In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Charlie Kaufman opens up his Magic Box of Memory Erasure and tosses in Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey, where they discover themselves needing to discover each other at least twice!
After reading a brief post about some asshole who apparently is also a Vice-President of the United States it occured to me that Kaufman was onto something that speaks not just of his two lovers but is also a metaphor for the Bush Administration. Here we go: I was reading a posting on Crooks and Liars about Dick Cheney pooh-poohing Amnesty International's charges regarding Gitmo, Abu Grahib, etc. when the following occured to me...
In the film (Eternal Sunshine...) there is a scene where Jim Carrey, while his memory is being selectively erased (so that his heartbreak at losing his girlfriend can also be erased) he "sees" Kate Winslet at her work. She, in turn, is being visited by a character played by Elijah Wood, who is now her boyfriend. But Carrey, who is watching from a short distance away, cannot see the front of Wood's head. He cannot see a face, only the back of the this stranger's head, which is covered in dark hair. No matter where Carrey positions himself, even when it appears that he should be viewing the mystery man's face, he only gets to see the back of the head, a disconcerting effect if ever there was one.
Now, when anyone in our current administration looks at the collective mirror they can't see anything bad (or if they do they are fired!) Our current administration is responsible for nothing negative, because "the negative" does not exist where we are running things! This is the same kind of effect that occurs with Carrey's character: no matter where he looks at Wood, Wood has no face. No matter where the Bush Administration looks, when looking at itself or what it has wrought, it has no face--no culpability, no prescence beyond a positive one.
I name this phenomenon, this disease, in honor of the film and the film's author "KAUFMAN'S LACUNA" (in the film the company that performs the memory erasure is called "Lacuna" which means An empty space or a missing part; a gap. Bushco suffers from a collective case of KAUFMAN'S LACUNA. Can they see beyond their worldview? Can they see the fronts of the faceless heads of those who have been killed or wounded by their policys?
KAUFMAN'S LACUNA: A gap in a governing body's ability to objectively view reality, or its part in reality. Such a gap can be caused through cynicism or via a blinkered world-view: its effects are rapid destruction of the body politic and the society in general. Caution, once thrown to the wind, has been lost forever.
Relax, erase your mind. Remember nothing. We are in control now. Drift down stream. The red color of the water is the red of hope. The bodies rotting on the banks are nature's way. The gun pointed at you is the face of love. Die for Bush. Die.
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After reading a brief post about some asshole who apparently is also a Vice-President of the United States it occured to me that Kaufman was onto something that speaks not just of his two lovers but is also a metaphor for the Bush Administration. Here we go: I was reading a posting on Crooks and Liars about Dick Cheney pooh-poohing Amnesty International's charges regarding Gitmo, Abu Grahib, etc. when the following occured to me...
In the film (Eternal Sunshine...) there is a scene where Jim Carrey, while his memory is being selectively erased (so that his heartbreak at losing his girlfriend can also be erased) he "sees" Kate Winslet at her work. She, in turn, is being visited by a character played by Elijah Wood, who is now her boyfriend. But Carrey, who is watching from a short distance away, cannot see the front of Wood's head. He cannot see a face, only the back of the this stranger's head, which is covered in dark hair. No matter where Carrey positions himself, even when it appears that he should be viewing the mystery man's face, he only gets to see the back of the head, a disconcerting effect if ever there was one.
Now, when anyone in our current administration looks at the collective mirror they can't see anything bad (or if they do they are fired!) Our current administration is responsible for nothing negative, because "the negative" does not exist where we are running things! This is the same kind of effect that occurs with Carrey's character: no matter where he looks at Wood, Wood has no face. No matter where the Bush Administration looks, when looking at itself or what it has wrought, it has no face--no culpability, no prescence beyond a positive one.
I name this phenomenon, this disease, in honor of the film and the film's author "KAUFMAN'S LACUNA" (in the film the company that performs the memory erasure is called "Lacuna" which means An empty space or a missing part; a gap. Bushco suffers from a collective case of KAUFMAN'S LACUNA. Can they see beyond their worldview? Can they see the fronts of the faceless heads of those who have been killed or wounded by their policys?
KAUFMAN'S LACUNA: A gap in a governing body's ability to objectively view reality, or its part in reality. Such a gap can be caused through cynicism or via a blinkered world-view: its effects are rapid destruction of the body politic and the society in general. Caution, once thrown to the wind, has been lost forever.
Relax, erase your mind. Remember nothing. We are in control now. Drift down stream. The red color of the water is the red of hope. The bodies rotting on the banks are nature's way. The gun pointed at you is the face of love. Die for Bush. Die.
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