monotony of his co-workers and neighbours, who speak of nothing else but low-brow pop-culture. An exemplar of this divide lies in as to how he trades a BOOK with the receptionist at his desk job.
Frank is tipped over the edge when he is fired, in what appears to be a statement from the film on how maddening modern political correctness is when it comes to talking to/making moves on women, before completely loses contact with his daughter. Put briefly, the ingredients bubble up into an explosive rage forcing him across America and it isn't long before he and a young female accomplice named Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), whom he meets along the way, are in way over their heads.
The film's tone is flippant throughout, and events seem to have been transplanted to an unreal universe which still strangely seems to be grounded in the real world. The characters are often viciously unlikable and hideously hypocritical – Roxy's left-wing mantra sees her rage against right-wingers who lobby for foreign wars and are against gay-marriage yet exudes a punk-fascism herself.
It is remarkable as to how cine-literate the film is – done deliberately, I'm sure, to disorientate the audience as it makes its overall point on the commoditised nature of American culture. Roxy's backstory is remarkably similar to Mallory Knox's in "Natural Born Killers"; a scene in a lay-by with a state trooper calls to mind "Psycho"; the leads dress at one point like "Bonnie and Clyde" and Samuel L. Jackson's riff on AK-47's from "Jackie Brown" is rehashed seemingly without shame.
Goldthwait's film is not generic, yet we have seen films like it in the past; it is satirical, yet seems to rage against a society whose fascination with funny quick-fixes and the visual image essentially began in the 1960's with a boom in the satire genre. It despises popular culture, yet cannot help but draw influence from it so as to either prove its point or garner a few laughs. The film plays like an amalgamation of the ideas put forward over time by various commentators warning where television; celebration of trash and the Capitalist free market might lead. It is Neil Postman merged with Hedges by way of the now conventional point on how the Western world has largely adopted the model of the universe found in Aldous Huxley's novel "Brave New World": where Orwell feared totalitarian regimes banning books, the reality now is that no one is willing or able to read them having been 'educated' out of liking high-culture and taught to sneer at intellect.
Few things have changed since "God Bless America's" release, but then it has only been three years. In Britain, the 2016 series of "X-Factor" made popular a would-be rapper named Honey-G, who was evidently terrible, and yet came to represent a true-to-life version of the Steven Clark character found within this very film – the fact they are so bad makes them so good. The fact "God Bless America" is as good as it is warrants you seeing it.