As I am writing this on Valentine’s Day, I would be remiss
if I did not say a few things about the holiday. First, at the flower
plantations in South America that export cut flowers to the US, children make up
20% of the labor force, most workers barely earn a subsistence wage, and work
hours are extended dramatically the week preceding Valentine’s Day. Second,
between 89 and 93% of the sexual partners that you have had carry an STD of some
kind, many of which can cause you to get pregnant from kissing. Third, it was
sweet of him to send you those chocolates, but you’re not exactly fitting into
those size 6 jeans like you used to, are you babe?
In this country, it isn’t enough to not like something –
you have to not like it and try your hardest to ruin it for anyone who might.
This is why little boys rip the heads off Barbies, why the Christian group Focus
on the Family accuses SpongeBob videos of promoting homosexuality, why
Hillary Clinton became Senator of New York.
When I was in kindergarten we had to make dinosaurs out of
construction paper. I was the only boy who chose to make a pink dinosaur, so
Tommy Poretta intentionally spilled black paint all over it. I can still
remember him laughing at me, the flesh on his fat face rippling and undulating
like an American flag in the wind, a flag representing a nation of Tommy
Porettas, a nation of morbidly obese idiot children throwing their paint on
everyone else’s dinosaur.
I thought of Tommy recently when I went to see a movie.
Shocked to find that tickets were sold out to the Ice Cube vehicle “Are We There
Yet?” (“AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted Family Film”), I decided to see “Million Dollar
Baby.” Leaving the theater, I walked by a man in a wheelchair who was camped
outside and distributing pamphlets that attacked what I thought was an excellent
movie. The pamphlet was endorsed by both the Christian right and disability
groups. The attacks were ridiculous; these spineless protestors don’t have a
leg to stand on.
The problem with the movie is that it is sophisticated and
nuanced; it beautifully explores its complex and troubled characters. This is a
problem because it means it is for adults. It is not for children who
tend to comprehend things in either black or white, who can’t understand
subtlety and would inevitably reduce such a movie to the most crass and immature
interpretation. It is not, then, for Focus on the Family, for the Christian
Coalition, for people from Kentucky, or for disabled people who insist on
superimposing their own lives and situations onto the movie before deciding to
not only dislike it, but try and ruin it for others.
Tommy Poretta would not understand this movie. He also
wouldn’t be able to understand foreign policy, other cultures, or the politics
of war.
He would need to be told that “you’re either with us or against us” and that the
“terrorists hate our freedom.” He would need euphemisms and distortions to
simplify and overshadow the truth about illegal wars, the stripping of civil
liberties, and the use of torture. He would need country songs to affirm that
his nation is the best and sound bites of intolerance from radio show hosts to
confirm that his fear and hatred is acceptable and mainstream. He would need
Ward Churchill with his unpopular opinions kicked out of all academia and would
need attorney Lynne Stewart in a cell for the next 20 years. He would need
propaganda and flag waving to supplant any real inquiry into the conditions of
Iraq’s “free election.” He would need a President who simply recites clichés
about “freedom” and “liberty” instead of someone who asks real questions and
examines the complexity of real issues. Tommy would need these things because
he is a child. The rest of us need these things because we are Tommy.
This nation of Tommys, this Chuck E. Cheese Country, is not
confined to those land-locked red states with jug-band based economies. Look
how easily some of these enlightened liberals are offended, how they shudder at
certain terms and, should you use a word that they do not like, how quickly
they’ll enroll you in a forced “diversity workshop.” Children reduce
complicated decisions to a simplistic “yes” or “no,” sort of like a giant
checklist in a Wesleyan community forum.
I know I should have just wished you a happy Valentine’s
Day and moved on. Instead, I spilled paint on your dinosaur-shaped Valentine
that on the inside says “Our love will never go extinct” or “You’re my Velocirapture”
or some crap. This country needs to start acting its age, which means
contemplating the complexity of certain issues and eschewing the trend of rabid
anti-intellectualism. People like Tommy don’t encourage discourse and debate,
but rather censorship and intimidation. At some point, we are going to have to
make the conscious decision to grow up and shed our child-like mentality –
because we can’t always wait for a bus to come and do the job for us.