Cinderella man and the great depression.
Well Cinderella man was recommended to my by
several people so this weekend I went to blockbuster to pick it up and was
amused by the back cover copy. Usually films have critics' quotes in big letters
that read much like the euphemisms in dating ads: "sleeper hit of the summer"
isn't a good thing. Sometimes they do the variant where the quote is really
good but the critic is Larry Walshberger from the Wenatchee Community College
Sentinel. Anyways, I thought Cinderella Man set the bar for advertising hype
with this quote:
"ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES
EVER"
My problem is that if I get
overhyped, invariably the movie is a letdown. I feel sorry for critics though,
they have no control over what they watch or listen to, they watch movies for a
living. I think that's why eventually most critics start geting skewed towards
unique art, just because it's different. There's usually a reverse bell curve
between what critics like and what the general populace pays to see. I listen
to so much music for my job that I find myself getting jaded over things i've
heard before and I end up saying snotty things like "I liked it the first time
when it was called 'Duran Duran'". That's why I've been listening to System of
a Down recently, which I've never heard anything like. Unless say, Beavis and
Butthead, Metallica and Weird Al got together to make a record with a lot of red
bull in the studio.
But I
digress
So I liked Cinderella man, which
I also liked the first time when it was called Rocky. It stars Russell Crowe
doing his best Mel Gibson impression. Have you ever noticed that Mel Gibson
gets the crap beat out of him in almost every movie? It actually is a good
movie, set during the Great Depression and the movie made me want to run out and
buy lots of canned food and propane, just in case our economy collapses in the
winter and my children ask me questions like "why must we eat the dog papa?" (I
don't actually have kids or a wife or a dog yet so I'm just thinking ahead).
There was one scene in particular that got me; during the height of the
depression when children are starving and there's no money for heat, there's a
very short clip in which we see privileged children getting out of a limousine
and walking into a swanky hotel. It's meant to contrast between the general
populace and the few people of privilege who let them starve.
It kind of made me
think.
Here I am being angry about how
people closed their eyes to the poverty around them, when the truth is, the
great depression goes on. All around us, in Guatemala, in Russia, in China, in
every city in America, there is terrible terrible poverty. Children go to bed
every night hungry. 30,000 kids die every day from hunger or hunger related
diseases. The slippery wonton from my wonton soup kind of stuck in my throat
when I realized that maybe I am that rich man, living that life of privilege
with my eyes closed to the poverty around me.
This image stuck in my head and when I
stood in line at the checkout in the grocery store I saw an old man put a lone
stalk of broccoli on the counter and ask how much it was. The cashier told him
46 cents and he said "oh good, I have enough" and he carefully counted out 46
cents in change. I was pretty sure I was going to pay for his broccoli if he
didn't have enough and I followed him outside, pretty determined to take this
poor homeless old man home with me and give him a shower and a hot meal and a
place to stay and I was rehearsing in my head: look him in the eye, shake his
hand, try to give him his dignity back... all the things homeless people say
they lose... and then he got in a nice car and drove
away.
In retrospect, I think his wife
sent him out for broccoli and he forgot his wallet. Good thing I didn't try to
take him home. I was a little disappointed though that I couldn't use him as a
poster child for homeless people "all you people told me that when I give money
to homeless people they use it for booze and it's not true, they buy
broccoli!".
But back to my main point.
The great depression goes on and I lead
a life of privilege. I do sponsor a world vision kid and several missionaries,
but still, I'm not doing as much as I could. I'd challenge you guys to think
about this too, but in reality, I think we get convicted when it's our time to
do something. So I guess this is more my call to action then anyone else's. I
dunno how I'm going to help, but I'm gonna figure out a way.
Posted: Sun - January 8, 2006 at 09:49 PM
