I always have quite a few thoughts floating around. I drink more than I ought to in no small measure to stop my brain from racing around.
Saw the Transformers movie yesterday, and had a few comments. First, I think there is a before and after element to it. The before, the first part, had what seemed to me to be more or less open homosexual propaganda. This is common in Hollywood. A good example was the kiss in “Remember the Titans”, which never happened, and which was entirely superfluous to the actual storyline.
In this case it was quite obvious, at least for anyone accustomed to thinking symbolically. Most of it had to do with references to oral sex. First, the hot girlfriend says she’ll give him a “job” when he gets home. Then she brings him a glass full of licorice, which is vaguely phallic, and she walks out eating one. Then we shift to an elevator where you have one man eating a banana, and another slurping on “special” milk. Then he pulls him into the bathroom, starts talking about “Deep Wang”, and Deep Throat, and pulls his pants down. Finally, they tumble out of the bathroom stall, where one has his pants down. John Malkovitch, of course, says he doesn’t care.
What I think needs to be said about scenes like these, is that they tend to disappear from awareness. In part two of the movie, we get lots of heroic scenes, American soldiers performing well, and carefully placed shots of the American flag. This is all well and good.
But you have mixed the subversive in with the openly–what shall I call it?–the culturally common; the shared reference points, at least for most of us.
A principle means of seducing minds is combining what those minds do not accept with what creates powerful positive affects. Most people, unconsciously, will take that movie as a whole, and simply short-circuit the memories of what is incongruent with what they do accept. But it is still there. Actually, as I think about it, I had forgotten about John Turturro’s more or less openly gay valet, Dutch. Again, Dutch is given pivotal roles in several scenes.
Another scene I didn’t care for was when John Malkovitch was sparring with Bumblebee, and, with a gun pointed in his face, merely laughed. This is a species of sociopathy, like that exhibited by Kevin Bacon’s character in the latest X-men movie, who just laughed after two of his soldiers were killed, and he himself, one would have thought at that point in the movie, was in imminent danger.
These scenes act in an almost hypnotic way to implant images and ideas which, to the extent they are processed, are processed as humorous.
I went through a phase of interest in Neuro-Linguistic Programming. My final conclusion was that very little of what they did was original, with most of it apparently having been copied from Milton Erickson.
What they did do, though, is create terms for demonstrable phenomenon, and the one I wanted to mention here is pacing and leading. People trust people like them. Logically, then, if you want to manipulate someone, you must first convince them you understand them, are like them, and that they can trust you. Since it is unlikely all of these things are actually true, you modify your behavior–your breathing, body patterns, choice of words, vocal inflection–to more closely match that person. They call this “pacing”.
Having established rapport–connection–you can commence the download. You subtly change, and see if they follow. They start at Point A and you want them at Point B. So you go find where their Point A is, then lead them to Point B, gradually, gradually, with no breaks in the line.
In practice, of course, as with formal brainwashing, this is often done an inch at a time. You travel that inch over and over, until it becomes a part of their identity, and then you add another inch, and repeat the process.
What is the message here? That open sexuality–including homosexuality–is as American as apple pie. This is not, however, our history. This is a qualitative change.
For my part, I am quite willing to admit that some men and women are “born that way”. This does not bother me. What bother me are proselytizing homosexuals, and those who are unwilling to accept that some people find their lifestyle morally objectionable. Why does it matter to people in San Francisco that people in Roswell Georgia find their behavior immoral? They are in two different places.
Satanism: this should be obvious, but what I have termed Cultural Sadeism is functionally identical to Satanism. It is constituted in the decision to abandon coherent and enduring moral principles in favor of pragmatism in a power nexus predicated on violence and the threat of violence.
In Transformers, you have Patrick Dempsey as a Cultural Sadeist. The scene where all the rich, seemingly sophisticated folks are leaving the club, completely unconcerned about the fate of the girl in the car, is one which in some circles has become deeply embedded as emblematic of Satanism. There have been a number of books penned arguing that Marx was a Satanist.
Personally, I doubt he believed in God, but to the extent he did, he likely shared the rage of Sade at creation, and wanted to burn it to the ground. Death for someone existing at this level is in the end egalitarianism with the Earth.
And note, too, the use of iconic American symbols in the movie–the destruction of Abraham Lincoln, and the use of the reflecting pool to initiate the process.
Note, too, the location of the final conflict: Chicago, Obama’s old stomping grounds.
Few thoughts.