It could happen to you. More joyful video
In the second of my series of joyful video is a clip from "It Could Happen To You."
I love this clip because of the transformation of emotions on Bridget Fonda's face. It also shows her character's essential goodness. Upon finding out she was winning some money her first thought (after hugging the benefactor) was to give everyone ice cream for their pie.
The story is a fable. It deals with making and keeping promises, the ugliness of greed, human compassion and generosity in the face of adversity. This fable is powerful because it examines the essential longing for people to "do the right thing". When people don't do "the right thing" we know it in our hearts and we want justice to be done. We want karma to be complete within the scope of the story. Hollywood knows this and provides the appropriate penalties and rewards in their movies based on our deepest longings.
When we can't get justice on big issues in the real world we seek it in our entertainment. Some lash out and demand it on smaller issues they feel they can control. Some even lash out at the wrong targets.
Seeing people get away with stealing, torture, lying, and harming others should trigger anger and a demand for justice. Rationalizations should be seen for what they are, excuses for failing to do what is right. We often retreat to cynism because it is maddening to hold in your head the massive injustices that are rolled out daily.
And it is especially distressing to see otherwise good people providing rationalizations for the sick policies of harming the less fortunate, stealing from the tax payers and excusing the creator of torture procedures.
An amusing thought experiment came to me. How would the court TV shows talk about and rule about the financial shenanigans in Iraq? What would Judge Judy have to say about the lies that were fed to the American people based on the latest evidence out of the UK. What would Celebrity Justice say about destroying evidence and lying to the family of Pat Tilman?
But all the Law and Order episodes in the world and neatly wrapped up CSI shows won't satisify people's essential desire for justice to be done on the big issues of the day. Every time a politician gets away with lying, a military man isn't held responsible for atrocities, or a corporate exec steals from the public, people's resentment at the lack of justice builds. How this resentment will manifest itself will be interesting to watch.
I want all of us to focus on the true players in these events. There would be no Abu Ghraib (in its full scale and scope, not the few low-level scapegoats talking the fall) without the approved policies from this Adminstration.
Now, on with our show.
This is a big file about 7 megs and runs about 4 minutes.
If you right click and "Save Target as" you can reduce congestion on the server.
I love this clip because of the transformation of emotions on Bridget Fonda's face. It also shows her character's essential goodness. Upon finding out she was winning some money her first thought (after hugging the benefactor) was to give everyone ice cream for their pie.
The story is a fable. It deals with making and keeping promises, the ugliness of greed, human compassion and generosity in the face of adversity. This fable is powerful because it examines the essential longing for people to "do the right thing". When people don't do "the right thing" we know it in our hearts and we want justice to be done. We want karma to be complete within the scope of the story. Hollywood knows this and provides the appropriate penalties and rewards in their movies based on our deepest longings.
When we can't get justice on big issues in the real world we seek it in our entertainment. Some lash out and demand it on smaller issues they feel they can control. Some even lash out at the wrong targets.
Seeing people get away with stealing, torture, lying, and harming others should trigger anger and a demand for justice. Rationalizations should be seen for what they are, excuses for failing to do what is right. We often retreat to cynism because it is maddening to hold in your head the massive injustices that are rolled out daily.
And it is especially distressing to see otherwise good people providing rationalizations for the sick policies of harming the less fortunate, stealing from the tax payers and excusing the creator of torture procedures.
An amusing thought experiment came to me. How would the court TV shows talk about and rule about the financial shenanigans in Iraq? What would Judge Judy have to say about the lies that were fed to the American people based on the latest evidence out of the UK. What would Celebrity Justice say about destroying evidence and lying to the family of Pat Tilman?
But all the Law and Order episodes in the world and neatly wrapped up CSI shows won't satisify people's essential desire for justice to be done on the big issues of the day. Every time a politician gets away with lying, a military man isn't held responsible for atrocities, or a corporate exec steals from the public, people's resentment at the lack of justice builds. How this resentment will manifest itself will be interesting to watch.
I want all of us to focus on the true players in these events. There would be no Abu Ghraib (in its full scale and scope, not the few low-level scapegoats talking the fall) without the approved policies from this Adminstration.
Now, on with our show.
This is a big file about 7 megs and runs about 4 minutes.
If you right click and "Save Target as" you can reduce congestion on the server.
1 Comments:
See the range of human emotion on the actress's face.
Important word, that: actress.
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